001Okay, we are now recording. Hi, welcome to the special called board meeting of the Alexandria City School Board for May 1st, 2020. I will now call the meeting to order at 1202. And I want to go through the roll call. And when I call your name, please respond with present. I am Cindy Anderson, Veronica Nolan. Present. Megan Alderton. Not yet. Ramey Gentry? Present. Jacinta Green? Present. Margaret Lorber? Present. Michelle Reif? Present. Christopher Suarez? Present. Heather Thornton? Megan Alterton? Present. Okay, we're all here. May I get a motion to adopt the agenda? Madam Chair, I move that we adopt the agenda for May 1st. Second. Ms. Lorber seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. I will not call for a vote and I will go through the list again. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan, yes. Megan Alderton, yes. Ramey
002Gentry, yes. Jacinta Green, yes. Margaret Lorber, yes. You have to say yes or no. Say yes, Margaret. You're on mute, Margaret. Now I'm not. Am I now? No, no, I can hear you. So, so yeah, sorry. My, I was on the sidebar said I was unmuted, but anyway, sorry. Yeah. Just a yes. Yes. Michelle Reeve. Yes. Christopher Torres. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. The vote is unanimous. Nine yeses. Can I get a vote? Can I get a vote? Can I get a motion to adopt the consent calendar, please? Madam Chair, I move that we approve the consent calendar. Second. Ms. Alderton seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. Are there any items to be pulled from the consent calendar? If not, then I'll call for the roll call vote again. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton?
003Yes. Amy Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reeve? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay, great, everyone. So nine approving the consent calendar. So now we have the superintendent's report up next. So I'll turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. So today you all are going to receive a number of board briefs. And I know that the board chair shared with you the board calendar for the remainder of this year. And it's going to be quite busy with a lot of reading is going to be happening as well as agenda items. And I just wanted to reiterate really quickly kind of what... the board chair share it with you all via email. And that is when we have items that are sent to you as a board brief that we're asking for
004board members to provide any questions that they have about those board briefs by Wednesday. So they're posted on Friday. And then by Wednesday, we're asking board members to submit any questions that they may have about the board briefs. And then... By that following Monday, our team will respond as well as post our responses to those questions, just so that the public can see there is Q&A that happens on certain topics and that we're documenting those Q&A opportunities throughout this process, because there is a lot of information that's being shared each week with our board members. So I wanted to see if anybody had any clarifying questions about that first. And then I wanted to open the floor for any questions that board members may have today. All right. So we're ready for questions then. I
005don't see any questions about that process. So do people have questions, other questions? You want to raise your hand or text me if that's not working for you? I thought I saw something. Okay. Dr. Eve? Thank you. Today, in the consent calendar, we approved the revised budget calendar for the remainder of the year. And I did want to ask about, normally we would have a public hearing during this third sort of time that we discuss the budget. And I know that we are opting not to do that. We're not legally obligated to do it. But I was just curious if you could talk about the decision. as far as why we were not doing a public hearing. I know city council, when they did their budget, they were able to do through Zoom a public
006hearing. And then since we're not doing that, how should we encourage people to contact us and share feedback that they might have about the revised budget? Is that a question for me or is that a question for the board chair? Whichever one of you would like to answer it. Yeah, we, Dr. Efe and I talked some about it yesterday and I put out to the board to see if that was something that people wanted to pursue to let me know as soon as possible. And I heard really only from one person who said they didn't need it. So I think. We're trying to be as efficient and we do have other ways of contacting us. We're all electronic. I think moving forward, we have had some discussions about public comment and where that fits in
007going forward. Some of the things we've talked about is having them actually posting things that come electronically. to our board meeting so that the other people in the public can hear, you know, we might want to, you know, what I was thinking earlier today is that we'd want to do that, but we'd also want to make it clear when people write to us, whether or not they want it to be public or not, because I think actually council, the old system definitely did that. I don't know how the new system, I haven't gotten as many things from the new system, but the old system definitely said, is this, is it, are we able to. you know, share this with the public. So we could make, you know, some of the things that we already get
008more public if people want that. It's also possible to maybe have a dedicated voicemail line that, you know, so we, so the clerks and Jennifer and we have talked about it, but we haven't come up. So the budget one, you know, part of it, it's a time crunch because of the 10. day notice. And, you know, as we also discussed, for instance, and I shared with the board, you know, Arlington did some meeting, but that's because during the shutdown, they had not finalized their initial budget. So, I mean, we haven't changed our budget priorities. We're just having a lot of money disappear, you know, so, so I don't know if anybody else has, you know. more input on that. I see Ms. Gentry has her hand raised. Thank you. I was just going to add,
009I found it interesting over the years that of all the avenues that even in normal times, all the avenues that different people have used to communicate with us about the budget, the public hearing has typically been the one that for whatever reason, people seemed to use the least. So I know that certainly um i'm still receiving emails uh i know you all are as well um you know i think it's uh great that the the clerks um and the chair and the superintendent are thinking about other ways uh to ensure that we're you know reminding people that they have uh the ability uh to uh to communicate with us um and and share their thoughts um so uh i i I hope that people will continue to do that as they have, you know, throughout
010all of the other years of budget processes. I see Ms. Luber has her hand up, but you're not. Yeah. Okay. Now you're unmuted. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I was just going to suggest that if we use the express, ACPS express, to communicate. First of all, I. It would be really important to me that our community has read the public communications from the city manager about their budget. And we can't assume that. So maybe we could do something, the ACPS Express, a little segment on what's going on with the budget and with links to the city's budget. And then simply saying, giving a place to... email too if you have comments you know just do that we're putting out those expresses so frequently it just seems like we could pretty quickly put together
011give give people an idea what's going on and if they have reactions to let us know via whatever email we choose to give them you know we have all these feedback things on our home page so maybe there'd be a feedback link on our There already is, I think, on our budget so people could comment. I don't know. What do you think of that, Dr. Hutchings? Yeah, I mean, we were already planning to have information going out in our ACPS Insider as well as Express and posting on our ACPS at home website. I don't see a problem with having something where people could, you know, make comments or, you know, chime in or provide some feedback. I don't see a problem with doing something like that. I do think that, you know, this budget process
012and this, you know, this budget cycle, as you all know, is very unique and it's unprecedented. And the unfortunate thing is with this particular budget, there really isn't a lot of flexibility with what we're trying to do. And the unfortunate thing is that even what I will be presenting next Friday to the board, as well as to the community. could possibly change completely and it could be even more significant than it is next week. So I just want to caution us to not give an impression that, you know, we have so many other options or opportunities because, you know, what I'm going to be stressing next week is that it really is pretty much cut and dry on what we can do because we're so limited and the financial crisis is so significant. So I
013just want to, you know, I just wanted to make that point, but I do think that we can provide opportunities for people to make comments or, you know, to share any thoughts they might have about the proposed revisions. Great. I heard from Miss Abruzzese by text that we are able to create a separate WUFU form if we want to. That's another option. And I also tell you that somehow my video stopped and won't let me start it again. So I'm not intentionally not being seen, but this happened when I was on the PTAC meeting the other week and I just keep clicking on start video and it doesn't work. So apologies. I am still here though. And anybody else? Let's see. We have, well, Dr. Hutchings, I have, you see your hand up, but you
014just, did you have something else? Okay. Now I have Mr. Suarez. Yeah, just a very brief comment. You know, I had seen something that the mayor had posted to the effect that, you know, having the Zoom sort of public commentary actually was promoting sort of a broader diversity of commentary that he hadn't seen before, you know, at the meetings. And so to the extent we're sort of looking at this going forward in terms of how we can have more public engagement participation from just a broader swath of... the Alexandria population, I would encourage us to do that. Obviously, so far, we haven't been able to have that in these meetings. And so to the extent we can think of some solutions to allow for that at a future point, I think that could be beneficial.
015But I do hear what we're all saying about the budget being constrained. And obviously, we'll do the best we can to incorporate feedback for that process from all of these sources. Madam Chair? Yes, I see you're having trouble raising your hand. Yeah, it's so crazy. So go ahead. I just wanted a little comment also is to say, even though I totally fully understand how unusual the situation is and that there's really no flexibility with the budget. It's always people just like to be validated. You know, just the idea that they were brought into the fold into the I don't expect. big comments, but I think that just contributes to our transparency as a school system. And I think we can all communicate to our constituents also, you know, that we're, what a struggle this is,
016but I still think doing something where we show, make a show of asking for input, even if it's just for support input, that's all I want to say. Yes. And I, and we agree, we agree with you. I think everybody's on the same page about that. Including the staff. Okay, I see Dr. Reed. Thank you. I was going to ask another question for Dr. Mozingo. It's good to see you. And this was about the learning kits that came for pre-K, the second grade, the From Hand to Mind. I know I have a first grader and we received it this week. And I think it was very exciting for the young students to receive those kits. There were a couple of items in the kits. that as a parent, I wasn't sure how to use and
017I didn't see any directions in the kit. And so I just wanted to ask you about those things like the foam shapes, the Unilink cubes and the VersaTiles. Is that something we should ask our teachers? Parents should be asking the teachers what to do with or will there be some guidelines posted online about how to use those tools? I was wondering if you could speak to that. Friday. And thank you, Dr. Reeve, for asking that question. We are getting several emails from families that are really enjoying those. Those children are really enjoying the kid and the various activities. The company has actually prepared for, developed for us a video that we can push out to parents. We asked them to develop a video to support the kids. So we will push that information out to
018parents. We have also uploaded the video on Canvas for our teachers. So that will provide more support to the families and teachers. The ultimate goal was to use those as supplemental, although those resources were aligned to our standards. But we will upload that and provide that for our families. Thank you. Okay, I don't see anybody else. Does anybody else have a question? Are they having trouble raising their hand? because I know that's been happening sometimes. Oh, I see Ms. Green. Thank you, Terri Anderson. I just wanted to get from Dr. Hutchings what word briefs we should be expecting today. Yes, let me pull that up really quickly for you. So today the board briefs that you all are going to receive relate to the ACPS at home, our pulse surveys, and the strategy for getting
019feedback and input from staff, from students, as well as from our families. And that is going to give just a layout of what that plan looks like. You're also going to receive a board brief on our department COVID-19 plans. And when we closed our doors March 13th, fortunately, we already have our school improvement planning and our department improvement planning process that's been in place for the past two years. But what we did was added a component to that plan that relates to COVID-19 and how we're responding in regards to central office departments to assist our schools. So you all are going to have access and the public will have access to those plans. Just so you can see, we're not, you know, just being impulsive with our decision making. It is a plan that we're
020following to accommodate this situation. And then you're going to see a board brief in regards to our annual staff evaluation process. You know, the board recently adopted a policy this year ensuring that all of our staff members are evaluated and just showing or sharing with the board how we're planning to continue to uphold that policy. We're just making some modifications in how we attain. the evaluations because we're in a situation as of March through June, we don't have people in our school building, so we can't do teacher observations, all the things that we typically do to do an evaluation, but we're making some modifications to get that completed. And you'll see that in the board brief. And then you'll see a board brief in regards to our academic calendar for 21-22. And this is information
021pertaining to the feedback and the survey results from uh february and february march uh regarding the 2021 2022 uh academic calendar we separated those two uh because we wanted to get input around starting prior to labor day in 21 22 and that is what that board brief will be about and then uh finally you're going to have a confidential board brief on the tc williams stadium uh project that you will be able um to review so um those are the five uh board briefs that you will receive today and what we're asking is uh questions that relate to that that they are submitted by wednesday and then we will be making responses to those questions by the following monday okay now i have um a question from miss nolan Thank you, Chair Anderson. Just one
022comment and a question. So my comment is just with regards to the public comment. I agree with what everyone said. I just think... As long as we're crystal clear as to how the board is soliciting feedback that we're not making folks guess. I think the WUFU forum suggestion was a great one. And so people can decide whether or not they want to make their comments posted and we can post them publicly or not. So I just wanted to add my two cents that whatever we... I think that's the road. It sounds like we're going down, but we just want to make sure it's crystal clear and that we're being transparent and not having folks guess what the process is. My question is, so Dr. Hutchings, I know I'm really excited to see the pulse surveys
023and see what comes of that. What is going to be the determination of how we're measuring our results and impact and the connectivity of students during this time? Like what has there been an assessment plan developed? I think I shared with folks that, you know, it's sort of like a four phase approach is the way I'm looking at the situation. You know, phase one being the infrastructure was built. Phase two is the continuity of learning plan. Phase three is the assessment and phase four will be like the pivot to fall. So I'm just curious about where. What it sounds like the survey is going to be one of the tools we use, but what what is going to be the measurement of how we're assessing this moment in time and how the impact it is
024on students and their learning and connectivity? So there will be multiple measurements that we're going to be looking at from student engagement on using our devices. So looking at how many students are actually logging into campus, looking at the students who are completing the assignments, because our grading policy that was revised for this period of time and making sure that 60% or more assignments are being completed and knowing that percentage of students who are actually engaged in that is going to be another important measure. um the access that students are having to teachers uh and making sure that you know students are getting responses back when they have questions we're going to be surveying that to find out what is the wait time for that? How quickly are you getting those responses? As well as
025families, because families have questions and concerns, whether it's a technology difficulty or they need a device or something is broken, we're going to evaluate how those things are operating as well. And then we're going to look at the end of this quarter at our grades and our grading, meaning, you know, I know it's not actual letter grades, it's a pass or no grade for secondary. And we're using using the introduced but not graded for our elementary schools, but we are going to be analyzing how many of our students are actually engaged in that new content work during this fourth quarter that we'll be pulling from that. But I know that there's some things that I'm probably missing out. You will see some of that in the memo today. And I know that Mr. Page is
026not on this call today because he's off today, but... I will be sure if your answers or if your question is not answered in the memo, that we'll be prepared to follow up with some additional questions you have after the posting of the board brief tonight. Great. And can I ask a follow-up question, Chair Anderson? Sure. So I'm assuming then we'll also be able to disaggregate the data and figure out like which parents are responding, like in terms of like, you know, down to school or... Free and reduced lunch rate. I'm just concerned if there's a particular segment of the population that's not going to be actively engaged with the surveys that we're still finding a way to solicit their feedback. So it'd be great to understand if there are pockets or community members that
027perhaps we can work in partnership with, let's say, I'm just making this up, but let's say we find out that a number of parents that live in community lodgings are not, for whatever reason, have the time to respond that we are reaching out to community lodgings and saying, is there a way to solicit? It would just be great to understand like. you know, the frequency of responses and like if there are certain pockets of populations that aren't responding, but they were still able to get, because my concern is that the ones that respond to the survey are the ones that are probably either in the best shape or have the accessibility. And it's those ones that were not capturing their feedback might be the ones that are in the most vulnerable situations and that we
028might have to proactively reach out to versus await their response. So we're modeling our surveying similar to what we did for our family community engagement. We got our communities that were not typically engaged. So FACE is involved in this process. All of our departments to assist with identifying our underrepresented community and families in this process as well. We also will have translation in our EL services or EL department is working with us on this. So it is an all hands on deck approach. The same way, you know, fortunately we have been able to get to many of our families now through this electronics, you know, through our distance learning and through everybody having now devices in grades three through 12. that I really believe we're going to see a lot more participation from all groups
029across the board. And we will be working to ensure that we're getting that diverse perspective and not just, hey, click here. And for people who read ACPS Insider, there will be intentional efforts to reach out to our families to complete these assignments. And you'll see some of that in the memo. We're looking to make this, you know, our surveying as a part of like our. routine that we do for our teaching and learning. So everybody in ACPS is going to be surveying on the same day. Staff, teachers, you know, it's going to be, you're not in lieu of work, this is what you're going to be doing for us. So this is some strategies that we're using to see how we can get more of our families engaged. Great, thank you. And I imagine, I
030know Mr. Page always does this, but I imagine he'll list on the survey the demographics of who responded. Yeah, of course, we're going to be looking at surveys and areas that if people provide that information, because remember, it's going to have parents not have to give that information to us. So we typically do that for people who do provide it. Yes. Mr. Suarez has a question. Yeah, and before I go to my question, I just want to ditto everything that Ms. Nolan said and Dr. Hutchings, I appreciate your response on that topic. The more we can see that data and the more we can understand, you know, the different types of data that are relevant to that engagement piece, the more we can use that to sort of proactively engage our families and all those
031subgroups in the division. So my question is specifically about special ed. I had asked a question about it before we broke for spring break. And I understand now that we've been doing more in the way of special ed in terms of providing related services. I've spoken to some families who've said that that process has been indeed underway. I've also, you know, understand that there has have been more efforts from the teachers to try to engage in some of the IEP goals and provide parents with resources in terms of how they can achieve the goals and so forth. I still have heard some concerns in the community though, so I wanted to just sort of get an update on where we are in the special ed, what are we doing to make sure that all of
032the parents are being reached out to proactively so that the students are being accommodated to the extent possible. Obviously, under these circumstances, it's impossible to do it perfectly, but how are we doing the best we can in that department? And then also, what are we doing also to engage the students proactively to ensure that there's a touch point there that's consistent. I'm curious how that is working now that we've been three weeks post spring break. So I'd love to hear an update. Thank you, Mr. Suarez. I appreciate the opportunity to share some information with you. I'm going to kind of start from the beginning and work our way through. As you know, when we did our 1.0 service, our focus was on learning engagement and learning activities. had teachers who had developed packets and information
033was provided to parents as well as to teachers in terms of services and expectations during those three weeks. Remember that our focus was around instruction, communication, collaboration, and professional development. When we then developed our 2.0, our primary focus was one around instruction and engagement for students. If you remember one of our previous board meetings, we talked about the fact that we had the ability to expand the definition of faith. And so that we had written. guidelines and policies and procedures, not policies, excuse me, guidelines and procedures around what that was going to look like. We have a letter that is being sent to parents as we speak that outlines all of that. We had a little bit of a delay ensuring that we had email and correct addresses for everyone. So the expectation has been
034up until two days ago, and then we have the letter from USDOE that has addressed some other things. So I'll talk to up to two days ago. The expectation was when we came back from 2.0 after spring break, that we would then roll over to instruction that supported what was going on in the general education classroom, and that we would have direct instructional activities for students in our citywide classroom. In addition, we have trained, we developed new procedures and guidelines around the provision of related services, as well as IEP meetings and eligibility process. We trained over 200 people and probably over 300 people on those processes the Monday that we came back from spring break. The expectation is that every teacher in the district has made contact with parents and every special education teacher has
035made contact with parents and is engaged in providing instruction to students. What that instruction looks like varies depending on what the student's grade level is, what their schedule is, what their IEP requirements are. But every teacher at this point should be engaged with students and with parents in both direct instruction and in related services and in parental support. We've also engaged our Parent Resource Center. And they are working in conjunction with our citywide program and with the state PRC, and they are also engaged in parent outreach activities. Two days ago, I'm sure as many of you know, there has been repeated requests from all 50 states to USDOE to waive some of the requirements for special education mandates. USDOE came back with a letter two days ago essentially denying that, denying all, and had some
036statements that I think have people across the country a little taken aback. But anyway, so to that end, we have been engaged in the last 48 hours with upping the guidance that we are providing to teachers and to staff. We have revised our procedures and documentation communication logs and that is all going to be provided in an email to teachers and to administrators on Monday. enhancing and ensuring that we can document all of the provisions of services and outreach to families for our students. I will tell you right now, I believe that it is the rare child that we are not touching at this point, if any. I repeatedly, repeatedly have check-ins. had conversations with building principals. I've had conversations with instructional specialists and school support teams. It is in my belief, and I'm being
037very upfront saying it is, would be the very rare child at this point that we have not been able to touch. And just to sort of Ms. Nolan's earlier point, do we have at this point now some data or specific information on a student by student level where we sort of know who's engaged, who's not engaged, which parents feel like the support they are receiving is adequate for them to be able to sort of run with that support? My main concern is that because the level of instruction is that much more. you know, difficult to provide when you're working with a special education student. It's, you know, it's a specialized area of teaching that, you know, once the parent, you know, assumes more of the burden of that instruction that there's going to be need
038to be more support. So I'm just kind of wondering how we're analyzing that to make sure that all of our families are getting the support they need. Are we disaggregating that data, sort of thinking about that as we're going? So what I can say to you at this point is I like. the general ed side, we have a couple of places that we are pulling information. So we can start with looking at who's engaged in Zoom, the number of kids who have been enrolled and active on Zoom. We also, through those classroom experiences in our three through 12, also looking at who is accessing the learning activities through their Canvas use. We also have requested that our teachers keep documentation of the contacts that they are making with parents and with students and following up
039in that regard. I think that we will have additional information and more discrete information once we provide this updated template and have a consistent process by which we're collecting that information from teachers as well. But I will tell you that in my conversations and my check-ins, we are very consistently reaching parents and students. Okay. I look forward to more updates. Thank you. I thought I could unmute myself a different way. Now I have Ms. Lorber. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Glenn. Dr. Warner, thank you so much for that update. It's interesting. I'm interested that the Department of Education came out strong. That's very interesting. Anyway, I just wanted to, I think many of you may or may not have seen an email that Dr. Hutchings sent out this morning about the outreach to the Spanish-speaking community
040done on, by, I think, Univision. Anyway, if you click on it, it is in Spanish, but it's a terrific video. and members of our staff are in it. And I understand that in fact we've had as a result because what the video does is talk about resources that the families may not be aware of and both in the area of health and in the teen clinic, and then also in the food distribution. And I understand that the feedback has been terrific. They're getting a lot of phone calls as a result. And so I was really proud of our face people. And I think that when I thought of it, because when we discussed earlier the survey and getting feedback, as Dr. Hutchings pointed out, the approach we used with the family outreach survey, the family
041engagement survey was using the family. outreach people and they're pretty good at that. So we probably are harder families, at least those who are harder to reach because of language. So I just wanted to call everyone's attention to that email from Dr. Hutchinson. Thank you. Next I have Ms. Alderton. Hi, everyone. So I'm actually going back to the discussion prior to Ms. Lorver's comment. And I really just wanted to provide some comments. I don't really have any questions. I think in regard to the issue around special education, I think we're going to hear concerns from parents because this is a completely unprecedented. I mean. I've just sort of been immersed in this and it's been a big challenge. I think there isn't a lot of real guidance from anyone. And so LEAs are kind of,
042you know, figuring out a lot of things on their own. In regard to communicating with families, and I think this is what Terry was saying, I think the biggest help is going to be communicating that sort of redefine definition of FAPE to families. Because what I've noticed, and actually Ms. Nolan and I had a conversation about this yesterday or the day before, is that families, when they're saying what their concerns are, it's not that they're not legitimate, but they're not necessarily versed in understanding what that definition of FAPE is in this situation. You know, we're not business as usual. And so faith is not going to be business as usual. And that's a hard pill to swallow. I think when you're used to a certain, your child receiving certain services at a certain frequency, et
043cetera. So as much as we can sort of. really just juxtapose faith to what's being provided to the general education students. I think families then understand it a little bit more. Our gen ed students aren't getting the same things that they were getting. So our us providing access to a free and appropriate public education is now grounded in how our our general education students are being served. So I think that's a good communication point for families that can be helpful and sort of alleviating some of the anxiety. And I think the next part of alleviating some of that concern and anxiety will definitely be around, you know, what I'm calling this recovery process and thinking about what's going to happen when the doors open again. You know, what is our process going to be in,
044you know, figuring out if kids have regressed. what is our plan and process going to be to address any of that as well? So that's just more of a general comment. But I think, you know, just to say that we're going to continue to hear concerns because it's just not clear cut. It's not dry. And so as a local education agency, like we're being forced, just as every other local education agency is being forced to. sort of define these things and come up with the expectations ourselves. So I don't know if, you know, Terry had any other comments or disagree with anything that I said, but, you know, I think this is one where clear communication is another one that clear communication is going to be helpful. For expanding on that. What... Ms. Alderton is
045saying is very true. Everything has fundamentally been left up to the LEAs to decide based on what the general approach of the school division is to providing education overall. As I think that we had discussed in previous board meetings, there is the entire continuum across the state. from school divisions that have closed and said, thank you. It's been nice seeing you. We'll see you when we come back in the fall to fundamentally ACPS. And I, and I'm going to continue to say, I have never been prouder to work in the division than I have been in the last six weeks here. When I see what we have put in place for students, I have been on statewide meetings and I have been on region four meetings. And I am telling you. we are leading the
046charge with what we do and what we have provided to students. Is it perfect? No. But, you know, as everybody keeps saying, and we were in a meeting yesterday in SLT with Fran Perlman, we're building the airplane as we're flying. And we have had more. engagement and more educational opportunities provided to students with disabilities in Northern Virginia than any of our associated school districts. I'm telling you, we have. Having said that. Do we have things that we can step up our game? Absolutely, without question. And that's what we're doing. You know, as we do one thing, we see, okay, what do we need to do better? And that's really where we're headed with this next iteration of what our expectations are. And so you're going to see a lot more clarity around just how much
047time should a general ed teacher be in there? We are looking at proportions. We clearly cannot meet the IEP timeframes that were outlined. I mean, students aren't in school that kind of time. So we're really looking at proportional services, delivering the proportional amount of service that a student would receive based on the general educational services they are receiving. When we looked at related services, we clustered related services and said, you know, if you're within a range of zero to 120 minutes, the proportional share is this. If you're 120 to 240 minutes, your proportional time is this. And we're providing that amount of time. I've had two, I've had personally two parents raise questions about the amount of time that their student was receiving services. And I have a narrative that I've written that explains how
048we came to these conclusions. And when I provided that to both the parents, they were fine. That was, you know, that answered the question. So I'm very hopeful that we will continue to improve. I know we will continue to improve. And I'm hopeful when the letter gets out to parents that they will also understand the reasoning and the rationale behind the services and the approach that we're taking. Next, I see a question from Ms. Nolan. Thank you so much. And thank you so much, Ms. Warner, for all you're doing. I mean, like you said, it really is exceptional, everything that ACPS does. is doing similar to what you were saying and for my day job I know Ms. Alterton has mentioned this before as well like I'm on calls during the day with what's going
049on in Maryland what's going on this DC and what's going on Virginia it's truly outstanding each and every one of your hard work here as staff and it's just it's truly remarkable what's happening here so thank you again to everyone. My question, Dr. Hutchings, and I'm not really looking more for a response or a plan, but more about just an education, educating the board about when this will be a point of discussion. I think the challenge right now is obviously we're focused on the immediate crisis and how to ensure that students are getting served now. At what point, Dr. Hutchings, do you think the discussion is going to have to pivot to what's going to occur in the summer and in the fall? And again, I'm not asking for what the plan is, more around
050when do you think that discussion So, yes. So, so the continuity of learning plan. Can you all hear me? Thumbs up. Okay, good. The Continuity of Learning Plan 3.0, which focuses on our summer learning, that is going to go public for our community because it's still a work in progress right now, but that's going to go public on May 22nd. So May 22nd, we will have an understanding of what our summer learning looks like in ACPS. Keeping in mind, adjustments and things might still occur throughout the process, but having a clear plan as to what that is will be on May 22nd. on 22nd. Then we will have a discussion around the actual continuity of learning plan and a presentation done on June 5th with the board to kind of give a clear understanding, a
051deeper kind of picture as to what this summer enrichment and engagement is going to look like for students over the summer. For the fall, we will be providing the continuity of learning, and this is 4.0. um that relates uh to to the fall that will be available uh for the public on june the 26th And that will give an idea to what our plans are for opening of school, which we will have multiple scenarios for that because there's no guarantee all buildings will be open. There's no guarantee there will no longer be social gathering guidelines. So we're going to have to have multiple scenarios of what it could potentially look like in the fall. And then once again, the caveat being. but everything can change you know so it's just given a plan that might
052have to be adjusted but at least allowing our families to get a sense of what the fall could potentially look like and then an actual presentation to the board um to have a deeper kind of discussion and understanding of that will be on july 10th or July 9th. And that would be the Continuity of Learning 4.0. So that is kind of the process we're working through. So we have to take this, and this goes back to what we've been saying all along since March 13th. us having all the answers right now would be unjust, right? It's impossible for us to tell you this is what we're going to do in the fall. We're trying to finish the school year. So when do we ever know what we're going to do in the fall in May?
053That's even less. Now let's take the pandemic aside. Even if school was all as normal, the normal we used to have, we don't give the board a plan of what the fall looks like. And now, but. We do know we are going to work, we're working through having, you know, our plan as well as contingency plans, just in case with the information and the data that we have as of right now. But we're trying to finalize the summer first, and then we're going to start focusing on what the fall looks like. And we are also trying to, we develop timeframes based on when we know the governor is expecting to, you know, lift. the whole stay at home order, which is after June 10th. It might change if he decides to make it further and
054we become the state of emergency at a longer date than we anticipated, or that there's some type of plan where there are only certain departments that open up and school is not one of them. So we still have to wait to get some of that knowledge and information as well. But I hope that gave you a clearer picture as to what the dates are. Very much. Thank you so much. Okay, I have Dr. Reif with a question or comment. Thank you. I wanted to ask a question to maybe this is Dr. Hutchings or Dr. Wilkins about the principal searches. We have a couple of principal searches going on right now. And I know last week there was an opportunity, you know, we're doing a new process where the community, the school community has an opportunity
055to interact with the top two candidates, which I think is really great. And unfortunately, you know, this the quarantine situation has, you know. caused us to have to do that over Zoom, but I think those Zoom conversations seem very successful. But if you could give us any feedback on the level of participation and what kind of feedback you received about that process, I would be interested in hearing an update on that. Dr. Wilkins, did you want to respond to that? I thank you for that question. We've enjoyed the participation of the community through the Zoom process. And I think that we found it to be a very successful way to communicate with the public and in particular to give them a perspective of the candidates in this COVID-19 situation. So I think that we found
056it to be a very good vehicle to solicit their feedback and for most of all for the community to get an understanding of who the candidates are. So what I would like to do that is with Dr. Hutch's permission is to perhaps do a brief memo on it to give you kind of the numbers behind the participant rate as well as maybe some examples of some general feedback. to give you a better appreciation for the way ahead. With that said, as you know, the videos were posted for each of the candidates for Charles Barrett and Douglas MacArthur for three days. As of today, those videos are now down and we're collecting feedback from the community. in this case. So there's still some information to be gathered, I guess is what I mean. And I would
057like to provide, again, a summary to the board at the next board brief that we can schedule. The next step, of course, is for Dr. Hutchings to make his selection among the two finalists for each school. And we'll be working over that in the next two weeks. So hopefully... we will be able to recommend to the school board by the end of this month again to a candidate or the principal finalist if you will for each school Doug McArthur, Charles Barrett but also for Jefferson Houston which is also under underway so again we're managing this process well and with the support of the Zoom technology. And particularly, I got to give a shout out to the IT department, Elizabeth Hoover and her team. It's just been a really good process to go through. And I
058think we're learning some things along the way that we can retain going forward into the future. Again, I think that the community engagement has been great. And I hope to provide more information that on the next board brief. So, so thank you. Thank you, Dr. Wilkins. And I know you're being a little modest, but I also want to thank the HR department for putting this all together too, because the feedback I heard, I did get to have one-on-one interviews with the four finalists, two for Charles Barrett and two for Douglas MacArthur this week. And the feedback I even got from the finalists was they were nervous about how would a Zoom work, but going through the process, they felt that it was really eye-opening and they felt they had a connection and were still able
059to connect with the staff as well as with the community during these times, which they just didn't think was going to be possible. So they appreciated the fact that they were able to engage in that way. I did provide the board with an overview of how many participants were on those Zooms. We had about 90 on. I still need to give you the update, though, for Douglas MacArthur. I gave you the update for Charles Barrett. I will provide you all. And I typically do it in my. daily updates to the board, but I will be sure to include that for Douglas MacArthur as well, so you can know the actual numbers there. I'm going to be meeting with both staffs at Douglas MacArthur and Charles Barrett just one more time. It's going to be a
060brief meeting just to get an idea of, you know, what they were thinking about the two candidates because they had their time as a staff to meet. But then many probably watched the community portion as well. And I don't know if that changed their decision making or not. But I wanted to get an idea of did anything change from the time you met with the candidates to what you saw in the community? So just giving some insight to what they were able to observe. But I have to say, this is going to be a very tough. decision to make because we really have four strong candidates. It's a good thing to have for the two openings. I can't wait to see what we're going to have with Jefferson Houston as well. So hats off to
061HR as well as everybody else who's been involved in this. Great. It's a great problem to have more, more quality candidates. I like that problem. I see no other hands raised and we are approaching the hour. It's 1257 at this point in time. So if I could get a motion to adjourn, then we'll be on. Madam Chair. Ms. Gentry. Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn. I move that we adjourn. Second. Ms. Green seconded Ms. Gentry's motion to adjourn. And I will now do the roll call vote for the adjournment. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alterton? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Wee? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay, we are adjourned at 1258 everyone.