March 05, 2020 School Board Meeting

001The next item is the high school project. Dr. Hutchings. So at this time I would like to introduce our chief academic officer Dr. Terry Mozingo to introduce our team and to present the high school project. This is going to be a more in-depth update because we haven't been able to really have a deeper understanding of our work with the high school project but as the team is getting situated I just wanted to thank our high school team as well as our educational design team and industry advisory board because there is a lot of work that's happening behind the scenes to make this a reality and even though you know you all may see updates in a document form there are countless hours of work and reading and research that is occurring to ensure that we

002are doing exactly what we need for every single student with this new high school experience that we are looking to have in the future. So with that said, I'm going to introduce Dr. Mozingo. Good evening, everyone. And thank you so much, Dr. Hutchins. I want to begin by just sharing with you that we have been waiting for this moment. We've been waiting. I know you have also been waiting for this moment. But we really are delighted for this opportunity to really share with you some of the exciting events and activities that have occurred, especially with the researchers, along with some of the programming ideas underway with the educational design team. Both of those activities are part of this innovative approach for reimagining the high school experience. But before we begin the presentation, I want to

003dovetail what Dr. Hutchins just said by just acknowledging all those people working behind the scenes. While we get an opportunity to present to you, it really is a large group of people working to ensure the success of this project. We hope our teachers and faculty at T.C. Williams are maybe watching because they are working. working behind the scenes on the project, along with many of the members of the Educational Design Team, as well as the city staff and the ACPS members. We actually meet every Monday from 8.30 until, I'm not sure, for a long. 8.30 to 9.30, sometimes 10.30, several times during the week, just really trying to keep the project moving forward to achieve the end goal. So again, we're really excited about the ideas that are emerging, and we know that we still

004have some challenges along the way, but we want to give you kind of a status report tonight. Here you have the five essential questions. Primarily we want to talk a little bit about the two lanes of work, one being the work associated with curriculum and instruction and the other lane being associated with site development. We will share with you some of the experiences and ahas as a result of the visit of the EDT to the Academies of Loudoun, as well as some of the early ideas that they're thinking in terms of programming, and then to share with you some of the work work that has occurred to date with the industry advisory boards as well as some of the work that will occur in the future. And finally, there are some decisions that must be

005made for us to stay on track, and we'll end with some of the next action steps. So at this time, and we have in the audience a number of people that support this project, but we'll have Dr. Gerald Mann come forward at this time. Thank you Dr. Mazzinco. Good evening board. You're probably tired of hearing from me about the high school project. It's every other week that I speak to you about it but I'm glad that the other members of the team also get the chance to speak about the work that they're doing on behalf of the project. And I've given you some of the updates on the timeline on this slide as far as the curriculum instruction side of the lanes of work. We're excited that next Tuesday we have our official kickoff for

006the IABs. And I've mentioned to you many times about our continued site visits. We feel that those are important for the EDTA members to actually see programs in effect. It's one thing to read about them on a website or an article, but to actually go and actually have interactions with the students and staff. So we're excited about those upcoming trips. Once those are scheduled, we'll give you a detailed outline of what will be occurring and then we'll still use the protocol, maybe a couple of updates that was attached with the board memo and the presentation for this week. And then also you'll see the draft educational redesign plan as Dr. Hutchins has charged us with as this is transforming, not just building a new building, but transforming TC Williams. We're excited about beginning that work

007along with EDT and then bringing it back to the larger. Staff at TC Williams and you'll see up there December 2021 is when we hope to have a final draft of that So that'll give us three years to enact that plan as we get ready to open a building in the fall of 2024 So you may remember miss Nolan asked me this I think every week I come up about the research panel That was January 8th. It seems many many months ago But we had our six experts come to us and they spent the entire day we had the bus tours you may remember then we had an edt meeting and at the edt meeting we had members they were actually able to see and spend i think was 20 minutes with at least three

008of our experts and then we had the actual panel in the evening and some of the high level takeaways which will actually inform the work for the edt as we move forward as we move away from our discussion solely focusing on the ed specs and space as we really start to then dig into the finer details of programming and as many people probably ask you at the same time scheduling and those types of details we're going to use these high-level recommendations to inform our work and so they'll act as essential questions and ways for us to actually figure out what work products we need to bring back not only to the EDT from the EDT but also to the board and also to the greater staff at TC Williams and so you'll see up here

009I'll highlight a couple I mentioned this on the last several times is how do we make a school that we project and have 5,000 students feel small also students having someone that they know, a feeling of connectedness. And then also the one thing that all the experts continually said to us is how do you create interdisciplinary teams? And then again ensuring you may remember this, I think it was Jaime who said that all students should take one CTE course and one higher level course. We know currently if you may remember from my program of studies presentations, everyone has to take one and that's econ and personal finance. But how do we move beyond just econ and personal finance? And then how do we also make sure that they take one college level course that could

010be AP or DE? but making sure that we have high expectations for all of our students to meet that minimum standard. And then also as Jaime also informed us is how do we explore and look at ways to offer as we're a minority majority high school offer courses in Spanish. And that's something that as we can move forward and explore and then you'll see the key takeaways the EDT heard loud and clear from the exercises that we had them do on reflections that they heard the actual panel. loud and clear that we need to make sure that our large high school feels small. The EDT had already coalesced around project based learning which leads to the interdisciplinary theme that we heard from the research panel. But then also how do we promote equity across our

011connected network. And then also again a connectedness for our students that they know that there's someone who cares for them and that they can go to in a time of need. make sure I can do this correctly and so I'd like to thank Ms. Pasch who behind the scenes come to every EDT meeting and takes notes and then went on our field trip with us and actually captured all of the video and the pictures that you'll see and put this together so we're excited for this and so again Ms. Pasch thank you again for doing this and make sure I don't mess it up and touch it again it says media unavailable maybe that will do it there we go The best way I can sum up our trip and I don't know if I

012said this two weeks ago Caleb Moore who you did see one of our quotes from I we were in the hallway and I said would you want to go to school like this. And he grinned from ear to ear and he says how do I get to a school like this. And you'll see some of the takeaways you saw there was natural light even on a cloudy day It looked like they had tons of lights on but they weren't and so Stantec explained to us how they have tubes and they bring in the light even with a cloudy day But then making sure how do we have a building that every space can be used as a classroom? Every part of the building if you had a shiny wall you could write on they had

013actual tubes where you could put the white the markers in there, but also thinking of maker spaces being flexible and the one thing the EDT was already there, but then this confirmed this was more laboratory space and also maker space and We had the teacher who's in their maker space explain how they use it. It's not just Engineering teacher but any teacher could come down and actually have the kids design and do work and as I think was met that I can't speak anymore. Ms. Anthony mentioned at one of our presentations where we had, and Ms. Alderney mentioned this too. How do we bring in sponsors and people who want to donate equipment but also have their names and helping us bring awesome experiences to our students. And so as I mentioned I think a

014couple of weeks ago we are going to be reaching back out to Dr. Pretty to have the board but also members of the EDT who couldn't attend to be able to see it because as I said the site visits really give you a framework for oh this is what's possible and how do we do this for our students here at T.C. Williams. And everyone is familiar with this slide. Do I need to say it Dr. Hutchings? It's Dr. Hutchings' favorite slide. I won't go through this but this again is how all of our students have access to all of the four areas but also we want to make the connections for them that they're also a way to their careers. And you may remember during one of your work sessions, we took you through a

015priorities exercise, and many of you wanted me to give you more dots, and I wouldn't. And so there are things you told us to abandon, and we did an exercise with the EDT, and surprisingly, without knowing what you all said, they confirmed almost verbatim what your priorities were. And so what you'll see here on this graphic is we... took the EDT when we reconvened with an expanded group. It's still centered around how do we come back to design a building that would some way have STEAM slash STEM expanding or new CTE courses but also project-based learning. This also fit with what our educational research panel said is creating new experiences for our students and then the project-based learning hits to the interdisciplinary. pieces of the research panel but also what the school board told us

016to go back and research and then also some of the work that Miss Whalen is doing with Civic Trek and all the other things that we've mentioned to you that we're currently doing so how do we expand that And so as we now pivot, as I've been saying, to actually really digging into the high, from high level programming into more detailed programming, that's what we'll be taking apart with the EDT and using the research panel's questions as a guide to make sure that we don't miss some of those and then again revisiting what the school board set for us as a priority. And so at this time I'd like to bring up Dr. Jacobs who is our coordinator for career and technology education. Thank you, Dr. Mann. Good evening, everyone. I'm Dr. Tricia Jacobs, the

017CTE coordinator and a proud member of the Educational Design Team. I'm excited to provide an update to you this evening on the progress of our industry advisory boards. As you know, we selected the chairs and the co-chairs for all four industry advisory boards back in October. Since then, we've held a kickoff meeting and two additional meetings in November and January. The chair started their recruitment in late October, and currently there are 38 members. There are 13 in business and government, nine in education and human services, nine, I'm sorry, eight in education and human services, nine in STEM, and eight in the arts. And the current list of IAB members was included for you in your packets this evening. At the request of the chairs, ACPS will host an orientation for all IAB members on March

01810th. The orientation will provide members with a better understanding of the teaching and learning that takes place at TC and the different work-based learning opportunities that are available. They will receive the IAB scope of work, which you are seeing now. This slide lists the important work. This is the important work that the IABs will undertake to ensure that the best opportunities are available to our students, which will enable them to be career and or college ready. Teams will create action plans for these objectives that will include important strategies and timelines of completion. It is important to remember that the IABs are an additional resource to provide expertise, real world experiences, and networking opportunities to support the EDT educational programming and curriculum design strategies. As seen in this slide, the EDT designees serve as liaisons between

019the EDT and IABs by facilitating the communication and coordination that is needed to provide this relevant educational programming expertise and support. Now I will turn the next part of the presentation over to Erica Gulick. Thank you, Dr. Jacobs and good evening. I would love if we could end the presentation there, but operations people have to have their say at some point. So I just wanted to go over the timeline for site development and in coordination with the timeline Dr. Gerald Mann presented with you tonight. You can see that we're getting to the end of this planning phase and moving into design. And so we have... about a month left that we're in, which is really solidifying, taking what the educational design team has come up with, how do we, what does that look like in

020an educational specification for us, and how do we start moving into some of the project execution and the request for proposals and other things we need to do to move further into the project. And then still on track for start of, for opening September 2024, that's a... includes a two-year design period and a two to two and a half year construction period, we may think, oh, well, we were able to build Patrick Henry in a much quicker timeline. This is a much bigger building. So we want to anticipate for that in the future. As far as our site development planning parameters, we're still planning for 5,000 students, but understanding that we'll need to provide the flexibility in our option, whatever that may be in the future for growth or for decline in enrollment. Including the

021strategies, like I said, that the educational design team has brought forward, that educational specification will be for... really the connected high school network, the two main campuses, so King Street and Minnie Howard. So providing an evaluation of what's at King Street now and what maybe needs to change there in the future too, not just what needs to be added to Minnie Howard campus. We will need to continue coordinating on co-location with the city in determining what is gonna be the included co-location opportunities for the Minnie Howard campus. Ideally, that would be a part of our program that would be incorporated into the design. ideally figure it out. this spring or before we go into the summer. We'll need to evaluate options for the displaced fields. So I think we've talked a lot about the new

022building but the really the first construction component of this project will be building replacing the fields currently at Minnie Howard somewhere else. We have a lot of athletic teams that use those and the city has a lot of programs on the fields that are currently there. So we'll need to figure out where those are going. And then of course throughout this process ensuring that we're not losing any of the open space that currently on the site and that's the zoned public open space. So these are different lanes of work I won't go through all of them just so that you know we're all working together through this process and that there are different facets of the project that are coming together really nicely. We are hoping to move kind of more into the details and

023the procurements on the operations side. And I know as Dr. Mann said, we've kind of gotten a lot of information from the educational design team that we need on our side to continue our work. And they're going to move kind of more into that programming and what is the future of the curriculum for the high school look like. So we're really excited for that. Our next steps, the educational programming Dr. Mann spoke with you about before, community engagement, we will continue. The next community engagement event is happening at the end of this month, I believe. And we're hoping to begin this conversation about the fields because we think maybe we haven't conveyed that to the community. And so we really need to talk about where does it make the most sense for those to go.

024And then we'll continue through. As I said, the request for proposal processes for the project execution and continue working on the co-location aspect with the city. So with that, we're all here for questions. Before we go into questions, I just wanted to just say two comments. One, I want to acknowledge Dawoud Abdur-Rahman and Madia Jahar because they do a lot of work behind the scenes. I mean, you all have no idea how much is going on, and I can't always make it to the meetings in person, but I'm on the phone. Sometimes I don't tell you I'm on the phone just so I can see what the people are saying when I'm not there. I like it. I know. I'm on that conference call. It's like 10 of us on there. But you all are

025like tirelessly working through this. And this is a tremendous, tremendous effort. Like, I mean, I didn't realize how much work it. you know, it was going to be to actually, what we're doing is we're reorganizing and kind of like redeveloping the entire high school experience for Alexandria City Public Schools, which is a huge endeavor. And I just appreciate the expertise that you all bring to the table and the hard work that you do because you are behind the scenes. We don't really get to talk to you all that much. I do all the time. And the team does because you're always leading these efforts behind the scenes. But I wanted to publicly. just acknowledge you all this evening. So thank you for that. And then my second comment was just the simple fact that as

026we embark on this next phase, I just ask for the community as well as the schools, and I try to say this time and time again, but to have an open mind about what we're doing next. We cannot duplicate. the current TC Williams. So we have to get out of that mindset of thinking, okay, well, let's just do what TC is today. We are designing a building and we're designing a structure that is supposed to be here for kids 30 years from now. And just think of how we were 30 years ago, right? So it was very different than it currently is today. So we want to make sure that we are not creating. a replication of the TC we built back in 2000, whatever date that was, I forgot, 2008, 2007. So I just

027wanted to make that particular comment because it does require intentional efforts on our part when we're thinking about programming, when we're thinking about how classrooms can work. I mean, even when we get to schedules of classrooms. Kids in the future, and I hope kids soon in Alexandria City Public Schools, should have a choice when they start school. And that's just something I'm going to be pushing to the EDT, that it should not be a set time for high school. I think it should be a set range of times for high school because some kids are really good and sharp at 710 and some kids are really good and sharp at 9. And I think that if we're truly trying to meet kids where they are and not necessarily where we want them to be, then

028we have to be that open-minded to put our decisions where our mouths are and what we're saying to our community. And that is not being radical. That is meeting the needs of... this generation and future generations of our children. So with that said, I'm gonna open the floor for questions, because I know our team is eagerly waiting to answer them, and I'm gonna be quiet. I just have to say one thing first, that schedule difference, that used to happen, because when I was a student, you could start at different times. So it can be done. It can be done. I think we're talking more radical than what my choices were, but I could have a study period. I could start early. I could start a little later. It's been done. It can be done. So

029questions, people? Mr. Suarez? Thanks chair Anderson and I just want to start off by echoing what dr Hutchings is saying in terms of you know The need in this process for us to be bold the need for the community have an open mind and I just want to thank everyone who's been working extremely hard on this effort because I know it is a massive undertaking and innovative undertaking and one that I think really is gonna set a model and an example for other other places across the country So so with that said I just wanted to offer a couple comments suggestions um based on where we are right now um and and so this this has kind of triggered um actually a couple of us in uh district a we received emails from the community

030you know getting some feedback on how things are going and i think um you know we're clearly doing a ton of work there there's we had this panel we received a lot of great information from it we just did this tour of loudon we're taking in all this information and we're having these regular meetings i've been looking at the website and kind of seeing the weekly updates in terms of the meetings and the progress But we received this correspondence recently from a couple people in the community who are very involved in national organizations and special education, very involved in some of the testing organizations, the NWEA, the Northwest Education Association, and others, and had kind of expressed a concern that their voices may not have been heard in the community. And so what I did

031is I kind of looked at the website, looked at what's available right now. And I think that we could be doing a little bit better job just in terms of getting out front and communicating the process and what's going on. I took some time to sort of go through the website, look at what has been posted, the minutes and so forth. And, you know, there's just some pieces of feedback that I have. You know, one is... That if you go on the website right now, it sort of says we're still in the 2019 phase of the process. So if I were a community member trying to sort of go onto the website and see where we are, I actually don't know the precise location. So I think we need to update that. Another piece is

032that when I go through the minutes on the website, I think the information that's conveyed is fairly high level. And I think we need to do more to just communicate what are the, you know, topics of discussion. What are we doing to be bold, be innovative? Because if I've learned one thing in my service as a school member, it's that our community kind of just needs to know what's being discussed and needs to have that open mind, to your point, Dr. Hutchings. And I think we need to just put those things on the table to the extent we're being innovative early so that that communication can be fostered and started. And so all my comments here are in the spirit of we just have a lot of valuable resources in the community that can provide

033really useful input. And I want to foster that. So my questions sort of relate to that issue. One is I can't find it on the website. If I were a community member who was a leader in education, who had bold ideas to offer, and I wanted to provide those ideas to the high school project and feel like I'm heard, who is that going to right now in the context of the high school project? And is that going to anyone? And is there a way I can, you know, you know fill out a form or something to sort of convey that information you know that that that's sort of the the first first piece and i think to the extent that there's not a clear way to do that um i i think we we should

034we should try to try to do that um and then the the other the other idea is is really just um what are we gonna do we did a ton and and i want to say like again hats off to our staff we did a tremendous job i think of community engagement in the lead up to our vote There were a lot of meetings. There was a lot of conversations. The community knew exactly what choices were on the table. A vote was taken and we're moving forward from that vote. I think one of the things I noticed in looking at the minutes, though, was that there were a couple community open houses on the minutes. One was scheduled for late February. One was, I think, scheduled for this week. And I haven't heard much about

035them. And so I and this is not trying to fault anyone. I'm just I'm just I think that maybe the community. engagement piece you know in terms of the academic programming we're setting forth maybe has been a little lost in the mix and if I'm wrong please correct me of course but I just want to make sure that we stay on top of the community conversation hearing hearing all those voices and and not operating in a silo because i will say one of the comments i got um in this um email i recently received was that there was a perception that we were not valuing or including special ed in the process of um you know doing the high school project which i i i have no reason to believe that's the case at all

036you know but if that's the perception right um i want to make sure we don't have that that person So, you know, so this is all to be clear, like everyone's doing great work. I know I'm excited about the progress and, you know, I applaud the staff for all the progress that's been made. But just given how, you know, things tend to. become a problem in our community if there's not transparency and so forth. I just want to make sure we're on top of this. So I'd appreciate any thoughts on that. And I hope that some of these premises that I've received from community feedback are just wrong. But I want to make sure we're communicating about these things. Thank you for that. that discussion. I think what will happen, we have a lot of

037development yet to go on the engagement portion. We're going to have to create our, we've been really focused on our sort of our internal data gathering and making sure that we're grounded in what we have to do in terms of developing these lanes of work. And so what the public will see soon, we hope, will be our school-based group. you know, our community group, our advisory group will have their place, and I think all of these things will start to take their role within these lanes of work of stakeholder engagement, educational programming, all of the building and site work, and the project execution as soon as we have grounded ourselves with our basic site-specific aspect and our design team. At that point, we're hoping that we're going to extend our work with our contractors that

038we have on board right now so that we can develop a microsite website so that we can have all of the meetings that are posted in one place and all of the minutes that are posted in one place. We've even had a lot of conversation about which one of our... open discussions, the joint discussions we have with the city and the joint discussions we have every week, is there a way at some point to even have like a streaming, what do you call that? Yeah, like a live feed of some of those meetings. So I think because we're still in a little bit of the planning stage and there's so much going on, the community is anxious, but we hope to be able to do all of the things that they're talking about and provide

039a specific place where they can have input into the rest of the project that the educational programming will be able to feed into as we develop and move into the design phase. all of the things that you're talking about are still evolving and coming to fruition. I would say that by June we'll have really clear ways that we're not just informing the public, but we can start providing or getting input that's going to inform the rest of the work that's going on. So some of that is still in process, and we have a school team that has to be developed, all of the same teams we have for Douglas MacArthur. It's the school team, the community team, and the advisory group. So there'll be very specific places of input for all of those special interest

040areas to have their voices heard and also to consider how the actual curriculum and programming actually gets determined. Does that help is that helpful? Yeah, I mean I think I still am wondering though like is there a way that now you know if people have feedback it can just get kind of funneled to a particular point of contact this goes back to this customer relationship management stuff we've been working on and you know Ideally, it's not the board the first point of contact It would be you know the the person who's the running point on it and can be responsive You know and show that we're listening to the feedback and so forth. What is our input to? our general So we still have our high school project email and they can also email any

041of us so That's one way on the easiest way where we'd all see it as high school project email the couple other points that you made I didn't mention this because I didn't want to give away too many secrets that the EDT isn't ready We haven't told them yet, but we've talked about a field trip of TC Williams We always talk about going out but miss Alderton may remember when we did our program of studies work in the summer people were looking at us all like i had no idea we offered that i didn't know we did that and so as we think about a field trip for tc williams is what is the life of a special education student what is the life of an el student inside and outside of the academy and

042then also one of our ideas is to bring in maybe someone from ceac an EL parent to actually talk about their experiences. So as we talk about being bold in our decisions and our designs that we're actually hearing from parents and we have students on the EDT, but we also want to hear from stories that we may not be aware of. And so as we really examine ourselves in the mirror to think about if we're going to be bold and we don't want to make the same mistakes, not mistakes, but redo what we already have, we want to make sure that we do that work. And so one of the things that we will be doing is reaching out to people. So if they do have those ideas, so. It may not be a whole

043other big panel, but we'd also like to bring those people to the EDT so the EDT can hear from them directly because that will inform their work. And then also around the community engagement, our big kickoff, we push the other ones, is March 26th. then also is for the community the initial aspects our staff work and then we'll then we go back in if I have the timeline correct then that's when we get feedback and so right now we're still in that our internal process first feedback of the s the ed specs but to your point around community members emailing saying I have this expertise they can email the high school project email or they can email me or Any part any person on the high school project team because we do want their feedback

044because they have a point of view that we may have missed And I just want to make the point that us not doing the community engagement at this time was intentional because we have to develop something to share with people if we go out and we started talking to people in january february with nothing to share you all would get different comments from the community about they're not ready they're not organized they don't know what they're talking about um so we wanted to develop remember when we had our edt initially uh that was for the high school project we said that we were going to have to take some of those edt members and also add additional members It took us time to establish a criteria for the additional EDT members that we needed to

045bring on board. We had to schedule meetings for us to have discussions around what the purpose of the EDT was. And then we had to work with the IAB chairs that were selected in late November, early December, and begin to establish what is the IAB's objectives and responsibilities so we can begin to identify those members. So now we're at a place where we have to have all of our teams kind of set. And we also have some marching orders internally around like what our direction and what our goals are. So we're now beginning to have information to share out. That was one of the reasons when you look at our high school project updates, even to the board, they were very general. And they weren't as specific because we were still working through all the

046logistics. And that's why we have a more robust product now. You know, our goal is that when we're bringing our robust information to the board, that is kind of a tee up to going out to the community to do the same thing. We want that community engagement to first start with you all here. And then we expand from where we get to the board. It begins to expand out into into our community for feedback. Miss Gentry. Thank you so much. So Dr. Hutchings actually touched on a lot of the things that I was going to say, but I'm happy to kind of expand on that. And I really do just think it's... You know, I do think it's a it's a communication point that we need to keep helping everyone understand and I'll freely say

047that it's something that I didn't really understand until I really You know got on the board and became this Involved from start to finish in a project like this just how long the process is and I think sometimes if you aren't you might you know, hear something or feel something and you might have this sense of urgency thinking, my goodness, if I don't get to say something now, you know, that's it. You know, I'm not going to. But the natural ebb and flow of these projects is that there are going to be these moments of, you know, community engagement. You know, we had one last year. And then certain milestone decision points were reached. And then folks need to go off and do some work. And then they need to come back. and have another

048moment with, you know, and just to really reemphasize something, and again, this is, I think, something that the community, I just want to really emphasize to the community, there isn't some kind of separate... outside meeting or separate piece of information that only the board is getting. We are getting the same information that you all have been getting. So we also have been living through the last few months of a quieter period when I'm going to gently pick on Ms. Lorber here. I mean, I think we were all kind of feeling some urgency in it. What are we going to get some more? What are we going to get some more? You know, I think we all share that eagerness, but we have to recognize that we have to let the EDT go out and, you

049know, do some of this work and then come back. And, you know, they're coming. We're getting to where they're coming back now. And we're getting this information, and the public is getting all this information at the same time, and now we can start moving into, and I think... Honestly, I think slide 14 is going to be kind of the key one. I think, in fact, in some ways we might want to, again, just from a communications point of view, it's a lot of information packed onto one slide. It's probably going to need to be teased out a little bit because some of these are, quite frankly, lingo or words or phrases that might not. you know, resonate with people. And so for them to really understand, here's what we mean by apply ed specs to

050site development planning, for example, I just literally just grabbed a phrase, right? Here's what we, here's what that means and what this part of the process is. And so if this is something that you, community member, are particularly. you know eager to you know contribute to you you know because of your expertise you have some interesting you know things to say you know but but again not to at all discourage people from the ongoing and I'm glad the question was asked you know that there's always this open you know opportunity to email the high school project team so just wanted to share some of those thoughts. Miss green Thank You chair Anderson as we talk about community engagement Could I get the exact date of the meeting at the end of the month that miss

051school it mentions in her portion of the presentation? Actually the the date time and location and could I get information on when that's going out when that information is going out to the public as Well as further meetings So miss green I'm getting all the the orders So I'm gonna try to see if I can remember all the orders that I was just given. So the date is March 26th. It was just confirmed today. So don't know when the packet will go out. Is that what you said, the packet of? Date, time, location. Tomorrow, we'd have. Okay, all right, thank you. And are there further meetings that have already been set up? Or is? No, not yet. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Super. We have Ms. Nolan. Thank you so much dr. Mann really excited

052I'm so grateful to hear about the consultants feedback and what the EDT as well that took from that panel So thanks so much for including that one of my questions is is I know that the invitation was made and also I believe it was part of the agreement about continuing to utilize the consultants expertise along the way I'm just curious if you could just share with us that how will what will that process look like and how are we engaging them because it sounds like we had It was a unique opportunity that we got to hear from experts in their field and it sounds like even I think one of the slides in the video was that it would be great to continue learning from experts. So just curious how are we gonna continue to

053utilize them? So we're gonna, you're correct, we did in part of the agreement was that the EDT and ACPS still have access to those experts. So when we have, as Dr. Hutchings was just saying, more meat for them to react to. And so as we get more details around the Programming but then also some of the answers or ideas to their broad questions and we'll go back to them and say are we on the right track? Are we not? Dr. Bell fence also is going to be meeting with Pete a couple members of his team just Beyond the high school project to think about early warning systems and so that's one way beyond just the high school project that we're also tapping into their expertise and so yes I forgot to mention that part during

054my slide but I that was one of my notes to myself but is we definitely are going to stay in contact with them and it's trying to make sure that when we go to them we actually have some meat for them to react to. I found it exceptionally helpful to know like what their feedback was as well as the EDT So do you mind continuing that was just a really helpful slide if you could continue that with the presentations just knowing like Where the feedbacks coming from so that I just think it's invaluable for us to know and also an understanding of the various sources that you're talking to because like I know you talked to the Loudon school the EDT and So again, it was just to give feedback. It was really helpful to

055know the difference. So I appreciate that. So if that could continue, that'd be, I think, really valuable for us. I think we're going to have to figure out other ways to capture from the EDT. They're probably tired of me at the end saying, all right, take out something to write. Sure, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. Ms. Thornton? Thank you. I actually am also glad that you all had so many different takeaways, especially on the education design side. And that's actually what I wanted to touch on right now. The Academies of Loudoun visit sounded like it was really fruitful with the information that you all got there. And I really like the fact that on, let's see, slide four, this is not from Academies of Loudoun, but I think it connects to what I'm going to say.

056There is an overwhelming sense that we want our students, even though we're in such a large school, 5,000 students that we're estimating, we want students to have a sense of connectedness to the school and to be in smaller learning environments. And I'm just wondering, too, as we're thinking about having different academies and having different cohorts or learning environments, are we starting to think about ways of ensuring that we are distributing access to those different opportunities equitably? I know Academies of Loudoun, for instance, they have application process for getting into some of their academies, but students also have a home high school base. And I know... There are some interesting dynamics as far as like who gets in, is it diverse, are we having issues of discrimination? And I was just wondering did you have any

057lessons or takeaways from your discussions with the folks at Academies of Loudoun of how they're ensuring that the way that they're distributing students across different programs is done in a way that's equitably and making sure that they feel connected and like they have that point person so that the student isn't being swallowed by, you know, such a large program. And there's something that's not directly connected to that but I'm hoping that you can touch on is this whole idea of the STEM versus STEAM. I personally am an advocate for just doing away with STEM and calling everything STEAM because 21st century skills require a lot of the things that I think the arts provide. And I personally would love to just have those melded, but I would love to know what thoughts you all have

058on that because I see the slash is still there. Thank you. Thank you. Your first question the one thing reading the faces of the EDT when the principal talked about their three programs and the application process and I may get the numbers wrong but like one program had like twelve hundred or more applications but they accepted 300 students that. Many people are like hmm, but you have capacity for 2000 but you have 1200 students in the building the one thing and I went back to this slide to your point was the EDT and the whole process even when we began was that all students have access to the new building so we're not saying that if you're not in the STEM Academy or the GW Health Sciences or the Academy of Finance that you you

059can't go over there that this is part of the connected network that everyone gets to actually go over to the new building and vice versa. And so when you talk about the equity piece, that's where we think about our special education students, our EL students, is that we want every student to have the ability. to go over and not feel that they have to stay at King Street or vice versa. And so that's one of the differences when we kept talking to the EDT, we kept saying and Ms. Alderton confirmed, space, space, space, because they were taking three distinct programs and sandwiching them in, and that was made abundantly clear to us as they had change orders, as they were already in construction, and we're doing something completely different. And so that's one of the

060ways that we're committed to. The board backed away from the language. way way way back when where you had to be able to complete all your graduation requirements I think that's the language but we are committed to that every student whether they have a students with disability their English language learner that you can and should and will have classes at the Minnie Howard campus your second point I said this to the EDT at our meeting last week I wish we could have gone back when we say stem or steam is thinking of a set of courses and not, because everyone runs to the STEAM program or STEM program, we're thinking of an interdisciplinary approach. So you have a set of courses over there, but everyone, to your point, it's melded. And so as we go

061to project-based learning, and again, I'm gonna keep singing Ms. Whalen's praises, but Civic Track and all the other ones that we have whose names are escaping me right now, where it's interdisciplinary, it's project-based learning where students are. Taking everything they've learned and actually doing something with it and seeing like oh I have actually solved the problem and I'm gonna give our summer school program a shot if you are here in July at the end and you actually see the projects that the students complete that's what we want and so they're putting it all together so I think most of us would agree if we could stop saying steam all together and just say we want interdisciplinary where all of our students and I think that came clear once the principal and some of the teachers

062the one teacher talked to us it was not that you had to be an engineering student to be in the maker space but how do we have all of our students feeling that they can go and be designers and you'll see that one quote i saw real chefs i saw real engineers and how do we have that experience for all of our students One other thing that we discussed recently with the EDT or not at the EDT but with the What's our Monday meetings called the high school project? Okay, the high school project team the time the team meetings The team the meetings I get to go to the meeting you don't tell us you're on the phone for So the one thing that we discussed recently was that in the community there were conversations

063around when we were talking about the high school project that we were, in a sense, forcing students to have to choose a pathway, you know, early on. And we wanted to make it clear that, you know, some kids, they are focused on, I want to be a teacher when I grow up. right and they become a teacher but some kids they don't discover they want to be a teacher until somebody tells them at a recruitment fair when they're doing another job like me you know um so we want to offer inter an interdisciplinary pathway as well. And that's something where you don't really have a clear kind of like focus area. And you're that student that may dabble in a few different areas. As long as you're meeting your high school requirements for the state

064to get a diploma, that's all that really matters, you know, to us. We want you to have some flexibility to be able to kind of go throughout different pathways. And once you take a certain course, you may decide that's really not the path you want to do. And you want to be able to go and do something differently we can't you know hold you to well you said this in ninth grade and now you're going to stick to it until you graduate from T.C. Williams so I want us to make sure that we are saying that more out in our community because I think at the beginning of this whole high school project the way it came across and it wasn't the way we wanted it to be perceived but I think the perception was

065that we were making kids identify a pathway and that was the pathway they had to do until they went to college or career. Okay, Dr. Reif. All right, thank you. Thanks for the presentation and Miss Thornton kind of I was gonna ask about the Academy model and I guess I do still have kind of a question about that which is you know talking about this issue of how do you make a school this large feel smaller and and I'm curious if you could you know Address that a little bit more specifically to around is the Academy Just the ways that you're thinking about doing that that the team has been talking about you know, it's pathways academies. Is it cohorts like what are some ways that you're thinking about how you're going to achieve that

066is one question. And then the other question is around the CTE program, and this might be more for Dr. Jacobs, but I'm the board liaison to the CTE Advisory Committee, and just before Dr. Jacobs came on board, the CTE chair of the advisory committee had come and presented a letter to the board. With some concerns around, I guess, I guess the sense of the committee at the time was that there was a lot of cohesion with the CTE programs being together in TC. And so there was like some concern about sort of splitting them up into two different campuses. And I know that, you know, we want to expand CTE too. So I'm just kind of wondering, you know, what you're thinking about with regards to that, if that's. You know, that's not the thinking

067anymore. If you can just respond to that. And then just kind of also related to that, seeing that Dr. Jacobs is taking on sort of overseeing the industry advisory boards, I know that she has a lot on her plate just with everything managing the CTE program. So I'm just wondering. about staffing capacity to to manage that because it seems like a lot of work to oversee in addition to like the things that I know she's already responsible for so I don't know who that would be a question for but maybe. So the so so the smaller learning communities how to achieve that and then just CTE thinking some thoughts about that I'll take a crack at the first one and the last one and I'll let dr. Jacobs answer the second question that's the one

068part where the EDT for the since we've reconvened has been focused on giving the facilities and operations team what they need for the draft ed specs and so we haven't really delved into How would we make a large high school feel small and so that's some of our work? And our next as we've mapped out our next several meetings How do we tackle that? So we in all honesty we haven't actually touch that we know that that's something we have to come back to so it could be pathways it could be academies all options are on the table and as some of the work again most only people who know this are miss whalen and i but as we think about exploring different schools that are actually larger than tc currently and how do they

069have students feel connected and then as we've mentioned the site visits the panel actually gave us very specific schools to go visit and speak with and so that's our plan so we can actually hear from people who are actually doing it and are there missteps along the way that we can learn from and then the last question we are currently looking for someone to help Shoulder some of the load for the IABs So we've had one interview and we've got a schedule a couple of more and so I agree with you being dr Jacobs direct supervisor it is as I've joked with you guys every week It's a lot of work the high school project and we could do this just just like doctor. He's not a doctor I guess I'm giving him one. Mr.

070Abdul Abdul Rahman and Mr. Haar it is it can be a full-time job And so we know as IABs kick off on March 10th that we need to also figure out how to get dr Jacob's some help there and I'll let her The EDT won't be alone in trying to understand how to make a large school feel smaller. You know, one of the really big tasks that Erica and Dawoud are going to have is to bring on board a world-class architect who do higher education and K-12 campus programs. And they are going to be holding hands with the EDT to help guide them. with regard to how the physical and the architectural marries up with the programmatic delivery so that we can try and not only have an adaptable campus, but one where regardless of

071whether this year... It's one type of program delivery and 15 years from now we change it that the school will It'll be it'll be able to respond to however we teach in TC for the next 50 years So but we're we're looking we're really excited about looking forward to going through the procurement process We've been meeting and doing our market research. I have a lot of experience with a lot of architecture firms and there's some and we're in the DC area. We're really fortunate that there's some very experienced architecture firms that have high level guidance in the area of education reform, transformation, and presenting and creating an environment, a physical environment that matches up with the transformational programs of EDT and that the curriculum group are going to be. you know, embarking on. So we're

072going to do it. I wanted to assure the board that the EDT is working very closely with the representatives on the EDT team that are from the CTE world, as we would say it. And I think it's important to remember that the different advisory boards that exist in ACPS are working also with the IABs. So the letter that you were referring to... indicating the concern of splitting programs up has been heard and I think that as the EDT develops that educational programming, they're going to see a natural progression and advancement of the programs and new possible programs we could have based again on what the labor market data is showing. and what the IABs are going to be determining from our program of studies and the relevance and rigor of our curriculum in the courses

073that we offer so far. So again, we're not at that point yet to make those decisions, but I am very confident that the members of the EDT are going to move in the right direction to benefit the students of ACPS. Okay, we have a Maya. Sorry. Well, hello. I don't know if this question can be specifically answered by you guys, but I do know that with the cohort and pathways theory that we are trying to implement within the new building, I was just wondering how we would or you guys would effectively communicate that with the students just because even with some of the structure that we have now with the program of studies. or even career paths, I don't feel as though it's effectively communicated with the students where they know their options, especially the

074students in the International Academy and a lot of our minority students just don't know their options. And will that be like through maybe like training for our counselors to have like, just to navigate their students towards maybe a specific career path that they want to do or even more support in the College and Career Center? having some more advisors there to just help with students but I just I feel as though a lot of communication and maybe going out to the parents in the community but a lot of our students just don't know the options that they will have so like do you guys know like you also answered it and part of your question and I'm not trying to be funny but Daryl Sampson who is our director thing is the director of school

075counseling K-12 he's on the EDT purposely to to your point is training for counselors We have a counselor from Jefferson Houston who used to work at TC Representing counselors, so we're trying to figure out ways to answer your point that we know the program studies as you were here when I did the presentation That's a massive book, but we're also We now have the online platform, but as we figure out ways to redesign it and make it consumable for everyone, because I get to stand up and present it, but there are lots of things in there that many times people are like, Dr. Mann, is this in the program studies? I'm like, it might be. And to your point, if you have different pathways, you have the career clusters, then you have the program areas,

076that's all just CTE. What happens if you have math and you want to be an engineer? Do you have to be in the STEM Academy? So to your point one of the reasons we added Daryl Sampson to the EDT is to we know counselors are our first Stop and then we have to then figure out the game plan and you'll see in the strategic redesign plan I think is how we've termed it is how do we actually go back to our students and not? it's too late if we get to your ninth grade we need to start in middle school and so that's why we were strategic in keeping miss harris who now works at jefferson houston on it so she can give us an idea of what our middle school students thinking of because

077we can talk to the staff that's currently at tc but we know we need to begin this conversation much sooner before you get to ninth grade because if you don't know about summer pe and you're in the eighth grade You probably need to know about that when you're in sixth grade that I need to probably give up my summer in eighth grade if I'm gonna be in one of the specialized academies and how does that affect what I'm going to do as a 25th hour and so we think the two of us could go back and forth on those types of things but that's where we want to make sure that we backward map once we have a design and specific programming for Minnie Howard and what's gonna be a King Street then how do

078we articulate that not only to our staff but also parents but mostly to our students because if you don't understand it can as you know you get to TC and you're just overwhelmed by all your different options. Dr. Adjings? I was going to add that even prior to us opening our new building four years from now, I think that we need to begin to start exploring how do we educate our students on all of the options and thinking very differently than we currently think. So, for example, a student just sitting with a counselor is not the only way they're going to find out what. courses they need to offer. You know, right now we don't offer small group sessions where there's a group of kids and all of our counselors are conducting these presentations and

079going through the program of studies. How do you use it? How do you determine what you want to do? You know, like we need to start having that. And that's a mandatory thing for our kids starting in middle school and before you get to the high school. But these are all transitional, which I call transition activities that need to be incorporated into our instruction. as well as into our instructional program. And that's going to happen prior to. So I'm just saying this to say there are things that we have to work on that we've already been beginning to discuss. I haven't seen an action plan yet, but there have been things that we've been able to discuss to make sure all kids are equipped. to select the appropriate courses and know how to navigate such

080a large um a school system and then another thing and this goes back to dr reef's question about the smaller learning communities you know we have to start thinking through how can we have cohorts of kids that may not even be the same course course work that they're taking but cohorts of kids who are like grouped as you're a family and this is your family until you graduate similar you go to college you know you have all your different dorms and I went to you know a college where our dorms we had names and all those types of things but that's the way you you make a sense of family a very large institution we have to start incorporating some of the strategies and initiatives that you know universities as well as private schools and

081things are already doing we have to start thinking that way at TC Williams so I believe that it's possible it's just a matter of of us thinking differently than we currently think and not believing that the future is going to be how it is currently, you know, because we do have to change. I'm envisioning an interactive career course catalog that gives lots of things about what you could do with them too. I don't know, it might be too difficult, but that would be kind of fun. I wanted to flag, I think with Ms. Alderton and you were talking about like having companies come in and maybe sponsor some parts of the building. I just want to flag that I don't think that our policy, which I think we had started working on and it's somewhere

082in the process, there's a policy that we're going to need to work on before that can be done. So we probably need to get back to that policy because I know it was under development. But that was some time ago. So I think we probably want to move that to the front and figure out what we're doing so that we can not hold ourselves back because of it. So, yeah, I'm sure Jennifer is watching at home. So that's why I wanted to say it, while I'm thinking about it now, so that I didn't forget it later. So I have Ms. Nolan. Thank you so much. So first off I just want to say this is I so appreciate your comment because it's so spot-on into the actual and that's why it's so invaluable to have

083a student representative on the board so that we get the real-life perspective I mean I I've sat down with you know high school senior and like witnessed what it was like to get the Yeah What is it the the courses and there is this election? Yeah, and it there is there is some I think work to be done on how do we tailor it. Like how do you, I mean on the one hand it's such a benefit to have these courses, but on the other hand how do you tailor it so that it's not just something to get through and to check the box, but it's actually tailored to individual students and that how are we training, like I can't fathom being a brand new counselor to TC Williams and like what, and looking into,

084and I know Dr. Hutchings has mentioned this before, but like what. revisiting how are we training our counselors to really look at the course catalog because it's not like anything even if you've gone through a master's in counseling program even if you've been another school it's just nothing like it's part of what makes TC so great but it's just we want to make sure that young people and the counselors are trained on how to utilize the course catalog so that they the students get the best benefit out of it so I just appreciate Mr. Chisholm those comments because I think it's so spot-on speaking of which similar to that are we also looking as we're So this is like sort of the same question but in two different fields. As we're looking with regards to

085the program of study, are we looking at to like any new things that should be occurring with the new population that's coming down the pike? And I'll give you an example. Like I really valued the comment, I remember the expert saying it, that as, you know, we have such a large Hispanic population ensuring that there's some courses in Spanish. I'm curious if there's, given the languages are such an emphasis and such a... Strength at ACPS are we looking at like our growing Arabic speaking population are we thinking about potentially offering Arabic? Courses to be offered at TC. That's just a data point We don't have to go into that Arabic and we don't have to answer that right now I'm just curious like as we're looking at the population that's coming our way Are we

086also adjusting the courses for that and the second thing I had a question on is with the CTE in particular I heard there was like a panel of experts that came through Recently we're just a complete of what we offer at TC like CTE. So I love the idea Dr. Hutchings and Dr. Mann about even just exploring what we offer ourselves and so that people are aware and like how can we continue the good things we're doing because I think the CTE is such a hidden gem of ACPS but the one piece of feedback I've heard recently from parents ironically was just that Because AP and dual language offer the added GPA weight that a lot of students aren't encouraged to take the CTE courses. So how do you weigh that with given the hope

087is that all students take something beyond the economic and finance course, but how do you weigh that with? So many people feel, not ding, that's not the right term, but for lack of a better expression, that if they take a CTE course versus the dual language and AP given the added weight that happens for their GPA. Is there any thought that goes into that? Because I know CTE is such an emphasis here, but so many people feel like it's not going to help them academically get where they want to be. So part of it I think miss Anderson heard you mention I thought read your lips counseling and helping students really understand And I think dr. Hutchins may have mentioned this And having a senior when we think about the GPA bumps and do I

088need this but then you really start to think about but if I'm really passionate about Writing and I want to be part of the student newspaper Should I follow my passion or should I go for the extra GPA which is actually a very real example that happened to someone that many of us know Me too. That's why I went there But as you really start to yeah But as you really as we help students and if we do a better job helping students tease out what their interests are and really mapping out whether it's a career pathway, their ICAP, that saying, okay, so I'm really, really interested in being an artist, that I can't just take one photography class and go be an artist or go to art school. I need to actually have a

089whole portfolio and helping them really unpack that. So you may not have a 4.3, but you have a 4.0. and you can still get into college and really helping them there and then I guess one of the discussions we'd have to have as a school division or do we want to add weight or take all weight away and I that's not a discussion that we would do today and we'd have to get and Miss Gentry may remember people thought Asked us that with our honors review committee and that's a whole nother conversation But those are conversations we think about to your point whether GPA boost or bump and it's even come up with should we add a boost? For band a couple years ago because students were like I don't want to do it cuz

090I don't get the bump and so that's something as a community we'd have to I think think about our values and what messaging we're sending to students as far as The rigor you can still take a rigorous course. It may not get a GPA bump or does everything at a certain point get it and I'm just throwing out ideas here but I think when one of the starts that we have to do is make sure that students understand that if you're passionate about it you probably should follow your passion because that's what's going to bring you the most joy at the end of your senior year or junior year whenever you take that course. Yeah, I know I appreciate that I do think it's an interesting conversation that we as a board may want to

091engage in the future just because I do think it disincentivizes people from taking like courses that could be really powerful But something to go and I really again just want to appreciate the emphasis I've heard from both yourself dr. Mann and dr. Hutchings about just the need to ensure that the courses are you know, accessible and that people are well informed, both from the staff perspective and the student perspective. So looking forward to hearing more about that in the smaller class. I love the smaller learning environments. It's funny, side note, that was my master's thesis, Dr. Hutchings, and it's true, that's what the data shows is that does work, so I pretty much appreciate it. Okay, so news alert, the policy I referenced is coming to our work session in May. So it's already on

092the way. So that's good. And just to follow on with Ms. Nolan, and I do, the counseling, you're right, you read my lips because I've actually been in with my children and had them discouraged from taking a CTE course while I'm sitting in the room. So I... know that and that was a while ago but it wasn't that long ago and and so I really I'm very passionate about that changing like the training and and the way we look at things and and that that really should should change so the last thing I want to say because I'm going to start harping on the schedule now from now until until that building is is open And I'm looking at slide 14 and seeing that there's, you know, I'm so appreciative of all the work that's

093been going on and I know it's so much good stuff that's been going on and I know that it will be, speaking of transitions, there's a time when we have to transition to where we are now into the next phase and it may seem. Like just one more thing or one more meeting or one more something to consider that we want to do, but at some point we can't do that because we need to move to the next stage or we won't get things open in time. And we learned this very well, those of us who were on the board with Patrick Henry, that talking too long about a recreation center put us behind from the beginning. And when you get behind the beginning of the bricks and mortar part, you're not going to be

094able to catch up. In fact, you're having a hard time anyway because that's when weather and all these other things out of your control can get into the mix. So I'm just calling out that it says, for instance, as we were talking last night about co-location, this time sling is through June, and I don't know. I'm just calling that out that I don't know. It's in bold. Yeah, so I'm just saying to everyone that we need to. hold ourselves to this timeline. And that needs to happen because we have work to do and it needs to be done on time because we have students who are going to be arriving and we need a place to put them. And we need this project to get going because we also know that the longer it takes,

095the more it costs. So these are things I'm just reminding us. We all know this. I know we all know it. I'm just going to be the one who harps on it, one of the people who harps on it. We take turns. Margaret sometimes does it. Michelle's gonna take it Actually dr. Reeve wants to say something so Yeah, I mean, thank you for bringing that up, Ms. Anderson. I did notice that it says here between now and June to finalize co-location opportunities, which is also bolded. I noticed it was bolded. So that seems like it's very urgent. And I guess my question is, you know, last night we kind of talked about this a little bit with council. But, you know, one of the things that was mentioned, Dr. Hutchings, was about establishing a committee

096specifically to look at this issue of, like, the housing co-location. because I know there's been a lot of questions around that in the community. And I guess I wanted to ask a little bit more about how that idea came about because I know we're doing this joint facilities master plan. And one of the things that they're going to be looking at is different mixed use opportunities. And it just seems to me like if we have a committee that is looking at this. Now it's going to be taking potentially people off task when they have other work and priorities maybe that they need to be focused on. So I'm wondering if we can't, you know, what I'm just thinking or asking is if we can't, you know, put that work into the joint plan process to

097look at that and just take housing off the board for this project because, you know, we really need to stick to our time frame. if you could maybe just respond to your thoughts about that. You see nobody wanted to stand up for that question, right? Thank you, Ms. Anthony. They're all like, who's going to answer that question? The joint facilities master planning process is going to look at all of the portfolio for both the city and the school system as it moves forward. So everyone understands that. I mean, I don't know the answer to your question other than this is a very... we have to deal with this project within the time frame and answer the very site-specific questions as to how much room is it going to take to support the expansion to T.C.

098Williams on that campus, and if there's anything left, they're going to want to know what else could fit. I mean, that's really the really short and simple answer to that. And is it adjacent? Does it not fit at all? I mean, until we get some concept plans on how much that 312,000 square feet is going to take and how much the parking is going to take and how much the outdoor space is going to take. I mean, we have those very early blocking massing things we did. That was just an idea that now will take much more shape. We've asked the EDT, has talked a lot about the relationship between King Street and... that campus, where will the entrances be, where will the accesses be? So there are a lot of questions that both Stantec

099has worked on from a planning standpoint and then we're going to transition to a new architectural team who will probably, I think that... We're beholden as the school system to at least show, to study all the possibilities. And so we're committed to studying examples, benchmarks, other types of school systems that have done it, that are doing it, so that we can answer your questions about what does it mean to have residential next to a school. We all have our preferences about what we think architecturally is the best case or worst case, so we're going to continue to study. So I don't think we can't not study it, but we will be addressing it over the next several months. And I was going to say, I think that not studying, I think we should continue to

100study. but that doesn't mean because we're studying that it's going to happen. If we're going to stick to our time frame, and let's say during this studying of affordable housing, if we don't have any verdict or recommendations that come out of that and we're sticking to it, then we've missed the boat. But I think that the Affordable Housing Committee that Mr. Jenks and I spoke about last night was in general. It wasn't specifically about sites. So that information might be available. but it might not, you know, for but we have to as I heard Madam Chair state, we have to stick to this and our team agrees we have to stick to to this specific time frame. We cannot allow anything to jeopardize our time frame of opening this this this building. And by the

101time we get through looking at what the. educational planning is going to look like the educational specifications that we're going to need for the site um any other co-location opportunities that we're talking about you know by the time we get to that there may not even be space anyway that um that's on the table you know so you know our team is moving forward with looking at what do we need for our students first And as this committee that we're putting together, when we come up with our recommendations on what housing could look like at any school, they will then put into consideration if there is space available, whether or not it's possible. And our job is just to share with the board it's possible or it's not possible for us to do. If I

102could just follow up to that. Thank you for sharing that. And one of the concerns I have, too, is you know, the fact that when this building opens, which is several years away, that it's already going to be at capacity because we have 4,100 students now and, you know, the T.C. King Street campus holds the 2,900 and then, you know, my understanding is that we're still building for 1,600 at Minnie Howard and I'm, in my own mind, if there's additional square footage, you know, that can fit, then we should try to add more seats there because we know we're going to need them. So I hope that that's, you know, know definitely something that I understand the city is investing a lot of money in this project and then they would like to see mixed-use

103if it's a possibility but I think you know to your point we do really have to you know do what we have to meet the needs of our students first and foremost and we do have to keep in mind that you know the enrollment and will continue to grow so we do want to have some flexibility even in the future right and that was a discussion that we had when we were making um or making the decision in regards to the high school project that that 5 000 could change and you know so we want to be able to expand if we need to and that that's another reason why we have to um to consider uh other ways of educating our students in the future you know i'm i'm believing that in the future

104some kids may not ever step foot into tc williams and graduate from tc williams right because school divisions are already doing that And what I mean by that is there are homeschooling situations where you're doing online learning through a high school and you never step foot on the campus. 100% is online. Now, some people, that's not for them, right? But with this generation and what is happening in regards to technology, we are moving in that direction that some kids may not come to school. And we have to be able to, one, accommodate that as a pathway the same way we accommodate for students who want to get an associate's degree before they graduate, or the same way we accommodate it for students who want to take AP courses. We're going to have to be able

105to accommodate the students who don't want to come into our building at all. And we need to start thinking through what all of these additional pathways that may not even show up in this 17 career pathways that we currently have, that we are able to expand if we need to in the future. And I think to add to that, I was going to say the technology portion, but just like pedagogy, architects and designers are studying these issues of overcrowding and flexible learning capabilities constantly. And if you notice that... that that last line on project execution and every single box it says that we're gonna look at planning for overcrowding strategy that means for the current TC as well as what we will do because it's not always about adding space it's about adding ways of

106learning of instructional delivery that are that are virtual that are a combination of virtual and in place, that are a combination of mobile and immobile. So I mean, those are definitely concepts that we're studying in order to deal with both the current, the next couple of years before we have a physical location, as well as what we will do when we have this new expanded space. There's a lot of testing. test fitting that's going to go on in the next six months that you all will be privy to that the public will be privy to that will test out exactly what decisions we have to make with the money we have in the time frame that we have to make it in so stay tuned because it's going to get really busy really quickly Miss

107Nolan Last question. Sorry. I just didn't want to disappoint you. Dr. Bann. So this is one for you. Yeah I'm curious to know With the EDT and the discussion now about the programming around the TC Williams. What are the what's the conversation around the alternative programming? So as we move into that that part of it, I just said to miss Wayland I think it was last week when we were mapping out our next steps We're thinking of breaking up the EDT into teams so we can work smarter and not so much as Sorry, let's start over work smarter Not harder because when the big group I think there are times where we need to split off and have people who really have a heart for alternative ed One of the things that as you saw

108from the takeaways and we may not put it up there, but we've talked about this I think back in the summer miss Alderton should alternative ed students have the ability, you may be placed at CFC, you've chosen to go there, but you need to take a class at Minnie Howard or TC. How do we start to bring you back into the fold? And you remember from those designs where you had the connected where the alternative ed students were there. But as Dr. Hutchins just said, is expanding satellite. in other ways and really thinking of alternative ed away from just discipline. And so that's some of our next steps. And so as we continue to come back to you, we'll offer up more ideas on where we're headed. And so we're excited about some of this.

109I think the EDT was tired of me asking them at least twice a month, are you sure about CTE and STEM slash STEAM? And so now we're ready to actually get back to designing. And I think that's the fun part of being on the EDT. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to hear what people come up with. Appreciate it. Anybody else? Okay. I think we're good. Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. And keep up the good work. Okay.