Roanoke City School Board Workshop: January 27, 2026

001This meeting is being livereamed. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and start [clears throat] the January 27th, 2026 school board live stream. >> I think you heard the delay there, Freddie. >> I did. Okay. The January 27th, 2026 schoolboard workshop is called to order. The school board meeting is virtual uh the school board is meeting virtually tonight due to inclement weather as authorized by the governor on January 22nd under the executive order 11 which remains in effect for the next 30 days and pursuant to the code of Virginia 2.2-3708.2. Miss Tresy, please call the role. >> Mr. Cherry, >> here. >> Dr. Jameson, >> here. Mr. Link >> here. >> Miss Quintana >> here. >> Miss Trigg >> here. >> Mrs. Watkins >> here. >> Mrs. Apal >> here. Thank you to all of those

002that are joining the meeting with us via the RCPS YouTube channel. And um I just want to take a moment to implore everyone to continue to be safe whether walking, driving or sledding. And again, thank you for participating virtually this evening. We move on to the approval of the agenda. Um please note that the agenda being presented for adoption contains the same items with the only change being the order. The budget report has been moved to the end of the superintendent reports. Is there a motion and a second to approve the agenda as presented? >> Second. >> Moved by Miss Kintana, seconded by Dr. Jameson. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed say no. [clears throat] >> And the motion carries. The agenda is approved.

003Before [clears throat] we get into the superintendent updates this evening, I wanted to take a moment to make sure that everyone here with us tonight is aware that city council did approve the seventh amended school funding policy at their meeting last Tuesday following the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Vice Chair Cherry and I were in attendance for a large portion of that meeting as were some executive staff and our superintendent. I want to thank everyone for using their voice to advocate, for investing in our students and staff, especially Dr. White, who shared remarks directly ahead of city council's vote. It is her charge to present a needs-based budget and to advocate for our students and staff and our families, and she did just that. The same can be said of my fellow school board members

004and I thank you all for your service on behalf of this school division. I want to take some time here to identify key points regarding the seventh amended school funding policy that Rono City Council did um approve last week. One, the school board was not in support of this policy as we feel it will have a negative impact on our division moving forward. as discussed and shared during our joint city council school board finance task force meetings and as was shared with city council ahead of this vote. Um second RCPS is no longer funded on a percent of revenue basis regarding the city's local share. So instead, the city is f the city funding towards RCPS is determined by the prior year's city funds plus this prior year city funding plus a percent of revenue

005growth or decline. Now, under the prior year's agreements, when there was a percent, our funding did follow the rise and fall of the city's revenue. Now, the baseline for fiscal year 2027 is actually based on fiscal year's 2025 funding because fiscal year 26 was level funded in comparison to fiscal year 25. Um other changes there are the appropriations will be handled quarterly and another no item of note is that it's unclear regarding how incumbrances will work moving forward and as we have stated multiple times over the last year RCPS no longer works with a fund balance in the same way um regarding future budgeting. So all of this is important as we continue down the path of developing our fiscal year 2027 RCPS budget and it will be evidenced during the budget development portion of

006this evening's workshop. I want to remind everyone that education is a process and takes a village. One year does not spell defeat nor success in the lives and of of the education of our students here in Ronoke. This school board is committed to advocacy for what our students and staff and community need as everyone deserves access to an excellent education. Um, education is an investment and um, I appreciate I and I need to look up the source for this, but um, but credit to uh, council member Hagen who noted that um, he has seen it read that for every $1 investment in education, it yields $8 in value. So, with that said, I would like to turn it over to our superintendent for her update. Thank you. >> Thank you. And good evening, Madam Chair,

007Mr. Vice Chair, members of the school board. This evening, we're bringing forward several items for your information, including an update on community engagement, an update on the school performance and support framework or the SPSF, and an update on the 2026 2027 budget. Uh before we get to our agenda items, I would like to thank our students, families, staff, and entire community for their flexibility this week amid the winter weather. Now, knowing that we may be out of school for several days, our team worked together last week to develop remote learning packets and guidance in case of an extended closure. I especially want to thank our assistant superintendent, Dr. Haley Poland and Dr. Lorie Wimbush for th for leading those efforts as well as our instructional supervisors for creating the packets and our print shop technician

008Michael Dy for going above and beyond to ensure the packets were printed in time. I also want to thank our school leaders, our principles, teachers, and staff for working together to distribute the materials to our students. In RCPS, we believe in snow days. So, we still believe in snow days, but we also must keep students uh learning on track. Uh, as you've heard uh by now, tomorrow will be a remote learning day. So, thanks to our efforts to en uh ensure all students have access to offline assignments and we are looking forward to welcoming our students and staff back to school soon. So, uh, to begin our report this evening, I will ask our director of community engagement, Corey Alder, to provide an update on community engagement efforts and our community empowerment center. Mr. Alder,

009>> good evening, Dr. White. Uh, chair, uh, Madame Chair, Apel, Vice Chair, Mr. Sherry. Uh I am going to attempt to share a presentation on community engagement. All right. This community engagement update provides the school board with an overview of our efforts so far this school year, including the launch of programming and supports at the community empowerment center, as well as a look ahead at the remainder of the school year. Our comm community engagement work is anchored in the strategic plan and it's tied to each of the other pathways with strong student outcomes as our ultimate focus. Let's take a look at some of the ways we collaborate and engage with partners, families, and staff on behalf of our students. Some examples are the community empowerment center at Booker T. Washington, which we'll talk a

010little bit more about in just a few minutes, and also the Lyft Center at Fallon Park. These are key examples of partnership hubs doing great work with partners in the community on behalf of our students and families. Our central council PTA collaboration helps us elevate the voices of parents and guardians across all schools. Our community builders pilot program helps students build a sense of belonging in their schools and in their community. And there are many other school-based partnerships, sponsorships, and volunteer opportunities at each of our neighborhoods and each of our schools uh that we really celebrate and we really are so thankful for those who get involved in our schools. So, if you would like to get involved, please contact us or contact your school principal. Now, let's look at u the community empowerment center

011a little bit closer here. With tremendous help from the school board, division leaders, and the community, we opened our innovative community empowerment center in July and have experienced a successful first six months in operation. We believe that when families succeed, students succeed. And the word is certainly getting out that our center is a hub of support. With over 1,200 visits so far, we're confident that we're on the right track. Also, within the first six months, we've welcomed visitors representing all of our schools and programs. It may be kind of difficult to see all the names on there, but they're all there, I assure you. um some places have been represented uh greater than others and we'll continue to get the word out and go out into the community and try to bring folks into the

012center as well. So why are folks visiting the community empowerment center? Some common reasons are enrollment support resources and basic needs supplies, uh, screenings for things like preschool English language uh, development, adult classes and workshops, and just general navigation questions and support and connection with various departments in the school division. And here are some examples of resources and supports we provided. dozens of backpacks, food items, clothing, personal care items, services, and supports with RCPS departments and partner organizations including Virginia Department of Health, Junior Achievement, New Horizons, Region 5 Adult Education, Blige Literacy, and many others, including our very own human resources team with walk up Wednesday recruitment for our own in-house vacancies. Uh the community empowerment center has also been a community hub for our central PTA, our education foundation board, Renault neighborhood groups, RAAC,

013the United Way, and others who have found this space to be welcoming and a great collaborative hub for them to to meet their goals as well. And I'll say that we have a great team and great community partners making all of this possible. And we do learn from each experience growing as we move forward. and something that kind of helped us along to make all of this possible. Even though our community empowerment center was already >> [clears throat] >> um in operation, we were also able to have the opportunity to apply for and receive funding through the Virginia Community Schools Initiative with the purpose of reducing non-academic barriers to student success, including health service, mental health services, and basic needs supplies. um all of which were completely aligned with what we have at our community

014empowerment center and our lift center at Fallon Park. Uh additionally, we were notified last week that both locations, the community empowerment center and the lift center at Fallon Park are officially designated as community schools or community hubs by the Virginia Department of Education. That's great news. Examples of how we'll be able to use the funding include a vehicle that helps us reduce transportation barriers. It's a van that helps us with engagement out in the community and helps bring families to our community empowerment center. We'll also be able to support some of those basic needs supplies, [clears throat] other health and mental health services, financial literacy summits, literacy academy, and more programs that are directly aligned with all of those various uh parts and pathways of our strategic plan. So, we've been busy and good things

015are happening, but we know we want to look ahead at what's coming up in the near future uh throughout the remainder of this school year. So, we have preschool and kindergarten outreach. Um, one example of this is we'll be at the Envision Center on February 4th. We're continuing to grow our PTA membership supporting school-based efforts. We collaborate with the board of our education foundation to increase membership and get more community invol involvement. And we're wrapping up our two-year community builders pilot program and are advocating for additional funding to continue that program. So, that was a mouthful, but I'll pause there. Uh, thank you, Dr. White. I'll stick around to answer any questions anyone has, but thank you for allowing me to provide this brief update. >> Thank you, Mr. Alder. Does the board have any

016comments or questions for Mr. Alder? And since I can't see everyone at once, please just go ahead and speak up. >> Just wanted to say an awesome presentation. um excited about the progress that we've made with over a thousand visits and haven't been open I don't believe a full year yet. So really excited to see how we're becoming an anchor uh for our communities. Um so I just want to say thank you for the work that you're doing and I always look forward to these community engagement uh updates. I look forward to the work that you do because we are part of a thriving community. So just want to tell you thank you uh Mr. alder and your staff and uh continue doing the great work that you've been doing. >> Thank you. >> Yes,

017likewise. I just want to say thank you. That is amazing. In 6 months, 1,200 families. I mean, it's just it just speaks volumes of the need that is out in our community and we are able to actually meet the need and that is amazing. So, thank you for all you do. [snorts] >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Alder. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Alder. And and again, thank you for your leadership um when it comes to community engagement and and especially with the community empowerment center. A lot of these efforts that Mr. Alder talked about uh is a result of his direct leadership and and the support of our staff. So, thank you so much. Next, I'll ask Dr. Jonathan Schultz, our executive director of accountability and strategic initiatives, and Melissa Eckert, uh, the

018assistant director of accountability to provide the results of the 2024 2025 school uh, school performance and support framework. I know that this is a little bit out of order, but I, you know, I know that we're going to spend a considerable amount of time uh, on both of these topics, but particularly the the budget. Uh, so I'd like to to move it around a little bit uh and ask uh Dr. Schultz to start. Madam Chair, if that's okay with you. >> Yes, please go ahead. >> Thank you. Um, Dr. Schultz, then Miss Eert. >> Uh, thank you. Um, I should be sharing my screen my screen and actually um Dr. Williams is actually gonna uh uh start us off here. Okay, >> Dr. Williams, over to you. Okay. Good evening, Madame Chair, Mr. Vice Chair,

019school board members, and all those watching, and Dr. White. Um, in December, we brought to the board the school performance and support framework results. It was just released by DOE, so we had a brief uh moment in time to look at the data that we wanted to pro provide for you. Tonight, we want to provide a followup and Dr. Schultz and Miss Eert from our Oasis team are going to provide some highlights, patterns, and trends and celebrations to share with the board. After that, Mr. Freeman and I would like to share some local supports that we're providing for our school teams. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Schultz. >> Thank Thank you, Dr. Williams. Um so uh as you recall when we uh have been coming to you over the last year and a

020half to talk about the um school performance and sport framework or the SPSF um one of the concerns that we uh have shared all along was uh the fact that the labels that the schools are assigned in the new system don't really capture the the whole story or or share the work that's uh that the good work that's going on and the success that our students are having. Um so what we wanted to do is now that we had a little more time to dig in was to make sure that we shared and highlighted uh some of the some of the wins that we uh have found in in the background of of the results. So uh if you recall um we had shared with you that one of the um pieces to the this

021this new system for the the state is to separate the accreditation results from the accountability results. um with accreditation being uh meeting all the requirements related to the uh code of Virginia. As we shared with you back in December, all of our schools are fully accredited, which we are very proud of. Um but we uh did want to highlight that that is an improvement over the previous year as well. Um not not something just to be taken for granted. Um that last year while all of our schools were uh were accredited, we did have uh five schools who were accredited with conditions. So that um that that's one of the first ones that we want to share with you tonight. The second thing that we want to talk about is in the area of federal

022identification. If you recall, we took a pretty deep dive into federal identification at your uh fall retreat. Um and uh at that time, you know, we we we emphasized the idea that federal identification is about uh monitoring student group performance um as opposed to just the all students group. And uh we talked about the three different levels of federal identification. Targeted support and improvement um otherwise known as TSI which happens each year. Uh additional targeted support and improvement which is uh you know an every three years kind of thing for schools that stay in TSI for a prolonged period of time. And then CSI which is the highest um level of support um which is comprehensive support and improvement. We also t uh spent some time talking about the uh the text in the purple

023box in the corner um which is the fact that the that the state has chosen to set up the new system so that if you do have a federal identification it lowers your um SPSF performance category uh for that school. And we we discussed the impact of that at length at previous meetings. So we did want to share a couple of um uh key wins. One of which was that coming into last year, we had three schools who were in the higher um levels of support according to the state. Um Lincoln Terrace, Westside, and Lucy Addison were um either comprehensive school improvement or additional targeted support and improvement. And uh each one of those schools made uh significant gains and in improving their federal identification status uh for this year with uh Lincoln Terrace and

024Westside both uh moving to the lowest level of support at the TSI. Um and Lucy Addison moving um from the highest level of support uh all the way to having no federal identification uh at all. So again, um we want to make sure that we uh take time to celebrate the work that's heading uh happening in those schools and uh clearly indicating that they're heading in the right direction. In addition, we want to take a look at the federal identification status for all of our schools. Um this this slide is a little busy. Um but there's a lot of good information on it. So if you'll just bear with me as I walk through it. Um the white columns on the left side of the chart are showing you uh the federal identification status of

025all of our schools for uh based for the previous year and the blue columns are showing the federal identification for our schools uh based on uh for this year based on last year's scores. So, uh, the key takeaways here, uh, that we want to point out are that, uh, we had eight schools that improved their status, uh, with many of those schools no longer being identified. Um, and that while we do have schools who, uh, remain identified for needing to provide additional support to specific groups of students, the number of groups of students that we are focusing on or are being required to focus on uh, is definitely lower. So the simplest way to think about the chart is that on the lefth hand side there are more than twice as many dots as there

026are on the right hand side. Um so this represents again um our school improvement teams um making great progress um you know all the way from our from our our mentors um to Kevin Bowman to Dr. Wimbush and Mr. Freeman. this entire section of our of our team being able to just really help our schools make uh progress in the direction uh that we want them to. Um as as an example, if you uh can find John Fishwick there in the middle um and look across, you can see that uh last year they were identified for targeted school uh targeted support and improvement um for four different groups of students um students with disabilities, black students, multi- [clears throat] uh race students, and white students. And you can see that this year they are not

027identified uh for any of those groups that are not identified as TSI. Um so again, federal identification uh is is you know it's a bit of a double-edged sword. It helps us gives us additional resources and helps us make sure that we can support um groups of students that we know need additional support. Um still not thrilled with the issue of it adjusting the SPSF uh framework score. Uh but we just definitely want to take a moment to celebrate that our schools are heading in the right direction from a federal identification standpoint. And then the next thing that we want to talk about is uh is our uh population of English learners. So as you know and as we've talked about many times, our uh English learner population has continued to grow. It is a

028significant part and an important part of our division. Um we're now up to approximately 18% of our population uh all all of our student enrollment uh are English learners. You can see this graph shows the 10-year trend where we basically have uh over the last 10 years we've essentially uh grown u to about two and a half times the number of uh English learners that we had um at had back in 2015. Uh the reason you know this is obviously a very important group of students to us. Um but one of the reasons that we wanted to make sure that we celebrate the wins that we can find in the uh that we are seeing inside the SPSS results is that when we shared our graduation rate uh with you back in September uh we

029know that our English learners are uh one of the groups that we really want to focus on. um if that if you go through and look at the um graduation rates for um all of our you know for many of our student groups when you look at our black students or white students or students with disabilities or multi-race students um those are all trending up and trending in the right direction and when you're looking at achievement gaps um we have uh done a great job of of narrowing that achievement gap especially the the uh white and black student gap um and uh you know again our students with disabilities with that over 90% % 91% as our graduation rate. Um, so we know that uh our English learners are really a key focus area for

030us. Um, so in a second I'm going to turn it over to uh Melissa Eert who is our assistant director for accountability and strategic initiatives and she's going to share some key wins that we uh our English learner students experienced this year. Uh in particularly just making making it clear that um we're having a lot of success with those students. They are they are coming to school. um they are demonstrating growth and they are demonstrating mastery in uh many key ways. So I will turn it over now to uh Miss Eert. >> Thank you Dr. Schultz. So now I'll share some of the highlights for our English learners. So first our EL students had the lowest chronic absenteeism rates compared to other student groups at nine of our schools and those are in dark green

031in this chart. They also had lower chronic absenteeism than the all students rate at another eight schools. And those are in the lighter green here. >> Trying to advance and it's not letting me. One second. There we go. Sorry. They also had success in growth. But first, I want to share a few reminders. Growth measures how a student performed this year compared to previous years. And it also compares their progress against other students. So, um, also a school must have at least 15 EL students with growth data in order to get results for that group. And we had 13 elementary and middle schools with large enough ELEL populations for the growth measure. And those are listed in the chart here. Out of these 13 schools, we had four schools where our English learners had the

032highest reading growth. And those are the schools in dark green. And two of those schools, our ELEL students were earning over 80% of the reading growth points. They also had the highest math growth at seven of those 13 schools. So once again, you can see them highlighted in dark green here. And you can see that we had five schools where our EL students were earning over 80% of the math growth points. For mastery, we had Fallon Park earn the highest ELEL progress score in the division at about 68% and that put them in the top 15% of all schools in the state for that indicator. And at both high schools, our English learners had the highest math mastery compared to other student groups with Patrick Henry's EL students earning about 96% of those points and

033William Fleming's EL students earning almost all of the math mastery points. So, we had a lot to celebrate across the division for our English learners. We also had several school level wins that we wanted to share and we're just sharing a few here. So, WASINA increased their framework score by over 12 points compared to last year which is a huge jump and they also earned a distinguished rating. Addison increased their overall score as well and they exited CSI so that they are no longer federally identified as Dr. Schultz mentioned and Fleming increased their overall score by about six points compared to last year which is another big jump. Um so these are great successes and we wanted to share them because as you know and as you can see the performance labels really don't tell

034the full story of how our schools are doing. >> Thank you Melissa. Uh and uh just to so we can share with you that um we're not the only ones that think there are issues with the labels in the SPSF system. So um the JARK which is the joint legislative audit and review commission that uh is a is an a body related to the uh general assembly um they whenever the the you know our state government wants to wants a report or an evaluation of of programs or uh different things that have been you know been affected by the general assembly um JLo issues those reports um they were tasked with evaluating the new SPSF um and they released that report in dece on December 16th just after um the results were made public and

035we we came to you at the board meeting in December. And um when you have access to this PowerPoint, you can follow the link and uh read the full report. There's some they they did an excellent analysis um of the new system. Um but uh in terms of the labels, they had some specific things to say about the labels, including that they don't clearly communicate performance, nor do they clearly relate to each other as part of a continuous scale. And that the terms off track and ontrack imply a trajectory either, you know, either uh declining or or increasing respectively, which is not what the labels were intended to do and does not accurately characterize at least some of the schools those labels. So they had a pretty blunt recommendation to the VBOE, which is fix

036it. come up with new performance labels that more clearly convey uh performance and are part of a continuous scale. So, we're excited to see um what uh what changes may be um coming uh related to uh the u distinguished ontrack offtrack needs intensive support uh labeling system. Now, I'll pass it over to uh Dr. Williams and Mr. Freeman who will uh share some uh more information about the supports we're providing to schools. >> So, we wanted to highlight some of our initiatives across the division. If you remember last um last year we brought information about project GLAD and GLAD stands for guided language acquisition design and it really focuses on researchbased instructional strategies to help our um our L's and also all of our learners. So we had a pilot project that we started last

037year at Monterey Preston Park and Round Hill that we're seeing success with. And if you look to the left at one of our rockstar teachers, you can see our anchor charts in the background. on the graphic organizer that was co-created with students and it's really about building background knowledge in textrich um learning environments and having visuals and things that are good for all students. So we celebrate our our GLAD classrooms and we have um teachers that visit from other schools to um learn more about the instructional strategies in our GLAD classrooms. We also found out this year that we were awarded a comprehensive literacy grant to expand the program. So, we're going to expand it to three of our middle schools to Addison, Breen Ridge, and Woodro. And we'll keep you updated on that. Also,

038um, as you remember last year, because our EL population is increasing and we needed more support for level 1, 2, and three according to the SOQ's, we hired 35.5 additional EL teachers to support our L's this school year. So when they're co-eing with our general ed teachers, we realize we need to help provide support to our new e eel cohorts and um build teaching teams, co-eing teams at each school. So we're going to we are working on a cohort this spring to organize where our teams can meet at least once a month to share instructional strategies and build capacity across our division. In addition, we want to thank the board for providing high quality instructional materials. We came to you last year, last spring, and um you approved funding for our new K5 core reading

039curriculum, Imagine Learning, and our new math curriculum, math space for our middle school students. The imple implementation is always challenging, but there's so many celebrations. um our teachers have embraced it and I just want to um give a shout out to them because it's hard to take new curriculum to plan it to implement it and to um to learn all the new modules and they've done a wonderful job and also our instructional supports and our principles have just really embraced our um the new curriculum and moving forward. And just another celebration to share. We had the u representatives from the company. They they come in and they um they visited six schools last um week approximately 16 classrooms to sort of take a snapshot to see how the implementation is going and they were so

040complimentary. Um they just praised our teachers and the work that they're doing and the implementation. So, um, we just want to acknowledge that it is hard when we, um, when we take on new curriculum, especially aligned to new standards, but, um, we're moving forward together. Along with instructional materials, we want to, um, emphasize our laser-like focus on early literacy professional learning. Currently, we have a uh comprehensive professional learning um program through letters one, letters two, um our EL letters, and our preschool letters cohort. It all focuses on the science of reading because we want to build the capacity of all of our teachers and um to serve our students. In addition, we um have um really great reading just in time PD this year. We recognize through our learning walks that we have lots of

041new teachers. Um we also have teachers that have moved grade levels and teachers that are teaching reading for the first time. And so we reached out to the company and we said, can you provide us some just in time relevant PD? And they were able to provide that. in the fall, our principles did a great job providing coverage so that our teachers could participate during the school day with grade level teams. And so we we look for opportunities to meet our teachers and our our school teams where they are and to listen to them um to provide professional learning that's relevant. Hurt U Park, Fallon, Lincoln, and Westside will continue support with the Virginia Literacy Improvement Network that focuses on um highquality tier one reading instruction and also intervention. Overall, I just want to say

042that we have the motto of all hands- on deck. We want to work side by side with our schools teams. We um we go on lots of learning walks every week and we differentiate our learning walks based on school needs. We let the data show us what we need to do and um for instance at at one school we may go on literacy learning walks and look at u primary literacy instruction. At another school we might focus on math. Um at our high schools we focused on student engagement. So, we really try to differentiate our support and um and listen to what our staff needs. What's really important important at the end of our learning walks is we take time to debrief. We talk about the celebrations, what we're seeing, the bright spots, and then

043also action items. How are we going to follow up and what are the areas we need to grow? And in these discussions, one of the huge benefits is that we try to connect the dots across the division so that we can help each other. If one school has a strength in one area, then we connect it with another school team in another area um so we can learn from each other. In addition, this year um we have a um a laser-like focus on on being present at um school meetings, sitting side by side at instructional leadership meetings, at literacy PLC's, at weekly PLC's, at department meetings so that we can listen and and support our school leaders. We've also implemented quarterly joint work sessions. This is a time each quarter where our reading specialists, our

044instructional coaches, and targeted school proven mentors come together, we evaluate the data and we talk about steps forward and we build PD together based on our needs. So, it's so there's so many things to celebrate and the great work um and you're seeing it through the student achievement. We aren't where we want to be right now, but we are moving forward and uh we want to celebrate the great work of our team. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Freeman to talk about additional targeted supports. >> Thank you, Dr. Williams. Um, good evening to the board and to Dr. White. As Dr. Williams has already stated, this school year, based on the projections the Oasis team gave to us last school year, we moved forward with modifying how the learning walks were

045going to take place this year. Based on the preliminary data, we increased the learning walks for certain schools in order to have that all hands-on deck approach and to be present with the division contact lead. We received the data and based on the preliminary scores, we increase not only their learning walks, but being strategic as I already stated, our walkthroughs, but also our walkthrough tool and then more intentional in our debriefings to even be so in a data dive. And in that data dive, not only did we address those celebrations, we also addressed those things that need to be corrected and put things in place right then to have that measures corrected so we can have effective instruction in the classroom. We were able to use the information discussed to use um during our ILT

046and PLC meetings as already stated by Dr. Williams. Those meetings take place weekly in our schools. And when that information is utilized during our conversations, we've had individuals from the school improvement office um also um individuals as such as our assistant superintendent Dr. Wimbush and Mr. Kevin Bowman also attending these PLC and ILT meetings in order to look at our CSSPs. As we remember our CSSPs is our comprehensive school support plans, which you're going to find out that that's going to be changing to our multi-year school support plans which is going to be called MSSPS. So, yes, we have some new acronyms we're going to be learning again this school year um in place of the old acronym, but we're going to be looking at those plans and make sure not only our division level

047plans and the supports that we have put in place are documented and followed through, but also the things that are discussed in our PLC's and ILT meetings according to our instructional enhancements. So, as you look at the next slide, you're going to be looking at what we call the evidence-based interventions that we have to put in our MSSPs in order for us to qualify for application workbook to receive additional funds for schools that are targeted as TSI and CSI. So, we're going to be working strategically with them in the next few weeks and I'm preparing you for the board meeting on February the 10th where we'll be asking um Dr. white to sign um on off on our MSSP so as to receive additional fundings from the state regarding TSI and CSI schools. But as

048you look at this, you will see that the evidence-based interventions are in place. There's a focus the measurement that we're using for the data points and also the flexibility in our targeted groupings. So all this has been intentional as you will see why we have results and seeing schools come off the list. Um some that on the list now having structures put in place. And I want to just take a moment to commend the principles because they've already been working strategically on a short time frame that we have received. So as we look at moving forward um in moving forward with next steps, you will see that I just want to update everybody on the timeline as the information is released. It was released before winter break. We've been in communication with our state representative.

049We're excited because we do have consistency with Mr. Keith Clson being our state representative again this school year who has worked strategically with us and walked alongside us in collaboration to ensure our schools are doing what we say we're going to do and also the completions of the webinars took place January the 15th 2026. So when I say a short turnaround period, short turnaround period, these funds will continue to allow us to provide opportunities for students. Um, but not only the opportunities for students to be successful in the classroom, but also some tutoring measures, but also professional development, things you've already heard that will take place outside of the teachers contractual hours where we'll be able to give them a little bit of a stipen. I must commend the principles and teachers for being specific

050in filling out the application and being good stewards and spending the money according to what has been submitted. And with this type timeline, there are a couple of new requirements this year um including that the school board would have access to the MSSPs, which you do have access to all of our MSSPs. Um and we're going to make them available so that way that Dr. White would have an opportunity to sign during the next board me. I do want to share that the principles have been very strategic in working with with every department in central office to ensure they have the data to not only have the data but utilize the data and such they are making these additional remediations that allow us to make for steps forward and use this as targeted support and

051I want to commend them and commend the office of school improvement um for doing so and working with us. As we always state, we want to make sure that as we go forward that we know our students by need, name, and strength, but being able to address the need, name, and strength and provide needs as they need to be successful. We want to thank you, the board, for allowing us this opportunity to share this information with you on tonight. And if you have any questions, we would take them at this time. >> Um, thank you very much. Um, does anyone have any questions from the board? So, I'll go Miss Kintana or Miss Trigg. Any questions or comments? >> No questions. Um, great job. Excellent presentation. Love seeing those schools coming out of those areas.

052Um, I know I usually talk to all the principles when I go to some of the middle school basketball games and just some of the work that they're doing is just amazing. even with Jackson sometimes having um Saturday school just for the kids to have somewhere to go and to help them with their reading and their math and so forth. So I just think it's amazing work um across the board with our team and definitely want to give the kudos to those school principles and the teachers that are working hard. >> Thank you, Miss Trigg. >> And um I'm sorry. >> No, go ahead. >> Oh um yes. No, thank you. And it's um amazing to see just how much we have um achieved and how those um I guess messing parameters do not um

053measure how we really are doing in the school. So thank you for all of your hard work. >> Thank you Mr. Link. Um Dr. Jameson, any questions or comments from either of you? >> Uh I don't know if I have any questions. I wanted to thank you for uh putting the time into giving us um a different look into the data and um getting a chance to really highlight all of the good hard work that um the staff has been doing. Thank you to each and every one of them as well. Yeah, I would just add thanks for letting [clears throat] us know of the changes because as we've talked about before, we're not completely in love or even totally understand some of the standards that we're being held up against. So, it's good to

054have a multi multiaceted look at how we're doing. And also, as you've just so nicely emphasized, a big shout out to all of you teachers, everybody, Edmond, who's had a hand in this. This is a lot of change in an academic um district in a short period of time and so the success is to be highly celebrated and we're very proud of all the work that you've done. Thank you. >> Thank you Dr. Jameson, Miss Watkins, our vice chair cherry, >> I'll just uh say that I echo everything my peers have said here. I don't I don't need to beat that horse down, but they've said it all. Thank you. >> Yeah. Uh wanted to take a little bit of privilege of being the youngest in the group. Yeah. No. Awesome. >> Come on. [laughter]

055>> No. This is honestly I don't think we understand. I think Dr. Jameson just talked about our teachers, the heavy lifting that it takes to make these pivots that we've made. And the only phrase I can think of is uh when we learn how to make lemonade out of lemons. Uh so we've done an incredible job with highlighting all the good work that we've done and that we are doing. So shout out to the principles, the staff, the teachers, the the instructional assistants, all of you. It takes all of us. We are a village. So just want to say thank you all and u continue to keep up the great work. >> Thank you. And um you can definitely see from the pictures and the reports the true commitment to high quality first tier instruction

056across the entire division and that that support is all hands- on deck. Um I did have a general question probably for Mr. Freeman regarding the time the typical timeline for those MSSPS formerly CSPs. Um is that timeline typically this short or was it delayed because of the delay in the data that we got from the state? Because again if those plans are you know grant monies to provide extra support are dependent upon the plans being submitted. I just want to get an idea of is this unusual this year because it was the first year and and how we can make sure um to utilize those supports going forward. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the question, Mrs. Apel. I would just share with you that um yes, it was a timely it was different this

057year. We have that's why the short period of turnaround. I was a little I I voiced my concern in regards to that because they actually gave us an extension due to the fact our board me is not till February the 10th um because it's supposed to be February the 6th. And so we were not the only division that um actually shared the concern. That's why they gave the extension and it's because we received the information so late. And I'm glad you asked the question because the funds that we do go and apply for must be utilized by September the 30th of this coming school year. So, we only have a short period of time to once we have funds allocated to us to use them. And that's why I'm grateful for the team and the

058principles that have worked very much together strategically so we can provide what is right for our students. And and I will say this, what works out well for our behalf is that at the beginning of the year, we ask all of our principles to create a CSSP. Um, so it's easy for us to switch over to the multi-year school support plan and only have to make modifications because we start in the beginning of the school year. Um, Dr. White and I have this conversation all the time. Why do we start uh a comprehensive school support plan and even after we get the results in September, October in November, December when we're almost halfway through the school year? So, we required everybody to do it during the summertime based on the preliminary data that we had

059received. So, that way all we do is make the minor adjustments, make it an application booklet and keep moving forward. Thank you for that information and I appreciate again um just sharing our level of organizational discipline um from the top down and the dedication to true lifelong learning. We're not just teaching kids. We're also always looking to be better at the craft. So, thank you for that. Um I think that's it from the board on this subject. Dr. White. >> All right. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the board as well. Well, it's it's really I just want to say thank you to all of you uh for your continued support um again of curriculum and instruction. What you've just heard, uh these results, again, the labels don't tell the whole story. Um

060so, I'm just so proud of our teams, uh the curriculum instruction team under leadership, Dr. Williams and Mr. Freeman, but certainly our Oasis team, Dr. Schultz, Melissa Eckert, our principles. When we talk about our our teachers actually getting it done, right? Our central office teams that go into support, it's it's intentionality. It is also organizational discipline that teachers need the curriculum in hand. They need those resources in hand. They need the support, professional learning, the budget, the staffing, all of those things that come together. That's how we're continuing to see growth. And so and you know that this is a segue into the next topic but I just want to say that this is this is not happen stance that when we see growth in this way it's it's because of intentionality it's because of

061that level of focus um and discipline and it takes everybody um support on all sides to support the classroom. So, and I want to thank the board especially um in terms of your your governance and leadership to to make these um these the to have this implementation happen in this way. So, just thank you for that and thank you Dr. Schultz uh Miss Eert for your report tonight. Uh and uh Dr. Williams and Mr. Freeman as well. Uh thank you for that. Appreciate you. All right, so on to the next uh topic. Again, we Uh last but certainly not not least, we do have an update on the 2026 2027 budget development process. And before our chief chief uh financial officer, Mrs. Kathleen Jackson, presents the budget update, I would like to provide some context

062as a reminder of of how we got here. So Mrs. A pel shared uh earlier in her comments that last week the city council voted to amend the school funding policy for um well we as we are tracking it for at least a third time in the last three budget cycles uh with two of these changes coming just within this past year this calendar year. Uh so this last year uh the city provided the same funding as the year prior without any uh revenue increase which already would have put us at a de deficit for this year. The revised policy now provides RCPS with 34% of any increase or decrease in revenue growth using the flatfunded 106.9 u million from last year as a base. Now, over the past six years, we have accomplished uh

063so much because we've had phys uh fiscal support and we have budgeted wisely uh keeping our students, our staff, and our community at the center of our decisions. Uh responsible stewardship has allowed us to directly respond to community needs by adding teaching positions. Uh reducing class sizes in the core content areas. Reducing the number of students identified as high risk for reading difficulties through direct support for reading instruction. increasing teacher pay by an average of 14% and raising the minimum wage for our classified staff to recruit and retain, of course, the best employees. We want the best of the best for our our children. We've doubled our CTE seat capacity through the Charles W. Day technical education center or daych as we call it, which benefits our students. Um, of course it does, but it

064also uh supports uh workforce development and our city and our region. Expanding community support by opening the community empowerment center at Booker T. Washington, which you heard the results tonight, uh where we offer adult education courses, student enrollment assistance, family support programs, and coordination with community partners and community resources. Now, we could not have achieved these student centered kind of projects, if you will, without streamlining our central office, which additionally saved the division approximately $6,000 per month in lease costs. This move also cleared the way for the community empowerment center which and cleared the way honestly also for day right because we had staff at at um at Ruffner and so we were able to um make sure that we're streamlining services in that way. So you you've heard all about the community empowerment center

065from Mr. Alder. These accomplishments again don't happen in a vacuum when we say knowing our students by name, need, and strength. That is a exactly what our teachers, our staff members, and our school leadership do every day, which I'm sure the board knows and and is aware of and appreciates. Uh they are working with our students, many of whom have growing academic, social, and emotional needs. needs that are met because our staff as a whole uh pour into our students every single day and we must uh continue to support them. Uh community members turn to our schools many times because schools are the hub of the community. So many times when people don't know where to turn or they don't know where to go, they know that they are welcomed and supported at schools. And

066so our schools continue to be our responsibility. We will continue to advocate for what our schools, our teachers, our principles need uh to make sure that we can um make the magic happen, if you will, uh not only with construction but in instruction as well. Uh it is extremely disappointing and concerning that we now find ourselves in a time of uh these shifting um kind of political priorities that reduce support for public education. Audit after audit um demonstrates that RCPS has managed our funds responsibly. The situation that we face today is not the result of overspending or mismanagement but of changing policies. And this is a presentation that that I never wanted to make and it will impact every aspect of the division from central office to schools. But make no mistake, we will do

067everything that we can to protect classrooms and to preserve jobs. So, let's be clear about how we got here. RCPS has earned awards again for clean audits and budget transparency. Yet, headlines like RCPS returns $20 million to the city are confusing. This did not happen because we overbudgeted or had extra funds. Under the previous funding formula, RCPS received 40% of the city's projected tax revenue. At the end of the fiscal year, if actual revenue was higher than expected, RCPS received 40% of the difference through a trueup. If revenue had been lower than expected, we would have had to return 40% of the difference. So, we like to think about it as going out kind of with a friend when you agree to split costs, but the final total isn't known until the end. So, somebody

068says, "I'll pay for dinner." Somebody else says, "I'll pay for the Uber." Then, you settle up kind of at the end. And that's what the true up is. It's a settling up. Um, and so I just want not only the board, but the community to understand um what that means. Uh because RCPS budgets carefully and we do not spend money that has not yet been received, those TrueUP dollars built our fund balance, our savings account intended for emergencies, long-term needs, and reducing future debt. So, for example, in 2022, when our schools faced multiple threats and safety concerns, the school board was able to quickly approve 25 additional safety measures that had an immediate and positive impact on our schools, on our staff, and on our students. thanks to having the fund balance available for emergencies

069and where we put in lots of those safety uh well all of the safety efforts and all 25 implemented all of those 25 recommendations. We also created a capital projects fund balance at the suggestion of city council to reduce the amount of debt the division would need to take on for major facilities projects. This past year, the city informed us that we may no longer have an unassigned fund balance. At the city's request, the school board transferred $20.5 million to the city. This was a one-time transfer and is not the cause of our current budget shortfall. Even if those funds were available, using one-time savings to cover ongoing expenses would not address the underlying financial pressures. The shortfall we face is driven by rising ongoing costs and decreased funding. So this is a serious situation

070and we cannot minimize the gravity of it. We are committed to transparency uh and also thoughtful planning and keeping our students at the center of every decision as we work through this challenge. So let's walk through where we are. Uh, and as the mayor said last week, this change is abrupt. There is no opportunity to slowly off-ramp. So, you'll note the title of the presentation uh tonight, which is exactly what we're facing right now, and that is confronting constraints, protecting the the classroom in a new funding reality. So, with that, I'll I'll turn it over to Mrs. Jackson as she goes through where we are right now and explain uh the the the funding uh development process moving forward. So, Mrs. Jackson, I'll turn it over to you. He's coming. >> Can you hear me?

071>> There we go. Okay. Sorry about that. Let me try that share again. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> There we go. >> All right. Um, thank you for that, Dr. Detroit um for that introduction and kind of setting the stage um for where we are. And um so as I walk through this, I I did want to stay at this point. Um I know it's a little bit awkward to um have folks jump up and and contribute during a Zoom meeting. I can't see everyone on the screen, but I do want to uh just offer that opportunity to my colleagues. Um and and I'll try to do my best to kind of pause here and there. So certainly um Dr. White and and anyone else on core team or um Donna Caldwell who's helped so

072much today and uh being prepared for this presentation. Um please feel free to jump in and I'll try to do my best to be slow. But um maybe Dr. White just flag me down if if someone is trying to jump in with some information because I do want to make sure that um I don't leave anything out. But um so with that um we will jump in and I I'm going to start off with kind of the situation where we are. um uh jump right into revenue. We talked about this last meeting. So for the most part um there is not new information here. State funding and city funding [snorts] are the same as we as we knew two weeks ago. Um the one adjustment that we have made since is we re-evaluated our estimate

073of other uh funding which the the bulk of that was interest income. So that ties ex directly into what Dr. White was just talking about. Um we had, you know, money in the bank, savings for uh for needs and and allowing us to move forward with things um that might come up mid year, that kind of thing. Um for um you know, security um uh [snorts] and and rainy day sometimes people call it that we earn interest on that money or did um so that was a significant contributor to our budget. So that money is now um back in the um the city coffers. So we can't count on that interest income. So that's the adjustment that you see here. And so the net total of the information we have at present is only just

074over a million dollar increase year-over-year in revenue. So a pretty small uh change. Um so what are some of the expense differences that we're looking at? So, of course, the biggest one that we want to consider is uh the impact of pay raises. The state budget that came out in December does include state funds for the state share of a 2% raise for standards of quality positions. So, uh the the numbers that I'm sharing with you today do have the the cost of a 2% raise included. So you can see here just under $3 million additional cost to our general operating fund with grants gets up to about 3.4 million. Um a an important consideration though is that even doing no raise does come with a cost um because we would we would be leaving

075state money on the table. So you so you can see there that $1.6 6 million of the revenue we're anticipating from the state has to be used for a raise and you don't qualify for it if you don't give at least a 2% an average 2% raise. So, so that's the issue that we have to consider. It would certainly cost less, but we'd be leaving state money on the table. So at this moment, so there's a lot to discuss, but I just want to make that clear that at this point, we have gone ahead and included the cost of [snorts] moving forward with a 2% raise so that we could at least take advantage of that state funding. But as you can see, the state funding barely covers half of of the actual cost because

076of course um the state standards of quality uh don't come close to actually funding the positions that are needed to provide quality education in Virginia. So on the benefit side um we have some increases, some decreases. So for the most part pretty good news on this side actually. Um every bienium the Virginia retirement system um updates their numbers and they recommend um a rate for the Virginia retirement system or VRS plans and that's actually gone down a bit compared to the last benion. So that's that's favorable. So you can see here that we would be required to pay in 12.2% for employees on plans one or two for hybrid plan. Um it's a combination. So we would pay in 12.2% to the defined benefit or pension portion of their plan and then we would on

077top of that have to contribute between 1 and 3 and a.5% of a match to the employees defined contribution plan. So as you can see that uh that's shifted over the years. I think last year we were right at close to 50/50. So as you can see um the majority of our employees at this point are on that hybrid plan. So um looking at the elections um the voluntary contributions of employees so that we could assess you know what that uh match requirement would be um brought us to our our average of 12.84% which we're using for for budgeting purposes. That's down from 15% last year. So that's where um we can fortunately see a lot in addition to the the retirey health insurance credit and state group life that VRS also handles slight decreases

078there. All all in that um we're projecting to be about a 2 almost $9 million uh cost reduction. So that's a positive. Um health insurance is up. We're projecting that to be about 1.25 million. that's estimating uh based on a 10% rate increase beginning in January of next year. Um that's that's a lot. I I know that's a a big increase, but that's actually a smaller increase than it would have been had we not made the the plan adjustments that we made this year. So, we are benefiting um from that adjustment going forward, trying to keep that increase um well, I was going to say manageable. It's not manageable, but uh it's certainly better than it would have been. Um so with those kind of key personnel related costs in mind, um this is just

079a sort of a a very high level summary of where we are and we'll get into a little bit more about that um in a few slides, but um this this gives you a comparison of revenue and expenditures and what the variance there is. So, as you can see in the current year adopted budget, we are we approved a budget that intends to use $10.3 million out of fund balance, out of savings. So, we were allowed to do that one last time to bridge the gap um when the city council uh voted to to flat fund us and not give us an increase in revenue in May of this past year for the current year. So, we were allowed to use those funds, but again, those funds are gone. Um, and even if we did

080have them, as Dr. White said, that that's not a prudent way to to budget, um, that would just be, you know, exacerbating the problem if we were, uh, relying on savings, uh, to try to make up that much of a deficit. So, as you can see, um, that use of fund balance, that's gone. So if we're starting with the base of where we are in the current year, we've got to find that $10.3 million before we do any of the additional. So that's how we come up with that $16.5 million variance that we are facing. So to to try to kind of think through those numbers and Dr. White did a good job of of explaining that earlier, but this visual might help further um that we've heard some numbers in the news of that

081fund balance amount that we were required to return to the city, the $20.5 million um and that was as Dr. White described funds that we saved over time. We were able to use federal pandemic relief funding um to help cover costs that allowed us uh to reserve funds. um kind of knowing everyone talked about the fiscal cliff when all of that esser pandemic relief funding would go away. Um that's where we are right now and unfortunately don't have um those savings available anymore. Emergencies as Dr. White gave the great example of um those safety measures that we were able to do. So um you know for for individuals a way you might think about that is um you know we're we're all encouraged to to plan for a rainy day. Maybe you might decide to

082um squirrel away three months of of what your rent costs just in case. Um well, if somebody unfortunately is laid off, you've got that money that's going to pay your rent, but only for those three months. Then that money is gone and you have a problem. So that's kind of what we're facing here. We had those funds available for and we're using some of that in that in that very real scenario in the current year, but that can't continue. um versus the the budgetary deficit that we're facing this year is really an ongoing challenge. It has nothing to do uh aside from the the sort of the interest income portion of of revenue income that of course has gone down. Um this is really us having to face the revenue projections the the everinccreasing expenditures

083of doing business and how do we how do we meet that in the middle that unfortunately revenue is not keeping up with uh the expenditures. Um so [clears throat] I hope that visual is is helpful in kind of helping understand the difference of those two two buckets. And then just kind of to summarize before we move on to the next portion of the the information um just again very high level some of the increases and decreases of costs that we are looking at. Um we talked about that 2% raise is currently included a bit of an increase in health and dental insurance costs anticipated. Um we do have some uh positions that currently are are partially grant funded where the grants are ending to some extent. Um you know all-in tutoring that's something that in

084general we're probably going to have to make some tough decisions about things that are grant funded but in the case of reading specialists that's an SOQ requirement. So that's something we have to u be careful about making sure we're meeting um those requirements there. Um we do have some nonpersonal expenditures, some textbook needs that we have in the budget currently. And then there's a fair amount related to special education and CIS um requirements that are coming that are going to be new this coming year. Some additional costs um and making sure that we're um appropriately budgeting particularly for um students with intensive support needs there. Again, a little bit of savings on the a good savings on the VRS rate reduction. We've got um our our projection for what we will owe on existing debt

085service is down a little bit about a half a million dollars. Um so that's favorable. And then as as we noted at this moment, we're projecting just about a $1 million increase in revenue. So all of that nets to you see there that anticipated increase of 6.23 million added on top of the 10.3 we already have in the current year gets us to that 16.5. So let me pause there before we go on in case you know any of my colleagues want to contribute or if there are any questions. Okay. All right. So how are we going to handle a$6.5 million deficit? So, we're going to have to make some tough decisions and um really scrutinize everything across the board as Dr. White said. So, um we are going to in the next few minutes

086share some of those [clears throat] programs and functions that we've been looking at and wanted to start with, you know, kind of what criteria did we use? How how did these things uh arrive on this presentation today? uh if you will, you know, how did we try to make sure because we have a lot of feelings in all of this and um it's very hard to to talk about. So, we really needed to have some clear criteria um to use in looking at this. >> And Mrs. Jackson, I'll just jump in here also just to just to say that as a reminder to the board that u which I'm sure you remember that we do break this these meetings into two where we talk about personnel um considerations at one meeting and then we talk

087about non-personnel at another meeting. So tonight is primarily about non-personnel. We will get to u personnel considerations at your at your next meeting. Uh, and that's typically how we do it. Again, because it's a lot of information, so we kind of want to take these one at a time. But Mrs. Jackson is exactly right. We had to have an objective way of looking at every kind of program. And again, this is the the change in policy just happened last week uh just on Tuesday. So we really had to come together to consider how can we objectively look at the programs and what's the criteria to measure those programs and services against to to see if they should be on the table for consideration. And so this is the criteria uh that we that we're using.

088So Mrs. Jackson, I'm sorry. Back back to you. >> No, thank you. Okay. So, um, one thing we're considering is does the program or service require specialty transportation routes that add cost. So, that's something that I know we've had a lot of conversation about the everinccreasing cost there and needs. So, that was a consideration um that we looked at. Do the programs or services go above or beyond what is required by the standards of quality? As we just discussed and know the standards of quality, we do not feel adequately support what we would consider quality education, but under these circumstances, that's sort of the minimum. We have to make sure we're at least meeting um the standards of quality. Are additional personnel required to provide what whatever the program or service might be? Um and

089finally, can the programs or services be retained through a different service model? is is there a way we could kind of keep it going um but just maybe at a at a less costly uh method. So, I'm going to jump right in to uh some of the items that are on the table for consideration. First is activity buses. We had conversation um when our budget was flatunded last year about the possibility of um doing away with activity buses and left them in for this year, but that's got to come back as a point of consideration. So we currently provide late bus transportation home from afterchool activities at all middle and high schools. Um as you can see here there's quite a few trips um for each of our schools. So obviously that is specialty transportation

090route. That's additional routes above and beyond just getting kids to and from school. Um it does require additional personnel to to make that happen. Um and is not something that's required by the standards of quality. um that is not something that we could uh provide elsewhere. That that is something that would be a discontinuation of that service. Um and we would have to look to parents to um to provide or coordinate transportation home from those um supplemental after school activities. But that would uh we estimate that would uh reduce our budget by about $350,000. Uh the next item under consideration is our gifted and talented pullout program for elementary students um known as Plato. Um that is a a program that all students from all schools who qualify um go to either Highland Park uh

091or Fairview Elementary School. Um there are nine total classrooms currently across those two elementary schools for all those students. So, of course, that does require specialty transportation routes to u bring students across the city to those two elementary schools. Um, additional personnel are required to staff those classrooms. Um, so it it is it does go um beyond the standards of quality uh for gifted education and um there we do feel like we could retain services through a different service model. We do have um gifted resource teachers uh in all of our elementary schools. So, we do already offer um gifted services to all elementary schools in all schools. It would just be a different a very different model than than this pull out um focused uh situation that we have currently. So, our preliminary budget

092impact is a is a savings of about $160,000 there. It does tie um on the transportation to the next slide that I'll go into. So supplemental transportation services um is another area we're looking at. Um particularly since the pandemic, this has grown quite a bit in terms of the need for individualized sort of point-to-point transportation services. It's extremely costly. Um so in this scenario we use contract vendors to provide transportation to student um from home to school or or what have you um as the need requires. So um we would be looking to reduce that use um because of course it does require specialty transportation routes and additional personnel uh to coordinate and and offer. um it is not required by the standards of quality and um we do believe we could retain those services

093through a different model in part um through uh the broader reduction of some specialty programming like we just talked about the potential of the uh gifted pullout program um would allow us to utilize the bus routes that we already have to more effectively serve the students and um cut down on that need for the the extra >> [clears throat] >> um transportation services above and beyond the school bus transportation we already provide. And so our estimate is that um that reduction would save about $650,000 from the budget. [clears throat] The next program um for consideration is the Virginia Preschool Initiative three-year-old program. Um, we currently offer nine three-year-old classrooms. They can serve up to 16 students each. Now, I will say um some of these classrooms do serve students with disabilities as well. We would

094certainly continue that service. That is something that's required by um students IEPs. So, we we would not be completely doing away with three-year-old uh services. Um but the portion that is funded through the Virginia preschool initiative uh is chiefly what we are um talking about that could uh be reduced um so likely would um reduce that number of classrooms um by five or six. And so our that that's something that definitely requires specialy transportation routes um for um moving those uh preschool students to their preschool centers. um additional personnel is required, a teacher and and an aid in each classroom and um it is not something that's required by the standards of quality. So um what we're looking at currently is that um the VPI 3-year-old services would would end or at least be reduced.

095Um we would retain those three-year-old rooms that serve students with disabilities and the four-year-old BPI program would be unchanged. We're not we're not talking about um making [clears throat] any changes there. The community empowerment center, we just heard wonderful report of how great that center is, but um it does require some additional uh personnel. Um it doesn't require any transportation per se. Um but it is not something that's required by the standards of quality. Um and to some extent we were already providing those services though certainly not to the wonderful level that they are able to be provided through the community empowerment center but um because it is sort of above and beyond the standards of quality in particular. We felt like we had to um consider it uh as it is an additional cost

096and um services would likely revert to a sort of a decentralized format that was previously in place. So, um, our preliminary budget impact there is about $300,000. Um, that number could change just depending on what that would look like and the, um, sort of maintenance cost of that facility, but um, that that's our preliminary estimate there. [clears throat] Modular classrooms. Um, now the city council did approve um just over $4 million to fund implementing the trailers. So, so this item won't really affect the budget in the the coming year because that that $4 million would pay to implement and and build and outfit and get those modular classrooms up and ready to be used uh in the 2627 [clears throat] school year. The concern is then they would have to be maintained. So we would

097have ongoing lease costs um of about 1.8 to$2 million each year and then some additional staffing. So our estimate is this could add in future years three to $3.5 million to the annual operating budget. And so that's just in this time uh of this new fiscal reality that that is a a concern of whether we should move forward with something that we know is going to add such a significant cost [clears throat] to the budget. So certainly additional personnel would be required. Um [clears throat] and and those additional uh costs as we mentioned services can be retained somewhat as they are right now through a different service model. Um that different service model is is large class sizes as we know. Um so certainly not ideal but um we would certainly continue to provide the

098education u as we are now just in the um undesirable uh circumstance of overcrowding. So the next this item has sort of several items that kind of all sort of fall into reducing or deferring expenses um that are under consideration. deferring maintenance on facilities. It's something we talked about when our our budget was uh lowered last year and that's something that's going to have to come back uh for consideration. Again, we're not talking about doing away with maintaining facilities, of course, but just reducing that budget, which would mean um you know, we'd have to sort of triage uh work orders and um make some tough decisions about what absolutely uh we can afford to to fix or change and what um is going to have to wait. Um those kinds of things um would would

099be the case with that reduction. Um, we do have some savings that our technology team has identified that add up to about $800,000. Now, some of that is deferring expenses. So, uh, for example, we have been in leases for um student and staff laptops and um um uh tablets or um chiefly laptops though and so we could move to purchasing those. So, that would be a one-time cost that would not continue for a few years. The problem there is that, you know, 3, four years when they've uh uh gotten to the end of their useful life, we would have an expense again. So, that's just something to keep in mind, but it would um buy us a little bit of time uh if we move forward with some of those uh cost-saving measures. [clears throat]

100We're looking at significantly reducing conference and professional learning travel. Um we estimate a savings of about $300,000 there. that's not completely wiping it out. Um because some of our professional learning um uh is funded through grants um or we do have times when when people are are presenting and leading sessions and that kind of thing. So, we certainly um recognize that it's not realistic to completely wipe that out, but definitely would be looking at um putting um more stringent parameters in place for what we could actually afford to send folks to um in that area. And um we're looking at eliminating the language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling which we refer to u most often as letters training. Um that's something that it is sorry hold on didn't mean to do that. Um

101it is a a wonderful training but it costs about $190,000. there are training modules available at no cost from Virginia Department of Education they are not as good. So that's why we went with letters to begin with but under the circumstances um that is something that we are considering because that there is a resource um it's just not ideal but there is something um >> training that supports the that's the training that supports the science of reading that Dr. Williams mentioned earlier. So, just to circle back to that, >> thank you. >> Sure. >> Um, we're looking at NWA, the Northwest Evaluation Association measures of academic progress or the MAP test that we've talked about. That's uh an assessment that we've used quite a bit over the last few years to make sure that we

102know where students are and that we um are helping them grow and um achieve success. But that's an $80,000 cost. So, that's something that we are looking at. There's a different way that we could uh make that happen. And then the last item under this group uh is a reduction to equipment and supply costs for athletics. We could save about $200,000 there um is what we've looked at. So, actually before I go on to that um I'm going to turn it back to Dr. All right. But uh before we go on, I I just did did want to say so this is not a a complete list. This is not a done deal. Um, but this is where we are in um, you know, trying to do the best we can to really look across

103the division at ways that we can try to save dollars um, in an impactful way and and and ideally to minimize the impact on staff, but Dr. White will go into that, but um, you know, nothing is off the table. If you don't hear something, if I didn't mention something just now, that doesn't mean um it's not something that that might, you know, be discussed at a future meeting. And we're certainly open to recommendations. Um but but this is the first look at kind of ways that we have been working on how we could address this shortfall. So, Dr. White. >> Sure. Thank you. And thank you, Mrs. Jackson. So ultimately everything that we've put on the table so far um as Mrs. Jackson said the these are preliminary um but everything that we put

104on this on the table so far only adds up to about $4 million uh in terms of the the fiscal impact. And so some of that directly or indirectly impacts personnel. So uh this is as we've talked about before this is a people business. Um this is a human business and we need people for our young people. Uh so about 75% of our of our budget is in personnel and so we support it's always important for us to remember we support uh the city and the region's uh economy as the second largest employer in the city. So some people might say well just cut what you need from central office or administration. Um but our administrative staff only make up about 4% of the personnel budget. Uh so even if we cut it all, we

105would not come close to making up that that type of deficit. So the bottom line is that staffing at all levels will be impacted. So we will be pausing um hiring and evaluating whether we fill vacancies on a case-byase basis. Uh we've already begun to adjust duties uh as vacancies come to light to reduce costs and to attempt to minimize the impact. We are uh evaluating SOQ required staffing levels and may have more areas that have to be reduced uh to that level. Uh keep in mind that we are well aware that the SOQs are woefully inadequate to truly maintain quality u uh particularly in an urban school division, but everything has to be on the table in this unfortunate situation. So, while these are hard conversations to have, we will continue to keep our

106students at the center of every dis uh decision as we've talked about before and to to do everything in our power to protect the classroom and to to preserve jobs quite frankly. So, we we met with our central office leaders and principles this afternoon to provide a summary of this information and we will be hosting a virtual budget town hall meeting next Thursday, February 5th from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. uh via Microsoft Teams so our entire community can come together to learn more about the context um presented tonight to so that uh they can also the community can provide um feedback and and recommendations and so that we can talk about next steps. So we do encourage our students, our our families, our staff, our community members to submit questions ahead of time. We will

107be taking questions live, but if you can submit questions ahead of time, that would be great as well. Um, it'll it'll be on our website, rcps.info/provide your input um uh to join us for the discussion and then we will also have we'll bring at the board meeting of course we'll have our public hearing for the budget on February 10th. So with that, Madam Chair, we'll take any questions that you have at this time. Thank you very much. And um so first I'll go ahead and um see if Mr. Link has any questions. We'll see we'll go on down the line with regards to school board members. So um Mr. Link, >> Dr. White, I I was doing some math while uh Miss Jackson was giving some of the the considerations we're looking at. um what

108she's listed from activity buses to athletics adds up to 7 million. Um the modulars if I take those out at 3 million I get the 4 million number that you just mentioned a second ago as having um I think fiscal impact or whatever the term was that that you use. Is there some reason that you uh separated the three million impact from uh not proceeding with the modulars from the 4 million impact uh of the remaining items in Miss Jackson's list? >> Yeah. Again, that that amount for that startup cost has been approved for this first year kind of. Yes. It's the ongoing cost that um that would be problematic and the reason why we thought we would bring it here uh tonight for consideration. But if you're right if you back out that cost

109and Mrs. Jackson, I don't know if you want to shed additional light on that. >> Yeah. Only I I' I'd thank you just to add that um I I wasn't really including that because it wouldn't help us in the coming year. Um, you know, if we imple we move forward with the modulars, um, that will have a cost, but that cost will be covered by the $4 million that the city provided, um, for that capital project in the coming year, but um, the ongoing cost wouldn't really hit us until we started using those modulars, which wouldn't be until the subsequent year. So I so that's why I wanted to put it on the table because it's sort of more of an ongoing consideration but it wouldn't [clears throat] not doing it wouldn't help us in

110the upcoming the immediate upcoming school year um 26 27 if that makes sense. >> Thank you. Um Miss Ael, [snorts] do I have time for one more follow-up question? >> Yes. Go ahead. Um, Miss Jackson, this is the I'm I'm not even on the aboard a year yet. Uh, this is a yearly process. Um, this is I this is a lot of new information to digest and plan. Um, are we otherwise generally on track in the budget process or are we behind? Um in terms of our normal timeline for developing the budget um >> I mean we're following the same kind of process. So I think we are on track. Okay. We are just having to to do a lot of things that we don't unfortunately in fact we've not had to do. So that

111that puts us you you know that's feels a little bit of a tighter timeline. Um but I I would say we are on track. Um, you know, certainly, uh, we don't have the final word on any revenue. Uh, the general assembly has yet to weigh in on state funding. So, this is absolutely still a moving process. But, um, you know, we felt strongly that we needed to address the challenge sooner rather than later. >> 100%. If if we get good news from the general assembly and we don't have to do to have quite as big of a deficit to to fill, great. But I think it it is important for us to be prepared kind of for the worst case scenario. So that's what we're working on right now. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank

112you, Mr. Link. Um, Miss Trigg, >> hello. I'm I'm just very saddened by the overall cuts and I know that they're necessary and they're needed, but as we are in the business of working with children, educating them, um working with our people, our community, we are literally about to watch everything and all of you all's hard work, all the teachers hard work kind of get flushed down the drain when we start losing the resources. Um just tonight we heard an amazing um presentation from Mr. Aldridge about the CC and now that's possibly getting cut. You're thinking about your middle school and high school kids that need those resources for those activity school buses and I can almost imagine if we're cutting there, are we going to be having a cut as far as them getting

113the exposure outside with the athletics and the games that they usually get to go to? how will they be able to compete on the higher level because our schools are already so large. So, they're having to compete against those larger schools. So, my concern is when we start having to cut where it affects our children and which is supposed to be one of the major um accomplishments that the mayor did have on the table at his breakfast. I thought was very interesting. And now we're cutting what was the biggest accomplishment that was displayed on that flyer. It's kind of concerning because now we're not thinking about our children. Um I can tell you since we've gotten community builders as again was a part of our presentation. It's cut down on our crime rate with our

114teenagers. We lose those 12 year olds to 15 year olds. every year for the past couple of years, how many families are we hugging at um graduation of children that may not have made it through um gun violence? Um how many kids that we are losing due to dropout because they didn't even get to stay in school because now they're behind bars. So my concern is roughly that this is really going to affect our community heavily. And I feel like we came a long way to now get pushed back. How far and at what cost? And are our children worth it? >> Thank you, Miss Trigg. Um, Miss Canana. >> Um, I guess really my heart breaks that we are here. Um unfortunately this is where we at this was necessary. Um I agree with

115my colleague Mr. I my concern is um crime rate will go up with our kids. Um this not only affects us, it affects our community, it affects our families. Um, and I honestly do not see anything else that we can do and that is heartbreaking. Um, and I just want to thank you guys for doing this presentation, doing amazing work and asking and discussing the hard questions and trying to figure out a way. So, thank you C can I interject one thing before you move on because um you made me think of something Miss Quentana um that I should have emphasized more because you talked about anything else that we can do and and certainly you know this is the time and that's why we're going to have a community meeting and and the opportunity

116at the public hearing for the public to share ideas and to hear your ideas and all of that. But um I think that's that's a point well taken that as we were talking about all the things we've discussed today um only add up to about a fourth of the deficit. And um so as Dr. White said, you know, 75% of our budget is people. Um at at this moment, even if we did all of those things, we're estimating that we would still on top of that have to lose about 156 positions. um which we of course would um work to absorb through attrition just not filling vacancies as best we can but um even with all that that's a pretty big number right so um so thank you for um reminding me to say that

117>> yeah I I'll just jump in there as well just to say again that so we started this uh you know presentation talking about protecting the classroom and trying to preserve jobs because when we're talking about about 156 positions. Um certainly we could be facing layoffs or you know something like that. And that's we we don't um want to go down that path and certainly we're you know we may not be able to um to save every position but um positions will be impacted um across the board um centrally as well as school-based. We're going to try to do as much as we can in terms of vacancies so that that they're not, you know, people in those positions who are impacted, but every um office across the division um will feel the impact of

118of that um that that type of deficit, especially when it comes to the teachers and their hard work already. But the board has done a a a great job year over year trying to get class sizes down particularly at the in the core content areas. And I know we all wanted, you know, more, right? We we want to um have smaller class sizes. That has been the goal um because our teachers and our students deserve that. And yet, uh, with these types of cuts, then we're we're looking at increases in class sizes, um, which impacts everybody. >> Thank you, Dr. White. Um, Miss Watkins, >> thank you, Madam Chair. Um and I my my colleague said a lot of um a lot of the sentiments that I um was also thinking about. Um couple things

119um here. I appreciate you all um creating that framework for review of these considerations. Um we have gotten really good at that. Um from um back when you know when we were thinking about capital improvements and how to decide you know what to do where um we you you developed a framework for that that's worked really well. Um there was a framework when we were trying to figure out what to do um with transportation. So I have no doubt that the framework that you guys came up with um for this is um is a is a is a good method. So I I thank you for that. I also thank you for hosting the listening sessions with the community. I think it's really important um that it's recognized that we don't run away from hard

120times and challenges. We celebrate a lot of things in our division. Um and you know some people celebrate with us and some people don't for their own reasons right um but there are some really great things that are happening in this division and um I think a lot of it is because we listen we listen we're transparent with our community and we listen to our community. So, I'm I'm grateful that we're giving them another opportunity um to provide input and to hear um you know how painstaking these efforts are. Um I don't envy any of us. Um you guys are placing options in front of us and we ultimately have to advise you um on which way to go. Um and so we're all in this together. Um, I want to I have a question,

121but before I ask the question, I want to also remind everyone, not that you don't already know this, um, but the community and our city council and our police department and our, you know, first responders, our all the people that make up the work that's done in our city and supports our our citizens, right? The decisions that we are going to make, have to make um will impact crime, will impact safety, will impact test scores, which will impact pro um postgrad opportunities for some of our students. um opportunities um e extracurricular opportunities um and it will ultimately have an impact on our city's um economy as the second largest employer in the city. Um we are talking about laying off where other businesses already have and others intend to. Um that is going to be

122huge for our economic development in our city. I I would bet that we're, you know, looking at our our city is looking at all of the things that they want to bring in, uh, you know, data centers and and other things that we want to bring in, bigger airports and all this other stuff. But all of this to me is tied to our school division. Uh if you you one of the first things someone is looking at when they're looking into moving a business or buying a home in a in a place is you're looking at crime. You're looking at the schools. You're looking at the economic um opportunities for work and all of that stuff in these communities and everything that we're talking about tonight is going to impact that going forward. Um, so

123I just want to make sure that, you know, we in on this call understand that, but I think that our leadership and the community needs to think about the long game here when it comes to whether to invest in our school division and treat it as a as a partner in economic advancement or not. Now, I know decisions have already been made, right? this week the decisions have already made despite our efforts, everyone's efforts um in trying to um to ward off, you know, these challenges that we're going to have to face, right? So, I may be, you know, blowing in the wind with what I'm saying, but it's this has to sink in. It it has to sink in. And for some people, um things don't sink in until it impacts you personally. and

124and it's going to it's going to touch everyone in our community. Um and so I'll get I'll get off of that um platform. Um but I want everybody that's listening and everyone who passes the word and goes back and watch this recording. I want you to think about everything that's being said tonight because it's coming your way. You will not be exempt from this. Even if you don't live in the city, crime doesn't stay in the city. Um and you anyone who shops in the city or travels to the city for it's going to impact you. Um the question that I had is I have a concern with deferring when you know the formula has been changed. As a matter of fact it's been changed twice in the in or three times in the past

125I don't know two years three years. um three times in two years. Um it's not going to get better as far as I can see, right? Um I don't have a crystal ball, but if we defer these things, um Miss Jackson, aren't we just robbing Peter to pay Paul or putting off the inevitable? I you know, I'm I'm thinking about, you know, the the the trailers. I'm thinking about a couple of the other things that you said that we could defer maintenance. You know, I know that we'll do the critical things to these buildings, but these most of our buildings are not new buildings, right? And so there's things that we have to do to them, right, before they become dilapidated. And then now we're in a safety issue, right, just for that, right? So,

126I'm not sure how we do this. I I don't know about the deferring. I I just don't see how that's going to work out. It it feels like robbing Peter to pay Paul. And I know we don't have a choice, but it it just feels like, you know, pie in the sky thinking that something might change in the future and it's only going to get worse for us without a fun balance. >> Yeah, I I think I don't know if that was a rhetorical question, but I will answer it like yes, I think you're exactly right, Robbing Peter to pay Paul. um that uh so if you defer um maintenance for example that at some point it's becomes a critical issue and you have to address it. So then then you're just you're pushing something

127else off. Um you know unfortunately we often see pictures of really sad looking schools in other areas um across the state. And you know, the state's tried to put some money towards school construction and that kind of thing, but um it's a relatively small amount um statewide. So, you know, we've always been proud that, you know, [clears throat] particularly as an urban school division that that's not the case here. It has not been. But um you know I think unfortunately we may have to head in that direction um and focus on instruction and put off some of those things. >> And then one last point that I want to make and thank you for that is I you know I need I want people as they come to these listening to this listening session I

128want people to think about their own home budgets. um we can say all we want to get rid of this, get rid of that. It all touches the students. So if you think public that there is anything that we can do to that we could cut any single thing that we do that's not going to impact our students education, you're absolutely wrong. You're absolutely wrong because I know from being on this board for seven years that every single decision that we make starts with students needs. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, Miss Watkins. Um, Dr. Jameson. >> Yeah, I appreciate everything that my colleagues have said. I agree with Miss Watkins. uh most recent comments. I think what I would uh simply like to add is reinforce just a few things. Um education is

129a project of the future. It always is right. You are you are helping to shape the future. And this the reality of this moment is the the Reno City public schools are about to be collateral damage of the fiscal situation of our city and that's not going to change in the next couple of years. Um we are not the only system that's going to be impacted by that. Uh but the reality is 16.5 million is a huge deficit for this system to overcome. And so if you uh can make time to come to the public hearings that'll be hosted in the next week or two, please bring your ideas internal, external, bring your partnerships. Thank you for your advocacy. Many of you lend your lended your voices at these public hearings um with the city

130council. We appreciate your partnership. We appreciate your time and your investment in our students. Although we we are heartbroken here. I think you can hear it. We are not giving up. This is not this is not a division that gives up on our children and we will not give up on each other and we will not bring give up on this place. So I encourage us all to bring our ideas. We uh I think that the consequences we are facing are exactly the possibilities that we are going to be fighting against. We are not going to stop trying. Um we're going to keep hoping for uh some, you know, maybe this for whatever for whatever pennies we can get from the state or anywhere else or grants. We are going to keep looking. We're going

131to get creative. We're going to get inventive. And it's and to my colleagues as I stare at my ninth year rounding out my last year on this board. Um for all my new friends, what I will tell you is that there are always times of hard in public education. This is not the f I'm looking at you, Miss Watkins. This is not our first hard. We will get through this. We will invest in our children. We will invest in our teachers. We will we it is not what we would pick, but we have a vision of the future for our children and we're committed to it. We'll find a new way. We have to. There isn't a choice. So, thank you for everything everybody's doing and we're in the fight together. >> Thank you, Dr.

132Jameson. Vice Chair Cherry. >> Thank you, Dr. Jameson. I am probably the first time that I feel like I am close to being extremely emotional uh with giving uh I guess my remarks. Uh I think you mentioned that yeah $16 million deficit is something difficult that we have to overcome. Uh but let's you know and I'm just going to call it thing a thing and if I get slapped on the rich fine. Um this is the second biggest thing in the past year that we've had to overcome. We also had to overcome being accused of malfeence. All right? And when you talk about malfeence and when you hear the word responsible stewards, those words don't belong in the same pond. All right? We have been nothing but responsible stewards of the funds that we are

133allotted to have. And it's amazing how the malfeasence just disappears. Uh but now we have to give this $20 million back. Um it's just it's not fair. Um but I do want to make sure that the community knows that all of this tonight is about being transparent. um because we were put in this position uh to make sure that we advocate for our students, our staff, and our families. So, tonight was about giving context, making sure we give out all the facts and making sure that the community gets a chance to hear and listen directly from us and uh the executive staff and our superintendent. Um, I think the biggest um thing that we need to focus on at this point is making sure we protect our students, our children, and our staff. Uh, because

134of all of the things that we just discussed and put out on the table. Um, we do know anxiety is going to be high, apprehension is going to be high, and at the bare minimum, the city council put us in positions to advocate. So I just wanted to tell um the community and also remind my colleagues that at the end of the day our we were put in these roles to advocate for our students, our families and I personally I am not going to stop advocating. uh we're going to move forward and we're going to do what we can to um definitely make these pivots and adjustments, but uh at the core of what we do, uh the passion for our children and these students in this community, in this city, uh that's never going

135to stop. So, I just wanted to put that out there to encourage all of my colleagues. I can hear the frustration. Um even the faces, I can see it and I can feel it. Uh but no, we're going to stick together cuz we're one city. So, um let's just move forward and make sure we continue being those um responsible stewards. >> Thank you, Mr. Cherry and for again reinforcing what I think uh through my experience on my time on the board has been three hallmarks of this division which are responsible fiscal stewardship, transparency and communication. So um again Dr. White mentioned that there will be a town hall to discuss budget um concerns and ideas and whatnot next week. And then um and then also we will have our open public hearing which was always

136normally scheduled. That is part of the routine process as Mr. um link um you know verified earlier. Um, I shared a number of remarks earlier on knowing that our discussion about budget was going to be very much so colored by the change in policy implemented by city council last week and looking forward. Um, I've said before and I'll just reiterate again that education is an investment versus a cost. And that mindset is important when you think about what policies you're going to prioritize. And um, I appreciate what everyone has said to those ends. Dr. Jameson mentioning that it is a futurelooking investment to think about education. What Mr. Cherry said about our job as being on the board is oversight and advocacy to continue to speak on behalf of these students. Um, you know, and

137like Miss Watkins said, we will feel it. um you know and all of us here on the board are charged with keeping in mind what is the best way forward for every student in this division. Um so I still firmly believe that a healthy and robust public education system undergirds the health um and resilience of families as was seen by the CEC numbers today because schools are oftentimes one of the few touch points one of the only guaranteed touch points for families which also was evidenced by co when kids were not in school. um and for the city and for the state. So it's really imperative to continue to that we use our voice but also to make deci that we have difficult decisions ahead. Um, I also was reminded that, you know, I've been

138in education since 2003, and anytime there was a new initiative, a new curriculum, a new fad, whatnot, I'm like, I would realize any one of these things is a grand social experiment that we're trying out on our children. you know, you want to try a different, you know, reading program, a different science program, whatever it is, common core, if you remember some of that, which um I went through in North Carolina. And right now, we're looking at financial policies and what that social experiment will have, what what those effects will be on our children. So, um, this is not an endeavor that we take lightly and we do want to hear from everyone because we are committed to being fiscally responsible and know helping our staff know every student by name and need and strength

139and making sure that our students in Reno City public schools have access to an excellent education here. Um, so thank you for everyone and you know we will move forward together. You know we are one as Dr. White says and that is not just lip service. So thank you to everyone who has used your voice and we'll continue to do so as we work towards ensuring that our students continue to get everything they deserve. Um, anything else before we move on? I'll just chime in here, Madam Chair, just to say thank you to the board for uh your your time and consideration uh for the the things that that we've uh put on the table today. I know that there will be a lot of discussion that will be had about each of these items

140and and others as we get continue to get feedback from our staff and from the community and from our parents. And so again that town hall meeting is next week February 5th from uh 6:00 to 7:00. We are holding it virtually so everyone can kind of uh join in um uh from wherever they are and they can uh participate. I do agree with everything that has been said in that um we are committed to making sure that our students continue to graduate with a diploma and a resume. Um and so that is not again it's not happen stance. Everything that's been done over the past six years since co has been intentional. It has been um strategic and it has been collaborative. And so we we're going to continue in that vein. I I I

141asked central staff as well as principles earlier today that this is the time to lock arms that uh yes this is hard but we can do hard things and so it's it's time for us to again as we always do move forward together. I know that everybody will have a lot of questions about the details. Well, how will this work? What does this mean? Who will it affect? And that's what we have to work out together. this decision, the policy change happened last week. Uh so we need we're going to have to figure out what exactly will land on on the table, right? Um that will be kind of the the final final that will land on the table and we'll need to work together to determine the best way forward in terms of working

142out the details. We can do that. We will do that. I I believe in our team. I believe in our teachers and our principles uh who show up every day um and and make sure that our kids have everything that they need as well as all of the support staff that surrounds them to make sure that they have what they need. So, we're going to continue along that that level just to make sure that we have highquality instruction in every classroom. So, with that, Madame Chair, that concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. White, and thank you to your team. Um, moving on to the [clears throat] work of the board and ongoing business. I just want to touch base um here um that um will touch base a little bit more about student representatives in

143February um at possibly both our schoolboard meeting and workshop. Um, regarding communication, um, part of the work of the board is for us to touch base about this bianually. I just want to commend, um, my fellow schoolboard members for the amount of and responsiveness of communication, especially since December. There has been a lot of back and forth and really we have been working as a team. So we we have been a team in that and um that is much appreciated and um so so thank you all for for all of your um your input and everything you've been investing in in your positions as schoolboard fellow schoolboard members um regarding um schoolboard member development and also uh uh that is something that will be discussed at the retreat which we'll discuss you know which we'll

144mention in our um timeline of events coming up along with um board member presentations and attendance at conferences. So those are some things that we will address at our retreat. All of those are kind of to be discussed um sometimes ongoing and by annually. So we will look to do that there. Um regarding school board member visibility, this was a goal of ours and community engagement and meet and greets. And I think again um the amount of communication we've had amongst ourselves as a board is also you know kind of reflected in how present we are um including like for example at the barn burner at PH the other night um of a basketball game. So um so again commendations um for for for that for really doing a great job to make sure that

145we are in touch with our community and we are a part of our community and we're representing our community. Um some of us were able to attend ver it was supposed to be in Richmond but virtually um uh Virginia School Boards Association conference and one of the topics yesterday an entire hourlong presentation was about do school board members represent their constituents? Um so um and I anecdotally um say we have a resounding yes here. Um and um and then also one of our other items of note for um work of the board is you know discussing and having conversations regarding policies and I just want to impress upon everyone that the legislative session is underway. We'll have reports out from that and also February will be you know the next round of policy governance um

146um discussions at the uh division level. So, um that is it as far as work of the board and ongoing business. Um moving on to future business, unless any board members if I missed anything. Good. Um as far as future business, um I did note that the legislative session is underway. So, we'll be keeping an eye on those developments and how they'll impact education in the Commonwealth and at the local level. um both budgetarily and with various initiatives. Um and as far as announcements and reminders, um we do have a retreat coming up in a few weeks as long along with um a schoolboard meeting and a board workshop, but that schoolboard meeting in February on the 10th is that public hearing on the budget, but preempted by that one week prior will be that

147budget town hall. Um, also of note is our support staff of the year and retirement dinners coming up in April and May. Please make sure that your calendars are correct for those because um for those two particular events um later in the spring and hearing No.