001um good evening Jonathan Mr Young Mrs White we are about to start good evening everyone and welcome to the school board meeting of the Richmond School Board the meeting of the Richmond City School Board for Monday May 1st Madam clerk roll call Miss door Miss White Miss Gibson Mr Young Miss Rizzy here Dr Harris Muhammad present Miss Burke here miss page here Miss Jones we have a quorum thank you madam clerk we will now have our translation services announcement good evening everybody and welcome to John Marshall High School if you do need interpretation from English to Spanish we do have interpreters in the back and I will be wearing a blue jacket handing out headsets I will now make this announcement in Spanish oh one last reminder there may be uh public comments in other
002languages if so please pause for a moment while The Interpreter interprets the message thank you buenos noches gracias thank you one click quick clarification we are at Thomas Jefferson High School that's John Marshall okay thank you now we will have our Pledge of Allegiance followed by Our Moment of Silence will everyone please stand thank you you may be seated we are now at item 1.04 adoption of the agenda some will in a discussion all right it's been moved by Ms Jones and seconded by Dr Harris Muhammad to accept the agenda as presented Madam clerk Mr Miss White Miss Gibson Mr Young aye Mr Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes Miss Burke yes Miss page yes Miss Jones yes motion passes thank you we are now at 2.01 recognition of student representative thank you madam chair
003good evening everyone I am delighted to introduce Emily Soto from Richmond Community High School our May 2023 student representative to the school board Emily is a senior at Richmond Community where she serves as president of the environmental Club mindfulness club and is on my student advisory Council in her Spare Time Emily Tudor's children in her community and enjoys Reading Writing painting and embroidery upon graduation Emily plans to attend Longwood University majoring in criminal justice please join me in welcoming Emily Soto good evening everyone first I would like to thank the board and superintendent cameras for providing me with the platform to have my boys heard I am grateful for the right to speak about issues affecting students and teachers particularly in the ESL program as a Spanish as a Spanish speaker on my journey to
004learn English I was told that learning English would open many doors and that had a lot of potential however as an ESL student I didn't receive the mandated federally funded support and Services I was supposed to receive from school I had to teach myself English during the summer unfortunately learning English also meant understanding harsh comments from some teachers about ESL student I have heard comments like what should I even try if you don't understand me and why should I bother they are going to cut grass anyways are these the attitudes we should have towards ESL student it's disheartening to hear students tell me their teachers have called them stupid we need to support we need to be supported and given the resources to succeed Mars needed to say that we have potential we need opportunities
005to be allowed to show it I know it takes determination from the students but how can we try if the teachers have given up on us you don't know the number of times I have heard you're only an ESL student what can you do well I went to a specialty school as an ESL student and now I am going to University as a honor student while also advocating for those students who can why can we provide them the resources they need to achieve those things too I understand that teachers get frustrated because they don't they don't know how to teach us but they must be open to new strategies let the ESL teachers tell you what they need they know what works best for their students we need materials and calculators for the sols did
006you know that in church with high school that El students calculators were taken away and given to non-english Learners or let's go with something that happened last week a teacher giving being rude to a student for speaking their language in the audio you can hear the maturity level in the student's voice what do we have to be more mature than the adults why are they violating our basic rights do you call this Fair why are we not being respected we respect you even when you make us mad and what about you just because we don't speak your language doesn't mean we're not intelligent and we can prove it to you with the right help providing our content teachers with proper training and strategies needed by ESL students and making sure that all teachers are aligned
007in what is needed but I would like to thank the teachers and staff at Richmond Community High School that have provided me in my classes with the resources and additional help we need to succeed thank you again for listening thank you Miss Soto and please stay for as long as you like okay now we are moving to 2.02 receive Proclamation for school Nurses Week thank you madam chair School Nurses Day May 10 2023. whereas national school nurse day was first celebrated in 1972 as an opportunity to celebrate School nurses and acknowledge their importance in advancing the health safety and well-being of their students and whereas School nurses have served a critical role in improving public health and ensuring students academic success for more than 100 years and whereas students health is inextricably linked to their
008ability to learn when School nurses support the health and educational success of Children and Youth by providing access to care when children's cognitive development is at its peak whereas RPS School nurses serve as critical members of school teams collaborating with Educators parents health care providers and Community organizations to ensure the best possible Health outcomes for students whereas School nurses demonstrate unwavering commitment compassion and expertise in their work often going above and beyond to support students in need now therefore be it Proclaim that the school board of the city of Richmond and Richmond Public Schools recognized May 10 2023 a school nurse day and call upon all schools and community members to join in this celebration thank you to our nurses if we have any nurses here we would be thrilled to take a picture with
009you after we finished all the other proclamations we are now at 2.0 2.03 receive Proclamation for Teacher Appreciation Week National Teacher Appreciation Week May 8th to 12 2023 whereas national teacher appreciation week is observed annually to honor the nation's teachers and the critical role they play in the lives of every child and whereas public education and public school teachers are the basis of a free healthy and educated Society then whereas RPS teachers are the heart of Richmond playing a crucial role in shaping students into the people they will become supporting them through their childhood and Adolescence and teaching them lessons needed to succeed in life whereas besides parents and caregivers teachers are often the single most influential individuals in the lives of students and whereas RPS teachers are loving Educators who care deeply about their
010students fostering a sense of belonging and supporting the social emotional well-being of all young people in our schools and whereas RPS deeply appreciates and values the work and commitment of our teachers and the impact they have on students lives now therefore be it proclaimed that the school board of the city of Richmond and Richmond Public Schools recognized May 8th through 12th 2023 as national teacher appreciation week and encourage everyone to join in this celebration and if I may a very special announcement that on May 23rd we will have our second annual RPS shines where we will be celebrating all of our school teachers of the year and our division teacher of the year along with other fantastic staff so look forward to a wonderful evening you and next we will receive a proclamation for school
011nutrition staff week school lunch hero day May 5th 2023 whereas the first Friday in May is designated as national school lunch hero day to recognize the work of all School nutrition professionals who are responsible for providing millions of lunches to students across the country each day and whereas RPS School nutrition staff nurture our students by providing them with the nourishment they need to grow learn and live happy fulfilling lives and whereas RPS School of nutrition staff cook would love and serve with Love by developing relationships with students through their daily interactions whereas RPS expresses its deep appreciation to our school nutrition team and commends their outstanding work now therefore be it proclaimed that the school board of the city of Richmond and Richmond Public Schools recognize May 5th 2023 a school lunch hero day and
012call upon all schools and community members to join in this celebration congratulations all right now if we have any nurses teachers or School nutrition staff here do we yes I see Candice and a couple of folks so we're going to come down we're the nurse please let the record reflect Miss doors arrived okay we are now at item three public information Madam Clerk conduct of speakers speakers shall State their full legal name prior to addressing the school board speakers will address the school board as a whole rather than individual school board members the division superintendent school board attorney Clerk or any other staff member the school board will listen to comments but will not respond to in the public information period persons appearing before the board shall not be will not be allowed to one
013campaign for public office to promote private business ventures or three use profanity or Burger language if a community member's comments during the public information session relate to school-based issues the chair May refer the individual to Richmond Public Schools administration for one-on-one consultation and follow-up 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 refuses to abide by the policy will result in the forfeiture of the remaining time that has been allotted to the speaker community members May Express their views in writing in lieu of any oral presentation comments received in writing in Louisville presentation will not be read during the meeting but shall be posted to the school board platform board Docs thank you speakers please remember to sign your name
014on the clipboard there on the lectern and state your full name when you come up to speak we have three registered speakers Vilma Seymour Jenny agamo and Lux agamo um if you if it is your will the three of them can come first and then anyone else who wishes to speak may go afterward Miss Seymour do you want to come up and be our first speaker thanks foreign thank you good evening School Board chair Lizzy co-chair work school board members and superintendent cameras I am um a lulac member and um Task Force member I'm here this evening speaking to you as an individual and I'm speaking to you and I'm going to be reading a couple of excerpts from an event that happened at Boucher Middle School where a sixth grade student civil rights were
015clearly violated and um by sixth grade science teacher the experts Start begin with the teacher saying you got these all these taxpayers in America they got the benefit of English speaking language and so do you so appreciate that but you're not going to come and speak it while the teacher don't understand what you're saying and you're not going to run my class like that period and the school board will back me up the student replies I didn't know speaking my own language was wrong teacher okay no you speaking at home baby with your mom and your dad and whoever else is there you're not going to speak it in here and I'm going to prove to you that you're gonna write that essay and you'll never do it again after an audible exchange the teacher
016continues I told you before I don't speak Spanish the school board is aware of that that's why their Spanish-speaking classes for the kids who need a Spanish class they have Spanish interpreters in there we got kids who speak French we got kids to speak Russian and we don't let them speak it either the primary language is English and you speak it I know you members of the school board and I know that none of you not one of you would condone this type of parade of an agreement of a child of a student especially with teacher appreciation week that's a golden opportunity to denounce this type of behavior by a teacher the sad part for me is this isn't the first time I've heard this it's one of the few times that's been caught on
017audio so we need action from the school board to denounce this practice by teachers it's not okay thank you very much thank you Mr Gamo you're next on the signature that's fine yeah absolutely good afternoon school board members good afternoon superintendent comras my name is Dr Rachel Gomez I am a assistant professor at VCU school of education however I'm here today as the president of the uh Richmond region lulac 4614 Council it's been a tough week right a lot happening um I do want to respond also to some of the things that my colleague Vilma um had stated um in in denouncing that behavior but also we asked that this um this teacher is dismissed from the classroom so that no more harm can be done to children in addition to that um we're hoping
018that RPS will consider mandatory Civics training for its teachers and students the reason is if you read the whole transcript we've got some copies in the back if you uh folks here want to read it we've got it um transcribed in you know English and then translated into Spanish for those who want to read it um there are clear very clear violations of the students first and 14th Amendment rights um and it is a very very sad day um this week and I I want to really um also connect what I'm saying to what uh what Vilma was saying earlier and that although there have been many incidents like this right we've had we've had students we've had Parents teachers anonymously usually uh giving us information about this kind of treatment to students uh generally
019who are Ells and this time it just happened to a student in class happened to record it and it it makes me curious as to how the student knew what was going to happen and why to record it um and so apparently this is an ongoing situation in this class but also to recognize that uh you know district-wide this is a systemic issue that is not being handled properly um and that is why lulac back in July and August that is why we requested um task force right um on the status of Latino and ell students this is an ongoing problem and that's really one of the first things that we wanted to get at and our response to create that task force was an incident like this except another teacher told us about it
020so with that I do you know I do have some ideas uh along along with um dismissing that teacher I hope that the school board will again consider a Civics training and a if it's not already in use which it seems like it's not some kind of reporting system so that students and families uh can go ahead and file their complaints um we are hoping to speak to this family this week and see how they would like to move forward um again as this these are clear clear examples of civil rights and civil liberties violations thank you thank you next speaker hello again um Emily Richmond Community High School senior but I'm here to talk as a lulac task for member Miss Soto did you sign the clipboard oh you did do it okay yeah
021all right thank you um I'm here to speak as a student and as an older sister I actually I am kind of scared to be sending my little sister to uh school because I am scared that some teacher will talk to her like that I know that there have been some great teachers in my uh student life but this it's getting to a point that I have gotten the kids that I tutor not wanting to go to school anymore and I know that that is a complaint that you guys will hear about like you know students being absent but I feel like that should be looked up a bit more into the why we are trying not to go to school anymore my kids that I tutor have been called stupid or just here you
022go do this I'm not gonna explain it to you anymore I don't want that to keep happening because that I'm talking about fifth graders that our fourth graders are telling me I don't want to go to school anymore I am so dumb that why should I even go I don't want that self-esteem of those gifts that I tutor and every single other kid around to just go down at such an early age and this cases is just getting to a point that those kids are not don't even want to go to school anymore I do appreciate the help that it's trying to be provided and I have heard a lot like yes we're gonna be helping you we're gonna try to help you but I'm more of an action person so thank you next speaker
023good evening my name is Dr D polani Lucas I am here this evening as president and CEO of policy Pathways Incorporated policy Pathways is a non-profit organization that trains and educates Youth and Young adults who want to be leaders in public policy public administration and international affairs tonight I'm here to share with you information on an upcoming event Pathways to life abroad International Education and Global careers Fair for Youth and Young adults in the Richmond metropolitan area the fair is a collaborative event between RPS the Commonwealth Virginia chapter of the links Incorporated policy pathways the mayor's Youth Academy VCU Wilder School and Virginia Union University this in-person event will be held at John Marshall High School Saturday May 20th from 10 a.m until 2 pm the fair aims to advance educational equity and inclusion in
024study abroad programs by focusing on increasing participation and diversifying student demographics and colleges and high schools and universities the focus aligns with the mission of the Department of State to enhance opportunities for students particularly those from historically underserved communities who have not had the opportunities the same opportunities as many others to participate and study abroad programs the fair focuses not only on study abroad programs but also on International education programs at colleges and universities more than any other time in history it is important to develop and nurture Global Citizens is this particularly vital for U.S competitiveness yet while a growing number of American students are taking advantage of study abroad opportunities the lack of diversity among participants in international education programs has fueled concerns among Educators policy makers Business Leaders and others and I just
025like to tell you a little bit about the day we have three panels that uh will be held the first is titled study abroad opportunities creating Pathways to higher education we have Jamar Billups who is going to be the moderator we have a representative from AFS USA schools for international training and the American councils for International Education and that organization is affiliated with the U.S state Department the next panel is entitled International Education why it matters we have a lady a minute okay from V excuse me v-u-u and we have representatives from Virginia Tech VCU education abroad and gvi our final panel is global careers in a culture of internationalization we have a representative from the Peace Corps Reynolds Community College and a private consultant who does international Affairs I would finally like to say
026and announce that mayor Levar Stoney has proclaimed Saturday May 20th 2023 as International Education and Global careers day in the city of Richmond please join all of the sponsors in helping to get the word out to students particularly given what we just heard about times the sensitivity to International students thank you next speaker hi I'm luxagamo I'm a four former RPS student and a VCU student and I'm here to speak um on behalf of the student from Usha who didn't have a voice and I'm here standing with the lulac community so I've known in the past RPS has held campaigns based on inclusivity and diversity and here we see in this transcript a teacher supports her own Prejudice by saying that the school board will back her I think that is should be the most
027profound thing to you all as members in representatives of the kids of this district and representative of a kids of this District that is minority-led so we do call for the immediate removal of the teacher from Boucher and we call on you guys to set a president for all the students that's been and to come into RPS all the students from who who are children of immigrants who are immigrating to this country we call on you guys to represent them and see them for who they are because clearly for this student to have to take a video and go viral to be heard is disgusting so thank you thank you next speaker good evening my name is Irena Andrade I am a former RPS student as well I have my little sister who is a
028current RPS student um in fourth grade um like Emily I am also very concerned about what her future might look like especially being a bilingual speaker she has been asked in class to translate for students um from English to Spanish so that they could get a better context in grass but what has been happening in the class and what topics have been gone over and hearing everything that happened in the video it was very shocking but not so much also because I had been through that I had seen my peers go through that so [Music] um it's not so shocking but it's still disgusting to see that it's still happening um so I would definitely suggest heating to lulac's immediate suggestions such as the Civic and diversity equity and inclusion facilitations which must be mandatory
029for all Administration and faculty of RPS and for the immediate dismissal of this and denouncing the behavior that this teacher has exhibited especially again as it is Teacher Appreciation Week I also would like for the future support and continuation of the support for the task force as I do think it would help RPS fix this sort of behavior that has been exhibited by so many teachers and not just this one so thank you and I hope you all have a nice evening thank you next speaker hi my name is Jenny agamo and I am the um vice president of the Richmond lulac 4614 Council and um speaking on the student in Bashaw um I just think the biggest takeaway for me was the fact that this teacher took away that student's power and I think
030that that's something that we should all um be I mean we should all realize that this is if this continues I mean what are we you know what that's that's huge that this teacher would take away that student's Power by saying you can't do anything about it because I know the school board I mean that you know that's going to leave that student and then who know whoever knows and I don't know how many times she's this person said that before and we don't know you know who else is saying it and so that that's the big one for me um and I just you know want you to know that lulac continues to of course stand behind and yes we are for Latino students but we are really here for every student in RPS
031that you know continues to get um mistreated of what for wherever they're from whatever color they are blue back is here um for them and I know there's a lot of communities that's here for them but we really need to set presidents that this cannot happen you know ever again and um and if it continues to happen we I mean we got to just ignate this now and I that's how I truly feel like we set president this is something that could be stopped now and going forward and and people will know obvious doesn't tolerate that kind of talk and that kind of attitude and um hate thank you very much thank you next speaker good evening um I am the mother of the little girl who had to go through this incident in bushel
032is [Music] but on behalf of all the Hispanic children many times us as Hispanics because of fear we don't speak out and the truth is I am thankful muchas personas is because I've had a lot of Hispanic people that have been supporting me during these times Porky because for me as a mother it's been difficult for me [Music] even though many people might not believe it or might not see it this way the little girl it affects them emotionally yeah the day that this happened my daughter arrived home is and she locked herself in her bedroom and she wouldn't stop crying the next day they called her office they called her to the office to speak with her yeah and she said that she went and hid in the restrooms because she was afraid to
033speak out so with this what I want is a for the Hispanics don't be afraid to speak out because us as parents we have to be willing to defend our children and I don't regret having made this public because I am defending my daughter I would do it again and I would do it many more times 30 seconds thank you for listening to me um and like I said I hope there are other parents that can also speak out without having fear gracias thank you thank you next speaker hello my name is Courtney Gardner I'm here representing um look like the task force in our kids read a non-profit which focuses on literacy in particularly I guess black and brown communities you could say um and in representing having books representing their experiences so that
034they would be interested and we'll succeed in life um so I just wanted to elevate a few I wanted a few points that really struck me um I really think that that this behavior of this teacher is deplorable um I understand there's a time there was a time when this was commonplace I understand that there was um I encourage you to look up Texas Americanization schools and I believe that this writing an essay is equivalent to striking with a ruler some old you know 1900s practice and we need to be aware of the history behind this I also am aware that the Commonwealth actually has an official language of English which is since 1996 and that's not since but as of 1996 that was true I don't know if it's true now but U.S does
035not have an official language so um this upsets me as a American citizen a native born African-American woman I I live in South Side um Rich South Richmond and enjoy I lived there for a reason I enjoy the robust um Hispanic community I um wanted also to speak the so out of step with language science bilingualism is is a a boon to is a plus to bring development to Future it prevents dementia I mean literally it's helpful and um I mean it helps you know it counteracts and multilingualism should be considered a resource in our schools this is a changing time or changing demographics we should stay in step with what is actually the reality of our world today we are more interconnected than ever the previous speaker I talked about um traveling abroad and
036how that helps just world the life today um I also wanted to sing that the teachers blatant disrespect of the student really bothered me um teachers can discipline in many ways but that was just out of out of like just crazy and um just exactly with you know the anger in her tone as well um thank you for your attention I really wanted to to be a representative of my community and of and I am not Latin American it's just that I care about Justice in this in Virginia and I love Virginia and I want it to be a better place thank you thank you next speaker good afternoon well good evening to each and every one of you I am a proud Richmond Public Schools graduate I am taquan Grant a lot of you
037know me on this board I am a son of Richmond Public Schools and the son of Thomas Jefferson High School class of 2018. I had to do that for TJ anyway sorry um we all know what has been transpiring uh the past couple of weeks here um definitely Richmond Public Schools have definitely took some hits these past weeks um I'm devastated after last week after what we've known what happened at George with and just briefly I do want to share I do support our superintendent we are living in a critical time that we do not need to share division especially among the school board we definitely need to work together I am asking that the school board please continue to work together and be more aggressive with funding for public for our school safety that
038is definitely something dear and special to me as a father of a RPS student upcoming my son will be a preschool student coming up in the fall and as a brother a big brother of two RPS students at Carver Elementary School their safety matters to me especially in all the safety of our children matters to each and every one of us in here but we also need to take a moment to go back to the drop board because there is so much crime that is going on in the city as we know a lot of it deals with young people and youth involvement and if we go back to the drop or the school we have the power the school system has the power to bring this crime to a stop in the city especially
039when it comes down to youth involvement how so I believe we need to go back to the draw board and bring some of these uh after school programs back when I was in school not too long ago I'm not that old y'all but not too long ago we had things such as middle school Renaissance we had things such as these programs brought young people together and help them get on the right to have especially with career I mean we need things such as ROTC yes we have them in our schools but not every High High School in RTS has a ROTC program we need to do more for how Latino and Spanish-speaking families I encourage you to continue School Board to get back out into your community I do have to shout out Ms Cheryl
040Burke Miss White and Dr Shonda Harris Muhammad um Dr Shonda Harris Muhammad used to do town halls in the sixth district it used to be called the chat in shoe and I encourage you personally in your districts to go out into your communities and do the same to get community input thank you thank you next speaker hi my name is Diana Cruz and I am her mother and I'm here because um Elementary middle school because when I was in Middle School foreign she went through a lot of similar things as the young girl is and like the little girl out she'll go home crying every day or she will call me saying mom get me out of here and it's not only the Injustice but the language it did not belong here when this country
041is made out of all of us and as long as you're not Native American you cannot claim it as yours besides that always it's not only injustice among Hispanics but also with kids from other nations mostly the children have the big capacity of adapt anywhere but if the adults put a lot of obstacles and we don't give them the opportunity to grow foreign [Music] foreign thank you are there any other speakers well thank you all for coming and this concludes our public speaking public information session thank you we'll now move to item three point zero one Pub oh I'm sorry 4.01 receive update on dreams for rpa's goal one accreditation thank you madam chair I'm going to call up members of the academic office good evening uh School Board chair Vice chair school board members
042and our superintendent cameras so um I have my team with me tonight to give you an update on accreditation goal one I'm gonna turn over to Valencia Wade to um walk us through the first part of our presentation good evening on Valente manager of testing and data systems and tonight we want to give you an update on our goal one dreams for RPS accreditation it is our goal uh the next slide please our goal for um our accreditation is to have 100 of our schools fully accredited and so tonight we're going to give you an overview of how accreditation is measured and then we're going to give you our data as where we are today with our schools being accredited and where we project our schools to be going and then we're going to end
043with my colleague John sharing his data platform that all principal and all leaders have that explains their accreditation and it helps us to monitor their accreditation from year to year and it highlights areas of improvements and areas that they're doing really well in next slide please as you all know Governor juncken is going to be changing the way we measure accreditation so tonight we're talking about accreditation as it currently stands um the data that we have this school year will be measured using the same rules of accreditation um as we've been using for the since 2018. so every grade level elementary middle and high school they all share the same six indicators achievement in math science and English and chronic absenteeism so all grade levels elementary middle and high they all have indicators in achievement
044and in chronic absenteeism high school has three additional indicators which which is a graduation Dropout and crime and Career College and Career Readiness which is a brand new indicator that will be measured this year in order for a school to be accredited they must have level one or level two ratings for each indicator if any school has a level three rating then they will be accredited with conditions next slide please there's two ways in how a school can become a house how School becomes a rating it gets ranked the first way is by student schools meeting their Benchmark so if you look at this particular slide you can see here level we'll start with level two in order to get a level two rating a school has to be between a 65 or higher so
045for level two for English a school must earn between a 65 and a 74 to get level two for level one in English a school must have a 75 or higher for Math and for science schools must score between a 65 and 69 to get level two and they must score with a 70 or higher to become level one that's one way in which a school can be ranked as level one or level two the other way is if schools show Improvement by reducing their failure rate by 10 percent if a school is below a 65 percent and they get to at least a 50 percent and that equates to a r10 which means reduction of the failure rate from the previous year and they can go up an indicator and be ranked as level
046two so there's two different ways on how a school can become ranked as level one or level two the first players are meeting The Benchmark Dash to a percent pass rate the second way is by showing an improvement by reducing the failure rate by 10 percent when we look at our academic indicators we also notice that there is an achievement for our Gap groups our subgroups most schools have between four and five subgroups in our district and so in order for a school to receive level one rankings on their get on their subgroups they cannot have more than one student group at level two to be level two for our Gap groups we cannot have more than two at level two and we can have only one at level three um anything greater than that
047would be a level three which would be um which would get the school to be a credit with conditions so to be accredited you have to have all indicators at level one or a level two all right next slide chronic absenteeism is an indicator for all schools and you can see here there's two ways in how a school can be ranked level one or level two to be ranked at level one to level two the first place on meeting The Benchmark The Benchmark for level one is no more than 15 percent and for level two if it's between 15 and 25 percent that we level two or you see here if you improve um and you can also become accredited that way too so if we begin to show a decrease in our absenteeism rate
048we can go up indicate or be ranked as level one or level two when you look at the GCI the graduation the graduation complex you can see here there's also two ways in which a school can be measured level one or level two the first way is by meeting The Benchmark for level one that's between 88 or higher or level two between an 81 and 87 or show a 2.5 percent improvement from year to year so that's the two ways in how a school can be ranked for graduation for dropouts you can reach level one or level two indicators by meeting The Benchmark for level one no more than six percent for level two greater than six percent but no more than nine percent or there's also where you can reach the level one or
049level two and that's by improving your um dropout rate by 10 or more then the last indicator that's required for high school which is brand new first time we've been measured for this particular indicator is a college career in Civic readiness um for level one at least at 85 percent for level two between a 71 and 84 percent and you'll get level three if it's at a 70 or lower next slide my colleague John is going to share um where we are as far as our schools are being accredited this year and so you're going to hear him say some terminology the first thing he might talk about is three year lock as I stated earlier in order for a school to be accredited they have to have indicators that level one or level two
050a level two is really good and it can get you accredited however if a school stays at level two or three for five consecutive years then that school will be called a level three lock in that indicator that means they stay at that rating until they get to level one indicator uh benchmark the second is chronic absenteeism wave last year as you know due to the pandemic the state waived chronic absenteeism for last school year and so therefore this year we look at our chronic absenteeism rate we will not have a three-year average that we can use like we have used in the past School wave um each year the state looks at our accreditations and they look at the schools who have been accredited for three consecutive years if a school is accredited for
051three consecutive years they can get on the waiver and that means for the next three years they will remain accredited regardless of their outcome so some most of all we have about 15 schools that meet that criteria the three-year average schools can be rated based on their current year data the current year overall Pass rates or an average of their three-year pass rate and so some schools depending on which one is higher if it's the current year or the three year average that's the rating that the school the district with the state would use to um give that particular rating next slide then this last slide that I'll talk about before my colleague John comes up is all the things that are combined into a pass rate as you know this year my students in
052last year they took the growth assessment and so when you look at the pass rate for accreditation it includes measures of growth from Spring to Spring it includes our L students making progress on the Wida assessment from year to year and so the accreditation ratings have some adjustments that are um included um into their accreditation so when you when John shares the presentation he'll talk about some of those things more specifically excuse me good evening school board members um slide eight breaks down our division accreditation data in the context of L3 indicators the reasoning is schools must reduce their L3 indicators to zero in order to be fully accredited when looking at the performance indicator chart on the left science was our biggest barrier for accreditation last year we went from 15 L3 indicators to
05327 um this year that's an 80 increase however this is not a unique issue in RPS the state went from 60 L3 ratings to 235 nearly a 300 percent increase the chart on the right shows the number of L3 indicators by school this tells us what schools are closest to accreditation RPS has 16 accredited schools after that six schools did not meet accreditation due to only one L3 ratings all in science on slide 14 we provided data a data update on schools closest to accreditation slides 9 through 12 break down last year's and pre-covered accreditation status to include the waiver indication for this year for a further breakdown of a school's accreditation status we provided an accreditation we provided accreditation profiles in the appendix of the presentation you can go ahead and go to slide
05413. yes thank you projecting accreditation is not an is not an exact science we are comparing interim 3 proficiency with a school's proficiency goal which is a 10 reduction of failure rate from last year's Sol the r10 by only providing data on proficiency we are not looking at the combined rate the combined rate takes into account student growth that and the three-year average will likely keep a lot of schools accredited in higher performing areas so for example Albert Hill will likely retain its accredited status and math overall due to its high results over the last two years which you can see on the left they are not accredited in their math Gap area which includes their black reporting group the data on the right on the next slide provides insight into the prioritized areas based
055on accreditation this chart provides data on schools closest to accreditation when you're analyzing this data Note that L3 indicators in the second column this will let you know the areas needed for accreditation keep in mind schools are responding and ensuring that we increase to prevent to the proficiency goals they still have time before the Sol I do want to highlight a couple schools that are performing very well this year showing really strong data um the first is Bellevue they're exceeding uh math goals by nine percent this is strong evidence that they will reach accreditation in this indicator for science they're just six percentage points away but keep in mind it's just for fifth grade and that means only two students they need to find two more proficient students another two really strong schools um that
056did really well last year would be Ginter Park and Swansboro excuse me not Swansboro Overby they perform very similar in both math and gla doing really well last year giving themselves a lot of wiggle room when it comes to that three-year average so again we're feeling very confident that these two schools will remain accredited in math and Ela however science is that common denominator and lastly I do want to provide Insight also into Swansboro they saw some amazing gains and improvements in math you can see that um and the data through our visits and looking at our data we see the hard work translating to outcomes and I want to give you a brief update on our high schools and again remember that this is based on our winter Sol um scores and so before
057I give you a summary if you actually look at the data key as we look at it again we met we're measuring schools that are on track schools that are at risk in schools that are off track off track in schools that have three years waiver so if you look at the left side of the column this is the school's actual winter Sol performance and then on the right hand side is the actual projection that they need in order for uh accreditation and so some of the highlights well the first piece to know is that high schools could not use growth for accreditation but again because we're on the 4x4 they now have the opportunity to take the assessment again in uh in the spring and so with that to uh three highlights so as
058you look at John Marshall John Marshall is on track to be accredited um and my colleagues will talk to you about specifically what we've done to support science there um and then also for Armstrong and also Thomas Jefferson we see that they're on track uh as it relates to uh becoming accredited in math mathematics overall I want to turn it over to uh my teammates to talk about what we're doing in response uh with Ela and math so Cassandra Bell we'll talk about math and uh and Science and Ebony will talk about literacy and I'm gonna request the team uh try to be as as brief as possible um so that we can make sure there's lots of time for questions thank you good evening for ELA we have looked at an intensified support to
059our p2a schools and what that means is that district and school leadership teams meet every three weeks to discuss academic progress towards accreditation our Specialists also provide strategic and specific support to schools in the areas of coaching supporting planning sessions with teachers principals and coaches working directly with students and providing feedback through observations and walkthroughs in partnership with school leadership teams we also have focused very heavily on making sure our instruction is aligned to the Sol's and that means that we have been able to provide opportunities for pacing guides that show the alignment to the Sol's checks for understandings and also this will be work we continue next year we've also created common assessments so that every two weeks our teachers and schools are able to check in do a quick check to see how
060students are doing on those sols and again this will be work we continue for next year and then finally we have supported our schools by providing them with cumulative review resources to help them with this final push for the sols to be able to make sure that that work is targeted to what students need and then I'm focused on specific standards good evening similarly to what we did next slide please thank you our intensified support for Math and Science was much like that for a reading District leaders met with building level leadership on a three-week rotation to discuss student data and academic progress towards accreditation goals and strategies for improvements in response to student data math instructional Specialists increased their time in schools to directly work with teachers and students to plan and deliver student-centered
061instructional practices that support the written taught and tested curriculum additionally math instructional Specialists provided teacher support with a differentiation of instruction including appropriate scaffolding to allow students to access grade level content in terms of our focus on SOL aligned instruction again we focused on our student data and responded to that with instructional resources that were developed and training was provided to schools on grade level instruction aligned to the Virginia standards of learning checks for understanding and making data informed decisions this spring math coaches along with the curriculum task force members reviewed the elementary and secondary math curriculum and provided feedback on adjustments to the curriculum to support alignment efforts the district math team will utilize the feedback from these leadership groups to inform their summer curriculum work in both summer and school year 23 24
062professional learning we also develop cumulative review resources for all tested grade levels including third through eighth grades Algebra 1 and geometry in alignment with 2016 standards of learning these resources are utilized to support students in grade level content aligned to specific prioritized standards based upon school and District level data these resources include snapshots small group activities teacher table resources as well as formative assessments in terms of our professional Learning elementary and secondary math training is conducted monthly with math coaches instructional leads and Department chairs and serves as an opportunity to provide support in making decisions based on data pedagogy and best mathematical practices in addition to that math instructional Specialists provided direct support to schools and department meetings plcs and after school professional learning to support the implementation of the Mathematics Curriculum the district math
063team also worked in conjunction with our curriculum Partners to develop and offer over 60 sessions to support the implementation of the Mathematics Curriculum and its alignment to the Virginia standards of learning next slide please again in terms of the intensified support to p2a schools just like we did for reading math we did the same for science meeting with District in conjunction with District leadership with school level leadership to provide support in making data informed decisions pedagogy and best practices based on progress towards accreditation goals focus on SOL aligned instruction and science specifically an elementary science curriculum team was formed in January in response to student data this team in conjunction with the elementary science instructional specialist worked to revise each Elementary science unit guide to ensure that the curriculum framework was at the core of
064these instructional resources and that they fully encompassed all components of the new 2018 standards of learning in January the newly hired secondary science instructional specialist reviewed and revised curriculum documents to ensure proper alignment to the new 2018 standards of learning as outlined within video E's curriculum framework this Spring District Science Leadership and the task force members began to review K-12 science curriculum revisions and provide feedback on adjustments to the curriculum to support alignment efforts additionally this team Works to solve problems of practice create action plans and work collaboratively Works collaboratively excuse me with members of our leap and exceptional Ed teams the district science team will utilize the feedback from this leadership group to inform their summer work as well as professional learning in 2324. cumulative review resources were also developed for all tested grade
065levels including fifth grade science 8th grade science and biology and aligned with the 2018 standards of learning these resources were designed for schools to Target instruction based on student data and teacher-led small groups and finally professional learning for science to support Elementary science instruction Geographic science support sessions were provided by monthly in an after-school setting in order to provide professional learning opportunities for collaboration and to support teachers in the implementation of science core best practices this teacher-focused professional learning also provides opportunities for participants to engage in Hands-On investigations that they can then replicate within their classrooms Elementary and secondary science training is conducted monthly with teacher leaders and serves as an opportunity to provide modeling and coaching to the science leaders in each building each meeting includes a curriculum deep dive to build capacity and
066unpacking the vdoe standards of written of the written taught and tested curriculum additionally these meetings are an opportunity to strengthen relationships between our schools and Community Partners including the Science Museum of Virginia Maymont Nature Center Bellmead Park and the James River Park system just to name a few thank you all right so lastly this slide provides the public access to a school's accreditation profile um schools have a similar dashboard that as some more data points in terms of just translating what accreditation means what are those goals and more data on historical um results but this is our public facing dashboard and the appendix we've also provided data on uh School accreditation profiles that you can access below thank you good evening do you have questions Mrs Burke thank you madam chair and thank you all
067for that most informative presentation that was a lot of information it's a lot of information and preparation and I appreciate hearing details I really appreciate hearing that magic word alignment no matter how hard we work if it's not aligned we're not going to be successful so I'm I'm feeling that we're more aligned now than what we were at the last school board meeting am I just thinking that assuming that or is that true yes ma'am we've done a lot of work over the last few months on alignment so um in addition to the work that we're we've been doing with the curriculum we also had our vdoe partners in to provide support as well so we've been doing a lot of work toward alignment to that written talk tested that they talked about so when
068you look at the written the written curriculum when you look at the delivered curriculum in the classroom and the tested curriculum with our assessments we're making sure all of those are aligned to the sols so I also heard consistency from school to school and that's good but I have one question again thank you for all this information and your team as well let me make a statement first it sounds like we're really going to be ready and in place for this coming school year because of finding out what's what and and it's a solid base now so we can soar no other place to go but up as miss Page would always say um my question is 16 schools currently are fully accredited correct yes so based upon the information you shared tonight and I
069saw reading separately math separately science separately um disappointed to hear about the attendance piece I really am I do hope that's that's not on the governor's page apparently is it no well um attendance will still count toward accreditation this year yes yes so it hasn't been decided yet the decision decision was made the Virginia Board of Education uh rejected the proposal from the Virginia Department of Education to withhold The Chronic absenteeism metric from accreditation for this year so all that to say chronic absenteeism is part of accreditation this year and um I'm looking forward to doing perhaps at our next meeting and update on all the attendance work that Dr Harris and her team have been doing as we have made rather significant improvements thank you so much Mr cameras um okay so my final
070question is 16 schools are fully accredited currently So based upon the the data of which we have academically for instruction and that attendance I I hear it all the time and I know we're working hard so how many schools not holding you accountable for that statement that's that's the um system how many schools do you approximately think I'm real proud of Bellevue real proud of all my Eastern schools and schools across the board proud of John Marshall they've had a winning winning um year um how many schools do you think approximately just overall I know what I'm thinking so how many more schools in addition to the 16. am I putting you in awkward place yeah so um we are excited to make gains and I'm looking forward to all the data when it comes
071in so we can ensure all the great news when it does and I know we're looking forward to the increases and we're going to see increase but we also have great data right now and I know attendance is a not a good place across the country not just here across the country um the same other schools have the same issues that we have regarding that so I guess I have to make that determination on my own I hope I'm correct because it looks good thank you thank you I have comments and then I'll go to Mrs White um I you know this seems to me to be a almost complete about face from where we were three years ago when we had some major knock down drag outs about whether or not alignment was important
072um and we were if you go back to those meetings I'm sure you'll see we were told alignment did not matter that we were not to focus on it and that it wasn't a concern and that was a full you know I'm sure that discussion started before my tenure on the board but it's been a long two and a half years to see movement back in the direction of at least considering that the curriculum framework and that the vdoe standards matter um how much our children had to suffer through that fight I don't know and how far behind we can say they got just from the resistance to listening to people who are concerned about that I don't know but I am glad to see that we're at least being more realistic about how to
073prepare our students um for the assessments that they face certainly I am not a big proponent of teaching to a test but to ignore a curriculum framework when that is the very framework our students are being evaluated on seems a bit um I I don't know what the word is for it but it's it's definitely not beneficial to our children um I'm assuming now as you know I have you know a lot of this work and a lot of what you've reported here sounds exactly like what has been described via communication I've seen you know crediting our director of school improvement with much of this work um who for some reason is not here um I'm assuming now that Eureka and eel will be now considered resources instead of primary curricula it sounds like you're
074working on lesson plans and incorporating those within lesson plans that are aligned um I would like to return to at some point with our board colleagues more detail about how much we're paying for those resources um I pretty much um I feel like we're on more solid ground but it took a long time to get here and I don't think a lot of what we've been through to get here was necessary um and that's all I'll say Mrs White thank you madam chair and um I'd like to thank the team Mr Jefferson uh very detailed um I would prefer next time just let me know what the status is on um the track for accreditation with school straight off the bat this was a lot to read 63 Pages um but my question would be
075looking at the data you have 11 schools that are still in the red and I think these schools keep continuously continuously coming up on this chart what are we doing different for these schools and I'm seeing that science overall what have we done different uh for science overall for the L3 performance indicators and my third question would be of course one of my schools the Richmond alternative school I see you have them highlighted but I think we go over this all the time uh is this their percentage there or have they been this percentage also equaled out with their uh comprehensive School so to start with your first question um we look at where all of our schools are and we provide the support based upon that so we work with the principals we work
076with school teams we work with the coaches we work with all levels of support within the school in order to continue to improve their ability to meet accreditation because of course that is our goal so we work with all of the stakeholders within those schools to make sure we're doing that in addition to that to get more into your second question about science as Miss Bell discussed we have done several things in relation to science when our elementary science person came on board in early early fall she was able to come in and start making some adjustments immediately about the curriculum and making sure that we are making those adjustments and putting the curriculum in the um in the teachers hands that will help our students to meet accreditation in addition to that we've had
077our vdoe partners who have spent four sessions with our principals during cluster meetings helping our school leaders to understand um you know what they can do to support science instruction in our schools in addition to that Miss just who is our science specialist has been in our AP meetings providing assistance providing support there as well so that our school leaders are getting that in addition to that she has been providing content knowledge what you heard Miss Bell talk about the geographical sessions she is actually going in and modeling those um those strands those sols so that teachers will know the content and know how to better help students to know the content along with that she is in schools on a daily basis providing support in January we had two additional science people to come
078in to support our secondary and they have done some of the same things going into the schools supporting teachers working on the curriculum providing resources doing everything they can to support the teachers in their work as it relates to your third question about Richmond alternative school so the first thing that I want to celebrate is that if you look at them in Reading we projected them to be on track and also keep in mind that this is not with the Baba students in the past data that we looked at included the vava scholars they're no longer there so these are the active Scholars that are at the alternative school and keep in mind that because they are a school and not a program it's their score so they don't go back to Huguenot or George
079with the scores stay with Richmond alternative school and furthermore in terms of how we're supporting them we did an instructional walkthrough in December and we have partnered with CeCe to ensure that we include all of their staff in our PD in our alignment training so that the instruction at the alternative school can continue to increase I also have a follow-up so looking at um your slide number 15 um Miss Wiggins you were talking about science so when I'm seeing off track off track for the majority of your high schools it seemed like Franklin military and John Marshall the um somehow uh got the assignment what happened off track on the rest of them so let me first talk about our response uh because what we realized is that biology has been a challenge for uh
080a lot of our High School Scholars and so the first thing that we did we hired Mr Bond and also we hired um at secondary science instructional specialist we've actually sent her into schools and basically she lives in school supporting their plcs to build teachers to pass science teachers capacity so we can actually see some growth in science and furthermore as a um a division we're actually going back to look at our progression our core sequence as it relates to science so that we set kids up for better success in um in high school and so we've had that conversation with middle school and high school principals together and we're going to work on our course sequence and we've also partnered with video e as it relates to that and also we had um the
081uh the teachers in action so we did have quite a few of our teachers participate in the training with video on Saturdays to get better with science and so we hope to see those things pay off thank you any other questions I have one more and then maybe we'll finish um yes I have actually um just from Word of Mouth heard great things about Miss just but I also may have heard that her position May no longer be in existence or that's a okay all right good all right um and I also heard there's been quite a bit of vdoe presence in our schools recently and I'm wondering if we can get updates or notifications when bdoe is that appropriate for us to have those notifications Mr cameras um and I also have heard that
082we could be invited even to serve on some of these evaluation teams um and so you know I would like us to have more information I think that there's been a lot of activity we haven't been appraised on uh apprised on and um so we would like I'm sure my colleagues would like more information and engagement with this process if it's available to us yes and we will invite you but this is the first time that video is actually done walkthroughs in schools which we were surprised and we also welcomed it because we have been asking for years and even as a principal when I was a principal we asked for them to actually do walk-throughs versus just looking at artifacts and documents so we will definitely make you aware if you want to join
083us thank you any other questions board colleagues all right thank you all very much right now we move to item 5.01 fiscal year 24 budget discussions thank you madam chair as you will see I have uploaded several items that the board requested one the ARP spend down this is an updated version of that document which I shared several weeks ago as part of our earlier budget discussions along with the list of contracts and expected expenditures against those for FY 24. I also uploaded the full budget book and our consensus tracker from right before the board voted on the budget um I Heard loud and clear uh last school board meeting that the board was not interested in reducing some of the new expenditures that we were hoping to make and so what I will be
084doing over the next couple of weeks with the team is to try to figure out another way to find the 10 million uh that we are the 10 million shortfall find a way to fill that uh for the board to consider with that I'm happy to take any questions thank you Miss Dwight thank you madam chair uh Mr cameras I do have one question because you did give us a lot of information to digest my question would be uh what's the money that was spent was that for long-term sustainment Mrs White do you mind uh repeating the question was the money that was spent was that for long-term sustainment when you made your decision but you did you mean for the ARP yes yes some of those items we would like to continue on with
085some will sunset at the end of the grant thank you Mr Young I'm thinking Madam chair just a chronology question I know we've talked about it a few times and I apologize if I'm beating a dead horse but uh just wanted to solicit from the superintendent from my colleague's recommendations relevant to how we want to proceed acknowledging that the unknown variable pertains to if and when the general assembly finishes its work but it seems to me because I mean we're now may one we're getting kind of close folks so any recommendations from the superintendent from my colleagues relevant to how do we proceed I think the superintendent is regularly introduced a very valid uh Point pertinent to um not introducing um anxiety for some for some folks unnecessarily but still an important exercise can't believe
086not for this year for for next but anyway uh just genuinely soliciting some recommendations I would like to come back to the board at our May 15th meeting with a revised proposal to consider and then we would need to adopt a budget the first meeting in June we have to get contracts out to teachers for next year um and so that's critical so we're going to need to adopt a budget I don't think we will have any action from the general assembly by that point uh and so I could anticipate us having to revisit all this at our July meeting August meeting I I honestly don't know so to suit to the superintendent's Point um so we probably do need to proceed we probably do need to proceed in anticipation of cutting 10 million dollars
087and if uh the new fiscal year arrives July the first then presumably would be in a place where would backfill some of those dollars that were that were cut is that probably the most prudent strategy to your point about issuing the contracts yes so um but I am not interested I want to be very very clear I have no intention of bringing you a budget that will um lay off anybody and so uh I I do intend to put out contracts for our existing Workforce but what we might need to entertain for example is freezing vacancies um or things of that nature which may not be a permanent matter but to get us through and into July 1 to the new fiscal year and then when hopefully the general assembly acts but they may not
088we may live with this budget um we would make adjustments at that time and just I'm sorry just briefly I think that makes a lot of sense but superintentious proposed any other questions or comments discussion okay Mr thank you I appreciate that and I just want to state to the superintendent thank you for stating that you don't intend to um have anyone on the list to to have to leave and move forward I am in favor of freezing vacancies if needed at this time and that takes away the anxiety also of wondering will I have a job where will I go what will that do so I appreciate on May 1st 2023 hearing that no one will lose his or her job at this point moving forward for the 23 24 school year thank you
089so much Dr Harris Muhammad thank you Mr cameras does that include um positions that your Chiefs are considering to downsize or have presented to be downsized removing individuals out of positions for whatever reason um Miss renzi mentioned a particular position um earlier so is is are those concerns in your comment that you just made or just positions that because that position was on um in your earlier presentation no my comment does not apply to those we will continue with um when there's a performance issue to move forward with um if necessary dismissals where grants expire um positions that are no longer funded will not be kept that is the normal course of business what I was referencing is individuals like your teachers who are paid out of our operating budget I will not be bringing
090forth any reduction to our Workforce of teachers that are being funded out of our operating budget no so Mr cameras could I get you to repeat that the positions that are Grant funded or whether where there are performance issues those are where we may see reductions yes was there any other uh where grants uh expire um performance or discipline issues um sort of the normal um reasons that somebody might exit the system um but we would not have a any large-scale budget driven layoffs no thank you any other questions or discussions all right thank you we are now moving to item 6.01 receive for first read collective bargaining agreements for licensed personnel and support professionals School nutrition services care and safety Associates and instructional assistance thank you madam chair I am delighted to bring forth
091the uh final contracts for these bargaining units I want to thank the entire Rea team the entire vea team along with the RPS team and all of the lawyers that were involved in finalizing the language but I am thrilled to bring both of those contracts to the board for uh consideration and my recommendation is approval if not this evening then at our May 15th board meeting I also want to take this opportunity to give public notice that the teamsters will be part of the upcoming election for the custodial and building management bargaining unit and those elections are coming up on May 5th and May 6. thank you thank you any questions discussion okay so we received this now for first read action May 15th yes Madam chair okay thank you all right yes moving now
092um we actually are going to skip 6.02 um Madame clerk 6.03 received for first three Legal Services contract thank you madam chair uh I am thrilled to bring forth for the board's consideration our uh proposed contract for Legal Services um you have all the information about the uh RFP process and the selection process the uh firm that we are bringing forth uh for approval is Haney finio watan chip I apologize for any mispronunciation I will note that based on the number of hours that Harrell and chamless typically builds over the course of the year and I've included that information in slide six and based on the per hour rate for the members of that firm that would be working with us we should expect to spend north of seven hundred thousand dollars on Legal Services
093next year I do want to note in years past including the current year we spend four hundred thousand so certainly an increase that I will add to my um budget thinking as we prepare for that May 15th meeting um so I did want to make sure that was very clear to the board uh with that I'm happy to take any questions Mr Young thank you madam chair we have probably for a year close to a year I think gone back and forth relevant to this conversation if to out continue to Outsource and door to end source and uh candidly had been more than a year but uh my point is to say a appreciative Administration they did what we asked them to do and went out and put an RFP out in the street and
094evaluated bids I do have concern relevant to the the price point the superintendent just spoke to and specifically a 75 percent of my math is correct uh increase in cost is not something that the school board member can support I.E 700 or approximately seven hundred thousand dollars and and really would love to solicit some recommendations advice counsel no pun intended for my colleagues on if perhaps we should revisit the discussion and specifically if there's any interest in in sourcing I.E to hire two persons to attorneys in lieu of uh signing on a contract now I understand that it's May 1. and uh effect of two months from now we need new legal counsel so I'm mindful that this body may want to enter into some kind of contract with perhaps The Firm the superintendent has
095proposed but uh if we can perhaps have a discussion Madam chairman and vice chair this evening about if going forward if it makes sense to develop job descriptions for a lead attorney and Junior attorney to insource those positions presumably as soon as as we can hire and in that circumstance presumably because where the contract provides for billable hours uh we would need to be very forthcoming with uh this firm that perhaps we would not be using their services in the way that we advertised so my point is to say in brief I can't support uh this this proposal only because of the the price point I'm sorry that misspoke and because candidly I'm the firm introduces some concern for me only because of their advocacy and work for vsba and I think my colleagues know
096I'm not a fan of vsba but that's beside the point I do think that we should consider instead in sourcing so I just solicit my colleague's counsel on that proposal and or request uh doctor oh go ahead Mr cameras wants to say a word or okay uh just very briefly um I completely understand Mr Young's uh points and if that is the direction the board would like to go um certainly I will execute that I do want to note I do have concern about us not entering into a contract now I worry that we may be in a position where we're not able to hire the appropriate personnel in time and we would be without counsel as of July 1 and so I do believe I'll go back and revisit the contract there's a 30
097or 60 day uh no fault uh termination notice and so if we did enter into the contract and then ultimately decide to go that route Mr Young we would have an Avenue to um to end the contract and then and then hire Personnel last thing I want to note um two people might not be enough um given the breadth of work that Council does one of the benefits of having a firm is that we're able to get pieces of time from subject matter experts whether that's labor law special education law contract law intellectual property law issues with the state with the federal government so I I that is one downside of having in-house counsel obviously the the plus is they work 100 all day all night just for the school system but I did want
098to just note that is a as a question and then if you end up needing to then Outsource those other pieces you might end up back at the same price anyway just for consideration uh thank you um Mr Young you done okay you know I will add that you know we have found ourselves in positions in recent years where we've had to Outsource things anyway I don't know how much that's cost us but I'm sure it's been significant and we have had that situation um Dr Harris Muhammad were you next um sure I have a couple of questions and a comment if the majority of the school board does not support the recommendation of Mr cameras what are our next steps and then the second question is um think I pretty much heard it is
099can we go outside of the recommendation and choose our own attorney to represent the school board and then my comment finally is that I am very confident that um we will come to a decision that is in the best interest about School Division and the school board thank you thank you go ahead Mrs White thank you madam chair Mr cameras I have a question on what was the final ranking based on was it the actual uh legal service amount of money I only see two here and I don't see any breakdown on what services that they would um give us okay so including power sources Mr camera says two sets of questions to respond to yeah okay so on that a slide four is the rubric that the evaluation panel used my understanding is we
100only had two qualified bids so those were the two that were ranked um to Dr Harris Muhammad's question if the board chose not to move forward with this contract which is certainly the board's right um then they would just need to articulate a direction for me to proceed if you're may I Madam chair I'm sorry if the question was uh could the board hire in-house counsel absolutely I don't know that the board could hire another firm outside of the RFP process I would have to investigate that with Council and procurement officials Mr Young uh thank you madam chair and I'm really grateful for this conversation uh I I wonder may I solicit approval this is an emotion Mound chair that would gladly will introduce it as a motion but um uh I think it's prudent
101uh to solicit consensus among the group relevant to perhaps direct Administration to advertise for in in-house uh Council I don't think that that to the superintendent's point precludes us from approving the contract at next meeting but just to have options available to us going forward if if the superintendent concurs with that approach to perhaps ensure we're not um eliminating any any Avenues to pursue um I don't mind doing so the one challenge we Face though is we do not have a current job description for in-house counsel and given the level that in-house Council would be at that would also need to be approved by the vdoe so we would not be able to advertise a specific job description um uh and so yeah that just a consideration and we would not be able to formally
102post until we have the approval um and so just another consideration for the board Miss boy thank you madam chair uh mostly cameras before the next meeting before we have to approve this can the board receive a bio of both of these law firms as well as a breakdown from the hours I see the hours that you have here for Harold and Sheamus can we actually get the actual uh contract on how much did we spend doing that um time from 2018 to 2019 the breakdowns of each one of those hours Mrs White do you mean the ex the expenditure for Harold and channelis correct okay yes I will gather that up so um Mr cameras I um agree that looking at this price tag you know I'd be more we've lost some time here
103but I would be inclined to like exploring in-house counsel especially given the fact that we've had to Outsource at least you know three times I think since my time on the board to other attorneys outside of our our Council uh contract um also uh you know what you provide here is very cryptic I'd just like to see more details um regarding yes a breakdown of the duties and how many hours each Duty would would require um and then also you know some kind of summary of each um firm and you know more about why the firm you are recommending is superior besides just these I mean it's just very cryptic which you provide us it doesn't give us much detail um you know I'm under the understanding that we could actually interview these firm there
104are only two of them ourselves um and so you know I just really would like to do some more research before making a decision of this magnitude okay go ahead Ms page thank you um superintendent cameras can you provide the board um pros and cons of looking at in-house counsel because I'm looking at the scope of work and I think having an in-house we're looking at looking at needing more ftes to be able to be able to provide or to be able to represent the district adequately so if um I guess the committee like this fox that committee if they could provide us the pros and cons as far as looking at in-house versus you know the affirm happy to do so I mean because I just a follow-up statement because when you look at
105a firm I would think they're more the knowledge is more broad versus in-house you know representation representative I mean that's just my thoughts I was just gonna say I I will prepare pros and cons for the board to consider for our May 15th meeting Mr thank you um could you sorry if I you said this early could you refresh our memory into what we're paying currently for Legal Services we are budgeted at 400 000 I don't know if that is the exact amount that we end up paying but that is in the ballpark um so obviously um uh this is coming in higher and I think one of the benefits of our existing contract is the fact that it is a fixed rate um so um I would be interested and are we able to
106if we choose to move forward with one of these firms are we able to negotiate um like what the process is to negotiate a fixed rate and then second um I Echo some of my colleagues feedback regarding insources versus insourcing versus Outsourcing um my experience serving on the legal ad hoc committee is that um it um would be very hard to have just one attorney be our attorney given the breadth of um skill sets that are required to service a School Division and so if when you provide that analysis I would be interested in uh how many attorneys if if we were to insource we would potentially need I can I don't care do you mind um yes I will do a little bit of market research on comparable School divisions um try to get
107a sense of market rate for uh these types of attorneys um and put together the the pros and cons as Mrs page noted um as for fixed rates we certainly uh could articulate in the contract we will only pay up to this amount and once we hit that we're done um I think quite frankly uh we had a very under Market deal with Harold and chambliss um I think that's just the reality from what we've seen come in um but again I will I'll prepare those pros and cons used to come up with these pros and cons are any of you legal experts and um who will you consult to um craft these pros and cons you know I consult other school divisions try to understand the approaches that they're taking get solicit their feedback
108what's worked what hasn't worked both in-house and with firms um I will I I assure you I'll present the most um unbiased and uh detailed uh approach I can I I truly have no um I have no uh um preference truly I just want to make sure we have legal counsel underline one that's all yes so so please provide your sources and show us examples where in-house works and where you know firms work um yeah I'd like a balanced presentation um that it's evident that you've you know consulted experts where this is concerned yes ma'am thank you anything else for colleagues all right we are now moving to item see what we are 6.04 receive update on Arthur Ash and Altria properties okay so I can report what I know up to this point um
109I have been contacted by uh attorney Wolfe who is in the process of setting up mediation with the city um and we have a mediator um he's looking at the week of May 22nd um and I guess you know I will update the board as that takes place yes Dr Harris Muhammad will that consists of the entire school board or just board leadership and the superintendent he has asked that I'd be present um I asked him he said that you know Mr cameras's presence is optional uh I can ask if other board members are able to attend okay but he has reached out to me and asked if I had time to um do this and during the week of the 22nd and the so so there's a mediator who will be working you know
110who will be mediating between the interests of the school board and the city yes right but I guess what I want to ask is who will be there from the city will it be the council president and the vice president he has been communicating with Mr Saunders okay so Mr Saunders will probably be present okay yes yes thank you Mrs page so this mediator would there be a cause to the school division or not that I have been made aware of so this will be pro bono uh you know I'm I am under the assumption that this person has been contracted by our legal counsel who is working for us pro bono no cost was discussed with me though I can double check yeah can we verify that yes yes thank you yes Mrs White
111thank you madam chair um I thought we were going to get the presentation tonight we did request that for the Archer are we going to the board gonna ever get the presentation yeah I think that this mediation needs to get started first you know because we don't have any information on you know what is going to happen with Altria in terms of what they're going to do to work with us or or to benefit us um now you know I could contact Mr Geo and have him do a presentation um on what they could do with the Altria but I think we need to get this mediation done or we could do them both we could do both of them can we yeah okay any other questions about this I'm looking to see if I
112can get this mediator's name Mark Rubin is his name Mark Gruden okay all right we are now moving to item 7.01 receive for Action the Personnel actions oh uh 12 nominations uh 16 changes of contract 10 resignations one recision when three name changes one retirement and one recision of resignation someone second Mrs White I would like a close okay we will go into close to discuss personal actions all right item 7.02 receive for second read and action the idea Grant idea Grant good evening School Board chair Vice chair school board members and superintendent cameras so we're here to bring to you for approval of our idea Grant and so we're going to give you an update on the request that folks made at our last uh meeting good evening school board and superintendent cameras um
113I am Rossi Valley and I am the director of exceptional education um here to as Mr Jefferson mentioned to address the final read of our annual plan um as a reminder the annual plan is serves as an agreement between RPS and vdoe on how we're going to utilize our funds to ensure our students with disabilities are receiving the services that they need as requested at the final I'm sorry at the previous school board meeting we did provide an update to the presentation for the last three slides to give a breakdown of the budget are there any questions or discussions I'm sorry I was waiting on that you're waiting okay the last if we can go through the last three um slides it just shows a breakdown of the three components of the grants and that
114includes 611 which is specifically for grades pre-k through 12. it gives a breakdown of the salaries um which as you can see the majority of the funding within this grant is designated for salaries and benefits also for purchase services and that is inclusive of our related services that we contract with to ensure our students receive speech occupational therapy physical therapy and those types of services also um the proportionate set aside as I mentioned at the previous um school board meeting we are required to set aside a proportionate amount for any families that are parentally placing their students in private schools and they require an individualized service plan that indicates they require speech or OT or some type of related service so that is what is um reflected here on this slide next slide please 6
11519 um this one is specific to our preschool as you can see again we have a large portion of our funding that is designated to salaries and benefits um other services as mentioned that also is inclusive of our related Services as well as materials and supplies next slide and then the last live this is our cceis allocation um as mentioned previously RPS is required to set aside 15 of the grant of the grant fund to ensure that we are putting interventions and services and supports in place to decrease the number of students with disabilities that are being identified as other health impaired and emotionally disabled so this gives a breakdown again of salary and benefits as well as other services and materials and supplies any questions Dr Harris Muhammad I have a motion to accept
116that because this is for Action correct to move um to accept I move that we accept the Ida Grant as presented second it's been moved by Dr Harris Muhammad to accept the idea Grant as presented it was seconded by Mrs Jones um roll call Madam clerk Miss door yes Miss White yes Mrs Gibson Mr Young aye Ms Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes Mrs Burke yes Miss page Miss Jones yes motion passes thank you thank you we are now at item 7.03 received for Action recommendations for RPS Education Foundation board members good evening everybody I have about an hour of prepared remarks um so let's get right to I'm just kidding um my my name my name is David Mills I'm the chair of the uh Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation and I want to
117just open things up tonight um with uh hello a greeting and a word of gratitude um I am not elected to anything myself but I am Public Service adjacent and I know how difficult the jobs you all have are and the the dedication and the time it requires so I wanted to say thank you on behalf of the foundation and our team for your commitment to our public schools and for all the incredible work you're doing um I also want to take a moment and recognize a couple of members additional members of our team who are here you'll hear from our new executive director Ty king cooper in just a moment you all know tykin I believe but we also are welcome uh welcoming uh Thad Williamson our vice chair and Tracy Brower our Deputy
118executive director are also here with us tonight um we have just a couple of things for you the first is not an hour uh the first is a few slides about an update on the activities of the foundation uh under Ty King's leadership and um and then some names to submit to you all our board is uh unanimously recommended to move seven names forward to you for approval as new members of our Board of Trustees and we'll look for forward to presenting that to you and answering any questions you may have thanks very much thank you good evening taking Cooper uh I now live in the Fifth District I can go to the next slide please um so today is my officially my 90th day as well as Tracy's 90th day um and we've really
119hit the ground running as a foundation so the first thing first order business we had a successful audit which always feels good uh with new leadership coming in and knowing that things are uh in order financially we've also spent a lot of time listening and that was one of the commitments I made when I first accepted this role that I'd spend the first 90 days listening so we've been in a number of schools we haven't been everywhere uh we're definitely reaching out we've also talked to a number of Community Partners uh former donors potential donors current donors um and we'll share a little bit about a couple of things we've heard of course we uh for us to truly be effective and to serve the district better we definitely need to rebuild our Board of
120Trustees so we have seven phenomenal people um that our board has recommended and lastly we've been working on rebuilding the organizational infrastructure and I look forward to spending some time with all of you all individually in the near future um a consultant from New Hampshire finalized uh a SWOT analysis for us last week and that's the first step for us in the strategic planning process the foundation hasn't had its own strategic plan in quite some time and I think for us to be a better partner for you all that's something we need to do um so here are guiding principles so of course we don't have a strategic plan yet but just a couple things that that we uh we're embodying right now so we're going to compete for every possible dollar available for Richmond
121Public Schools we've already begun to do that uh we have a I think we've applied for five grants in the past 90 days we've also begun um we're asking any and everyone for money and I think there will be some opportunities especially once we finalize this strategic plan to really scale up some of the things that we're doing because we're gonna have more money the other thing that I really want to highlight is that we see ourselves as being a partner and a peer for the school board the superintendent and the community at large and that means that not only are we here when things are great and you know we can't wait to tell you all that hey we have a million dollars for X initiative but we also hear um when things get
122tough so we're true partners and peers um one of the roles that our local Foundation hasn't done much of recently as advocating and um we see ourselves as we see ourselves as advocates for you all at the general assembly as well around some education Investments and we've been having conversations with our neighboring education foundations to do that better and lastly um we really want to amplify the great work that that is happening in the district and so we talked about this briefly in our board meeting last week but I was sitting down with a donor recently who had been highlighting some of the Outdoor Learning experiences in Henrico County Public Schools he was like I just wish that someone did this in Richmond and I smiled and told him immediately I was like hey well
123Bouchard Middle School there they're doing this right now and with an investment they can scale this up even even more um so I think it's one of our roles as well to truly be an ambassador for Richmond Public Schools when we begin to tell these stories and so over the past 90 days I won't bore you but many of the things that you all have already discussed tonight those are the things that we've been hearing um from a number of Partners throughout the community thank you Mr cameras wants to make a comment and then Mr Mills you may continue okay under Dr Harris Muhammad okay I I just want to say thank you to Mr Mills and Mr Cooper um they have brought uh fresh and um energetic uh perspective to the foundation and I
124feel like we are headed in a really positive direction and looking forward to welcoming new members to the board and uh all the exciting things that we'll do together so thank you okay so Dr Harris Muhammad I have a motion okay right I can that's why I was there I couldn't wait to present the motion okay so Mrs White thank you um I was wondering uh as we get to see the members I thought you had a slide with the members on there so that's what I was saying yeah I apologize for that yeah I believe it's part of your board packets okay yeah you've got bios uh in your uh board packets I believe I know a couple but yeah I was going to make a motion too thank you so okay okay Mrs
125page I just want to say thank you thank you to the both of you thank you for a new vision um this feels good and and not to knock the previous members of the board but um under Adele Johnson's leadership this is some of the work that she she envisioned and she really this is her her baby you know her brainstorm and I just want to thank you because the energy reimagining the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation this feels really good and I'm excited to see what's next thank you any other discussion okay um oh I'm sorry Mrs bird no problem um thank you all both so very much and the other persons that are here as well uh Mr Williamson and uh I just know Tracy Bowser Miss Bowser but thank you all also
126I'd like to um piggyback off of what Mrs page has stated we're excited and something you just stated uh Mr Cooper in regards to being an ambassador because oftentimes it's thought that we don't have this we don't have that sure we need to do better but every system does so when conversations are oh we wish we could do this in Richmond Public Schools I love the way you handle that and there are schools in this side of the river as well besides South Side all right [Laughter] they have other other um projects as well yeah I was going to say Mr Cooper um as a fifth district new neighbor don't forget John B Carey's new Eco campus absolutely supported by the Kiwanis that's right okay so when we have those one-on-one conversations and thank you
127for that that you're going to meet with each board member as well I'm looking at your list and there which is great but there's some projects that's coming up as well we'd like to add so it sounds like you all are on your way thank you for applying for 10 grants that's awesome but well done I support this glad to see those members that have one question will this complete the needed members on the uh Mr Mills I saw you just this was gonna you yeah I know that's this something I'm very uh eager to discuss with you all so uh three things by way of an answer the first is uh we would love it if we could develop a rhythm where we're sitting down with each of you individually every month uh and
128having just a uh just an open it could be a call it could be coffee it could be a meeting whatever works for your schedules but um I'll say just speaking for myself I'm learning a lot through these conversations about what's needed not only in the division but what our foundation can do in terms of our own representation The Way We Grow what we need to look like what we need to be thinking about individuals we need to be recruiting and that brings me to specifically an answer to your question so we we are not done um we currently have four voting members of the Board of Trustees these seven individuals will bring us to 11. our bylaws give us 15 total board voting board members so we'll have four more positions to fill on
129our Board of Trustees moving forward uh we're eager to hear recommendations and just continue to to have that dialogue about who are the best fits for that governing board but we also have uh in our bylaws a structure that gets created called The Advisory board so not a voting board not a governing board but a board really built um I think the original intention was for it to be predominantly a Community Connection and fundraising board that broadened the foundation's footprint in the city even more that board can have as many as 50 people and currently has none so we are open to recommendations if you have good people if there are areas of the city that are currently underrepresented on the foundation that we can uh bring people in like I I spend a lot
130of time every week having conversations with people about uh just recruiting just bringing people in and getting people involved so uh please don't hesitate to let us know uh because we're in this is just the first step in many steps to Growing what we feel is a a robust and and fully active and proactive Foundation thank you all right Dr Harris mama I move that we accept the recommendation of um from Richmond Education Foundation to add 11 board members I'm sorry seven seven board members second so it's been moved by Dr Harris Muhammad to accept the nomination of seven new board members to the Richmond Foundation board Richmond Education Foundation board seconded by Mrs page Madam Clerk Miss door yes Miss White yes Miss Gibson Mr Young aye Ms Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes
131Miss Burke yes Miss page Miss Jones yes motion passes thank you all thank you okay we are now at item 7.04 received for Action budget transfers over ten thousand dollars thank you madam chair we do not have any this evening moving right along zero one offices thank you madam chair Dr Harris and Miss parks and their teams we'll take it from here thank you good evening chair Rizzy Vice chair Burke superintendent cameras and school board members this evening we will present an overview of both the engagement office as well as the school Wellness office I will start first followed by renisha Parks our chief Wellness office officer and her team to highlight some aspects of wellness and then we'll conclude by discussing some key points of collaboration between the two offices so as I start
132with talking about engagement it's important to note that everything is steeped in our key dimensions of Engagement so where we spend most of our times is really working to build relationships with our families as well as moving from this idea of family involvement to family engagement the difference with involvement engagement is that engagement has to be linked to learning and that's a key part of our efforts we want to support advocacy share power we're not here just to serve but we want to create Partnerships and the biggest difference is when you create Partnerships you have to share power and then also affirming differences we want to make sure our families feel affirmed welcomed and supported in our community to really do this work this year next slide we launched three division-wide engagement goals to really
133support school capacity do three vital things across the division one decrease chronic absenteeism again engagement has to be linked to learning increase school to family communication that's something we heard from our community that we really want to continue to do a better job of and then thirdly increase parent advocacy before before I say a little bit about each goal our structure next slide is really based on this community Hub strategy and again not just physical locations the strategy is based on having coordinators led by our senior coordinator who's been I think over 35 years in the in the game Mike Liggins um our coordinators for each region and what's beautiful is that each region has Liaisons that serve all of the schools so where a school may have a point of contact the actual support
134is from the entire region and this is really a neighborhood based strategy where we want to not just be connected to the school but be connected next slide to the neighborhood resources and Assets in the neighborhood while these are not all the neighborhoods these are some of the neighborhoods where our Liaisons have really worked to know who are the leaders who are the credible Messengers in the neighborhood develop relationships with the families so we can really build trust in the community and buffer that trust back to the school and vice versa so really quickly our three goals so goal one we support schools with decreasing chronic absenteeism a big part of that is moving from old practices where we only looked at absences unexcused absences to new practices where we're looking at both unexcused and
135excuse absences and the next slide you'll see around chronic absenteeism we're building school capacity through the use of our school dashboards trackers as well as engagement dashboard so we can really quantify our engagement efforts we are focused on data-driven planning and really thinking about attendance as an engagement issue so how do we support the how do we support removing barriers for families that are getting in the way of their students coming to school secondly we're focusing on increasing families Family School to home communication next slide oh before I go to that quick data snapshot um we've seen here this is just again a snapshot of schools there are lots more where increased engagement we're seeing that correlation to decreased chronic absenteeism Now goal two family communication increase family communication two big things that we work
136to support the division is through our remind system knew about two years ago we rolled out the whole application with the entire division as a a way to really capitalize on text messaging research showed us that our response rate with text messaging was much higher than other forms of communication we also built out a language Justice team again new to the division to really focus on interpretation Services across the division and making sure that all of our families regardless of language um feel more welcome we know this is work we need to continue to do as we heard here tonight but to have a language Justice team devote it to this work is important and then lastly as you have hopefully seen in our RPS direct we focus on telling the story in division-wide communication
137so recently we've shifted to having clear themes so that we can tell our own RPS story you may have seen the videos around our Black History Month campaign honoring the history of Richmond our Arts campaign and of course we love you here which we've heard around the division has been a great way to show the positive voices and diversity of our community and then lastly our last goal that we support the division on and build school capacity is around advocacy so we lead three advocacy councils the student advisory Council parent advisory Council and Interfaith advisory Council that has approximately 20 faith-based leaders that meet monthly with superintendent cameras and our engagement leadership and then lastly local and State Legislative advocacy I was glad to hear the Richmond Foundation talk about advocacy we look forward to
138working with you as we support school board meeting accountability and public participation but also how we Advocate at the local and state level so at this time I'll turn it over to renisha to talk about our student wellness office good evening Madam chair Madam Vice chair School Board leaders and superintendent cameras month four of student wellness office we are continuing to learn grow and build relationships with our Community Partners because we all know until our students physiological social emotional and safety needs are met we won't be able to see the academic games that we're all hoping for and so it is a pleasure to serve multiple teams on the wellness office so on our school nutrition front we're looking at did everyone hear me okay I'm sorry it sounded really staticky from up here but
139we're looking at initiatives such as Farm to Table fresh as well as making sure that we have a variety of offerings to make sure that we are looking at all ethnicities as well as our students who are vegan and vegetarian on the Safety and Security front we're looking at physical Safety and Security so superintendent cameras have talked about the cameras and the intercoms and the metal detectors which has been very controversial here as of late but those are some things that we're looking at as well as strengthening our Partnerships with RPD we just completed a safety audit and in the next few weeks we are excited to report those findings and some of the recommendations that we'll be making to superintendent cameras from the hearing office we've been working on creating diversionary programs as well
140as alternatives to suspension we know that a lot of our students are being suspended but the best place for them is in school so how can we support them on fronts to make sure that they remain in school buildings or our school health services we've been looking looking at Partnerships with chore to establish some Telehealth Services as well as campaigns to focus on childhood obesity and then last but least our culture climate and student services team which is where we will spend the bulk of our discussion and looking at the cross-functional opportunities in service of our students and so I'm going to invite our director of student culture and climate this is Angela Jones to the podium just to talk a little bit about some of the roles in those offices and then Dr Harris
141will pick up with the collaboration between our offices as well as the office of Engagement good evening good evening Angela Jones director of culture climate and student services and so just um very quickly I'm going to review the um the heavy spoke that we carry um on in the wellness umbrella the culture climate and student Support Services team and I do want to acknowledge that the leaders of our team are in the back wave everyone so I'm very grateful that they're here they've been putting in a long day today um but just to speak very frankly and I'm not going to read the slides for you all um but I wanted to provide you all a breakdown of the roles that serve in this particular umbrella piece of the umbrella of the culture climate team
142you know we are charged with supporting our students and much like the engagement team working to remove barriers and increase access for our children to fully engage and benefit from all the educational opportunities that they can have and so we work very um intensely across all of the tiers of inner of intervention and prevention within our division and we actually start from our service our services start with our leadership team so all of the leaders in our um in our particular suite are fully engaged in full on work every single day with regard to trying to build um positive engaging communities for our children to engage in at the school level that means very intense work in our social emotional learning in building um proactive trauma-responsive restorative spaces for our children and families to engage
143in um truthfully we spend the good majority of our time in that tier two and tier three space we spend a lot of time we provide the oversight along with Monica here with our care and safety office um with regard to threat assessments we work very heavily in suicide risk assessments um Tina who is our senior social worker right now is on call for Gaggle alerts so if she jumps up that may be what she's doing right now thanks Tina um but we are spending a lot of our time in supporting schools in that domain because that work actually occurs 24 hours a day Monica and I spend a lot of time with calls even from RPD through the night just prepping our schools so we're in a place to um engage in the most
144positive and safe spaces each day um if we can go to the next slide real quickly wanted to share with you the the team that makes up our community I mean our culture climate and student services team we have our Behavior specialist Carrie Savage is in the back she oversees that particular wing of um staff we have teams that support schools uh force uh Behavior Specialists that support our elementary schools although we have one dedicated staff member that serves Carver and two dedicated staff members that serve Amelia Street and then six that support the rest of our School Division which is a heavy load um our our goal is for them to spend significant amount of time in that tier one domain helping schools create those positive behavioral expectations those trauma-responsive classroom strategies coaching teachers
145coaching students and how to engage in those brain breaks and all those positive pieces they also spend quite a bit of time in that tier two domain as well creating those more informal Behavior plans um check in check out kind of work for our students and then we are greatly supported by the academic team where we have bcbas board certified behavioral assistants who analysts who support in those more intensive tier three domains um if I can hit the next slide please thank you I have our school social workers we have a team of about 40 41 School social workers who support across all again all three domains a great a bit of their work really sits in that tier two space um trying to to push in and support children but in full um transparency
146tier three is where much of our time is is just taken given the nature of the challenges that we're experiencing they are supporting and often leading our teams at the school level with regard to our suicide risk assessments our threat assessments as well as any of the like child child protective services they need that kind of intervention that is needed and we'll talk more about collaboration but they are collaborating heavily with our Liaisons to support families who are at risk of losing homes as well as um in need of food or those basic social needs they are also still responsible for our families who do find themselves in front of the courts with regard to attendance when we need to to take a family to that fullest extent um to help get get additional leverage
147with getting our families and children to school and I do also want to say they still support heavily in our academic team specifically in the area of special education where they are responsible for the socio-cultural Assessments in the child find process uh the next slide please thank you our student support Specialists who are led by um Chuck Johnson many of you are familiar in the in the backyard he's our coordinator of student support specialist they were formerly known as our violence prevention bullying prevention specialist they are currently dedicated our secondary level um schools where each school has one with the exception of Huguenot they do not currently have a a position for a student support specialist and John Marshall and Henderson split um due to location they share the student support specialist but they are
148dedicated to um bringing our restorative work to life uh full transparency we are working more intently on building positive cultures and climates because our restorative work is more beneficial when we have developed a culture and a climate and a community that students want to belong to that gives us a space to restore to um and um they are also the staff that are supporting us greatest on our bullying intervention and those Community incidents that roll into our schools if I can get the next slide I am super excited that in January we added a student support transition specialist Candace who's in the also in the back here and she is really spending her full time in supporting children who are finding themselves in those unfortunate situations where they have our most serious charges um that
149are typically the felony dangerous Firearms charges she's working with placing those students working with the courts so that children are experiencing um as much support and staying connected to education to help them work their ways out of those those tough situations and I'm most excited about this these new positions we just hired two trauma responsive Specialists two new team members that joined it's only been about less than a month and they are working to really dig in at the tier one space across the division develop to develop um strong strategies that are trauma responsive in nature from policies protocols practices strategies to help continue to improve our and move our division in a space that best supports children I think that covers everything that's health services so that covers everything in the um just about
150everything a nice sampling of the work that we do across the three tiers in the culture climate Student Services office I think you already hit on health services so we can slide to the next slide to the next slide I like that um and here we wanted to and I'm also going to yes talk with Dr Harris this is just to give you all a sampling of where um we actually find our two offices of wellness and engagement collaborating significant amounts of time and I um and you can see the domains that we have carried here I wanted to um highlight just a couple of them with regard to our I think some of our most powerful spaces are our Trio meetings in schools that Dr Harris has referenced previously where we work with communities
151and schools as well as social workers and Liaisons to really review children who appear to be struggling their most with engaging in school and developing comprehensive plans to help keep those children and get those children re-engaged and connected one of those areas that I'm really super proud of is our past docket it's parents and attendance parents and attendance equals Student Success this was one of our newest initiatives that we have collaborated with the Juvenile Courts for our parents who we have to bring to the Court's attention for failure to um to follow um compulsory School attendance but I'm super excited because that is a pocket that's an actual court docket that we hear in the um MLK Middle School judge Sheriff's Department come and they actually bring our families in we speak with parents there
152and then we are actually I'm joined with multiple vendors and um Partners in our our division in the city that helped wrap services around children because our goal is not to punish families but to wrap services around our families and we work very strongly with the wellness and we work Wellness department works very strongly sorry with the engagement office to ensure that families are connected with those those um Services we are also can working probably why I'm a little tongue-tied right now because I'm tired from our crisis supports that we've been providing but we're really connecting to make sure that families are fully supported that not only children at the school level but that families are fully supported um so Dr Brown and I spend quite a bit of time connecting on the phones to
153ensure that we are connecting with families so that they receive supports as well as their students at school and I think that on my my tag teaming to you now Dr Harris okay well I'm just going to close I just want to thank the leadership from both offices uh Matthew Stanley Lorena chip Dr Brown as well as Devin John who serves on our division wide attendance team for all your work as well as all of the wellness leadership who's here very late we work together while you can kind of separate them you also really can't because the work is so overlapping as we both are supporting the same students and families get the resources they need so with that happy to answer any questions all right I see Mr Young and then Mrs White and
154then Mrs Barton Mr Young and then Miss Jones thank you madam chair first I just want to acknowledge the most demanding work that everyone on the engagement and the wellness culture and climate teams dude everybody who's in this room this evening I'm not naive to the extraordinary sacrifices that uh that that you put in every every day so I want to salute salute everyone who's here and all those many persons who aren't this evening uh really Merit a kind of salutation award that um Money Can't money can't buy so that's first and foremost second want to acknowledge some of the renisha parks uh spoke to the very beginning of her of her remarks and I really appreciated what you said specifically that absent and I forget exactly how you said it but absent culture and
155safety Wellness in a school none of those other things are gonna are gonna happen I'd incur with that 100 College you know in our dreams for RPS strategic plan our third priority pertains to safe and loving cultures I would encourage us we've had the discussion pertinent to perhaps reordering or reevaluating some of the Strategic plan uh it's the school board members contention that perhaps we ought to reorder those priorities and instead it should be number one because it's more than just semantics it really really doesn't matter to the Sparks Point uh third as it relates to to Wellness colleagues each of each of you are in receipt of uh of the plan that yours truly put together after a lot of reflection I know that everybody in this room not just on this stage but
156subsequent to Thursday I'm confident reflected a lot on on who we are as a district what we're doing and and what we perhaps we can do better uh colleagues my intent is not to invest a lot of time this evening recognize it's probably already uh rather rather late and and what's more uh what I'm going to speak to in a moment uh is not anything new but instead I do hope that in the coming days if uh perhaps you'd be so willing to uh provide your critique of what I'm going to introduce now and share your thoughts relevant to what if any of those 10 10 items I'm going to share in a moment you'll be willing to support but um but my intent is in introducing what I'm going to speak to now is
157to provide support to not only the three ladies just spoke a moment ago but to their teams as it relates to Wellness this is intended to be a Wellness Plan so colleagues I'm not going to read the entire four-page report that that would be rude and inappropriate each of you haven't but just for the benefit of the public I will cite one to prohibit student access I'm referring to secondary students privet student access to personal cell cellular phone devices candidly it's it's my contention that this is the number one threat to our students welfare their school districts all around the country that are beginning to litigate uh as relates to social media companies I'm not proposing that we do that but I do think that cell phones represent a grave threat for all kinds of
158reasons more than we have time to discuss so uh to preclude secondary students access to cell phones we've had a lot of conversation about that hope that you'll join me and and considering uh precluding uh cell phones for next year two to scale Partnerships with social emotional support providers we know the outstanding work being done like by groups like scan and Child Savers Rich Behavioral Health Authority Etc they're the experts uh we have experts on your team on your teams the ladies just spoke but uh because these organizations will house it's in their wheelhouse it seems to me that we really ought to consider investing more of our resources in said organizations three prioritize the threat assessment team and evaluate every threat and what's more uh colleagues I really think it's incumbent on us that
159we increase transparency pertinent to these threats obviously we have to always acknowledge students privacy rights but it seems just wrong to me that we don't divulge when for example if there is a a high risk or or God forbid an imminent threat parents have a right to know teachers have a right to know students have a right to know so that's prioritizing threat assessment team evaluating every threat for extending the school day by 30 minutes for play again this relates to Wellness and I cannot think of a better way to achieve Wellness than to allow kids to be kids and I'm not sure we do a great job of that in RPS it's not a critique of RPS that's just I think K-12 public school education across the country one minute thank you I understand
160that that this obviously comes with a large price tag but I think it's a priority and I think we should invest there too five uh not terribly unrelated increase the percentage of students walking biking to school I was really pleased to hear some conversation a moment ago and and what that means for wellness uh six adopt baby wrap for elementary students in need of extra support um I borrowed the moniker from my colleague from uh from from the seventh uh thank you for that eight uh excuse me I'm sorry I think that was six seven double enrollment opportunities in alternative schools for grades six to twelve uh colleagues I think we we need to invest significantly more in Spartan and increase capacity 324 eight prioritization of relationships I'm not going to belabor the point but
161this pertains to looping among other opportunities nine times zero excuses for guns and knives I'm sorry if you bring a gun or a knife Mr Young it appears you're out of time yes ma'am I'm gladly finished um my point is to say if you bring a gun or knife he should not be allowed back on a school campus and then 10 increase random drugs and weapon sweeps thank you madam chair thank you all right thank you Mr Young Mrs White thank you madam chair I did have some questions but my colleague went on gracefully and almost that list that he presented is helpful helpful very helpful but where are the restored and prevented student-centered practices that I don't see and I did see that he did state that he said something about grass Richmond alternative
162which I don't really agree um I think before and I'm going to ask my colleagues before we actually um this if it's coming to us we need to actually go into the space that he's actually talking about because there's no way you can put 324 and rest and also um dealing with the uh res for alternative school I've been saying that for a while right now and I've been waiting on that and we actually need that that is greatly need in Richmond Public Schools but uh I will go back to uh Dr Harris because I did have a couple questions um and I'm gonna talk fast as fast as you did on this um I like to know based on your hubs and I see your schools how many uh Personnel is put in each
163one of these schools is it one or two so it's a regional approach so if you go back to that slide map you for me um we base the the assignment of Liaisons based on school capacity so for instance on the South Side there are more schools that we're supporting um so they have more Liaisons than the North Side um where there are fewer schools but because it's a regional approach there's not one person who just works with one school so for example on the South Side you may have someone who's the point of contact just so there's constant communication so they attend the sast meetings the principal may know that's who I can reach out to that's who I may expect to see but in terms of support if we do it based on
164what's needed that school may need seven Liaisons so when we go out in the community and do a community walk one is not enough so they can pull from their entire region that also helps us a lot with um schools that have really high Spanish-speaking families where we're able to utilize our increased bilingual Liaisons not just to support one school but to support any school across the division but for the region um so what's nice about a regional approach is our Liaisons serve multiple schools although they are a point of contact for one to two schools and my uh another couple questions for you uh you also hit the neighborhoods and I saw you hit Cara up here and I haven't seen anyone in our neighborhood and the question you had faith uh leaders what
165do they actually do do you come in the neighborhood then you go to the churches how does that tell me what that looks like so we are definitely in the neighborhoods and I would be happy to invite you and we talked about I'll invite you on a community walk we'll be in Gilpin next week we've been there multiple times throughout the school year knocking on doors so happy to set up time to share those experiences but we're we're definitely in the neighborhoods um as we as in reference to the faith-based community um it's a meeting once a month with superintendent cameras anyone is welcome to join where we talk about the division goals and really ask for the faith-based leader support in terms of how they can connect to our goals over the past year
166we've really focused on our literacy focus and thinking about ways faith-based communities can help increase getting literature in the hands of our students but it's a monthly kind of advisory meeting can you invite the board absolutely and I wasn't talking about giving I was talking about coffee yes white please please invite me I'm on the board day I haven't been there yet and my next uh question is for Miss parks thank you uh Dr Harris thank you um I guess Dr Park Miss Parks let's go to Dr Parks um I thank you for your um slide presentation also and I am so glad to hear about the Telehealth because that was one thing I mentioned a couple months ago so I'm so glad to hear about that um and you was talking about the door
167alarms and the cameras um but I would like to know is there any way that board members can get policies I believe uh Miss Jones was speaking on the classes that were taught by Miss Jones and the one that I'm pretty much interested in is elopement and the other one I would like to know is how often do you teach teachers on classroom management how often and those principles get the same thing so yes but first professional learning opportunities are available to principals as well as teachers and other staff members in the division certainly we have a back to school professional learning um time prior to students arriving and then throughout the year our assistant principals and principals they receive professional learning via what's called cluster meetings and then we also have principals who make
168special requests for certain topics that may be applicable to their school so we've worked with schools on allotment we've also worked with schools on social emotional behaviors as well as functional Behavior assessments some schools require some additional support because they may have heavy um L populations or they may also have a heavy swd population so it really is dependent upon what the school team needs and principals can make that request we used to have um staff development days they for this particular County calendar year were shared with um parent-teacher conference days and so while we still offer professional development there was a competing priority so we have not had them as widespread as we would like to have them but yes we do offer sessions that are open to teachers as well as administrators some
169before school after school and some of our school teams have open Office hours as well but do you have policies of what you have taught written are you are you referring to presentations yes yes there are presentations that are available and how do board members receive those Mr cameras would you like us to send them to you so that they could be shared with board members sure okay I'm interested in one and I just was hearing that there was no PowerPoints during the um teaching part so I would like to see one so we have PowerPoints but we've also moved to a lot of scenario-based instruction because looking at words on a piece of paper is great it gives you something that you can reflect back to but if you're having an issue it's great
170to really be able to play it out talk about what you would have done what should have happened and also to have some real life scenarios that they can take back to the classroom or even to their school team in real time thank you okay so we've got Mrs Burke and then Miss Jones and then Dr Harris Muhammad thank you madam chair thank you for sharing your information we really could sit here for about five or six hours and you all still would not have enough time to share all that you have done and all that you continue to do I think that Darrell Williams for the Seventh District the East End is awesome and I'm glad that I've been privy to go on a walk or two and they've also have the links with
171putting flyers on doors knocking on doors and no no sweat no stress has just been done and also in speaking with my parents I'm thinking about one Elementary School in particular they all know Mr Williams is Durham oh just call him just call him just call which helps us it helps the whole system to move forward I'm very pleased with the telling our story segment that's being done if we don't tell our history who's going to teach it and who will so I'm glad that that's being done as positive it's student oriented and it it lifts up lifts everyone up and it's so positive so thank you so very much and it is as I shared with one student from before students from Armstrong your history makers your history makers so thank you so very
172much um something else I wanted to touch base is upon the wellness report I look forward to the Safety and Security audit did you stay the audit Mrs on Parks yes it is a safety audit one was conducted at the beginning of the school year but upon coming into the division as the chief Wellness officer we went back to look at some of those areas to see where we can improve on safety security and Facilities as well as risk management items as well so is this the same format that the state requires or we have our own it is the format of the state but we did we are putting the information together in an executive summary excellent I look forward to receipt of that as well and Miss Jones crises oh my goodness I
173just had you were talking about me someone was talking about Mr Liggins having 35 years or 34 years I don't know how many years that you've been with us but I don't ever ever ever want you to go I want you to stay forever and right now with all this Mrs all that's going on I commend you I thank you this department has truly been the our students are successful because of what you do you're the heartbeat you're the blood flow without you it would be even more challenging our students and then you take on the whole families family and I know how many families in my district that have been supported by this department and I thank you so much because it's hard it's very difficult we're still struggling behind covet and the more
174I go into schools and listen and see and just look at some of the students is is heartbreaking so I thank you for what you're doing I thank you um I don't know what else to say but thank you but well done keep doing what you're doing and whatever we can do I can do on this end I'm here but thank you thank you thank you and on behalf of the students in the Eastern 7th District thank you Miss Jones thank you madam chair um really quickly I want to address the proposal that my colleague Mr Young mentioned um I do find some inconsistencies with this um after hearing from the wellness and office of Engagement I want to be sure that we are not couching violence under wellness and when we speak to um
175prioritizing this as the new priority for dreams for RPS which is set to expire that means that one for the school board this feels a little disconnected because what I heard from the presentation was that one all of the things that wellness and engagement is doing is you know and and Miss Jones providing culturally relevant instruction that helps to uplift our students addressing and engaging parents and community members um creating multifaceted approaches such as incorporating credible Messengers and community members as a part of your work what I did not hear and this proposal was the addressing of the root cause and so if we are going to put forth a proposal as a school board that then encompasses violence and safety measures but we do not address the root cause but on the flip side
176of that we hear the team that is there's a disconnect so before we as a school board say that we want to and I and I do think that you mentioned my colleague that we should definitely talk to talk through this I think we as a board really need to address this and we should really lay out what is being requested I also would like to see if possible any hard data that speaks to the violence that has increased and at what schools because um we do know that there are several schools that have decreased violence and they also we could what we can learn and what's actually happening because yes right now there is a crisis it is a city-wide crisis and so I also want to ensure that the school board can't we
177can't solve issues like housing poverty and food insecurities so that's not our role here and I'm I don't want it to be confused by us saying this is what needs to be done and you are the ones who are already doing it um I also would like to get a better since again like I said of like what schools are doing what um I think that we do need to address the overall rate of violence in the schools but we also need to ensure that the perception that all schools are unsafe and flawed and violent institutions they only support the school-to-prison pipeline so I want to ensure that we are working together as a collective and when we say that we want to make this a priority One this should be a new priority you
178mentioned a lot of new um things that you all have been bringing forth so why now why make this the um the Strategic plan make that a priority Now versus if you already are doing that work why not incorporate and work together so I would love to hear a little bit more about that and again I want to ensure that what's the evidence and effectiveness of like banning all the cell phones like before we just say let's do this if we truly are working towards and building and sustaining this model of restoration and non-punitive and safety which is the number one thing that we need to address we should be looking at it from a progressive measure you know like what's the steps one two three four as opposed to we're just doing this and
179I think some of these things that are being proposed are only going to escalate but you all have that connection to the community the connection to the families the responses that are going to happen when we implement this so we really need to be working together before we just say here's a proposal we need to accept it so I would really love for us to spend some time and do a deeper dive on what is being requested as the school board as well as well as what you all are doing from the restorative side um because some of it is kind of conflicting so um thank you all so much for it for all the breakdown for everything that you gave us um and for all the information that you provide I have one last
180last question the other question I was asking Miss Paige about it I didn't hear counselors um in any of the wellness work and I was just wondering is there or why is there a separation when they also are part of the threat assessments they are a part of all of the um student behavior issues and all those things that happen and as well I know they do because I was asking this page like you know transcripts and all that but they also are under academic but I think if we're doing a complete Wellness picture that also probably should incorporate counselors so that was my one question that if you all could explain why the counselors weren't listening one minute I think that that is a Fair Point School Board member Jones the counselors are currently
181under the academic team and not the wellness offers but they do work very closely with us on threat assessments and other initiatives that are social emotional in nature for students and schools if I may add I also think there's a difference between Elementary counselors and secondary counselors our elementary counselors are largely doing countlessly our high school school counselors are really responsible for course scheduling graduation transcripts and unfortunately don't have a ton of time for counseling though we want that to occur all that to say um a first step might be to have Elementary counselors in the wellness office and build from there thank you and Miss Parks is giving me the side eye I would love to hear more about how that could work and if there is a plan to implement that at any
182point thanks Dr Harris Muhammad thank you um I sent an email a couple of weeks back maybe a month or so ago I was asking again about students obtaining Telehealth Services I know their school divisions in Virginia Virginia Beach Fairfax County I believe Alexandria or Arlington one of the a school districts has implemented Telehealth services for their students Mr campus I've asked this question before via school board meetings and an email how can our students receive those services that are 24 7 through Telehealth our teachers of course have it in their health insurance plan if they know it or not but it's there but how can we support our students through Telehealth services and I might have missed that because I went to the restroom so um what I can tell you is we've been
183doing research on that and we actually um believe we do have access to some of those Sparks you want to share some of the findings that you shared with me yes um the Children's Hospital of Richmond want to connect with us and they really want to connect with us like next week if they could but we know that we have to complete the mou and other services and so right now we're going to do some visits to Glen Lee Elementary School the Children's Hospital of regimen is working with them and they have similar Dynamics to a lot of our schools we are excited for this partnership we even talked about making sure that there are Provisions in place for students without Health Care coverage and they have some organizations who are willing to support that
184and so lots to come but that is going to be a reality for the students of Richmond City Public Schools followers so is it possible that a board member can travel to visit that program at Glen Lee Elementary School even if it's just 30 minutes or 45 minutes just to hear the Q a about how their process is going um if possible that would be great um I would love to sit in just to gather some information and um and then also so thank you for that also Mr cameras when do you think you can um regroup and re-jump the community conversations that were started at Linwood Holton I know that purpose was a little different but the the I think um to the point that you made um in our discussion several months ago
185that is a needed type of activity throughout our School Division um and when you re-jump that can over be Shepherd be on the list too and and I'm asking it because it's in the middle of a rebuild and so that school is going to be overcrowded again because of the rebuild that's going to happen in two to three years so um I really would like for that school to be at the top of the list when you start your community conversations um thank you Dr Harris Muhammad yes uh what I have decided is probably the best approach is um as we have discussed we will be kicking off uh the community conversations about dreams for RPS 2.0 um and so since we're going to be out and about doing all of that I think it's
186important to hear all of these things come up whether it's a school culture issue or Community issue um and I'm happy to start at Overby okay um Mrs Burke thank you I just wanted to thank Ms Jones for her comments and such detail and I agree regarding um the man in which this group is moving as opposed to punitive measures and I it just dawned on me about two weeks ago I was at Armstrong visiting a history class and I'm going to call his name out Mr Valentine anybody that you send those are the Valentine family this is a teacher that teaches seniors he's fresh out of college he is The Graduate of Armstrong High School when every student walked into that classroom they either had their Chromebook or laptop or whatever or their phone
187before I had an opportunity to connect with them because he stated just as I'm speaking right now every student two different classes put their phones away I've never seen that before in a high school setting so I don't know whether because there is a connection there or whether whether being a young African-American male teacher but they respected him because I'm I'm I'm Pro putting the phones away during the day and pick them up at the end of the day but but because of what I saw in that classroom I was so um beyond the statement of being impressed because that's the way it should be so our students can live up to what is expected so it doesn't always have to be punitive I respect the man in which you all are moving forward continue
188on thank you yes just very briefly building off that um Miss Burke my hypothesis is that all comes from the relationship between that teacher and those students which is why I will continue to um make the case that the best Safeguard we can offer our students is those relationships and cultivating those relationships and when we break those relationships like we heard earlier during public comment it's devastating and so we have to both nurture them but also hold people accountable for developing them that's part of your role finally let me just say while I don't agree with everything and Mr Young's proposal I do appreciate um bring forth new ideas to consider and I do think there are pieces in there that we could work together to to help us move forward and so I just
189want to say thank you for the constructive approach I appreciate um I just wanted to add um I you know I am really um happy to see um this emphasis you know especially with what Ms Jones presented the student support specialists um those seem incredibly necessary in our schools right now the behavior Specialists and if um you know there's any opportunity to build out um a department this would be the one I would choose I think we need many more of these types of positions at our schools in our schools and so you know there's a way to train people and move them here or do whatever we need to do to build out this model I I'd definitely be excited to see that I think our you know our colleagues my colleagues would too
190this is definitely a good way to proceed you know our schools are so desperate for this type of support right now thank you all right colleagues the next item on the agenda is 8.02 receive an update on William Fox Elementary School thank you madam chair for about Vice chair I'll be very quick no ma'am um the the great news is uh we are now in the month of May and in the month of May you are going to see roof trusses go up which will be the beginning of the rebuild of Fox Elementary um the chair and myself uh and others from the RPS team engage in a mediation with our insurance company last week and I'm uh happy to share the details of that in closed session um and then ultimately when that is
191open or or available to be public we'll of course share those details publicly thank you so very much Mr cameras are there any questions any questions comments all right then we'll move forward to the next item on the budget excuse me in that budget next item on the agenda number nine consent agenda 9.01 received for Action board travel and District activity requests Madam Clerk yes ma'am we have three tonight from Miss White it's 500 a piece for teacher appreciation at Carver uh Richmond alternative school and um and Fox Elementary all right it's been moved by Mrs Jones to accept the requests from board member um white in support of Carver Raz and fox in the amount of 500 each for teacher appreciation week is there a second okay Mrs page has seconded any discussion if
192not we are ready for the vote to restore yes Miss White yes Ms Gibson Mr Young I'm staying Miss Rizzy Dr Harris Muhammad Miss Burke yes Miss page yes Ms Jones yes motion passes thank you very much other informational items is in our our um folder on our folder on our laptops on our computers 10.01 board members attending committee meetings 10.02 update on George with 10.03 receive budget transfers under 10 000 any questions or comments regarding any of that if not we'll move forward to number 11. you someone has something I'm Sorry Miss Paige I'm sorry go right ahead yes I do have some um follow-up questions regarding George with but I can see right ahead I can send an email sure please do I do want to note that today the early site work
193package is now open for bid which means uh soon we will Begin work excellent please that's good news uh Miss Fox had a personal commitment was not able to be here today but um she wanted to make sure that I shared that with all of you she has been working quite diligently on that well that's good news Miss Paige thank you superintendent cameras for that um wonderful news um I'm just so excited as well as many members of the board that we are moving forward with this project and thank you for that for that information but we're certain that the Bulldogs are cheering that on so that's great news great news all right and this rizz is on her way back next item is new business 11.01 anyone has new business miss Page excuse me
194Mrs White thank you um Miss Burke for new business I would like uh for the next time for us to get a update on graduation status as well as Dropout status thank you so very much we will note that as we meet tomorrow for our agenda setting any other new business all right number 12 announcements any announcements Ms Jones miss page to follow thank you madam chair I just want to give a shout out to JL Francis um who held their steam day last Friday it was amazing and also huge huge huge kudos to miss Wyatt the reading instructionalists who put it together they had a book tasting and so all of the students have read over 12 books and then they were able to kind of come through and pick out food that was
195mentioned or learned about in the schools and then I was able to read to one of the classes and they were amazing I mean those those the staff over there is doing an amazing job I mean the young scholars are reading so well and they are so on point so shout out to Miss Ryan to miss Callaway Williams and the team over at jail Francis they are a real unit and community and they are accredited for that reason it shows um and then the second thing I wanted to give a shout out to um was the writer's Den who put on the poetry slam this weekend with all the schools the winner was George with but I had never attended I know they had it last year but these young people were amazing I mean
196they talked about every topic from school shootings to anxiety to um you know ADHD and all the things that plagued them and they wrote it into poetry and you could tell just how engaged they were and how that process really helped them break through some kind of balance you know challenges that they have with reading but that was an awesome awesome event I also got to judge that and so that was great and just wanted to lift that up to let folks know that um it's a lot of good things happening on the RPS side and I wanted to make sure I shouted that out thank you thank you so very much Miss page thank you um I'd also like to give a shout out to the overall Bellmead Elementary School teddy bears for participating
197in the Richmond Public Schools mad games on last Friday the competition for the gifted and talented students and they won first place in the P3 category in third place in the construction category in fourth place overall again congratulations and woo whoa okay Mrs White thank you madam chair I would just like to remind everyone that the 2023 Strawberry Street Festival will be on May the 13th from 12 to 4. anybody would like to volunteer we need volunteers come on out have some fun it will be at Clark Springs Elementary and I also would like to say uh thank you to flag Creek Farm um Richmond alternative school had a petting zoo uh last Friday so and the students really enjoy the animals so thank you to Flat Creek Farm for that and I want to
198double back and you know yeah I served as the judge for um as one of the judges for about one of that poetry slam with the writer's den and it's always always amazing I want to thank um our poet Laura at Roscoe Burnham's for being the host and um a woman I taught in fifth grade Jasmine she goes by Jasmine blooms um really does a good job organizing it so it really is an amazing event thank you all right so now is there are there any other announcements all right so then we are now where are we all right so we're at the consent agenda Ms door do you have oh I was just gonna read it we've done that okay so we're ready to go into closed all right sorry this door yes go
199ahead Mr one pursuant to section 2.2-3711a1 and seven of the code of Virginia I move that the school board of the city of Richmond convening closed session to consider the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salaries disciplining a resignation of specific public officers appointees or employees of the school board Personnel actions report of today in the performance of specific board employees and for briefings by staff members pertaining to probable litigation concerning real property matters where such consultation or briefing and open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body second it's been moved by Miss door to go into clothes seconded by Miss White Madam clerk Ms store yes Miss White yes Miss Gibson Mr Young aye Mr Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes Burke yes Miss Paige Miss Jones yes motion
200passes we are now enclosed