001Welcome everyone. This is the virtual special called meeting for June 5th, 2020. I'm calling the meeting to order at 12.04. And first off, let's see, I'm going to call everybody's name to see that you're here. So please reply when I call your name. I'm Cindy Andersons. I'm here. Veronica Nolan. Present. Megan Alderton. Present. Rami Gentry. Present. Jacinta Green. Present. Margaret Lorber. Present. Michelle Reif. Present. Christopher Suarez. Present. Heather Thornton. Present. Okay, good. All nine of us are present and accounted for. And so we'll move on. So when we moved to virtual meetings a couple of months ago, we pared down our agenda in order to make our meeting shorter. This week, I asked for the moment of silence to be added back to the agenda. Normally, the moment of silence is unstructured and individuals can
002use it to reflect, meditate, focus, or whatever each individual decides is best. And when we've had tragedies that directly impact students in school settings, such as school shootings, we've dedicated our moments of silence to the people most impacted and their communities. At this point in time, we have had much trauma and lost to mourn. First, we have the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to threaten those in our ACPS family and beyond. And our ACPS family has also experienced non-COVID related deaths since our transition to virtual meetings. Most recently, our communities and the entire country have been traumatized by multiple events that point to just how present racism continues to be in this country. School systems can play a critically important role in addressing the problems associated with racism, but it's not an easy task. Today, I'm
003asking people to devote their moment of silence to remember all in our ACPS family and beyond who have suffered illness, loss, and racial injustice, and rededicate ourselves to the work of eliminating injustice and work toward ensuring equity for all students. There are many examples of racism to consider, but I have chosen to reflect on the experiences of Christian Cooper, who survived his recent encounter with racism, and George Floyd, who did not. So now I ask for a moment of silence. Okay, my picture's gone away again, because I must have had something open earlier. Thank you, everyone. We'll move on. Could I have a motion to adopt the agenda for today, please? Madam Chair, I move that we adopt today's agenda. Second. Ms. Alderton second Ms. Green's motion. I will call for a vote by roll
004call. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderson? Yes. Mamie Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reeve? Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. So that's nine zero adopting the agenda. We have received public comments that are attached to today's meeting this week. So please be sure board members to review those if you already haven't. And those are also available for the public to review as well. Next up, we have the consent calendar. May I have a motion to adopt the consent calendar, please? Madam Chair, I make a motion that we adopt the consent calendar for today. Second. Ms. Green seconds. Ms. Lorber's motion to adopt the consent calendar. Is there anything to pull from the consent calendar? If not, I will do the roll call vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan,
005yes. Megan Alderton, yes. Ramey Gentry, yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. So the vote is 9-0. The consent calendar is adopted. Now we're on to the budget motions. and adopting the budget, our revised budget that we worked on just recently. So, Ms. Nolan, do you have that available? Or I guess, Ms. Nielsen, you're going to put it up on screen. Is that right? Okay. Am I proceeding then? Yes. Yes, please. Great. Thanks. Madam Chair, I move that the Alexandria City School Board approve the fiscal year 2021-2030 Capital Improvement Program budget in the total amount of $532,484,885 with $95,000. $5,089,100 in fiscal year 2021. The superintendent is granted the authority to make the necessary minor changes to comply with the school board. Do you have a
006second? Second. Ms. Alderton seconds Ms. Nolan's motion. And so I'm going to call for a vote on the item. What we'll call Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay, the vote is 9-0 that the CIP budget is passed. And now we move on to the combined funds budget and we have a resolution for that as well, a motion. Susan, is that being pulled up as well, or do you want me to read it off the email? I think she's muted, but I believe she's. You're muted, Susan. I don't know what you're saying. I tried to read the vote lips, but. Okay, here we go. Thank you, Susan. Okay, Madam Chair, I move that the
007Alexandria City School Board approve the fiscal year 2021 combined funds budget as follows. The fiscal year 2021 operating budget in the amount of $288,319,565 for both revenues and expenditures. This includes other financing sources and uses as well as a planned use of general fund. balance in the amount of $4,839,337 and a transfer of $1,716,473 to the grants and special project funds. The operating budget includes 2,425.09 FTEs and a total city appropriation of $234,037,269. The fiscal year 2021- Sorry, 234 million. Yeah, you transposed the last two if you could. Sorry. Oh, sorry, 296. You would think I'd be doing a better job giving how I'm assisting, supposed to be helping my son with his fourth grade math. So fiscal year 2021, Branson Special Projects budget in the amount of $20,495,202 for revenues and expenditures, including approximately.
008$3.70 million of federally funded coronavirus aid, relief, and economic security, the CARES Act funding. This also includes a transfer of $1,716,473 from the operating fund to provide supplemental funding support to the Virginia Preschool Initiative, the BPI program. And this budget includes a total of 98.75 FTEs. The fiscal year 2021 school nutrition services budget totals $10,961,612 for revenues and $10,961,096 for expenditures. This budget includes a total of 125 FTEs. The superintendent is granted the authority to make the necessary minor changes to comply with the intent of the school board. Additionally, the school board authorizes The encumbrances remaining as of June 30th, 2020 to carry forward from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2021 as an adjustment to the final budget. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Yes. Thank you, Ms. Nolan. I know how
009it is reading those numbers. I was always sort of when I was, it's like I'd never seen numbers that big before when I started to read it sometimes. So, all right. So I have, I'm sorry, who seconded? Ms. Alderton. Ms. Alderton. Ms. Alderton seconds Ms. Nolan's motion. I'm going to call for a will call vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan, yes. Megan Alderton, yes. Mimi Jontry, yes. Jacinta Green, yes. Margaret Lorber, yes. Michelle Reeve, yes. Christopher Suarez, yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. So that's 9-0 in favor of passing the combined funds budget. Thank you all. And now we're moving on to the new business, which is the enhanced continuity of learning summer plan. And I'm turning it over to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Madam Chair. Before we go into the summer learning, I know that our
010CFO wanted to make a couple of remarks. So I was going to turn things over to Mr. Turner. Yes, thank you, Dr. Hutchinson. Thank you, school board, for allowing me a brief moment. Just wanted to thank our team. This year has definitely been a different and challenging year as we went through the budget, from working over the winter break to put together what we believed would be a solid budget to move ACPS forward in fiscal year 2021, to then having to be thrown back in the throes of the budget season to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. um and uh working for a revised budget here uh through may and june um so i just wanted to thank the team for all their hard work and dedication um and being able to put together this revised
011budget while also dealing with reallocating the funds throughout the school division so we could ensure that the distance learning plan would be successful in the end of this school year and as well as moving into next school year um with that i also wanted to thank our payroll staff and accounting staff as well as general services and procurement for being able to keep projects moving um paychecks getting to employees and vendors being paid so projects could continue um throughout the pandemic um as well as putting together our learning kits that went out to students um as well as coordinating the uh receiving and distribution of our mail from the 18 buildings that have been closed for the past um two and a half three months so uh big thanks for for everybody on the team's
012hard work and dedication um and that's all thank you for the time Thank you, Mr. Turner, for your leadership during this time as well and the collaboration that you've had with all of our chiefs or principals, everybody who's been involved. I just second what you said to all of our staff members. So as we transition into summer learning, I think it's important. I'm going to tee things up for Dr. Mann. I'm going to introduce him. Before we turn things over to Dr. Mann, I just wanted to say that this continuity of learning plan 3.0 is an opportunity for us to provide all of our students in ACPS with an opportunity to remain engaged during the month of July. And I just want to make it clear to everyone, I've been saying this every week and
013every opportunity I get, this is not mandatory. It is expected, but it's not mandatory. Families can opt out of this. you know, summer learning experience. We just today hopefully will be able to clear the air, which we've done through our FAQs over the past couple of weeks. And the fact that there's a lot of flexibility that goes along with this learning and Dr. Mann will be able to share more about that. So I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Mann to take us into our presentation for today. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Just sharing my screen. And Dr. Mozingo, were you going to make some comments? Dr. Matusenko, you're muted. Okay, good afternoon, everyone. I just wanted to... quickly just make a couple of comments to support what the superintendent has just shared, but to
014actually also say that at the core of the summer learning plan is a real commitment for three major outcomes. One is to engage, to enrich, and to prepare the students. And as he has also indicated is that we want to ensure that our students are able to, we're trying to minimize the summer learning loss. In addition to that, we're trying to minimize what has occurred in terms of academic loss during the pandemic. So again, this is an effort to be able to not only support students in catching up with grade level content, but Dr. Mann will also describe many of the engaging opportunities that will be afforded many students during the summer learning. program. On the next slide, we just quickly wanted to highlight for you the essential questions that frame the summer learning. One
015is just to explain and share. He will share why are we offering summer learning? What are the benefits of summer learning? And then some of the guiding principles that frame the summer learning program. He will go in detail and explain the programs because there are program options for pre-K all the way through 12th grade. Again, he will highlight some of the activities and opportunities to engage and to give students a jump start. In addition to that, there's a real commitment to ensure that we're meeting the needs of our students with disabilities and English learners. And so he'll describe some of those opportunities and options. And lastly, the extent to which there is a real commitment. to providing some social and emotional support for our students during the four weeks of this summer learning program. This
016slide really captures again really what the superintendent has already indicated, but just quickly we know what happens in a typical year in terms of summer learning loss, but this year we want to make sure with the summer program that this program is mitigating and trying to minimize any further loss. Again, it provides many, many opportunities for getting students to grade level content and enrichment activities. just to repeat the social and emotional support. He has a feature, they have a feature where books will be delivered to the homes of our families for students in pre-K through fourth grade. And again, what's so unique about this summer learning program in comparison to the past is the various academic options for jumpstart to the next grade level. So thank you again for this opportunity for Dr. Mann to
017share. the many features and advantages of the summer learning for all. Thank you, Dr. Mozingo, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we get started, I'd like to just thank the team. There's an army of people who have helped develop the charge that Dr. Hutchins gave us in April to develop Summer School for All. It took a pandemic, but this was one of his ideas when he first came on board that we offer Summer School for All. So I won't name them all individually, but from our early childhood office, our director of school counseling. our Director of Online Learning, Technology Services, Communications, Human Resources, Specialized Instruction, English Learners, all of our curriculum specialists. All the teachers who gave feedback to the curriculum specialist on what would be included, all the principals and coordinators who will also be
018working this summer, and the feedback we got from our assistant principals and principals on summer learning. And I'll name two people who have been in every single meeting with me by name. That's Dr. Alicia Kincaid and my admin assistant, Yamari Ortiz Gutierrez. So thank you all because this is a team effort and usually school board you know I say I get to present on their behalf and so we will jump into the meat of the presentation. So as Dr. Hutchings and Dr. Mozingo both indicated we had guiding principles and we wanted to make sure for summer school for all that that means everyone is included that means our special populations. So our special education and EL students will receive direct services. We will make sure working with specialized instruction and English learner office and their
019specialists on making recommendations from case managers, but also from schools around if we need smaller classes, a co-taught setting, or also setting up EL and special education students with EL and special ed teachers. Flexibility. We know that the expected and then the articles that came out threw everyone into a tizzy. But this summer program offers you the ability to stay in Alexandria or go to Europe or drive to Florida and do this anywhere you would like. We've taken the feedback from our administrators and teachers. We've tried to make one-stop shopping. So we've been meeting with our technology services team. on using Clever and Canvas. So everyone goes to one place. They don't have to search for a Google form or all the other places. There's one place for a family to go. So if you,
020later on the presentation, do not want to start summer school at nine o'clock, you can start summer school at 9 p.m. because the videos will be recorded and you'll still access the program in the same time. And if you're a student taking a boost course or new or credit recovery courses, you still have that same flexibility that you, like I have a graduating senior who graduated yesterday, she does not move until around noon. So if you want to start your summer school classes at noon, you're more than welcome to do that. Creativity. We've kept many of our aspects from our normal summer learning program. We have inquiry lessons for students in third and fourth grade. And there's all you'll see in a second how students will actually submit work for their inquiry project, which will
021also have student showcases. We figured out a way to offer all students if they choose. that they can take one week of Spanish, German, French, or Chinese to our elementary students. Normally, you have to be invited to our elementary program, and that's only for third through fifth grade, so expanding this opportunity. And then choice. You can opt out of academics, but you may still choose to do the band camp. You can also choose to do AP boot camp, AP calculus boot camp. and then also middle school prep and kindergarten prep when we have more information on how those courses or those programs will run in August. And so we are excited about the boost courses. We've never offered the opportunity for our current fifth graders through 11th graders to have a prep class to get
022them ready for the next level. And so if you are a current fifth grader to be able to. close the chapter on elementary school and head on to middle school to one of our four to actually take an ELA class or a math class. And if you are a student who's taken a middle school math course already, we'll already enroll you in the boost course that aligns with the course you'll take this fall. And the same thing happens for eighth graders and then people going to ninth grade that they don't have to worry about what boost course they'll sign up. We will use your course registration from the spring to make sure that you're in the proper course. Summer programs, I won't read all these to you. This looks very familiar. For us in a
023pandemic, for ACPS to offer as many programs as we are for free, the only place where you would have a fee is if you were taking new credit courses. This is following our past practice, but it's also in line with our neighbors. We are actually cheaper than Fairfax and Arlington. Arlington actually raised their price going into the summer. But we've added some here. And so we've never offered pre-K services. So to have a pre-K program for our kids who are young people who are already in our pre-K program now. Also adding AP Calculus Bootcamp, the Boost courses. And we're excited about the Summer Bridge for Avid Excel. And then as I've mentioned previously, the Boost courses. And then we will still have our GW Health Sciences program for the students who are in that. And
024then if you're wondering, we are not charging a fee for Summer Language Academy, which is normally a fee for families that are in the dual language program at John Adams and Mount Vernon. This summer, those programs are free. And if you have an issue of paying for a new credit course, we will stick with our past practice of working with you on that and making sure that we work with you and the family on finding a way to at a reduced rate or even free if need be. So engaging with our students at home. For our pre-K, we've partnered with the Center of Alexandria's Children and Smart Beginnings to provide learning packets that focus on arts and color and summer discovery. This focuses on academic skills such as early reading skills, math, science, and physical
025skills in a fun way. And then again, trying to outdoor fun and discovery, science discovery. So these are important factors for our young youngsters as they prepare to actually go to kindergarten in the fall. And so we're excited about this opportunity. And thank you to Jane Richardson and her team and their partnership for creating these exciting opportunities for our students and our pre-K students, just like everyone in pre-K through fourth grade will have the kit mailed home to them, including books. And so some lessons learned from our current practice as we look at kindergarten through fourth grade. And so the learning kits will again be mailed home with books, but also key academic skills necessary for this fall. They'll have hands-on materials, which will include the inquiry project, science experiments, arts, music, physical education, or
026world language. And then this again, as I stated earlier, an opportunity for families that they're... Tyne, if they want a live Zoom lesson or class meeting, they can do that. And if they do not, the teacher will be recording those and a family will be able to access those anytime that they would like. And so we're going to keep the videos up for the entire summer. So if you decide that you're not going to start your kit until the middle of July, you can still go back to July 6th and view those videos. And so we wanted to make sure that the school board and the public knew the work that is being done by our curriculum specialist. And so I'm going to practice this. This will work. The third and fourth grade summer learning
027course in Canvas. Canvas was selected so that students would have one location to access all of their materials for summer learning. Once students log into Canvas, they will see their weekly schedule. as well as a link to additional enrichment activities that they can complete throughout the summer. And once they click on a day in their weekly schedule, it will take them to their schedule for that day. So each day, the layout is the same where it walks them through the suggested schedule and the activities that fall under each of those timeframes. So I will walk you through a couple of those and then some of the additional features that Canvas has to support some of our students, particularly our English learners and our students with disabilities. So at the beginning of each day students have
028the opportunity for independent reading, but they also have the opportunity to access a read aloud video read by one of our ACPS teachers. So the other nice thing. From 9 to 10 every day, students will connect with their summer school teacher and their online class. Can you all see the video? I'm sorry, it's giving me weird messages. We cannot see the video, but we can hear it. Okay. So we may want to send them. The teacher will provide a link. Can you see it now? Any lesson on the math topic, as well as provide an example and demonstration of the science project students would be completing. There are also opportunities built in for movement activities. And then also students have their choice from our encore subjects each day. So this particular day, they could choose
029to watch prerecorded video lessons, again, created by our ACPS teachers on either physical education, art, or world languages. Again, there are additional opportunities throughout the day for independent reading or listening to a read aloud and more movement activities. From 1130 to 1230 is designated for student independent work. So for this particular day, students will be working on math and science. So for each day and each content area, students will be given a list of the pages from their learning packet that they would be completing, any manipulatives or materials they would need from their learning kits that they are being mailed. And this particular day, students would use the base 10 blocks from their math manipulatives. Each day also provides videos. So these are little mini lessons that students can access in order to help them
030complete their work. So again, those are embedded directly in the daily schedule page. During this time, students will also have the opportunity to connect with their teacher during teacher office hours. So if a student is working on their math or science activities and they need some support, they can simply hop on Zoom and connect with their teacher. This is also a time where students will be able to connect with a counselor. So counselors will be providing mini lessons throughout the summer. So one of the other nice features of Canvas that is going to be especially helpful when students create work on the inquiry projects that are also located within Canvas. And I'm going to show you one of those. So this particular inquiry project is called Our Historical Moment. So the inquiry project students work
031through pages that are created in Canvas to complete an inquiry project. But I wanted to show you this page to demonstrate some of the features that Canvas has, again, that support our English learners and our students with disabilities. So Canvas has an immersive reader, which at the click of a button will provide a read aloud of the page for our students. Another nice feature of the Immersive Reader in Canvas is that I can click on a button or a word and it will translate that word for me into my chosen language. And there are many languages that Canvas supports, not only in translation, but in read aloud. So I have Spanish selected. So when I clicked on history, I could have the word read to me in English. I could also have it read aloud
032to me in Spanish. And it also provides a visual picture dictionary for me. For students who might need additional support with language, along with translating just a word, we can also have it translate the entire page. And not only does it translate the entire page to our chosen language, but it will read the page aloud in that language. And another additional feature that Canvas has that can help support our students who might struggle with focus when they read is a line reader tool. So this allows students, instead of being overwhelmed with a page full of words, to focus on the document one line at a time. So thank you for bearing with me there. I didn't realize I had to share my screen and exit out. We wanted to make sure that the school board
033and the public saw that we are trying to make sure that we make these materials accessible to all of our students. So if you are at home or somewhere else in the world that if you can log into Canvas, you can still receive the supports that you need. And so thank you for the entire team for putting that together. And again, a student can click on the day. And we're continuing to tweak and add and refine some of our materials. And we're also looking for more enrichment opportunities for our students to access on their own if they want to go beyond the kit or the actual inquiry project. And so on the screen, you couldn't see it because of technical difficulties. But here's a sample schedule. And again, you don't have to start at 830.
034This is just the time if you want to go in to. the actual and I don't know why it says K-2 activities, but this is the third grade, it's the same schedule. But you can actually go in and start anytime that you want. And so as we said, flexibility is key here. All the lessons are recorded. And so if a family would like, they can pick up the schedule anytime that they want because the videos will always be recorded. And then we're constantly trying to figure out ways we've heard from our assistant principals primarily that we want to offer more support to our pre-k and through second grade families. So we're working on a hotline and then also office hours. And so as we continue to refine our handbooks and relying on information from our
035director of online learning, what should office hours look like? K through 12th grade and being structured with that. And then also making sure that as we train teachers and the expectations of online teaching this summer. And so I was extremely excited when Edgenuity, that is the online platform that we use for satellite and online learning, when they said they actually had boost courses. And so a boost course for most of us, we think of this as prep. And so here you'll see that there's a diagnostic assessment at the beginning. And this will lead down an individualized path for a student. This is a self-directed program. Each course, so if you're doing English and math, that is 20 hours for each. And so yesterday, our four core curriculum specialists met with Edgenuity and started to map
036out what SOLs were needed from this past year, and then also what SOLs need to be ready for a student to be ready to access grade-level content in the fall. And so... our special ed and EL specialists will then take that information and modify it and make modified boost courses if need be for students who need that level of service. And so it also has a progress monitoring tool, real-time reporting. And then the courses are available for everyone in English and math, but we went with social studies and biology at ninth grade, and then also social studies and physical science at eighth grade. And so this is to make sure that our students going to eighth grade, they have a three-year cumulative test if we ever get back to taking SOL. So we want to
037make sure that we provide them a boost course there. And then also we know the importance of biology. at ninth grade, as that's the only signs I saw they may take. And then also making sure that we prepare our students for World Geography I at ninth grade. And so if a student is taking an online course for new credit or credit recovery, a teacher will work four hours. Most of the teachers We'll work 9 to 11 if they're teaching a boost course for four days a week. And then every other program is still a four-day work week with two hours. So our normal summer school day is 20 hours a week. And so we've knocked that down to eight. this year in a four-day work week. But if you're teaching new credit and credit recovery,
038it is a five-day week for four hours a day. And some of the reasoning behind this is we still have credit recovery has a seat time requirement of 70 hours and new credit is 140 hours. And we don't have guidance from the Virginia Department of Education that those hours are going to be suspended in the summer. And so currently we're operating under the normal rules of 70 and 140. And so a teacher here would spend four hours a day and it'll be broken up as such. One hour student outreach and that's trying to engage with the students whether that could be Zoom, email, or phone. New instruction and that's delivering the instruction via Canvas or Zoom. Grading because students will be turning in work. and then office hours. And so, as I said earlier, we
039will be structuring office hours and providing guidance on what we want to happen in office hours so that there's a structure to it and that everyone knows what the expectations are. And again, this can be done via Zoom, email, or phone. In specialized supports, we're excited as we, for the first time in a very long time, offer direct services, not just to our special education students, but also our English learners. And so our English learner students will have support with an EL teacher or in a co-taught setting or if they need be in a self-contained setting, depending on their language level. We will still offer related services for speech, occupational and physical therapy. And then also our case managers will be making recommendation on course participation, whether that is the regular boost course or they
040need a modified or differentiated level. And then again, providing differentiated supports based on student needs. We are going to hire more special ed and EL teachers, more special ed. primarily teachers than we normally do during the summer to meet the needs of our students. And then also they will still have the same ability to have direct instruction in English and language arts, English language arts and math. And I don't know if I'm smiling because I can't see anyone's faces, but I am really excited in our partnership with student services and our work with Mr. Sampson and team on providing some social emotional supports for all of our students. We worked with specialized instruction to put out a robust plan to hire a ton of counselors, social workers, and psychologists. We know that trauma is real
041in this. world and COVID has just probably exacerbated that for many of our students and also adults. And so we are having counselors, psychologists at all grade levels for student support. Counselors at all levels will be doing social emotional lessons and seminars for our students. And then this is new. We've never done this before. It's secondary. Secondary counselors will also focus on academics. We'll have one focused on career in college and then also our English learner needs. And before I turn it back over to Dr. Hutchings, we today, we had 495 families opt out. We've had 403 students request to register for new credit courses. We've had 125 students request to go into our enrichment programs, which could be band camp, theater camp, AP boot camp, and then also AP calculus boot camp. And then
042we currently only have 35 students who have requested new credit or credit recovery courses for this summer. Dr. Hutchins, I'll turn it back over to you and I'll stop sharing my screen. Dr. Mann, I just want to thank you for the presentation. And thank you to the entire team. I know this is a huge effort. You know, I've been saying this since March 13th. We all have to have grace and we all have to be flexible because what we are taking on is something that we haven't done before. And that's with a lot of the decisions that we are being forced to make during this pandemic. And I just encourage our community as well as our staff to continue to know, you know, we take feedback, we adjust. And we are trying to do everything
043that we possibly can to ensure that every single student receives what they need in regards to their learning needs, even during the summer. And I think it's very important that it is happening during the summer. But I'm going to turn things over to our Madam Chair so that she can facilitate any questions that board members may have in regards to the presentation or the continuity of Learning Plan 3.0. Great. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Yeah, thank you, Dr. Mann. That was really good. And in spite of a little bit of technical difficulties, I really got a sense of what kids would see. And I think what I recognize is that you did hear people who complained that there were too many platforms to log into. So having that one, I identified with that because I found
044that confusing for years. So having one that you can log into is great. Now I see Ms. Lorber has a question or a comment. Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair, and thank you, Dr. Mann. I'm so excited. I'm very excited about the summer program. I really am delighted. I've wanted us to have continued to increase our summer program every year I've been on the board. I just have a couple of questions. One is very specific. It mentioned that there will be co-teaching. for EL and children with disabilities. And I wonder, how do you do co-teaching on virtual? I mean, how does that work? Have we been doing that already? And how do you do that in this type of learning situation, teaching situation? Is Ms. Moore on the call? Dr. Mayer? Good afternoon. Thank you, Ms. Lorber,
045for the opportunity to share some of this information. So the short answer is yes and yes. Yes, co-teaching has been taking place, and yes, we continue to do it, and yes, there are multiple opportunities. ways to do that. Zoom has a fabulous feature called breakout rooms. So we have had our teachers who support students in the general education environment working collaboratively with those general education teachers around lessons and they have been doing work with classes together and they've been doing breakout rooms and that's what we are going to continue to plan to do this summer. Does that answer your question? Ms. Loeber, you're on mute. Yeah, I think so. So can you just explain a little more? So what happens? So in a breakout room, I mean, I still am having, because I've heard from
046families just in general, you know, we have, there are Zoom classes and then there are other classes. And can you explain the breakout room just a little bit more to me and how that, I just am having a hard time understanding how that works. Sure. You know that we focus on the, all the work that we've been doing around co-teaching focuses on those high yield best practices. And one of those is station teaching. So when we have instruction that is taking place for all students, there may be that general instruction, and then students can break out into smaller groups. And there is a function in Zoom where classes can be groups within. So, for example, all of us now could be broken up into smaller sets and smaller groups. And there's a there's a breakout.
047There's a breakout process within Zoom. So one teacher may take a group of students and do this activity. Another teacher may take another group of students and break out and do this activity over here. So they can do collective joint instruction and then they can do breakout as well. All right. Thank you. So we're doing, in other words, and that is happening already and it's going to continue during the summer. Is that what you're saying? Yes, there are. I am not telling you that it's happening every place in every class, but I am definitely telling you that it is occurring and we do have mechanisms for it. In fact. I don't know if you've had the opportunity to view the continuum services chart that was included with the board materials that really specifies how special
048ed services are being provided. But when you look at all of those tier one services, that's really where we're looking at providing that type of intervention. Okay, next we have Ms. Alterton. Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. I just wanted to add in a comment. I really... I love the emphasis of the diagnostic assessment and the progress monitoring piece with edgenuity because I think that this, you know, there's summer school, there's the virtual learning that's been happening right now, and the big piece that I will continue to emphasize and I think needs to stay at the forefront is this need that we're going to have for recovery. whenever those doors open back up. And so it's really essential for us to be monitoring where our students are as they go along through the virtual learning
049so that we can plan effectively for, you know, when we quote unquote return, however that looks like. So I just want to commend the team on thinking about that because, you know, it's really important that this. summer programming connects to our recovery planning. And so I can definitely see, you know, how everything will be connected and it gives me confidence around how we're gonna, we're gonna have the data and the information we need to plan effectively for recovery. So I really appreciate that. Thank you guys. Thank you. Next, I have Dr. Reek with a question. Okay, well, thank you so much for that presentation, Dr. Mann. And, you know, it's clear that a lot of work has really went into developing this. And I just want to, you know, echo the thanks to all the
050staff members who've worked on it. I know that, you know, this is a really difficult time in our country with the COVID-19 and everything else happening. And I know it's very taxing on everyone. And so I really appreciate all the effort that you did put into this. Just a couple comments and questions. So I just wanted to speak a minute about the rollout. You know, the rollout of the 3.0 was a little different than how we did the 2.0. And I think that the 2.0 worked really nicely when, you know, we kind of set it up so that a lot of people tuned into the school board meeting to hear what the plan was going to be. And I think it increased, you know, engagement and that was really effective. With the 3.0, it was
051kind of released as a board brief, but also emailed out to the community. And speaking from my experience as a board member, I saw parents complaining about the mandatory aspect of it before I even had a chance to view the plan myself. And so that was just really kind of frustrating and disappointing. So I say that because I'm thinking about the upcoming also 4.0 rollout, which I know. There's going to be a lot of interest in and as school this current school year ends there's going to be a lot of pressure to share out that information, you know, as soon as possible because people want to know what's going to be happening and I just want to make sure that we think, think through the process of how we do that because I think if
052they can be shared out. If there can be this kind of a forum where it's presented first, and then the information is kind of shared out, you know, after that or in simultaneously with that, I think that that would be a much better approach. And I think, you know, some of the information I understand there's a lot of information in this plan and it's hard to, you know. put it on paper to really explain to people all the aspects and facets of it. And it kind of got me thinking about the communications audit we had where the auditor talked about this idea of the bite, snack, and meal, because I think some people just want the big picture, but there are other people who, you know, they're making decisions and they really want like this
053more detailed information. And, and, and they, and I heard from multiple people that it's. what the written content that's been presented has just left people with more questions. And I just want to encourage people to review those Q&A that's posted on the ACBS at Home website, because I do think, you know, there's been more information added there that really clarifies some things. And I think that that's really helpful. But I was wondering if you could talk about the This decision about why to ask people to opt out versus registering, what was the thinking behind that? And, you know, I guess one concern that I'm having is, and I appreciate you sharing the statistics on how many people have signed up for things and opted out and so on. But, you know, what I learned from
054the Q&A was that you, if you're opting out, you're only opting out of the boost classes. But if you're interested in the... you know, the summer camps, you can, the enrichment camps, you can still do that. And then, you know, you have to sign up for the new credit. And so it's, it's, I think it's still, I mean, unless people are digging into the Q&A, which I'm sure that, you know, not enough people are doing that. I'm just, I'm sure there are a lot of questions out there. And I'm thinking how at the beginning of most school years, you know, families receive like a letter. Here's when school is starting. Here's who your teacher is, so on and so forth. And this process is different. Like are people, you know, going to really understand what
055is going on? I'm just, I'm concerned like if there's going to be kind of individual tailored outreach. So are there plans to share out any more information? If you could just talk about that and just the thinking behind asking people to opt out versus register, if you could speak to that, please. So I just want to make a couple of remarks, Dr. Mann, before you go into your response. And one is in regards to the communication piece. You know, I agree with you, Dr. Reif, that the way the rollout of the continuity of learning 3.0 was not as solid as we would have liked. Less learned, you know, from us. One thing that we strive to do, we're not going to say that we're perfect, and I will never say that, but what I will
056tell you is that we don't make the same mistake twice, not while I'm superintendent, because that's when it becomes a problem. We might make new mistakes, but we won't continue to make the same one. And a part of the learning experience that we had from this continuity of learning plan is, one, We want to make sure that if we're not ready to roll something out, meaning it is not ready to go prime time, we have to just let the community know we need additional time. We can't just still say, well, we said it was going to be this date. We're also going to need to just say, we need a few more days. So we need another week and then we'll release the plan. And I think that that is just what we have to
057get accustomed to doing. We have been, as you all know. We're in a community that demands. And when you don't say to a date, they say, now we don't trust you. So we're under a lot of pressure with that. And I think that our team was really nervous about, we said for the past month, it was going to be on May 22nd. And it needs to be on May 22nd, right? Lesson learned. If we need more time, we just need to say, we need more time, community. We're sorry. So we're going to work through that. In regards to the 4.0, next week we are actually going to be launching our webpage that will... provide or allow the community to kind of follow our progress in regards to our thought partners. We had our first meeting
058on Tuesday. We will be recording those meetings. People will be able to see the discussions that are actually happening with those meetings and to follow some of the research that we're using to help us craft our actual plan. So a community member, if they choose, could be engaged with us. along the way. So that's allowing people to have some insight to how we even develop a plan, which is a very unique process. We typically don't expose a process that way. We normally do it in a silo, but this is a very big deal and it's very complicated because we are going into new territory that no one has opened schools. with social distancing and social gathering guidelines other than people in France and China and all these other countries that opened up already, right? And
059we're less than, these are some of the resources that we're actually looking at because we're learning from them in some mistakes that they've made along that way. Another piece, sorry, my son is crawling on the floor, everybody. It's not time to play games. But anyway, I apologize. The other piece before Dr. May goes into his question or his response is the purpose in us doing the opt out. We felt that we would have more people want to opt in versus opt out. And we were trying to weigh. which is going to be easier. Trying to go through everybody opting in and then missing somebody because they didn't know or they couldn't get in or whatever would be a more difficult situation for us than just saying, you know what, everybody's automatically in, but if you
060want to be out, then you get out, you know, you can opt out. We felt that that would just be easier in regards to dealing with, you know, all of the registration and everything it just would have been too complicated uh for us so we chose to do the opt-out um you know uh option for for folks so dr man you may want to elaborate a little more on some of the other questions yes thank you dr uh dr reef also when we do our normal summer school for third through fifth grade it's uh opt-in and we usually mail probably 2,500 or so letters to families. And you'd be shocked and amazed at how few we get back. And so to Dr. Hutchings' point, the opt-in out also gave us a better sense that we
061could try to plan and knowing that we're going to need. Every summer, everyone asks me, every single summer, I wish I was joking. How many kids are coming? I have no idea. And they all look at me like, how do you not know? I have no idea because you have to send up the RSVP information back. So now that we know we have, was it four, almost 500, one today so far that's opted out. Opting out opts you out of the, when we say expected, we offered everyone something for free. And so if you want to opt out, you can opt out of that. And so as we lessons learned, and thank you to the team and the feedback from the parents, that we then said we need to clarify that you can opt out
062of the free, but you can then go to our enrichment. And so when you look at the form, it tells you that those are the two AP boot camps and then the two middle school camps. And so you're opting out of the free comprehensive summer learning kit or the boost courses. At the high school level, it's a little different. I don't know how many of you went to summer school, but summer school, if you're taking credit recovery, that's usually a conversation where your counselor is going to say, hey, Gerald, we need to talk. You failed X, Y, and Z. We need to get you registered for that. And we felt it was important to finally move to not charging for credit recovery to why we've already said you failed. Let's make sure that we give
063you the opportunity to repeat that course for free. And then for new credit, it's the same way that normally that's where a student would go to their counselor and say, I want to take one of the new courses for credit and helping them understand that online summer school is not. And I'll use an example with my own child. She thought she was going to take econ and personal finance online and just click, click, click, click, and everything was going to be fine. And then a week into the course, she came home or not came home. We have a conversation. She's like, oh, my goodness. I said, well, that's why I want you to talk to your counselor to understand that taking a new credit course is not just playing on the computer. There are tests,
064there's quizzes, there's readings that you have to do. And so the form actually then will be sent to a student's counselor. The counselor will actually register the student. And the payment information will then be sent to a parent's MySchoolBucks account so that they can pay online. And that's something that TC has set up already. And so we know that that system works. We're actually getting fees from kids who graduated a year or two ago because of the SchoolBucks system. And so thank you to Michael Covington and Lorena at TC for their help in helping us figure out how we can collect a payment. But we know and we've been working with Mr. Sampson and team at TC on meetings with the counselors to clarify and make sure we have any questions that may go unanswered.
065But the counselors are going to be a pivotal piece between now and July 6th. And then also we're going to keep registration open as long as possible because we know with the board passing the grading policy a couple weeks ago that we're going to have many students who are, if they get a P, they may not need to take a credit recovery class. And so we're going to leave the registration window open until after report cards happen because a P getting 100% could change your final grade for the entire year. Great. Thank you. One other clarification about the 4.0, Dr. Hutchings, we're still waiting, aren't we, on VDOE? actually guidelines, which can also make it more complicated what our planning is, right? Yes, we are. So we are waiting for the governor one to include
066schools in the phases and then the VDOE's guidelines that will follow that. We're hoping to get that information soon. But also we are expecting some sort of presentation based on the thought partner meetings, I believe, at the end of this month. So that that will be something that the board will hear then. But again, with with some of the timelines outside of our control, it will will have to be flexible. Next, I have Miss Nolan. Thank you, Chair Anderson. Again, I just want to echo the thanks to Dr. Mann and your team and Dr. Mozingo and your team as well. This is just really incredible what's been put together given the short time frame and given how unexpected it was. Oh, is my computer frozen? Nope, you're okay. Oh, okay. So I just wanted to
067also, I'm excited about the partnership with Ingenuity as well as I don't ever like to really. I know as a school board member, you're supposed to have a larger lens, but I can share as a parent who's had a student take two of the ingenuity classes, they've just been phenomenal. So really excited to expand that partnership. I have two questions, essentially. Dr. Hutchings, do you feel like this is something that if this goes well, I know that this has been sort of a dream of yours to expand the summer programming. Is this something that might be continued in the future? Do you think this opportunity or is this considered like a one time? or is this a pilot? I would be curious to know your long-term plans with this partnership. Yes, so this is definitely
068something we want to continue and sustain within the school division moving forward outside of the COVID-19. I think that's great, and I think it's a phenomenal opportunity. My second question, a follow-up is, I'm curious, I noticed, I recall when I was revisiting the summer plan that there was a hope of disseminating books. During the summer, and I was wondering if we could just unpack that a little bit. I know that with the CDC guidelines, I know that's something that I've heard through the grapevine that ACPS has been concerned about, but with the recent updates of the CDC guidelines, I know that Fairfax County Department of Health has started distributing books at the... food distribution sites. And I'm wondering if that's something that we can consider. I know that there's organizations in Alexandria. I know there's
069a homegrown organization, Inspire Lit in particular, that has half a thousand books that they are able and willing to distribute to students over the summer. And so I'm just curious, is that something that we can move towards given? the CDC guidelines have been lifted as well as that's something that other jurisdictions are starting to do in pairing with their food distribution site while relying on non-school division volunteers to assist with that. Is that something we've considered? Yes, we are still trying to find ways to get books to our students that are fifth and a grade and above. We know that actually having a book in hand helps. So we will work with Mr. Huffman in his office and looking at partnerships and also Ms. Pinnell, our media. a library media specialist on still continuing to
070find ways to get students books. We haven't given up on that dream, but we know that our pre-K through fourth grade students, their books will be mailed home. But if we can supplement that with books in a bag or some other venture, we still would like to do that and we'll continue to explore ways to make that happen. Got it. Great. Thanks. And then if you don't mind, just one last follow up for what this is worth is that I really appreciate the FAQs. I think that's going to be super helpful. And I think it's something that we're going to want to distribute and communicate widely just because, as Dr. Hutchings, you mentioned earlier about this is the first time that a division is doing something like this. So there are going to be a
071lot of questions. And I think communicating to them widely, if it helps. I know of another division that did a short video for parents. to have them understand what's going to be expected for their summer learning program because a lot of parents are you know feeling the pressure of having juggled a lot recently so they're trying to figure out how to make it easy as possible so I think as much as we can make the communications as widely distributed and even easy as possible for parents to understand and the last thing I would say is the other thing I'm hearing a lot too from parent feedback is just an understanding of what Ms. Alderton said about how is this, how is what the student's learning? What are the standards that the student's expected to be
072learning in this school year? And then how is that linked to it? So I really appreciate that comment. And that sounds like that's what this program is all about. So just want to echo Ms. Alderton's thanks and appreciation. So those were my questions and comments for the summer program. And again, really phenomenal job well done. I'm certainly excited to sign my son up for it and we will be participating. So very much appreciate it. Great, thanks. Ms. Lorber had another follow-up. Yeah, I'll try to be quick. It's actually, it builds a little bit on what Ms. Nolan was saying about getting the word out. What's the plan for getting the word out about the summer program to the non-English speaking families and particularly families who don't have that good access to internet? So they're not
073reading all, they can't read the FAQs and they can't, how are we getting the word out to those families? That's a question that we actually discussed with our elementary principals this week. And so, Ms. Lorber, we're going to work with communications on figuring out whether that's letters, home, using the school newsletters and those types of... But yes, we know we still need to do more outreach to make sure that families understand that we are offering this and also understanding that you may end up getting a kit sometime around July 1st. One thing I didn't say during the presentation is we're also mailing kits to the teachers who will be teaching summer school. So they'll have that at home. So there we don't have the worry or wonder of I need to get. one they can't
074get back in their classrooms, but the kit will, they'll actually have a student kit at home and so if they're doing their Zoom lesson they'll also have that there. So we will be circling back to communications and developing the next layer of communication to our families beyond the website. Okay, next we have Dr. Reeve with another question. Yeah, thank you. I just had a couple questions to around the curriculum and teaching that I was just hoping could be clarified. But I wanted to say that during your presentation, Dr. Mann, that video that you showed, I did have a chance to review it beforehand, and I thought it was really great. It was coming across very blurry in the presentation. So if there's a way to share that out, maybe through the ACPS Express, I think
075that that would be really a good tool to share with. parents. So just I just want to see if I'm understanding correctly. And I wanted to add that the special education plan I thought was really good. It was very clearly presented. And so I wanted to just give a special thanks to Dr. Werner for developing that. But so if I'm understanding correctly, the K to two programming with the synchronous and asynchronous Zoom lessons is going to be taught on the platform of Canvas. and it's going to be the teachers are going to be it's going to be ACPS staff and they're going to be working two hours a day for a total of eight hours a week and then the boost classes which will be offered for middle and high school students is going to
076be through an online provider which is Edgenuity and that's not going to be taught by ACPS staff that's going to be taught by the Edgenuity people that we contract with. And then there's also going to be the new credit and credit recovery courses, which are going to be taught by ACPS employees, and they will be working four hours a day to do that. And then we're also going to have support from special education, L teachers, and counselors for all these programs. First, did I get it right? And then secondly, are you, the ACPS employees who are working on these programs, are they, this is in addition to their normal contract, these are people who volunteer to do this additional teaching in the summer, is that correct? Did you just clarify? Yes. So pre-K through second
077grade will actually access everything they need through Clever. And we don't have a clever video for you. We actually met this morning with, I think it was almost 18 people on the call from different offices and specialists and our technology team and Mr. Sampson. So again, as I said, one-stop shopping. So a student would go into Clever at pre-K through second grade and actually, well, they may not, but their parent may actually. And part of the reason we went with Clever at the younger grades, we heard loud and clear over the last nine weeks how families are saying, what if I don't have a Chromebook at pre-K to second because we don't give you one, but you can access content on Clever via phone. And so we felt that that was important to make sure
078that if you were at the younger grades that you can access our content via phone so you can get into Clever and click on Ms. Smith's class. And so that each teacher during our June 23rd and 24th professional development day will actually develop their teacher Clever page. And where the student doesn't have to go anywhere else, they can click on their Zoom link just like the Canvas video. And so that's our pre-K through second grade. And then for third and fourth grade, it's Canvas. So Clever for the youngest students, Canvas for third through fourth grade. Everyone still access everything through Clever. Clever is just like the warehouse where you can go in and all the links are there and you can click on what you need. I actually went in for the first time yesterday
079and I was amazed at all the tools that ACPS offers our families and students and teachers. And then boost courses will be taught by ACPS staff and credit recovery and new credit courses will be taught by ACPS staff. So we, working with Dr. Everson, if we used Edgenuity, our charge for a class would be, I think it's 500 plus dollars. And so it's better for us to actually use ACPS staff. And so there are times where we need to use Edgenuity teachers, but our plan is to hire ACPS teachers who applied this week. We should be getting a list of everyone who applied today from human resources. And so we know it's a heavy lift, but again, this is an additional eight hours if you're pre-K through. fourth grade. And if you're doing boost, it's
080a four day work week, eight hours a week. And that was Dr. Hutchins ideas. We were trying to figure out what's the best way to give people a break, but also make it attractive. And then if you're doing new credit or credit recovery, you're working a four hour day. And if you're an SST member, we're asking you to work a four hour day. I believe I may have my facts wrong there, but part of the reason we asked our SST staff to work a longer day is that we don't want students to miss a Zoom lesson. Now, if they're in crisis, please miss the Zoom lesson. But we want to make sure our SST professionals are available for students after class, before class. And so if you're a high school student. 9 to 1, I
081think the teachers may be working, but then from 1 to 2, you'll have SST staff available. So you're not saying, oh, I missed office hours, or I missed time with my teacher or a Zoom lesson. So we're trying to, as we keep saying, is being flexible. And so, as I said, I'm excited with Mr. Sampson and specialized instruction to be able to actually hire, we hope, a lot of SST support for our families and students this summer. I guess just if I could just one quick comment, just, you know, thinking through the plan that you laid out, just, you know, my first grader is doing his lessons on Seesaw, which are uploaded to Clever. But yeah, I'm just, I'm thinking about like parents who are on a different. platform right now, like switching, like how
082they're going to know sort of how to do that. Because normally when a new school year starts, there's process for walking parents through that, you know, like in person or whatever. And so, or there's the mail that comes home. So I'm just, again, I'm just, I'm thinking that some parents are going to be struggling to figure out, it's the first day, where am I, where am I supposed to go? So just, just something. And we have been, to your point, we also I've been having discussions on exactly that. And so Ms. Futrell, our secondary math specialist, is the one who created the Canvas video and the actual teacher pages for third and fourth grade. And so as we think about, as Dr. Hutchins uses WeVideo for his messages, that if we create, to your point,
083a pre-K through up, and here's how you can actually do that. And then also in the actual kit, our EL office. specialists worked on links and QR codes for families if they need to scan. And so we're trying to take some of the lessons learned and see if we can find solutions ahead of time. And so we know we still have a lot of work to do before July 6th, but we are trying to make it as easy as possible for our families to access the content. Okay, thank you. Now I'm aware that we've gone a little long today. And so I have one more hand raised, which is Ms. Nolan. And then I think if people have further questions, we can put them in email and have everybody get the response. Ms. Nolan? Yes,
084and I apologize for prolonging the meeting. Just a quick question, Dr. Mann. I know we've made a lot of progress in ACPS with project-based learning. And I know that that was one of the... mentions of that panel that Dr. Hutchings brought to ACPS that they thought that not only had we really progressed in that area, but it's an area we want to continue growing in. I imagine that's challenging in an online environment. So I just wanted to give you the opportunity to just share where are we with that and just to make sure also we're not losing any progress when we come back to brick and mortar at some point as well. And thank you. I don't know if Sarah Whalen, our social studies specialist, is watching, but the inquiry project is actually a modified
085PBL. And so we know Boost courses are not PBL, but we wanted to figure out a way. And Canvas gave us that platform. And so one of the things is they developed the program. And I think it was a moment in our history. And we think about now what a student is going through at home and the world. from Black Lives Matter to COVID and just everything under the sun, that this is a way for them to actually collaborate. And as Ms. Warner said earlier, the breakout rooms as we develop some of these, but also when we come back in August or August or September, whenever we actually see each other face-to-face, if we do that, we can report out on the student showcase and actually show the school board and the community. some of
086the artifacts that the students created. So there's actually a way for students to turn in some of their work in Canvas and as an automated grader and other things. So we modified a PBL that we would normally have during our summer program. It's not summer track like it's at middle school, but it's a different way to weave in PBL for our third and fourth grade students. And Canvas gave us that vehicle to be able to do that. Fantastic. Thanks so much, Dr. Minton. Actually, my son, for his social studies for a civil rights unit, just did a podcast. So I have firsthand experience. It's phenomenal what the teacher's been able to come up with. Thank you. You're welcome. Super. Okay. Thank you, everybody. That was really important. And thanks for the presentation. And I think
087it's really exciting. When I go to back to school night, I'd say I want to come to school. And actually, now I feel like I want to tune into summer school this year. So thank you for all that work. And again, if people have more questions, please just send them on. And then the responses can be shared out to the board. And it may be incorporated as FAQs as well. So the next next up is the chair's report. We're moving along to there. And I'm going to have the clerk actually talk about our resolution against gun violence that we we reaffirmed last last year at this time to support measures to reduce the number of guns and eliminate gun violence in our communities. We are all. many of the board, all the board members are
088wearing orange. And I see Dr. Hutchings put on his orange hat because today is the first Friday in June is National Gun Violence Awareness Day. And also Wear Orange Weekend is, which is going to be held virtually this year, is from June 5th to June 7th. Orange has been the defining color of the gun violence prevention movement, whether it's worn by students, activists, or loved ones, the color orange honors the more than 100 lives cut short and the hundreds more wounded by gun violence every day. Firearms remain the leading cause of death for American children and teens. The Be Smart program for gun safety encourages ACPS families to take five simple steps, secure, model, ask, recognize, and tell to normalize conversations about gun safety and take responsible actions at home that will prevent child gun
089deaths and injuries. And I've actually attended one of these and it's really phenomenal. So for those of you who are looking for more information, it's actually posted. on the, under the public comments section of the agenda today. So again, Wear Orange weekend, it's this weekend. So check it out to see how you can be involved. And that's really it for my report. And so now onto the superintendent's report. So the only report that I have is just that we have to get ready for next week, everybody. Graduation, our first virtual graduation in the history of Alexandria City Public Schools. And I know our seniors are a little. disappointed that we're not going to be in person and that George Mason, like they probably envisioned and thought about their whole lives. But we're going to make
090this a really cool event and I'm looking forward to just representing and acknowledging all of our senior graduates because they've worked so hard and unfortunately this global pandemic has forced our worlds to turn upside down and they have a very non-traditional graduation celebration but one thing that I keep telling all the seniors that I get to talk to, I can say guess what you all made history so you're going to have this story to share for many many generations to come because everyone in the future is going to want to know what were you doing that year they're going to say you know what I had to graduate online. And virtually. So, you know, that's something that they'll appreciate many years from now because everybody's not going to have this experience during their senior year
091like they are. So they are a unique group. But that's all I wanted to say from my update today. Great. Thank you. So now we're on to getting a motion to adjourn. So if anyone. Can we just mention that we also have the public hearing on our strategic plan next Tuesday at 1230 and 7pm. So I really just want to encourage the public to please participate and I know a lot of people are thinking about Black Lives Matter and anti racist policies in our schools and that's a perfect opportunity for people to come and speak up, see what our strategic plan says about that. Yes, thank you, Dr. Reed. I lose track of the day only I did. I have to look at my paper to see that it's the fifth when we started the
092meeting. So yes, next week it is. It's very close. So please people sign up. We did have one public comment today about our strategic plan, but we would like to have more input. So please, yes, we've tried to make it as flexible as possible by having two different times on that date. So thank you. All right. Anyone wanting to give a motion to adjourn? Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn. We can keep going if you want. I think I heard that from Ms. Lorber, seconding Mr. Suarez's motion. I don't want to end everybody's meeting if that's what you don't want to do. So Ms. Lorber, seconding Mr. Suarez's motion, I'll do a roll call vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Rami Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle
093Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. So that's nine to zero to adjourn. So thank you, everybody. Have a nice weekend. See you next week.