RPS School Board Meeting - October 3, 2022

001yes Miss Burke miss Page yes Miss Jones motion passes thank you now we're at recognition we have a recognition of student representative Mr cameras thank you madam chair and good evening everyone I am thrilled to introduce Wilmer Matamoros minhilar Wilmer is currently a junior at George with high school where he is ranked first in his class in addition Wilmer is an early college academy student pursuing an associate's degree at J sergeant Reynolds where he has also been recognized on the Dean's List Wilmer serves as a Boy Scout with Boy Scouts of America and in his spare time enjoys construction and masonry work fishing camping and anime upon graduation Walmart plans to pursue a four-year degree in hopes to return to George with as a history and science teacher please join me in welcoming Wilmer from

002George with high school [Applause] good evening you have something you would like to share excuse me good evening superintendent cameras school board members and valued guests my name is Wilmer Matamoros manjuar and I am currently a junior at George wave high school how to say that I am glad to be here today and that I am honored to say as a student representative at Fort George with I would like to thank RPS for the opportunity to take during enrollment courses and I am taking full advantage of this opportunity because I want to come back here to teach it is my hope that I will graduate with my bachelor's degree very soon tour in or after I graduate high school next year and come back here to teach at George West I hope that RPS will

003invest in more opportunities for dual enrollment because it opens up a lot of opportunities that students will not have would not otherwise have there are there are teachers who want to push students beyond what is normally offered in in high schools and to enrollment is the pathway to help EX expand those opportunities I initially wanted to go into a biomedical engineering however after seeing the impact that my teachers have made especially that of my history teacher Mr Fung has made on multiple students I also want to be a history teacher just like him when I graduate I hope that I will have the opportunity to be able to teach at George with because I also want to be a part of the vision to and Mission to expand educational opportunities for all thank you thank

004you so very much we wish you well in everything that you do thank you can the record reflect that Miss White arrived thank you next we're going to have a we're going to receive a proclamation and recognition of national custodial workers day sorry we have a student presentation excuse me I'm so sorry thank you madam chair I am thrilled to introduce the Huguenot High School marching band with Andrew miles band director you're going to high school is home to concert marching Orchestra symphonic and jazz bands with about 75 students training to be young Performing Arts professionals earlier this year the Jazz Band had the amazing opportunity to provide entertainment at an event sponsored by the Richmond Forum featuring former First Lady Michelle Obama tonight we will be entertained by the musical thrill on Forest Hill

005the award-winning Huguenot marching Falcon Band drum Majors for the 22-23 season are zanaya fasha and David devania Lee both Huguenot High School juniors Mr Andrew miles serves as the Director of band and Orchestra at Huguenot and will be directing the band this evening and I believe they are right outside ready and poised to join us yes foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] there we go thank you [Music] [Applause] we are so glad to be here tonight to provide you with some wonderful entertainment from the musical thrill on Forest Hill [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right boys [Music] um [Applause] [Music] that's right [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] nothing [Music] [Applause] [Music] come on foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause]

006[Music] [Applause] [Music] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right now [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] look look [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] at it [Applause] you know [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I appreciate the band getting us all ready for our Collegiate homecomings very exciting can we give them another round of applause please wonderful job thank you [Applause] let the record reflect that Miss Gibson and Miss Burke have arrived thank you next we're going to receive a proclamation and recognition of national custodial workers day Mr cameras thank you madam chair custodial workers recognition day October 2nd 2022. whereas National custodial workers recognition day is observed annually in workplaces Nationwide to recognize the important contributions of custodial workers who keep our nation well maintained and running smoothly and whereas custodial staff are essential in

007caring for the health safety and wellness of our community and whereas in Richmond Public Schools custodial staff serve with Love by ensuring the cleanliness and safety of the facilities within the division and by creating learning environments that are welcoming and loving for all students and staff and whereas our custodial leaders and teams have been instrumental in helping us return to learning during the covid-19 pandemic and keep our students and staff safe and whereas custodial workers and RPS often go above and beyond in their schools with many serving as mentors now therefore be it proclaimed that the school board of the city of Richmond recognizes October 2nd 2022 as a national custodial workers recognition day and encourages all schools and community members to join in this observance and share their appreciation for our custodial workers [Applause]

008thank you to every custodial member on the facilities team for doing the hard work we appreciate you so very much many of us could not do the work that you do and a lot of times it goes unnoticed so thank you so very much for the work that you do we have our facilities team in the back thank you all so very much for the work that you do alongside our custodians next we're going to receive a proclamation and recognition of our school bus transportation employees and bus safety Mr cameras thank you madam chair national school bus safety week October 17th to 21st 2022 and school bus transportation employees Appreciation Day October 20th 2022. whereas Richmond Public Schools bus drivers safely and efficiently transport more than 90 percent of the division's students each day with

009a fleet of over 200 buses that travel over 2 million miles annually and whereas school bus transportation administrators operators monitors routers mechanics and others keep our buses rolling every day on behalf of our students and Families and whereas school buses transport students not just to and from school but also to and from athletic events extended day programs and field trips and whereas RPS school bus transportation employees serve with love professionalism and enthusiasm welcoming our students with a smile each morning whereas the school board of the city of Richmond and the administration salute and appreciate school bus transportation and employees and recognize the invaluable contributions they make to public education and Student Success now therefore be it proclaimed the school board the city of Richmond joins the Commonwealth of Virginia in recognizing October 17th to 21st

0102022 as a national school bus safety week and October 20th 22 a school bus transportation employees appreciation day and calls upon all citizens to join in celebration and support of school bus transportation employees foreign [Applause] thank you to every bus driver our bus depot bus managers our bus aides thank you for the work that you do every day many of you get up at 3 A.M in the morning to get ready to pick up our kids many of you are driving multiple routes and we appreciate everything that you do you are the first individual that children see before they come to school and many times you are the last person they see when they leave the school property and so we just we're so fortunate enough to have the hundreds of bus drivers that we

011have to transport our children to love on our children to encourage our children to Mentor our children and to just be a friend to our children so thank you all very very very much do we have any bus drivers or members of the bus facility team and the how post this evening if so please stand so we can show you some love some gratitude some thank yous any anyone here or from the custodial team anyone here from custodial team Transportation team come on let's stand up let's show them some love thank you all so very much thank you thank you thank you [Applause] appreciate you next we are preparing for our public information Madam clerk can you review the policy for public comment please yes ma'am I'm sorry one second I'm sorry oh pictures of

012we can can you all come on back so we can take pictures I'm sorry can you all come on back so we can take pictures I didn't see our picture all right we have no lights on stage bear with us Madam clerk can you read the policy for public comment please yes ma'am 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 the school board will listen to comments but will not respond during the public information period persons appearing before the school board will not not be allowed to campaign for public office promote private business ventures or use profanity or vulgar language if

013a community member's comments during the public information session relate to school-based issues the chair May refer that individual to Richmond Public Schools administration for one-on-one consultation and follow-up it is important that all community members who wish to participate in the public information period abide by the guidelines set forth in this policy refusals to abide by the policy will result in the forfeiture of the remaining time this 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 lieu of an oral presentation will not be read during the meeting which shall be posted to the school board platform for ducks thank you when I call your name you come on down um gave excuse me Gail Dobbins if I mispronounce your name

014I I do apologize and then Deborah Jones Kalyn Bryce Keisha King you don't have to sign it hello my name is Gail Dobbins and I'm the physics teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School I would like to speak today about the proposed changes to the model policies for the treatment of transgender students in Virginia Public Schools unequivocally the proposed changes are an attack on LGBT students and a rollback of their civil liberties the proposed changes will prohibit staff from using the correct name and pronouns along with forcing them to out their students to their parents and is an attempt to circumvent Grim vs Gloucester these changes have no basis in fact what is a fact is that 28 of lgbtq Youth experience homelessness or housing instability over half of trans and non-binary youth have had thoughts

015of suicide in the past year and one in five have attempted to take their own life you know what the biggest factors are in reducing these statistics being accepted at home followed by being accepted at school as much as I hope and dream that every trans and non-binary student is accepted at home fewer than one in three report their home being gender affirming this is why outing a student against their will is a dangerous precedent while we can't affect if a student is accepted at home we can affect if a student is accepted at school every student should feel safe and respected at school and with these changes none of our trans and non-binary students can feel that way as one of the lucky one in five I need you to hear me when I

016say that the tiny change of just calling a student by the correct name and pronouns makes a world of difference I have signatures from teachers counselors and principals who all oppose these changes ask any educator who has had a trans student and they will tell you that this policy is simply discriminatory I implore you to follow in the footsteps of the city of Alexandria and refuse to follow these proposed changes if October is bullying prevention month we shouldn't allow anyone especially the governor to bully our students we need to protect and uplift our trans students and that starts by calling them by the correct name and using their correct pronouns for the Safety and Security of our students we must oppose these changes thank you for your time thank you foreign so we celebrate this

017way thank you that's okay we get excited sometimes thank you though thank you go ahead there good evening my name is Deborah Ann Jones I'm an employee of Richmond Public Schools I work in the talent office and I come before you today respectfully to just um submit one of my concerns um on Friday September the 30th it's supposed to be a happy day for me I was retiring from RPS schools at least so I thought my role is to substitute manager so I hire all of our substitute teachers clerical and whatever and some part-time people so I put in a lot of time this year from July until now because I knew the need was great I believe I've filled over 200 vacancies and maybe with substitute teachers and IAS and I think currently we

018may only have four IA substitute position available I think that's a great accomplishment for a team of one I put in a lot of long hours Monday I'm getting a little emotional so forgive me Monday through Sundays to get this test done but when I got ready to retire I was disappointed when I called payroll to say hey how will I be paid on my vacation time and my sick time I was told I wouldn't be paid off my sick time even though I put in all those hours I would told that I wouldn't give my vacation time for a month almost two months a month a month and a half that was very discouraging to me based on that information I had to change my retirement date to uh October the 31st okay so

019then I went on the board docs and I went and looked up our policy someone told me I had to be there five complete years which would be October the 23rd but I would have to stay until October the 31st that didn't make sense to me because previously needs and I'm pretty good at what I do I think um with the substitute teachers I decided to stay and then feel the needs of those positions 30 seconds so I just want you to take in consideration that the time that if the make the policy clear if it's not clear from me make the policies clear and concise for employees that's coming after me that they clearly understand uh the requirements before you walk out to the door of RPS and retire and that's all I have

020to say thank you for your time and your attention I really appreciate it thank you Kaylin Bryce good evening my name is Caitlin Bryce and I'm the literacy coach at Binford prior to this year I was the English department chair at Huguenot for those of you that may not know RPS high schools do not use a quote-unquote scripted curriculum the curricula for each grade level and content area are written by teachers called academic Architects for three years I was an academic architect for high school English I wrote the 10th grade English curriculum during the summer of 2020. in the past few years my original curriculum has been improved upon and revised by talented colleagues across the district and even though that curriculum is good and I stand by and am proud of my work it

021will never be at the level of rigor and depth of a curriculum like L education that has been written over 30 years by professional curriculum writers who do not need to balance their writing with a full teaching schedule who are able to Pilot their curriculum in schools across the country who are supported by actual data instead of anecdotal evidence and who have access to massive funding through Grant proposals and federal initiatives I truly do not think you understand what a massive years-long process it will be to create comprehensive curriculum for grades K through 8 from scratch this is the teacher's guide for the first unit of sixth grade in L education this is only one of three supplemental texts included for each unit and there are four of these for each grade level six through

022eight do you think we will have this much quality material ready for next year or are we willing to let the children of which Richmond rate 30 years while we've develop something of this caliber dismantling the L education curriculum is nothing more than a way to stroke the egos of those who think they know better but have yet to realize the amount of time funding and resources that are needed to do better all while our students will be the ones who suffer curriculum like L education creates Equity across our transient District in that any student has the capability to be successful no matter what school they start or finish in it levels the playing field I implore you to come see this in action at Binford Middle School our incredible english team takes the framework

023of L education and imbues those lesson plans with energy creativity and care I work with phenomenal teachers no two classrooms or instructional periods are the same nor should they be rather than spending time planning lessons our teachers spend time adapting and revising lessons to meet the needs of Learners in their classrooms I implore you not to get rid of our curriculum thank you thank you kaisha King kaisha King is there anyone else that would like to come and speak with the school board this evening there is a clipboard I believe somewhere right there just sign your name and tell us who you are thank you okay good evening my name is Michael Kersey I'm the vice president of the Hermitage Road historic district Association the 19th century home at 3801 Hermitage Road on the 13

024acre property it's part of the Hermitage Road old and historic district we were pleased that the Wiley Wilson proposal for subdividing the Linwood Holton Elementary School and 13 acres property was not adopted and not moved forward in the September 26 working meeting of the school board we had only learned of this report hours before your meeting last Monday and did not have time to consider it or give feedback the Wiley Wilson report has stirred up a lot of interest in the community and various groups are planning to give detailed comment including the Hermitage Road historic district Association please do not allow a decision on this proposal or memorandum of understanding to come before the school board at your meeting today or at a future meeting until such time as you have been able to obtain

025Community feedback there are several aspects of this report that Warren comment but I want to point out that the report simply wrong about the layout of the building the front of the building faces South not North so the five feet setback on the south side does not comply with a 25 feet setback requirement but there's very much more that needs to be said about it we need the opportunity to formulate a thoughtful response we also believe that the school board should discuss this issue with the commission Commission of Architectural Review which will need to approve any changes to the exterior of the building you should also know that at this moment there is an ad hoc meeting of the leaders of the Bellevue Rosedale ginterpark intermitage Road Civic associations tonight where this issue is being

026discussed another important reason to did a further discussion by the board until there's proper Community involvement thank you very much thank you good evening my name is Kelly Giro and I'm the proud parent of two RPS Scholars and I'm here to say thank you to those of you who spoke out against the young Ken administration's model policy for transgendered students and for bringing the resolution to reject it to a vote the rhetoric around why this new policy should replace thoughtful well-researched current model policy villainizes trans and non-binary students for example in a recent interview one school board rep say supports the proposed guidelines because parents need to have a say and who can share a locker room shower room or bedroom with their children as well as who attend overnight field trips I believe that

027statements like this frames trans and non-berry non-binary people as threats to cisgendered people in reality gender non-conforming students are just kids who like many others need a bit more understanding and compassion there are many issues facing our students and attacking the established rights of trans students solves zero of these issues you can't policy someone out of existence if this resolution fails and the proposed policies are adopted I can't see anyone reversing course here I know that RPS teachers and staff will continue to meet the unique needs of their students and let them be themselves thank you thank you is there anyone else here that would like to speak to the school board anyone else here that would like to speak with the school board thank you so very much we're moving on excuse me we're

028moving on to um receive an update on goal one accreditation go to graduation and go eight attendant and they're all going to flow after q a Mr cameras thank you madam chair I'm gonna call up uh Mr Grove along with other members of the academic team to tag team these presentations um our goal is that each presentation is no more than 15 minutes yes ma'am all right good evening school board members my name is John Grove and I am the manager of data analytics um I have with me Mr Jefferson principal director uh Miss Wiggins Principal director Miss Quarles principal director uh Mr J Austin principal director and then finally Miss Gunter director of academic programs and supports we will be we will be presenting the accreditation results in this presentation we'll be providing an

029explanation on accreditation provide the results review a comprehensive School Improvement plan and then provide School accreditation profile data so for accreditation we have a number of indicators and for elementary and middle schools there are six big indicators English math science overall English and math Gap areas and chronic absenteeism for high school we have three additional indicators dropout rate GCI graduation completion index and then finally our college career Civic Readiness index Within These indicators we have three levels level one which is at or above standard two which is near standard and then three which is below standard hypothetically if all indicators are at level two for the division then all of our schools are credited so for accreditation all indicators have to be at performance level one or two yeah all right so you can see

030here are the different indicators and we have listed here English Math and Science the state uses the combined rate which was explained during our last school board meeting and for our academic measures 66 is usually the number schools need to ensure they reach reach or stay accredited note for our Gap in indicators go ahead and go to the next slide for our Gap indicators it is made up of multiple reporting categories black African-American Latino L's swds and EDS for this indicator you can only be afforded one level three out of all the reporting groups in order for this school or area to be accredited all right so here are some additional details and context around accreditation the first one being that level three lock this is something you will see in the accreditation Pro profiles

031this indicates that a school has been at level two or three for five consecutive years unfortunately this means that the indicator instead of reaching level two for a credit day for an accredited status they must obtain a level one and you'll see this in the data here later in the presentation The Chronic absenteeism indicator was waived this year this past school year per vwe and then for the school waiver triennial accreditation we have 14 Schools on this waiver meaning they were credited for three years three consecutive years video e reviewed and granted a waiver for three more years and they will be accredited regardless of indicator status our next piece here is three year average schools are able to use a three-year average or the most recent data towards their rating levels and then lastly

032we have a new indicator for high schools this year and that is the college career and Civic Readiness indicator and it takes into account Advanced coursework CTE work based learning experiences and service learning experience [Music] so here's the breakdown of our schools in terms of the accredited status and the data you see here it shows 2223 and a 1920 comparison between the state and RPS accredited with conditions is the state's verbiage that a school is not accredited as a comparison this the State lost 54 accredited schools this year RPS lost five schools and gained one school science was the common denominator for all schools losing accreditation so that previously that is a overall status of accredited schools this is a breakdown of our indicators that make up the accreditation status here you can see English

033math and science and when looking at this chart I look at the right where you can see the count of schools at level 3 rating ideally we want to see the number of level three indicators be zero however we can see an increase of one school in English three schools in math and 12 schools in science for RPS and when comparing to the state the state gained 175 level three schools in science our challenge with science is not unique to RPS foreign for our Gap areas RPS saw a decrease in English level 3 indicators and an increase in level one for English this is a large this is in large part due to the success we had with our swd population students with disabilities and their performance presented earlier in the month for our student

034engagement indicators for the dropout rate RPS decreased the number of L3 schools by four and then I also described chronic absenteeism is listed there but it was waived this school year so it did not count towards accreditation all right so for clusters I'm just going to give a brief overview of how our clusters performed here is cluster one and for cluster one the science indicator had the biggest impact here we lost five schools Bellevue Cardinal GH Reed miles Jones and Westover all lost accredited status and they are now accredited with condition for cluster 2 excuse me for cluster two out of 26 non-accredited schools in the state that reached a credit this year only 26 Gerald Francis saw huge gains and reached accreditation so simply saying jail Francis was one out of 26 that went

035from accredited with conditions to accredited and you can see that here all right so I'm going to speak to you about cluster three and alternative schools and so when you look at middle schools and I think I alluded to it um during our last meeting I'm going to talk to you about some celebrations that we have I also want to talk to you about the areas of growth and our response to the data um so there there are three things that we need to celebrate the first celebration is Bouchard middle school if you look at the data Bouchard Middle School actually increased in the area of reading as well as math they move 15 percentage points in math and they also move three percentage points in reading and again we're talking about a pandemic and

036learning laws that is something to celebrate it was the only Middle School that moved in both areas so um it's something to celebrate um and so literally if you look at Bouchard they're at 65 in math so literally they're only five points away from accreditation in math um the other celebration is MLK MLK move six points in Reading um which is to be celebrated um yep and then with um John Marshall is the other other celebration for high school and we'll talk about it but they were One content area with science that held them back from accreditation they were Green in every other area with the exception of science so those are our celebrations now let's talk about the growth areas and the realities for Middle School six out of seven of our middle schools

037are in a lock so essentially that means that they have to score outright as John talked about level one 70 70 75 they cannot get it on the level two status and so the only school that is not that does not have a lock is the school that we're pushing for this year which is Albert Hill and if Albert Hill does not make it this year they will be in a four-year lock and so our push is to ensure that Albert Hill is that middle school that becomes um accredited um the the other issue is is science again Binford was in a very good place this year but science of course held uh Benford back from accreditation and also in looking at the data we also know our Ela scores drop due to uh eighth

038grade writing but the response to that is we have actually made some adjustments to the curriculum and we're teaching eighth grade the eighth grade writing has already started we have integrated into the curriculum so that because we know that the eighth grade write-in scores count in the denominator and the numerator and so we are going to focus on that and have focused on it early um and the other piece that we focused on earlier has been what we call individualized learning and the last 30 minutes of every block there are small groups of individualized learning to support the subgroups but will ultimately support our tier one um success as well and then the last piece as we think about um Richmond alternative school we've had a lot of questions around that accreditation and also the

039understanding that we took away vava so the vava students made the Raz numbers look a little lower we're going to do an alternative accreditation plan for as this school Year and hope that video e approves that and we should see they will look at accreditation differently for Razz so with our schools that lost accreditation the common denominator was science we saw a massive decrease in science achievement in the division and in the state only five score schools scored above 66 percent this year compared to 23 schools in 1819. on the right you can see a breakdown of science results for school year 1819 and school year 2122 and the minimum rate needed for a school to stay accredited or gain accreditation one thing to note is we still have a ways to go in order

040to meet accreditation in this indicator so essentially schools will need to make a 20 30 40 jump in science performance this year so the next couple slides here starting here is based on your feedback School Board member Miss page we provided an example of how accreditation data and a comprehensive School Improvement plan work together to drive improvements in student outcomes foreign at the bottom right hand corner you can see a color key showing you the indicator levels so you can see level one two three and that L3 lock where Mr Jefferson spoke of on the top left hand corner it's a little fuzzy here but you can see it in the PDF you can see the overall indicator breakdown so for this school we see six indicators and this school did not meet accreditation due

041to science and English or English is at a L3 lock further exploring that particular indicator they were just shy one two percentage points from meeting that level one accredited status which would have been a huge they made huge gains but they're just very close to getting that level one status and then on the right there you can see the student engagement data breakdown where you see chronic absenteeism and then on the bottom you see a data breakdown where it provides combined rates and Pass rates for our schools all this data for all of our schools is provided at the end of the presentation but I do want to transition here and talk about how this data provides a map to how schools will reach accreditation and the next part is developing a plan to address

042this data good evening as you see school accreditation is a complex puzzle right there are red yellow green integrate indicators level one level two level three and last week we talked about growth versus proficiency so it's a lot of information for our schools to take in at once um so our school Improvement team in conjunction with our Academic Teams our principal directors and our data Team all will work with schools not only to deliver this information but to help make sense of what it means for them in terms of their school-based planning and needs assessments and so what happens for our schools is Every Spring they begin the process of comprehensive needs assessments they conduct the CNA in English math science family and Community engagement culture and climate and chronic absenteeism and so they look

043at their data starting in the spring but they're really able to dig into their data once they receive their preliminary data for the the previous school year we um were able to dig into that data with our teams pretty deeply in August at our summer Pathways Institute um and all the teams were here to help the school teams really make sense of what their data was saying to them so that they could begin the school Improvement planning process and so once the comprehensive needs assessments were completed the teams came together and really started putting their minds together to formulate um strategies what they were going to do this year to help improve based on the data that they received from last year's information what you have is a sample of a school comprehensive Improvement plan

044up on the board we have a hub site that houses all of our school Improvement plans for all of our schools and school Improvement planning is an iterative process right it does not stop it's not just one plan that ends and they're working from that document as the year progresses we're actually undergoing an academic review this year and so the results of that review will help to inform schools if they need to modify their plans or if they can keep on the process that they've written in their school Improvement plan this is also a place for them to um sort of piece together all of their funding sources if they're a Sig school and if they receive Title One funding or any other type of funding they're able to name here how they plan to

045use that funding in support of school Improvement and so our hope is to bring together all of these data sources and all of the pieces that schools have to really put together a plan that they can work from that all stakeholders are able to use a lot of schools explain their planning process to their school teams and they really involve their teachers and staff this year and developing this plan so we were really proud of that work and we hope to continue that work as the school year finishes with the school teams the data team principal directors and all of our stakeholders okay this concludes the accreditation presentation and again all the data breakdown for accreditation is provided in the following slides all right thank you for that I think we're going to take a

046pause for Q a and then go into the next thank you so much for that any questions Ms Jones miss Page Miss Burt Miss renzie Miss White we can't hear you Mr Jones oh thanks can you hear me now okay cool um thank you so much for the presentation um I see that you all have identified um that there's a all hands on deck approach um to meeting these accreditation needs and I appreciate that I appreciate hearing the cross-sectional approach that you all are implementing to get us to where we need to be and at the previous um presentation you mentioned you know about the growth and about you know where we are and so sometimes I think we get lost when we talk about um the comparative that I think that's what you called

047it you know versus the growth data um and so it's kind of hard to see a vision for a plan if we only are you know talking about the growth so my question is um what supports you know are in place I mean I heard you talking but we realized that this is going to be a huge push on teachers and students with testing and trying to get to these goals that you all are um you know kind of putting in place and we know that that's going to require a lot so wanting you can either answer them now or feel free to share them later because everybody else has things but like what supports are in place um and I mean realistic supports not you know here's the plan but then you've got to

048figure it out like what's the real supports um and then what are the um you know how are we thinking about I heard something about coaching climate but I missed it but how are we being realistic about um burnout and the pressure that is going to be required on teachers now that we know some schools have lost accreditation some are locked and some you know are are kind of like right as you said on the cusp so I'd like to just hear more about or and um you know comprehensive plan to really support teachers and students during this process because it's going to be a long line I'm sure um I think I had another question but I'll hold off on that one I think the the answer we speak for elementary and middle school

049the first tangible piece is really what we call the individualized Learning time or what we call small groups and so we know in middle school we started kind of late last year this year we started in October right and so we went over this summer went over the plan of what that looks like for each school so with that 90 minutes the last 30 minutes is dedicated to intervention for students that are level two and again you can have tutoring after school or before school but the reality is that all kids don't come to that right but we have them as a captive audience doing that 90 minute block so the last 30 minutes is dedicated to small groups and Sid and her team are working with schools to ensure that it's done with Fidelity

050um and that where there may be gaps they're supporting to help them get better um and then the other piece that I can speak to from the principal standpoint is we've been clear around a coaching plan right like how do you really support teachers because it's not about getting rid of teachers right it's really about supporting them so that they are their best every day for kids and so with that really supporting our principals with having concrete coaching plans because you can't coach every teacher in your building right but you may be able to coach a segment so that we can see the results that we need to see um and I also want to name that this same uh brief data dial we did today we had a three days of this with our

051Academic Teams and so we were really able to dig into each school's individual data from the lens of our English team our math team our science team and really pinpoint what each individual School needs so not globally they actually wrote a list of schools that they want to help to Target and support this year based on this data based on school Improvement plans the Specialists also were able to view the school's Improvement plans to make their suggestions of ways they saw our support bases what they based on what they asked and how we can align everything we want to help schools but we also want to know what they're asking for right so we don't want to go in with a you know we say to do this we want to know what is it

052that you say you need help with and how can we come in and support you so a combination of coaching providing tutors providing funding for extended day and this year schools will be able to really use their data to decide how they're going to support their students after school or Saturday academies or boot camps or whatever that's going to look like um we want to help coach them through that but also help support them develop those plans with really a focus on who needs that support based on what the data is saying so not Global support but really targeted support this year follow-up manager thank you um and just one last thing so I do is just making sure um I guess you all have the resources because I'm quite sure that each school is

053some schools are going to need more than others and so just making sure that I guess you keep us abreast of the resources and making sure that whatever those plans are and what they look like and those that we always talk about like hard the staff schools we still have shortages and things like that and so just making sure that we have all that we need so that each school can be successful as opposed to we couldn't get over here because we didn't have this or we couldn't get this so thank you so much miss page thank you for this detailed report and thank you for the questions that my colleague answered will ask someone that um very similar so I mean thank you for that response I really appreciate it so my question is

054can you resend the presentation because what's in what has been uploaded in board Dot is not clearly defined the information so like I'm just going to give an example like the color coding it's not clear yes yes we can do that yeah okay send it to everybody thank you Miss Burt thank you madam chair thank you all so much for this presentation just have three comments or questions um the first I think was Mr Jeff I think it was whichever one stated celebration that's so important Fairfield Elementary School I'm so elated I don't know what to do in this time because it's been challenging and all the schools eventually will be fully accredited but we must always stop to celebrate whether it's 10 points more 15 points more my question to you is how other

055children being lifted up and celebrated within each school we can't wait until the end of the year or the end of the nine weeks celebrations need to be ongoing especially at the end of the day when we have results expected results too pull our children up but if we don't do something special for them along the way then we're just spinning the wheel that's my first question my second question is a comment is regarding the eighth grade writing score this is something that has gone on for years and years and years and it really goes back to the elementary level because you can't wait until you get in the eighth grade to figure out how to teach writing or how to write so my question is how is writing infused in all subjects be it

056science math writing Beyond just general writing what's what's the expectation every day along the line of writing and then my last question is I have four questions so I continue you want to answer those first celebration and writing and then I have two more follow-ups yep and I think as Sydney alluded to um what we've done this year is Empower schools and so we've said to every school that they should have a PBIS plan and the climate and culture plan and of course that includes positive celebrations not only for Scholars when they meet the Mark or show Grove but also for staff members and so each school has a PBIS plan a climate culture plan that includes that in addition they also assign funds to support that um now your second question as it relates

057to writing um we did make adjustments to the El curriculum and there is writing in sixth and seventh grade but the feedback that we got overwhelmingly from principles and from ELA teachers and Architects was that with eighth grade we waited too late to do the technical because the writing test is really technical right we waited too late to start that and so we started the process earlier but to your point they they are doing the writing in sixth and seventh grade um but with that we just make the adjustment to eighth grade to start in October versus is waiting to November or December um if I may add to that Madam chair hello I just want to add a little bit to what Solomon said for the elementary level we spend a lot of time

058on making sure our students and our staff Wellness comes into effect we have student wellness rooms in our elementary schools and we also have Wellness rooms and wellness spaces in our elementary schools because we know it's been stressful the last few years with a pandemic then coming back to school and all of the pressures you always have with achievement and so Wellness is a big part of what we look at also for our administrators because we definitely want to balance as we are striving for up improved achievement also in with the EO curriculum there are modules that are dedicated to reading along with a lot of writing that goes along with the modules and responding to their reading so there is quite a bit of writing that students have to do every day who are

059still making some adjustments to continue to have writing across the curriculum so that we're writing more in science which amplify has assisted with and that we're writing more in social studies not just with our performance-based assessments but also with our day-to-day so we are constantly looking for additional ways that writing is a part of what we have as far as our everyday curriculum thank you may I continue I missed calls you wanted to all right my last part if I may is I'm glad to hear that the Amplified program with the science does include I like amplify I like what I see my concern is if the teachers have enough time to truly teach that because the majority of the day is spent on math and reading on language arts so in order to effectively

060have a great science lesson just as many minutes should be spent daily on the sense piece so I'm concerned about that because anytime we can pass everything except that science that means that we need to have the opportunity for more Hands-On peace opportunities to teach and I do want to go back to celebrations I'm very familiar with the wellness program very been in the wellness rooms love it one in myself and especially at Woodville and relax but my question is when I say celebration I guess we in the Seventh District will have to do it to show you all what to do okay because we have to celebrate we must celebrate we absolutely do and and we do a lot of celebrations um just each nine weeks we do celebrations with students we do weekly

061celebrations when it comes to attendance or invite me to some of those celebrations I would love to that invite me absolutely absolutely we celebrate really especially in Seventh District so we definitely will invite you to our celebrations absolutely absolutely and my last question is um School Improvement plans does that change quarterly or every week or every nine weeks how is that done and how are people held accountable for the school Improvement plan and I'm sorry to interrupt Miss Wiggins could you also respond to Mrs Burke's point about science time because I think that's important yes um we have actually increased science time in fourth and fifth grade to 70 minutes a day to 70 minutes a day 70 70 yes because we we noticed the same thing that we needed to put more time in

062science because we had a lot of time in Reading we had a lot of time in math and we saw a lot of growth from our students because of that but we needed to put additional time in science because just in my cluster alone I would have had five additional schools accredited if not for science so that's where we really have to put a lot more time especially last year was the first year of amplify so it's a really great program where there's a lot of reading and writing for students so we really um this in this second year we'll have an opportunity to really push forth and do great things with the curriculums for Amplified so um the additional question could you ask me the answer the question was about um the school Improvement

063plans is that to do every a quarter nine weeks six weeks so School Improvement plans are reviewed monthly but adjustments are made Based on data like for this year we have the vga's I think John talked about last time that we have beginning of the year vgas which our schools have already been involved in we will have mid-year vgas and then of course we'll have the end of the year at sols and of course we have um assessment District assessments and different things so as we get data then we make adjustments in our plans so it's not the Cadence of maybe every week or every two weeks it's just when we get updated data and we look at our plan and we're reviewing and we need to make those adjustments we do so um so

064it's based upon the data and what we're seeing in the classrooms and that's how we make the adjustments and my last two questions are the superintendent um Mr cameras I was at I visited preschools today for a project and our pre-kindergarten students still taking paths testing or yes yes they actually take it in November beginning November last of October so our first through third grade students have already taken Pals they they take it early in the school year but Kindergarten takes it later on but we still have our kindergarten students involved in microphase assessment which is connected to the El curriculum so we already have data for students and we are already working with students even before we take Pals because we don't want to wait until October November I would love to see the

065pals data because we're truly following students on this end you follow the students from pre-kindergarten to kindergarten to first and that's where we see where our weaknesses are our gains so I know you have the data but I would like to see that data as well and I'm sure other board members would like to be able to follow that and my last question is and I'm done instructional leaders instructional um persons Mr superintendent are we in the process of filling the gaps of those persons that instructionally aren't in place those things that we have right now are you speaking about administrators or others not administrators but those persons I don't want to call any names ooh like instructional coaches yes coaches as well as yes we've been able to hire a new elementary science person

066we are excited that we now have her um last year we had Mr Biermann and we had another um a specialist a part-time she was between Math and Science now in elementary K-5 we have one science person who's supporting us principal director quarrels and I have already met with her we're already working with her and she's I think she's only been working about two weeks but we are already making a plan coming up with a plan for how we want her in schools working with teachers making sure that we have formative assessments that are guiding our instruction so where that work is already being done I look forward to hearing about the other persons to be hired but thank you for sharing that Miss renzi chair and thank you all for this presentation I'm wondering

067if you could help me with interpreting data so if we could go to Benford on page 24 . um so we see the first of all could you make it clear because I have gotten some questions with the difference between the combined rate and the pass rate yes great question the combined rate takes into account student growth which we explained during the last board meeting I presented data the pass rate is just simply that students who passed over students who took it those are simple formulas but the combine the biggest difference is growth for the combined rate right and so the combined rate is used determine accreditation correct both could be used to determine accreditation okay and so with Benford you see that the English is sitting at 66 and it's you know I'd like

068you to gain this yeah yeah actually you pointed out a great example of how level three lock is played into accreditation so if it wasn't for the L3 lock Binford would be accredited L2 in English right and so because of the L3 lock they have to get to 75 combined rate or they have to get they have to reduce their failure rate by 10 two years in a row which gets a little bit complicated but this is what what you see here simplifies that process for schools so instead of schools trying to guess what they have to do they could easily and what's not shown here is if you hover over it it will actually tell you what they need in order to meet accreditation okay all right so they still because of that lock

069yeah okay um see they're had another question at every school it is apparent that um there are you know I mean their performance disparities between our white students and our black students I mean pretty Stark differences at every school um is there anything being done to address Equity or to you know look at this and try to determine the cause all right so yes when we are looking at the school Improvement plans that is one factor that we look at we look at our student subgroups we talk about our student subgroups in our district meetings in our school individual school meetings and we talk about individual students not just you know groups of students we really look at down to the students we know that we have gaps in our subgroups we're well aware and

070we are working toward closing those gaps that's where Cindy and her team are so great in making sure that our small group time our personalized learning time that we have every day that we're using the sips program to really work with our students who need additional reading support we look at what math support we need and we're making sure that our students get that John can identify every student who needs support and we make sure they are part of our client an extended day in our small group time we know who they are when they're in the El curriculum time or when they are with Eureka all day long we are looking and making sure that our students are continuing to progress and that's why we're so excited about the growth know our students some

071of our students haven't met proficiency but even in the midst of everything they went through last year with covet and teachers being out and students being out and parents sick and all those things that went on our teachers our administrators our nurses our Personnel our support Personnel our IAS did a wonderful job still making sure our students were growing and we are so proud of them so but that is the work that we do every day as part of our school Improvement plan so yes we have work to do and we know that we need to close those gaps for our students yeah I mean you know I just wonder if you've identified any supports that could work outside of school as well as in school to make sure we're working to close gaps um

072I also want to point out that over the past three years we've worked um as a collective as a team and develop our response to intervention model um now transitioning to our mtss model but that model really um has helped us to number one target the students who need additional reading and math and now additional social emotional support bringing on the mtss piece but we're actually able to provide evidence-based targeted interventions to those students each of those students has a student intervention plan that specifically says I need reading support I need math support and the S bit or student innovate student interest I'm sorry school-based intervention team comes to the table and evaluates those plans on a regular basis for those students to see is a student making progress in their sips group or in

073their read 180 course or whatever the intervention is that they're doing to see does a student need to continue with intervention can the student move out of this intervention and we're really proud to um to highlight that students who are receiving that tier three intervention that addition no reading and math support are showing growth at a higher rate than our students who are not in those tier three intervention programs as as it should be because they're getting a double sometimes a triple dose of reading and math support um so that's the the process we're still um developing now adding on to the um RTI with the social emotional mtss process I'm at the academic tiers of support really um aim to capture those achievement gaps that you highlighted yeah I just like to see those

074change you know I know you're working um could you tell me the three schools I think you said three schools who got the triennial accreditation the three schools that achieve trianal triennial accreditation did you say there were three of them there are actually 14. 14 14 schools that are under that that waiver list correct okay is are they listed somewhere um yes so go to a school um let's go to like open I believe we'll probably won't be one or Broad Rock excuse me I'm sorry not rock should be one do you see where it says waiver there uh right next to accredited yep that indicates that this school is on a waiver status and so for example here for Broad Rock they did not meet accreditation in science however State accredited because of the

075waiver okay and that last three years three years correct and it depends on uh schools are very in terms of how long the waiver lasts so it's not not all schools are on the same time period okay thank you Miss White thank you madam chair foreign and thank you Mr Grove for this presentation again and I would like to say um Yes again someone said celebrate and yes we sure celebrate the growth of our students quite a few schools they came to the top in growth and I'm really proud of that but I do have some questions and I have been reviewing your data and screening your data and we're 16 we have 16 schools that are accredited is that correct um I don't see anything but accredited and not accredited and it looks like

076we have went backwards we were 19 20 and 19 for a long time years and then we're 16. and I hear all the great things that we're doing now um to improve and that is a good thing but my question is and muster Grover I have to say I have identified the students just like you have targeted students and I think that with your system that you have built it makes it more simplified for teachers principals to actually look color coordinated and they can actually Target that student and provide them the resources the thing that I'm having problems with is I've seen the students that were Target there were no resources there's still no resources so there still needs to be more resources and my other question is um I think one of the principal

077directors was here talking and I'm looking at the middle schools for that principal director I'm not sure for Middle School why did why why is all the middle schools not accredited and haven't been accredited for a while and I like to know what contributions have you added to these outcomes because I haven't seen any real changes and I'm a little Disturbed that our elementary and our middle schools that are specialty schools or IB programs they're not being accredited so what where is it are these on the IB Pro what kind of program are the IB schools on that they they're not being accredited did someone answer that well I'll take the uh the question around middle school and again as I explained for middle schools uh six out of seven of them have the lock

078um and quite frankly I believe uh Lucille Brown had a lot um MLK when I and I believe Henderson when I came on board that they had the locks but if you look at the 2019 data Benford was well on his way to being accredited and I mean they had dramatic growth in every area um if you also look at River City River City had growth especially in their El popular well Elkhart Thompson at the time I had growth in their population um I will say this that this year looking at the data I mean Bouchard was the the real success story but again we did see some um we saw Middle School we were being honest we saw that there was some regression in our middle schools and so also if we look at

079the attendance issues that we had at some of our schools this year that was also a challenge um and so hopefully this year um you know um that we were not on pandemic but we're starting to see improvements with the attendance we're starting to see uh we have uh substitutes in every classroom we have teacher attendance is stronger hopefully we will see some more uh some more growth and proficiency happening in the middle schools but as I said there's only one Middle School this year I mean really unless a school dramatically um moves 15 to 20 points that has the possibility of being accredited this year through level one and level two I have a follow-up also on that um that you had just stated and this is dealing with one of the schools that

080I represent uh is Richmond alternative school and I heard that you said that this year we would do a alternative plan for a rest um what made you think of that this year because the same issue has occurred last year most of these students come from a comprehensive school and we already know that when they take the test there they may go back to their other school and they don't get the credit for it so to I heard you today say well we're going to do an alternative plan and last year we was brought that was brought up to the attention and alternative plan never happened so is that really going to happen this year well I can speak to uh and I had this conversation with Mr cameras and he gave me his Blessing

081to um to do an alternative accreditation plan for Amelia Street as well as Ras because if you look at a million Street a million street is also having some difficulty and I can say in years past I didn't have anything to do with the accreditation plan that was a decision that was made by you know uh the CIO so in this case you know um Jason S told us that we can move forward the plan we actually video e we'll be releasing um the memo and the and the procedures for the accreditation plan in a couple of weeks and we will be on the call and we'll work with the principals uh Dr Phillips as well as um Mr Trotter to get that plan um in place and again it has to be approved out

082of video e but we will do everything in our power to ensure that we meet the standard thank you I have a couple of questions and a couple of comments and then we're going to move on um I'm sorry go ahead Miss Gibson uh thank you madam chair I have a comment and a question um my my comment is is we're going to be talking more about curriculum um you know to me the the thing that really stands out in looking at the presentation that we're going to be getting on curriculum and um and in this conversation is that an overwhelming number of teachers who the ones who did submit an overwhelming number highlighting the concerns with these curriculum materials is that they're not aligned to the sols it's it's very it it comes up

083again and again right um aligned with the Sol allows students to choose your strategy alignment to the Sol alignment presenting all sols we need to figure out how to line a Eureka with the Virginia sols it's not exactly aligned this alignment to the SOS this comes up again and again and again in those responses it's it's glaring um and to be frank the conversation about the curriculum started with the school board right and so it well it didn't start with the school board it started with a lot of teachers who came to us coming to the podium and expressing concerns right so if those teachers were coming here to talk to us they've come to talk to us as individual board members clearly now we've done a survey and there's a there's a considerable concern

084with that maybe this is a hypothetical question but like my question is why why is this still an issue right why did we have why were we not already getting that survey why were we not already listening to the teachers because if you look at this survey results we should not be surprised about where we are when it comes to accreditation we should not be um so the question that I have is [Music] um thinking looking forward um how can we get ahead of this like as a board member I would like to have an understanding of where we're going to be next year this year so I guess what I would like is is a date that we're going to have a follow-up presentation with some data points to tell us how things are

085looking and then we can talk more about the curriculum but I mean I just have to believe again I mean we as a district did a huge disservice purchasing a very expensive curriculum that is clearly not aligned so we should not be scratching our heads wondering why we're here thank you thank you I have a couple of questions and I have some statements as well did I hear Mr Solomon you say that the eighth grade writing skills standards are being unpacked earlier like in sixth and seventh grade instead of in the eighth grade so second part to that are our sixth and seventh grade English teachers or literature teachers writing teachers are they looking at the curricula and eighth grade writing and are they working together to teach those skills in sixth and seventh grade

086did I did I hear you say that was happening now so we have had conversations about the vertical alignment but I think most of us know that the eighth grade assessment is the writing is expository right and also persuasive and so with that a lot of the writing in sixth and seventh grade is narrative and so what we've done and I know I talked to Autumn before she um but before the year started around uh making sure that we do have some of that writing um so that Scholars are exposed to it in sixth and seventh grade but we have talked to teachers about that vertical alignment in conversations around our writing so yes you are they they're having those vertical alignment conversations now okay um second thing when we're talking to the public about

087a lot of our acronyms that we're using that align with or that that describe our accreditation they hear a lot of our acronyms and they may not know what those acronyms are and so I have not heard anyone on the team explain what a CNA is to the public I'm sorry I didn't explain the acronym but CNA stands for comprehensive needs assessment and what does that do and what does it present so the comprehensive needs assessment is the school's process of breaking apart their data just like we did before um in all the subjects subject areas but also in school culture and climate family engagement um chronic absenteeism all those really important indicators to assess where they are and where they stand as a school and so they usually take a team of teachers Department

088chairs principals other school staff to really assess where are we as a school this is my needs assessment time and then from my needs assessment I'm then determining next steps as to how I can prove I can improve these individual indicators and so that's not a One-Stop shop that sometimes a month-long planning process depending on the data points they have in the spring and then we know they get preliminary accreditation data closer to the fall so they'll start that process early assessing some of those indicators once we have that concrete data they can really dig in on things we talked about their level two indicate they're level three indicators their achievement gaps and then really start to name some strategies to improve those individual pieces to improve the school as a whole but cna's comprehensive

089needs assessment and the reason why I asked for that to be explained is because sometimes Virginia Department of Education website is not the friendliest website so they got to go to different tabs and then a different Tab and then a tab within that tab to find what you're just talking about so I really would like for us to drive and be an intentional and it's a habit because this is the work that you do every day and because you're talking to your colleagues it's easier not to always say the whole name because it's a lot of words and one acronym but I really would like for the division to be more intentional about including parents on our school Improvement team and not assuming that they know what the school Improvement plan consists of and what

090it's about so I really appreciate that um this is for Mr Cameron's on the lines of being intentional we have a lot of instructional leaders in that division with superpowers all of them I believe that have superpowers I would like for the division to be more intentional about looking at where the superpowers of our instructional leaders can continue to move our division forward academically so what do I mean by that what I mean is this it is we have to be very crafty and we have to be very direct and intentional about placing our instructional leaders where their superpowers lie because when we place them in areas that would not produce the results in a urban District like Richmond City Public Schools and they're they're running their wheels because they're working and they're working and

091they're working we have to really unpack their superpowers and move them where they need to be last two things that I want to share celebrations are important and I just want to take this opportunity to thank the sixth district principals who are working through trauma with their students they have many students that are Transit and providing the sport support to the staff and students and families that is very much needed we have female superpower ladies or super latest with superpowers that are leading schools in the sixth district and they are working very hard and I wanted to just shout them out because um we have dealt with some trauma in one of our middle schools last week at several of our schools are facing are facing um some trauma that is external but I just

092wanted to they are working they have shown some growth in some areas there is some work to do but I'm very proud of the work that they're doing and that's it and we can move on to the next I'm Sorry Miss Jones you yet is that one last question because I didn't hear it I heard you meant um you mentioned something about time being expanded for the elementary students in science and I was just wondering is that the same deal going to happen for middle school students um because I do know that there is you know talk about English and math all the time and science teachers wondering like okay what's going to happen with that so yeah and so for middle schools they have 90 minutes of science every other day and so we

093we actually exceed the expectation of VOE in terms of the the minutes that they get in science um but the piece as we talked about is integration of writing and Science and Math across the curriculum but they do get 90 minutes of science every other day in Middle School thank you all so much great job thank you absolutely great presentation thank you all next we're going to have a discussion on go to graduation I believe school board members for this presentation on graduation I have with me Mr Jefferson principal director Dr Blackwell assistant principal at George with high school and then also Mr Jay Austin uh principal director and then Mr Canaday associate director of family engagement and this presentation we'll be providing an explanation on our graduation rates a breakdown on our results provide

094alternative education program program evaluation data and summarize a couple school year 21-22 initiatives on this slide we are showing the on-time graduation rate and for measuring our graduation results we use Virginia's on-time graduation rate this is a cohort based um formula meaning students who enter High School their first time in ninth grade are calculated into this formula transfer out do not calculate in the denominator which you can see there on the formula and then lastly another huge factor in calculating the on-time graduation rate are our sliders sliders are else English language Learners and students with disabilities that are enrolled but need additional years to graduate and if these students do not graduate on time and are still enrolled they will slide into the next cohort dropout rate is our other measure we use for gold

095too similar to the ogr the dropout rate identifies the percent of students that have dropped out from our cohort an additional graduation measure that is used in the state of Virginia is the graduation completion index and this is used for accreditation which we shared in the previous presentation all right and I'll be talking about the graduation uh Trends and the data as well as our our strategy around graduation because I think we all know Jay Austin is as George with and we're allowing him to focus on George with and so I'm actually picking up the high school um responsibilities um until um until um he joins the team all right so um the first piece is so as you look at the graduation rate we did have a decrease by four percent um overall and

096the major concern that we saw as we looked at the data was around our um our Hispanic our latinx students um and we saw a decrease of 13.5 percent um from last year um and then the other piece we did see that um we had there was no uh real increase but it was kind of stagnant and sustained um growth amongst African-American students and our economically disadvantaged students um and then also um as we talked about with Richmond alternative school we actually took vava Scholars out and so that impacted um our data for um for Baba I mean for Raz and then also as you look at George with we saw a significant decrease in the the uh ogr and so with that here's our strategy as it relates to um high school and so

097yep and Matthew's going up to so I'll give you a chance to actually look at um our graduation data this is by subgroup and then the next slide is by school um and so you can look at that but I really want to focus on the strategy right and so with the strategy and Jim Jim Black was going to come and talk more specifically about else but I will talk about the broad strategy and so over the next two to three weeks um I'll be meeting with the high school principals to help them set their graduation targets right because in order for us to make any growth before we have any plan we have to have clear targets right so we'll set the targets um and then from there we will start our weekly meetings

098um the week of October 10th and so on those weekly calls we will have um all seven of our comprehensive um high schools as well as Raz and essentially what we do is we talk about uh to make sure that they understand um the number of students who expected to graduate talk talk about their strategies and then also in some cases do some training with them to make sure that they are on top of the graduation rate and then in addition to those uh you know we talk about the dashboard and the watch list with all comprehensive schools we're going to have individual meetings with four of our schools and not to say that we won't have them with additional schools but our four focused schools are going to be George riff Armstrong Raz and

099Huguenot and if you look at the data that shows uh it shows that's what we need to spend our our efforts and so we'll have individual meetings with them and um I'm happy to say that video e up Beverly Britt I think he was a former principal here as well Clinton Ballard who um they have um agreed to work with us and actually come do some side-by-side training with our principals and with the division so that we can see a growth in our on-time graduation rate um and then the other piece and I think Jennifer Beckham was going to talk more about this if you look at the data especially at George with and even at Huguenot we have a huge impact in our L population and Latino students there's a huge drop and we

100just need to figure out how to um how to make those increases happen and so she's going to talk to you about that more in depth um and then the last piece we talked about with Raz uh supporting Raz um in addition to gonna actually add a counselor at Raz to actually look at the um the transcripts and to help with that support as it relates to um Raz and then the final piece is actually doing walkthroughs of the high schools at the four high schools that we talked about to really figure out like how we can help support and make movement as it relates to the teaching practices and also supporting kids for graduation so those are the strategies Mr Solomon I'm sorry what the four high schools are Armstrong Huguenot rise and then

101I missed one I'm sorry George will thank you yes I'm gonna turn it over to G and she's going to come talk to you about our uh our L strategy Dr Blackwell and one second before Dr Blackwell speaks I do want to touch up on vava he's playing this initiative in this situation in our division this year RPS started the partnership with virtual Virginia Virtual Academy vava a state school agency during the school year 1617. this agency had students across the state enrolled into their Virtual School as a result of the partnership the student's data was reported within RPS specifically Raz and Henry Marsh the partnership essentially boosted our divisions ogr by 1.5 percent and you can see the difference on this particular chart with Raz without vava and just vava so these students essentially

102boosted their rates by 100 you can see the difference there essentially this year is where we're able to see a true picture of our graduation rate without Baba students so this is a new thing that we had to clean up this year and we'll explain more about the cleanup process later on good evening [Music] all right so I'm going to talk a little bit about um what we're doing at George with high school to combat our dropout rate for L's and increase our graduation rate as well so I was fortunate enough to be able to engage the staff and the students through my dissertation last year and I was able to find through interviews with our teachers and with administrators and counselors a couple of common themes and I was also able to find similar

103themes through surveys with our current students at George with high school so a couple of factors relating for dropouts for English language learners and some of the themes that we saw were that of chronic absenteeism also the work or the culture Gap that exists with our English language Learners the lack of instructional and social emotional supports specifically bilingual supports that exists and then this this theme or this notion that teachers are trying and they're showing up to work every single day and they are pouring out their hearts and souls and just trying every single day to provide what is best for all of our students so these are the themes that came across in our interviews with um with our teachers with the surveys with our English language Learners we saw that our students actually

104feel very connected to this to the teachers that we have in the building they feel more connected with our leap teachers because those are the teachers that are initially taking the time to build those relationships but they know that their general education teachers are there and that they are trying so hard every single day to meet them where they are and to help them achieve academic success another huge finding was that parents want to be involved this is probably one of the biggest findings that I could say in in the throughout my research problem but parents want to be involved however they are extremely constrained due to their work schedules or even just because of the lack of bilingual support at our school um unfortunately um because of the lack of bilingual support we do

105not have a very strong parent engagement uh plan and we are definitely in need of more bilingual resources um additionally when I was able to interview our students directly this is probably another amazing finding that I would see but a lot of our teachers would say that the main reason that our students leave school or before graduating from high school is because of work or personal constraints family obligations our English language Learners you know they have to go to work but actually only 50 percent of our students say that it's due to our commitments and so a couple of years ago when we were able to create konganas you know we're so excited to be able to fill in that gap for students that had so much motivation to actually want to finish High School

106however the other 50 percent they're leaving due to this phenomenon in the literature called social contagion they are literally watching their feet their peers leave and deciding to do the same thing and so with that I do have some recommendations on how we can proceed to combat the dropout rate for English language Learners the first thing that we've already done this year is to um resource and restructure our resources um but what I am asking for is for additional leap teachers beyond our compliance numbers we're so fortunate that we do have leap teachers available and they are phenomenal at what they do however if we only continue to meet our compliance numbers we are never going to be able to meet real Student Success we have to think about what our students need and push

107for more leap teachers in in reality every core classroom at George with should be a collaborative classroom either with teachers for providing special education services or leap services additionally I'm requesting a compliance coordinator similar to what exceptional education has but for leap this would be able to free up a whole individual to look at all of the compliance concerns that we have just within our school looking at accommodations classroom modifications making sure that every single student is receiving their services and not just that there's just so many details that go into making sure that all English language Learners have a plan and that they are meeting that plan with the success every single day um our leap department chair does a phenomenal job but he cannot continue the way that he's been going um and

108also teach a full caseload of students every single day the job is just way too much for one person and it needs to be um a person without a caseload of students especially at our large L population schools um similarly we are in desperate need of bilingual office Associates we have one office associate in our front desk and she does so much of the work but she is inundated day in and day out and it's if I'm just being honest it's just too much for one person and so a bilingual office associate would be able to be cross-trained with all of our attendance concerns be able to combat our chronic absenteeism would be able to help our parents and our students with enrollment with the transfer requests and because there are large numbers and newcomers

109we average about 150 if not 200 newcomers every single year at George with high school and again for one person to be able to do all of that work it's just entirely too much and the addition of a bilingual office associate will completely help we're also looking for specialized parent programming and that's uh for our English language learner families again to focus on family engagement connecting families to bilingual mental health supports they go through so much trauma just to be able to step foot onto the soil and then for them to land in the U.S educational system and not know a thing they need somebody to guide them every single day and that is what a parent a parent program would look like at George with high school um additionally I would also request for

110bilingual uh tutors to be embedded in every classroom year round um and this would be to support instruction again within the classroom and for test preparation the next recommendation is for continuous professional development again this notion that our teachers are just screaming they they say we're trying we're trying but we need more they need professional development they need help with instruction and Scaffolding for else they need to know how to be able to use the academic language that is found in all of the content areas so that we are able to have academic discourse and look at reading and writing again in all of our content areas by being able to provide this type of professional development we are really going to see growth not just in our numbers but our students lives and success

111additionally we need culturally linguistically relevant Dropout prevention for all of our staff um I would also like to include that the use of early Warning Systems to include academics in chronic absentee absenteeism and discipline all together learning to use a system like that within our school that teacher that is teacher friendly would go a long way for our teachers to know again by students who is uh just flagged for being a Dropout would be able to we would be able to create further plans for our students and again for a space for these cultural and personal anecdotes because for our English language Learners one day they could be coming to school and the next day they're not there and we have to be able to provide for those personal anecdotes finally I want to talk

112about a College and Career uh Dropout prevention program that I would just love to see implemented at George with we're already kind of starting something like that this year through the use of Edgenuity where students are over age and under credited they've been placed in the class with our amazing Dr Coggin she is a leap teacher and then we have other teachers of records that are actually over the edge annuity portion however the whole point of that class is exposure exposure to post-secondary Opportunities and just stopping or not stopping the conversation or just you know getting to high school graduation but actually giving them the opportunity to see what it what other opportunities are out there after high school graduation learning to um learning to take tests and learn study skills and have habits I

113would also be a part of this recommendation for our College and Career Dropout prevention program the last piece that I would like to recommend is actually embedding a fifth period for George with high school a time a dedicated time for intervention or enrichment for social emotional learning time that does not interfere with our core class time or to take out time from elective classes but embedded into the master schedule where our students would receive again this remediation test preparation intervention social emotional learning or other enrichment time thank you Dr Blackwell [Music] Miss Burt um hold on for one second please are we are you have something to add to this presentation before we go into q a I'm sorry I didn't take my mask off if I may yes can you please um show the

114Dropout yes slide that's very important and I think we can forego the rest for now but let's please explain slide 10 and then let's wrap it up thank you so one of the one of the areas that we wanted to explore is where is our Latino Hispanic population right now in this current current moment with that being said you can see six lines here all representing different cohorts 2020 is blue 2021 is orange and our current line is the red one with 2022. now what this chart shows is 2023 and that's the teal colored and that's our current cohort graduation cohort right now what we can see from this chart is it is well below the previous three years cohorts and this is an extremely it's a positive indicator that we're moving in the right

115direction in large part to El newcomer program one of our alternative education programs improved course planning for L population and also conganus so I just wanted to share this particular slide here just to show just to show that we're training in the right direction with this particular reporting group all right Miss Burt miss renzie miss Page Miss White thank you madam chair I'm Dr Blackwell is that correct thank you so very much for sharing your your data and your questions and Thoughts with us I'm with you all the way and then some totally understand what my question is and this is something that took place years ago Mr J Austin Brown maybe remember this being realistic along the lines of people that we are hiring as you well know it's a shortage across the board

116years ago there was a program I'm aging myself but I'm gonna tell it Mr Brown you remember we used to hire high school students during their break time or their um study halls or whatever else they were and they worked as office assistants they worked do you recall that program so I'm just thinking that in terms of especially those parents coming into the office and we have brilliant students here at George with who are Hispanic who speak English and Spanish well is that may be something to think about Mr superintendent I don't know the name of the program I don't recall but I remember I used to have my students from Armstrong yes ma'am but I suppose the name of that program the name of the program was cooperative office education tell it Mr Brown

117tell us about it um the program provided to students with an opportunity to gain some real workplace skills while in the school building and the community in many cases they were compensated for the district provided a small amount of funds to support those students who worked as office assistants in the school Cooperative office education and as I think about it many of them worked in City Hall correct and many of them are still right there in City Hall and went through that program went to college moved on so that's a thought Dr Blackwell until we can get those persons I don't know if we have any stimulus money left or whatever we could do something with along those lines I'm just putting this out here maybe someone with support but that's at the end of

118the day the people are not out there for us to hire yes thank you um we actually were able this year in the master schedule to create student duties and so we actually look for students that were on track for graduation that could um also essentially give up one of their periods and we do have student AIDS in our front office staff and in our school counseling department that are bilingual um to to help out however I would like to say that you know having an adult present that can actually speak to um student data you know and be able to go forth and answer phones and that sort of thing really truly lean into our our parents would be beneficial but yes ma'am we we do and I understand that part but sometimes we

119have to meet people where they are absolutely and if we could find out an opportunity to give them a small stipend that is a possibility I know I would like to have additional two or three teachers each classroom across the board but it's right now is is not going to happen so just a thought thank you for sharing your experience with that Mr Brown and that program did work thank you Miss frenzy thank you madam chair and thank you all for this presentation you know my only reservation um for a program like what has been suggested beyond the fact that an adult is is definitely you know Superior to having students do this is that our Latino students are often doing this on a full-time basis at home and are exhausted with it um they

120translate all the time for everybody and so I don't you know I know that some of them would love to do this and I'm not saying that it's a bad idea I just don't want to lean too much on them either because they are exhausted um and so I want to just verify so we are down at George with uh 13 percent Latino on time graduation rate more than half 50.8 percent of them are dropping out our Els were at 38 percent on time graduation rate and we're not talking about just Latino students here because I've met students from other countries when I visited classrooms here and so we're talking about all English language Learners and of those 60 of them are dropping out it appears yeah I mean to me that constitutes and I've

121said it before it constitutes a crisis it's something that's been building over the years and I do Wonder like when you know why hasn't has been a crisis before now um you know visited classrooms and I agree that teachers are working really hard but I've also noticed that there aren't many who have the skills to deal with English language learners I've been invited to classrooms where teachers invite me right and I go in and I see like oh my God like this teacher has no idea that what they're doing is not necessarily what these kids need I've talked to students here who tell me that you know I'll tell them stuff like you know you really should be happy that you're bilingual it's a gift and they're looking at me like what like and I'm

122like it really is a gift and they don't have any idea like they they really some of them have expressed feeling ostracized and they don't like being called yells right um they feel excluded culturally um and so I think that there I think all of your recommendations are wonderful and I'd like to see you get this stuff um because um I mean I think overall there's a cultural issue at George with that needs to be addressed overall um but especially the fact that our Latino students don't necessarily feel at home all the time and so they escape I mean I've called them come back you know they're like they walk off um so you know I wonder how realistic some of this is are we as if since this is on slides and since Dr

123Blackwell is now presenting this is it realistic that she will get some of this and that George with will get some of this not just at the school if I may Madam chair um supporting our English Learners will be my number one budget priority as I work towards bringing a budget to the board I imagine it will likely be near the top of the list for the board as well thank you Miss Paige okay um so a teacher reached out to me actually and asked if I would ask about um whether students who met the threshold on sats and PSATs as substitute tests were included in the graduation rate they were so you cross refer you checked them and made sure yeah our system captures that Aspen and then it factors it into the graduation

124rate all right thank you yes this page thank you so my question I guess will be for Mr Jefferson and Mr Brown as well as superintendent so your school counselors here at will how much time do they spend like with staff um School leadership as far as strategizing um developing intervention plans for at-risk students whether it's our Latino population black population whatever um how much time do our school counselors work with the staff to come up with intervention strategies because if you look at your at-risk population for the most part you're going to have chronic absenteeism maybe some behavior issues um the social emotional it could be also some home factors so it's a direct correlation with all of those factors but um our students that have been identified as as at risk or what

125have you thank you so much for that question I would share with you that every student in Richmond Public Schools has a graduation plan that is developed by the school counselor in addition there are other support Personnel in our school district who are there to help students with their graduation plans such as Communities In Schools we have the future Center so there are lots of resources there to support our young people as they matriculate through high school and and on to college or into the world world so follow-up question so would it be fair to say that they meet have weekly meetings or monthly meetings to discuss students I can tell you you're dressing in these you know supports I can tell you that in each of our Comprehensive High Schools the school counseling team

126meets weekly to review graduation data there is a meeting at George with every Monday I believe it's from 10 to 11 30. so there is a 90-minute block of time weekly where we look at the graduation tracker and look at young people who might need some support towards graduation so our school counselors are very involved in that effort so another follow-up question so we are we so you address those need needs ninth grade year we start ninth grade year yes ma'am okay because a lot of times it's a continuation what happens in the ninth grade carries over to the 10th level and so forth yes ma'am we have cohorts we look at students that are at risk at this point we know the the 10th graders I would say right now 10th 11th 11th and

12712th graders who are really at risk we're learning our ninth graders and that will come along but right now we know that young people that are tier three students that we really need to be concerned about so we try to hone in on that group okay thank you Miss Jones and then Miss White used to have the questions thank you I um had a quick question for doctor that's the black one sorry um you mentioned something about supports for a parent engagement what is the connection between I guess Mr Kennedy you can answer this what is the connection between the um Family Liaisons and the office of Engagement um and what is their role here at George with and how can um where you mention the coach uh you said something about um like tutors

128and all those things what what what role are they playing here at the school and how are they also helping to support the parents and the families and the work that Dr Blackwell is saying is very critical at this moment absolutely thank you for the question Ms Jones in terms of the role of the family Liaisons and what they do here at with in particular is being able to connect with those students who are challenged with their intendance engagement and understanding what are the real challenges they're facing not just academic challenges the behavior challenges but what's keeping them from arriving at school every day prepared to learn and fully engage as we uncover what those impactors are we're able to then connect with the right people in the schools to say hey this is what's

129needed that's the conversation with a social worker that's the conversation with the CIS coordinator and it's also bringing it back to the counselors and having the conversations with the administrators who can help move the resources and put them in the right place in addition to that it allows the schools to then begin to strategize on how we can effectively impact a larger population who might be sharing those same types of impactors within the student population so it's not just a one-off we use the one-off conversations to understand what's happening from student to student but then we start to co-locate and see the themes that are coming out of those conversations which we only uncover when we actually go and knock on the door we have a conversation with the family and we see there's more

130to what that student may be seeing and experiencing and then bringing that back to the conversation in the schools to then coordinate in our SAS teams as well as other coordinating teams throughout the meetings throughout the the course of the week follow-up Madam chair um and is it any way that we can see some of that data to see what's happening because I think well we're talking about resources and we know that there's a shortage of resources again when we're talking about being strategic around uh and and creative because you got to get creative um maybe we can see because I'm also wondering like if we're working with Partners um in particular external Partners like CIS and all that I know that some schools have like USCIS coordinator that deals specifically with parent engagement we

131have a CIS coordinator that speaks Spanish like do we have these things you know in place and if we don't how can we take a look at those um just based on the data that's coming back from the Liaisons to the school and maybe being able to think of some ways um creatively because I'm thinking there's probably some external supports that could be brought into the school that we may be missing and I think we should really do a deeper dive into that so I'd love to hear more about that and the connection to the family engagements um Liaisons as to how we can make that happen thank you Miss White thank you madam chair and I'd like to thank all of you for your presentation but my question is I heard someone say it

132that we didn't have the data that shows to drop out the absences and the system that I've been pulling the data I've seen all of those things um so I'm not sure of uh what was being said that we didn't have it and I think I heard Mr Jeffrey said that uh video he would come in and help and I know we have made tremendous growth so we have a system there that does well I just think everybody needs to be trained so they can level up because if I can learn your database I'm assuming that everyone else in your in the school can but my question is I'm looking at some data and I'm finding out that uh we're more reactive and not proactive because I'm looking at the on-time rate and then the

133dropout rate but somewhere we have missed the age out rate we have a lot of age out and I hear we was talking about one school George with but Huguenot has 152 age out George will have 166. conganas have 68 Armstrong have 33. Thomas Jefferson have 22 and John Marshall has 20. what are we doing to prepare those students what type of plan do we have in place to ensure that we stop them from dropping out uh have we looked at technical certifications General uh diplomas job training additional skill sets um we need to look at those things and I and I believe I was listening about the George Swift We need evidence-based resource so that we to make sure that we have the resources in because it looks different all the schools look different

134they really do but I would like to also know how does the engagement team look at that because based on all of these six entities of schools that I just spoke about age out and you're saying you're knocking on doors how proactive is that thank you for the question Miss White the proactive aspect is really starting to have the conversation before they walk out the door there's two aspects or two buckets in which we have to address the problem that we're facing one of the students who've walked out the door already we have to get them back we need to find ways that well one of the reasons why they left is the first question we have to ask I think so often we default to they left get them back in the door but

135we need to have the self-reflective question first to say why did you leave what did we miss where we should have been paying attention and we should have caught it before you walk out the door that's the foundational piece for us to recover students and return them back into a learning educational system where they can actually grow graduate and move into their post-secondary future successfully and in a powerful way so that gives us a foundational understanding of what our students are facing and how to move forward in terms of the preventative aspect it then allows us to see based on the previous population decisions what impacted those students to decide to walk out the door and now we can start to identify which students are moving down a similar path and identify okay well this

136student left because they needed to go to work well how can I help the current population who is still within that particular age to still graduate successfully before they age out how do we help them get skilled to and see the value of school to then get the certification whether that CTE programming whether that's specific elective that they may take or just a general education that they need just to have that firm foundation so it allows us to understand what the unique aspects of the population is for us and then Implement those discoveries into our preventative proactive measures accordingly so we need both have to understand what's happening and then how to respond to them accordingly in terms of the age out piece we are having those conversations with our Dropout prevention Specialists who do

137go and connect with the families or the students which is sometimes you can't just get someone on the phone you have to be where they are our students we know Traverse anywhere from three to seven different cultures when they're going from home to the classroom environment and the easiest way to help tear down those boundaries and barriers that they face every single day is to go where they are to find them in a space where they're most comfortable and most confident to share who they are with our team members whether that's Liaisons or the Dropout prevention specialist when we have those conversations in those neutral environments the kids are oftentimes more forthcoming what their challenges are and then from that perspective we can then begin to offer them the right solutions that support what their

138needs are if that's comprehensive then we bring back that conversation hey let's get you back into that classroom setting if that's an alternative education program like secondary success or if it's kanganas or if it's Thrive it allows us to then say based on what you're facing based on what you're experiencing this is what we think might be great for you that's not a decision made in isolation by just the Dropout prevention specialist but it's as a team collaboratively with the counselor who says Hey based on what we're seeing they need this it's the social worker who says Hey based on what we're experiencing we're seeing this is what they need so we're able to get that information and a lot of times you don't get that just over the phone a lot of times you

139don't get that just from a text message sometimes you only get that when you're sitting in the living room with a family and you see what's happening and they begin to open up and have have that conversation and build a relationship of trust and then allow you to get a more transparent visual of what they're experiencing and then we can bring that back to the table to see to say how can we help how can we support how can we deliver and build that authentic relationship with every single one of our families that answer a question Miss White I also have a follow-up yes ma'am based on your planning your strategic uh outline that you just gave me sounds good but I'm still looking at the numbers and the engagement that you piece that you

140just talked to me about I think it would better be fit if the engagement team was located inside the school so therefore you won't have to go and look for students we're going back and forth looking for students and if we had that same team inside the school we also have the Dropout uh personnel's they're stationed over at the Richmond alternative if they were inside the school because they can they can talk to they can they're Spanish speaking and they can talk to what the students would need then to just knock on doors because some of my parents said I was asking them about engagement uh because now the absence the attendance I now go out and see what's going on with my students they haven't seen any engagement so now we're all these engagement

141personnels it's about 60 65. what are they doing I see seven at least seven engagement when I come or where's the other 50s song and that's what I am really concerned about because we have a large engagement team and our students are still not being serviced you're telling me you can't get you can't get phone numbers you can't knock on the door and answer you'd probably be better to serve them if the engagement team was installed inside the school yes ma'am I would not disagree completely the only thing that comes to mind there is a lot of the students that we're trying to connect with are not actually coming to school which is why we're trying to do the engagement when we see that they're not showing up where can we find them if they're

142not at the school and I'm not I I definitely think there needs to be a trade study that assess what the balances are what the pros and cons of each of those decisions may be what the backlash may be if we make a change and shift just so that we go into any decision fully knowing what that means however I do want to say the first thing that I've noticed is we will look for a student if they're having attendance challenges and the first thing we do say is hey are they in school today they're this is their schedule knock on that door are they here let's find out what's going on a lot of our Liaisons will do that at the school we don't see them there we will go out to make those

143phone calls we go out we'll go out to knock on the doors and connect with our families but it's really in the picture and the entire Dynamic I don't think there's one solution for any one problem I think there's a multitude of ways to to approach it and our our challenge is based on our staff and our limitations what is the best path for it so I definitely I definitely don't disagree with you miss white I definitely think it's something for us to kind of think about and see what makes the most sense and move forward thank you for the presentation really appreciate it um miss page um thank you madam chair I have a quick question I want to piggyback off of my colleague Miss Jones and Miss White so are you able to

144provide the board Dana that um how how well the individual education plan um maybe a sample of students fight per quarter like based on the interventions the strategies um the supports that have been put in place for students at Georgia Armstrong Huguenot um and just to see if what we have in place if indeed is actually working and uh I think if you go back to one of the strategies that we have for those four schools was to have those 60 to 90 minute individual meetings so to be clear with that it's going to be the team the graduation team right and so we'll pull Devin in as well so that or family day is on so that they know um the things that we discussed because in those individual meetings not only will we

145talk about accountability but also ask schools what resources they need and realign resources as needed and then the other piece is really around going student by student right so if there's a particular student then again it's on Devin's radar or it's on his family azon's radar so I think Jen talked about this early warning system and I think you spoke to it Miss White about not being reactive right and being proactive and so we're starting these conversations in October we know which students are chronically absent we know which kids they're not coming into school and so we will have those conversations with the graduation teams for those four schools but again if we need to have them with TJ and other schools we will as well but our focus in terms of you know capacity

146and what we see the most impact is with those four schools but it's really about realigning resources and making sure that everybody's at the table that plays a part in graduation not just a counselor not just the principal not just the AP that's over 12th grade uh not just the I the ICC but everybody who plays a part in graduation and and all of real quick I noticed the student's name you know students cannot be identified but you know like if we see data say maybe in mid-year you know at a midpoint and there's a dashboard for that so there's a dashboard and it actually has the student ID number and then the number of outreaches and attempts but we will be more uh precise with that as it relates to those four schools and

147Scholars that are graduating yeah okay thank you so I have a couple of questions and a comment um Dr Blackwell I really appreciate the recommendations that you presented to the school board the recommendations that were presented and recommendations that are presented are necessary because we must hear from the lived experiences of the theories that create the academic space for all students so we have spoken about um some deficiencies and some irregularities within our Hispanic community in terms of Education what are they doing and then also tracking them once they leave us and not return so I really do appreciate the time that you put into that data collection and forming analysis to provide us what that lived experience looked like this is a comment that um so I'm gonna take this opportunity to just I

148didn't say it either oh that's me oh I thought I said okay okay um I just want to take a a couple of seconds to just um add an extension to the work that you did and this is just women supporting women I would like for you to send me the link of your dissertation and the link to purchase it so you can receive the credit that's important because of the work that you did needs to be recognized so I wanted to say that publicly because that's a lot of work um the project-based learning that um was discussed earlier can also be filtered through I was I would CTE programs so we still have it even though it's named differently it was mentioned earlier and sometimes when programs change names we lose we we kind

149of lose where the program has gone and so I would like for RPS to be attentional about matching those competencies that were spoken of before and the competencies that are through project-based learning and through the CTE program that directly deals with the work based learning that was described earlier the name has changed the program has moved into another curricula but I think we need to be more intentional about making it work for our students that Dr Blackwell was mentioning um Mr cameras did the division apply for the jobs for Virginia Grant and if so which schools received that Grant and when will it be implemented I'll have to get that information for you madam chair okay and also um I'm I'm just a board member who have been asking questions about what exactly our external

150Partners do and we're talking about graduate graduation rate um Mr Brown mentioned several external partners that we have I'm not looking for the answer tonight but I am going to come back and ask again all of those that were mentioned this evening what are they doing to impact our graduation rate because not everyone does the same thing right and the public may assume and I call it a valid assumption because they're going to assume when we don't tell them so they make the Assumption based on what they hear what they see so we have to provide ongoing accurate information and need a good better and different of the partners that we work with particularly that are receiving funding that are focused on a particular entity so I'm going to come back and ask that I've

151said it publicly I'm not I'm just one boy remember that consistently asked those same questions it's not a new conversation I'm just asking again so we don't lose the information and the sauce it's important that we know are we obtaining what we need to obtain with those whom we work with good bad or indifferent so thank you we are ready now for attendance which is goal eight thank you okay [Music] so in this presentation we're going to go over attendance rates our Trends and attendance results the attendance strategy measured Outreach finally provide our chronic absenteeism results [Music] for attendance we have two different rates chronically absent and average daily attendance chronically absent is defined as missing 10 percent or more academic years for any reason including excuse absences unexcused absences and suspensions and typically what

152this means is based off of 180 day school year this means that students that Miss 18 days or more are identified as chronically absent our second measure is average daily attendance and simply put this can be calculated as the number of days present over the membership number this is very different from the ADM and the membership count this is this takes that and also attendance and you essentially get your average daily attendance rate and then next is we are very attendance data rich in this division last year we've taken some big strides in providing schools with a lot of attendance data and here below you can see the attendance dashboard designed to give school teams insight into their attendance trends average daily attendance membership Dropout numbers chronic absenteeism here in the division before we look

153at the data we averaged around 91 to 92 percent Ada average attendance for the year and this right here is the Arc of the school year the chart below shows our average daily attendance trend for the school year prior to this school year you can see minor dips in October and November and that's typical however this year we saw the full effect of Omicron on attendance coming back from winter break we had our worst week in attendance this year and probably for multiple years and we can see that with the 78.7 percent average attendance rate for that week of school and with some schools some schools actually had a 50 attendance rate that that week so this absolutely attributed and was a huge factor to Chronic absenteeism we went over this earlier in the school

154year but this right here is part of our attendance strategy and a big part of it is measured Outreach an initiative that we started last year is we were able to quantify the impact of Outreach what you see below is our student level Tracker Where teams are able to provide comments on their Outreach attempts so for example a family liaison could be out in the community will identify a chronically absent student make a home visit and then collect any information that the family or student can provide this helps us with identifying and solving for attendance barriers school teams review this typically weekly and track attendance outcomes what you see below is how we can measure the impact of really all attendance Outreach in the division all of our attendance trackers are connected to this dashboard

155where you can see we had 39 000 Outreach attempts this is the 50 000 foot view of attendance work in our division this information we're able to filter by school by Personnel by Outreach type and also by date and this allows us to make any shifts in resources priority or Personnel to support specific schools scroll just a little bit down and then right there is a powerful line chart that also shows that the attendance work did not stop at the end of the school year it actually extended throughout the summer and we were able to to measure our Outreach attempts throughout the summer and as a result we are one of the few divisions in the country that can say we we can measure our Outreach attempts so we just nearly 40 000 total Outreach

156attempts this year contacting 11 428 unique students and 473 unique employees interacted with this particular tool foreign thank you and to continue the conversation there in terms of the Strategic approach um I think um when we look at how we connect with each particular School the first thought is really I mean laying out what our process needs to be as we start our school year off we spent last summer really trying to figure out what approach are we going to take and then how we roll that out into the beginning of the school year over the summer we made sure we trained a lot of our Liaisons on what the proper engagement process would be how do you coordinate and connect with your trios and what is a trio as we begin to Define that

157that combination of a team at that point in time and Trio is what we refer to as a combination of our school's CIS coordinator the social worker and the family liaison so those three individuals if they have all three present work as a trio if not they're also those same individuals who are present schools that work together and we've trained them to really learn how to understand what that engagement piece looked like we also prepared for the school year by looking at past data and then begin to strategize on how we support every single school at the same time as a rollout of the data dashboards and data trackers that are creator for every single school by the data team those are very instrumental in US understanding what the lay of the land was for

158each school and understand the unique Dynamic that we were facing as we moved from school to school and then focusing on the engagement piece for our students and our families collectively it's one thing to focus on students is another thing to understand that the families that support those students are also a critical piece of the conversation so we wanted to make sure we incorporated a consideration for them as well in the process and overall as you can see the result we were able to conclude the year with a 27.7 chronic absentee rate as we close the year out the next slide I think speaks in part to Mrs page question Mrs Page's question earlier in regards to can we actually show or quantify the individual deliveries for from outreaches and per and as it pertains

159to the impact on students engagement and so when you look at this next slide this is just one piece of the larger picture as Mr Solomon spoke about earlier when we can compute down the different Outreach attempts per school and these are just a sampling of schools we can see and directly correlate how we believe those outreaches directly impacted the reduction of chronic absenteeism at those particular schools now we can pull anecdotal evidence from person to person or student to student and lay out the different conversations the different implementations of interventions that we have for each individual student however if we look at the entirety of a school we can see a 20 reduction in chronic absentee rate based on just 300 specific key Target outreaches to just read there are other things that we

160can consider in terms of community outreach events that we held especially when we consider the East End and then the words paraphrasing as Miss Leslie Wiggins shared earlier we went out to bring them in and so it was really something to see as we moved the needle in the East End and because of those Outreach attempts because of those home visits we were able to strategically connect with students and really understand what they needed to bring them back in and also encourage positive attendance engagement throughout the course of the year um if we go to the next slide and we can keep on rolling this is just another slide that shows the roll-up of attempts and the impact on chronic absenteeism as Mr Grove shared earlier the two numbers that we looked at were the

161Ada as well as The Chronic absentee rate and kind of helped us understand as we move through the course of last year and we moved into the January time frame we were able to really understand how to best leverage and apply the data in a strategic Manner and so we begin to connect with every single School understanding what they were facing and then based on the data devise unique solutions for what they were facing in order to build and address build a cultural norms that would address the attendance challenges that they were particularly seeing um Miss Jones you asked about culture and climate earlier you mentioned that and then Miss Burke as well as Miss White you both mentioned the importance of celebrations and one of the major things that we had to think about

162was how do we incentivize our students to stay engaged from an attendance perspective if they're not in school they're not learning so how do we get them in the door and be ready and present and so with that understanding what every individual school was facing looking at their data looking at the attendance record looking at some of the challenges they may face we coordinated what incentives needed to be in place but also the processes that needed to be there how do we celebrate our students by providing incentives that encourage students to come each day how do we also change the culture and climate of the school by incentivizing teachers to actively engage and be part of that overall conversation we know teachers have a lot that they're facing and Challenge from one day to the

163next day in the classroom you can be present for 10 minutes in the next moment the whole class is going crazy is that dynamic in any classroom setting but how do we also support teachers but then encourage that connection with the families Beyond just the classroom itself so some of the things that we saw some schools doing were celebrations of which teachers had the most outreaches to students which teachers had the most emails or phone calls and then they logged into the system to show that they were outreaching to the students some of our Community Partners and I'd have to talk to to Grady and team to figure out exactly who gave what and some of the schools received donations from different Community Partners and those donations begin to fuel some Raffles that some schools

164would hold to celebrate students if they had consistent attendance throughout the course of a certain period of time if you're here for the next five days or the next 10 days your name goes in this many times for the raffle and you might win in some cases a bike in some cases you might win a game console I know at one particular school they give away a game console or you might get a pizza party another school decided to have a second resource or a second recess for kids if they were actively least showing up I'm Swansboro held a a movie night if they as a school achieved a certain level of Engagement and sure enough they had the Polar Express they showed now it was nice good hot chocolate and we got a chance

165to kind of hang out in the cafeteria and watch the movie for a while as well so these are some of the things that we were thinking about of how do we not only change the culture and climate the schools but also incentivize not just the students from perspective of Engagement celebrating their successful attendance engagement but also encourage them and encourage the teachers to be part of the overall knowing that there's a lot to deal with so um and with that we can see again we drove ourselves down to about 27.7 um chronic absentee rate for the year I mean at that I think that brings me to the end the rest is a series of what individual clusters look like respectively so now hand over to Mr John Grove thank you before we go

166to q a early in the presentation we failed to discuss cluster four and how many of those schools in cluster 4 were accredited or not can we share that with the public I had a viewer text me that here yeah good afternoon again and thank you for that question um plus the four continues to have three of our schools accredited they are the specialty schools Franklin military Richmond Community High School and open High School thank you there any questions on the attendance if not Miss Jones um that's why go ahead I wrote my question down but I wasn't finished so go ahead I'll go after her Miss White [Music] thank you madam chair [Music] and thank you for the presentation I have the a couple questions looking at uh page 13 on slide 13. and

167of course I am oh committed to um Richmond alternative school and I saw 91.7 percent so and I have a couple questions based on the absentee does this 91.7 reflect the school as a whole yes and I would say this 91.7 percent is the first year that it does because what we described with graduation and accreditation with vava also applies to their attendance rates and also passwords so it applies to all their data so what you see there before this school year so 4.2 13 20 33 all of those particular rates vava has that influx so it's a it's essentially boosts their scores prior to this year and now currently that 91.7 is is where it rises at so yes and it also includes their absenteeism before they come to Raz say that again so

168if a student has an incident and is referred to the hearing office and goes through the process to enroll into Raz if the students already already chronically absent prior to that process they will remain chronically absent moving into Raz so essentially Raz could inherit a large population of students that are already chronically absent due to any factors coming into that process so my question now is based on your 91.7 and a student coming from their comprehensive school with 16 or 17 that come to rest for 13 and well I mean I'm not that's too many I'm gonna say three sure then this data wouldn't be correct last part one more time I'm sorry okay you said if they're coming from their comprehensive school and they have 13 absences and then when it come to rest

169they may be in detention and they have to wait until they're admitted into Reyes though six or seven days will add on to what they have if they're comprehensive my question is why isn't that removed from Aspen prior to that because they're coming to a whole complete different School s so that's actually a a huge area of focus this year we are revamping our enrollment process and making it more data driven to identify the number of days between incident to hearing office and to Raz to ensure that students are moving through those through those different phases appropriately now in terms of why it's counted it's that's probably a state policy rule we can revisit and we can provide some more clarity on but essentially if a student is suspended those suspension days also count as

170absences as well Okay so do you do you um include that there may be some outliers with Reds attendance like I was saying detention Transportation it's just not like a regular comprehensive School correct so if it's not like a regular comprehensive I'm not understanding why they are penalized for that because that's what it is if you look at all the schools and you're looking at and you see 91.7 that looks like they are chronic absentee yeah without anyone knowing the situation because I'm I'm sure that this total goes to Virginia Department of Education also yes and they actually calculate this for us so we submit the data and they calculate and say okay Raz you're at 91.7 percent so we don't the essentially the state determines those days absences so they we don't have a

171say in the policy from a student going from incident to Raz so we we don't say those days count as absence instead of present so if the student goes back to their comprehensive school does those number of days go back to the conference group two yes that that just don't make a lot of sense to me I'm sorry because that could be that that person could have about 40 or 50 days and it and also with chronically absent a lot of it has to do with um the membership days as well so if a student is enrolled for 50 or more days at a particular uh within our schools then they count towards chronically absent as well um but I can get view some further Clarity on kind of the intricacies of that brass enrollment

172we have some information we'd like to share at a later time I just want to make sure that this happened to our students yes the versus hindering because they are coming from all different comprehensive schools and they are doing their best by attending the school but if they're already set up with 20 and 30 days yes and then they go back to their school and they still have the same days that they have left with that's not helping our students thank you thank you thank you all for the presentations I'm sorry oh I'm so sorry Miss renzie Miss Burt yeah thank you madam chair I just wanted to kind of piggyback on what Miss White has already expressed I remember a particular case where a student had had almost perfect attendance before being referred you

173know and um it just felt unfair this person was waiting the student was waiting you know to get a date for a hearing yeah and was counted absent because they couldn't return to school it just really felt unfair to strap that student with those absences when it was no fault of their own and they wanted to get back to school yeah and I know it has to do with some kind of state regulation but it just definitely seems unfair yes yes ma'am chair my question is homebound I thought we were using the homebound program per se for those students that were waiting let's say an incident does happen it's just Ms White just mentioned they're not going into we're not placing them in homebound until they're placed in rands or wherever they are to go

17440 or 50 days that's too many days I thought that I was a part of our Homebound Program or virtual program is too much you never can't get caught up so that's not being utilized and homebound this year so it is now I think it's the home uh Education Services but I'll look into it and get back to you um but what I will say is that we we have met with the hearing office as well as Raz and we created a airtight dashboard and I think well not I think I know after having conversations with the various stakeholders that the one thing that was missing was say for example a kid went to the hearing office and the parent and they got the decision letter to go to razz a lot of times it

175was resistance to go to rest but there was no follow-up and so we've partnered with Devin and Aaron and we now have a family liaison that is now going to the parents house after like the first day they don't show up for their uh their meeting the orientation meeting they're going to their homes they're making the Outreach attempt so that the kid the scholar actually comes to razz um and again A lot of times suit with the dashboard the holdup is they they do an appeal and so we respond to the appeals and so now on the dash support everything there's an accountability system for every single player in the Raz that has a hand and rash Mr Solomon what I'm asking is when the child's first the student is first suspended based upon an

176incident because of the backup that we have as well for children that have to be out of school for weeks what I thought that we had whatever you want to call the program however it's called homebound virtual or whatever that there was an opportunity for students to be schooled while being home with the Chromebooks or whatever else so that's what I'm asking in reference to that because otherwise when we wait until they get into the hearing office and then placed in the program that's many days have passed I thought we had I thought we trimmed that process back to keep students from being out of school for so long if I may Madam chair um that was one of the objectives that we had discussed for the Richmond Virtual Academy that they would serve that

177purpose but um the board as you may recall ultimately decided to just focus that on uh homebound students who were home for illness or injury not for students facing disciplinary matters so we are trying to find an alternative mechanism to ensure that instruction continues during those days when they are waiting um but that is a work in progress thank you so much I'm glad you explained that and I do remember that because that's this is too many days that our students are out of school not receiving any type of instruction at all because we give them a pack of work doesn't mean they're doing it so their calendar piece needs to be there they said [Music] I have a um it's a statement of the question I think wrapped into one based on what I've

178heard um we may need to revisit how absences are coded and the overall School attendance policies and the impact of those policies on black and brown students um furthermore not all of the policies implemented by most divisions in the Commonwealth our Virginia Department of Education adopted policies so let me say that one more time now all policies that have been implemented by school divisions in the Commonwealth of Virginia our Virginia Department of Education mandated policies so we may need to be looking at revisiting and adjusting how we take attendance when the majority of our students who are being impacted negatively by our current attendance policies of those who look like me that's a courageous and honest conversation so we can't always say video we said we have to do this that's a guide we can

179adjust our policies accordingly so my theme this evening is being intentional about how we move forward in obtaining positive student outcomes because it was stated earlier if they're not in the schoolhouse we cannot educate them that is correct another finesse that we can implement or review and address is how we view home base some of our students behaviors who have a active individual educational plan are manifestation or manifested by their disability and vice versa and so we need to be intentional if we're if we're gonna if we're going to sit and say that video we said this foreign that's just a suggestion our policies can be adjusted to meet the needs of our division that are unique to any other division in the area so I really appreciate the time that y'all took with um

180goal one accreditation go to graduation and go through attendance because that is we have spent over an hour and a half talking about student outcomes and the fastest that directly correlate to student outcomes so really appreciate the work that you and your team did and those who presented this evening to us thank you thank you very much appreciate that absolutely you all did a great job oh Mr Young I'm sorry I Madam chair before we depart this content area I want to acknowledge the discussion pertinent to culture and climate along with probably two hours ago Wellness my contention is that an invaluable element relevant to both before mentioned culture and climate and and wellness really relates to relatability and human interface it's why Madam chair I'm going to perhaps the third time's a charm introduce

181a proposal for colleagues your consideration relevant to immediately ending the mask mandate again at the risk of laboring the point or beating a dead horse when this body adopted said mandate or continued said mandate in August the sole justification related to at this District or rather the city of Richmond at I think two meetings ago made the point that we had for multiple weeks been CDC medium well we are now thank goodness that's CDC low so Madam chair I would move that School Board of the city of Richmond and The Mask mandate immediately it was a motion put on the floor by Mr Young to end the mass mandate immediately is there a second Miss Gibson um I'm not prepared to second the motion on the table but I'm I'm curious to hear from the

182administration given the levels of the um virus at this stage what the plans are um and next steps yeah Madam chair um our intent uh as I believe monsie o'desco sure uh for the agenda for our next meeting is to bring revised guidance at that meeting as it pertains to masks thank you so there's the motion on the floor made by Mr Young to end the mass mandate in Richmond City Public Schools immediately is there a second without a second the motion fails we're now moving on an update on George with high school good evening I do want to give some good updates that we had just um after this was posted I know this kind of seems redundant that we've had the same slides for a couple meetings so I do want to just

183highlight some a few things we did submit our conceptual design to the Urban Design committee on September 8th they could not establish the Quorum however they recommended we proceed to the Planning Commission meeting which we did go to on September 19th the Planning Commission immediately recommended that we go back to UDC for them to hear um our submission so we did that at a special UDC meeting last week on September 29th we did receive unanimous approval um and we were able to proceed to the Planning Commission commission meeting that happened today so at that meeting we did get unanimous approval for our conceptual submission so that's great news so we can move forward there so while it doesn't seem like there's a lot updated on the slides we are working behind the scenes to keep

184keep things moving forward so based on that approval we will have a final floor plan updates for the administration Wing the community center and the locker rooms I should have that final drawing probably by the end of this week early next week and we will get the final approval through RPS for for those updates we will also be scheduling a kickoff meeting for the interior color palette selection for the building that will be part of a community engagement process so we will have a community engagement meeting also engaging our RPS steering committee and the George with reimagine committee through the office of Engagement so that should happen probably within the next 30 to 45 days so we're looking forward to that again with the early site package we were kind of trying to get through

185these hurdles with the UDC and the Planning Commission so we are still working on the early site package and should have something concrete to submit within 60 days for that so those are the high points for George with um and the drawings that are on these slides will remain because those are the ones that need to be circulated and as we get further into design development we will update those so I'll take any questions Mr Young Mr I'm Excuse Me Miss page thank you Miss Fox remind me the chronology in regard to when we're going to put out a request for proposal for a general contractor on the early site work or the the actual building pylons uh we depends on how the early site work package works and then my understanding is we're probably

186going to be a little bit delayed with permitting just for timing so likely it's um it wouldn't be probably eight months seven months thank you that's aggressively speaking so Mr younger you but okay Miss Paige and then miss Gibson thank you Miss Fox for this update and I'm glad to see that George with the plans for George with are moving forward um what I would like to ask Madam chair if George worth can be added as a standing agenda item to our monthly um for our board meetings it can be in the conversation with Mr cameras George with was not listed on a few on a few agendas because they had not received any additional information from the previous two meetings that we had so it um that's why George with was not listed on

187a couple of our agenda items but I I think we're at a point in time now that we need consistent and constant updates every school board meeting yes I appreciate that again I would like to it it to be included as a standing agenda item thank you Miss Gibson thank you madam chair um a couple of things I'm thinking about River City Middle School and um I've heard from a lot of teachers about concerns with the building and perhaps uh uh some shortcomings from a planning standpoint we've heard about parking I've also heard from teachers that the number of bathrooms that we have in the building doesn't maybe short particularly for you know students that are in special education classrooms my request is that if the administration or if you could come to their next

188meeting with an outline about what those building requirements are from a planning standpoint in terms of bathrooms and um and and other square footage requirements you know the necessary parking spaces so that the board can see and ensure that there is an alignment between planning requirements and the design sure thank you I can bring you those counts I likely wouldn't have it shown on the plan but I can I can give you the counts if that's okay that makes sense to me [Music] any other questions thank you Miss Fox you can go right into Fox I'm Sorry Miss Mr Young so just so the listeners understand if we don't put an RFP out until seven to eight months from now relevant to general contractor and that was characterized as perhaps a stretch goal then the

189students at with should anticipate a new school in time for the 25-26 school year I can at our next meeting for this I can give you a little bit more concrete dates because we just did get the approval through Planning Commission today we have to align ourselves again to go back to the UDC and the Planning Commission they have set dates for their for their meetings for their final submission we have to get to permit drawings we have to submit for permit so I'm we'll try to align all of those timelines up for our Target goals but yes conservatively that would be the idea [Music] of course all right I'm sorry Miss Fox we can move right into Fox Elementary School yes Madam chair So currently on site we are doing the asbestos abatement um

190that that's what's currently happening this week for the project updates the make safe building permit that we have on file with the city for the Shoring and stabilization we will be wrapped up with that within the next two weeks and then we'll be moving into weatherizing the building weatherizing the building is going to include boarding up any broken windows and also installing the temporary roof um so the the temporary roof is going to be a wood framed roof uh with plywood roof deck um and then a kind of a sheet of rubber membrane that will be on the top it's going to be a low slope roof you likely would not be able to see it um so it wouldn't necessarily be an eyesore but when I say temporary roof this for all purposes is

191going to be a long-term temporary solution something we have to consider is snow load for this roof maintenance and all of the things so this will be a temporary roof although it will be long longer term again the project scope is listed still with the construction documents at nine months to complete the installation time for the roof I had a couple questions Miss White from you via email so I'm going to try and touch base on those for the installation time on the temporary roof would probably be about three to four weeks once all materials are ordered and on site the temporary roof does need to be approved through the city we are working currently now with the city to get the drawings approved they do have to be stamped engineered drawings so we are

192working on that kind of as we speak and ventilation we will likely have to put fans inside the building and to do that we're going to need temporary power so we're working again with Dominion um to pull off of what will likely be the trailer um the existing trailer panel to have temporary power to the building to run fans so that we can kind of have a conditioned space once it's boarded up in the temporary roof is on so um for the Shoring if you've driven by Fox lately you've seen the the wall bracing that is now on the exterior of the building my goal is that we can have a temporary roof put on and be engineered to be structurally sound enough that we can remove that exterior wall bracing and save us some

193monthly rental costs on that so again we are working on those drawings and those details with engineers and with the city um a couple other things we've we've completed I'll skip over the tax credits for just a second if we can go to the next slide Matthew we did have a staff meeting on September 20th with the fox staff we issued a survey some of the survey questions are listed there we have been getting back the feedback from those surveys which has been great our next um our next meeting for Fox teach teachers the RPS Administration and Facilities will be next week to kind of review the project details for the building and for the layout inside the building so those are just some of the high points that we've been working on and work

194that's happening currently and for the historic tax credits I will defer to superintendent cameras to answer those questions the short story on the historic tax credits is that we are continuing to work with uh Quinn Evans and their expert on that as well as some um legal advice uh from individuals who have done this work to try to put together a package that will benefit the school district so once we have a little bit more clarity on that we'll certainly bring that back to the board foreign Mr Young and then Miss White okay uh thank you Miss Fox 58 000 square feet if we spend approximately 350 dollars or something near proximity uh 350 per square foot then we should anticipate to spend something north of 20 million dollars relevant to the rebuild renovation of

195fox correct with a more accurate square footage but you're you're I I would say on a construction side for a cost per square foot that is for a historic building is probably low but that is an average right now for school construction costs is about 350 yes sir thank you my question for my colleagues superintendent Miss Fox relates to addressing the elephant in the room should and this is a hypothetical but should a payout from VA Court come up short what tools do we have in the toolbox and or access to Monies to address any potential or hypothetical shortfall I.E to pay for something north of of 20 mil 20 million dollars uh I think there are several one I do think there is a realistic chance of recouping um several million dollars in terms

196of historic tax credits which could be used for that purpose um don't know the specific amount but I do think that is realistic um and then secondarily I think uh is um an ask for additional CIP dollars to support that work um so I think those are certainly two avenues that um could be used to close any Gap if there were such a gap uh thank you thank you Mr superintendent super helpful and then a related question not terrible in like what I asked Miss Fox a moment ago pertinent to the building where now I.E George with uh pertaining to either of those two options and I recognize I'm asking a a question that's almost impossible to answer um to request to do prognosticate on something that includes a lot of variables granted but pertaining

197to timeline or chronology we as a board and as a district made a commitment to get students back in time for 24.25 do we anticipate any hiccups relevant to a obliging or accommodating that chronology given these new wrinkles I would not want to speculate on on that matter and so I think until we have more information I'm going to reserve judgment on that Miss White thank you madam chair thank you Miss Fox I have several questions and maybe a couple of statements my question is uh you just stated that we're going to continue on doing things at Fox and based on the money that we have um when is it going to time when are we going to stop when are we going to stop because we're going to get to looking at the deductions

198that we have already taken out of the total we're going to eventually stop somewhere so what is your plans for that yes ma'am so my goal is to get this temporary roof on and also to get Quinn Evans far enough to get us permit drawings and then if we need to pause we need to pause but absolutely my goal and what we are pushing for and I think we've established a way to pay for is getting the temporary roof on because if that's something that we do not do then all of the efforts we've done to date will be absolutely worthless um so absolutely getting on the temporary roof and if we are able to proceed with Quinn Evans to get them far enough along to establish permit drawings and then maybe we pause there

199just depending on where we are and um excuse me another concern that I have is um coverage and how is that actually [Music] um how did that come to that did we have adequate coverage Base by square feet for the roof or for insurance excuse me are you asking coverage about the roof or insurance coverage for the for the insurance that we have adequate cover based on I know that our risk manager does that how is that actually done are you giving that to Mr Cameron I see if I may remember for insurance yes um in the executive section of War Dogs our insurance policy so it lays out all that information no it did not that's why I'm asking the question it did not play out there because my real question is um based

200on the 13 million I can understand we're being short by one or two billion based on construction uh but that amount of money that that we're very short of I like to know that we have adequate coverage on our building and that's not in the insurance policy mustard cameras maybe we can talk about this enclose but it's not an insurance policy I've read it very thoroughly my advice to the board is to discuss this in closed that was going to be my advice as well okay thank you thank you Miss Fox any other questions oh I'm sorry Ms Lindsay I think Ms Gibson raised her hand first and then I'll go I'm sorry I didn't hear you I think I saw Miss Gibson's hand go up before mine Mrs Gibson uh thank you madam chair

201my question is um so one I want to know what is the final cost that we had for Clark Springs and um and I want to understand how the reimbursement for that project is working um in light of the overall Insurance question we were told originally that that we would also be getting reimbursed for that and I wanted to find out where that is so for Clark Springs just on on the construction end we had a budget when I was renovating that building um that just strictly for that renovation and then that building was turned back over so I'm not sure of those expenditures so I would have to defer to superintendent cameras for that answer yeah I would have to confirm with Miss Braga she's unfortunately dealing with some difficult family issues right now

202so as soon as you as soon as she returns we'll gather up all that for the board and just about the insurance and the reimbursement yes all that so but have we gotten documentation from the I guess this isn't doesn't seem like a Lynn Braga thing I'm wondering what we've gotten from the insurance company related to reimbursement for Clark Springs again I don't want to misspeak so I would want to just check with Miss Braga to make sure she's able to verify whatever has come in and and how it's been spent for the Clark Springs upgrade so I just don't have a off top of my head but I'm as soon as she is back I'm happy to gather that and share it with more and not to believe the point but it's your understanding

203that we are going to be in reimbursed for Clark Springs in addition to the money that we're getting for Fox I wouldn't characterize it exactly that way um and so I would want to if we're going to get into the the finer points of the policy I'd prefer to talk about that in close thank you Mr frenzy and then Miss White actually that was my exact question you know will we recoup um what we invested in Clark Springs I'm pretty sure at a board meeting we were told that the insurance would cover whatever we spent at Clark Springs so I also wanted an update Miss White I have one question for clock Springs and another question for on the fox as far as clock Springs are the trailers up and running would they be on

204time I think the 16th it was waiting for a plumbing permit again yeah um Miss fox actually doesn't have anything to do with Clark Springs at this point um that's under Mr Hathaway but the um the work is ongoing to get all the mechanical systems connected the goal is to have that complete by the end of this month at the latest my second question would be is a requesting that I'm asking you is going to Mr cameras so I'm going to ask Mr cameras this question to miss Fox so Mr cameras um is it a closed discussion or opening discussion on the failures that happened at Fox Elementary dealing with the fire I'm sorry I didn't understand the question repeat that again is there before I ask the question I would like to know is

205this open or closed dealing with the failures of the fox fire that was discussed public on the television the other day that's closed Miss White thank you thank you foreign Fox Elementary School saying that we're going to receive an update on the curriculum thank you thank you Miss Fox [Music] thank you madam chair first I just wanted to thank all of the teachers who both have come and shared their public testimony and who participated in the curriculum survey you can see in the presentation the numbers of teachers this actually represents roughly three quarters of the teachers who teach these curriculas so a very good response rate as you can see from the results for two of our curricula Eureka which is our Mathematics Curriculum and amplify which is our science curriculum a clear majority of

206our teachers indicated a desire to continue forward with those curricula with flexibilities and I want to reiterate what I have said previously and have put in writing that teachers are free to make the adjustments that they feel are necessary to meet the needs of their students in fact they are encouraged to do so and none will be disciplined for doing so my recommendation for those two curricula is to continue to move forward and to develop a task force uh comprised largely of teachers but also a few other individuals as well to continue to guide the iteration of those curricula based on teacher feedback our curriculum for reading El education was a little bit different here a slight majority of teachers indicated a desire to stop using it given the narrowness of the vote my recommendation

207is as follows that we also set up a task force largely composed of teachers along with a few other individuals to work with our counterparts at the Virginia Department of Education to Think Through The Right Next Step here whether it is to stop using El and to secure a different curriculum which meets the requirements of the Virginia literacy act or to make adjustments to El with the guidance of the vdoe again to make sure that we are in compliance with the Virginia literacy Act and to then present that recommendation to the board no later than January 15th I do want to note per our mou and as has been reconfirmed by Dr Ortiz who is our primary liaison with the office of school quality we do need the v2e's permission before making any curricular changes

208per their mou and so I think this would be the most constructive way to move forward on the reading curriculum I will also note the department is now engaged in a process of identifying curricula that school divisions in Virginia will need to pick from uh to meet the requirements of the Virginia literacy Act as I understand it there is a good chance that Yale education May ultimately end up being one of those curricula as the state is moving more towards a curriculum that meet the science of teaching reading of which El is one and so that's a further consideration why I think again collaborating with the Virginia Department of Education to ensure that whatever path we take is one that they will ultimately approve would be the most prudent at this time um I do

209again want to thank everybody for not just filling out the quantitative part of the survey but also the qualitative Parts there's a great deal of positive feedback and a great deal of growth feedback all of which is important and certainly is the basis for continued adjustments and enhancements that we can make to be responsive to our teachers needs but again based on the data that we have collected again from roughly three quarters of the teachers who teach these curricula uh clear majority indicating to proceed with Eureka and amplify with the flexibilities that I have indicated and so my recommendation is to do so and then a slight majority to stop on the El and again my recommendation is to work with the task force of teachers and the vdoe to determine the appropriate next step

210on that front I'm happy to take any questions thank you Miss White thank you madam chair um what's the question I mean what's the cameras I have two questions and perhaps a statement how many teachers do we have in our pries well that is a and this is what teachers and coaches right this survey so I want to be clear the only individuals that are reflected in this data are classroom teachers who said that they actually teach these curricula so not included are for example instructional coaches or counselors or others who aren't actually classroom teachers teaching the curricula okay and if you had substitutes they would have to teach these curriculums right if we have long-term Subs yes they would use the curriculum yes so they actually take this survey because I know we did

211we have a lot of uh substitutes right now that they take this survey it went to uh people in our system that are under a teacher contract so I'm not certain that it would have gone to the long-term Subs so how many exactly teachers do we have that teach these curriculums yep so for English and math it's about 5 50 and for science it's about 200. okay so that's about uh 750 what you're saying to me and this data doesn't uh nearly comes up to that so did all the teachers not take it or no we did not have a 100 response rate it was closer to about three quarters and then my next question is I hear you uh stated about the mou engaging in the curriculum and um Virginia Department of Education because

212we have been going over the curriculum for the last I know two school board meetings and I was quite unaware of the mou you didn't State anything about we needed to go to the mou the 10 days or anything were you not knowledge about that because all of a sudden we have we have done maybe two votes already on this about adopting another curriculum but my understanding um or not my understanding of a I was on a conversation uh between the chair and the office of school quality inquiring about this issue on behalf of the board and Dr Ortiz the head of the office of school quality indicated that [Music] um that changes to curriculum cannot be made without the Virginia Department of education's approval I can pull up the exact email but that's what

213was indicated I know I've seen the email so it's I just want to be clear about it um so what in order for a curriculum to be changed it has to go through the video e within 10 days is that correct um because that's what I read but well that doesn't mean that the curriculum can't not be changed as long as it goes to the Virginia Corrections it does not matter and this is Dr Ortiz from the office of school quality it does not match item five on page three of our mou on page five excuse me Bullet number five on page three the officer School quality staff will work closely with school and division Personnel to implement instructional line to the standards of learning OSI staff will review all recommendations regarding new or modified

214instructional programs thus curricula and or professional development recommendations must be submitted to the OSI staff no less than 10 days prior to purchase or submission to the local board for approval approval from OSI staff is required before purchase orders or contracts involving state and federal funding can be executed it is anything about local funding state and federal funding can be executed and request for reimbursements can be made any proposed new or modified instructional program must be aligned with the results of a division or school specific asset mapping exercise which that asset mapping hasn't been discussed here but I read that for a reason is is because what you're asking is not what is stated in black and white here which was the mou created in 2017. now if her email she has two sentences in

215her email that contradicts this paragraph so we just need to get some clarity on do you want us to ask you for permission to discuss a new curriculum or do you want us to follow what number five says in the mou on page three and those are two valid questions two distinct different statements but those are two valid questions that we are going to have to see Clarity on to your point okay Madam chair I got a question uh so you said that's 2017. is there an update updated mou there is not an updated mou this memorandum of understanding was approved by the Virginia Department of Education and the school board at that time in 2017. this is the one that we are currently working out of thank you so Mr cameras um to to

216your point that you were making [Music] um we do have to involve the office of school quality prior to any purchasing of new curriculum but it does not state that we need to receive permission to review new curriculum that that doesn't state that number five of the mou doesn't that state we need to have permission it does State the OSI staff will recommendations regarding new or modified instruction programs on professional development I think what I'm hearing Mr camera say is to um this is what I think I'm hearing him say because there is based on the feedback of the El curriculum his recommendation [Music] is to create a task force Mr cameras repeat your recommendation I don't yes ma'am yes knowing that we're one way or another gonna need to have the Department's approval my

217recommendation is to to create a task force to sit down with the folks at vdoe and of course our own teachers um and to try to figure out what is the best possible way here to proceed given the concerns that have been raised and to with the video we come up with the right path forward in an effort to secure approval and be able to move forward in a way that makes sense that might be a new reading curriculum but it might also be some additional modifications the reason I also think that's really important again specifically with reading is because of the Virginia literacy Act and the department is currently kicking off a process to determine which will be the approved curriculum in the Commonwealth of Virginia as it pertains to reading specifically there's a

218chance that they wind up with El being on that list and it would be a shame for us to switch course and then potentially switch back I think that would be a disservice to kids to teachers to everybody it might not but I think that's why having this conversation and having them help advise and guide and be responsive to the feedback I think would be the most prudent way to proceed Miss Gibson Miss door Miss door I think was next had her hand up for a while and then I come back this way and then this page okay I can't see okay Miss renzie and then miss Gibson I just need some help this was it me then Excuse Me Miss Brinson okay yeah okay Miss door okay thanks um I agree that um I

219was not confused about Dr Ortiz's sentence that said quote the conversation in the two previous two board meetings about eliminating the curricula is not an option for RPS based on the current memorandum of understanding so that to me seems like a pretty clear statement I agree that it seems like there's still confusion among the board so getting additional Clarity from Dr Ortiz um about what we can and cannot do about the curriculum will be important I'm not confused but it seems like we do need Clarity some of us need Clarity um and I would support this path forward I want to thank my colleagues who especially Ms White who um brought this to our attention I think this data is really Illuminating and I would just say I think we've talked about this before but

220um to the extent we can have a process for initiating surveys district-wide for any kind of this was a little bit came from the board and so I think if we can work together and say hey we'd like to think about changing something and here's the process we always do a survey we have two reads on the policy like whatever it is so that we're not kind of like as an afterthought doing surveys and we're working with the administration to work together on a change collectively I think that this could go a little bit smoother in the the future but I'm glad that we came to this outcome and I'm grateful to my colleagues for bringing it up thanks Miss Frenzy foreign thank you madam chair you know I I know we have this survey

221um there have been teachers who've reached out to me individually since the survey was conducted you know quotes from them curriculum for um math language arts and science by far the most difficult to plan and Implement in my time as a teacher I have no firsthand many teachers that have left RPS or are going to leave RPS solely because of the curriculum um I mean I think individual and we heard that you know right at the beginning when we started to consider this as a conversation teachers showed up and said these things um and I don't know that we should discount them based on you know a survey that I think is that the questions were kind of General um and you know I mean it's kind of difficult if you're a teacher in a

222system that's requiring you to use a curriculum to say I don't use the curriculum I mean I don't think it's realistic to think that everybody's going to be completely honest about that um my question is since both of these curricula are open source um what would be a problem with using the open source portions and then having our teachers modify the rest for their their use I mean in essence that is what we currently do they are open source obviously we want to give teachers the materials and so that there's a cost there um but as I think you heard today from I believe it was um somebody from Binford that the process they use there is as a team they go through it and make the modifications that that they feel are appropriate for

223their students and and that's what we encourage folks to do but the open source resources are free is that correct yes um but and they're free to us as well but again um there are physical materials that we want to put in our teachers hands and in our kids hands you have to pay for the the to print or for the physical materials otherwise it's it's just online and that's not always as user friendly you know for books and texts and things of that nature I don't know I'd like to see us look at the potential of using the open source part and you know coming up with supplements that we create um seems to me a decent compromise that also will give us a cost savings again I do want to clarify we do

224use the open source materials I didn't say we didn't okay Mr s miss page thank you madam chair um I wanted to put a motion on the table um beginning immediately uh the superintendent will assemble well I guess before I make my motion I just want to speak to um my perspective on this so um I uh um reading the the data that was provided in the survey and I and I do think that it's um somewhat's body in some schools there was a good amount of responses in other schools not in Henderson for instance in my district there were like two responses um and and the other thing I take away is if you also look like at Middle School level um the responses are quite different you know so the the feedback that

225we got in this survey on um Eureka for instance is very different when you look at the middle schools versus when you look at the elementary schools and so um based on this data which I I do think is somewhat um you know the way it's been presented could have been done differently and it's unfortunate that there was not more participation um but given that data I think by and large the takeaway that we should have is like we need to make a change right um in those subjects we got 400 responses only 25 teachers said let's stay the course that's a big deal 25. so it's also concerning that we had so many people respond speaking to the fact that the the materials are not Sol aligned so um so I appreciate the openness

226to developing task force um I would like to see us take it the next step and include a task force for each of the um you know for each subject I think it should be organized by um by level and um and I think we should put everything on the table and I think we should do this in Partnership as required with the with the office of school quality our goal is that our our students are are set up for Success we would all like to see more of our schools accredited and to that end we need materials that are SOL aligned um so in that Spirit um I would like to make my motion which is uh to say beginning immediately the superintendent will assemble cross-functional working groups to review our language arts mathematics

227and science curriculums to develop a three-year plan with implementation beginning in the 23-24 school year each working group will be comprised of classroom teacher leaders who make daily use of our curriculum and subject area Specialists with the oversight of our executive director of teaching and learning the administration is encouraged to partner with the Rea to identify teachers for this task participants of the working groups will be presented to the school board at our October 17 2022 meeting and all recommendations will be reviewed by the vdoes office of school quality as required per our memorandum of understanding and will be presented to the board by our meeting at the end of this calendar year in December 2022 along with all Associated budgets okay miss page I know there's a motion on the floor and Miss Paige

228had her hand up Miss Burke had her hand up Miss Jones had a hand or I'm not allowed to throw you to decide who's going to go a month because I saw miss Page hand and then I saw Miss Burke you didn't have your hand up okay Miss Jones and Miss Burke well prior to Ms Gibson I was going to make a motion to accept the recommendations um so I don't know what we're doing so we have one because I was going on for the presentation um we have one motion that has been made on the floor so we will get that one in there we'll follow that motion through however that motion lands we'll address the second motion according to Robert rules the order Miss Gibson has before I address the motion excuse me

229are there any other questions Miss White thank you madam chair this question is um for Mr cameras based on the motion that I just heard from Miss Gibson is pretty much the same what he's saying um is there any way that I think you said something about that you was going to have um she said task force and you said teachers or whatever so is there any way that because it's pretty much the same kind of any way that it can be uh collaborated together I obviously don't want to speak for Miss Gibson I think I'm talking about you yeah I think the recommendation I made is very similar to that um I I would object to some of the um I would say some of the language I don't remember exactly um specifies some

230elements that I think get into administrative decision making and oversight so um you know I think it's perhaps overly specific and prescriptive but um yes I I mean I think I'm just a little confused because I'm a little confused too um Mr Cameron's ass is a superintendent uh based on her motion is that can that be um can you fulfill those duties that she has stated I know she said within a time of three years and to form immediately and the rest of your emotion or whatever that you were stating was similar to hers again um I'm not sure I can meet the December meeting timeline that's actually very very soon given the Thanksgiving holiday coming up um I would object to the articulation of specific personnel um that need to manage the process that's

231ultimately something for me to decide um so you know there are some pieces to it that I would object and I would humbly and respectfully ask the board um to enact the recommendations I've put forward I think they are 80 of the way or similar to to what Miss Gibson has laid out um without some of the pieces that I think can somewhat problematic can you repeat your personnel please your personnel that you stated I mean what the person that he wanted to do those duties I think Miss Gibson's motion articulated specific individual specific titles within the organization that need to be involved and I think that's ultimately my decision as the day-to-day operating of the school system so I think prescribing that is is beyond the purview of the board um uh again the

232December time limit I think is is probably a little bit beyond what not just we're able to do but also the office of school quality is able to do so um again I would humbly request um approval of the recommendation I've put forward I think it achieves all themes without a couple of those pieces that um are somewhat problematic Ms I'm gonna go to miss Burt miss Page Excuse Me Miss Jones because she has not um spoken on this matter Miss burnt thank you madam chair first of all there is no perfectly aligned Sol curriculum that exists across the country Common Core is what was chosen the state of Virginia didn't buy into that number two I respect the teachers the lead teachers the teams instructional team members that have come together as what a

233good teacher would do a proactive teacher a seasoned teacher would do you know just as baking a cake you have to add different ingredients to it according to what you want to have done at the end of the day so having a perfectly aligned Sol curriculum it doesn't exist if the teachers were to write it on their own I think it's unfair to put that on them at this time number two teachers have already stated for my last meeting and this meeting that they have set up their own pacing shots which happens when you have a curriculum then also we're going to be in a position that we're going to tell a vdoe what to do with us and for us being mindful also that in the state of Virginia when it's time to adopt

234a curriculum or textbook series they are teachers and administrators chosen across the state of Virginia I've served on these committees and several are selected and Alyssa's put in place be mindful that we are under an mou folk okay why I put our folks in this position at the end of the day when our children are learning and looking to move forward according to the data that was given to us earlier to have this conversation and this time of the year there's so much more we could be talking about in support of our teachers and students I am not supporting the motion that's on the floor I am not supporting it I know better foreign thank you madam chair um I just want to add um that it just feels like we continue to move the

235goal posts every time we come and we say we heard the teachers we did a survey we received feedback we see where we are and then it's never enough and what we tend to do is continue to pit we say we say is the administration but we also do the same thing because no one is right or wrong and if we all say that we're all here for the betterment of the students to move them forward we understand that there are issues we have heard them loud and clear they have sang them from the top of the mountain so for us to ignore them would be um you know very careless on our part however we continue to approach upon the administration and now we dictate and say we need to do this this this

236and this so if the response was this is the data this is a survey I agree I feel like we probably should have had more but now we move it again and now we say okay this is the data we'll take it but instead of us just taking what's giving we're going to say but now you're going to do this and you're going to put this person in place and you're going to so what is it either we are going to work together because we see we've seen the presentation earlier from the academic office we see those folks working together we see the engagement office we see everybody trying to work together why are we not and I'm not saying that um we all don't have concerns and issues but it's not always about us

237and I just want to be able to make sure that when we make these decisions we're not making them based on personal or whatever because at this point we still are saying we need clarification from the bdoe we're not sure about the email the email tells us we can't change the the curriculum but then we make this move so I agree I am not in support of this motion I'm not in support of the fact that we have this data in front of us and if we can't work with what's being brought to us that we're asking for again it just continues to seem like we move the goal post for when we want to move it sometimes the data that they we bring it's okay and we ask the questions and we ask for

238feedback and that's okay and then certain things is not okay based on who's presenting it and so I just do not support this motion tonight and I'm very disappointed at the fact that I did this and we asked for it and if we wanted more we should ask for more not go and decide well this is what we gonna do thank you page the question for the superintendent superintendent cameras has anything changed with the mou since 2017 that any time a new program a new purchase anything of that nature it has to be approved by the bdoe nothing has changed with our mou since 2017. okay so I want to make that clear and we talk about research and and I think we've heard from so many teachers a quality curriculum takes I mean we

239just heard the Virginia Department of Education they're talking about making changes to the science social studies curriculum and they say that it's going to take them at least three years that's the Virginia Department of Education that had way much more manpower than a local school division so if they have stated it's going to take them three years why do we think it's going to take us less a much smaller School Division and I'm not in support of this motion either um I'm not willing to take the risk of our children being used as Pawns for you know we keep going back and forth we've seen the data tonight that has been presented by the um instructional team they are putting in the work and I'm now willing to sacrifice our children I want to continue

240to move forward see progress so thank you Miss renzie thank you madam chair let me first say that you know I'm less con I'm less convinced that the moderate progress we've seen with growth can directly be attributed to that curriculum as much as it could be attributed to the hard work of our teachers who have done whatever they can do to get this growth you know get our get our children moving forward with growth so I don't think we have a scientific way of showing that this curriculum is what got that growth I just don't think we have enough um evidence to you know support that I'm going to reiterate the fact that I you know how much are we paying for this curricula you know anybody give me an estimate I looked it up

241but I have since forgotten El and uh Eureka anybody know estimate Miss odasco I don't you know you know I I still would like to see you know we uh somebody do some kind of audit of you know what we get for free versus the materials we're paying for which from what I understand are quite expensive to see what's necessary and what isn't I don't think there's any harm in doing that and we could you know get somebody you know we could build that into your recommendation and build it into both of these task forces to make sure that we are actually getting the best deal for what we're paying for um you know our test scores um the the final numbers didn't move that much I I can see that there is some growth

242at some of these schools and that's great I again don't know how much of that can be attributed to the curriculum foreign thank you Miss White thank you madam chair um I was just reviewing the um propose of the superintendents on the screen and that's one thing that I can't that that'll be allowed because when euriku was introduced there were pilot programs for three different schools all of them were Blackwell Carver and I believe Oak Road and we knew that it didn't work then Eureka and that's not why our students had so much growth the reason why students had so much growth is that we have systems now built in place and based on the academic Department that came up here tonight and displayed accreditation as well as the um attendance one minute that's where

243the growth actually came so on that note I will agree with um Miss Gibson because I would like to see a thorough research done on all of our curriculums if it takes three years or four years I have an investment in Richmond Public Schools so on that note I second did you you seconded her motion okay the motion of my happiness Gibson read her Motion One More Time miss a white seconded and we will move forward with the vote thank you thank you madam chair the motion reads beginning immediately the superintendent will assemble cross-functional working groups to review our language arts mathematics and science curriculums to develop a three-year plan with implementation develop beginning with the 2023-2024 school year each working group will be comprised of classroom teacher leaders who make daily use of our

244curriculum and subject area Specialists with the oversight of our executive director of teaching and learning the administration is encouraged to partner with the Rea to identify teachers for this task participants of the working groups will be presented to the school board at our October 17 2022 meeting recommendations will be developed in collaboration with the vdoes office of school quality as required per our memorandum of understanding and will be presented to the board by our final December 2022 meeting with Associated budgets thank you I have a comment before we um vote you know it it truly disheartens me when board members are questioned because they need clarity we are required to seek the data and use the data to make informed decisions that doesn't make anyone worse or better than the other I think great leaders

245ask the questions particularly if they need clarity when you're sitting in rows of leadership and you're responsible for making decisions for people lives and you don't quite understand the gamut of information that has been presented to make the decisions you have to ask and seek for clarity so to to even ascertain a CERN or excuse me discern that um there's a lack of understanding in board members because we're seeking clarity that's that's how I was raised if you don't know something you need to ask and I'm not afraid to ask what I don't understand and I think all of us at such times have done so because we want to know what we don't know and that is okay a path forward consists of steps bringing changes based off of feedback from my teachers who

246I value in our instructional staff who I value and our administrators who I value must begin at the school level and I think we missed a step and when we you know can say yeah we missed a step this is how we can move forward and fix these things that's also seeking clarity this is not I've said this before this is not a new conversation what Mr cameras has presented and I've read it again and what Miss Gibson has presented are very similar and sometimes we miss what the other person is saying because we're talking over each other and then when we don't agree unfortunately foreign each other and that's not necessary we when there is when I'm in a chair excuse me I'm calling point of order please and it's 10 23 p.m we

247can't we are not so far as time I'm not going to be interested I'm not going to be interrupted I'm not going to be interrupted is this I'm Kirk keeping the time I'm not going to be interrupted I have allowed I have been very very professional in allowing everyone to speak absolutely and I hear you on questioning our integrity I'm not gonna be disrespectful disrespecting your position however right now I did not disrespectation is not on Behavior per se it is on making a decision in the best interest in your right and that's why I made the statement that I made and I'm not go I will never interrupt anyone from talking I would never do that and I expect the same I expect the same I would never do that to any of you

248on this dance no we're not so I'm gonna finish what I'm saying I'm going to respectfully finish what I'm going to say when I need Clarity I'm going to ask for clarity if someone agrees with it or not it's not okay that we can say one thing and it doesn't apply to the other so I have said what I have said uh I have said what I wanted to share everybody has um shared out on this topic there is a motion on the table it has been seconded which means the motion needs to be followed through Madam clerk Ms store no Miss White yes Miss Gibson yes Mr Young hi Miss Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes Miss Burke no Miss Paige no Miss Jones no motion passes thank you can have one more question

249related to curriculum um we just took a motion and it's this is regarding the curriculum okay Miss Gibson I just wanted to follow up on the discussion about the policy that the administration um promised regarding uh ensuring that teachers are not disciplined for veering from the curriculum I was hoping to get a commitment on when we'll receive that draft policy language I've I've stated it I put it in writing um multiple times publicly um so I will get with the team and see what else we can do to make sure that that is codified and clear for everybody thank you next we're going to discuss contracts over 250 000. do we have a presentation from the administration or contracts so board members there is a contract that we need to discuss and close um and

250I did send everyone an email about that they're here there are pieces of the contract that can be discussed and open yes if they're here I didn't know no one told me they would oh okay good evening there are three documents uh for your review regarding um employee and retiree health benefits uh the first is the joint exercise of powers agreement uh for employee and retiree health benefits which was signed by the former superintendent which entered Richmond Public Schools and the City of Richmond together in an agreement for insurance the second is the RFP that was put out for a joint health care program on July 30th 2021 and then the third document is the intent to award which is dated September 30th which says please be advised that the city intends to award the

251project to Cigna health and Life Insurance Company I have a question yes for the representatives that are here is there any reason why the school board could not receive this contract to review prior to today and just saying this is Emerson who works in our in RPS and this is our representative with the city for us this is not with the city a joint represented with USI um I don't know if either any of one wants to speak to us at the contract the consultant so good evening because of the confidential nature of the contract the city has asked us to discuss it enclosed was the confidential because then and I appreciate that that leads I really do but that leads to my next question that I asked um prior to today what is the

252confidential piece that we can't discuss and open because the the school board hasn't received it so we don't even know what we are um reviewing Mr Renee almarez is here the head of procurement for the city good evening thank you for coming thank you for having me absolutely so I just we don't have the contract to review that is correct and so we're being asked to review something and not this meeting but the consequential next you know consequently moving forward we're going to be asked to have action on this contract understand but we don't have the contract and the contract has not been awarded yet the con there's a notice of intent to award but it has not been awarded yet we're in a protest period right now so okay so that's that's where we're

253at right I know what that means I got it I didn't know that at first I just right yeah that so it starts with the notice of interest and for 10 days 10 calendar days and then uh after that um uh we'll be free to share it with you thank you now that I know that I didn't have that information no before so that really helps me that's why I'm here yep thank and I'm so glad you're here miss White thank you madam chair um good evening and thank you for being here sure thank you is this uh contract a Cooperative contract that is actually going to be with the city that the city has to award it for RPS insurance uh [Music] the city the city will award the contract to this to the

254vendor and then and then there'll be a board action in which the uh the school board and this will award as well so it's it's kind of a two-phased effort I'm the director of the Cuban I'll sign off on the uh on the agreement for the city and whoever executes the agreement to the school board will execute that so is this a health insurance that previously you said the previous superintendent I think Miss hadesco is is that what you said the previous uh superintendent had this in place yes the joint powers of agreement so you're just extending the contract renewing is the renewal time or this this this disagreement allows us to work together towards this unified end to get an agreement together for health benefits The Joint Powers agreement when we so we've had

255the uh we've had the solicitation out it's been evaluated there's a notice of intent to award we'll execute that health benefits agreement with you know the vendor who's up for award and then I'm not sure on the on the uh uh on rps's side who would who would execute that as well I think I got another question but it'll be close yeah come in close right supposed to be closed we'll we'll be at the closed session if uh is that the question say again yes you you're gonna come to close with us that's why because that the questions I think we're gonna you're gonna be getting because of what you just described we can't ask them and open right because of what you just described yeah we could we can discuss it further and closer

256absolutely yeah thank you Miss Gibson I just want to maybe I'm missed something so is it possible to share with the public the basic changes that's being proposed with health insurance uh foreign so in terms in terms of cost or just in terms of terms and so on yeah all of the above right I mean this is a public body and so we have you know thousands of employees who have a very vested interest in what the policy is as does the city yes right and so um I understand that the um that contracts are often confidential however in this case you know the public and staff have a very direct interest in in what the insurance is going to look like and so I'm wondering you know what how can this be developed in

257such a way that we're able to get feedback from the public before something is adopted I we we can discuss this in closed session that that's that is a plan um there's the city of Richmond ran the process it's and I have ownership over that process and uh there's there's confidentiality throughout that process until Award of the contract and that's that's kind of the process that we're operating under and we can discuss it you know in deeper you know in a in a deeper way I guess in the uh in the closed session if that's helpful yeah I mean I'm not going to vote to certify it as a closed discussion unless I feel that it is truly closed but I I understand the hesitation okay thank you thank you thank you you're welcome foreign

258we're going to receive for ACT I'm sorry I turn my paper over um received for Action the RPS transgender student protection resolution and I believe Ms Dora is going to read that resolution thank you madam chair um uh if you recall um I introduced this for the board's consideration last meeting this is in response to Governor Glenn Jenkins 2022 model policies on privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Virginia's public schools I welcomed any comments from my colleagues but did not hear any changes so hopefully you all will join me in passing this resolution in support of our transgender students the resolution reads whereas on September 16 2022 Governor Glenn Younkin released the 2022 model policies on privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Virginia's public schools rolling back

259advancements made to protect transgender students in Prior years whereas the new guidance limits the rights and protections of transgender students requiring that students must only use bathrooms and locker rooms associated with the sex assigned to them at Birth if a student wants to participate in a sport or other extracurricular activities they must again only participate in teams that align with the sex assigned at Birth the illegal the legal name of a sec and sex of a student can't be charged changed even with written instruction of a parent or eligible student without an official legal document or court order and teachers and other school officials can only refer to a student by their pronouns associated with their sex at Birth whereas transgender students deserve to learn and thrive in an environment free of bullying intimidation and

260fear therefore be it resolved at the Richmond City public school board projects Governor youngkin's model policies and affirm's commitment to providing protections for all students regardless of orientation gender identity or gender expression thank you we've heard a resolution Mr cameras I just wanted to note for the record that the administration strongly endorses Miss doors resolution thank you Miss Lilly um can you just share with the school board from the policy committee meeting we spent a lot of time on this resolution this discussion and can you just talk with us a little bit not um at an expedited pace so we can all have Clarity and understand what um this means and if we were if we reject what governor yonkin is asking School divisions to do what does that mean for Richmond City Public Schools

261thank you certainly thank you um and in a policy committee we talked about uh similar policy which was the um for goodness um I drew a link on the name of the policy but it was it's the same idea where there are model policies that are out and that um oh that the other policy that we were speaking of in the policy committee was about the parental review of sexually explicit materials and certainly it followed the same kind of cadence where there were Model policy the law was enacted that required a change in the policy or the Board of Education to draft policies or model policies for board divisions for school divisions and um so both follow the same Cadence and and so I will say the same thing that I said about that particular

262policy as we discussed in the policy committee is that as it stands now for this particular set for the transgender policy um the Board of Education and its model policies um that were I guess issued again in um 2022 basically says and again the board action is the board action on this but just so that the board is considering that the department withdrew based basically withdrew the 2021 model policies when the 2022 model policies were issued and so the basis upon which the previous policy that the board has on its books now um was based on the 2021 model policies so in its guidance the Board of Education now says that those policies will have no no further force and effect and that in order to comply with the law as it stands now the

263model policies basically say that the local reports have to adopt model policies that are consistent with the 2022 model policies the local boards May adopt policies that are more comprehensive than those policies so long as they're consistent with the 22 Model policies and the local school boards shall comply with all applicable Virginia and federal laws certainly compliance is the question here and when the model policies came out the new said um a lot of school divisions this is something that is up in the air as to the legality of the um even the act of replacing the 21 model policy with the 22 Model policy but that has not been settled yet and so the Board needs to just consider the fact that um should this pass and you know there could be compliance issues

264down the road that we don't have the answer to um we don't know what the Board of Education will um or could will do if a board does not adopt or policies that are in line with the new version of of the model policy that is on this particular topic so it is one of those questions one of those issues at the board just needs to be aware of and um you know at this point in time there are other school divisions that are also grappling with this particular issue and have um are moving either in the direction of changing the policies or not changing the policies and keeping the current policies that are on the books so with that I don't have any more specific to what will exactly happen thank you for that

265summary Miss Lily um from the policy committee meeting any questions or comments suggestions yes I'm happy to volunteer myself to align um based on that information I hope we can still pass this today but I'm happy to volunteer my time to help align this resolution with our current policies on board would we like to wait until the current resolution is aligned with our policies and come back or are we ready to um I I'm I'm ready to move forward because then that can come back to the policy committee and then the policy committee can quickly work in alignment according to um what Miss Lily has shared my concern is that if we delay doing this um this particular resolution this this is just me that it may send a message to these young people to

266our staff that um we don't care about them and that is farthest from this truth so I would like to have a um a hit at it and and clean it up whatever it may not be a lot but I'm I'm ready to move forward hmm 30 seconds Miss Gibson I don't think it was the most someone can make them oh sorry uh I thought that was I did make the motion yeah so so moved my what I just read a second it was moved by Miss door to accept the resolution as presented with um his door I would like to add a friendly Amendment with the review from the policy committee sure happy to make that Amendment Ms Gibson do you still second it sure thank you the motion was made to accept the

267resolution with um a review by the college policy committee was seconded by Ms Gibson Mr Young you have a question thank you madam chair I am sorry that some persons don't want parents to have any say pertaining to who can share a locker room a shower room or a bedroom with their children to be clear for all the conversation about bathrooms the outgoing model of edu e policy would also preclude parents assay pertaining to after gym change rooms and overnight field trip stays I will be voting no thank you okay thank you there is no other discussion I believe Madam clerk roll call vote please this door yes Miss White yes Miss Gibson yes Mr Young no Miss Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes Miss Burke yes page Miss Jones yes motion passes thank you

268we are receiving for Action the Personnel actions are there any questions on the Personnel agenda if not can I have a motion someone it was moved by Ms Jones to accept the Personnel agenda as presented can I have a second if I miss Page any questions Madam clerk roll call vote please Mr yes Miss White yes Miss Gibson abstain Mr Young aye Mr Izzy yes Dr Harris Mohammed yes Miss Burke yes Miss page yes Miss Jones yes motion passes next we're going to receive for Action our salary schedule update this has been presented to us I believe over a course of three meetings um maybe well I will say one thing that I am proud of is that we are keeping it um very up to date um so tonight there are three uh small

269changes one formalizing our part-time translators hourly rate at 35 an hour increasing the hourly rate of our driver education uh driver trainers to 25 an hour and we've added a new position title which is a structural four person thank you can I have a motion to accept the salary schedule as presented some it was moved by Miss Jones to accept the Stop and reschedule do I have a second second amendment's page any questions Madam clerk roll call vote please I'm sorry we have a question Ms White thank you madam chair uh thank you Mr Desco for this salary schedule but I just have a general question [Music] um we're doing a lot of changes um in the salaries now uh we're coming up with um employees who have compressed that having been paid for their

270compressed time okay there are there are two remaining groups who are on a compressed salary schedule office Associates and all of central office everyone else's salary schedule has been decompressed and it is maintained through an annual 1.17 step so it's only two you say there's two groups left oh two groups Associates so every office associate is still on a compressed schedule and every member of central office is still on a compressed schedule so what what time frame would they actually get to reach the salary schedule um well that will depend on the budget and certainly it will also depend on collective bargaining uh all four units are bargaining compensation and so those will have implications as well for and the csas are a central office bargaining unit um but they are only a subset of

271central office so obviously all of this is to be continued in the budget season of limited resources but I do want to note that the things that I'm bringing are none of these have been new salary schedules this is the addition of a title into the salary schedule um or the modification of an hourly rate but we have not adjusted any salary schedules in these updates I brought that was just a general question yeah yeah thank you sure it has been moved and seconded to accept the salary schedule Madam clerk roll call vote please the store yes Miss White yes Miss Gibson yes Mr Young how are you Miss Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes Miss Burke yes Miss page Miss Jones yes motion passes thank you thank you so next is to discuss the

272process for hiring a deputy Clerk and what I'm going to do miss hedesco sent me I believe in Miss Gibson and Miss um and the support attorney an email of the process that we implemented as a school board for hiring our current Clerk I'm going to send that to you all um Mr duskel if you could send it to me again because I've had I don't know 100 emails be prior to you sending I mean after you sent that to me um and then let you all review that make some suggestions send it send your suggestions via email and um also in that the discussion of where the funding source is going to come from what what line item or what code is called different things in different School divisions but at the end of

273the day what budget Source will pay for the deputy clerk position as we all have agreed that we need to provide our clerk some support so I'm not looking for answers tonight I am asking for you all to reach out to me via email via text via phone to say these are my ideas you can send them via email um so everybody voice can be heard on this process um and then what the process looks like um so those are my um that's all I have for 7.01 Miss Gibson you have anything for the seventh the deputy Clerk no that no I mean ultimately we need to move very quickly on this um you know when we talk about governance there is work that goes into it and um and so we we need to

274have the support we need to be able to submit foyers in a timely manner um or reply to them in a timely manner and the work of the disciplinary committee is important work and um and when there are delays because our our clerk is not able to attend this and this is just the first read foreign just after I'd gotten under my new blanket um there are two policies that we brought to the committee this past week um uh the first is related to promotion and retention and there were nominal updates to update to current staff titles as well as to add some allowances for Unique consideration for English language Learners and there's an Associated admin procedures document for them the second is the employee absences and leave policy and that's updated to include a

275variety of of updates summer nomenclature some updates to timeline for protection of role when on FMLA um Clarity and use of sick leave once FMLA is exhausted um and some removal of limitations that had been in place regarding uh parental leave all of these revisions were vetted and approved by the policy committee but I welcome any questions this evening or over the course of the next week if you have any questions about those policies send Mr desko an email they're really straightforward um and she could possibly send you the red line and for oh I'm sorry I have mine from Wednesday so um have any questions in her email all right the agenda was amended I'm sorry we're not there yet discuss the timeline for adopting the FY 23 24 school calendar so in 2021

276there was a motion that was adopted to discuss our school calendar earlier and as a board we chose the month of November um I can't remember the day if there was a day in that motion but I have Miss Lily poured that and I'm bringing this forward because it can be potentially become a low-hanging fruit we'll get to November and then we'll focus on other things and we could possibly forget that we need to begin discussing the FY 2324 calendar I'm not asking us to discuss that tonight I have it on the agenda um so we can be so you can begin thinking about what we want to bring to Mr cameras in terms of school calendar and not run into some of the challenges that we ran into um this this school year that

277just ended pertaining to our Pre-K calendar um transportation and all those different things that was a part of that conversation so any questions about that before we move on to 7.04 7.04 was added was amended to the agenda to discuss to have a discussion about the communication with Virginia Department of Education and the office of school quality foreign thank you Simon amending the agenda proposed um the agenda to be amended for a brief discussion about the recent 40 requests that was on 9 22 22 regarding the communication with the office of school quality in the Virginia Department of Education and as it relates to the governance and communication with the office of school quality and Virginia Department of Education there have been many instances that we have not in the world not receive communication and

278I'm citing three examples so as far as the chief Wellness officer the chair stated that Dr Ortiz had concerns about the potential Highway but never received any written communication and then governance training with the bsba that included a board member attendant via Zoom board members never received any type of communication that had met the guidelines of the mou and again stating the effort the 40 request on 9 22 The Correspondents from the office of school quality that the board did not receive regarding the administration's capacity board conducting business is related to the curriculum and so the school board meeting was held on 9 19. the board would have never known about this correspondence if not for the Forum request so at this time I would like to make a motion I move that all communication

279correspondence sent to the board leadership and administration from the Virginia Department of Education to include the office of school quality be sent to all nine board members upon immediate receipts second it was moved by Miss uh Paige that the board received all communication from the office of school quality upon receipt to all nine board members it was seconded by Ms Jones any questions Ms Gibson um thank you madam chair this is um something I I support I would suggest that this would be uh codified in our policy rather than just kind of an emotion so I would suggest that we consider it and look at language to add into policy this was something that I requested to do under previous board leadership um and so I'm I'm in support of making that change thank you

280does the the motion including um communication sent to the administration as well yes I said both okay one leadership and administration can you uh read the motion again miss page I say I move that all communication correspondence sent to the board leadership and administration from the Virginia Department of Education to include the office of school quality be sent to all nine board members upon immediate receipts and I can send to the motion to the um clerk thank you any other questions Miss Jones I just said I know you had said we were scheduled to discuss this last I think he said the next meeting where they're going to be some things around us that you were going to bring forward or was it going to be similar to this um conversation it was going to

281be similar to this conversation has our agenda the request of the agenda had been set and so as I have done with other board members who have emailed me on a Wednesday or after the agenda setting meeting I said it will be placed on the next agenda item um and so there's no need for us to discuss it on October the 17th because it came up tonight um so Miss frenzy thank you madam chair um and and this is for both of you are there um any considerations or objections you have that we should be aware of well the only objection that I have is I I don't mind sharing the information but a lot of times eye contact the office of school quality for my clarity like did did I not um do this

282right or was this not submitted correctly or something like that um I can't speak for Mr cameras because I received just like you all received the you know the information in real time I received it in real time and I'm actually I am very grateful that the four year was done because I would have never known that that context of information was between Mr cameras and the office of school quality prior to um I know it was a and a statement about not providing the information about the cwo I can't provide something that was never given to me even though it said something was going to be presented to me um I just continue to work with them and make sure like this last time I I really pressed giving us a document indicating where

283we were and that did take a couple of days um but all in all that that I think from my perspective they're pretty good in trying to adhere or if I request can you put this in a document um they they would do that for example now I will say this I do not have evidence that they correct corrected a um and this is out there on the doe website I do not have evidence that they corrected an era in the last report that was dated February excuse me yeah February 17 2022 of this year it indicates that the board did not have governance training in 2021 and everyone on this governance team knows that's inaccurate but if that stays in the report that way we can be cited for that and so that's that's

284very serious it may seem small but that's very serious so I don't have a problem with supporting the motion not at all Mr cameras I don't have a problem with the motion either I do want to note I'd want you all just to be prepared that your inboxes may fill up with all kinds of very uh banal emails about scheduling meetings and all kinds of things if you're essentially copied on everything that goes back and forth so just beware I don't get that type of communication Administration does so um Miss Jones um I just have one last I guess statement um based off of the four-year request and it was noted that um the osq utilizes the governance manual to work at the Virginia School Board Association and the memorandum of understanding to get the

285RPS board what um what are we doing to ensure that we're you know remaining I guess on track with the Norms in the governance manual and the things that basically are saying with being counted on the governor's manual can be reviewed at any time and I can um ask the vice chair to be tasked with that to begin those conversations with um with whoever wants to have those conversations um but that that governance manual and the Norms um can be you know can a committee the committee has already been formed it's formed in 2021 so um I can work with Miss Gibson to you know just say hey let's get you know work with some people and review and see and bring some recommendations to the policy committee I see you miss white yeah and

286I I wasn't actually asking that but I mean if that's how you see to you I just want to make sure that we're following along since they're saying this is what they so repeat that question again because I never said that yeah I was just saying that in the in the email that stated that they utilize the governance manual the work with the Virginia School Board Association and the memorandum of understanding to God the IPS report and so I'm just saying in terms of like earlier when this page was amending the agenda you had mentioned about amendment I think we had all talked about not amending the agenda I remember yeah that was a new Norm that we adopted exactly but that Norm has now been broken which means anybody is gonna break it I

287just wanted to bring that to people's attention but yeah but that's what I'm saying but I also think we also talked about other issues are happening that are continuing to happen along with that so that's what I'm saying we can talk about it later that's fine and that's fine too um and that's all of us we all and I have said it before we have to self-govern um but I'm not I'm not asking about the self-governing I'm asking about what ddoe said that they're guiding us on I understand that piece I get it and every time we say something indicative to what is right here it's like you constantly are like chastising it feels like no I'm not okay so I'm specifically saying to you what video he said we understand that we have to

288self-govern I get it I get that part but it is miss page I I just wanna some clarity I want to make it clear we have oftentimes um operating outside of our Norms such as our board meetings ending at 10 because we all agree to that but it is now 1108 and our born Norms say clearly state that our board meetings were in at 10 so we I just want to make it clear that we oftentimes ignore the Norms that we have established for this governing body and I don't need this is my perspective and this is in accordance to our board Norms thank you and that's aboard Norm that we can review when we start reviewing the governance manual Miss White I know your hand's been up for a while I apologize thank you

289madam chair I just had a question with Miss Page's motion um I do agree with your emotion as far as being transparentive of all nine members but also in that mou it stated that we should be receiving a cap which is a correct correction action plan from the superintendent and we haven't received those either so is that going to also be included when video uh sent us all the emails that's include the communication yes ma'am we have to receive that thank you it's a lot so just Mr cameras has stated it's a lot all right um do we have any we have emotion on the floor oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry um Madam clerk Mr yes white yes Gibson yes Mr Young all right Miss Rizzy no Dr Harris Muhammad yes Miss Burke

290yes Miss Paige yes Miss Jones motion passes do we have any board travel District activity requests yes we do we have one from Miss Jones for 600 for the River City Middle School fall festival for all gonna have a motion so moved a second it was it was moved by Miss Gibson to accept the board travel and District activity request that was seconded by Ms Burke in the discussion Madam clerk roll call vote please are we building on this pulling this out are we doing the entire consent agenda with one vote I didn't I didn't we're at the consent agenda portion so I'm just getting clarification on whether or not we're going to pull out the district activity request and vote on that singular pull it out pull it out okay Miss door yes Miss

291White yes Miss Gibson yes Mr Young abstain Miss Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes Miss Burke yes Miss page yes Miss Jones motion passes board members received for Action I hope you looked at the budget transfers over ten thousand do I have emotion cell move it was moved by Ms Jones to accept the budget transfers over ten thousand dollars seconded by miss Page any questions roll call vote please Madam clerk Mr it's white yes Miss Gibson yes Mr Young hi Miss Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes Mr Burke yes Miss page Miss Jones motion passes thank you we're gonna go down to new business because we have um for your information other informational items and also I just want to share with you that under that I have asked Mr cameras to put mou slash

292cap so we'll know that that information is the corrective action plan instead of just having mou um if we wanted some other place let me know um and we can make that happen new business any new business from board members Miss White uh Madam chair I would like uh as far as new business the business that I had the last time to be put on this time but I would like to include one for um our next meeting I'm looking at an action plan on students behavior such as bullying um substance usage and [Music] fighting there's a lot of that going on in the schools right now Miss White I thought we added excuse me added your items the last two meetings that you what what two of your items are enclosed so did I

293miss mm-hmm yes ma'am yeah yeah all right um I just have a couple of items for new business it's that time almost that time for Budget priorities I will send out an email asking you all what um your budget priorities are and I just want to send Armstrong High School staff and administration a huge thank you for the hospitality last week um thank you so much for inviting me to speak to your seniors during that senior installation and also thank you for allowing me to um be just privileged and honored to dine with you at your homecoming game last Thursday that was moved due to the weather um and also I would like for the board to consider this was a request that was made to to me to con by one of my constituents

294to consider a discussion on rezoning Martin Luther King Junior middle school I'll put that in the email um and that's all my new business that I have any announcements this bird miss page thank you ma'am chair many thanks to everyone that supported the East End music excuse me Arts Festival we had hundreds and hundreds of people at the new henrielle March the Third Elementary School and in support of our schools in the 6th and Seventh District I think we made our cut amount if not more of over a hundred thousand dollar profit so many thanks to all the persons that perform that visited that participated it was a grand activity and we want to do it again for the sixth year thank you so much yes I would like to remind board members to complete

295the disciplinary doodle that Miss Richardson our clerk has sent out on several occasions because if we do not have three board members participating in the disciplinary committee then that means that is just more time that our students are out of school so please sign up and complete the doodle and make your commitment thank you uh thank you while we're talking about potential rezoning projects I would like to add Thomas Jefferson High School as well to that list I'm not the feet of middle school the high school yeah okay any other announcements who has the document for quote Miss renzi pursuant to section 2.2-3711a178 and 29 of the code of Virginia I move that the school board convened and closed session to one consider the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salaries disciplining or resignation of specific

296public officers appointees or employees of the school board and the Personnel actions for today two for consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members or Consultants pertaining to actual or probable litigation related to Insurance matters where consultation or briefings an open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body and three discussion of the award of a public contract involving the expenditure of public funds and discussion of the terms or scope of such contract related to employee benefits where discussion in an open session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body second it was moved by Miss renze to take us in clothes seconded by Miss Burke Madam clerk roll call vote please miss door Miss White yes Miss Gibson yes Mr Young aye Mr

297Rizzy yes Dr Harris Muhammad yes Miss Burke miss Page yes