001first for us. Present and Heather Thornton. So we are all nine here. Present. Great. Thank you. Sorry. I jumped the gun because I can see Heather. Sorry. Sorry, Ms. Thornton. Um, so next we need to before we can start, we need someone to make the motion to adopt the agenda, please. Madam chair, I move that we adopt the agenda for this evening. Second. Uh, Ms. Green seconds Ms. Lerber's motion to adopt the agenda. I will call for a roll call vote. Uh, Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Amy Duntree. Yes. Just sent a green. Yes. Margaret Lerber. Yes. Michelle reef. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. All right. So nine to zero Megan Alderton. Yes. Oh, you forgot me. Oh, I'm so sorry. I skipped over Megan and even, Ms. Alderton, I'm so sorry
002because I think that you will ask Megan to do the roll call vote. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Megan was upset about that. We are nine. We are nine and I can't count at this point. Um, so we are now on to this is the public. Cindy, before you go any further, can you just restate the meeting and the time? I'm sorry. I think it got caught up cut off. The virtual, um, special called school board meeting for June 9th, uh, 2020 the 7 PM version, but it might've been seven to one. Thank you. When I started apologies. Um, so now the main purpose for the meeting or the only purpose for the meeting today is to have a public hearing for our strategic plan. And so we do have someone who signed up ahead of
003time. And then we have one person so far who, um, has their hand raised and I don't see, I still don't see the person who signed up ahead of time. So let's start with, uh, James, Hulinski and the it's three minutes per speaker. And you can also, we would very much appreciate if you would like to, uh, send us your comments and writing so that we can have them, uh, to review later. Mr. Polinsky. I don't know if it's working. Mr. Hulinski, can you go ahead and speak so we can see if your mic is working? His, his mic is, is neither green nor red. It's just plain. Does that mean anything to us? You're here. I don't think so. Okay. It looks like it was muted and he had unmuted it. However, we're not
004hearing him. Oh, okay. Hmm. All right. Well, that is a shame. I apologize, Mr. Hulinski. Um, there is a way to call in, right? Ms. Nielsen on a phone number. Is that going to be available to Mr. Hulinski? There is a way to call in. Um, Mr. Hulinski, if you could email board clerk your email, I will respond with the call in information. That's board clerk at a CPS that K one two dot VA dot U S. Okay. I don't see, don't see Ms. Morris. I am here. I don't know if you can hear me. Ah, Ms. Morris. I am logged in. I am logged in. I was wondering about, uh, I'm James Hulinski. I'm logged in under the. Oh, well the miss, the mystery is solved. That's great. Okay. I'm sorry about that. That's
005all right. I'm glad to hear about this Morris. So, so please, please go on. Thank you. I, I have many, uh, uh, pseudonyms. No, no. Who is James Hulinski? I'm very sorry about that. It's a, I don't know how that happened, but at any rate, um, I'm sorry that I can't see you all. Um, this is, uh, disappointing, but, um, I'm, uh, I'm speaking to you this evening as an ACPS parents, um, but also as a member of the partnership for healthier Alexandria steering committee, a leader of the, uh, health departments, uh, uh, health improvement plan chip poverty plan and a co-champion for that poverty plans, increasing equity, quality and relevance of education for youth in and out of schools. So I'm wearing several hats tonight. Um, and I will send you written comments, um,
006separately and normally that's just what I would do. Um, and, and, but today I was reviewing the plan. I had a few hours to sit down and look at it. And I was very pleased at the beginning to see that equity is upfront in the plan, which is wonderful. We've, we've had a challenge with equity for many years, um, not just here, but of course across our country and our recent events are, um, uh, evident to that. Um, and, but sadly, as I started to go through the plan, I didn't see the drumbeat. I didn't see the obvious thread of how equity will be prioritized. Um, and I'm concerned about that. Um, if this plan, uh, which I assume is meant to be a public document that gives people in the community, parents, partners and
007others who work with our youth, a roadmap of how ACPS is going to do your work and how the rest of the community can engage and support ACPS and doing the work. It's not clear in the plan. Um, I see, uh, many of the same issues that we're trying to address that we've tried to address since I first engaged with ACPS in 2006 as a parent of a very young child. Um, but I advocate different thinking that will redesign, not just, um, looking at, uh, the same educational kinds of things that we talk about inside education. And I say that as a pilot in education policy person. Um, but as an example, I would say, we need to invest in investigate and break the system that tracks children from kindergarten on. And I want to
008see visual evidence that that's a priority because that we know this happens so early on. Um, and just simply say, looking at, um, literacy rates, that's nice, but that's not giving the moral imperative that we want to break that system that's tracking our young people who are, who are not succeeding as well as they should have the opportunity to. And that's just the one example that comes out in my mind of the kinds of things I'd like to see. Um, the other thing specifically that I would like to see that I'm not seeing is that family engagement, family and community engagement is very passive. Um, I want to see family investment rather than family engagement. We have always expected families to come to ACPS and we know that through an equity lens, too many families
009for too many reasons cannot come to ACPS and we need to go to them. And I want to see language that evidences a prioritization of that kind of thinking. I'm not seeing that kind of thinking throughout the plan. Um, and I'm out of time. Um, if I could wrap up the one thing that I would encourage you to look at because I'm going to be using this to look at the work that I'm doing through the partnership for healthier Alexandria. Um, there's a COVID-19 racial equity, rapid response framework that the city of Alexandria's health department has put out. And it asks seven key questions about everything that a community organization is planning to do to make sure that you're looking at it through an equity lens. Um, and I would love to see that kind
010of, uh, uh, language used and that kind of thing can used in the strategic plan. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Morris. Um, good to get to hear from you. And my picture has now disappeared again because I did not reboot my computer between zooms and that seems to be the only way to keep my picture live. Um, I've discovered, so I apologize. Um, so I don't, is there anyone else raising their hand? Do you see Ms. Nielsen? I don't see anybody. I don't see any. Okay. Well, I'm glad we got to hear from Ms. Morris. Um, all right. So that is really all we have. So guess what? The next, um, next motion I'm looking for is to adjourn again. Madam chair, I make a motion that the meeting be adjourned. Okay. Ms. Green seconds
011Ms. Lorber's it's, it's Ms. Lorber motion day. And so, uh, so I have a second from Ms. Green of Ms. Lorber's motion. So I will do the roll call vote. Cindy Anderson. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Uh, Remy Gentry. Yes. Desenta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reef. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. We're nine zero and we're adjourned at seven 12. Thank you everybody. Have a good evening.