RPS School Board Meeting - March 7, 2022

001announcement mr miss white ms gibson mr young president miss frizzy here dr harris mohammed president mr president ms page ms jones here madam chair we have a quorum thank you excuse me thank you madam clerk now for our translation if anyone needs translation interpreting services in spanish please let me know see again thank you for that now we will have our pledge of allegiance and our moment of silence thank you board members we are at a moment where we need to approve our minutes from the february 7th meeting and the february 22nd meeting can i have a motion in a second i move that we approve the meeting minutes from february 22nd and february 7. is that correct yes ma'am thank you miss jones do we have a second second thank you miss white i

002believe second that motion any questions about the minutes from february the 7th of february 22nd hearing that there are no there isn't any discussion madam clerk mr miss white yes miss gibson yes mr young aye ms rizzi dr harris muhammad yes miss burke yes miss page miss jones yes motion passes thank you madam clerk we have two board members that whoever who have arrived can you recognize them please yes ms page and mrs gibson have arrived thank you so much board colleagues before we adopt the agenda i have a couple of um amendments to the agenda you if you don't mind one is to move 6.06 to 6.02 just making it a little earlier to move 6.06 to 6.02 and then just reverse it move 6.02 to 6.06 and also i would like to add

003under board business excuse me no not under board bids um yes under board business i would like to add 7.04 a presentation from the richmond sheriff's office so so again move 6.06 to 6.02 move 6.02 to 6.06 just swapping those and then under board business 7.04 a presentation from the richmond sheriff's office we can move them up first so they can go save the city we're talking about the sheriff's office so so you're suggesting that 7.01 or move them where mr young what's your suggestion yes yes ma'am chair uh perhaps to accommodate our friends from the sheriff's office we would just take the agenda out of order and add a 7.04 but we would proceed with 7.04 immediately subsequent to 3.01 just just 7.04 thank you madam chair i'm not privy to what um the

004sheriff's office is presenting is this something that we need to move on expediently i mean is it a special topic or program coming up or what what is it in reference to we have other organizations and entities that do the same thing madam chair yes ma'am i don't have a problem with that but usually we do know about that in advance i'm i'm in favor of hearing what they have to say but it won't be doing public comment and it is correct you are correct we do have people in organizations to make presentations so if it can be moved up i'm in agreement with what mr young stated but moving forward it would be most considerate if we have that information before inviting these wonderful persons public servants to be with us i think it's

005only correct that we give them the amount of time due but on our end we do need to follow that procedure please thank you ms burke for that um in the past not in in the past not all board members were privy to people being added or organizations be added to the agenda but um moving forward i make sure that the clerk post the agenda a little earlier so you we all can see what's on the agenda but the items are discussed during the agenda setting me up but it's not listed but i'm good right it's not because i forgot i forgot to inform ms richardson to it yes any other discussion can we have a motion to amend the agenda as presented so moved ms gibson moved the agenda can we have to amend

006the attendant i believe ms jones seconded any discussion madam clerk before you take the roll call can you please recognize mr stewart thank you yes miss dora has arrived thank you roll call vote list this is a vote for the ninja agenda mr dore yes miss white yes miss gibson yes mr young aye mr rizzi yes dr harris muhammad yes miss burke yes miss page yes miss jones yes motion passes unanimously thank you [Music] we are now at the recognitions mr cameras madam chair can we vote to adopt the agenda oh i'm sorry yes i need a motion to adopt the agenda please i move that we adopt the agenda as amended thank you miss jones has adopted the agenda as amended and i believe it was miss white who seconded it thank you madam

007clerk miss door yes miss white yes miss gibson yes mr young aye ms rizzi yes dr harris mohammed yes miss burke miss page yes miss jones yes motion passes unanimously thank you so much for that mr cameras thank you madam chair and good evening everyone i am delighted to introduce evelyn medrano who is a junior at open high school evelyn maintains an a average and is currently pursuing an associate's degree at j sergeant reynolds through the early college academy evelyn is a member of the superintendent's student advisory council and is currently searching for opportunities to volunteer in the medical field so if anybody watching knows of any please reach out evelyn also participates in alpha kappa alpha sororities cap saturdays a program that meets with students in virginia to learn about colleges and universities and

008their application process in her spare time evelyn likes to spend time with her nephews and crafts to decorate her home she also likes to challenge herself in math upon graduation evelyn plans to pursue a degree in biology and proceed to medical school to become an ob gyn please join me in welcoming evelyn medrano good evening first i want to thank the school board members and superintendent cameras for the great opportunity to share my thoughts i'm proud to be able to be here today representing the rps community before i continue i want to thank the board and the administration for their leadership and everything that they have done to ensure our health and safety during the pandemic if you're wondering why i'm speaking in spanish it's because rps has created an inclusive environment for students whose

009first language isn't english i know that i can speak in my preferred language and rps will make sure to find an interpreter for me and for you as well the same way that language is part of my culture so is my food it's time we took the next step by offering students food that is representative of their cultures emotional mental academic the coronavirus virus pandemic has affected us socially emotionally mentally academically and financially according to no kid hungry over the past decade the number of children living with hunger has fallen steadily but the coronavirus pandemic dealt a terrible blow to our nation's progress as many as 13 million children in the united states live in food and secure homes this means that these households don't have enough food for every family member to lead a

010healthy life many of these children are coming to school hungry and perhaps leaving school hungry as well students need nutrients so they can focus on learning concentrate in the classroom and ultimately succeed in school this is why i believe it's important now more than ever that we ensure students have access to expanded school lunch options these should represent the diverse cultures of rps students has fortunately i'm able to get up at five in the morning to prepare something to eat because i know if i don't i won't eat during the day i don't feel like school lunch is representative of the foods i'm used to eating in my culture and therefore they aren't appetizing to me while i wake up early and cook what about elementary students like my nieces and nephews who can't make

011their own lunch or those students who don't have the resources at home are they in school hungry and thinking of food instead of their studies when asked for their feedback on school lunches most of my peers stated they'd rather eat snacks instead of what's provided for lunch if they don't have snacks they'll eat the fruit or drink the orange juice they have for that day antes a before i close for the evening i would like to present the board with the following recommendations first i do not believe it's necessary to change the entire menu but i think a good compromise could be to expand menu options by creating a rotation some examples of healthy additions are nopales corn tortillas which are naturally gluten free pico de gallo mexican rice with vegetables and yucca a source

012of vitamin b or perhaps falafel hamburgers mujadra which is rice and lentils lamb over rice balila salad and many other middle eastern dishes segundo magusta secondly i would like the students voices to be heard it's important for rps to survey students on the foods they would like to see added to the menu recommends lastly i recommend that a diverse group of students are selected to serve on a committee to taste and provide feedback regarding the menu demand we could be wasting money if we're serving food that isn't going to be eaten if we provide students with food they enjoy eating we would be using our money effectively angela's recommendations while i know these recommendations that i'm presenting to you this evening will not happen immediately i'm confident that they are a step in the right

013direction thank you for your time and consideration evelyn thank you so much for your very very thoughtful words we are so grateful uh for your voice in english and spanish so thank you very much for being with us and sharing your words tonight you're welcome thank you so much sweetheart and i'm glad you participated in my sororities cap we can continue to participate and you can hang out with us until one o'clock in the morning if you want to if not you can leave okay excuse me thank you all so very much next we have our public comment we do have i'm sorry i'm sorry we do have one more recognition the student is not here but we would like to recognize the student is jeffrey masson here jeffrey come on up all right to

014everyone watching i'm thrilled to recognize jeffrey mason from river city middle school jeffrey is our 2022 scripps district-wide spelling bee champion can we show him some love he bested 28 other spellers to earn the title and his winning word was filbert philbert use that one in a sentence jeffrey will now go on to the regional spelling bee sponsored by the richmond times dispatch on march 19th again can we please congratulate and show some love to jeffrey mason and let's go take a picture with this orthographic superstar and can we have any family members teachers river city staff come on up thank you all so much for your patience we love student recognitions any recognitions we love them we are now at our public information session or section excuse me we have four people who signed

015up to speak and if you're here and you were not able to sign up of course you can um speak as well and i will call your name in order and please charge it to my mind and not my heart if i mispronounce your name baz bashan amelia boshen katherine ricard and holly blatten and madam clerk can you please review the policy for public information please public comment yes ma'am policy 1-6.7 public participation at meetings conduct 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 division superintendent school board attorney clerk or any other staff member the school board will listen to comments but will not respond during the public information period persons persons excuse me

016appearing before the board will not be allowed to one campaign for public office two promote privacy business ventures or three use profanity or vocal language if a community member's comments during the public information session relate to school-based issues the chair may refer that individual to richmond public schools administration for one-to-one consultation and follow-up it is important at all community members who wish to participate in the public information period by the guidelines set forth in this policy refusal to abide by the policy will result in the forfeiture of the remaining time that has been allotted to the speaker community members may express their views in writing in lieu of any oral presentation comments received in writing in lieu of an oral presentation will not be read during the meeting but shall be posted to the school

017board platform board docs thank you if you are here you can step forward and the microphone is adjustable good evening everyone thank you green green light all right thank you my name is boz boshen and i'm a parent of three children at fox elementary thank you for having us tonight uh i went on a run around my neighborhood this morning i ventured down monument avenue its promise of things to come i went past the burned out shell of fox its uncertainty i went past the vacant and neglected clark springs elementary past benford middle school past albert hill middle school i feel connected to all of them because they are my city you are my school board these are my teachers these are my children we've had three weeks of uncertainty and tensions are high and

018please you know i apologize for my raw emotion tonight but we this is our only venue currently to come speak with you and engage with you on these issues we've had community meetings where we were told to email you i know that people have emailed you and not received replies i know that because they have sent comment to be made tonight in person that's the only way this can happen i'm asking you as a board to rethink how this engagement model works can you offer us options for virtual engagement and public comments it's not fair it's not equitable to make people come here i'm privileged and that's why i'm here tonight and i recognize that but again people feel powerless in this system i know that many of you have felt that way in your

019lives i've never experienced it to this degree and it it feels it feels bad i don't like it i want to feel that you're working for me is the same i'm working for you i would like for us to find a better avenue i don't know if there is a a standard that you want to set as a board for community engagement individual district meetings your own town halls like we've had at fox i really appreciate that we've had that opportunity to engage virtually and at least hear updates from the principal and the superintendent i have heard children say how old were you when your school burned multiple times this is trauma i know this board understands what that means we need to get them back in person i know that there is a plan

020tonight on the table it's not exactly what i asked for it's not exactly what other people ask for it's a compromise i hope that we can find a way together through this but again i think that we need to rebuild trust i think that we're having problems as a community around trust with this board if it's the board if it's the superintendent if it's the mayor there is a caustic error about things that i would like to see resolved i don't think that the problems ahead of us will get resolved the way that we're operating and i really am asking you to try to find ways to collaborate and compromise and hear the public comment and feedback i'm not here as a part of a pack i'm not here as official anything this is just

021me and my feedback you know elkhart middle school had mold problems they were pushed back into clark springs clark springs then sat vacant again and fell into disrepair it could have been an easier solution for fox to get moved in there immediately i really wish this fire hadn't happened but i also wish that clark springs had been kept up i wish that with had been dealt with earlier i wish all of these things we had already addressed we have not we need to move forward together we need to build unity with the state and with each other and that's what i'm asking you to do i want my children to trust me that i'm doing the right thing by trusting you i i look forward to going by tom springs on my run and seeing

022it with flowers and happy children thank you thank you good evening my name is emilia boshen i'm here to read a statement on behalf of a fellow parent who couldn't make it here tonight so this is a statement from nicole mcquaid i would like kids back in a physical space as soon as possible madam attorney do we have a policy that speaks to someone else speaking in someone's else absence we've your policy does not state it but it's the practice that it says in the um on the agenda itself that community members desiring to speak in person must be present that is the practice that is was put into place and it's listed on your agenda i'm gonna take a point of personal privilege because this board has allowed other people to come during public

023comment and speak on behalf of someone else we did it during the budget session we've had several people come down and speak on behalf of someone else we had employees do it we had community leaders do it because someone couldn't be present and it was not addressed then and so i want to be fair and allow this parent um to continue because we've done it in the past we have not stopped it but i appreciate the superintendent bringing it to my attention so yes ma'am all right thank you very much um i would like kids back in a physical space as soon as possible and think the first baptist solution works great as it is close to fox it can house the entire community splitting kids up into different schools seems like a bad idea

024our child is new to school being a kindergartner it was just getting used to the fox teachers staff and students sending him and his class to a new rps elementary school and other students to multiple schools would definitely fragment the community and make our children feel lost confused and scared in my opinion keeping them together with the staff and students they know is the only way forward as for rebuilding fox at 2300 hanover i'm hoping the process to repair and rebuild can happen as swiftly as possible if there are any emergency processes you can put in place to allow decisions to be made as quick as possible please do that my fear is that the complex decision making of rps and school board will significantly slow the process down making a possible two-year project turn

025into a three to four year project which would infuriate me as a person who purchased a home near fox so that we could walk our kid to school please be swift with approvals and please hear the voices of the fox community when making decisions please award the job to someone as soon as humanly possible so the repair can get started and fox won't deteriorate even more thank you thank you good evening my name is catherine ricard and i'm representing the william fox elementary pta organization like i said my name is catherine riccard i am a former high school history teacher and administrator recently had the distinct pleasure of serving as president of the william fox elementary pta i'm also a mom i have three kids two of whom are fox students and a final who

026will enter in a few years and i am sure make her own unique mark on it as a representative of the pta i have been listening to our community as we struggle through this challenging time in an effort to make these voices heard i present the following statement to the board a majority of our families surveyed agreed that our students should return to in-person learning as soon as possible our children need to be together and they need to be with their teachers virtual learning is a barrier to day-to-day life that we need correction for parents need to return to work and our students need a full in-person school day for their academic advancement with the fire established routines have been disrupted creating instability for our families we need a return to stability and being back

027in the classroom provides this for that reason we are supporting a move to a temporary space until clark springs becomes ready in moving to a temporary space we know the availability of after care becomes an issue but for our parents to truly get back to work and support their families a child care option after school is necessary not all our families have the ability to leave their jobs to pick up their children the lack of aftercare creates additional stress for our caregivers and students i know aftercare is a logistical nightmare there is no easy solution we encourage the board to utilize every additional resource necessary which may include cooperation with the city to create an aftercare and transportation solution for our families we are asking for support and stability for our families but we also

028want to support our teachers who are the linchpin of all of this we support their need to have time to set up their classrooms moreover our fox community is ready and willing to help our teachers transition to this new learning space and and the burden this transition creates we want to give the gift of our time to our teachers who have little to spare we know our teachers have suffered significant trauma at having their classrooms destroyed in the fire my classroom was my life i get it we cannot restore their possessions but we want to support them through our physical labor financial support and love a move to a temporary space and clear timelines for the clark springs renovation will help ease community concerns and prevent additional damage to our school's enrollment in the last

029three weeks there has been a clear lack of progress with both the renovation and cleanup of clark springs and fox our community is worried we have already lost families to other rps schools and the community is also expressing concern over kindergarten enrollment which started this week because parents and caregivers simply do not know what to expect in the months and years ahead we want our incoming kindergarten families to know that our fox school and community will be there to welcome them in the fall regardless of their our location with opinion and loving arms please support the in-person temporary solution at first baptist for our children so we can get them back together in class as soon as possible with all these decisions we the pta board of william fox elementary thank this school board the

030superintendent and all at rps for their hard work and efforts on behalf of our children thank you thank you would anyone else like to speak after this young lady here so you're more than welcome to line up thank you yes ma'am good evening and thank you for your service to our students and families my name is holly blanton i am a resident of the fifth district and a parent of a fourth first grader and rising kindergartener at fox and i have a toddler at home we are deeply invested in rps after the initial fox town hall i thought it best to remain virtual until clark springs was ready so that our students wouldn't have another transition into and out of a building the very next day i had the privilege of volunteering at the learning

031center my children attend and i changed my mind really fast when you have the opportunity to monitor at least 10 kids from different classes on virtual at the same time there is no doubt returning to in person should be our priority we are all doing the best we can with an unfortunate circumstance but virtual is not the absolute best for our students it's a band-aid some of my thoughts about our fox community our k through second graders have never had a full year of in-person instruction many of our student population rezoned last year into fox during virtual they have attended fox in person for five months before the fire barely enough time for families to establish important connections kindergarteners and first graders can't learn necessary skills while on virtual unless they are privileged to have

032a dedicated adult helping them the learning centers have been efficient to keep kids engaged socially but they are on an emergency program and cannot provide the same instruction or interaction our amazing teachers and staff provide i was 100 supportive of virtual last year during the uncertainty of the pandemic that was an entirely different scenario this fire is a uniquely traumatic situation and what we know from last year's virtual needs is that a majority of our children do not thrive under these conditions please vote yes sending us back in person is the best option overall for our students i would also like to add that my children have been attending the first baptist learning center and we have 60 plus fox kids who are now familiar with this space i have no doubt their community will

033make every effort to make this transition the most rewarding experience for our students and teachers i am impressed by their leadership's execution of a successful learning center that is guided by love for children i hope you all vote yes to first baptist so we can move forward and begin rebuilding together every option has a challenge because this is an unheard of situation that doesn't have time for months of discussion but if through your leadership with mr cameras miss jacobs and miss oliver it's clear that we move forward together as a community we along with the gift of first practice can support our children and staff while major rps efforts direct toward the bigger plan of rebuilding thank you for your time thank you ms blanton if you would please pass the clipboard back when you're

034done thank you hi i'm becca duvall i'm a fox parent of two and one to come all right board i'm here tonight to echo the sentiments of my vox family i support the stop gap option presented by the superintendent our children need a return to in-person education as soon as possible i support our teachers the fox community is ready to share the burden of classroom transitions in the weeks and months ahead i support our families many of whom are struggling to juggle their work lives while administering our children's virtual classes or struggling with shortened academic days for them i urge the administration to solve for after-school programming and restore a reliable eight to six schedule for our scholars but i have further concerns for the board that i would like you all to solve for

035i have watched rooms of public comment dismissed as not representative of the communities you were elected to serve as gas prices soar and meetings run late i agree there are barriers to participation in public comment that in 2022 can largely be corrected please consider allowing public comment via zoom and or reading aloud constituent emails as requested in meetings lastly we are three weeks past the fox fire and i hold grave concerns about the future of our enrollment the slow pace of board consideration and the limited correspondence our families have received from our elected leaders has left our families despondent i urge the board to meet with our families and our kindergarten-ready community we deserve your time and your assurance that our school's transitions and reconstruction will be treated with the urgency and respect our families

036have deserved from the start we have borne the daily struggle of a slow response thus far and our enrollment has suffered as a result please meet with us please demonstrate urgent competent and cooperative leadership while we navigate future steps thank you thank you mr ball good evening school board and superintendent cameras my name is rose estes and my daughter hope is in first grade at fox elementary i just wanted to share my strong desire for our school to reopen as soon as possible and for us to accept the generous offer from first baptist church to use their space to do so my daughter is currently one of the very fortunate 60 plus children who are attending the flc at first baptist and we are so grateful and impressed with how that church has pulled together

037such a logistical feat and that they are willing to do it on a grander scale with the entire school they have been generous welcoming and professional and i have full confidence in their ability to do a wonderful job hosting our children and our fox community i had the opportunity to volunteer in my daughter's class at the facilitated learning center last week and i left with two strong impressions one first baptist church is doing an excellent job and will continue to and two these kids need to be back in a physical meeting space as soon as possible with their teachers and fellow classmates they were trying so hard to focus and they were doing a great job and they just got fidgety and antsy sitting for four hours as six and seven-year-olds staring at a computer

038screen their educational hours are so limited and i feel like there are just restraints that come with virtual learning as we have all learned the facilitated learning centers are able to provide some sense of normalcy for which we are very grateful and allow for social interactions which we know are so important but nothing is a full replacement for having these kids actually in school not to mention that many of our students currently aren't in a facilitated learning center if we have an offer from a reputable community organization and can offer that basic right to our students and families i can't imagine why any other option would even be considered thank you for hearing my thoughts and i hope you will agree with um moving forward with superintendent cameron's proposal thank you good evening my name

039is julia righty um school board and came here to ask you to approve a plan that would allow clarks kids to start having person classes asap the last years have been hard on them um they have to deal with a pandemic that was completely out of control and we ask them to like themselves not play with their friends use masks and they did they we throw and they respond they went back to school and then their school caught on fire they were starting to be able to socialize with their friends being in touch with their teachers seeing everybody but then the fire happened some things we can control some we can't we have incredibly smart kids who are afraid that i am afraid that they have fallen behind in their writing abilities because it's so

040much harder to learn when it's virtual and your teachers are trying to help but there's only so much you can do when you're in front of a computer and other kids are also suffering from this from all still from virtual ears socially academic and psychologically i ask that you vote on the option that allows us to stay together with their teachers in person it will be tight it won't be perfect none of the but none of it is perfect we are not in a situation that it's just difficult but we also know that our community is strong and you'll get through it one thing that i would like to add is that my kid is also one of the kids who are lucky to be at first baptist we were not members of that community

041i my kids never went to preschool there but they opened their hearts and their house to the community as a whole and my kids have been so happy to come back and to see their friends they're welcomed with a smile they have excellent food for the kids and it's been just a wonderful experience so i really urge you to treat this with uh get these kids back in school thank you so much for your consideration thank you so much hello i'm tisha irvey i'm coming to you today as a parent i'm coming as a parent and making sure my voice is heard for all teachers and families that i support your right of freedom of speech because it's a rumor that someone is talking to teachers and families of freedom of speech second i'm coming

042to you as a concerning parent and mom that i feel when our rps is going to bring back parents in the building to volunteer to read sorry um you want to start over or okay as a parent i feel when are we going to bring parents back in the building because i see a lot of things on social media kudos to all school board members and leads community members coming to the schools reading to the kids i'm one of their parents are always active in my kids and for my kids to be telling me things that i'm not aware or don't know i'm just believing what my kids say um i can start for lunches they say it's horrible but i feel i have two little ones to go to after school and the lunches

043are delicious like today they had grilled cheese and french fries with ketchup like why they can't have that on a regular day basis during school hours i don't know if it's a budget thing or what but i would like to see some changes and we're going on two years it feels like three years of covet and the pandemic i feel like some kids are let down i mean not let down but you know mass you could go excuse me going in schools buildings with no mass and mass and stuff but i'm for mass so i just feel went off the parents going to come back into the school business and last but not least fun safe schools that cameras lead and what can wait thank you good evening my name is sarah kendig and i'm

044a parent of a student at william fox and a student at john b carey we are really blessed to be part of both of these communities and right now our fox community is suffering we need this board to move quickly to get our students and teachers together in a building as soon as possible my daughter had already missed 20 days with her teacher this year due to covid exposures at school before her school burned down of course that is after a whole year of virtual school and missing a whole quarter of school in 2020. it is only due to the luck and a lot of privilege of having a partner and flexible bosses that we still have jobs and a roof over our heads the current situation is unsustainable for our family and i know

045that many in our fox family are in much more difficult circumstances i also know that i do not have to tell this board about the academic effects of virtual school and our scholars quality research also came out of the pandemic about the horrible effects of virtual school and mental health i also see this in my own home and on my wait list in my mental health practice this community has experienced a collective big t trauma after two years of hardship we need to be doing everything we can including our getting our children together with their teachers in a building as soon as possible that was my prepared statement i also was thinking of standing here listening to everyone else that this morning as we were walking my daughter and i were talking about identity and

046she told me that she just wanted to get her identity back of being a normal kid so i hope you can do everything you can tonight to help her have that thank you thank you so very much madam chair school board members the superintendent charles willis as marty jill was saying what's left of him anyway i was on my way here to the meeting and really didn't prepare to come before the board but i was very uh inspired by the comment i heard of the folks that was on the social media that was translating in spanish and i recall part of the conversation about uh considering meals that would be culturally conscious and i thought it was very fitting very appropriate and i also want to share with the boys that i would caution you

047to also as you mentioned uh as was mentioned by one time during the last board meeting we may be opening up pandora's box because if we start talking about cultural meals then we have a diverse community here in richmond public schools that we have all kinds of cultures so as we started looking at one particular culture then we may be opening up an opportunity or a conversation that may have need for culture food for many such as our uh asians our jamaicans our africans are blacks are whites and our latino families so i would ask you to just keep that in mind as you if that's something that richard public schools is looking at then most definitely i think it's very fitting but i asked that you would also take that into consideration other years

048that i don't want to be before the board promoting but i did hear one of these speakers come before me that talked about uh first baptist and this opportunity and its virtual learning and uh the opportunity that the fox families would have opportunity and uh first baptists were opening their doors so i do want to take this moment to share with you that also that i've been in touch with one of your board members and openly and have talked with also the superintendent's administration about the inspiration academy which is on jank road inspirational cultural academy is a school that is came into the richmond area was in chesterfield it came into the richmond area for the purpose of assisting richmond public schools in any type of virtual or after school programs again i'm not promoting

049but i just want to afford the opportunity as a community leader to share that there are others other entities that would like to open their doors they have opened their doors and uh i believe that uh dr simmons says she has at least 20 to 25 seats available that at no cost that she would be glad to at this as the transition is taking place she want to just open her doors to any fox print or any other parents that need that type of setting that if they need to continue to go to work but their children need to stay in a setting where they have a teacher then they can do so thank you so much for the opportunity thank you mr willis i appreciate that thank you everyone for coming to speak excuse

050me coming to speak with us this evening and i also want to thank you for the emails that you have sent to the board sent to me individually i try to respond i know my board colleagues do as well so if i missed the email did not respond please charge it to my mind and not my heart but normally i am 99.9 responsive with emails when people email me whatever the issue is so i just want to say it again from the bottom of my heart thank you so much for coming to have a conversation with us and emailing us at this time we're going to have well members of you remember we moved up um presentation from the sheriff's office they are here they're going to the sheriff is going to come down and

051just talk with us about what they uh what programs they have and um just the work that they do in the city of richmond and always been a friend and partner to richmond public schools so ladies and gent this is our sheriff of richmond city sheriff irvin thank you so much for being here and and her and the team and the team thank you good evening everyone um dr antoinette urban sheriff here in the city of richmond can you all hear me okay first of all i want to say thank you for allowing us the opportunity to step into your space we appreciate all of the partnerships that you all have with us as far as working from the technical center with our programming and working with our community projects our newest project and a

052couple of you all have responded already in reference to our autism walk with jp jumpers we really appreciate that um also our community food distribution that we do every fourth saturday we appreciate you all working with us on that and just providing information to us to ensure that we can help the individuals in our community because our goal is to make sure that we do an inside out approach and making sure that the family members that are incarcerated and those that are outside are able to communicate and connect with one another and we feel that the best way to do that is to grow on both sides so our goal is to make sure that the individuals that are with us that reside with us that they can have a good education we go from

053ged to college education uh we want to make sure that they can get what they need so they'll have the tools to come back out and be a productive member of society we're also working on behavior modifications to make sure the individuals are able to understand the why it is that they're in the situation that they're in because i'm a strong believer that what goes on today is not the culprit of what it is or why it is that we are the way we are and that's all of us um i appreciate you all working with us with the adverse childhood environments to make sure that um we can help the individuals that are incarcerated to ensure that they understand the why again and that's very very important to me and making sure that we

054can connect them with their their children that are in our school system uh we don't we don't we want them to be able to be able to get on the phone and have that conversation with one of the young people about what it is to do your homework together and we're trying to build those families while they're incarcerated so when they go back home it's not anything new to them that we're building that relationship making sure that parents mothers and fathers are having those conversations we work from the inside out on the person as well and not just the community we're making sure that the programs that we do the educational programs whether it's academic or vocational ensures them the opportunity to go out and get a job and not just a job or career

055because we don't have we don't put people in a situation where they can have a good career and they're going to continue to go through that revolving door we make sure that individuals are put in place with the unions that we do some connection with to ensure that they have good labor um and they're paid good wages to make sure that they can do that um recently we just had four more students to graduate from our forklifting program we have males and females that are in our forklifting program we're about to start our hvac program our culinary program uh barbering program nail technician program we want to make sure that people are able to sustain a good living and be able to also be a part of their families lives when they go out those

056are some of the programs that we have but again we like to work on individuals making sure that individuals are able to grow within themselves and making sure that they can grow with their family members i mean we want to make sure that people are that people are part of our economic development that they can have those conversations and make those decisions within our community that's our goal to make sure that they can communicate well that they know what it is they need to say when they need to say it how it is they need to say it because a lot of us are products of rps that are incarcerated or their work there so we try to build those relationships my thing is to be a bridge be a bridge between the facility and

057the community and that's what we're here to do at the richmond city sheriff's office to ensure that we can do those things to improve and grow individuals thank you so very much for your time i appreciate you thank you so much sheriff irvin the best sheriff in this town that i know of and really appreciate i do just want to take a moment and recognize your team if they could stand and just allow us to love on you for a minute because of the service that you provide to our students and their families so thank you all so so very much from the bottom of my heart boy members do you have any questions from the sheriff while she's here you got to catch her when you can catch i'm telling you she was on

058skates miss white thank you madam chair um good evening sheriff irvin i'd just like to know how can rps help you right now our main goal with rps is to continue our vocational programming we've talked about it over and over again and i know with covet we had some issues with having the of the faculty to do the programming but that's our biggest thing right now uh is to make sure that we have facilitators for these programs and we're actually going out and getting grants and getting facilitators outside um since we couldn't use the members within um rps we are now at a total of almost six million dollars in grant funding to ensure that we can have programming for the individuals that are on the outside and one of our biggest goals right now

059is to increase the safety within our neighborhoods we have a new grant that's called project safe neighborhoods and i know a lot of people may have heard about that before but we have a different spin to it our spin is to make sure that we're doing actually doing things in the community um our guns our gloves over guns project and we're also going to be partnering with ram for the drums over guns project to ensure that we can help with the decrease of gun violence and violence within our communities just just having rps to support us and what it is that we're doing to ensure that we can put out a better person that's the main thing that can help us thank you because i wouldn't actually find the funds because i know how hard

060it is so that's never going to be a request for me we appreciate that as well thank you sheriff irvin if there aren't any more questions we just want to extend our love and an olive branch to you and your team and um i have witnessed as you know every fourth saturdays out there and board colleagues and those who are streaming and who are here with us our families come through that line who have children or grandchildren in rps um and they are there to pick up that food um and they do a wonderful wonderful job and i just love being in their space and seeing how they work with our families um and particularly our children so and more of our children are being raised by their great aunts and their grandmamas and great-grandmamas

061and i get to see that because i'm there on fourth saturday so thank you again sheriff thank you all in the back thank you all so very much thank you thank you so much we appreciate it absolutely continue to provide that information to your community your school community to let them know to come out we're also doing vaccinations as well on those full saturdays so that they can continue to get vaccinated and be well and we hand out other health information from anthem health keepers so we have a lot of information out there for them school supplies included to ensure that they continue to be able to grow as they go it's lots of food so yes ma'am ms burke thank you thank you um dr irvin my east end buddy 7th district thank you

062so very much over the years it's been a treat to be with your trick what is it trumpetry okay all right i've enjoyed dressing up and seeing so many of our students it's always been such fun long hours but it's such a welcoming atmosphere for everyone so thank you so much you provide all types of goodies as well as vaccinations that's where i got my booster shot but thank you so very much over the years and i'm going to wear the same outfit this coming october but i will see you for the um the i think it's in april april today i'll be there thank you again and thank you also to all of your persons that are part of your team well done thank you we really appreciate you all as well continue the

063work that you do um and keeping our kids in in your heart and in your minds thank you so very much absolutely thank you all be safe be well and have a good evening thank you for coming again you you're welcome to hang out with us until two o'clock but i know you have to you know have some other things you got to do but thank you all so very much next we will we're going into our um update on our strategic plan mr cameras thank you madam chair dr repp is going to present great good evening madam chair vice chair superintendent cameras and school board members um i am excited to present to you tonight a mid-year update on our early literacy work um as you know goal three for our academic goals in

064the strategic plan look at k2 early literacy three through eight uh proficiency and the major subjects and then high school college and career readiness this evening we're presenting on our k2 measure for early literacy just as a reminder the way we assess our goal at the end of the year is through pals a state developed and administered assessment that students take required at the beginning and end of the school year at the beginning of the school year our falls 2002 pals data showed that 59 of our students in k2 required reading intervention in order to be on track to have the skills required to read by third grade throughout the year we monitor progress and growth towards pals using our formative assessment the curriculum embedded el skills assessment which is a really granular kind of

065updated for those of you who've taught reading a running record if you will but much more detail to align to the actual reading skills students need and that provides teachers a very clear picture of the really precise skills that students might need support or remediation with and what's important to understand here these are the skills that give students the foundation required to learn how to read so that they can then read to learn and i'm excited to report that by investing in early literacy um which doesn't always get as much attention as sols or accreditation um we have seen significant growth from the beginning of year to mid-year in our early literacy efforts specifically at the beginning of the year using our formative assessment our microphase data that's the kind of more detailed version after

066we assess for pals teachers reported that 12 of k2 students were on track to developing the skills they needed for their particular grade level however at this point in the year 37 percent of our k2 students are on track and in particular of our kindergarten students are on track and the reason that distinction is important if you think about uh for those of you know reading if you if we give students the skills to read in kindergarten and they have some gaps we can kind of it's like turning around a little tugboat if we wait or students those gaps expand the longer students go without having those foundational reading skills it's more like turning around the titanic and so um while we have a ways to go and we certainly have seen the effects of

067covid um and and k one and two uh we are optimistic especially about the growth that k2 across the board but especially um that 64 of our kindergartners are on track at this point in the year and can you go to the next slide please just to give you an idea of what i'm talking about here um the beginning of the year and the end of the year there's a book ended by um the uh sorry the pals assessment is our formal assessment we give formative assessments um the skills assessment at the beginning of the year middle of year and end of year so um again teachers use that to formulate their small group instruction or their intervention instruction let's go to the next slide and um i'll try to be quick here because i

068could probably geek out a little bit about a little bit on this um depending the way we think about growth depends on where students start and um we want to make sure that because we know that all students come in in different places we want to make sure that based on where they come in we've set very clear growth targets so the idea is not for every single kindergartner or first grader to be at the same spot but that they make adequate growth so that over the next two to three years they will be on track to read so to give you an example of this a kindergartner who begins the year at a stage that we call pre-alpha early which really means um they are not yet able to identify letters they're not able

069to identify uh letter sound recognition that a sounds like ah or ah um so that's pre-alpha early those students by the end of the year need to be at what's called partial alpha early and that means they've mastered their letter all their letter identification and letter sound recognition but they might not yet have figured out how to break down words into syllables or we call that chunking if you will if you keep going down the chart here on the left so first that that student who starts pre-alpha early if they get to where we need them to be they might not be um where we would like however if we keep them on that growth trajectory and you go to the first grade they begin the first grade at partial alpha early meaning they can

070identify the letters letter sound recognition but they still have some gaps however that student still can make enough growth to get to what we call full alpha late and that is a student who can do all the things i just mentioned but they can also begin to break down two syllable words they can begin to um uh understand long vowels like double o's or o w or e e or understand that y sometimes sounds like i and so forth now that student is sort of a student who comes in with i would say like the lowest set but even when we make that growth if we keep doing that in kinder first and second grade that student will be ready to read in third grade now if a student comes in um further along um

071because say they've had the benefit of preschool or other things they will then be expected to make more growth so that's kind of how we look at this let's keep going another i think exciting development in our early literacy work given our focus on literacy is we've really invested in data resources to help schools and teachers understand where each student is and where each teacher's groups of students are so we know where to plug in support and so um reading coaches in our schools work with teachers to capture this data and that goes into a dashboard so you see on the left is a tracker every teacher knows what based on where their students are at the beginning of the year they know exactly where their student needs to be by the end of the

072year by student name and then we are able to then roll that up by grade by classroom by grade level and by school so that interventionists coaches teachers and school principals can look at that and figure out where do i need to provide more targeted support let's keep going and that has led the work we think about the work of our division teams and the way we support schools we started we do what we call data deep dive sessions so we dig into each student teacher level data with the school leaders with the idea of support and based on what you see coming up with your own set uh principles and coaches come up with their own set of support actions go to the next slide please for example we don't mandate you know do

073this thing and the spirit of sort of school leader driven decision making in the spirit of teacher professional teacher driven professional development we offer suggestions based on common practice and based on trends that we see such as the menu here and so we give teachers and schools a menu of things that they may do based on their data and then they then opt into that learning series and so that brings us to our spark session so we've heard very loud and clear from the board and from our teachers we want to pivot more to a sort of teacher-driven professional learning model where they get to identify what do they feel like they need and they can choose what they want to learn so we've kicked off what we call spark sessions that are offered we

074picked very concrete actionable timely topics based on what we've heard from teachers principals and coaches and then we offer the same series across the division at different times and dates and again purely optional we think though by ty we use our data to inform what these topics are so they're not created in a vacuum and again i think all of this work there's a lot more to be done and i don't want to you know we have a long way to go before we declare victory here but if you look at our data here by beginning of year to middle of year you can see across every subgroup and across every school we have made our teachers have made significant progress in our early literacy work for our k2 students and i do really attribute

075a big portion of this to our literacy strategy including the structure of our literacy block and our literacy curriculum but also our small group instruction and our investments in our reading interventionists i will pause there and take any questions thank you mr young miss page miss burke thank you madam chair and uh thank you dr up uh so a few observations perhaps if uh it's your pleasure you can weigh in and share if i'm i'm off base on any of them uh so first uh it says to me at the risk of belaboring or relitigating the past that it was a mistake for us to close school for a year and a half but two perhaps more importantly uh how exceptional our teachers are to make these kind of gains in such a short period

076of time in a relatively short period of time and then three uh through all of our schools are experiencing exceptional games gains excuse me and should celebrate it there is a lot of variance as it relates to those gains and so perhaps if my only inc actually have two inquiries the first relates to some of some of the variance it's obvious because if you already had a lot of students there were there were some outliers that already had a lot of students perform well the first time we assessed pals but but perhaps for some of those other schools i'd be curious what our intervention model looks like if they're not experiencing the same 600 percent gains for example some other schools so that's the first question and then my second question unsure if you're prepared

077to address this evening but specifically if we have uh any historical data relevant to so we could compare apples to apples in other words pre-covered where students were we know we looked at the pals data months ago whenever that was but specifically in the context of these games where were we a few years ago pre-covered and what kind of gains gains we saw i hope that makes sense thank you mr young and great questions um i'll answer the second one first i think that's unfortunately the apples to apples don't exist because i would say the level the level of um data gathering and the tools that we've created we've not had this level of detail and granularity for mid-year growth certainly since my time here so this is um we've worked really hard to get

078to this place so we don't really have an apples to apples because they're for early literacy especially um uh there was not a mechanism to sort of roll that all up to the division level so unfortunately i can only compare pals fall and spring for apples apples i love apples to apples pre covered especially in terms of what accounts for the differentiated kind of delta at each school and if we go to the next slide just to see kind of an example here um there are you know i will say one caveat here all assessments have limitations and this assessment is one given um by each teacher for their students across the division um and so you know there you just have to kind of account for while we try to norm and collaborate i'm

079sorry we try to calibrate um there can always be minor distinctions and kind of how how much somebody sort of uh rounds up or not based on what they know about their students and the more you know about your students sometimes your you tend to do that it's not a bad thing it's just sort of the nature of um human administered assessments that said i think some schools just had more students who just came in had a much deeper impact on cobit so let's look at fairfield for example just one percent of their students were proficient so that 40 point gain is not just 40 points compared to somebody who had 10 10 or 20 and they also made if you have one percent of your kids you got to understand all of your students

080are coming in very very behind well they do not have some foundational skills that they need so i would say the starting point can impact how much growth you make um the other piece is while we have worked to make sure every school has an interventionist and a coach the number of small groups that a school can have is variable depending on how many um teachers are available during the intervention block how many tutors are available during the interva intervention block the extent to which schools and interventionists are using our research-based and evidence-based programs and i would say part of the reason we've gotten this growth yes our teachers are amazing and we've gotten really clear about exactly what the for lack of a better term is the treatment plan if this this is what

081works best um and um coming back from covid and depending on absences and things like that adult absences or student absences could also impact how much growth a school has made so those are some of the factors that i would say for example i know read they had one of the highest quarantine rates for students in the division so read a school that's accredited and generally considered a strong school you'll see they didn't have a big as big growth but they also had significant student absences throughout both the fall and during omicron thank you dr l um thank you for this presentation and okay i'm glad to see that we are moving up we're seeing growth versus going backwards but my question question to you are we using a baseline or threshold to provide more

082intensive supports or strategies for schools that we know that need additional intents and support um i think you meet do you miss page do you mean um based on where their student like their their student starting point or can you just say a little bit more right because i notice some schools growth is not as much as others so my question to you have you identified or are we looking at schools um i guess a pressure point that we know those schools may need a little bit more intensive support and strategies absolutely i understand the question thank you um so one of the things that um my team does with the academic team and the our our principal directors are two elementary principal directors when we get together each week we look at this data

083and we go through it and we prioritize and we talk about um okay miss quarles and miss dr wiggins what is it that you feel like your schools need based on this data and then which teams need to provide what support um what we have tried to uh that's my overall orientation is whoever needs the support gets the customized support but rather than us just saying to schools here's support take it we are bringing schools into the conversation and schools into the data and saying here's a if you go there was a menu if you go back to the slide there a menu of different supports that we recommend and then we offer trainings on those things so um a slight pivot is with this more kind of school by school teacher by teacher classroom

084data that coaches and teachers and principals can look at we want to empower them to make the choice um of what this that support is rather than us saying we think this is the support you need now we can we still provide some guidance but we provide a starting menu of responses and then the optional professional learning sessions is what we've also moved towards to make sure that again teachers coaches and principals can opt into that and i'm follow up i'm glad that you said that um because it is important that you receive that feedback from the schools that are in the trenches and they know the needs of their students and we know the importance having a solid foundation and early literacy because if we know it has a domino effect and uh you

085know and um upper grades so when will we be receiving more information regarding our next touch point uh we'll we'll gather another round of data in the late spring before the end of the year on this and the other thing i'll say about kind of differentiated supports we finally have gotten to a place where we know that every school has a coach and an interventionist where we need to go now is more of a ratio based assignment so say broad rock is large and has this need so that that pop that there should be you should have more reading interventionists right or more early intervention assistants who are ias that we specially train in literacy solutions or fairfield may be a smaller school but have a more significant intensive need so we need specialists that

086you know we need reading interventionists which require a reading specialist degree and so our budget um you know that's one of the things you'll as we i know we're not getting into budget today and all of that but whenever we can we try to pull across all kinds of grant funds federal funds and operating budget to maximize um we need to move towards more of a ratio base now that we've got the foundation um but that will require more investments in uh reading interventionists and early intervention assistants yes ma'am and then miss bird something else just went off light bulb just went off so are there any strategies or intentional strategies that we are working with our parents to support the little ones yeah the office of engagement as if you remember back in the

087fall we presented um our desire to use the bulk of our arp funds for literacy and that included um family engagement around literacy um such as home libraries for younger students and then uh training our fam bless you our family liaisons to work with families to make the most out of you know how to read at home at night and things of that nature um so we are we are ramping those efforts up as part of our um federal covert response ms byrd thank you madam chair dr f thank you so very much for this information for this data it's great to have that now um i appreciate it and also kudos to um everyone that works so hard to bring us up because because we want to see at least 50 percent now if

088not more because the goal of the end of the year is 100 um because we want every child to have the opportunity to be reading on on um grade level and beyond i have a couple of questions and if it's before me because i really had a challenging time with one of the charts with the red and the yellow and the green and the blue that was that was took me a while to figure that out sure so my questions are number one in the beginning of the year they had k12 and three selected three had pass testing this early literacy test was given in the beginning of the year also yes and that's what we see before us yes okay so i have three questions my first question is and i read hearing your

089presentation that this el um data goes beyond what's expected with pals so but i'd like to know what it is yes ma'am all right when i see the numbers oh sure um it bothers me greatly that um not anything that you've done per se but i see a going trend of certain students when i look at the schools it goes back to in my thoughts economically so um number one i'd like to see for instance let's say shimorazo went from 10 to 52 excellent i was in the school a couple of days ago i'm not surprised at all but i would like to see what exactly was measured is that here someplace um i can it is the detail is not in here but i can certainly provide that um i can give you a

090quick overview um for example um we measure things like first just basic letter identification we have kinder we have second grade students some who still are not able yet right they will be through no fault of their own are not able to identify every letter of the alphabet so letter identification is the first baseline as you know and then the second is letter sound recognition associating the sounds with each letter then we move into um syllabication uh which i've had is basically a fancy word way of saying they know how to chunk words into sounds so break a word into two syllables for example then they move into rhyme so the ability to identify words or sounds that rhyme and then the ability to make rhyme so that for example those are all like kindergarten

091skills um and i can keep going but that's an example thank you so much i would just like to see that yes i can send that on to them because what i would like to see in the end is that um for instance i look at one school here that has i look at the racial breakdown as well that bothers me because if i see 75 of white students and only 34 of black students or 24 percent latino students um i know with how many students were tested are we talking about 100 white students 200 white students 800 black students 400 latino students i would really like to see a more detailed study and the reason being is that if if it's rhyming words or if it may be something else having taught this grade

092level for years as well it may be something else that's going on i like what ms paige just stated once you disaggregate the data what you've done and you found out for instance let's say one of my schools in my district um only have eight they only have 18 percent and they're working so hard so hard so does that mean we're gonna get additional tutors there or um that's i think that's what ms paige asked as well so if i can see moving forward not just me sure we can see as a board what the breakdown is what the numbers are because when you say 75 i mean that could be 75 children versus 579. we can certainly provide that because also looking at the economics and what's happening in the neighborhoods all that trickles

093down to that as well my other question is and so i hope that we'll get that soon um i where's the data for math and middle and high school levels as well so we'll provide that we're work um each of these data points requires for their own deep dive and so throughout the spring we'll be bringing that data to you um uh and then i do want to and we can provide all of that and one data point that i just don't want to escape is is and i know we don't really want to fixate on the impact of covet but it is it feels important to me given how hard our teachers are working on this 64 of our kindergartners are already on track which tells us what we're giving them is working but

094our first and second third graders they are they have they just they we are feeling the and we hear stories from teachers daily the effects and they just have like a lot more ground to make up but in the future i can definitely provide both end size and a bit more detail in terms of trends and um the other academic data is forthcoming um chair if i may thank you for saying that because i'm speaking to some of the principals they've stated for instance first graders miss kindergarten second graders missed kindergarten and first grade so we understand that but they're young minds they're ready let's let's yes now is the time to get out now let's capture the moment now so i look forward to seeing that data because it may be something else we

095can do in the community because people are anxious to help thank you miss burke miss door and then i'm gonna come back too i'm gonna go to miss renzi and then miss paige thank you um uh thank you for this report i think it's i think it's really encouraging um it's certainly as many of us have pointed out not where we want to be but it's showing a good uh a good direction i have three questions one i there's been a couple of articles at least in the education news that i subscribed to about using evidence-based reading strategies based on the national reading panel and i wanted to know how this curriculum is related to that if at all two we talk a lot on this board about making sure that we have an roi

096on our funding and obviously we allocated quite a bit of funds i think 60 million to our reading initiative so i would respectfully ask at our next update that we have a breakdown of exactly how we're spending that money and then three we've had a number of teachers come before us in public comment talking about some of the challenges with the curriculum and so wanted to understand how you're working with teachers to get their feedback i think all of us on this board are concerned about sort of pre-scripted curriculum and want to make sure that we're empowering our teachers and so um wondering um you know how your team is working with teachers to get that feedback and respond to it sure thank you mr um on the report on the funds we can definitely

097bring that i mean those were recently approved so some of those funds we've just begun to tap into um in terms of the national reading panel i'm glad you referenced that in evidence-based strategies that drives every decision we make around literacy work has to meet the five recommendations of the national reading panel including adopting a curriculum in early grades that includes a dedicated phonics portion and um so there's two ways that we do this in early literacy and remember i'll just and i'll speak briefly on the curriculum question but curriculum is a big word for lots of different things so in the in for this specifically our ela curriculum kind of our core curriculum that has two components one is called the skills block the skills block is where students learn phonics and these other

098foundational reading skills which 100 percent meets both the national reading panel recommendations as well as the federal guidelines for school improvement we are under the school improvement grants for with the federal state uh department of education and the state department and we can only select um work that is uh has proven results so our intervention so during small group instruction that is driven through our skills curriculum our el curriculum through skills aka week phonics but we call it skills additionally students receive a dedicated individualized intervention time during the day and based on their tier they receive a an intervention source so that might be something what we call sips which is outlines what you do if a student is here and needs this it tells you what to do um or orton gillingham if you're

099if you're really far behind so the further behind you are the more intensive intervention you receive by the more skilled reading specialist i will say those interventions they're not scripted but they are heavily guided and as i was discussing over the weekend with a friend who was a reading teacher reading uh expert teaching reading is like rocket science it is rocket science and our students can't afford for us to be figuring that out along the way so everybody may not feel comfortable with it but when we're talking about intervention we must be okay i'm not talking about scripted robotic automatron but i am talking about a roadmap that has been developed and vetted by experts the national reading panel recommendations came out 22 years ago and as a kind of education community we are just

100now in the last couple of years writ large talking about making sure phonics instruction is in every early elementary reading block so that's for early elementary the i think the questions that have been raised around the curriculum some of those that were raised at the last board meeting for example were specific to um our intervention for high school students who are not able to read they were referred to referring to what's called read 180. that too is a clearly developed roadmap based on how do you teach a 15 year old to read who does not know how to read i would argue that the best english teachers high school english teachers in the country have not been trained to know how to do that i have not been trained to know how to do that

101but there are people who know how to do that it is rocket science and we should treat it as such on the broader curriculum question um i really appreciate that and um for any of our teachers listening i believe that curriculum is an evolution it is an iteration and it is best done when we take the best parts that we don't need to reinvent and combine it with the brilliance of our teachers who make things come alive for their individual students i certainly acknowledge that the way that that has in some cases the way that that has played out is highly variable and that's not how it feels to every teacher there are many teachers who love our curriculum but there are some teachers who have struggled based on the conditions in the building or

102what have you and so i'm in the process of setting up small group conversations with teachers to understand where that breakdown in intent versus reality is occurring because i think it is just as bad i would not want to see a classroom that follows a script anymore that i would want to see a classroom without a smartly developed lesson sequence so both ends are not ideal for our kids and um i think there clearly have just been some uh you know the telephone game by the time messages trickle down it kind of becomes obscured and so uh i'm setting up conversations with teachers directly in their buildings um in a low stakes way to tell me what messages might they be getting from members of their school leadership team or members of my team that

103tell them otherwise um so that's my plan and i would ask that the last thing i'll just say is when i when we began this work our teachers expressed grave concern and frustration with the existing curriculum that we had and so i don't think i don't think there's any one perfect curricula it is how do we make the adjustments and the give and take to kind of get to a good center point um where our teachers feel really good about it um and our students are making the gains that they need madam chair just a quick follow-up yes um thank you for that and um you know i i think that's really helpful context i would um be very curious to see the outcome of those um sessions so um i would just madam chair

104ask for that to be considered as a future agenda item topic my pleasure yes duly noted i have it mr cameron's had it has it i think thank you miss renzi and then i'm gonna circle back to you ms page thank you all right thank you madam chair and thank you dr app for your presentation um i just have a few questions um yeah i am happy to hear that you are going to have conversations with teachers about the curriculum you know my hope is or the curricula and my hope is that um you know teachers will feel heard and they will be able to share with you without you know necessarily being afraid of not being heard um so i really look forward to hearing more about that um and so with that i

105was wondering about the spark sessions um you actually at one point in your presentation said that teachers chose how those sessions were going to you know or what the focus of those sessions would be and then you went back and said the data would so i'm kind of curious about what which one determines sure yes uh both so we listen for teacher feedback and what teachers tell us they need and when we see that kind of validated by the data again we've just kicked this off recently again in response to this need we've heard a desire for more teacher driven and teacher choice um so we use both as you know both qualitative and quantitative inputs are really important okay also uh i'm wondering too about um you know anything specific that's being done to

106address you know as as ms burke noted on the racial and economic disparities specifically for me it was the racial ones that stood out um how are we dealing with access to early childhood ed you know that's really extremely important i know that at least in my district there were some issues with transportation and access to early childhood ed i'm wondering if there's anything that's being done regarding that um because i mean it's extraordinarily important that our kids start as early as possible um [Music] and so yeah i'm really concerned about what we're doing with easy you know early childhood and i also i'm curious about how much of this funding for these programs will be lose once the you know one-time funding is done um and i'd like to see a breakdown of the

107kindergarteners who are you know you're saying now 64 i'd like to see more data on those okay students but um i guess if you could address the situation with early childhood and then the funds that'd be helpful thank you thank you miss rizzi um with early childhood i i'm not sure about the transportation issue uh i can say and i think we have a lot of work to do um making sure we're using every slot we have at our disposal to get as many students into early preschool as possible with some of the rule changes as well as some grants available we're going into the upcoming year um trying to add more three-year-old seats than we ever have had so we have three years three-year-old seeds and four-year-olds the idea is if we get them

108at three we keep them and then we they automatically go into two years of preschool um so that's where we've really turned our attention of late as we are working for enrollment for 22-23 i'm not saying that's a panacea but i feel like two years definitely gets us a head start and um as you know you have to qualify which will certainly help with some of the um uh economically disadvantaged challenges that come with early childhood preparation um and then i will follow up i can certainly look at the funding piece in terms of what will go away and the kinder breakdown but was there another question that i can try to answer this evening i think that's it you know i'd really like to hear more about what we're doing with early childhood and

109also maybe even about you know supports we're offering for parents um even preschool at a preschool age because it just appears to me that you know as early as we can start the better it's going to be absolutely and we will be able to present we we don't receive the state data until this late summer on the virginia kinder readiness program which does assess pals at the end of pre-k as well as a math and a socio-emotional component and we do get those results we tend to get them later in the summer we don't get them right at the end of the school year however internally um just as we've built in data systems to monitor early literacy k2 at a more detailed level we are we are working with our preschool centers right now

110to capture three data points which are how many of our four-year-olds by the end of pre-k can identify their let all of their alphabet like their 26 letters letter sound recognition write their own name um and count to a like count to 100. so we want to there's a there's a virginia standard through the vkrp which assesses several but i want to be able to put it in simple terms and then we work with and then we want to be able to share that with parents throughout the year like if nothing else these are the foundational skills and here are the ways that you can practice we've also embedded um if you're familiar with the um the sort of rba basics concept which teaches parents or reminds parents some basic things to do to help

111develop oral language critical thinking and things of that so when our preschool centers do family engagement nights we're asking they start with that and then go back there but again i think there's more work to be done um and and happy to bring more information yeah i think it'd be great to push that information out to the general public you know not just the students who will attend early childhood but the general public say these are the things that your kids absolutely should work on thank you thank you thank you miss paige i'm gonna let mrs white go and then miss white thank you madam chair i'd like to say thank you uh dr f uh great improvement from the k through um second grade but my question and my concerns is what strategy is

112used for students to transition from the second grade pal assessment to the third grade ela and then prepare them to take a common core as a whale that is not the same [Music] what the teachers teach in the classroom um i'll try to thank you miss white um so by the by the time students leave second grade they should be able to you know read pretty well independently um so that they can have a baseline level of comprehension and we call it the sort of we call it k2 is learn to read and then as you move from second to third you read to learn there are certainly students who may have gaps and so that second to third grade transition i think first our first take at it is summer school so when we

113do summer school invitation and i'll present on that a little bit later tonight we want to make sure those students are attending summer school because we don't want that learning loss over the summer to occur then when they get to third grade they might um they have their regular class in ela but they will also have a 45-minute intervention time where they might receive go back and receive remediation on some of those foundational skills that we talked about earlier in terms of the assessment the virginia ela standards so they rolled out a new set of standards they're they're called the 2017 standards but they really did not go into play until 2019 and they have not yet our students have not actually tested on those standards so this spring will be the first year for

114three through eight that our students test on the new virginia ela standards and unfortunately i think what folks think they know about what the test looks like is based on outdated standards and the new virginia ela and math standards reflect standards that are more aligned to the national college and career readiness standards some people may call it common core some people call it college and career ready they all take different names based on the state the new virginia standards are much closer to that and um our view is that and our curriculum is aligned to college and career standards and so our view is if it's kind of like if you if you teach here you can succeed here but if you happen to have an assessment that's here you should also be able to

115succeed there particularly when it comes to reading but i think right now folks are feeling understandably myself included understandably anxious because as educators we're used to seeing what the assessment looks like because the state will release um release items and things of that nature but this is the we don't know what that looks like right now um and so um we are working right now we're actually this week we're rolling out to schools as an option um some kind of sol oriented kind of review like five minute reviews um kind of weekly um quick checks for teachers if they want to use it's not a requirement but for teachers who are worried that the curriculum doesn't look like what the tests look like they have that as a tool um i think that's what you're

116getting i think that's what you're speaking to man yes okay um and then again my vid like my view and my instructor our instructional vision we're not here to prepare students for the sol if we teach students to the right level the success on the sol is a byproduct it is not the goal now where we are right now is an important milestone for us and i think that's kind of the reality that we're all kind of struggling with because it feels safer to know i know this test and i know what my kids need um to sort of teach at a little bit of a higher bar and uh kind of trust that they're gonna do okay and and um that's uncomfortable um i think for a lot of folks and understandably so and

117i got one more thing but this is not a question um i just like to see a breakdown the same way you did the schools a breakdown of the reading interventions the reading coaches and the tutors for each one of those schools to ensure that we have enough resources for each school yes ma'am i can provide that thank you thank you thank you miss white miss paige thank you um i want to piggyback off our colleague that's rizzy she brought up free um pre-k early childhood so i guess my question is is there a collaboration what is the connection with pre-k and kindergarten because again the earlier we start having that you know foundation the more successful our students are yes ma'am so what is the connection and how are we collaborating with pre-k early

118childhood are they all part of the conversation the planning yes ma'am um well um first i think the most important thing this board did a couple years ago it was right before code right when covet hit is um resourced our pre-k centers with principals to serve as instructional leaders because remember prior to that one person was charged with 180 classrooms and we know that that is not really realistic so i do think by investing in the culture and teacher development and family engagement by by putting a leadership center at a leadership team at each center that alone i think was a big step in the right direction to make sure we're getting return on that um again i think there's so for so long early childhood has been separated as these sort of two separate

119programs outside of the k-12 realm and we've worked to try to bring that in i think there's still more to do but um when we meet each week our our director is at the table um and when prince our early childhood principals come to our principal calls they come to our elementary principal meetings when we talk about data they have goal-setting meetings with mr cameras and i where they set goals um academic goals for their schools just as much um and again we've set up where we want to be able to gather they have to do a lot of um formative assessments to report to different state agencies and head start so we are now gathering and rolling that data up so we have a sense in very clear terms um and so in the

120next month i think i'll be able to present to you a mid-year touch point there again schools already have it but in terms of aggregating it in a very simple way and rolling up is what we're working on right now i think those are the early steps but again much more to be done but i do feel like more than ever our early childhood principles are at the table when we're talking about instructional goals and just to add one more thing um i think it is important that we see the numbers the sample whether it's small or large so we know the impact of the number of students that this data is based on and in particular our students with disabilities and showing that they are receiving the necessary support that they need as well

121thank you mr yang thank you madam chair at the risk of mischaracterizing what ms irby said in public comment at the beginning of the meeting i believe i heard her encourage this board to again allow her parents and volunteers back into the schools and i would concur with that recommendation invite and invite conversation if not this evening but in the next in the next week relevant to resourcing all of us all of our schools to include all those persons who are prepared to invest so much time and helping not just with literacy but all of those many needs that we rely on and today we're largely largely unable to take advantage of because of covet protocols but i would contend colleagues the time is now to lift those protocols thank you thank you dr up

122i have a couple of things um i do appreciate our parents and our volunteers in the building i want us as a board to allow the administration to um craft a plan on what that looks like because of cover protocols we still have covert protocols in place um and then what does that look like if we have volunteers and parents back in the in the building are they going to be required to have a negative covert test are they going to be required to be fully vaccinated then what do we consider to be fully vaccinated so i think that's a great idea but i just want us to go slow to go fast in terms of um bringing volunteers in that capacity i think you know where i'm going yeah i'm all for that a

123couple of things um you mentioned earlier that every school has a coach which i think i'm assuming every elementary school okay through or everything every elementary middle and i actually ever i believe every comprehension and every comprehensive high school every comprehensive high school okay um how do they utilize you know while they're there um i know that there are different visions with coaches versus interventionists then specialists specialist coaches intervention interventionist at the end of the day the question remains what is it that they do are eighty percent of their time spent with children twenty percent of their time i'm just throwing out percentages 50 50 with teachers students and then are you working your coaches the same way you're working your intervention is if we have specialists how do they fall into play and also

124this was not a part of your presentation because we were dealing with pals and bkrp but something that has gone under the radar that we need to pull back in front of the radar is the number of students in our comprehensive high schools who have to use the work keys as or in place of in lieu of the english 11 sol writing test i think the board should have that data and what it looks like okay thank you those are my two questions um thank you dr harris muhammad uh the on the first um so coach reading coaches and reading interventionists are school-based uh interventionists work 100 and solely with students throughout the day and small group instruction coaches their primary function is to support teachers in a non-evaluative context to help them effectively deliver

125content and support students now some coaches also may have as any every member of the building like when i was a principal like everybody has a small group even the principal if possible right uh so coaches i certainly encourage principals to have coaches have at least one small group again presumably these are the experts uh with reading instruction but they mostly work with teachers but again both of them they sit at the school level um and uh and in terms of how they are utilized we've worked with principals to make sure that they're not an addition an additional administrative function um again so um and then we bring together coaches like we do other cohorts of school-based staff about once a month to do training um on coaching techniques how to support teachers when they

126have students who maybe are significantly below level and how to help them access grade level text how to differentiate for english learners or certain students with disabilities um so that's kind of the distinction and then specialists we have very few but they sit at the central office and their role is to be kind of the owner of programmatic guidance so we have an intervention specialist for early elementary and their job is to outline this is our strategy they train they observe they coach they provide support um for example we use sips as one of our early literacy interventions so our one of our intervention specialists arranges for teachers to have training uh work you know if the school requests that teachers or interventionists need more support that person would go there and provide that but

127we have again few very few specialists and they sit at the central office thank you and then just to reiterate that data by subgroup per level will be very helpful yes um for the board i just wanted to reiterate thank you so much dr l thank you schoolwork colleagues for the plethora of in-depth questions this is what we do talking about how to improve literacy skills which correlates to everything i'm on my soapbox math and reading go hand in hand and when we can get literacy and alignment everything else improves i just truly believe that you can take off my mask you can see i'm smiling questions all the wonderful questions thank you so much absolutely and also dr f if i may get on your calendar we missed our i think our appointment two

128weeks ago or something like that but would love to get on your calendar yes ma'am thank you all right thank you school board colleagues that was really that was really good um next we have our um personnel action items miss lee mr cameras thank you madam chair uh miss lee unfortunately had a tragedy in her world is not able to be here this evening um but i am happy to bring forth the personnel actions for you okay uh give me one second board members well the superintendent is um [Music] moving over to the personnel actions are there any questions on the personnel agenda saying done we could take a motion to approve the personnel action items as presented madam chair madam chair some move do i have a second mr young made a motion to

129approve the personnel actions as presented seconded by ms jones is there any discussion very good madam clerk wrote call vote please mr yes miss white yes ms gibson yes mr young aye mr rizzy dr harris muhammad yes miss burke yes miss page yes miss jones yes motion passes thank you so much school board colleagues that's a record we approved it on the first time yes ms doerr i um uh i'm uh i see miss jacobs in the audience and i'm wondering if given the hour um the board might be amenable to moving the discussion on fox up a little bit higher just to let our hard-working staff go home i'm fine with that um other board members are good with that they do have to go to work tomorrow i mean i know we have

130to go to work tomorrow too but um should we just add it to um make it 6.01 for administration business or i think miss dora is referring to and i can't speak for ms but i think she is yeah maybe i'm making a recommendation for them to go now oh yeah yeah just to move 6.04 to now yeah to move it up yep okay and then we can jump right back into the rest of what action items cameron how do you feel about that are you okay with that yes ma'am okay let's do it thank you madam chair uh first let me just say thank you to uh principal jacobs and her team uh miss oliver and everybody at fox for the incredible work that they have done over the last few weeks to sustain

131the love that fox is known for and the care that they have provided to their students i know it has not been easy it has not been easy for the kids it has not been easy for the staff it has certainly not been easy for families but i am very grateful to principal jacobs and the entire team at fox for all that they have done are continuing to do and certainly will do over the coming weeks and months as the presentation shares my recommendation after receiving survey feedback from families a great deal of email feedback and and others not just from families but also survey feedback and emails from teachers as well the recommendation is to move fox to first baptist church on monument avenue starting on monday march 21st that would give the next

132two weeks for first the fox team to be able to go over to first baptist see the space and then starting next week in the afternoons beginning room setup and in addition the full day on friday march 18th which currently is apparent conference day but we would convert it into just a full room setup day for the team at fox again they would also have access after the virtual day concludes at noon in the afternoons all next week as well in a parallel track we are working on all of the renovations for clark springs uh you'll see a a bit of a schedule on that work at the end of the presentation i will share that that has been updated since then so there are even more things there's also quite a bit happening uh

133both in terms of preparation and inside the building that isn't immediately visible to the community um so i did want to note that as well our target date for clark springs to be ready is april 19th prior to that point we would survey and discuss with the fox community and that's families and teachers and all staff whether they would want to stay at first baptist for the remainder of the year which first baptist has offered to us or they would want to at that point move over to clark springs i want to be clear i'm not making any recommendation about that tonight i'm just noting that that is an option and then of course starting next fall fox would be at clark springs and would remain there until fox is rebuilt and i want to

134be very clear about this at 2300 hanover avenue let me say that again until fox is rebuilt at 2300 hanover avenue i know there's been chatter about other plans or ideas i want to be clear from my perspective and i think from the board's perspective that is the intention and we will work expeditiously to achieve that there's additional details in the presentation about some of the costs involved i think they are rather modest and um other logistical matters with first baptist let me just wrap up by saying i am extraordinarily grateful to first baptist church they have been inviting welcoming creative flexible and truly have acted with love which is exactly what we are trying to do at rps as well so again on behalf of the division i want to express my profound gratitude

135to first baptist for the offer that they've made and i look forward to answering any questions the board may have thank you thank you mr cameras mr young miss gibson miss white thank you man thank you madam chair madam chair we just spent a little more than an hour in a really important conversation relevant to early literacy and and how essential mission critical in-person instruction is and why this proposal by the superintendent for this school board member at least makes all the sense in the world i support it and i do want to take a moment publicly to convey my gratitude to the folks at first baptist i spent a little bit of time yesterday over there on the campus and i could not have been more impressed with the facility and their hospitality and

136their preparedness as it relates to embracing fox and richmond public schools so i look forward to in two weeks opening fox at first baptist in the interim and to the superintendent's point working earnest to wreck new fox on hanover avenue thank you ma'am chair thank you mr young miss gibson uh thank you madam chair um so i i just want to note um so i i feel like there's confusion in the community [Music] so deciding about a temporary temp space is ultimately not a board decision so and this is important to note because i think people often don't understand you know what are board decisions and what are administrative decisions and look i'm a person who's always advocating for how um for protecting uh board's authority because that protects your vote um when you vote

137for board members that um that board authority is um is uh maintained in this instance though um this is simply not something that the board needs to uh to vote on and so and the reason why i highlight it is because i think it's important for the community to know that um that you know the board is not does not need to stand in the you know there's no need for a vote this is something that that can and should move forward um from from my perspective personally um i i think that if the decision uh reflects the the um the beliefs and and thoughts of the community then i i certainly support it um the only thing that that gives me some pause is just ensuring that teachers have enough time to set up

138classrooms i appreciate the offer from the pta to support teachers but but i recognize that going into a new space and and setting up classrooms is quite a feat and i know at the start of every school year teachers need enough time to do that um and that would probably be even more so when you're when you're working in a new space that may not be um as well suited to uh the classroom so i do think it's important that teachers have the time and resources that they need um and uh and i and i just hope that you know that due diligence has been done but but it's important to to know that this this is not something that the board needs to vote on what the board does need to vote on is

139um is pertains to our buildings so when we're talking about what happens after this stop gap um that is a matter that the board needs to take a position on um clark springs um whatever that building is this is this is if it's if it's school board property then that is something that falls under the the powers and duties of the school board as defined by virginia state code i've made a couple requests to the administration regarding all of the options so i want to make sure as we are considering the use of funds and and our students as they move forward in their careers i want to make sure that we've just exhausted all the options i've suggested and requested information about norell i understood that building might even be able to be ready

140sooner i also think it's worth um looking to see you know we've had enrollment drop so if there's enough space to do say k2 at mary mumford um you know i i think that'd be worth exploring and so i just have some disappointment that we haven't seen those options and i know i have and my and many of my colleagues have been asking this question um since uh since that saturday after that um after that horrible event and so um so that that's my perspective i'm uh you know i'm thankful to see that there have been some movement but i do think it's important to clarify where the board's role begins and the administrative students role begins um and this this decision about moving into the church it's simply not um something that requires of

141the board's vote i am thankful to see the participation of the community um but this is something that that should be able to move forward uh you know uh you know as as needed thank you thank you miss gibson um miss white i believe what was it that's why i think it was you thank you madam chair thank you first of all i'd like to say um thank you to first baptist i did do the touring on friday and i see that they're in the audience to my left um dr coya um allison amanda lott i see bonnie and alex um they were their angels sent when i went there i saw what they had helped our children they had volunteers there i i was a little concerned that i didn't see any rps volunteers

142this group paid six thousand dollars just to get background checks to help our children our children love their food um it just just made my heart warm to know that there was a facility like this that took in our children and said they don't want any money they'll just continue to do it but soon as we come in they will back down a little and there were some needs that they needed and i would like for that for them to have all the logistics support that they need i know that uh they needed a sro there they needed another trash ban uh bin and um i believe the 25 000 for the rattle liability since there was no uh rider liability but my concern was really the extended day and i know someone was saying

143well the extended day is the boards and my colleague just stated uh about the vote for the board the board does not decide on extended date either that is a part of the administration just like all of our other schools do have um extended day and i kept trying to think of plans and ways to actually give our students uh extended day so i cannot wait till they extend to clark springs but i did see that the students really do need in-person learning they really do they need a teacher a teacher there right in the room with them not a volunteer a teacher our children does not need to lose any more learning loss no more and since i represent sex second district i do rep i i will say that i would like to

144see this as the site until clock springs is renovated this was promised to the school and the teachers i got plenty emails and i'm sorry if i didn't answer all of them because some of them had all the board members names on it and our president she normally answered him but i got plenty emails from the teachers who do not want to do move twice you do not want to move twice but based on this the church you can only put so much in there anyway most of it is glass one wall you definitely will need a white board so you don't have a lot to pack up and put in and i this is for mr cameras i would love to see since this is your update plan for clock springs and you already

145have a schedule i'm sure so i would like for you to update the board within 24 hours every time there is something completed in clock springs and the reason why i would like clark springs to be that i promised one of the students in clark springs the day of the fire that we would have in person at another school and i i don't promise many people anything but i did promise this student for the first time i met him and he was very very upset his name is v so v if you're looking i promise you that and on the day of clock springs we will dance in the halls just like i told him we would have a dj in the halls just like i told him this would be in person i don't

146want any delays in clock springs everybody is eager we're waiting this is just a placeholder for right now i know it's three months there was given as a uh a date but these children i'm telling you they need in person really do and i went for myself on friday to look at the site myself i'm not sure what's going to happen to the other learning facilities whether they're going to stay or close but we do need one in person for these students and if we could provide extended day to the parents that would be great also thank you miss brizzy and thank you madam chair yeah i also want to thank first baptist for this offer my son actually attended there years ago for extended day because i couldn't afford the ymca program at his

147school and um they were great i always felt comfortable there it was a godsend for my family and so i am very um thankful that they are making this generous offer at this time you know i agree that the students should stay together we really wouldn't want to happen what have happened what happened to norell some years ago um and talking to adults who experienced that it seems that that community was split up and eventually fell apart and um you know it's unfortunate that that happened to them but here we have another chance to keep a school together my question is because we haven't received much information on this why were the teachers split according to this data in terms of virtual versus the temporary location um and did it have to do primarily with

148setup is that question for mr cameras i i can't speak to teachers beliefs um from my conversations with ms jacobs folks just have different feelings about their comfort with virtual their desire or lack of desire for multiple changes versus stability i think different people have just different comfort level with the different aspects of this and so you know as you saw from the data it kind of split down the middle may i also just make one additional comment that i'm sure sure um [Music] i am happy to move forward unilaterally if it is within my purview to do so to move an entire school's worth of students to a non-dec to a non-rps property if you grant me that authority and believe that i can do that unilaterally i will move forward without bringing anything

149further to the board on this matter specifically however [Music] it seemed to me from the conversations that i was having with board members that certainly there was a desire and a need to approve a plan for how we move forward by this body so i would like to again if this body feels that i am free to act without their consent on this matter i will go forth and do so um however i was clearly under the impression that given uh that we are literally moving hundreds of rps children to a non-rps property that has all kinds of implications that that would certainly require the approval of the governing body of richmond public schools but again if that's not the the the feeling of the sport i will move forward unilateral thank you thank you

150mr cameras i i do agree i was under the same impression i think you and i talked and excuse me about um making sure that a plan was clear detailed and provided to the board but first i said keep the families and the staff informed by any means necessary and i think since that friday evening that i received that text at i think 11 08 p.m um from the superintendent i think the principal and the assistant principal and that team have done so i know we heard a little bit earlier about not communicating not meeting not providing day-to-day or updated information i think and i'm being totally transparent that as the information has come in even in piecemeal i have shared with the superintendent on numerous occasions many people don't do piecemeal if you start

151piecemealing it and then something has to change and we all know some things change in the middle of us putting something out there and then 45 minutes later we have to backtrack i said give it to them all at one time that just helps process information uh maybe that wasn't the best suggestion or advice but i still stand by it instead of giving information and piecemeal when adults are dealing with trauma that's not good and i'm a 30-year educator give it to them all just give it to him at one time and i think the team has done that i want to also thank the church for stepping up stepping out in just every entity that has done that um for our family i am encouraging those entities and organizations to do so for all

152of our rps students and families and facilities this is a very unusual situation that we're in that i wish on no one um but i do believe that we are doing stepping outside and looking in i really do believe we're doing the best that we can with what we have um it could be worse i always look at it could be worse i think we're moving in the right direction um [Music] in terms of giving the authority if it was within the superintendent's purview we asked the superintendent we were very clear on giving us a plan what is the next steps what are we going to do i think he has done that if the board um needs to vote on it or not i still believe it needed to be discussed publicly regardless of

153our purview of voting order or or not i i do think the public needed to hear what the next steps were it is not easy getting a school ready on a on a regular cycle one of my concerns is that our teachers do not have enough time to set up the other concern that i have is every friday from what from what i read in the presentation they have to break down that's that's a lot to ask for our teachers um if that is accurate also my concern is limited and this concern that i'm getting ready to share is not as heavily weighted as the others but when teachers are not able to decorate their classrooms and make it student friendly and adult friendly from a child who grew up in trauma that's concerning to

154me um [Music] but i guess we we can work through that i also want to share that i made um some notes that um to i thought i heard earlier that communication was not clear or not often i think the principal has any time she's asked to do a zoom with families i think she's doing it um you know i to ask her to do it four days a week i don't know but as she gets the information she's trying to put it out there to her families and we're gonna continue to support that i think our second district school board representative has been phenomenal as well interceding these questions interceding these calls um and trying to return all the questions and calls back i think ms white has mrs white has done a phenomenal

155job um for her school and representing the second district very well so miss lilly i just wanted you i did actually prepare to address that question if and and listen if we vote if we got to vote we vote if we don't the superintendent is going to move forward with the school administration to do what they need to do so can you um speak to sure sure so as you mentioned to to follow what you said about this being an unusual situation certainly the law does not prescribe this circumstance so who has the authority when um in an instance of this magnitude however the issue being that there is going to be a move of students um if you all as a board choose to delegate that authority to the superintendent as he said you

156may do so um it's just are you doing it by consensus are you doing that by this and so if you're going to vote one way or the other as far as giving him the authority to do so then that needs to be made clear as well um you know i don't know if there's any question of whether the board is going to to grant that authority to him so that may need a boot itself the other piece of it is um the the difference between a long term or short term long term and short term solution here both both require moves and so the question would be if the board would need to take a position on the long-term move then um certainly it's in the interim but a move is a move in

157this in a certain sense so in this instance if the distinction is because it's a this is a temporary move and you're delegating that authority then the board to the superintendent to the board needs to be on the record as having done so i believe thank you madam maternity for that um explanation um before you go miss gibson i'm going to have miss door speak miss door um it seems i think it's fine to just approve it whether or not it's legal just seems like a good idea so since we have it in front of us so i motioned to approve the superintendent's recommendation regarding fox elementary thank you ms dorr has made a motion second second um and the second came from the ninth and the second but i'm gonna give it to the

158ninth cause in my left ear first you know i think miss white is about to um but miss door made a motion miss jones seconded um to accept the superintendent's recommendation recommendation as presented to the board any questions any discussion ms gibson um so i you know i the for me it's more about um ensuring that the board has information and say about uh about about our property so i am happy to support the motion on the table um but i i want to ensure that we get sufficient information to make decisions as to what's going to happen in clark springs and that we get the you know comprehensive plan and we get um the necessary data and budgets so that the board makes its decision on that that is for me the distinction has

159not to do so much with how temporary it is but the fact that that we're talking about making uh significant updates to a building that is owned by the district so um if i uh you know i just think it's important that we get we get information that the public sees the information this is a big spend of money um and so uh so i think that's the bigger context for me thank you and ms before you go one of the ways that we do that for those who are streaming with us is we continue to have fox on our agenda every meeting for an update that is a part of accountability on the administration's part so i think we can um con excuse me can continue to do that um every meeting just like

160we do with george with high school have an update on our agenda um about fox miss white thank you madam chair uh this question is for mr cameras mr cameras uh since the teachers at fox has not seen the uh actual building and they'll be going for a tour i'm i'm asking you or requesting from you can they at least have more than one day to set up their uh their rooms or equipment time mayor manager yes uh so the goal is to have them visit first baptist this week and then they would have access in the afternoons all of next week in addition to all of the day on friday so yes they would have a great deal of time over next week to to do the setup i also do want to note

161this won't be the same setup i believe as dr harris muhammad noted as you would do with your normal classroom um it's going to be set up light the the goal here is to be in person with kids and so really it's going to be about the minimum needed to effectuate that it's not about making beautiful bulletin boards and anchor charts left and right all the things that great teachers love to do that's not what this is going to be and so i do hope that gives teachers a little bit of a sense of relief about the expectation really this is just let's get in person with the kids obviously we want a high quality educational experience but i think families more than understand it may not look like fox in fact it's not going

162to look like fox but what's most important is the student teacher human relationship and that's what we are going to be able to offer on march 21st going forward thank you miss burke miss page thank you madam chair um i too wanted to reiterate the support and thanks to first baptist church i think it's awesome as ms white stated earlier angels blessings thank you all so very very much but i must i can't sit here and not say this mrs jenkins excuse me mrs jacobs daniella has been the principal at fox for many many many many years she has the the um not only the ability but she's a seasoned administrator and leader and one that is trustworthy and she loves what she does so i'm just saying and please receive this as i'm saying

163it first baptist is temporary clock springs is where i got my start many years ago left there and came back and i've been spending a lot of time just this past couple of weeks just walking through that building reminiscing seeing what's what when that school is i love the idea of in the past it was able to be patched up but as a parent stated earlier we're going beyond that and it's a beautiful structure ideal for elementary setting each part so i can already see the beauty that was in fox will transpire into clock springs and all of that property all the possibilities the community has you the board has you i am in favor of moving forward and i'm glad that the insurance is paying for all of the renovations it's not coming out

164of richmond public schools um accounts operations budgets that's the advantage of having great insurance and we're going to use every penny wisely and well because unfortunately we never know what tomorrow may bring so this is also an opportunity and you all be setting the presidents there in terms of the expectation of persons once foxes rebuilt as the superintendent stated knowing that you're making it better for someone else coming behind you so thank you to first baptist thank you to the administration and moving forward with clock springs i may have to go over there and then to room 107 to volunteer thank you miss burke miss paige thank you um i too support the superintendent's recommendation but also would like to thank first baptist because over the years you have been excellent community partners when i

165served as pta president and john b kerry you were instrumental in rebuilding a ada playground so we've always been good partners but i think it's important that our students all students learn in a safe and stable learning environment and also i would like to say as we have this robust as we have had and we'll continue to have this robust conversation i hope it is my hope that the same energy will be devoted to george will and we move for the students and staff in georgia expeditiously as well thank you miss page we have a motion on the floor it was seconded by ms jones madam clerk we are ready to take a roll call vote please miss store yes miss white yes miss gibson yes mr young aye rizzy yes dr harris mohammed yes

166miss burke yes miss page yes ms jones yes motion passes unanimously thank you school board colleagues thank you team fox for being here this late with us so now we're back on our regular agenda ladies and gents um receive for action school board travel and i do believe we have something that we are going to present madam clerk yes madam chair we have um a combined request from um dr shonda harris mohammed and ms kenya gibson um they are requesting eighteen hundred dollars total nine hundred dollars each in support of the john marshall high school girls basketball teams travel expenses to the state championships school board colleagues you've heard the request a joint request from myself and ms gibson to support the girls basketball team as they travel to the state championship are there any

167questions i'm sorry that they did not win tonight so do we need to take that off the table correct they didn't i think i i think y'all should have eased me into that they didn't win i mean it came really rough to me um so being that they didn't win tonight they're not going to the state championship tomorrow they're going to i think this was to get them to do right the game was a new way this is i'm sorry ms gibson go ahead if they if they chartered the bus today to get to luray i think they need to pay for it so but they're not going are they going yeah so this was to pay for them to go today oh this was i'm sorry i'm sorry thank you yeah we need to

168pay for the bus yeah even i was so old i was just so distraught that they lost i wasn't listening i wasn't hearing what was saying what was being said to me yes um do we have a motion to approve the request to pay for the transportation that occurred today i will hope that we paid for the request for the transportation uh district activity funds second thank you it was moved by ms jones and seconded by ms page uh roll call vote miss patrice misadore yes miss white miss gibson yes mr young abstain mr rizzi yes dr harris bahamut yes miss burke yes miss paige yes miss jones yes motion passes thank you so much boy members we're um moving on to just have a brief discussion about our school board retreat i sent an

169email and also in our last meeting i gave a couple of dates i am looking at um getting some information from great city schools to see if they can give us a can conduct our retreat um sometime in june and then in september i did hear back from i know i'm jumping but let me let me go back so i had asked you all to look at your calendar to have a retreat in june and i put out two dates the 11th or the 25th and until i speak with a representative from great city schools i'll let you all know which date as soon as possible that they have available okay any questions about that miss page and then ms jones yes madam chair so i'm not looking at the calendar but the 11th and

170the 25th of june are they are they doing a week or weekends and also we need to be mindful of graduation excuse me my microphone was off the 11th and the 25th are saturdays and i looked at our graduation i pulled our graduation calendar as it was submitted in board docs and i didn't see any of my graduations on saturdays but i may be mistaken if there was one that was revised i haven't seen i just looked at the one that was uploaded maybe three weeks ago four weeks ago i don't believe we currently have anything scheduled on saturday i'm sure okay but i know leading up to it or the week after we have a lot back-to-back back-to-back so you all can look at your calendars and let me know and i would love

171to work with someone on building the agenda for the retreat if just reach out to me via email and we can talk about it no extra meetings just phone conversation hey i think this is what what do you think and um go for it go go from there some collaboration so maybe um you know a couple of people can work on it to build the retreat going on moving on to our governance training which is required to be conducted through the virginia school board association they have been in contact with me and we've been in contact with each other and september the 21st i'm sorry miss jones oh well miss paige you're sorry oh so just going back to the boy retreat is it is it um a hundred percent participation a board retreat when

172i pulled out mou today it did not speak to the board retreat but it spoke to governance training that 100 must be in attendance and if not there is a fee a portion that we have to pay okay so i know for a fact i mean for the um second date on the retreat i won't be available but that's the 25th okay and then also for the governance training i know last year we received several dates and we kind of worked around to see you know who all was available and today we got one date and i i think that they might be pressing on something as well i can email them again tomorrow morning and ask them to send me a few more dates through october yeah can we do like a doodle yeah

173i can do it but once they give me the date yeah for sure i do um a dude or something like that a group a google um vote thing yep yeah okay miss page i was just gonna say i concur with um miss jones because we have received several dates in the past and yes we do have to have one 100 participation but i also think it's important that we have summer dates as options and i did give the 14th to 28th and the 21st of my email to everyone um and the vsba emailed me back saying they had the 21st of september available miss miss burke but i can go back to them via email and asked to send some dates in october ms burke thank you madam chair usually the governor's training lasts

174at least five hours um so i know that those dates given were all on wednesdays so that means everybody can work out the dates whatever it is during the week i know in the past if we had the full governor's training was on a weekend not that i'm saying we have to meet on a weekend but i know that this virginia school board association requires at least five hours so we're saying that we will take a work day for those persons that are working that's because the 20 the date that you selected the 21st is a wednesday correct and when we had governor's training in 2021 that was on a work day that was on a friday right that was also during covet and they split it for us they split it for us we

175did half on one day and half on another day okay so what i'm asking is um virginia school the board association i i've i read that she stated they wanted us to come to them so but my question is um we're gonna drive to charlottesville for two hours or we're gonna do the full five hours this is the full my understanding this is the full training all right so um i think i'm okay but i can get some clarity from them um in terms of some other dates in october and maybe possible friday dates i think i saw miss paige and then miss jones um so your dates for october of october 14th over the other days again i didn't say any dates for october i said september the email that i sent had september

17614 excuse me included september the 14th 28th or the 21st okay i hadn't gone into october okay so um i wanted to be clear i'm not available during the week okay if possibly a saturday would be i think would be more meaningful to everyone and okay possible saturday possibly saturday consideration i will reach back out to them and look at what they're see what their calendar is like for saturdays fridays and saturdays in the month of september um and october ms jones i'm sorry i was just going to ask if you could please resend the calendar that you sent with the original dates i am not amenable to friday or saturday i'm sorry miss page um if you can send that email because i never received the email with additional dates i got the one

177you sent today with the 21st i did i sent that email but you sent it i have to check okay but i did send it with those days yeah all right we're moving right along we are going to receive let me make sure legislative update madam chair before mr stanley begins i would like to update everyone that the john marshall men with 4 minutes left are up 84 to 44. [Applause] so he's going to repeat that again for those who are streaming with us with four minutes left the john marshall men are up 84 to 44. we're going to the segal center hi good evening dr harris mohammed superintendent cameras members of the board i don't know if i'm going to have as exciting news as that tonight but i do have a legislative update

178for you in regards to the state budget um on i prepared for you a comparison of the governor northam's introduced budget that that the rps budget was based upon and then both the house and senate proposals in regards to the budget these were released about two weeks ago and you all are already aware of the the the big headline and that the house budget will reduce our state funding by about another 12 million dollars and the senate budget would increase our funding by about another 2 million dollars this this uh grid lists out the different policy options and i can kind of point you to a couple of those that are the the big culprits for those differences in funding um with the house budget one of the biggest things that they cut was the

179governor's proposed funding for the at-risk add-on program and as you all know that's the largest equity-based funding stream that distributes more funds to school divisions with high concentrations of poverty uh the house took about 200 million dollars out of the biennium budget for that program so that is a big that we took a big hit and what our distributions would be based on that um i'll also note that another place that the the senate added funding was in support staff and they started to roll back this the support staff cap that we've talked about many times before they did that by funding a new kind of overall ratio for the number of support staff positions that school divisions would be required to fund and putting soq funding towards those it's not a full removal of

180the cap it but it does get about half of it it's about halfway back to where we were before 2009. um there are a number of other items in this grid that i'd be happy to answer any questions you have the only other thing that i would note here and i can talk about it in a little bit more detail in the next slide is school construction and there are two different approaches in the general assembly right now with school construction funding governor northern put 500 million dollars into his budget for one-time grants to school divisions rps was going to receive about six million dollars for that the house has gone in a completely different direction and they're now proposing a school loan and principal rebate program where we could receive as much as 30

181back in loan interest and principal payments on school construction but if that were to pass then we would not receive that six million dollars in that one-time grant that we're currently expecting um so that was just something important to be aware of um we'll go to the next slide please a couple other details about the budgets that are important to know um there is no hold harmless for adm lost or for the lci changes that are impacting us significantly this year there is also no other language in the budget in regards to local composite index reform although i am very pleased to tell you that jaylark the joint legislative audit and review commission has reached out to us and our budget team to sit down and talk about how the lci affects our funding that

182we receive from the state so we're looking forward to having that conversation with them and the results of that report as they're presented later this year i've already noted the support staff cap there was no inclusion of the soq recommendations and the equity fund we the legislation that we had submitted in uh collaboration with senator hashmi regarding english language learner ratios i'm implementing a proficiency-based ratio that was also a recommendation of the state board of education that bill has unfortunately been um been amended into just a flat ratio proposal and then ultimately it did die uh there is still money in the senate budget that would fund more english learner teachers so that is another reason why we are advocating for the senate budget and then one other final thing i would note about what's

183not in the budget is language that governor younkin submitted to the general assembly that would have prohibited the the teaching of divisive concepts he was trying to do that both with bills as well as budget language and the bills have died and neither the house or the senate included that language in the state budget there are a couple other things that are in uh i think these items are the first two are specifically in the house budget um the house did have put in a budget amendment through the department of emergency management for two million dollars for response to the fox fire i also already discussed the school construction program um that program is something that we have still been assessing to determine um what type of impacts it would have on us there a

184lot of that will be left up into which tier rps would fall into in terms of the local stress that our locality faces with funding school construction and those are guidelines that the doe would be tasked or the board of education would be tasked with creating so a bit of that is kind of devils in the details and we won't know the the full impact of that new program on rps until those guidelines are developed by doe if it passes but that is certainly at the moment a significant negotiation point between the house and the senate and then finally the virginia literacy act this is legislation that does appear to be poised to pass the general assembly and wood provides soq funding for reading specialists um both the house and the senate provided funding in

185their budgets to uh to add reading specialists if i recall the ratio is one reading specialist to 550 students at the k-3 level um so that virginia literacy act does appear to be passing um regardless of the final negotiated budget and then final slide uh we continue to advocate although the the window is narrowing a little bit if you look at the bottom of this slide you'll see kind of the final calendar the conferees are currently negotiating the final budget and their deadline was going to be tomorrow to finish those negotiations however there have been reports that the governor and the house republicans are very prepared to extend session and continue negotiating until they get a budget that they would like so it's possible that we will see negotiations continue to play out and this

186timeline may adjust a little bit with them needing more time to do so once the conferees and the house and the senate do agree in those final budgets they will have a public budget report available to the public within two days we hoped that we would receive this thursday but if they do take longer to negotiate then we will receive it after they have finished that and then after the budget is approved and the session does adjourn on april 27th the uh the general assembly will reconvene in their annual veto session or reconvene session and it's at that point in that the general assembly will consider any amendments to legislation any vetoes that the governor has issued as well as adopt the final final budget which doe will then use to calculate our final distributions

187that they will publish in may um so with that i'm happy to take any questions that you have uh thank you for your time yes sir dr chris mohammed this white thank you madam chair and thank you for this presentation i just have two questions the first question is maybe i might have missed it but did they remove the caps so that we can receive more support staff they they rolled it about halfway back so they didn't completely remove the cap they didn't take out that budget language so in place they're now funding support staff a very huge bucket of support staff at a new ratio so we're receiving about half of the funding back that that has been capped on us in the past and thank you and my second question is uh the

188fox um the fox money is that supposed to be used for the rebuilding of fox school or is there some other allocations for it yes ma'am they left it relatively uh vague in terms of what the money could be used for they just generally said it could be used for fox uh the the response uh to the fox elementary school fire and it's uh it's if that does get into the final budget um it would be released to us within this current fiscal year okay thank you yes ma'am are there any more any additional questions ms burke thank you madam chair thank you mr stanley this is really detailed you know you read about it in the paper and hear about it on the news but this is this made it very clear i am

189still [Music] i still have no words for the address add-on for that to be completely wiped out so did i hear your earlier state that it may be anything on this list may be amended or this is it yes ma'am so that uh comparison chart is if you're really looking at the two columns on the right those are the two things that are now being negotiated up against each other um i have been in discussions with some of our legislative delegation members and they are really pushing that the the senate is going to hold very strong on their education proposals so we're very optimistic that things like the at-risk out on will stay as the governor proposed them and not be cut further so that means the english which one was it the um english

190learner teachers removed at risk removed reduced or removed yesterday specialists so needed for four and five so i hope we can do something when i am without budget absolutely content continued advocacy for the senate's education budget proposals is just is the right message right now the senate really maintained all the good things that governor northern proposed in his outgoing budget and they've also added a couple other things like funding those k-3 reading specialists and adding the additional support staff are you getting ample support from [Music] parents and people in the community to you are good yes ma'am absolutely there was the education funding march that happened a couple weeks ago i've seen a lot of continued activity on social media so i know folks are out there advocating thank you so much this is excellent

191information miss rinsing thank you mr stanley for this report um it's very detailed thank you um i just wanted to get some clarification so um where school construction is concerned um there's a chart that you know says governor northam proposed that 500 million for grants in the house the 541 and loan rebates and then later down below you know where what is included the house proposed a new plan to award up to 2 billion in school construction can you help differentiate you know i mean it's a little confusing in terms of you know the 541 and then the 2 billion absolutely yes ma'am there are two very different concepts what the governor governor northern proposed was just one-time grants just direct grants to school divisions within our current budget proposals that six million dollars was

192put directly into our cip budget if and the senate maintained that the senate agreed with governor northern's approach to that um they didn't do anything different they just left that kind of proposal as in their budget the house has proposed something completely different so that would take away those grants that we would have received so we would lose that six million dollars and then we would then be able to apply for uh rebates for loan interest as well as possibly principal depending on what tier of school divisions were placed into based on our local but not it's not local composite index but it's basically local stress local fiscal stress index um and the board of education would be prompted to develop guidelines for that so some school divisions would get these 30 rebates on loan

193and loan and principal loan interest and principal other school divisions might only receive a rebate on some of the loan interest so we'd have to follow the the board of education's development of those guidelines very closely but in essence the the general assembly or the house to accomplish the two billion dollars in loan interest and principal rebates that they say could fund or could help pay for the construction of uh 80 new elementary schools across the state um they only have to actually put up about 550 million dollars in state funding to make those rebates cover that two billion dollars because the localities are going to pay for still 70 percent of the cost so it's a way for them to incentivize school divisions um to to do new school construction but it doesn't give

194us any direct funding at this time so we could get the rebates and that would would that we could get the rebates and would that balance out you know if we get the rebates it would just yes it would be after the fact we wouldn't receive the funding up front we'd receive them after the fact but yes ma'am okay thank you thank you any more questions from mr stanley before we move on thank you mr sam thank you all [Music] board members if you remember we approved to amend the agenda to have 6.06 come up now which is the january 2022 financial statement financial report madam sheriff i may before miss udasco goes um the jm men have won 92-53 and will be playing in the championship game at 1pm on saturday at the seagull

195center 1pm saturday at the seagull center congratulations to the young men of john marshall high school and thank you to the ladies for playing let's not forget our ladies for playing the hardest and the best you are all winners we're proud of you i know you're not watching right now but if you should see this we are equally proud of you for putting um putting your best into not only your academics but your athletics so thank you so much all right john marshall boys so put your blue on your white whatever you put on saturday one o'clock segal center let's go so i suggest we get there at 10. good evening um i want to walk through a couple of highlights of the january 2022 financial report so beginning on page two that's where you'll

196see our revenue this reflects our revenue receipts to date we've received about 53 percent of budgeted receipts which is trending as expected we get money from the city quarterly and money from the state in a semi-monthly allocation on page three this is where you'll see our major classifications uh or financial spending as identified by those states so those categories you're familiar with expenditures are again trending as expected and although we're about 58 done with the year um expenditures for example and instruction coming in a little low at 44 make perfect sense because our fiscal year starts july 1st and teachers don't really start getting paid until september so we usually see a lag there so again those expenditures are trending as expected and then pages four and five this is where you'll see our spending

197by object code again expenditures are trending normally so there is nothing out of the ordinary for our mid-year financial report however i'm happy to take questions answer it if i can and if not report back to you um after talking with staff mr young miss white the only question regards fuel and i presume that the team is preparing contingency plans relevant to current cause some of these awful projections i'm seeing like 200 a barrel of crude and what that's going to mean for for everybody in the room including for rps buses yes we are definitely watching that and we do have some reserves currently in the transportation line item thank you miss huddesco for this presentation let's just have a general um question that i would like to know um how is the money from

198the federal calculated into here how much do you receive and in here is the lottery money in here also so the federal stimulus this is our operating budget so that's not reflected in this we the money that we get federal is sort of sits in a pot and as we spend it we submit reimbursements to the state for that federal money they hold that for us so that's not uh here we can certainly provide at a later date our expenditures against the esser as you recall there's three federal sources cares esser and arp we've spent all the cares we've spent or by end of this year we'll spend most of the esser and then the arp is what we received in december and that the board recently voted on some reallocation of those dollars and

199so we're about to submit an amendment to the arp but i certainly could provide our expenditures on the esser to date and then tracy had mentioned again also the arp spending to date again just received those funds more recently if that's something you'd like to receive i can bring that dr harris muhammad to agenda setting okay thank you for that now we'll have an update on collective bargaining i know miss lee is not here so mr cameras will probably guide us through that thank you madam chair um the update is short but important there is an election coming up on april 15th and 16th at mlk middle school april 15th from 4 to 8 p.m and april 16th from 8 8am to 5pm this is an opportunity for the following employee groups to vote on

200the following question should the rea the richmond education association be certified as the sole representative for the purposes of collective bargaining that's the entire purpose of the election the relevant employees are instructional assistants licensed personnel safety and care associates and school nutrition services again martin luther king april 15 4 to 8 p.m and april 16th 8 am to 5 pm you do have to come in person to vote for all the regulations uh so please mark those times come and vote thank you thank you are there any questions for mr canvas right now on the collective bargaining all right thank you moving on to an update on the river city rezoning process good evening again all righty um i don't know who's ah um not the summer session i'm gonna talk about the river city

201rezoning there we go thank you so the river city uh middle school rezoning committee has met four times and meets again this wednesday on march 9th at 6 00 pm and what the committee has been focused on uh for its um previous meetings is digging into different sections of the current river city middle school zone um do you mind actually moving forward uh two slides just to take a peek at what those zones look like one more so this yellow area is the current zone for river city and so what the committee is spending their time doing is exploring the implications of possible sections of that zone moving into another zone and so at each meeting we look at one or two different sections we look at the number of students that are in that

202section and discuss possible other school boundaries where that might fit based on its location so this wednesday the committee will conclude reviewing and discussing all six of these sections identified for possible change and we'll also then begin a more organic discussion of thinking about are there any adjustments to any of those sections so considering different variations or combinations of such as they continue to develop a proposal that we will bring to the board in april there is a link there as well for all of the river city rezoning materials and it's also on the website for any board member or the public to dig in just a little bit deeper into the process the board or the proposal that the committee will bring to the board is uh looking to rezone river city to approximately

20375 percent of their capacity over a three year period that also maintains balance with other middle schools around the division to prevent overcrowding elsewhere the engagement uh has been robust to date and continues over the next month if you'll move to slide four with our family liaisons and engagement colleagues out talking with individuals in the community as well as at theater elementary schools as well as other middle schools as well and you can see the calendar here to learn more about the process attend a community meeting for information or to ask questions we also have a link on our website where individuals can share feedback that is shared then with the community and synthesized as part of developing proposals so as we move forward uh in the final steps of the process to bring the

204board a proposal we'll be meeting march 9th 23rd and 30th a slight modification there given spring break we'll also be holding public hearings at both brown and bouchard middle school we will have one last working session april after the public hearings again to synthesize that information and then bring a proposal to the board one very important update for both the public and the board to have awareness on which is timely for this week is given the sections that you saw of the of the current zone there are implications for multiple middle schools so not just necessarily brown or bouchal but potentially going north to albert hill or to benford and because of that we think that it is important not to run the open enrollment lottery for middle school students until the board approves the

205new map so we want to for example make sure that if any of the students i'm just speaking hypothetically in section 1 or 2 that you'll see on slide 3 were to move north of the river that those would become zoned students to albert hill or binford therefore we want to ensure that seats would be available for students in a set zone and not offered as an open enrollment seat so that of course introduces a sense of urgency to the committee to bring this proposal to the board in april as planned we still will run the elementary and high school lottery specialty school seats and regional both governor and code rva seats all of those will still be published this friday as planned but the middle school lottery will be run after the board approves

206the new river city middle school zone i'm happy to take any questions on the process any questions miss white then mr young and then miss renzi thank you miss hendescar i just want some clarity so the river city is the the school that is going to be zoned to lucille brown and thomas bouchard is that correct um not exactly but certainly to a degree so if you look at slide three you'll see kind of right in the edge of um section six that little star that's where river city is so they have quite a big zone the the geography to the left is sort of the brown area and the geography perhaps to the right more between sections three four and five is sort of the bouchard area but we're also the committee has introduced

207the guiding principle that it is okay to cross the river and so if you think about the schools that border sections one or two that would be albert hill or binford and even what might border section three could be parts of armstrong parts of mlk excuse me so the committee needs to determine which of these sections together help meet that goal of reducing enrollment to 75 percent of capacity which allows for continued population growth in the area but any one of those middle schools could potentially be impacted obviously brown and bouchard are the two south side middle schools and so may have a more significant impact however what was very important it's clear to the committee is ensuring that we don't move kids out of river city and then overcrowd ground so that's why multiple

208middle schools are on the table i would say probably to date the only middle school that hasn't actively been discussed is henderson given it does not touch any of the boundaries and i just had a uh what you had just said i just have a backup statement um when you say that they could reach to any of the middle schools to me that would they should lucille and boucha they should be equally from river city divided into those so that they can filter in the correct high school because i think that's why we have a situation now in our high schools if we reach all across the water to get middle school to bring them over to the south side and um we should we should i think that we should stay in because then

209we lose the bus time our buses will always be late if we got to go all the way over north side to pick up someone to bring them all the way over to south side it should be a much easier way that it can filter in from the middle school and they can either go to hugonite or they can go to width and not go all across town yeah great point and that is part of each for each one of the sections we not only look at the elementary feeders for that idea of a cohort of my class goes from here to here to here to build community but also at the high school so that is a great point the other one you brought up though i do think is part of why there's

210you know kind of balances here if you live in section one you are most definitely closer to albert hill or binford than you are to river city or if you live on the far edge of section three bus routes actually would be significantly shorter to take you to a different middle school than if they have to drive you all the way down from the upper northwest corner of section one down to to river city but you're then right you might be going to a different high school so hence the very complex work of this committee we're so grateful for the teachers community members board members principals who are part of it and are grappling with these no easy answer questions but thank you you've raised a couple of very important ones thank you so young

211well just briefly i was just going to commend the committee for acknowledging what some of us known for a long time i either james river is not the atlantic ocean yeah uh and two i would hope that perhaps we can apply the same rationale or logic to high schools but my question pertains to messaging around the delayed lottery and i know those emails are teed up ready to go so we have three different emails prepared one is for anyone who has applied to a middle school open enrollment letting them know that as well as other emails for families who may have multiple children letting them know that the lottery results will publish this friday miss rinsi all right thank you madam chair so um uh thank you mr dasco for this uh will we receive

212a report when the committee presents um with data in terms of just capacity at each school and how you know the decision was made to divide these areas or to reassign students i'm most con i mean interested in knowing the capacity of each of these schools and where they are right now that information is actually available for you right now if you click through to that link it's about a 60 page data binder which has the enrollment as well as capacity percentages based on the previous capacity study from 2018 as well as for each one of these sections descriptions of the geographic boundaries the number of third fourth and fifth graders that currently live as of december 2021 in each one of those sections that's kind of the snapshot of time that we used as

213well as some initial demographics as we think about um maintaining balance or the types of resources that might come along with moving students so for example if we were to move a group of students uh that were primarily english learners what would then be the supports that would come along with that so um well that's all certainly thinking that's already all present yes it's on the website so you can uh click through to um well it's a it's written i don't know what's behind the hyperlink but on page two uh if you can click through to river city rezoning section of the rps website um uh it's it's there i can just send you that that link as well the materials are in both english and spanish okay awesome my colleague lou costetter has done

214a great job pulling it all together so really appreciate his efforts on the data thank you and a big thank thanks to ms page and miss jones who are serving on the committee and helping push everyone's thinking in really great ways thank you thank you we're now going to receive an update on the summer programming for 2022 good evening again um for our summer our summer school planning we have a few updates we can go to the first slide please we have solidified the dates for summer school we will offer in-person summer school for pre-k-12 students and programming includes for pre-k eight academics enrichment and social emotional learning uh and with a focus to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and supporting students you leak unique learning needs with a particular focus on math and

215literacy for pre-k 8 we will go from wednesday june 29th to wednesday august 3rd and it will be monday through friday so no friday sorry monday through thursday no fridays and we will go most of the day the times are there the reason we have to start kind of wednesday to wednesday is just related to rules around vdoe minimum days to have 24 days receive reimbursement but also making sure that our 12-month employees and others have fridays available for their summer fridays and planning for the upcoming year high school will be offered for just one month june 27th to july 28th also monday through thursday in person we will run two concurrent sessions so one in the morning one in the afternoon students can attend students will be able to attend one or the other

216or both the primary focus for high school summer school is credit recovery um and to accept to assist with uh being on track to graduate and summer uh summer school graduation date is listed there as july 28th just go to the next slide please in terms of key deadline again i've talked about programming um you can keep going and then in terms of timelines here we are as we prepare so um in april towards the end of april we will have a list of students prioritized who will receive invitations so summer school at this point is invitation only uh based on the students who we believe will most benefit from the academic support and additional uh options and again the reason for that really is uh budgetary to limit as well as capacity uh we

217are we'll still serve this summer the same as we did last year our goal is 4 000 students and um again that's a higher than we've had in the past we we upped that number last year and so we continue to we want to stay at that number um and so the main thing if parents are asking at the end of april we will send out letters inviting families uh to enroll in summer school and doing personalized outreach with our engagement team to make sure those families understand uh that their child does have a slot and um you can see the rest of the timeline for hiring and such i'm happy to take any questions mr dennis white miss frenzy excuse me let's let's start with ms door thank you um i we talked um

218when the it became apparent that the community um was not ready for us to move to a extended or year-round calendar the importance of really doubling down on summer school so um i think um personally i'm very eager to make sure that we get it we do everything that we can and and allocate as many resources as we can to a robust summer school program which i know you guys are already underway with one thing that um we talked about was perhaps a rebranding around summer school um because there is sometimes a stigma around summer school and the fact that it's invite only et cetera so i was wondering if you um you know our i think we all would agree that our goal is to get as high of attendance as possible so um

219what and maybe this is a question for um shade but what are we you know what are we doing to make sure that um we're addressing some of those concerns sure thank you um well i'm using summer school for our conversations but we brand it to students at summer camp and over the last two summers both when we had to do virtual as well as last year i'm pretty proud of we added and we started adding enrichment in a couple years ago that i think really makes a difference i think miss white has spoken to some of her son's experiences um and so i will definitely go back with the team and talk through that i will say we had really strong attendance for summer school last year when we looked at the impact and

220some of that but i can bring that to the group um and again we're working with the enrollment team uh but i hear your broader point we want to make sure that students see this as fun and something they can't wait to you know jump out of bed in the morning and certainly not a stigma for being invited again if you're invited it's not just because you are behind academically it's because um either by our data and or the adults in your school believe that you can benefit from summer school and while we know everyone can benefit from extra time um sort of in a world of uh fixed resources we want to make sure we get the students who will most benefit and happy to take other suggestions as well mr thank you mr

221ms white thank you madam president um thank you for this uh presentation but i was i was geared to miss dora's question also i was going to say about the invite part um it seemed like more like an intercession to just certain children um but my question was i have an alternative school are they invited to the high school uh yes ma'am summer school yes ma'am all high school students who um uh all high school students who want to attend and participate in credit recovery can do so um students who are who are behind and are slated to graduate who need initial credit those students will also be eligible to take summer school for initial credit including students who might be attending raz okay thank you thank you thank you miss paige the miss jones

222and then i'm sorry miss renzi ms paige and ms jones thank you madam chair um so my question is are the locations going to be the same as last summer do we have locations worked out uh we do not yet have those set and they will not necessarily be so we um again we are kicking off the planning process with our various uh division teams so our facilities team will advise based on any major construction projects or capital capital improvement that may be happening um as well as we try to rotate um host schools just to give schools kind of a you know a different break but we ultimately will choose locations that um do not have major improvements happening but also where we can have kind of when we think about where the students

223are where we will have where it makes the most sense in terms of the different um sort of corners of the city but we haven't decided it yet okay and then um i had a i had a teacher approach me about the potential of offering some kind of summer workshop and science i mean you know i told her that this is something that's probably you know going to be your decision or if it's at all possible um is this something that people can propose or not i mean i want to be able to tell her i'm i i mean i'm always open to ideas that might excite students and to do their summer you know spend their summer learning and exploring um i mean we do have certain constraints but i'm happy to explore it

224and um so have her just send me an email okay thank you thank you miss paige and then ms jones yes thank you dr help for this presentation my question just one question um notice like for pre-k through eight you have staggered times is that to address transportation yes ma'am thank you miss jones thank you madam jim i just had a quick question about um where you notated all programs will have social emotional learning component i wanted to know is that going to be activities or is that going to be a part of a curriculum and if so what will be the goals and how will we be able to tell if they've achieved them since it is a short period of time and then what are we actually tracking um i can get back

225to you with more details on the second part of the question it it these are um activities we typically offer summer school in partnership with pat with the power scholars academy which is designed with the ymca and bell uh the bell curriculum so it's integrated but then there also are these enrichment activities that build in team building and other such things but in terms of the specifics i'd have to get back to you okay cool and i don't want to be called in the weeds so i just would like to know though if there's something that you can definitely you know share with us um so that it's just not another summer school um and folks are i mean young people are getting um you know some school work but it'd be really good if

226we could see um their progression over that period of time thank you thank you thank you did you have your hand up okay i think mrs jones answered ask the same question i've had in mind regarding the um special program for say how that would be integrated and i did receive that one question though otherwise 9 8 o'clock to 2 30 that's a long day that's a very long day for summertime so i look forward to seeing what's going to happen from hour to hour will there be a lot of activity and movement because that's that's a regular school day isn't it lacking about 15 minutes that's a very long day for the summer school time so from june 29th to august 3rd it's going to have to be something extra special going on during

227the summer to keep our children engaged when other children will be playing having fun going swimming doing other things in neighborhood and not doing anything at all that's a that's a full school day to me yes ma'am so i can come back with a more detailed schedule but our goal is definitely to make it feel different than the regular school year and something that students want to jump out of bed and and they're excited about so you know they're not going to jump out of the bed and be anxious to go well maybe not jump out of bed maybe that's a stretch uh that's maybe that's a stretch but at least they'll come home happy let's say that that's true but that's a long day especially for preschoolers too they have naps okay i can

228uh would certainly bring back the schedule come back to you thank you thank you so much mr young briefly and forgive me tracy if you already said this but have we identified a goal relevant to participation or membership last last year we set the bar high and we couldn't be prouder or relevant to yes what constitute an exponential increase are we doing this same thing this year we have our goal is 4 000 for pre-k 8. and just as a reminder prior to this past summer we averaged around one thousand if ours correctly thank you for the question school board colleagues thank you for the presentation we look forward to the in-depth explanation in terms of what the agenda is what they're going to be doing yes ma'am thank you thank you at this board

229colleagues we're going to receive an update on the student technology usage and thank you madam chair oh no yes can we have the order to come on down to after mr um canvas gives the technology usage report thank you thank you madam chair uh you'll see the uploaded document provides the requested usage information we've listed uh every website that on average uh students are [Music] or every website that is active i think is probably the right way to say this for five minutes or more on average per day as the document notes and i do want to clarify we can't distinguish between a window being open and a student actually engaging with that window so as you know as we all do students have multiple windows open at the same time and so the clock

230so to speak is ticking for a window as long as it's open once it's closed that clock so to speak ends and that's why obviously if you added up all these members it makes well more than a full day so just important caveat also so folks know the way a chromebook works um you really can't use it when you're not on the internet it is driven by the internet so once you kind of open it and log in you're drawing from the internet so that time is logged really from the moment they start to the to the moment that they finish happy to take any questions and of course all this uh will be shared with the digital use committee so they can use this as part of their work to develop recommendations uh per

231the board's resolution thank you mr young first thank you uh super helpful uh second do you wanna acknowledge what uh extraordinary tool youtube is in many regard uh frequently use it myself when i need to fix something on my car or house etc but even when we do account for multiple screens the fact that it's such a statistical outlier gives me great pause and i'm being generous when i describe it that way i recognize we're not going to achieve this this evening we do have a group of people working on this but i would just invite my colleagues this evening and in the administration to begin deliberating and to continue deliberating on how we can address what again for just this school board member uh i would propose constitutes uh a an obstacle or barrier

232relevant to premium classroom interface and in our objectives in said classroom if i may madam chair yes yes there's a lot of minutes on youtube no doubt um unfortunately we can't determine exactly what the time is being spent on youtube but even if it's a lot and it's more than it should be that being said i do think a big chunk of this is teachers use youtube for a lot of things i also think a big chunk of this is as a parent i can attest to this oftentimes youtube is used for music while kids are doing other things and then yeah there's probably a lot of kids watching videos on youtube when they shouldn't be the tricky part is and we played around with this last year during virtual is um you can shut

233youtube off or you can have it on and there's like filter settings but to my knowledge and certainly we'll continue to explore this and the committee can i don't think there's like a once you've hit 60 minutes that website shuts down so but look we're not the only school division that's had to deal with this so i'm looking forward to the committee's thoughtful recommendations on this we have the amazing ashley bland chairing the committee who knows more about this stuff than just about anybody so i am hopeful and optimistic that they'll come up with some good recommendations about how to how to address that i was happy to see that number two on the list was google docs so and the rest of them seem pretty pretty appropriate but yes that is a very high

234number for youtube thank you miss gibson and then ms rimsey thank you madam chair um so just doing you know uh piggybacking on what mr young said doing the math of 282 minutes that's that's over four hours and um you know i'm i'm i'm i i made this motion and so to be frank i knew it i knew that our kids were watching way spending way more time on youtube um than is appropriate and what's additionally concerning to me is that the restrictions that we have on youtube are minimal not just in terms of the amount of time but also the content and i can tell you with certainty that we have children watching content um that is simply inappropriate so uh from my perspective this is something that needs to be taken action on

235with urgency we talk about gun control um we cannot make statements about being concerned about guns in our communities when we are watching allowing kids to um watch watch uh videos with uh using guns um casually so this to me is it it should be alarming for everyone who's listening to this and who's looking at this um [Music] so and in other school districts i don't i what i think is you know youtube it's it's great teachers have access to it i think it's great for kids that they have access to a computer i think it is a recipe for disaster to have youtube openly available and for kids to have a computer at the same time it simply does not work and from what i've heard from teachers in school buildings they are at

236a complete loss on how to handle it i i found out my own kids were watching an incredible amount of youtube because i logged in and when i told the school jeeps what's going on here they were like thanks for letting us know because they had no way of looking themselves they had no way of being able to monitor how much our kids were on and our kids are savvy our kids are very savvy they know how to toggle the tabs they you know they they know what they're doing and look this is like school administration 101 here if our if we want our schools to be accredited we need to be able to control how students are using this technology um i i also think we should be concerned about meet.google.com now having meat.google.com

237come up so high when we were in virtual school would make sense but within person school what are our students doing on meet.google.com they're not listening to their teachers in the classroom i think they're mingling on there themselves you know they're using hangouts so so this this is this is this is concerning both from a safety standpoint from an academic standpoint and and just in terms of development for our kids i have read more and more research that the amount of time our kids are using computers and devices it's simply not appropriate we talk about mental illness we need our kids in schools we're not begging for our kids to be in school so that they can be sitting in front of a computer all day absurd so i i believe the district should be

238alarmed and must take action on this tomorrow because we cannot allow another day with the average number of minutes per day on youtube remade at 282 minutes per day it's simply not okay thank you madam chairman i just had one more bit of context i do want to note at the secondary level kids take their chromebooks home every night we have zero control over how they're utilizing that other than the restrictions we've already put on and so often times kids are using their computers a lot of times for homework sometimes to watch youtube in the evening again we i i agree that we need to do more on this front and i'm happy that we have this committee to look at it last year we did seriously curtail youtube and then we got a big

239push back from teachers who suddenly weren't able to do a lot of the things that they were doing in classrooms so i do think there's probably a middle ground here there's a a better way to approach this but i do want to note that um there is access to these devices well beyond just the time that the kids are at school necessarily for instructional purposes um but there's a push and pull with that given um how the sort of access levels work thank you miss rizzi than miss white thank you madam chair um you know i do agree that this is an issue i mean i've heard from many teachers about how difficult it is right now that students have devices to keep them engaged and keep them off of their devices and my son

240came home today and announced that his his uh principal is discouraging cell phones for me even being out during the day and i totally support that i agree with it um and so he might be a little irritated but i certainly support that effort i thought that we discussed pretty early on when um you know i first joined the sport you know i talked about how i swear almost 20 years ago henrico had technology where building level administrators were able to see what students are doing on their laptops and i thought someone told me that we were going to be looking into that technology and i've not heard anything more about that and i'm also wondering if miss bland and her committee will be consulting with other districts to find out how they're addressing these

241issues thank you would you like to respond mr cameron um i know we looked at the software that allows teachers to see what kids are doing last year i don't know if dr recalls the the the issues with that but it was certainly something that we explored during the virtual year last year but certainly that is something we can test the committee to take a look at and yes they they will look at what other divisions are doing as well to benchmark absolutely thank you miss white thank you madam chair um mr cameras i just have i think two questions my question is i'm looking at these websites we have so many of these websites um are they free i know a lot of teachers in the younger age like already near parts those are

242some good ones why do we have so many websites are they free to rps the the learning ones uh dr epik could speak to you i think but most of the high quality ones are not free um but i'll let dr up speak to it yes miss white um i actually say uh happily like i would put a big giant caveat or asterix on this data just given the complexity of the task that said um and when we're dealing with averages it's i think it's really hard to make firm statements that said i'm pretty happy that the sites i see are aligned to our approved and adopted instructional technology or software that teachers have and students have requested for example ireti is a major component of our k5 programming um cami is a tool i

243think many of our teachers use it helps kind of convert documents from digital from pdf to like manipulation desmos is a um online calculator that students have to use for the sol uh near pod is a tool that many teachers use and then students kind of take like um can do assignments on nearpod it's very customizable it has kind of like pre-populated activities um uh quizzes uh less uh that's not i think that's more of a freebie as well as booklet i'm sorry book it kahoot is a freebie that allows teachers to kind of do a quick like on your phone or laptop like do a quick like toll or kind of like check for understanding dream box is a major portion of our middle school math program amplifies our science curriculum and so forth

244so i would say there's most of these are adopted there's a mix of free and purchased but i see the ones that those ones that i've listed those are positives to me yes the ones that you listed just said are positive but i'm looking at some that aren't really school related so i was wondering if there could be a filter on them like amazon why would they be looking at amazon or hanging out google those things should be filter off where they shouldn't even and i think the committee will definitely look at that or you know there's a couple on here that i'm not completely familiar with um again but i don't think i i don't think you can say like every student is spending six minutes a day on edpuzzle.com so i think that's

245the kind of challenge with the law of averages um in some cases the teacher might have access i have students accessing a digital like a kindle version of a book on amazon so we'll have the committee look into those questions and then any of these that we feel that need to be blocked we can thank you thank you and i think that's what that um naws don't quote me but i'm thinking it has something to do with a digital library from amazon you have another question oh the other okay all right thank you at this time we're gonna have an update for my auditor on the chromebooks good evening all how i hope everyone's doing well so i'm going to give you a quick update on the uh chromebook audit as we stand today um

246first i'd like to acknowledge latonya holloway who's actually on the artist's stash she's here fine with man um so good to see her out um and so other things noted i just want to highlight a couple of things the schools have been great as far as collaboration and communication thus far um throughout the process so far okay um next thing up currently the audit is currently still in process so i want you all to know that the audit is still in process we're currently still in the field work stage um to date we've concluded uh we visited 30 of the 44 schools we're going to attend the sites where they give out or where they've distributed chromebooks and students are as of thursday we will be finished with site visits okay the purpose for the

247site visits are uh we're going to look at one of the major controls in the whole thing is the parent agreements the chromebook usage and the chromebook device agreement when we give out a chromebook um we should be giving out a parent device and the parents should be signing off on that agreement taking responsibility for the chromebook that also has a list of fees and charges on it um and to date uh we've looked at those things and we're comparing that versus the chromebooks we see in the system okay also so for some of the things that are going well out in the schools though as we see it today the teams are actually working very collaboratively with technology when it comes to finding lost and stolen chromebooks as you've heard the administration speak to

248chromebooks can be ping they know how to find them they can actually put if you're very familiar with find my phone with your iphone to liken it to that they can do that with the chromebooks once they ping them they know where they are there are some challenges though with going to find the chromebooks because they're not always in a place where they can be recovered um and that is a that's a slight challenge for technology and the teams in the schools okay likewise uh there is also with one of these and these are all preliminary i want to make that clear that these are all preliminary finders for the audit team thus far they're unofficial right now because we'll come back to you in a couple of in about a month or so with

249an official report of everything we're looking for and we've solved um but likewise we're also finding that the official policies and procedures there's a there's a small gap there um official policies and procedures the teams are working they have policies they've been trained so forth and so on but they we're we're going to bring a recommendation forward for a an official uniform guidance across the school district for everybody because again within the schools they have their own inventory processes right now which are working well for them but in the long run that will not work um and so those are some of the things we're looking at right now likewise we've already talked to henrico county they have a very similar process to what we have however henrico county does charge they hold their kids

250accountable they hold their parents accountable okay we're going to bring a recommendation forward that we go to charging our parents right now we do not charge our parents for anything lost anything stolen anything damaged the fees are on the fees are on the agreement however we don't enforce the agreement on our parents that's done at the building level however the building level gets directives okay and so if they're not going to do that then we have to look at some other alternative measures when it comes to surge things okay but again we have i have a scheduled meeting with henrico county's director of technologies on wednesday and we will be talking with him regarding their processes in detail is what they do and we do compare um i'm also putting a schedule out there for

251newport news as well because that's more of a like school system to richmond and we're going to find out what they're doing as well and do we need to adopt anything or far as a recommendation would we recommend to adopt some of their procedures and policies that's pretty much where we are right now again we're in the field stage we're in the field work stages of this so we're still out in the schools we're collecting data and collecting the information um we're seeing a lot of things so when we come to you with an official report in the next few in about a month or so and i'm going to say right around a month or so because we're going to wind up this week with the field visits and then we're going to start

252putting and pulling all our data together to meet with the administration because one they do need to weigh in on what we see in the recommendations so that they can have um i'm going to say for lack of better terminology a fair a fair shake in this fight um so that they can respond accordingly okay any questions thank you so much for that um we will be we're anticipating your report i asked him to come and just give us an update on where we were with the with the chromebook audit so i really appreciate that and we look forward to you we'll talk yes before the um before the month because a new month comes in and just to see where you are so i can give the board an update and be prepared to

253get a report sometime in april and so and just so so we can update on how the process really works um by the time we get back to the school board meeting we will have issued a formal report and and just as anything we issue because we work directly for the board you guys will get a copy of that report in front of us coming to me thank you and it will have everything in it yes sir thank you we appreciate that and your counterpart mr renzi thank you for that report um another question are you generally locating and finding all the parental agreements at each school do they have coffees um so generally overall um the schools are doing a pretty good job of having copies and we looked at when we looked into

254the virtual school year for that purpose because that was the one year where there was a full distribution and there should have been a full collection at that point um some schools i will say and i'm not going to name the schools right now some schools do not have any agreements on file some schools they threw them in the trash at what directive we can't tell you um there are schools that had some damages in them and they they lost the fouls in the damage thank you yes we we do look forward to your report yes ma'am board colleagues i'm going to um and i did jump i went straight to the audit i do apologize um just to just go back in that reverse direction um april 14th we have a joint meeting with

255the office of school quality and members of the virginia board of education at 1 30. um and before then i do anticipate speaking with dr ortiz just so i can get a sense of what is expected what is my role what is it that i need to do um and so i will forward that information to you all because i know in the past board members were invited to attend that meeting and um so i said that to you as well the to receive an update on contractual services for george with high school and consultation with the attorney um so let me back up so i had a a um in-depth conversation with the city council president they are sending or she is going to send me a list of additional questions that she would

256like for this board to address and i am waiting on those questions she is collecting the items and i just want to point out this is the third round of questions that we have addressed um the first set was 11 the second set was 16. we're gonna do our due diligence um they they would like to have a joint meeting with us in the next couple of weeks so when they send some dates i will absolutely share them with you all and i do believe very strongly the meeting will be virtual instead of meeting face to face city council is still meeting virtually i think um so after in consultation and meeting with the school board attorney um it is best that we wait until we receive um information on next steps as we all

257know the paper has been um the paper referencing the seven million dollars to begin the design of george with high school has yet again been postponed for discussion by city council um and so at this point um not much information can be provided other than what the superintendent continues to provide and that is we're ready to mr cameron i'll let you send it we're ready to we're ready to put a contract before the board right um and so to protect the school board we're not going to put that contract out until we are certain that we have and can pull monies to award that contract so i am going to take um the trusted lead on the attorney for that and we'll move forward as as diligently diligently as we can mr young thank you

258matt thank you madam chair uh i am not going to say what i really prefer to say because what i prefer to say isn't very polite but i do want to remind everyone here this evening and or anyone listening in that the only reason that we are not that we have not awarded a contract for design services of a new george with the same building that presumably so many persons proclaimed constituted among their top priorities for the city of richmond the only reason is because there are a few members of city council that lucy with the football keeps pulling it out from charlie brown i am tempted to say what i really think about that but my better angels are going to perhaps prevail this evening colleagues we have conveyed our commitment to erecting a

259new george with high school and to do it most expeditiously we have a contract i presume everybody in this board has reviewed that proposed contract reviewed the design have looked at the renderings they're beautiful i'm excited about it and the only reason that we are not proceeding is because of a few members of city council are time and time again like lucy pulling that football out precluding access to money monies that previous a previous city council had appropriated for the purpose of school construction it's indefensible i'm sorry thank you madam chair for indulging me thank you mr young miss gibson miss white i'm not sure what are you oh i'm sorry miss jones this page was before me but i just had to quit i just had two two quick questions one um as it

260relates to procurement um how are we handling that because if we're saying that we're ready to make an award how long do we have in between the time that the vendor or whoever was selected till we moved to actual announcement of award like how much time do we because it's been a while now so would that essentially could we lose the vendor because we're holding the contract i don't know and then the other question um that i had was um how do we know i'm gonna hold that one but that's my question how do we how long do we actually have because i know um from my experience in procurement once you kind of select your vendor you move toward it so how long are we actually are we bringing any laws i certainly do

261not think we're breaking any laws um we're just in a holding pattern my sense is the firm is eager to work with us and and to begin work on this project so i don't think in the short term there's any concern about uh losing the vendor um of course if the firm takes on additional work in the meantime it may impact their ability to potentially start right away i don't know any of that but i think for now the firm is very eager to to work with us to do this project i don't see that changing anytime soon follow up madam chair so if we haven't made the official award how do we know who's the firm right so we have oh i'm sorry man i'm sure um [Music] we have gone through the entire

262uh selection process we have um i say we but it's the evaluation committee and i was not part of it they have uh done all the work to select a finalist then they have done the work to actually enter into contract negotiations [Music] to their team's credit they were able to negotiate a significant savings uh in the contract and so now we have a contract with a price that is ready to bring before the board for approval that's the last step and then a formal award yes so normally we would issue an intent to award and then we would bring it formally for approval per the board's policy uh enacted i believe last year for contracts of this size you would do a first read and then a second read so those are those are

263the steps and no intent right has been made yet no man we've been advised by council not to issue the intent to award until the funding is available perfect okay thank you correct and that and that is why um i gave a very specific update party for council ms white um thank you madam chair i'm not sure if you or mr cameras can answer this but i just just heard this you said that we have to go to a meeting and this is the third round of questions why is that i can't answer why this is a third round of questions from my understanding uh from my deep understanding is there are additional questions surrounding the size of george with that was first and foremost the other concept or excuse me the other um questions

264or what the what the questions around i'm not sure but i do know one of them is the size yes this is the third round of questions um that i will be submitting on behalf of this board they would like to meet with us we had a schedule meeting for the 23rd that all nine of us had agreed to attend but something happened and they had to postpone that so this would be the postponement of that 23rd meeting can i have a follow-up um this is to my colleagues the board i think that we need to go to this one i'm not sure why we're getting questions a hundred questions to get money that belongs to us it sounds like a distraction to me because we should be able to actually authorize the money we

265first we couldn't do this we couldn't do that and now that we have everybody's in place why are we keep asking asking 15 questions 50 questions to receive money that's just something that's just not right with that so i'm not sure why the people who's saying george woof can't wait needs to go down there to the city council and ask them why they're not giving us our money that we deserve to make sure that george will is getting built thank you and i just want to clarify the first round of questions were 11 the second round was 16. excuse me 11 16 and this would be the third this would be the third round i don't know i haven't received the questions yet i don't know the number of questions we will receive but i

266do know one of them is the discussion of the size um mrs gibson and then we're going to move on yes so what we're well what we're witnessing is basically this destruction of democracy i mean it's very clear that schools have authority over school construction you know and um and city council does not and uh they are using the uh capacity they're going to come up with whatever questions they're going to come up with because they do not want to seed control to the board and this is a very these are very large contracts and we should all be concerned as a city that um both the mayor and city council are um are really adamant about ensuring they're the ones that can issue this contract it should be very concerning um you know we

267people made a vote they voted for people to represent them on the school board likewise people made a vote and they said they did not want a casino and we're at a place in the city where we've just decided like let's just do let's just that didn't that didn't count um [Music] it's not right and um and so i i do think that the board should proceed with issuing the contract um and uh we have funds in our accounts to be able to do it i i would also i mean i think at this point we should pursue some type of legal action i'd question the legality of city council withholding funds that have already been allocated to school construction um and then on top of it all city council and the mayor want our

268building the arthur ash building they've put out rfps to um to develop this land that our building is sitting on you know i'm watching about these different proposals in the news and no one is asking like well wait y'all are selling a plan that you don't even own right so i mean when you talk about lucy and the ball or whatever i mean yeah it's like this is like this is bullying you know and and it's and it's like pretty audacious because not only are they refusing to give us money but then they're also assuming ownership of property that they don't own and they're moving full steam ahead and and and then they're using this ruse that it's about this disagreement right like to to suggest that the board's doing something wrong i mean you

269know that's that's projection you know i mean this is just an incredibly high level of manipulation um you know of of using the media to spin a story you know i don't have a full-time pr team to be able to hold press conferences um i'm just a parent and and there are others on this board who are trying to do the right thing which is to build a school um [Music] at the right price and last time we built a school we spent 30 million dollars more than we needed to um i don't want to do it again i would like to build more schools so that we are putting our money to our students and not to consultants and contractors who um who are funding uh political campaigns so um i'm i'm open to

270whatever path there is to um to get this moving forward if it requires legal action um you know we can go to another meeting but this is going to be more talking in circles and um you know uh suggesting that the school board is is is doing something wrong it's excuses and um and i think it's very sad that um that we are are in this place but i am incredibly proud of the four colleagues that i sit with who are um who are not accepting the status quo and i i hope that the city can appreciate um that there we are at a place where people are standing up to an incredible amount of of power and money in the city um and so i thank you all and um and i am optimistic

271that uh that the students and uh residents of the city will prevail thank you thank you miss gibson ms paige thank you madam chair um excuse me i just would like to um thank my colleague for mentioning that we are parents and that we want the best for our students um just going back and forth i support a joint meeting and have you madam chair have you received the questions the third no i have not i stated that earlier i have not received so i just wanted to make sure so once you receive those questions there will be i will share them with the board as i've done before okay um but i've heard talking about renderings of the building we have not had any community input and i think that is a disservice disservice

272to our community the community that matters our students and families that attend georgia and also really think that we need to rely on subject matter experts um we are talking about the numbers so i'm looking forward to the joint meeting with council and looking forward to seeing the questions thank you thank you me too i look forward to the joint meeting and the list of questions and i will share with them miss renzi and then we're going to move on thank you madam chair so it's my understanding mr cameras please clarify that the renderings are preliminary and that the community will have a chance to have input um once those go in man i'm sorry yes ma'am that is correct thank you all so very much um mr cameras has updated the fy23 budget book

273which has been uploaded to board docs um if you have any questions please and i know you have two questions i think i just wanted to clarify sure we have not uploaded the budget book yet because i need um i do need a little bit of clarity from the board on a couple of numbers and i was going to ask you to state that yes so the whole board can hear that thank you for giving it to me but i want the whole board to hear that and um we need to respond mr cameras thank you madam chair um given the hour i will be very brief as you can see from the presentation that i provided which is a recapitulation of the final approved resolution for the items that were added to the budget

274the resolution did not stipulate whether those were to be funded with federal stimulus dollars or with operating budget dollars i have worked with the team to put forth a proposal based on our knowledge of the guidelines of the federal stimulus dollars based on that i did not want to move forward without the board's uh review of that as that is ultimately a board decision um then once we have clarity on that we can then begin to work through all the other numbers including there's an undefined cut of six million dollars in our operating budget that i need to bring back to you a proposal to effectuate also as a reminder the uh mayor put forth his budget it is one million dollars just shy of the board approved ask of the city so actually it's

275about seven million that we would need to ultimately cut if that number stays stable the other x factor and all this is the state and as mr stanley noted there's a possibility that the conference committee gets delayed in its deliberations well into april meaning we wouldn't actually know how much our bottom line number is until the end of april all that just there's a lot of moving parts um but step one is to just uh get sign up from the board that the way we have assigned funding sources to the additions from the resolution last week once we have that then we can begin to take the next step so that's really all that i was seeking uh this evening and i'll leave it there madam chair thank you so board members we are now

276in what i call round two of um unpacking a budget so you've heard the superintendent um he needs some direction and clarity from us and mr young i see you and so what i'm going to ask you all to do is if if you have not um gone through line item by line i mean i know it's a lot it's a big ass to go through to see and they have started this if what you think should go under federal stimulus or operating budget and that will give the superintendent um some insight in terms of where money should be allocated and moved mr young thank you man i'm sure my only question and i don't intend to spend any time this evening we can discuss later but relates to the capital side because the mayor's

277proposal is for two and a half is for 2.5 we submitted 9 million and change so i do welcome to the chair's point sooner rather than later uh renewed deliberation relevant to the capital side because i anticipate that's where the real uh the real need for some surgery will likely transpire thank you ms jones yeah just quick question for clarity um you just mentioned us to look at the budget and decide whether we want things to go under federal or operating my question is from the superintendent are you saying this is what can be funded under federal and operation or do we have the liberty to switch it around this is our best recommendation grounded in what we know of in terms of the stimulus guidelines that being said it's ultimately not my decision or

278the board's decision it's the virginia department of education's decisions so [Music] but i did not want to make these designations without checking with you first if only because one it's your statutory authority but two anything in here that we designate for the operating budget we actually are going to need to cut further to be able to afford these things i know that sounded a little bit complicated but any of these ads that aren't funded with federal stimulus we're gonna have to fund with operating which means we're gonna have to cut a little bit more to fund them so i wanted you just to also be aware of that when we come back with some proposed cuts to meet the number um it's actually gonna be more than six million or seven million now that we

279have a slightly lower number from the city because some of these ads are going to hit our operating budget so we got to make up some room for those ads as well so i wanted to make sure just the board had that in mind so when i come back you you have that context that's all and and if i may miss jones what you suggest may go under operating may be efficient to go under federal stimulus and vice versa i think that's what i'm hearing the superintendent say what is our desire and ultimately at the end of the day video we can give our desire and virginia department of education says scratch that that's not what i'm going to approve but so everyone has a voice in this process um we can we can submit

280what we desire or think should go where and um you know go from there but ultimately we have to understand what federal stimulus is is one time funded we may not get it again if you want to move it to the operating budget you're going to you may have to most likely will 99.9 percent of the time cut from something else and and as we stated at river city when we approve um the budget that was amended we're still in the early stages of this process and more cutting will happen more reductions will happen that that just happens in a budget so all right thank you all so much you all are doing good um we do have clothes we have reports for board members from attending meetings or conferences or holding meetings um i

281hope they have uploaded the that information to board docs um the budget transfers mr canvas or mrs haddesco have they been uploaded to board docs yes ma'am okay that's what i thought um any new business any announcement ah yes miss white thank you madam chair i have an announcement i just want to say thank you to everyone who uh came to george washington carver for read across american he had a reader for each classroom uh we had community stakeholders uh the governor sent uh some of his uh staff we had a person for each classroom this time and it was so um wonderful just to see the kids face and they wanted i think some people read two or three times to each class but it was a successful event so i would like to

282thank everyone who attended that event at george washington thank you and i just want to announce that we have a policy committee meeting tomorrow at city hall in the 17th floor at 6 30 we're going to meet from 6 30 to 7 30 that will be face to face thank you having no more announcements ms jones i believe you have the closed session reading thank you if you can lead us in the closed session please pursuant to sections 2.2-3711a 1 and 7 of the code of virginia 1950 as amended i move that the school board of the city of richmond convened in closed session to consider the evaluation of a specific school board employee and two for the consultation with legal counsel pertaining the actual litigation involving specific personnel and student matters with such consultation

283or briefing an open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating litigation posture of the school board we have been ready to close so i'll have a second thank you has been seconded that miss um page madam clerk mr yes miss white yes ms gibson yes mr young miss rizzi yes dr harris mohammed yes miss burke yes miss page miss jones yes motion passage unanimously