001Okay, now I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. So I'm going to actually turn things over to our chief financial officer. And before we get started, I do want to say that we are on work session number two in discussions around the combined funds budget for FY21. And today you see multiple members of our staff today because we want to make sure that as we're talking through some of our non-personnel matters. that we're able to have chiefs and directors who actually have worked through some of the budget items that have been included in the proposed budget. And it's best for you to hear from those departments. They're going to be able to answer those questions better. So we wanted to have them a part of the presentation as well.
002So you're going to have multiple people talking this evening, not just, you know, Mr. Turner. But I'm going to turn things over to Mr. Turner to get us started. Thank you and good evening As dr. Hudson just mentioned this is work session number two and the focus of today's work session will be on the non-personnel part of the budget We did the heavy lifting and work session one where we talked about the 88% of the budget which is personnel today We're going to be talking about the 12% of the budget, which is the non-personnel Piece of the budget which is around 36 million dollars So as you can see on this slide when we pull out the non-personnel The largest share of our non-personnel dollars goes to operation and maintenance, 43%. And that's to be
003expected because with our facilities, that's where we house our largest contracts, such as our lease contracts, one for this building, our cleaning contracts, our HVAC service contracts, and so forth. And then it's followed by our instruction section, which is just over $8 million. When you combine it with the VPI transfer, it takes it to just over... $10 million. And just for clarity, the functions that you see at the bottom of this, these are state function codes. So that's why we have them grouped like this on this slide, because then it ties back into the annual report. So then in this presentation you'll see that we've mirrored the superintendent's proposed budget presentation where we are walking through how we've addressed the strategic goals and then each of the school board priorities under each one of those
004strategic goals. for goals one through goal six. So starting with improvement of instruction, so again, combining the instruction and the VPI is just over $10 million for non-personnel expenditures with the largest share of that going to instructional core, followed by our division-wide contract for copiers, right? So that contract supports the entire division to have our copiers in the different school buildings. and um here in central office um then followed by you'll see the english learners program and then specialized instruction as well so the total of this will make up 10 million dollars um with the 1.7 million dollars transfer to vpi and i included the vpi on this because um as we know that is that supports our pre-k learning here in alexandria So now I'm turning it over to Dr. Mozingo to talk about
005our K2 literacy investments. Good evening, everyone. I think the last time I said good afternoon, so good evening. It's certainly a pleasure to provide you an overview of the proposed prioritized initiatives to support our academic outcomes. Before I begin, I just want to highlight that what I plan to do is to describe how these initiatives will help us achieve greater instructional equity, increase access to certain programs and opportunities. as well as enhance fiscal equity and standardize really a really nice process for formative assessments across the entire school division. We are proposing to purchase handwriting without tears, which consists of consumable workbooks, manuals, and materials for second and third graders. We currently have materials for kindergarten and first grade, so that's why we're requesting, we are proposing purchasing the materials for second and third graders. And
006we all know that handwriting is a foundational skill that supports reading, writing, language, and critical thinking. In continuing, and this is not listed on this slide, but I wanted to highlight this because it's one of your priorities, but in continuing to support K-2 literacy, we're excited to announce that we have formed a K-2 literacy task force. That task force will work for the remainder of this semester. It includes a kindergarten teacher from each of the elementary schools. They held their first meeting on January the 21st at Lyle's Crouch. The goal of that task force is to examine and study the existing literacy model, K-5, as well as identify any needs and priorities. They also spent that first meeting looking at and examining some... K-2 literacy programs in other school systems. They will also get feedback
007from teachers and administrators with the goal of having a set of recommendations by the end of the school year, which would result in the reallocation of some existing funds. We're really excited about moving forward with getting more feedback around K-2. In terms of pre-K and our Virginia preschool initiative, one of the ways to improve K-2 literacy, as you have already indicated, Mr. Turner, is to support young children. So these proposed funds will enable us to continue to support pre-kindergarten as a part of our VPI program for at-risk four-year-olds. You may know that we have a program that runs 8 o'clock to 2.35. We have highly qualified teachers. And we also utilize a research-based curriculum that focuses on literacy, math, science, social studies. And the children also participate in art and music. In addition to that,
008as a part of these resources, the staff participates in a variety of professional development opportunities. The next proposed request is for funding that supports a shared agreement between the Act for Alexandria, Smart Beginnings Alexandria, as well as the City of Alexandria's Department of Community and Human Service. We are working collaboratively. This is a cross-sectional group of... public and private providers. We are working collaboratively to sustain services for young children in the city of Alexandria. As a part of the memorandum of understanding is to provide professional development for the various providers as well as support families. One of the, I think, biggest outcome of that collaborative has been the glass door concept and that is to ensure that as families register. for the different programs they have access to all of the providers that we are
009collaborating with. So that's been one of our priorities. Another priority has been to support the use of data. So this is to officially have us propose to become a member of that network. Next is to propose stipends for the young scholars teachers as well as to develop a talent search team. At this time, we are proposing a stipend for 14 teachers at the elementary school. The good news is that this year, all of our elementary schools will have a young scholars program. And the young scholars program includes a three-week summer experience for students. students as well as activities throughout the school year. In addition to that, you are aware of the audit, our gifted audit, and a recommendation was to reduce disproportionality. So we are recommending three casual employees that will serve as a part
010of a talent search team and a team that will help identify underrepresented populations for our TAG program for next school year. Next, this is another one that really helps us with this notion of standardizing opportunities and experiences for students. I think that we've learned over the year, over the past few years, that we want to be able to offer opportunities for... students at certain grade levels and reduce that educational divide. So this proposal is to support second graders, all of our second graders and all of our elementary schools to participate in a field trip in the city of Alexandria associated with and supported by Historic Alexandria. The goal is to start there but in subsequent years is to add field trips as a part of our curriculum for our students. But next year, the proposal
011is to provide opportunities for all second graders during the school year to participate in the walking tour that's offered here in Alexandria. Also, this aligns quite nicely with our social studies curriculum. Now this one I'm really excited about proposing this because today I had an opportunity to review a variety of reports associated with a formative assessment system known as MAP, the Measures of Academic Progress. What that would provide, again, is a sense of instructional and assessment equity. It would mean that all of our schools will have access to the same diagnostic assessment instrument. It would mean that all of our schools will have access. At the division level, this system would provide division reports, school-based reports, classroom reports. It also predicts, starting at grade five, how well students perform on the ACT. the SAT, and
012also aligned to SOLs. But it would provide the teachers just a wealth of resources and reports for just-in-time decisions and instructional outcomes. So it was just amazing to look at all those reports today to see what could be available for our schools. This would also enable the specialists who are currently developing benchmark assessments going forward. They would not be required to do that. which would increase their time in schools providing additional support and trying to get us more towards this notion of servicing and supporting schools. And this would provide more time for that to occur. Go on to goal two. Turn it over to Dr. Crawford. And thank you our graduation rate we looked at several areas utilizing existing staff and existing funding We are working in collaboration of course with dr. Mazingo to Review
013our data and our areas of needs we were doing this in part through our MTSS initiative this year where we have MTSS liaisons in every building and we're meeting with that group quarterly Through that group, we will do a needs assessment for a particular group of our students, our Hispanic males, where we see that their dropout rate is higher than the overall dropout rate, which you see on this slide. So we're very excited that we see a decrease in our overall dropout, but much like some of our data, when we disaggregate our discipline data, we see that there are some subgroups that are still too high. And one area in particular is the dropout of our Hispanic males. So a number of steps have been taken throughout this year, but that we'll be able to
014focus when we complete a needs assessment from the staff, hearing from our students, et cetera, to drive that plan of action for targeting that particular subgroup. Right now, TC and our middle schools do a number of things with their existing staff, with their social workers, with their psychologists, counselors in particular at the secondary level to make sure that the... Career and academic planning is on the mark and we're responding to the student needs. When I look at this slide though and I think about dropout prevention and graduation rates, it really all comes down to, and you have heard me preach this many times, but supporting the whole child. So understand the reasons, regardless of which subgroup we're referring to, of why our students are dropping out, because that number is much lower, which is wonderful,
015but it should be at zero. We should be responding to the individual needs of every child, and there should be an adult in the school who understands the needs of the students. So that is built throughout our counseling, throughout our phenomenal staff who supervise our restorative practices, our mental health supports, and our PBIS-type services. I will highlight the school counseling because, as you'll hear in a few slides, we will be getting additional school counseling staff, particularly at the elementary level, but one at the middle school. And that's important for many reasons, but one being building the fundamental skills, the positive attendance, engaging in rigorous coursework, positive behavior, and seeking support in the school at the elementary level. We know when we talk to our students, if you're at 11th grade, you're 19, and you have
016one credit. You don't have a lot of options. So starting as early as kindergarten and first grade with our counseling support. And so as I said, you'll hear about the financial commitment in several slides, starting at elementary as well as one at middle school. I'd like to just add a couple statements to that in collaboration with Dr. Crawford. We have formed a project work team to also begin to study, again, conduct a needs assessment to really determine what are some additional needs of particularly Hispanic males. And the work team consists of representatives from adult education, career and technical education, communications. English learners, humanities, and student services. And the goal of that work group is to also maybe identify the possibility of work-based opportunities for some of the students. Also ways in which those students could
017participate in maybe some job shadowing opportunities. The goal of the team is to have the project plan ready by the end of the school year. I think a question was asked a while back as to the extent to which they will get feedback from the teachers from TC. So there will be an opportunity for the staff, the leaders at TC, to also give us some feedback in terms of what are some additional strategies and ways that we can meet the needs, particularly of our Hispanic males. And as you indicated, Dr. Crawford, while we see a decline, the goal is really to get that to zero. And we think that some of those work-based opportunities could help make a difference. In addition, as we move on to the next slide, I think it's important to just
018point out that we will see an ask of additional dollars in our FY22 budget on this specific area of concern for us. What our team discussed is the need. to really look at all of the resources that we currently have in place and how do we make sure that we're maximizing what we do have and being a lot more strategic in how we're using those services before we jump to what else we need. So we want to utilize that time to bring our teams together and doing a needs assessment by looking at all the resources we currently do have. I'm going to speak on behalf of Kurt Huffman because right now he is attending the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce's, the chairman's reception, which I got to attend for about 40 minutes. But now I'm here.
019So I'm going to read from, because I want to make sure I cover everything from Kurt's department. In regards to our community outreach expansion one thing in particular that is a note of interest is 0.5 to the full time to make the the Amharic Division-wide parent liaison full-time is included in this proposed budget You know our data has shown that we have a rising percentage of Amharic families throughout the division Some building data is significant. For example, we have over 15% of our Amharic families at Ferdinand T. Day and 14% at Patrick Henry. This percentage continues to increase, and we also have identified this need based on the fact that we have a very limited number of staff throughout the division who can actually speak Amharic. So adding this into the budget is to help
020us better communicate with our families and make those connections that we have found out of our family and community engagement survey. The board will receive an update on that survey on February 20th. So you all will be able to see some of that information. We were able to get that data in November. So it was time for us to be able to incorporate this into this budget, but it will be presented to the board on February 20th. The second component is some of the reasons why this is the $235,200 of non-personnel funding. And some of the budgetary items in this amount, it includes increasing in the school parent liaisons. We now have 11 building specific as we added. Polk this past year as well as three division-wide And we needed to increase the number of
021family engagement workshops as well as events and different supports that we provide This results in an increase in cost for childcare for dinners for facilitation because we try to provide those Those options for our families who attend those sessions We've also increased our family engagement work based on best practices and evaluations at various community centers throughout Alexandria so that we can support our families at their trusted and more familiar sites that are throughout the city, such as community lodgings, ARHA. and Brent Place, for example. We continue to offer increased support at school buildings that do not currently have a parent liaison through collaboration for their building events, through outreach of opportunities at nearby community sites, as well as through our division-wide parent liaisons who may step in and work with different schools when certain events
022are happening. The cost to bring in expert external facilitators for our family workshops and events. So, for example, our multi-week, our link to learning series in set six school sites, that continues to rise based on costs as well as in increased sites because we're trying to have more of those events throughout the school division. We also continue to provide overtime funding to our... to our Amharic division-wide parent liaison. And you'll see that that's one of the reasons why we've added that .5, additional .5. We did the .5 for the translator, .5 for the liaison. And that is so that we're not continuously adding the overtime piece and just making those full-time positions. Our work with the parent outreach... Our work with the parent outreach workers continues to rise based on supporting division-wide surveys, evaluation work,
023outreach for events and workshops, et cetera, in alignment with multiple ways to reach all of our families in all different languages. And that comes, you know, not just some hard-speaking families, but our Arabic-speaking families, our Spanish-speaking families as well. There's another piece that's important in this particular area for community outreach, and we were incredibly fortunate to receive multiple Department of Education 21st Century Community Center grants that provided us the opportunity to implement several school or after-school programs throughout the school division, such as like our Link Club at various schools and community sites in Alexandria. And these are programs that are for some of our neediest students in the city of Alexandria. Alexandria. Also, our FACE office continues to support those programs through the family engagement opportunities, facilitation and management, as well as resource of allocations.
024Okay, I'm sorry. I said Amharic and I meant to say Arabic, .5 Arabic. But it is Amharic. Got it. Okay. I'm sorry. So the overtime funding is so we we corrected the overtime funding for Amharic by adding the 0.5 for the bilingual specialists on on Amharic But we've also included additional funding to support our Arabic speaking families so that we can pay for overtime in that area we do believe that One thing we are going to have to work through in the future the same way. We're adding additional time for our Amharic translators and specialists. We're going to need to begin to look at our Arabic translator and specialists for the future as well, but we're already putting into account some of the overtime funding for our Arabic speaking families. And then one note was
025that we wanted to be fiscally responsible. So even though we had some areas that have increased in the requested funds that you see in the proposed budget, we have decreased dollars in some areas that are just not giving us the bang for our buck or allowing us to really attain what we are trying to in regards to our goals with FACE. And I think that that... Is it? No. One more point. Because I want to make sure Kurt knows I got everything, Kurt. I said, Kurt, you're kind of wordy. Additional, I'm like, you're wordy, Kurt. You're wordy. But it's all right. Additional questions that may come up, and I think this was something that we've heard from some of our board members just throughout this year in regards to, you know, do we need additional
026grant staff to write for grants? And not at this time because we continue to actually increase our grant award amount each year. But at this point, the team's organizational structure has allowed us to meet. the requirements for monitoring the grants and writing these specific grants in-house. So then moving on to Goal 3 with the exemplary staff, how are we going to increase our staff retention in implementing the human resources audit? So on our first work session, we talked about the compensation side and how we need to have a competitive compensation package to be able to recruit and retain the staff that we currently have. But compensation, salary, and fringe benefits aren't the only ways that we're going to retain staff. We also want to be able to provide them with the resources so they can
027grow in their careers. And throughout the whole division, we have budgeted for professional development. Whether it's through course and events fees whether it's awards or grants And then the travel slash training to go with that so it's adjusted. It's roughly 1.3 million dollars across the division for that with two-thirds of that going to Instruction and then 28% to admin health and attendance What that is so health for those that don't know that is our sst members they fall under that function and then attendance are registrar's they fall under that function code so we want to make sure that we are attacking the retention and recruitment of quality staff from all angles Salary only gets some people fringe benefits get another group of people But there are several people that want to actually grow in their
028careers and we have to be able to provide them with the resources to be able to So I wanted to also add as we think about staff retention as Dominic mentioned, you know, it's more than just money So I wanted to remind of the board as far as the direction that we're taking within human resources to look at a comprehensive assessment of retaining and our staff so again on the salary side what we've done for the year is we provide a full step for all eligible employees 2% one-time bonus for those who are not eligible a market rate adjustment a COLA for some specific employee groups that were studied in the compensation study of principals, psychologists, folks in transportation as well, paraprofessionals and senior staff, a 0.5% contribution to the ACPS supplemental program and of
029course a robust benefits package overall. But again, salary and benefits is really an My estimate just one part of what keeps a good a good employee This investment here represents professional development because we want our people to have the ability to self actualize a few years ago A researcher named Dan Pink produced a book called Drive, and he also spoke here at Alexandria Schools. And what Dan reminds us of is what really keeps people is their ability to achieve mastery, autonomy, and purpose within their particular employment. And so when you get at that, when you get past salary and benefits, and you get past professional learning, then you get into some of these more effective factors, such as rewards and recognition. such as high standards and expectations Such as do I have the tools within
030my workplace to do a good job? And it could be something as simple as a comfortable desk and chair something of course more specific. Let's just call it like a mechanics toolbox But when we take a look at giving our people a complete package, right, of things that take care of them so that they can be successful in their employment, that's what really is going to retain our staff. So how do we know that we're doing okay? So we have surveys when people leave, and our exit surveys show that 24% or about 25% of people depart ACPS, right, for other reasons than ACPS. For other reasons and a lot of those reasons are personal right spousal moves long commutes or what have you But we have a pretty strong workplace Now we're just going to
031continue to get better again as we develop that division strategic plan Which is focused on a service oriented culture starting from central office so that we? Start thinking first about how are people doing and how can we best take care of them? That's also playing out of course in the HR audit We're looking at some structural changes within the Human Resources Department, focusing on customer service, and again, doing things like the compensation study in a cyclical manner so that we stay markedly competitive with respect to our salaries and benefits. So we're going to continue to work in this area. It will become more robust in the years ahead, but I think that we're well on our way to creating a strong recruiting and retention package for our workforce. Thank you. Then moving along to go
032for facilities in the learning environment. I'll turn it over to dr. Crawford Very pleased as a part of the proposed budget to say that we are looking at investing 76.5 $76,000 in increasing our equity funds for this year. That's division wide support The reason that we're highlighting this under goal one of facilities and learning environment of course is that we hear through our tel survey and our equity audit one of the things that we need to have successful outcomes, whether it's retention or student achievement, is a positive learning environment. Part of safety is not always just your physical safety, which Alice addresses, but also your safety in feeling safe to take risks within the classroom. So on the next slide, I think, nope, sorry. When we look at the 76,000, we are going to look
033at the professional development that we've had staff attending. We have several offerings that are outstanding. I'll just highlight one in New Jersey that we send a team to every year. It's a week-long intensive training called Beyond Diversity in New Jersey. And we have school staff and we have central office staff. They have a different theme every year, and it's a phenomenal training to build the capacity. of our school staff members, leaders, and central office. And of course, it's costly. So increasing the professional development that was just discussed, the funds that go along with that will allow us to increase our knowledge base. We also have, we're looking at, as far as school support for equity goes next year, modeling after our MTSS liaisons, our RP liaisons, and our PBIS, looking at equity liaisons within the
034building. So we do have an equity committee that's been meeting for a number of years. There are some different staff members, of course. There's some turnover throughout the years. But focusing in on our equity committee and identifying liaisons in every building, there would be a cost, a small stipend associated with that. But then the bigger piece of that is making sure that we're ensuring success for these liaisons. Part of equity, as the board knows very well, is having those conversations. So looking at... making sure our equity liaisons have a high training and facilitation. Again, another professional development, as well as the content support that goes along with those creative... courageous conversations. The additional funds that we're looking at here are potentially working with a consultant to help further our work with our equity audit. We
035know we have talked about expansion of that, whether that's expansion to surveying our parents and community, city partners, et cetera, and also avenues beyond a survey, something like focus groups and delving in a little bit deeper when we hear the voices. So that's what we are anticipating the $7,600,000 being used for. Keep rolling in the student services realm. I mentioned this before that within Student Services we work closely with our schools and as a part of that work We've received several requests for increase in SST staffing for next year What you'll see on this slide highlighted is that several schools are receiving additional school counseling positions. So just a little bit of background to that. I'm sure the board is aware and we've discussed that the Virginia Board of Ed is talking about the counseling
036the student to staff ratio. They made changes last year at the elementary level to be one counselor to 375 students. The governor actually put forward one to 250. The Board of Ed went with one to 375. When we did an analysis of Where our staffing was at the elementary level we had a few schools that would have gone above that not many but a few And then we also beyond being just formula driven as we hear dr. Hutchings say a lot. We looked at the Individual needs of the schools as the requests came forward so I do use one example at the elementary of Cora Kelly Miss Cruz West who was good enough to present with us a couple of weeks ago about the Pilot the seal pilot ruler at her school put forward a
037request for additional staffing just based on some of the needs that they have at the school. They're still below that 375 ratio, but she talked about some of the programming in the school where they could use some additional counseling support. Similarly, our ratios are fairly generous at the secondary level. However, GW put forward a request for a full-time counselor to be able to differentiate a little bit more at the secondary level. You know, we do have the academic, the career planning, and then you also have all the social-emotional learning and things that fall outside of just the classroom that may be going on. Their approach will be similar to what Hammond has been able to do with their additional counseling and to have more of an interventional support. There's obviously, among all of our schools,
038differences in the variables and what students bring to the table, but regardless of the school, every school has students who have. some significant social emotional needs. And I highlighted when I spoke to you all in our two-by-twos with George Washington, that's the school that we probably receive the highest number of securely alerts from, and that is our online Chromebook monitoring system. So we know that while some of their ratios may be lower or their different outcome data, we have a different level of need at that school with respect to self-harm. Rolling forward with student services and equity. As we and this was a board question that we were very happy to answer we talked about the professional learning you did hear an Extensive discussion that we were able to have about the social emotional academic
039learning pilot that's going on right now at three of our elementary schools We have a planned expansion, as Ms. Jackson and Ms. Wood spoke about during that presentation, to expand to three schools next year. It's reflected in the budget because we will utilize the Title IV grant funds that we are using this year. We're able to use that for year two of the pilot, of the ruler pilot, as we expand to hopefully six and maybe seven schools. When we push out, so not for this year's discussion, but as we project to year three and four, that's a likely request that will come to the board and say, we've seen success for these programs. We do need some additional funding to further them. But we're super lucky that for next year, we're still able to use
040our Title IV funds. Approximately $30,000 may go up to about $50,000 out of the Title IV. The $117.5 does include the equity funding that I just spoke about. So I will just take a moment to highlight some of the other areas, including. I'm saying the minority student achievement network it's very exciting that the Momentum of M San and the work that the students and the staff are doing is growing you'll hear from M San in the coming months our students will give a presentation and a report to you Unfortunately, we've been limited in some cases of who we can send to the conferences with our students and our staffs because the finite amount of money obviously But so we've asked for an increase and approximately $15,000 that we're going to be able to put towards
041MSAN funding to expand that program. We have wonderful examples on our as our school board student representatives serving on our MSAN student committee. Now moving on to goal six efficient and effective operations. We had two priorities underneath this goal improving customer relations relationship services and management and then implementation of the facilities audits. This one I'll turn it over to Dr. Hutchins. And I'm speaking on behalf of Dr. Hoover, who is our chief technology officer, who's not with us tonight. But I know that this was a very hot topic for us, and I'm so excited just to even see it in here. I know that Ms. Nolan is very excited about it, too. That call, Click Connect, she's always talking about it. But the... This is a centralized platform, as you all know, is needed to
042track and monitor responses to community concerns, suggestions, and questions. And the customer relations management system, also known as CRM, it will provide a streamlined platform and a process for the community as well as our staff to be able, it would also allow us to increase efficiencies, communications, as well as resolutions to issues that occur. The CRM would provide a routing mechanism to route concerns, suggestions to the appropriate department or the appropriate person so that we won't need an ombudsman and the board will not have to act like an ombudsman any longer for us. It will also allow us to have tools to monitor staff responses and resolutions to issues so when things are Concerns are addressed we can make sure that they have been addressed and when and what time what day how long it
043took We'll be able to also run reports and show Capabilities of the accountability as well as the transparency and will also allow us to have efficient methods to engage the community on projects such as like the new construction, budget initiatives, things that are major where we have community engagement involved in that. So looking to use the same platform, or we're looking to use the same platform as the city in order to provide some consistency for community, for the community, as well as to allow for easier cross communications between the city staff as well as the community. So this is in the budget, and in order to make that happen, There were some things that we had to decrease in regards to our technology resources so that we could have the funding to be able to
044do this. And some of the things were the additional hardware that we purchased. So, for example, when you're doing a replacement of things instead of doing it at. This period might extend it an additional year. Things of that nature, just taking some other methods instead of just purchasing all new material, just because right now we needed some materials. They're still working really well. We don't need to replace right now. So we went through that, and we're able to get some cost savings out of that additional hardware that will afford us the amount of dollars we're going to need to do this CRM initiative. We also wanted to make it very clear that... This is, and Dr. Hoover, she keeps reminding me every time we talk through this, it is a very collaborative effort because the
045CRM process, it has to be able to speak to our technology and speak to the equipment that we have, and we have to have the processes and the systems in place so that everything operates accordingly and that we don't have this great system, but we're still having the same issues or the same problems and people not getting their responses. So it is going to require us to have a cultural shift. So our goal, which we were really excited about when we met with the company this past December, was even though we haven't laid out the full communications plan, we did start doing some communications protocols in the fall. And that gave us just something to work with because before we really had nothing to work with, like what we were trying to strive for, like
046who would answer questions. If somebody has something about transportation, well, where does that go? If somebody has a question about a school, where does that go? So we had that set up or that protocol set up, and it allowed the company to have something that they can expand on to bring back to us to say, okay, these are the things you're trying to accomplish. Let us show you how our system can make it more efficient for you and can allow you to do all the things that I just outlined. So that is all forthcoming, which we're really excited about. So then piggybacking off of what Dr. Hutchins said about the decrease in the hardware to be able to provide the funding for the CRMS system. This happened throughout the central office where we reallocated the
047funds to be able to directly address the priorities of the school board members. The three departments that had the decreases were HR division-wide, finance, and technology services. We were able to decrease some of the expenditures in those three departments to be able to provide funding in the areas of curriculum and instruction, student services, facilities, and also be able to provide the $100,000 for the CRMS system. So let me go ahead and begin. As you know, we're transitioning to a new organizational structure and facilities to oversee the division, physical plant, and campus. The expenditures that are shown on the slide, if you look at the horizontal axis, are approximately 22 areas that we will fund to ensure optimal maintenance condition across all buildings and grounds. As you know, we maintain the grounds, and we also want
048to maintain the interiors of all facilities in a high state of excellence, cleanliness. Neatness and aesthetics so that we help support a first-class teaching and learning environment So you can see those expenditures there, but at the same time I also want to remind the board of the charge from dr. Hutchings which is to create a culture of proactive customer service using innovative approaches for facilities maintenance management programs We also want to instill a high regard for the use of integrated services and solutions to operate the physical plant in an efficient and effective manner. And we also want to, again, take care of our people because we supervise full-time, part-time, and contractor staff to take care of things. And as you know, we coordinate with just about everybody, schools and city officials, community organizations, PTA, so
049on and so forth. So we do a lot within the facilities and operations side. I think what's important to understand in this particular area, it mentions the operating budget, but we support the capital budget as well. So if we build it, we have to maintain it. So this represents some aspects of that, and it's certainly a dynamic and complex process. Again, those 22 areas are just, in my mind, represents a good category of what we do, but certainly not all that we do in facilities and operations. It's very complex. These are decentralized and distributed operations. The complexity is quite demanding. So we want to make sure that we have the right leadership and organizational structure to provide the optimum support to the division. So as we look at this slide and you see that the
05022 areas are there, I'd like to bring your attention to the left side, and I'll just briefly cover just a few highlights there. Number one, in the middle there you'll see the upgraded work order system request. There's some dollars that have been set aside for that effort. And, of course, the work order system allows you to manage your maintenance request. What's good about this is that we're making an investment that connects with the customer, right, or for the people who need the service the most. And I just got some great help from the CFO today and his procurement office in looking at the use of, again, some of our regional partners, other districts, right, and what software solutions they have, what contracts are they having, and might we get a better vendor, if you will,
051right, to provide, again, an awesome work order system. The 61K for communications and equipment is targeted at least to support some of it within safety and security. Certainly during any crisis or emergency situations, the number one challenge is communications. The number one challenge in any emergency is communications. So if you can make this investment, it's going to be well used for a good purpose. And then on the distributed and antenna system at TC Williams, this will help us communicate with inside the building. As you know, when you're in the building, you can't use these phones. And certainly in a crisis situation, you want to at least have that capability. So we're going to work on, again, expanding our ability to communicate. Because if we can communicate, we can solve a lot of problems and respond
052even more quickly to crisis and emergency. So I'll close out with that. Turn it over to Dominic. He's going to then take us through the timeline. So again to this point we've gone all the way to our work session number two tomorrow we'll be posting the responses to the school board budget questions and then we will have to add delete sessions before we get to the Adopt or the approval of the school board budget on February 20th after February 20th, there'll be a little uh lull in the process until we uh get the city council's approved budget so we know what uh city appropriation that we'll have for acps and then we'll be right back here to go through for the final budget adoption on june 4th Before we go into questions, I just want
053to thank our team who is actually here tonight, as well as our team who wasn't able to make it this evening, because this is a collaborative effort and it's something that I share with our senior leaders quite often. Yes, this says the superintendent's budget, but this is our budget. This is not the superintendent's budget. And in order for us to make sure that we're serving our students and that we are ensuring that we have. the right perspectives and area of expertise at the table, we have to have opportunities like this for department chiefs as well as our executive directors and directors to be able to communicate with the board and to share why certain things are in the budget as well as to answer the questions that you all may have this evening. So with
054that said, let's open the floor for questions if Madam Chair is ready. Okay, Ms. Gentry. Thank you so much and thank you to... Dr. Hutchings, thanks for all of the work that's gone into this. So, Madam Chair, I have two completely separate questions. I can ask them both at once, or I can ask one and then the other. Sorry, I was asking Ms. Green if she had a question. To put her on the list. You want to do two questions? So it's your choice. So I have two completely separate questions, but then I'll be done. Go ahead. Okay, great. So first question, if we go to slide five. So I understand because it's actually not necessarily the part that our staff works with the most, but I think it might be one of the areas
055that I think our community is interested in, and I think it's an area that is kind of confusing because of the way the money flows through. I was wondering if you all could just spend a few minutes to talk about the Virginia Preschool Initiative, just how that works. in what part ACPS does it. And I know you all put it on this slide because you're seeing that connection between VPI and the K2 literacy. Yes, so as far as the funding mechanism the state funds of 75% of this and then we have to have a cash match of the other percent to be able to support that program if we don't then we would obviously lose that funding from the state as far as the programmatic aspect of preschool I'll let dr. Mazingo answer the programmatic
056aspect Well, and I'll just kind of restate one aspect of it. In terms of how do we utilize the dollars? Yeah, I think, honestly, I think there are some people that don't understand. I mean, they might expect to see all that money literally happening in an ACPS building, right? Right. And I think there's a lot of confusion around VPI and how it works and how VPI exists in the city of Alexandria. Right. Okay, so we actually have a partnership with four private vendors, CFNC, Alive, Caponia, and there's one more. But actually the VPI funding, some of the funding is provided. for our ACPS programs that we have in our schools, and some of the other funding is provided to families of those students who are VPI students in those private partners. For example, CFNC, we
057have a number of students that participate, and that money actually follows those students. Is that, yeah? It does. Like I said, I just, when we have this big budget book, we publish it. VPI shows up, and I think it's helpful for people to understand that the reality is there's only a certain amount that's going to be directly managed and happening in an ACPS building. But I would also, again, just what you can say about the connections that you see between the pre-K learning and how that drives the K-2 literacy, which is what the board indicated was the priority. Absolutely. So one of the areas of the sharedness has to do with just the curriculum. For example, in the private providers that I mentioned, as well as the ACPS providers, we all use the same creative
058curriculum. That's one of the areas. Another area of shared outcomes is that the private providers and our teachers also participate in professional development. One example was trauma-informed care. Another area is that when we worked with the cross-sectional group, we all developed this glass door concept, which is whether you are at CFNC, whether you're at Alive, whether you're at the Early Childhood Center, a part of our school system. Those families, when they come to register, we actually, and all of those providers, we provide them information not only about the VPI programs housed within our school system, but they also get information about those other providers. What we're really trying to do, particularly as a part of the Smart Beginnings, which is the group that also supports this collaborative partnership, is to really be able to provide
059this seamless support. services, professional development, and alignment. In addition to that, one of our next steps is to look at our third grade performance data as a team with those private providers and our providers and to really see what are some other strategies that can be put in place to not only foster... developmental aspects of children, but also literacy. So there's really a real alignment to make sure that we are working together to meet the needs of young children, and particularly when they enter third grade. That's great. Thank you. I appreciate, like I said, just that fuller understanding of BPI. So my second question is actually related to slide eight. And speaking about the translator services, which I think we're all really excited about, one thing that I do want to hear from the staff
060on, and I understand that not all of the staff is here, so maybe this might end up being more of a follow-up question, but it's wonderful when we can make sure that at a given meeting... The fleet of translators is there for all of those languages. But I think I certainly as a school board member, and I'm sure some of my fellow school board members have experienced this as well, that sometimes you go to a meeting and they're all there and nobody's using it. And I don't know what's happening there. Is there, so it... As wonderful it is to provide this service, if no one's actually utilizing it, we need to think about that. I mean, you know, that's, I don't want to say it's wasted money, but in some ways, if no one's actually
061utilizing it, what we need to do is figure out what is the barrier? Is it that people don't understand? No, really and truly, there will be a translator. This will be how it works. Is it that... The experience for the people that have done, you know, have actually put those headphones on and used the translator is, you know, there are some difficulties in that way that we don't understand. So I just, I want to highlight this because while I'm in general excited about the idea of investing this money, I want to make sure that it actually achieves the goal that the money is being put for. So I will have us to follow up, but I do know some have a response for the question because we talked about this recently. And one is the
062fact that, you know, we have to find different ways of engaging the population that we typically don't see at different events that we have. What we have noticed, and I can say that there's only been one event that I have actually facilitated. that had the translators actually being utilized. It really, I mean, that I can think of. Now, it may have been more, but the one that I can think of was the one that we had in December. It was a superintendent's chat, and the outreach was a little different. The outreach was in certain languages. We contacted all of the main people in our Arabic-speaking, Amharic-speaking, Spanish-speaking communities to get the word out. So we got different people. And what we learned from that was that if we make sure that we are communicating with
063the right individuals who are part of these communities, then we're going to see more turnout. We also found that we have to make sure, and this was one of the reasons why you'll see some increases in this proposed budget in regards to services like... Childcare services like food services like transportation because those are things that prevent some of our barriers that prevent some of our families to join us in some of these events and then we have to be creative and how we do our events too because You know, everybody can't make a six or seven o'clock meeting on a weekday. You know, we have to start thinking of Saturday which I know people don't like to do Saturdays, but if we want to start engaging a certain community We're gonna have to have some
064flexibility to to have some of these families come out at different times so those are some of the things efforts that we're going to be making and We were trying to prepare for the addition Because we're now going to be making these additional efforts targeted efforts for these families Okay, I think mr. Lorber has one more point to make as I just asked as a special favor to be able to respond to you and to reinforce what you're just saying because you know that was my work for ten years nine years with the school system First of all back in the day when I started at we held always on Saturdays our workshops were on Saturdays We did them in three languages. We always had a an Amaric presenter Arabic and us and I would
065flip to Spanish and they would do a market Arabic But we always did it on Saturdays because parents told us that's what they wanted and it's you know It is it takes more work But I think the answer to your question is which you just pointed at that when we do the outreach We get the response and in fact schools that have taken advantage Schools have held PTA meetings in four languages or other kinds of meetings in four languages, but it is a matter of people being aware that they can do it and then having Taking the time to do the outreach with regard to this in Amharic though division-wide person That's a little different. That's that person actually is doing a lot of one-on-one We're supplying division-wide people so that schools can know on
066Monday and Tuesday There's going to be an Amharic speaking currently as on at my school and that person just is so important But again, I mean, I agree with you totally on one thing, that it can seem wasteful. And one of the things when we instituted having what we call a language access coordinator, which we now have a full-time person, it was amazing the number of requests for interpretation. It was getting very expensive. And we started creating some rules about how far in advance. And in fact, what we typically do try to do is... Make you know base it on a request say to people interpretation available in various languages Upon request, but I think the reason you'll see some meetings is Because sometimes the federal guideline you know the guidelines are saying make this
067meeting available And then you want to do that. It's kind of like publishing something in the register or putting something in the paper when you're sort of required to make it available. And then you just do it even though it is very expensive. But those are some of the, you know, put your finger on it. Well, thank you. I certainly hope I wasn't coming across as like wanting to cut this. It was me wanting to see this money fully utilized. So, yeah, thank you. Thanks, okay, I have miss Alderton And I think everybody can do like your top two and then we'll have two questions and then we'll go back around Yes, because Cindy knows that I have multiples. She told me to first then get back in line So I'll do my two and
068they are curriculum instruction questions First of all, I'm excited about the bringing on map. I think that's really awesome. So My question is, how many schools will be starting with it? Because $125,000, is that enough to start everybody? Or are we selecting specific schools to start? And then the add-on to that is, does the cost include regular training and coaching during implementation? Because I think one of the things like MAP is... Sorry map is pretty dense so people will have to learn like to use it and pull out the data they want So that's one question. Oh, okay I'm glad to see that you are in, you, I hope everyone is in support of MAP, but we are, if there are additional funds for MAP, we'll have to look within our existing budget to be
069able to support that. We do have a staff member that is responsible and that will provide the leadership. for the implementation of the MAP program. We will also work closely with, one of the things we discussed this afternoon and from past experience is about. how you leverage more support from the companies. So one of the things is if this moves through is that we will get additional support from the company to assist us with the implementation. We will also develop a comprehensive implementation plan where we can also monitor the outcome. So to answer your question, if there are additional, we have an amount. that we're proposing. If there are additional amounts, we will have to look within existing funds to be able to provide that because there is a commitment to implement MAP. And then
070in addition, we'll have a staff member that will provide leadership. In addition to that, we will also train our school-based interventionists. That's the nice part of having that model now is to be able to have additional resources that we can train, that can go out and provide support to schools because we know that the schools will need a tremendous amount of support. And in addition to what Dr. Mozingo has said, I just wanted to point out that we do have schools that are implementing MAP this year. So the $125,000 is to accommodate all of the other schools that did not implement this year. So we had some pilot schools this year. So all of our Title I schools, we piloted them this year. And what we're going to be able to do with that is
071because they've now had, you know, eight months. Meaning these title our title one schools had eight months administering map Getting the training because there's professional learning that goes along with the administration of it And as well as a support that comes from map that supports our NWEA that supports our schools that we will be able to use some of our internal staff to provide training Because one thing that we have had constant discussions about And changing our philosophy and how we deliver professional learning is by using our own staff Because we have people who are one we have natural teachers natural facilitators people who just know how once they learn how to do something they can just show other people and We we've learned that we get a lot more buy-in when our own staff
072is saying this is how we use this assessment this is what our you know common planning time meetings look like with our staff this is how we use this data and we'll be able to utilize um that as well thank you um because i just want to make sure you have what you need and then um The other question I had was on the consumables. So you had 20K allotted for consumables, and you did talk about needing to reallocate some funds. So I just wanted clarity because, again, that seems like a low number. I could be wrong, though. But it's actually the exact number, what it would cost. Because remember, the other grades, we actually have those already within the budget, so we'll receive those materials on an annual basis. So we just need to
073purchase the second and third grade. And that is the actual cost for purchasing those materials. And we'll provide professional development with a consultant from the company to provide the support for our teachers. Ms. Thornton? Thank you, um just thinking about the whole translators conversation I got me thinking a little bit about the parent liaisons, and I know that One was added at Pope this year and three division-wide from my understanding But I am just curious about the thought process and whether or not you all are considering adding parent liaisons at every elementary school I have heard from one parent at a school that doesn't have one and really wants one and I'm just you know, maybe the the top spoken second language at that school. Maybe we should have a parent liaison there in that
074language. I don't know. I'm just curious if you can kind of just talk about if that's a possibility and maybe it's not needed. But if so, that would be good to know as well. Question one. So one of the conversations that happened during the budget. during the budget process was that very question and some of the things that came out of that and I'm sure that Mr. Huffman could be able to articulate this better so we'll follow up after he reviews this meeting and says you left out something if I leave out something. So I'm hoping I get it right, Mr. Huffman. So one thing that we discussed is the fact that our division-wide liaisons, so when we have schools that are in need of a particular service, then that is how we utilize our
075division-wide liaisons at our different schools. What we have to do a better job of is being very strategic in how that works. So we may have to in the future say on this particular day, this is where you go at this school and make sure we're informing our families about that because some of our schools, the percentage is not high enough to really have a full-time person there all day, every day. So we get into situations where then... schools use that person for something else and they're not doing, you know, the job that they've been hired to do. And then we get those, you know, not complaints from the staff, but concerns that, you know, I'm doing something I wasn't hired to do. And I feel like that's consuming my time and not what I
076was hired to do. So we're trying to prevent us from having liaisons consistently when we don't need. particularly that liaison consistently the schools that need them every single day have them um but we do have to work through how do we do shared services of our parent liaisons right now but we're still working through as you'll see when we do our um Our presentation on February 20th to the board we are going to be working through an action plan and a part of that action plan is building capacity Of staff that we have at our current schools to see what are some things that we can do to help us like when we're doing our hiring at schools we need to make sure we're hiring people who speak certain languages, especially if it's a dominant
077language at a school or that you know one of our dominant World languages at a particular school hiring either office staff or hiring, you know administrators or hiring teachers who also speak that language to help us so we can rely on staff members at the school to provide some of these services as well. But I will follow up with a written explanation from Mr. Huffman. If I may, thank you. And my second, it's really more of a comment or thought. On slide 10, you talk a lot about the rewards and recognition that you want to give to employees as additional incentives that go beyond just compensation and benefits. And just some things that I've heard, I think it's really important, and I don't know if it's the case or not, but that the reward system
078be very holistic in how they evaluate the types of rewards that should be given and to whom. I think the fear is that some rewards can be given to folks just based on assessments and those whose kids get the highest scores in a certain subject. And I just want to make sure that we're recognizing folks for all the many different types of efforts and work that go into educating our kids, whether it's our teachers that teach our special ed students or whatever. But I was just hoping that you could just kind of publicly talk about what are some of the things and indicators that you look at when thinking about these types of awards and grants to give to people in the schools. whether they're teachers or not. So one of the things that we
079started last year was having our support staff award, and that's just something that came to mind initially for me because we didn't have any awards for support staff, and our support staff were really excited about the fact that they could be acknowledged for their work. It wasn't something that was related to, you know, students achieving at high levels in the classroom. You know, it was really about, you know, effort. commitment, dedication, things that are just unique about individuals within our schools. And it was a huge hit. And that's why we have it again this year. We're not getting rid of the support staff awards. But that's just one example of some of the things that we're doing. What we're going to have to do is really talk with our staff. around what are ways that
080we can acknowledge you and what are some of the reasons why we should acknowledge you. And that's something that comes out of the customer service work that we will be doing through HR. You know, sometimes I think we try to come up with certain solutions and then we miss the mark because we never ask the source to say, well, what is it that you all think we should be looking at? And I think that is the piece where a lot of our employees feel that we don't ever ask. Like we just give them things or we say we're going to do this new initiative and they're like, okay, that's nice. But you didn't ask if that's what we really wanted. So I think that our work through our customer service initiative is going to help
081us to identify other awards as well as recognition opportunities. But Dr. Wilkins, you may want to elaborate. I was just going to add that sometimes the simple things matter the most. And as we move towards creating a culture of service and creating a culture of caring, just saying thank you. Thank you, Thursdays. Thank you, Thursdays. And encouraging our leaders to find someone out there to thank. Just say you did a good job. It goes quite a way. Another way that's a no-cost way is tell their stories. There have been a few stories that have been published in the Insider about some of the backgrounds of our support staff. More of that, more of that kind of recognition that says, wow, I didn't know this person had all that background. Tell their stories. It's a good
082way to recognize them. And Dr. Honchich mentioned the aspect of include them in. Things that matter right well one of the things that matters what's going on in their workplace so for example if you're in the school if You're the principal invite that person right that could study whoever right into your operational meetings Maybe five minutes maybe ten minutes, but invite them to your meetings I ask them how they're doing any suggestions on how to make the school a little bit better right make them feel more part of the of the organization in this case of school or central office or some department right goes a long way to making people feel inclusive and most of all wanted thank you next I have miss green Thank You chair Anderson question number one Dr. Mozingo, you
083spoke of a partnership with Act for Alexandria, DCHS, and there was one other group that I did not catch, but to provide and sustain services for our neediest students and families. And there was a, you talked of a data component. So if you could talk to how Act for Alexandria is in this partnership and also what type of data we're collecting on these families. Is that Smart Beginnings? Okay. So the group, again, it was at one point called Early Care and Education Work Group, and now they have become affiliated with Smart Beginnings, which is actually a national association. But the three groups are ACPS as well as the Department of Community and Human Services with the city council office. So it's Kate Garvey's office. Kate's office, right. So that's the other group. The other is
084that I know that the work group has had several priorities, this work group over the past few years. One priority I mentioned earlier was the glass doors priority. The other priority was system alignment. The other priority was collaborative professional development. The other priority is to look at... data and one of the things that Dr. Page, soon to be Dr. Page, but right, Clint is in the back, but he actually worked with Smart Beginnings and actually provided an overview of some of our data, and particularly in terms of some of our PALS data, some of how our third graders are doing, because they had a real interest in the results that are occurring within the school division and how they could provide more support. So there's actually a bucket that's associated with Smart Beginnings that is
085looking at data. So the next one of the things that we mentioned just recently in one of the meetings, because they're getting ready to have a retreat and kind of reaffirm the past, but also identify some new priorities. But one of the priorities that will remain will be looking at data and helping. For example, we really need their support in looking at our third grade data to see if there are some other strategies that could occur in some of those providers that could help. ensure that children are better prepared when they enter kindergarten. So that's what that is, is to look at data. Thanks for that, because I was in the meeting that we had with Smart Beginnings, and another piece that they mentioned, that the research shows that students who are engaged in preschool,
086that they will have higher reading ability levels by the time they get to third grade because they have those foundational skills. prior to entering kindergarten. And then research also shows that students who are engaged in preschool, that on the first day of kindergarten, we will see a narrowed achievement gap. Because if you don't have a preschool experience or some type of educational experience prior to kindergarten, you start off already behind all of your peers. So we want to be able to validate that. the preschool initiative and the preschool work is really having an impact on those students and trying to follow their data. And it's going to take us, because we're looking at longitudinal data, so you're looking at three to five years of data, but it's going to, as we start to collect it,
087it's going to allow us to really validate what's working and what's not and what are some things that we may need to tweak or discontinue based on those results. Okay, my second question, Dr. Crawford. In regards to equity and the work being done, extra money being requested, and I very much appreciate the continual focus that we have on equity, but I was wondering, from a standpoint of collaboration, and I know the city is doing a lot around equity as well, hiring the new equity officer, and I sit with you on Children, Youth, and Families Commission, and I know there's always a report out from the city. from the schools, but what are we doing collaboratively to kind of have like a one Alexandria equity initiative? And I kind of stole that from Fairfax, but it
088sounds good. So what are we doing together to form a collaborative equity initiative? Well, some of the work that led to the position in Alexandria and the partnership that we're doing through GEAR, through Government Alliance, Race and Equity, came from each of the departments in the city doing independent work. And really trying to unify and spearheaded by Deborah Collins and some other groups so one of the ways that we do Collaborate monthly and this is just one example is that we have the city school staff group you all have your city schools meeting and we have reps from most of the Cities departments as well as from the school system mr. Huffman and I are on there Sometimes dr. Mazzin go attends. It depends on what is on there on the agenda and one of
089our standing items is equity So we're able to talk as a group of what is going on your area Are there opportunities that we could work on together when not one thing that gear is? Is helping us with and a sneak preview to your February 6th training Is looking at different racial equity guides and questions to ask as you're doing policies as you're developing? Regulations as you're making major decisions And so we're trying to do that within our city school staff group of bringing some of those ideas and asking the harder questions There is already an existing city equity group that meets regularly and our rep miss Robinson has been on it for I think four years So the city has had that piece and they've invited us and we've been able to collaborate, but
090it's continuing to push the work forward. We're very lucky with the person who they were able to hire for their position. She leads the GARE work that we're participating in now. So we have relationships and have been building that. It's a very good question. And we look at a number of different ways. I'll just give you one other example is the unified planning process. So one of the things when we come together, we have the Children Youth Master Plan, we have the city's Community Health Improvement Plan, and then we have the ACPS 2025. And so stakeholders from each of those areas, and it's led by Dr. Page in the back and some of the others. If only your doctorate was that easy, right? Dr. Mozingo anoints you, and then you're done. But it is using,
091making sure that, number one, it's just communication. And looking at... areas that we can have themes throughout each in action plans and our action steps throughout each of our plans so that we are one Alexandria and you don't have one message that the school system is delivering and then the health department has no idea what you're talking about and housing isn't up to date on those conversations etc so it's really it's the conversations that then force the question of will this impact any of the other groups what's what are the ramifications for decisions and we're trying to use our existing meeting structures to have those conversations and push the work. So it's not another meeting and a check the box. It's where are we getting the work done. And one of those areas, we have
092the unified planning, the city schools staff group, and then they're already existing equity team. Ms. Nolan. Thank You chair Anderson thank you so much everyone for the presentation really excited to discuss the upcoming budget so actually have two comments and then my first round of questions are going to be around the curriculum instruction so thank you dr. Mazinga my two comments I wanted to say first is that I really appreciate the translation discussion I just also felt like it should be noted too that people will tend to make the effort if it's a conversation that they find it matches their needs so I know that December when you mentioned the equity So you can imagine why that was a diverse group of people came because it feels like they speak to them But I remember
093my very very first PTA meeting like, I don't know, it's 12, 14 years ago, one of the main topics of conversation is should we print tardy sheets on blue paper or yellow paper? Which is fine. I mean, it was like a quick discussion. But I'm just saying that especially if you're a lower income, non-English speaking parent. Two jobs. Yeah, two jobs. I mean, I think sometimes those that particularly come from a more middle class or upper middle class background, they really feel like you're getting a gold star as a parent if you show up to a PTA meeting. and you're showing the community that you care, and you can have the time and the mind space to be involved in those discussions like the bake sale and things of that nature. But if you're a
094struggling parent and English is difficult for you to understand and or you don't feel perhaps like this culture is new to you as well as you have two jobs, then it might not really speak to you some of the topics that get put on. So I think also in addition to what everyone else said in terms of translation services. are being offered is are we providing and surveying the parents as to what would speak to their needs. And so it's not surprising that the December one with equity was the conversation that that's when we had. So I just wanted to put that out there too, that we just want to be mindful of like that we're not guessing what parents are interested in what they'd come out for, but more about like where can we
095meet their needs. And like you said, the food is super critical if you're going to engage like a lot of families, things like that. So I just want to throw that was one comment. And the second comment I wanted to share was I'm so thrilled to hear about the Young Scholars program being in every elementary school. That's really exciting and I think going to be a huge benefit to many of our students. So anyways, just two comments I wanted to share. My questions in terms of the curriculum instructions sort of fall into two areas of focus. One is the data that you were sharing. And then the other I'm really curious about, especially with I'm thrilled that K2 literacy is such an area of focus. You know, I just, I think, as we all know,
096the data all states that if by third grade the literacy rate really matters, and it's shocking and scary how many states determine how many jails they're going to need in the future based on the third grade literacy scores. So I think that's really important. With regards to the literacy and the methodology we've used, I know I've spoken years before to ask you about the phonics and what we're doing with that, but, like, with all the recent discussion that's come out about, you know, The two methodologies, either being phonics or the meaning syntax visual philosophy, I mean, I think we have geared more towards a Lucy Calkins version, don't we? And it's sort of a mixed bag as to what results that philosophy provides. I'm just curious about where do we stand from a philosophical standpoint
097about with K2 being our literacy, where do we think... has the best results for our students and are we measuring those results and the investments we're making in K-2 literacy? Okay, thank you for asking that question. Yes, we are implementing the Lucy Calkins materials. As you will recall, last year was a year that we, you with your support, we received the funding to be able to purchase a lot of those materials from Teachers College K-5. So the way I would answer that, too, is that one of the, what we've also been able to do, and we'll need to continue to make this happen, we need to continue to provide a lot of professional development for our classroom teachers utilizing all of those materials. Also, as a part of what was adopted last year, we did
098adopt Words Their Way, which is not like explicit direct instruction in phonics, but it does include a... a focus on phonics. Now, I'm not sure what, it would be interesting, it's going to be interesting to see what is the recommendation out of the actual committee that is working. Because number one, what we've discovered is that we still need to provide more support on how to implement all of those materials in our balanced literacy framework, which has guided reading, word study, comprehension. really providing more training for teachers in utilizing those materials. Our system has not... Our approach is balanced literacy, and there's a place for phonics. There's a place for comprehension. There's a place for guided reading. There's a place for literature. So that is still our focus. I really believe personally also having a master's
099in reading. What I've learned over the years is that it is about building the skill set of the classroom teacher. I also think the... having the redesign of the job descriptions for the coaches and the interventionists, I think those are resources that can really help build more support for reading and literacy. Also, in talking with Terry Warner recently, we are considering looking at trying to see if we can start a professional development program to have more teachers become certified in the area of reading. So that would also help us, particularly at the elementary level, but also at the high school level. So I don't know if there's answers. Our approach is a mixed approach. So there is some direct explicit instruction, but there's also some approach to the literature and all those other areas that
100I mentioned. Because even with a direct explicit instructional program, correct reading, for example, you have to make sure there's a lot of training for teachers, right, and a lot of training. And I do think with all the professional development, and I do believe that over time we will see increased results with the use of these materials, with the use of the professional development. And that was the revision of our curriculum. We made a lot of revisions in the curriculum, too. I appreciate that, because that was my question about what is the philosophy of how we're addressing the K-2 literacy. And then how are we measuring the success of it? Like, you're saying you're going to look over time. Like, what is your game plan? Is it like a two-year, three-year, five-year plan? And you're going
101to use what data to decide whether or not the investments of the textbooks last year and the strategy are the right direction for the system? Well, we'll continue to use PALS. That'll be the phonological assessment system, which is what the teachers spoke about the other day. We'll continue to, and I think ultimately one of the goals is looking at our third grade reading results. That's one of the goals, our SOLs. Another area that we will look at terms and see how our students are progressing even in social studies because we're developing more strategies to support literacy. through social studies. So we'll use the PALS. We still have the Fontas and Pinnell, and we'll have the PAL and the Fontas and Pinnell, along with the third grade results. And I know some of the schools have
102other assessments that they use, but those are our primary assessments that we will use to determine some of the outcomes. I know recently, Dr. Mozingo, you were sharing with me that our K-2 literacy committee that we are forming is going to do an assessment of all the different balanced literacy models that we're using throughout the school division. Because right now what we have is a situation where schools are using different things. So it's hard to monitor the progress if... you're using different forms of assessment when we're trying to see how the division does as a whole. So what we're going to have to, you know, if we're saying that as a school division we believe in balanced literacy, then we need to determine, okay, well, what balanced literacy program are we going to use, right,
103division-wide, and what will those assessments look like so that we can begin to, you know, progress or monitor the progress of our students. But I know we are in the beginning stages of that. Because the goal is that I know at the end of this year I'm going to be receiving a recommendation from Dr. Mozingo and the K2 Literacy Task Force around how we're narrowing down all the different balanced literacy programs and what is going to be our brand. Like, what are we going to use? So a part of the strategic plan, and this came out of our strategic planning initiative when we were looking at our data. A part of the KPIs, key performance indicators that we're looking at, one deals with our balanced literacy, you know, like, and how are we going to
104measure? What is the measuring tool going to be? Because it can't just be balanced literacy. We have to make sure we're identifying specifically what program and what assessment. So that team is going to be able to help do that for us. So you should be hearing more about that next year, because I know I'm getting that recommendation in June. I don't know if it's probably going to be after the time when the board goes to recess, but that will be a part of next year's focus areas when we're talking about metrics and monitoring progress. That actually leads me to my second question, which is, so with regards to the PALS, yeah, that was the second one. So the regard with the PALS, do we assess all of our schools and their PALS? Let me try
105to get this one. So I've always been curious about understanding how the feeder schools are working to support each other. So for example, do we have a strong sense of our kindergarten PAL scores and sort of like... how that's related to the percentage of how many of those kindergarten students went to preschool so that we know who to target from a communication standpoint, certain neighborhoods or schools where we want to encourage more young people who don't have access or currently are attending preschool. Do we make that connection of attendance of preschool versus PAL score and just understanding the neighborhoods and where to target and perhaps have a communication marketing plan? in conjunction with the city maybe that's not so much an ACPS but like do we have a sense of that I hope that make
106that question makes sense but like and also with the PAL scores do we look at the PAL scores via subgroups meaning like do we have a handle on you know this particular You know profile of a student is where we should really be embracing them quickly as a in the kindergarten ages because we've seen You know longitudinal data showing us that that's a particular profile of student that we really need to focus on right away And let's get that going and maybe put more resources in from a budgetary perspective So for example, do we have a sense that let's say ELL students in particular scored Let's say twice below and I'm just obviously making that up another profile of student, in which case we want to, from a budgetary standpoint, maybe infuse other support services
107in kindergarten to skyrocket that literacy PALS rate. Again, I hope that all made sense. If it doesn't, I apologize. So we do have access. We do have the PALS data for kindergarten, first and second grade, and that data is available for all of our schools. We also have one of the goals, as I said earlier, in working with the Early Care and Education Work Group, which is now Smart Beginnings, is to be able to see. to be able to backwards map some of that so that we can get more support from that group in terms of what are some of the skills that they should focus on early on that will make a difference in our PALS results. We also know that there are some areas, for example, that some strands that stand out in
108the Letter Sound Association. Alphabet recognition. We already know, and this team was talking about that the other day, some of the strands that are assessed first semester versus second semester. in the difference in terms of the results. So to answer your question, yes, yes, yes, but to also answer your question is that this group is going to be looking at all of that. They actually, the PALS is a state assessment, and so there are some that have concerns about the PALS versus some other assessments such as DIBELS. That's another assessment to get a sense of how children are performing. It could be... that this committee could recommend another assessment. What we do see, though, is that first semester results on PALS versus second semester sometimes is a little bit different in terms of they've made
109progress. But even the committee was... was discussing the other day even about the timeline as to when PALS is administered. So I think out of this group we'll get some really good feedback. One of the reasons we asked the principals, we asked them to also identify exemplary teachers in classrooms that were already getting great results. that could help us as a school division understand more about what was going on in those classrooms that would make a difference. Your pre-K question, we have not... That's one of the goals that should come out of that data work group is to look at how the pre-k Students in those different centers how they are performing particularly so we can track that'll be a part of that data work group is to better track the performance of those students
110in the various Pre-k centers that'd be great. No, that's gonna really help inform us and also just be interesting too from like working with face like how many Students who are three years old on four-year-olds are siblings of current ACPS parents that we have access to again Just encouraging the importance of pre-k is I just don't know if maybe some at some point we want to think about like a marketing Aspect or something to encourage they and speak to folks in a way that resonates with them as to why this is something they want to pursue I just be curious at some point. That could be a later conversation But there's a lot of power in this, in that, in Smart Beginnings in terms of that cross-functional group because for them to see this is
111what occurs when they get to third grade. So what else? How can we backwards map this and what are some additional supports for three-year-olds, four-year-olds that would make a difference so they can be successful once they enter school, particularly kindergarten? Thank you. Okay, Ms. Alderson had actually a comment about Ms. Nolan's first question. I'm sorry, and I don't want to beat a dead horse, but, and it's not really, I just want to say, you know, that reading issue is an equity issue. And so one of the things that, you know, I will sort of ride until I die on is the importance of appropriate reading instruction. We have gotten away from the actual science of reading. And what that has caused, I think, are these major inequities that we have for our kids who, you
112know, just didn't come from homes who, you know, those skills were taught or who just need that foundation. I've been in way too many rooms where you're meeting about fourth and fifth graders or third graders and everybody's like, oh, my goodness, this kid can't read, this kid can't read. They must need special ed. And then I say, no, has this child been taught how to read? And then you put them with a specialist who deals with phonemic awareness, phonemic awareness, decoding skills, spelling, handwriting, and all of a sudden kids move, you know, six months in a couple of weeks. We have got to get this right with our population that we serve. This is critical. And so I'm just, you know, as much as I can say, you know, I'm really interested in seeing what
113this task force comes back with because we have got to change this, you know. And I will say Lucy Calkins herself has said that her program isn't everything. It's only one component. So if that doesn't tell us something, we have got to get it right. And the science is out there. It can be done. I'm ready to do it because I think it will just change the trajectory for so many of our kids. So just had to get that out because I'm passionate about that. It was good for you to get that out for all of us. Next I have Mr. Suarez. Well first amend to that My first question actually or bucket of questions was on the same topic because I really want to push on this issue very hard and we're all I
114think the board is all aligned on this that this is this is a crucial issue k2 12 literacy or k2 literacy Obviously k2 12 also very important So but but I but I think but that's exactly the point which is that nailing K to 2, all the research shows, is so critical for nailing it K to 12. And so I want to push a little bit harder, and I'll start with the NWEA and eventually get to my question in a circuitous way. So I, first of all, want to say I love the recommendation for NWEA. That was something I used with my sixth graders when I taught. The reports are very robust. The data is really useful. It's a really good program. I initially had questions about the scope. It sounds like it is going
115to be rolled out division-wide. It sounds like we started in Title I schools, and now we're going to expand it out. It sounds like we're going to have a license to be able to use it throughout the division. So I'm not worried about those types of questions. And one of the things I thought was useful about NWEA when I was in the classroom is it's the type of assessment where you don't have to shut down your whole classroom and lessons to be able to administer it because it's on the computer. You can have one student at a time or two students at a time working on it. And so it's not disruptive in the way perhaps like the SOLs are where you've got to have a week and you've got to shut everything down in
116terms of instruction and things like that. So I think it's a great, great program. But what I want to push on is some of the things that... I think all of my colleagues have been saying, which is really getting to that alignment. We're really trying to be strategic as a board to think about how we can align everything to the strategic plan. Dr. Hutchings, you already alluded to the KPIs that need to come out of the strategic plan. I'm really encouraged by the conversation that's already happened around the buy-in for the NWEA, getting teacher investment, all those sorts of things. But what I'm really concerned about is that... know we need the right data to hold ourselves accountable for to miss alderton's point the instruction and making sure that the instruction is actually happening um
117so i i and so to me i feel like we have you know thinking from a systems approach we have Sort of three things that are happening first we have you know for our highest and I'm focusing on our highest needs students Obviously we don't have universal pre-k, but we have you know VPI and you know pre-k for our highest highest needs kids I know that As of a couple of two or three years ago there wasn't even a much alignment across the pre-k you provided in the division and that the early care and education work group was formed. There's actually conversations now that happened between Campagna and some of the various you know providers of pre-k so that there is more alignment but you know that's sort of one piece of the puzzle right.
118We have a lot of different providers working. We're striving for more alignment there. Then we have this K-2 literacy group that we're forming that's focused on the K-2. But the reality is, and correct me if I'm wrong, of course. But most of the data, even with the NWEA, that we're going to have starts at the second grade level, right? We have the second grade data. Dr. Mozingo, you've mentioned the third grade data. So we have that. But third grade is too late. That's what the data shows. If you can't read in third grade, it's really hard. And then, as Ms. Alderton alluded to, sometimes people are assumed to have special needs when they don't. And other problems result from that. So what I really want to push on with... my question is, you know, what
119is the thinking around, you know, really working backwards from the data that we're going to get from NWEA, assuming there's buy-in, assuming there's investment, all those sorts of things, and how are we going to then work backwards to sort of think about what is the data we need from our pre-K providers, you know, to the extent that Kids are coming into K and ACPS, and how are we making sure that that data is used and aligned with the reading program we're doing? And then same goes for K to 2. If we have the PALS data, how many data points do we have for that? How are we making sure that... you know, to Ms. Alderton's point again, like how is that reading instruction is happening, that there is, you know, progress in terms of the
120pillars of the, if we're using the balanced literacy framework, you know, understanding how progress is being made along each of the pillars of the balanced literacy framework and so on. So I know that's kind of a meta question, but I'm really concerned that, you know, we might have different groups and... want to make sure those are all talking together to just sort of get that alignment and get us to the strongest place we can. So I think this kind of builds from all the other points on that. So that's my first question. And I have two as well, so it seems like we all have two. Well, let me see. So, okay. So... That's a big question. So you're right, we do have PALS. So let me kind of tell a little story. We have,
121for the past, maybe the past few months, we have a data team that has been formed. And, okay, the data team includes different individuals, and they've been working for the past several months. And we've asked schools, for example, to identify all the various data sources that they are utilizing. The purpose is to streamline the data sources. But first we had to survey the land to get a sense of all of the different data sources. So now the goal for next school year is to be able to, as a part of that process, we'll provide some training for the principals. But a part of that process is to, particularly in the area of literacy, and we talked a little bit even about this today, is to the PALS kindergarten. first grade, second grade, and along with...
122the results that we'll get from the MAP is to utilize that as one of our primary sources of data that we are looking at along with the schools, along with the coaches, and really putting in a process by which we are analyzing all of that and looking at. We even talked today about instructional implications. What are the instructional implications? I think that we now will have, with MAP and with the schools. What we looked at today and with everything that's available for the schools We now will have a data system by which we can get some just-in-time immediate results We also talked a little bit about what we need to be able to do with the with the redesign of Central office with the reader that redesign of my department next year we will we
123say that we will be in a position that we can take some of the existing resources and begin to leverage how they can go in and support the taught curriculum. Because we have the written curriculum, but now we need to go in and get a better sense of the teaching of the taught curriculum. A part of that process, Mr. Suarez, would consist of something like this. We would identify the gaps.