June, 12, 2020 School Board Zoom Meeting

001Are you ready to start? I am ready to start. Okay, you are recording. All right. Welcome, everyone. This is the virtual school board meeting for June 12, 2020, and we're calling the meeting to order at 12.02. I'm going to do a roll call, so please stay present when I call your name. Cindy Anderson, I'm present. Veronica Nolan. Present. Megan Alderton. Present. Jacinta Green. Present. Margaret Lorber. Present. Michelle Reeve. Present. Christopher Suarez. Present. Heather Thornton. Present. Rami, is Rami on yet? Okay, Rami Gentry, I'm sure will join us soon. So we're starting with eight and one absent. So the next thing on our agenda is moment of silence. So we will start that now. Thank you. Okay, thank you. May I now have a motion to adopt the agenda? Madam Chair, I move we adopt the

002agenda for June 12, 2020. Second. I heard Ms. Lorber first. I think second Ms. Green's motion to adopt the agenda. And so is there anything else that we at this point? Does anybody have an amendment? Madam Chair, I don't know if you can see my hand raised. Oh, sorry. Yes, Ms. Thornton. Yes, Madam. Thank you. I would like to move to add to the agenda item a resolution condemning systemic racism and affirming a commitment to educational equity for all students, families, and staff. We'll second the amendment. I think I heard Mr. Suarez second Ms. Thornton's motion to amend the agenda. So now I'm going to call a roll call vote for that amendment, for the amendment to the agenda. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alterton. Yes. Rami Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret

003Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reed. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Fortin. Yes. Okay, that's a unanimous nine. to amend the agenda. And so now we need to vote on the amended to adopt the agenda as amended. So please indicate when I call your name. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Rami Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. So the vote is 9-0. Next up, we have our communications and addresses to the board. And this week we have some celebrating that we usually do in a nice reception and in the boardroom and upstairs with food. But unfortunately, we're not able to do that, but we still wanted to celebrate people. I'm going to now turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Madam Chair. And

004as you all can see, we have a number of guests with us today, and we're so excited always during this time to be able to celebrate some of our wonderful staff members. I want to start off by, I know we were going to show all of our Teacher of the Year recipients, as well as Support Staff of the Year recipients. I believe we were going to show their names. I know today we have... the actual finalists or winners of the year on the call with many of their colleagues. But can we first show the names of all of our teacher of the year and support staff of the year in Alexandria City Public Schools for the 2020-2021 academic year? This is good wait time, everybody in the classroom. This is what we do. We wait.

005which is awesome. So this right here is just all of our 2020 nominees for our support staff members, as you can look through and see. We can just give our little round of applause. I know it's a Zoom round of applause, but we wanted their names to be seen, which I think is so important. And then we also have our list of Teacher of the Year candidates as well. All right. And these are all of our Teacher of the Year nominees, which we have celebrated for, you know, over the past few months. We are just so proud of each and every one of our staff members. I mean, right now, really hats off to all of our staff in Alexandria City Public Schools. I think everybody should be commended for the work that we've done

006during this COVID-19 pandemic. But it is so important to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of our what I call heroes. in Alexandria City Public Schools. So let's just another round of applause to them as we transition into our actual ACPS Teacher of the Year and our ACPS Support Staff of the Year. And then finally, we're going to talk about our ACPS Principal of the Year. So let's start off with our Teacher of the Year. And I'm going to turn things over. to our Cora Kelly Principal extraordinaire, Ms. Hasebe Cruz, to introduce our 2020 Teacher of the Year and to say some remarks about our wonderful Teacher of the Year. Well, first of all, it's nice to see everybody. Hello to the board and everyone. I am the extremely proud principal of our wonderful Ashley

007Sandoval, who is the Teacher of the Year for ACPS. She is not only a phenomenal PE teacher, she has been here at Cora Kelly since 2015. She started her teaching career here at Cora Kelly, and she does absolutely everything. everything under the sun for our students. Our Cora Kelly Cougars love Miss Sandoe and we call her Miss Sandoe for short. She is always willing to help. She has a virtual field day going out. We have a virtual talent show that she normally organizes for the end of the year. happening still. She does everything, helping her colleagues. She has relationships with students. She modifies her lessons for our students with needs. And she's phenomenal. And I really am proud of her. And she is going into thinking about going into administration down the line. And I'm

008extremely here to support her and support her. And I just want to. Thank you, Ashley, for all you do. You know how much I love you and I'm speaking from the heart. So if I forgot something, I'm sorry, but I just love you and thank you for your service to ACPS. Yay, give her a big round of applause. Congratulations, Ms. Sandoval. I don't know if you had some words that you would like to share. Yes, I did. Thank you so much for the kind words. I did want to thank my admin team at Cora Kelly specifically for always validating my thoughts and encouraging me to continue to think outside of the box, which I think is really important as a teacher. I also wanted to thank my coworkers. As she said, I'm all over the

009school at all times. So I really appreciate them allowing me to come into the classroom. from the gym to pull students out for safety patrol, to talk to some students, to just help out in the classroom at any time. They're always so welcoming to me. I also wanted to thank Mr. Humphreys, who's the head of health and physical education in ACPS. He has always been a great support system for me, answering any questions, allowing me to explore different venues when it comes to events, and just always being there for a person to talk to also about the HPE world. And I also wanted to thank my mom and my dad and my boyfriend for always listening to me when I come home. And I'm thinking in the middle of the night at 1 a.m. about

010a student and what happened in class and how I can fix it and improve. And like Ms. Cruz said, I think it's really important that I am getting all of this experience in ACPS because I am looking to move forward into leadership and currently in grad school. And it's really been an honor to be recognized for this amazing award. And I just received a package from a delivery man and I got my plaque. So thank you for the delivery and the roses are so beautiful. So thank you everyone for your support and your kind words. I really appreciate all of it. And I forgot to say one thing, and I can't forget. She has taught so many of our Cora Kelly Cougar students how to ride bikes in the back on the red top. They've

011learned how to ride bikes, and they ride them around four mile. And she also planned swimming with my Comfries and the fourth graders when swimming the Chincoteague. And I could just go on forever, but I didn't want to forget the biking because we've all cried when we've seen some of our Cougars learning to ride their bike, and that's been memorable. So thank you for that, Ashley, and everything else. Thank you. I'm not going to lie. That is my favorite part of teaching is the bike riding. Thank you all. I don't know if we're going to now introduce Madam Chair. I don't know if you wanted to make remarks on behalf of the board, if you want to wait until the end of. You mean for the going on to the principal? Yes. Do you want

012to speak after I introduce all of the. All the winners? A year? All the recipients are winners? Yes, I think you should go ahead and I will. Okay. So next up, we are going to, I'm going to ask for Ms. Mills, who is our lead principal at the Minnie Howard campus of T.C. Williams, to introduce our next support staff of the year for 2020-21. So Ms. Mills. Yes, thank you, Dr. Hutchins. Good afternoon, everyone. How's everyone doing this afternoon on this nice day? On behalf of ACPS, Dr. Hutchins, and my principal, Mr. Peter Ballas, and all invited, I'd like to give a great big shout out and publicly recognize ACPS support staff of the year, Mr. Sharp. Little background history. Mr. Sharp has been with ACPS 36 years. Let me repeat that again. 36 years.

013He is the first person that arrives at our school in the morning. He usually stays after time to make sure he concludes business throughout the day. He makes our lives so much easier. And something that I would be remiss if I didn't mention, Mr. Sharp has seen five children. graduate from college. So he definitely has education in his heart and mind. So we just want to say thank you. We love you. We appreciate you. And you better not go anywhere yet. Thank you, Mr. Sharp. Thank you. Mr. Sharp, I don't know if you have any words to say. I know sometimes you are a man of few words. I'm a man of few words. And I thank everybody for voting me. And I appreciate it. God bless all of y'all. Thank you, Mr. Sharp. We

014appreciate you, too. So next up, we have our principal of the year and about this this next wonderful person who is, you know, not only a great principal. She is just a good person in general. You know, anybody who knows Ms. Priyann Johnson, principal of James K. Polk Elementary School, they know that she will go above and beyond the call of duty. She is always doing extra, right? I get to see all the videos with Priyann. Either she's running down the hall, high-fiving people, you know, jump roping with kids. I mean, the list goes on. Dancing, because she loves to dance. And she can get her groove on too, by the way. So she has just been, I think, the epitome of what we want our instructional leaders to be. And Priyann has actually been

015an employee of ACPS for 35 years. I know she looks like she's 35 years old, but this woman has been working in here for 35 years. And not only have you been working as a principal, but you've also been a parent and you have raised a beautiful young lady who is an advocate. And I hope that that is probably the biggest gift that you could have given us, meaning the world, is your daughter. Thank you. And she has talked consistently about her parents, Gloria and Dupree, who has always believed in her and provided you with a strong background, as well as the honest relationships that you have with others, that they've instilled those values in you. If you all don't know this, you know, James K. Polk in 2017 won the Let's Move Active Schools

016National Award. And that's the nation's top physical education and physical activity distinction for K-12 schools. So without further ado, I just want to say thank you, Ms. Priyant-Johnson, for representing our instructional leadership team and representing James K. Polk as the superintendent of ACPS. I am so, so proud of you and proud to have you a part of our wonderful team. So Ms. Johnson. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. I said you're right. I have been in the division for 35 years, been in middle school, high school, all around. I'd like to congratulate my other winners, Ashley and Andrew. I am very proud to stand next to you all who have done amazing jobs that I've heard so much about you, Ashley and Andrew. I work with you personally. and know that you are both

017very deserving and I'm happy to be honored with you guys at this time. People said, you've been here 35 years, it's about time. And my response has always been, it's right on time. Only a crazy person like me could get an award during a crazy time as this. So it is right on time. And I absolutely appreciate it. I do have a strong family background. And I do give credit to my parents for everything I am and everything I ever hoped to be. And thank you for loving my daughter. And I'm glad that you see that wonderful side of her, Pete and Greg, at school. Because I'm at home now with her every day. And God love her. I thank God for her every day. Oh, it's tough. And if you're a mother of a

018teenager, you know that I'm going through. But love her too as well. And I'm really proud and happy to have been a principal in this division, to have been in this division supporting everyone in Alexandria. I'm most proud right now of the equity work that is happening at my school. I've always wanted my school to be a school of community. We're a very diverse school. And we had some tough going this year as we tried to get through some equity talks. And it got really dicey, I must say. It's a hard topic to really grapple with. And it got really, really almost like a beautiful, perfect climate that I have. But what I am proud of is in light of the things that have happened, all of my staff is coming back and saying, we

019get it. We get it. Thank you for doing it. Thank you for pushing. And so I'm most proud of really pushing sometimes through those things that are very hard and pushing through and empowering the staff. And I think we're all better for it at Polk. I like what the board said. I think we'll all be better as we now make a commitment to. talk about racism, we need to talk about it first. So I'm very proud of that. And I thank you all for the award and love you all and couldn't be happier. Thank you and prouder to be ACPS. My whole life, my whole life, ACP. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Johnson. And I know that Ms. Mills, she wanted to definitely mention that. I saw her hand was up. She wanted

020to mention that Mr. Sharp is a Titan. And she said that was very important. That was part of her words. And she forgot to mention that. So Mr. Sharp, I know, you know, once a Titan, always a Titan. We go strong and we go hard. So congratulations to you again and all of our recipients this evening. So I'm going to turn things back over to Madam Chair to say some words on behalf of the board. Yes, I just I'm so happy that there are people here to talk about the winners, because I don't know all three of you. I have an. had the pleasure of visiting Ms. Johnson's school multiple times and it's always truly a pleasure. Not to mention I did the gun safety training with her and she will protect you. She will.

021It was very memorable. But I just want to thank everyone for having such commitment over such time and also even if you haven't been here as long that I see the commitment in what you're doing and I hear your... commitment. So, so please, we look forward to seeing what you're going to do in the future, all of you still, because this is not the the end of your career. This is just an award year. So, so thank you all very much. Okay, so now, the next we have, I think we have our, I see Mr. Carranza. Hopefully we have I just don't see because I don't have that many spaces. I think so. So we have not heard from our student reps in a while. So we are getting close to the end of the

022year and. It seemed like a good idea and it was suggested actually that we might want to hear from them again. And we want to thank them actually for, for serving in such an unusual year. And I am sorry that, that it wasn't something that, that really, we saw you all the time because we really enjoyed that and we enjoy your perspective all the time, but there were some critical, critical decisions that you were there for. So I think that you did have quite. quite an experience. But so if you want to take turns, I don't know if you've decided one of you is going first or not, but it would be great to hear from the two of you in terms of what's been going on, whatever you had planned to report to us

023today. If one, do you want Mr. I don't know, sometimes I know you coordinate, so I didn't want to throw you off. But Mr. Carranza, you were on my on my screen first. So maybe do you have something you'd like to say? Yeah, definitely. Well, I just want to say thank you to all the school board members and everyone else at ACPS for giving me this opportunity to be a part. Great. So did you want to tell us anything else about maybe what's been going on or how you do have any feedback for us in terms of what's been going on with the distance learning? Can everyone hear me? Yes. All right. Well, yeah, I just want to say, yeah, that I just want to be thankful for everyone for giving me this opportunity. And

024even though we didn't do as much as possible, as much as we could, the experience was there. And I did learn a lot of new things that is going to be helpful in later years, especially in college. And, yeah, I just want to say that pretty much. Oh, and thanks to Mr. Bass, of course, you know, the man right now. being the principal and everything that's out there. Then I'll pass it on to Amaya. She has something to say. Okay, thanks. Thanks so much. And really, best of luck for next year. And I believe it didn't get to you, but I think there might be something coming to your house for you as well. But I don't think it got there quite in time. So look, if there's something coming, open the door when someone's

025outside trying to give you something. That's all I can tell you because I don't know exactly what it is. But thank you again for your service. And Ms. Chisholm, would you like to say some words? Yes. Hello to everyone. First, I want to say thank you to everyone on the board for giving both of us this opportunity to just use our platforms and speak for all students across the city. It was very important. for me being the class president at my school to just be able to vocalize the issues that I've seen within the school community to you guys. So I do thank you all for that. I thank the community for always speaking out on the issues that they've seen. And most importantly, I would like to thank you all again for just the

026support that you guys have towards equity and also the continuation of support towards our programs such as MSAN, BSU, our International Academy, things like that. We see the importance of that support, especially in times like this with... police brutalities, just things that is happening specifically to the minority groups in the world. So I do have a mouthful to say, and I'm sorry for that. But like I said, I would just encourage everyone to continue to support BSU, MSAN, all of those. social groups that are pushing for equity and just having the students' voices heard because we don't have the opportunity to just change the curriculum and make sure that African American studies are taught or foreign studies are taught in our schools, things like that, or even government taught at. ninth and 10th grade where

027it's imperative to learn. We don't have the ability to change the requirements of our school system yet. So pushing support to those clubs will just help students feel as though they're important and, you know, help them learn about their own communities. To the community of Alexandria, I know that a lot of parents and adults had a lot of input in the year, but I also push you guys to have your children speak to their student reps so we know, or the people that are after me know what issues they feel as though are important to be heard. That was to the community. One, I'm sorry, I have the list here. Of course, we have graduation coming up tomorrow. For those who do not know, it'll be on Channel 71, Facebook Live, also our ACPS website.

028We also encourage everyone to light up Alexandria, as Mr. Ballas has already said. And then the dates for return items, this is specifically for students, is provided in an email. And the individual schools will be providing information on how to do that. Lastly, I just want to, again, thank all of the school board members for your support. You have even pushed our student body to go out and protest. and even start their own protests with dates that will be soon provided to you all. So I just want to say thank you for all of your support. Thank you so much and good luck next year. And we will hope that you might have some conversations, both of you, with the new school board reps, student reps, once we appoint them. Then they can get some

029of your knowledge transfer. Usually it's done by this time, but you'll have to just maybe reach out later. Now, Dr. Hutchings would like to make a few comments. I did. I just wanted to say a couple of comments specifically to our student reps. And first and foremost, I just have to tell you all that, you know, these past few weeks for me have been similar to what you call like the grief cycle, but I'm calling it the Greg Hutchings grief cycle because it's not exactly textbook with what I'm going through. And, you know, last week I was at a phase where I felt like I needed to speak because my heart was heavy. I felt overwhelmed. I felt anger. I felt sadness. I felt, you know, just a lot of grief. And over the past

030week, I have experienced so many different, you know, emotions from really, in some cases, feeling vindicated, in some cases, feeling affirmed. In some cases, feeling that I now have a platform. I'm saying in my mind, finally, you know, I feel like something I have been passionate about. And I've discussed several times that there are people who don't look like me who are saying the same things. And now the world is finally listening. So I feel like it is about time. This is not a new feeling for me. I'm thanking everybody for finally seeing the reality that I have known my entire life. including as a student at TC Williams and in the city of Alexandria. And this Tuesday, I met with our MSAN superintendent. And we spoke with a woman. Her name is Dr. Darnisha

031Amante Jackson. She's the president and co-founder of Dig Deep for Equity. She is a Harvard graduate. You know, she has her doctorate from Harvard. brilliant, brilliant African-American woman who really touched not only my heart, but my spirit. And I felt that it was important for me to use a few moments just to tell you my thoughts. And I feel that this is something that's coming from me as your superintendent to our young people. Anybody else can take it however they want it, right? I'm speaking to the next generation because a lot of our older people, your minds are made up in some ways. The only person that's going to help you is you. but we have the ability to really mold and build a foundation with young people because they're about to start their lives,

032right? So they don't have to tear down all the layers that we as adults have to tear down to get to where we're trying to be. So I wrote down a couple of things for you all because I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. And one is, which is really important, as you all are graduating tomorrow, right? The fact that we have a school system that does have modern day segregation, whether we want to believe it or not, we do. When you walk in our hallways, they are very diverse. When you go into our classrooms, they are not. When you look at our graduates, you know, and you see people who have advanced degrees and people who don't, there are disparities. When you look at our discipline data and you see who's been

033suspended and expelled and who has not, there are racial disparities. When you look at our grade distribution and who gets a pass in turning in things late and who doesn't and what teachers are going to be strict on certain kids and be lenient on others, there's a divide, a racial divide. And I think sometimes we try to focus on all the things that seem easy. Like let's talk about, or let's talk about why, but we never want to talk about race. Race is the main and the core reasoning that we are where we are today. And it started the moment the first Africans arrived in 1619. And I'll say it again. I'm not promoting the 1619 curriculum, but I'm saying that we as a community need to make sure we're educating our young people. so

034that they can then have a visceral reaction to what's happening today. I'm not the person that says, go tear down all the statues and go change all the names. But this is what I am going to say. And I think that this is something that we are all going to have to do because the board has the authority to change names. That's not something the superintendent gets to do, everybody. That's not my role and responsibility, right? But I can participate in the work. And what I think about that is we are going to have to be prepared to have some really deep discussions around the name Thomas Chambliss Williams. And, you know, it's not about just trying to change names and tear down statues because this is like a fad or because everybody's doing it.

035I think the more we educate our young people and we tell the truth, then let's see what our reactions are once they know who he is. Once they know the statues of these Confederate leaders. who they are or who they were, right? Then let's listen to the conversation and determine what our next steps are. As we're moving into this whole new strategic plan, you know, and this is a question that I ask for anybody that's watching to just ponder. As we're moving into this next 2025 strategic plan, we have said that equity is the core, which I'm hoping that we're including racial equity as being the core. You know, it's beyond, let's call it what it is. Racial equity needs to be the core because everything else stemmed from racial equity. That's where it started.

036Everything else stemmed from that. But racial equity being the core, if we're saying that that is our core, the question that I ask us is, if we are sending young people into a school that is named after a person who during his time hated some of the people who are in the school, what message are we sending? Are we, and this is just a question, I'm not trying to say what I believe or what we should do, but are we allowing for these young people to be in a situation that may cause them to internalize certain forms of oppression that we can't see? We can't see what it's doing to them. but it could cause some internalized forms of oppression that they will take throughout their entire lives, right? That can literally have a significant

037impact. By us not doing something or at least listening and exploring this possibility, are we being disingenuous to the mission and vision that we are going to be voting on or that you all are going to be voting on really soon? Because we're saying all these things, right? And, you know, I think that this is going to be bigger than changing the name of TC, right? If we go down that path and it happens, that's great, right? I think that, you know, I can support that. I'm not against it. But I think we have to also know that in addition to changing names and removing statues on South Washington Street, we also are going to have to dismantle some of the divide, the racial divide, and as well as the economic divide that we have.

038and equity device that we have in our schools. We're going to have to talk about honors. We're going to have to talk about TAG. We're going to have to talk about special ed. We're going to have to talk about the master schedule, which I believe the master schedule is the biggest inequity in public education, where kids are and where they're learning. That is the biggest thing. And that's the one thing that we're so afraid to do, because the moment we make a decision, we get bombarded with emails around why it's not right and how you're changing something. And what we have to understand is that people don't fear change. People fear loss. That is what they're fearing. They're fearing the loss of something. And what we're going to have to be able to be very

039creative. and doing, and I think our young people are going to be the people who are going to change this. I really don't think it's going to be all of us. I think the boards, you all are going to make the decision, but I think the young people are really who are going to be the folks who are going to change this narrative for our future. We're going to have to have the courage and the boldness to be able to set our politics aside, to no longer allow certain groups that have literally run this entire city since the beginning of time. Certain groups that have literally run Alexandria City Public Schools, when you look at our policies and you look at our practices, traditionally have been to serve one particular group. And if we don't

040admit it and own it, we are going to continue to perpetuate what we're dealing with today. And I just felt compelled to say this because I think that, you know, 30 years from now. Somebody is going to ask me, Dr. Hutchings, you were a superintendent of schools in 2020 when the world was in disarray. What did you do? And I want to make sure that I'm able to tell my grandchildren and my children that I did everything within my power to change the narrative and that I contributed. Two, changing the narrative and didn't just sit back and continue to be quiet and suppress my thoughts, my truth, my experiences because of my position. And I think it happens so much for Black people that we are forced to have to set aside what we feel

041and our truth. People make us feel at times, including me, and this happens almost every day, from emails to how people talk to me, to what they say to me, to what they put on social media about me, right? People consistently test me because of the color of my skin. People disrespect me because of the color of my skin. People think that I'm not as good because of the color of my skin. And I still have to deal with those people. So on top of being the superintendent and dealing with just a stressful job like any other superintendent, regardless of what color you are, I'm also a black man in America. So that's an extra burden that I carry that I can't change. I can't change the color of my skin. I can't change who

042I am. And I don't want to. I'm proud of who I am. So I just wanted to give our students those words of wisdom, as well as anybody that's listening. And I'm so glad that this is recorded so people can listen to it over and over and over again. It's a way to put here to say it came out of my mouth to your ears. And I am speaking my truth, right? And I'm asking the people to respect my truth the same way I have to constantly respect everybody else's truth. I don't agree with a whole lot of people I talk with every day, but I respect them. I take their words into consideration. And sometimes I actually change some of the things that I want to do because of it. So I have the

043right to do that too. And I just tell you all in my last words is that your voice is power. And, you know, Amaya and Wilmer, you all have been so powerful, you know, this year in more ways than you could ever imagine. You know, I remember the time when we were going through the high school project and we were talking about the importance of the one school. Rationally, when I go back to that moment, I can understand why two schools are important. Don't get me wrong. I understand that purpose because of space. But then we have to also think about the structures that we might create that perpetuates what we're trying to get rid of today. Right. So I commend you all for always being a voice. Amaya, you being a part of MSAN

044and doing your thing and representing us. You know, I know I'm no longer the president of MSAN. I'm sure they wish I was president now, especially after that call on Tuesday, because I gave him peace of my mind. I appreciate you for, you know, speaking, speaking your truth and Wilmer accepting that award and that scholarship. That is huge. I mean, you are setting a whole different trajectory for your life. You are an example for our Latino community. You are an example of greatness. Your future is so hopeful. Right. And when I saw that you won that award, it literally brought tears to my eyes because I saw how appreciative you was of that. So you all have no clue as to what you've done for me just by serving on this board, you know, and

045I'm sure for the other board members, you know, as well. I just appreciate your realness, your rawness. And I can't wait to read about everything that you all are planning to do in your futures and just know that you are always welcome back in Alexandria City Public Schools and always remember Alexandria City Public Schools, because I hope that we left an impression, good and bad, that will help you make the right decisions as you move forward to the next level of your career and for your lives. So I'm going to stop there. And I just want to thank you, Madam Chair, for giving me the time because it was on my heart. I didn't know when to say it, but this was the time to say it. So thank you all. No, thank you. We're

046happy to hear that. And Ms. Lorber has a comment. Yes, thanks, Madam Chair. Dr. Hutchings, I wanted to say thank you, number one, for speaking from the heart. And I want to speak from my heart, and I think probably I'm speaking for the whole board, but as the oldest member of the board and one who's lived through all kinds of periods and things, always wishing that this moment would come and wondering, is this really the moment? Has it come? And are we going to see change? I feel extremely lucky to be on the school board right now. I feel extremely fortunate that you're our superintendent. This was the vision you arrived with, and it could not have, in some ways, you know, that we are in this moment, both with the pandemic, which helped show

047and demonstrate what's wrong with this society in terms of the racist system that we have that doesn't allow. equal access to health care, for example, but also then with the reaction across the country asking for change, asking for our anti-racism to be embraced. And I just think we're very fortunate to be alive at this time. And I pray that we see, I certainly will dedicate myself to supporting what you are trying to accomplish in any way that I can. And I'm guessing that everyone else on the board feels the same way. So thank you so much. Thank you, Ms. Lorber. There are also a couple of board members who want to say some things, some parting words for our student reps. Ms. Green was one of them, I believe. No? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Your

048face for a moment, I was like, she looks surprised. No, no, no, no, not at all. Thank you, Madam Chair. And to Wilmer and Amaya. I've never hidden my love for you. You will be so missed. Just your voice and your passion for all of our ACPS students. I'm like welling up here. It's just been amazing. You guys, you know, even though you weren't able to finish all the things that you wanted to accomplish, know that we are so proud of you and we appreciate you. And please celebrate your accomplishments and know that we are here for you. And please come back to visit us and just go out and change the world. But please don't forget about all that you've accomplished and the great things that I know that you will do in the

049future. So thank you. I also had to say, I didn't mean to cut you off. Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Hutchings, for that, too. I just wanted to say thank you really quick. Sorry. Oh, no problem. No problem. I also had Mr. Suarez had indicated he wanted to say something. And then Miss Alterton is also has her hand raised. Yeah, no, thanks so much, Chair Anderson. I just wanted to, you know, acknowledge both of you, Amaya and Wilmer, you know, and just I want to make very clear that, you know, all of your comments, all your remarks, you know, were tremendously helpful to the board throughout the year. And I really want to pinpoint something you said, Amaya, and sort of push back. And it's that you had said. you know, we can't change

050things, we can't change the rules, that sort of thing. You can and you actually did, you know, with a lot of your advocacy. And so I want to highlight that because, you know, I think that's something our students feel too often. you know, that, that, well, we can't change anything, you know, our, you know, if we speak to the board, the effort's going to maybe be futile, or, you know, we're just the students, and our voice doesn't matter, and I just, I just want to make it very clear that, that your voice does matter, and, and I would encourage you to, you know, in whatever you do in college, and in the future, you know, continue, you know, as a class president for you, Amaya, you know, like, you know, mobilize people, encourage them to

051speak up. And please encourage your classmates who will remain at TC and will remain in the division, you know, to speak up because the voices we hear from students are critical. You are the ones who are directly impacted by the decisions we make. And so it's just so vital that we hear more from you all. And then the other thing I just wanted to say too is to what Dr. Hutchings said is that we really have to confront these difficult conversations about race in this division and in this community. And so the students, I think, really have a critical role to play in that. Not that I want to place the burden on all the students, to be clear. I think it's the burdens on the entire community. But I do think that... You know,

052you all advocating for these really difficult conversation of what does the future of TC look like? What does the name of TC look like? You know, what are the symbols we should be exalting? What should the curriculum be, you know, in the division? Again, those are things you do have power over. And I think we need to really just confront those conversations head on. And so I just want to thank you both for your service and thank you for, you know, the level of detail you put in your statements every time you spoke with us and real thoughtfulness around the issues. And just finally, I want to, you know, thank you, Dr. Hutchings, for your remarks that you made. I really appreciate that you, you know, spoke your truth there and were very honest with

053the community. And I really appreciate also that you. called things out that are often unsaid, you know, that you use the word segregation, which is a word that people sometimes are afraid to use. But, you know, there is segregation in our division, both within schools and across schools. And until we talk about that and own that in our community and acknowledge that, we're not going to move forward. And the way to move forward is really to have these conversations about race head on. And so, you know, I just wanted to validate what you said, Dr. Hutchings, and sort of recognize that, you know, what we do as a board, it can't just be symbolic. You know, we're going to talk about a statement condemning racism later today, which I think is great. I think we

054need to issue that statement. I also think we need to, you know, take very seriously these calls about possible name changes or statues being removed. But if we only do those things and we don't tackle the systemic. racism and systemic issues in our society head on and have the really hard conversations, those things aren't going to mean very much of anything. And so I'm really excited to do this work with my colleagues and really excited to see what you, Amaya, Wilmer, and the other students continue to do as you go out into the world. Because I do think having gone to public school in Alexandria, in a unique place like TC, you're going to have a perspective that's incredibly valuable. And you will see that as you go out into the world. So thank you

055so much for your service and really appreciate everything you did for us this year. Okay, next up I have Ms. Alderton. Good afternoon, everyone. So to Wilmer and Amaya, I think the, first of all, thank you for serving on the board. You know, you guys are the, you guys are what we're here for. So, you know, your impact, your input is more than valuable. If I could just sort of say something to you guys, it would be along the lines of one thing that Mr. Suarez said, and that is you absolutely have the power. And I really want you guys to know that you can go out and change the world. I want you to know that the world is a very big place, but there is a place for you in it. And there

056is a place for you to have a powerful, convincing, and just a voice. So don't ever, ever forget that. I want to tell you to learn as much as you can. read as much as you can. visit as many places in the world as you can because the more you know, the more types of people you know, the more places you go in the world, the more you're going to be able to contribute to this society. And, you know, one of the things I always, I'm always sort of concerned about as a social studies teacher is that I don't think we do a good enough job in the civics realm. and really teaching our students like the power of civic duty and the responsibility there. So, you know, I encourage you to take that responsibility

057seriously. And it's not just your vote. Run for office, you know, get involved in all these organizations. Like we need you and we need people who look like you in these seats. So never underestimate what you can do. You know, we're counting on you. We want you guys, you know, to come after us and fill these seats and, you know, even bigger seats, whatever you want to do. So just good luck to both of you. I know you're going to do awesome things. And not only come back to ACPS, come back as a teacher. That would be awesome. So love you guys. Next, we have Ms. Nolan. Sorry, everyone. Don't want to hold up things up. I just couldn't let a moment pass without thanking sincerely Amaya and Wilmer for all your support. It's already

058been said how phenomenal you are. I'm so proud of you and just so excited for your futures. You both are my heroes. So I can't wait for you to come back and I'll follow your lead. So thanks for everything. Thanks for all you do. And so excited for you to proceed forward with your dreams. Take care now. Okay, well, you guys enjoy the rest of your day. Look for something to be coming to you. A little bit of appreciation. Sorry, can I quickly say something? Absolutely. I just wanted to say thank you to Mr. Suarez, Ms. Alderton, to Ms. Nolan, especially for the reassurance of our power and our voice. I strongly appreciate that. And just to Ms. Alderton, thank you. again for restating as I tried to in my initial speech just the importance

059of civic duty and teaching it to all of our students. Thank you for just shining light on that and knowing the importance of that. I love all of you guys and again thank you for this experience. Yeah sorry may I say something as well? Yes please. All right well I just want to emphasize what Maya said and especially thank you all for giving us this opportunity and that So most of all, I want to speak behalf everyone at TC, but I know that some of us are like structured to believe that the way we've been living in the past couple of years is the norm. And that's not really good. That's not good at all. And I just want to say that hopefully we get like aspiring and great. future representatives for next year that

060work even harder than us and actually achieve better accolades, you know, and, you know, I just want them to and hope, and I'm going to most definitely try this, and I know Maya's probably going to try as well, to help them in the process and to learn everything they need to know to be a representative and to make sure that their voices are heard. And for that, I'll leave all y'all to this, and thank you again. Great. Thank you, guys. Yeah, we're going to hold you to that. Once you're back in person, we hope to see you when you're back on break or whatever. Please come by and join us. And we hope that sooner than later, but we don't know because it's not in our control right now. So you guys have a great

061summer and good luck with your studies going on. And thanks to everybody for giving them a send off, a good send off. Okay, I didn't tell everybody we're running a little bit over, sorry. But we had good stuff to talk about. So we are going to go on. Now I need to, I just want to talk about the public comment. We have some this year, so please. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. I just saw. Is it okay? Miss Green, did you have something else or is it okay? Oh, just really quickly. I was just going to tell one woman, Amaya, that you still owe me another Starbucks planning meeting. We used to have Starbucks planning meetings all the time and COVID ended that. So they owe me one more. Good, good. That's great. So then you

062can remind them. I will, Ms. Green. You know, I work at Starbucks now, so. She didn't have a long commute then to the meeting. Okay. So next we have, I just want to tell people about public comments. We have some for this week. So please, board members, make sure you review them. They are available to the public through the agenda. So they can also be reviewed by the public. And if people want to chime in on future meetings, the public, they... There are ways you can either write to us as you usually do, or you can write to have your comments included with our next board meeting. That is the way that we're handling it instead of public comments, because when they are truly public, everybody can see them. The next thing on our agenda

063is the consent calendar. So if I could get a motion to adopt the consent calendar, that would be great. Madam Chair, I move that we adopt the consent calendar for today's meeting. Second. Ms. Green seconds Ms. Alderton's motion. Is there anything to pull from the consent calendar? If not, I'm going to call for roll call vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan, yes. Megan Alderton, yes. Rami Jantri, I think Rami had to leave because we were running over. Jacinta Green, yes. Margaret Werber, yes. Michelle Reeve. Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. So that's eight yes and one absent for the consent calendar. Now we have our... We have a resolution, I think, isn't it? Next, do we have the new, so new business is the resolution. And I wanted to really give a shout out

064to Ms. Thornton for just almost as soon as I sent it out to get just getting on it and sending out to board members and soliciting their feedback and their input. And so I also want to thank the board members who helped with that. But it was great to have someone to spearhead it so that we could get it done in a timely manner. So in order to. Oh, I was wondering what was happening to my screen, but here it is. It's on our screen and there are actually nine paragraphs. So I thought this is a little bit of a brain exercise. I thought maybe we could each take one paragraph and I was thinking of the order because that can be difficult on these meetings, but the brain exercise part of that is remembering

065your spot on the dais. So I was going to start with Ms. Thornton and then go just straight down. So you have to remember who you used to be sitting by. Bye. But there are nine paragraphs. So I thought we'd do it that way. The way it is, we'll read it this week. It's on for info. Next week, if there are no changes, if everybody's fine with it, it can just simply go on our consent calendar. So this would be the time that we would be reading it. If there are changes, then we can read it again. But I think there's been a good deal of work on it. Madam Chair. Yes. We're down to eight people. Oh, shoot. Yes, you're right. Thank you. Well. Heather will have to, Ms. Thornton will have to read

066two. She'll read the first and the last. Is that okay? I can do that, Madam Chair. All right. Okay. So why don't you start us out, Ms. Thornton, and then we'll go down the line. Sure. Thank you again to my fellow board members for being so responsive to this. I'm really honored to know that we all share a commitment to social justice and to addressing anti-racism for Alexandria City Public Schools. So it's an honor to start. Whereas members of the Alexandria City School Board and Alexandria City Public School staff are saddened and outraged by the recent death of George Floyd, a Black fellow American, and by the preceding and unjust deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and many others. Whereas we recognize that national protests demanding justice for Mr. Floyd have highlighted the systemic racism

067and injustice that have long persisted in our country. Whereas we condemn racism and hate in our schools and our society and must work to protect the constitutional rights and inherent dignity of every person who lives, works, and learns in our community. Whereas we cannot be silent, we must urgently act to stop the racial injustices and structural inequities that harm and anguish Black and brown people who are our family, friends, neighbors, students, staff members, and fellow Americans. Whereas we must listen, we must engage in critical self-reflection as we listen to those who have endured centuries of discrimination and intolerance and who deserve to be heard as they share the truth of their stories, experiences, and feelings. And we must seek with great empathy to understand their challenges and their pain. Whereas we must learn, it is

068time to engage our community in meaningful and honest conversations about racial injustice, to build alliances with those committed to justice for all, and to work together to support our shared conviction that racism must end. Whereas we must lead. Each of us, individually and collectively, is responsible for creating and nurturing an anti-racist learning environment where every child is respected and valued for who they are, regardless of their skin color. We must actively acknowledge, address, and prevent the racial bias that occurs as a result of school division policies, practices, and actions. Whereas we must do better, we reaffirm that Black Lives Matter and recognize the urgent need to place equity at the center of everything that we do as a school division. Guided by our strategic plan, we will work to change the culture within Alexandria City

069Public Schools to inspire students and address barriers to learning. Now therefore be it resolved that we, members of the Alexandria City School Board, stand steadfast in our commitment to foster an inclusive educational environment where every student, teacher, support professional, parent, and community member is treated with dignity and respect, and we affirm our commitment to continue fighting for racial justice and human rights for all. Adopted and approved by the Alexandria City School Board. in the future next week. Great. Thank you, everyone. So that's what was the group work product. So I'm not sure if anyone has any additional comments right now, but please let me know if you... Oh, okay. Ms. Thornton? Yes. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And again, thanks to the board for all your input on this. I was... Really kind of

070hoping that we would issue something like this. Words are never enough, but they do matter. And I think it's always important that we make it clear what our views are and what our standpoint is, especially when we as a country are kind of being forced in this period of self-reflection. And Dr. Hutchings kind of said it perfectly at the beginning. There are a lot of discrepancies in Alexandria City Public Schools. It's never been right, and it's still not right today. But I think the fact that we are in this period right now is such a opportunity for us. And I want us to take advantage of it, because it's so easy for these kind of, I hate to call it a trend, but that's kind of what it's been in the past, especially when we

071do have incidents like what we had with Mr. George Floyd. And I don't want this to be another trend. So I really hope that as a board that we commit to these words and that we are intentional about this strategic plan process that we're currently going through. It's so easy to let a strategic plan kind of sit on the shelf. But I really believe that this board holds true to our definition of equity, of removing barriers for all students. And I want us to recognize that that especially means our black and brown students who for too long have not been receiving the attention that they need to receive. I believe in equity and not equality. And that is a radical statement to some. But I think it's something that the country is increasingly beginning to

072understand why that needs to be. So I appreciate these words to a board that the board is making. And I just want to make sure that we listen to the one of the last paragraphs where we say we must lead and we must do better because I know that we can. So thank you so much again, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to to adopt this resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have the superintendent Q&A and report. I don't know if Dr. Hutchings, but we're now, I will tell you, we're now at 1.06. But let me see what Dr. Hutchings wants to say or if he wants to entertain a couple of questions, but we are over time, just so everybody knows. Yeah, if you are fine with being over time, I just wanted

073to give a couple of updates about the VDOE's guidelines, because I think those are important that just came out this week. And there were three documents in particular that I shared with the board on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week and asked that you just review them to prepare for the discussion today so that you don't feel like, what is he talking about? That type of thing. I didn't expect, I'm not going to do a quiz or anything for you all. I just wanted you to have some prior knowledge. The first document I want to talk about was the order of the state health commissioner that was released by the governor on Tuesday. And specifically what this is requiring school divisions to do is to submit a health plan for phase two, as well as

074when we go into phase three of our reopening. So we will have to submit a health plan for anything that we're doing this summer. So for example, we are going to have some of our summer camps in our buildings, right? Our PCA is going to be doing some things in our schools. Because they are a part of our schools, we do have to submit a health plan to the state. And we're going to be working on that next week because it has to occur before you can officially open those doors. So we want to get that done sooner than later. What it does require us just having like a plan for PPE, making sure that we're having temperature checks done with our students, as well as any staff members or workers who are in our

075facilities at all times. And it has to happen on a daily basis. Also, educating anybody who returns into our buildings around if you're sick, stay home. you know, having a place if somebody, you know, becomes sick during the day, where do you put them? So having like a, you know, a station or a location for them to be during that time. But that is what this whole process or order is asking us to do and ensuring that we do that. The next item that I want to quickly discuss is the phase guidance for Virginia schools. And this came out of the governor's office as well. And this just talks about each of the three phases. So we're going into phase two today. So phase one is irrelevant to talk about right now, just because as

076of today, we're in phase two. So phase two begins to talk about how we are now able to open our doors to students. you know, who can come in during this time. We are staying true to our summer learning plans during the phase two time. And let me just give you some reasons as to why we're doing that. There are so many complications that come along with trying to open the doors for additional students. You have to have, we have to make sure our PPE is actually in place. We have to make sure that on our transportation guidelines in our phase two and with the VDOE's guidelines, it states that you can only have one student per chair or one student per seat on a bus, every other seat, right? So we have 10 kids

077on a bus, maybe 10 kids. I mean, it just depends on the size of the bus, right? In our classrooms, they have to be six feet apart. And you're talking about in this phase two, it's saying to open the doors for K-3. Just think those are the younger kids who are not going to wear masks, right? So most likely they're not going to put on masks. I'm just telling you. I just know even my 10-year-old trying to keep, I mean, he doesn't like to put on the mask. I can't breathe, that type of thing. So it really is unrealistic for us in two weeks. to work through opening the doors for K-3 students. And I think that we also have to really work through some of the dynamics and the cost that this is going

078to be for us as to maintain this. You know, it's fine to do it for a couple of months or a couple of weeks, but, you know, I'm not sure how long we're going to have to maintain this. And every time we have more time added, it does cost more money. That was unexpected. At times when... our budget is being cut too. So I mean, it's like, it's very, very, very complicated. Another piece in phase two, it talks about athletics. And, you know, fortunately, we don't have, you know, sports teams that actually start in the summer. But we do have practices and things that do occur during the summer. But there's some specific guidelines that I spoke recently with Mr. Parker, our director of athletics, around making sure we're using those guidelines or if there's

079going to be any plans for kids. you know, being a part of training or practice this summer, because there are more significant guidelines for athletics. It's 10 feet apart, not necessarily six feet apart, because kids are sweating and, you know, that type of thing. So it's just different expectations that I want to make sure we have in place. But we will have to submit that to be approved as well before that can start. So all of these things have to still be vetted by the VDOE. And, you know, it's not by law that it has to occur, but I was on a call with McGuire Woods, who are the attorneys for the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. I was on a webinar that they hosted recently. And what they said, it behooves school divisions to

080really follow the CDC guidelines, because that's what's going to cover you the most. I mean, that's the federal guidelines. You know, there's flexibility that states have and that localities have. But when you begin to use your kind of authority with the flexibility, you put your organization at risk because if something does occur, you chose because you had the authority to do that. Whereas we could follow CDC's guidelines and the federal government's guidelines, which are a little more stringent than others. But I think that we should. should follow the CDC. And that is what most of the governor's phases are. They're aligned with the CDC. That's what the VDOE guidelines are. They're aligned with the CDC. So we want to make sure that we're following those guidelines, even though it's not law or required. So you

081will see some school divisions doing other things, by the way. And that's why I keep telling you all, I don't want to be the superintendent that, you know, takes the risk. Because there are different phases of less risk, more risk, and significant risk. And I want us to try to be in the less risk phase as much as possible because we're dealing with children's lives and our staff lives. Phase three talks, we don't have a date of phase three, but there's some information that you'll see in here in regards to the phase three. But there is no date yet because they're basing all of this off of our daily counts. of new positives throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. That's really what's driving how we get into these different phases. So we should have some more

082information about that really soon. And then the final document that I shared with you all was the recover, redesign, restart. And it's a comprehensive plan that has been provided to all school divisions by the Virginia Department of Education. It is a well vetted document. I mean, everybody from every perspective had their hands in this, including the superintendents across the Commonwealth of Virginia, which this is the first document that I actually saw the things we talked about in our meetings. also on paper in the final document, you know, so I really do believe it's a solid document, but it is massive. It's 136 pages, you know, it's long, but it gives us some very clear guidelines and some guiding questions from all different angles as we are trying to reopen our schools to use. And I

083just want to, you know, I'm going to conclude by saying our thought partners received this information. This is also posted to our division website. And just some points that I want to make as I conclude about the thought partnership. You know, I'm getting some emails from people like, well, why am I not on a thought partner group? You know, a teacher saying, well, I want to be on a thought partner group, right? And it's not that we don't want teachers on the thought partner group, but we don't want people on thought partner group. The thought partner group is intended to have really high level experts. who have opportunities to kind of look at the city as a whole and not just one particular group or one particular opinion, right? So we need people who are

084going to, you know, give us a vision for all and not for my thing or what I love, you know? And not that teachers can't do that because they can, not that parents can't do that because they can, but we tried to make sure we had, you know, top executive or top level. figures at the thought partner table because they are interacting with their constituents and bringing their feedback and things to the table, which they had done a phenomenal job in our second meeting. I know our board chair is a member of the thought partnership. We are establishing planning teams and the planning teams will have teachers and parents. and nurses and all of those different groups represented based on the area. So for example, we're going to have planning groups that deal with health.

085Of course, we're going to have nurses there. We're going to have planning groups that deal with nutrition. Of course, we're going to have cafeteria workers there. So the planning teams is where we're going to see the work really happening. The thought partnership is just making sure that we're covering all our bases. and thinking about the entire city and the entire school division as a whole. It's really just thought, they're supposed to be thought provoking in a sense so that we can provide the appropriate marching orders for our planning team. So please let everybody know, all of our constituency groups, that we are gonna hear their voices. We're also gonna have opportunities to have. some focus groups and things to hear from our staff, you know, because we really do need to get, you know, a

086pause of where our staff, and this is separate from the pause survey, everybody, but to get a pause, you know, verbally in having some engagement and working through that next week, and some focus groups where staff members can talk through what are some of their concerns, what are some of the things that they feel we need to be thinking about as we reopen our schools in the fall. So we're doing all that, and we're also doing all this. at a very rapid pace because everything is so condensed. You know, time is of the essence, but we also don't want to jump too fast. Fairfax is, they're going to be posting their schedules and things today. We're not ready to do that. And honestly, I don't. Let them do that if that's what they choose to

087do, right? I don't know how we can do that when we just got the guidelines on Tuesday, right? Like how can you really bring in input and hear from people if we're making a decision in two weeks? So June 26th, we're going to be sharing with you all the overarching kind of plan, but the real detailed planning is going to happen in July because two weeks from now, we're not going to, we just got the guidelines. That changes the game in a lot of areas. You know, even when we were talking about 25% to 50% of our student population in our schools, right? This is just one example. The guidelines states that we need to have kids six feet apart. Well. In some schools, to have kids six feet apart might be 30% of the

088student population. In another school, it might be 10% of the student population. It varies. So, you know, it can't just be a blanket 25% of the kids for your school, right? Because you might not be able to meet those guidelines. So we're now going to have to go through every school in every classroom to determine how many kids could be in there. And that's going to give us our percentage. But that's just something that came out of Tuesday. So it's very, very complicated. And I'm just asking our community to give us some grace and flexibility. And we do want to hear from you. And we do appreciate the feedback. And we also appreciate the experts telling us feedback, too. Not but, but and, because I said but in our video. And I meant to say

089and. Every time I say but, it means like you're negating the other thing. So that said, I'm going to open the floor for any questions. Dr. E? Hi there. Thanks for that, Dr. Hutchings, because I was going to ask a few questions about the reopening planning. So thank you for just giving some details about that. And I do want to encourage people to visit the website because I know you will be updating that regularly with information. I actually wanted to ask a question about the strategic plan because I know that it is going to be coming back to the board for a vote. And I know we didn't have too many public speakers, but we have gotten some really good feedback. And I have some additional feedback I want to share from the CTE Advisory

090Committee. So my question was just if that document is going to be, is it going to be revised in some way before it comes back to us to review? And will we have a chance to see, like I saw there was a separate email set up for teachers to submit feedback. Will the board be seeing some of that feedback that comes back? If you could just. share about that. That'd be great. Yes. So yes, you all will see some revisions made to the current strategic plan or the draft strategic plan that we do have. And we will also accommodate that with some of the comments that led to some of those changes. So you'll see all the comments that we have gathered. We're gathering them in a database. So you'll see those copies and then

091you'll see the changes. Okay. I have Ms. Nolan. Yes, thank you so much. And thank you so much, Dr. Reeve, for that question. I think the more we get feedback, the stronger it's going to be. Mine is a similar question, but not so much with the strategic plan, but just with the returning to schools and what that'll look like. And I really appreciate, Dr. Hutchings, you laying it out, because I think, as we've all said the entire time, the more communicative and the more transparent we can be, this is obviously... new to everyone in the country, right? And so it's like, there's not a plan that we're following. So I think the more communicative we could be about our thoughts, that would be really helpful to everyone involved. My question is, I understand that I'm

092sure you did get a lot of emails about people wanting to join the Thought Partner Group. I mean, that's one of the great things about Alexandria is we have so many just thoughtful people who want to get involved and their feedback is really invaluable. Is there going to be a mechanism, however, that parents and particularly those on the ground within and inside our schools, like the support staff, the teachers, that will be able to offer some feedback? Because they're going to think of things being on the ground that sometimes others aren't going to have that lens. So I'm just curious about what is the feedback mechanism that folks can participate so that you can be getting some additional thoughts that can only make our plan stronger? Yes. So, yeah, so we're going to have focus

093groups and opportunities like that. Also, with our Pulse survey number two, there was a question, open-ended question about the reopening of schools that, you know, I know some people saw some of the same questions at the beginning, but the last two questions were very different. And we wanted, that was a way to capture, like, what some people are thinking, like, what are some concerns? What do you think we should be doing to reopen our schools? So I was strongly encouraged because we did extend. our Pulse Survey administration through this weekend, because initially it was supposed to end yesterday, but we're extending it through Sunday. So you probably saw some of the outreach that you got a text or email today. If you can just encourage, I'm strongly encouraging anybody who's listening, please strongly encourage our

094community to take the survey because those last two, the first questions are easy questions, yes, no, but the last two are really an opportunity for you to give some specific feedback. to give us resources that you might know of. A lot of people have been sending in some examples, you know, and I've been sharing them with our team. But that is another mechanism, too, that folks can get engaged. And also, we do value your emails. So I don't mind people sending us emails. You know, I don't have a problem with the emails. that you all send to us. I give back to every single one of them, whether you all believe it or not, I read all of them and I give back to you. But given those emails, I do get them to the

095appropriate people. So thanks, Ms. Nolan, for bringing that up. Super. Next up, I have Ms. Alderton. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess my general question was around, like, do we feel like we're going to, or are we trying to set sort of like a... hard deadline on decisions because, you know, reading through that document and, you know, looking at the different what's expected in the, or what would be recommended in the different phases. I mean, it just made my head spin thinking about like the numbers of kids that we have in our schools. And, you know, even going back to something that you said earlier, Dr. Hutchings, which is like my one of my big soapboxes is the master schedule and how powerful that is and how it is like the cornerstone of things working

096well or falling apart. So, you know, I'm just wondering, it's so much information to digest. Are we thinking we sort of will have a hard deadline for when we say, you know, it's going to be X, simply because then there's the part of actually executing, which will take, you know, energy, effort, and time, and we want it to be executed as best as possible. I know that's a big question. No, I think it's actually a really good question. And we've just had a discussion. Right now, we're engaging in conversation with a consultant to kind of help us with some of this. Because it is... We're having to bring so many different departments together that having our chiefs, which our chiefs are co-chairs of all the different, you know, planning teams. But you as a chief

097having to also facilitate and then try to engage in discussion and use your expertise is a challenge. It's just hard to do. Even as superintendent, that's why I facilitate the first one. I can't get engaged if I'm facilitating. I can't think, you know, and actually hear what everybody's saying. throughout this process. So we're going to be engaging a consultant to work with us. And one thing that we do have to really focus on is having a clear deadline as to when families should and staff should expect to get some specific details. And we're going to be able to share all that on June 26th with you all, like all of our clear deadlines and when you're going to be expecting to get that information. We do have to have our plan into the BDOE in

098August. So we don't have all the time in the world. We can't wait until September or to the first day of school, you know, because we have to submit. our plan and it does have to get the approval of the VDOE to show that it's aligned with the guidelines. So we know that our ultimate deadline is August, but we're going to have clear milestones and dates for the board on June 26th, just so that you all are clear as well as the community is clear. So they won't have to keep asking. And we also want to be able to share on June 26th. you know when these check-in points are going to be you know in addition to the pulse survey that's already out now but what are the check-in points where you can have

099a voice where you can say things and engage in a discussion we're going to include that um as a part of the june 26 plan too so we got a lot of lessons learned from you know the summer learning rollout right we won't do that again i can tell you that and that's the reason why we want to make sure we're not pressing like everything has to be done on June 26th. If everything had to be done on June 26th, it would be a disaster, like, you know, similar to what we might have had with the summer learning pushout. So I want to make sure we're being very methodical and strategic. And because it was just released on Tuesday and it is so massive, it's requiring our team to just have some more time and

100to bring some support with us during this time. So I know one final thing before you end, because we asked for Rainey and Mr. Paschal and a few, Ms. Wooster as well to join us because there were some questions about the balanced literacy. And I wanted to, I asked them to join us because I just felt it was important for the board to hear from some of our experts, you know, our principals and our teachers who are engaged in this work. So if we can just take a couple of minutes, if the board doesn't mind, and if the board chair doesn't mind, just for them to speak to that, because we did ask them to be on this. today because I thought that we would have time for questions regarding that. Well, that's the mystery

101solved because I was actually wondering the entire meeting, what is very interesting to them about this meeting? So I'm glad not to start my weekend without figuring that out. So go ahead. Yes, please. So I'll turn things over to Dr. Mozingo and she can introduce our folks. And we also have Kim Scheller here too. Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for this brief opportunity. Ms. Wooster is our brand new elementary literacy specialist. So she has been with us for about two weeks. So we're glad to have Carolyn with us. But today we are going to ask Kimberly Schell, who's the K-12 literacy specialist, to kind of give you an update as to where we are with. our comprehensive and responsive literacy program, and a little bit about the work that aligns with your goals in

102terms of the K2 task force. So Kim will start, and then we've asked Mr. Paschal just to kind of share about the implementation of the literacy program in our division. Okay, Kim. Thank you, Dr. Mozingo. Hello, board. Thank you for having me. Can everybody hear me okay? Okay, great. So we really appreciated some of the questions that came forth and we wanted to make sure that we had some opportunity to help explain and provide some background and information about the work that's being done in literacy in K-12, but specifically K-2 as that's a part of the strategic plan and important part of our work in ACPS. A lot of it came around in this past fall and winter with some criticisms about some of the programs that are being used and especially in regards to

103the term balanced literacy. So some quick information behind that, that balanced literacy began as a model or a framework and it's not necessarily a specific program. But as a result of some of the criticisms and some of the work that's come out in literacy research, we put together this K2 task force and I'm really excited to share with you that this task force represented every single elementary school in the district and it had both administrators and teachers and reading specialists on it. And this task force came together to address some of those issues in terms with the term balanced literacy and how we move forward with revising and revisiting how that language works. And as a result of the team, this committee getting together and analyzing student data, reviewing the current literature and research, we

104realized there was a need to shift to a language that involves both comprehensive and flexible. responsive literacy. And so the comprehensive literacy part includes all of the components that are research-based that support literacy development. And one of the first things that the task force committee recommended was the need to include a more explicit and systematic phonics instruction program. So that is one of our first recommendations and you will be able to hear more about that. We are set to present on June 26. So the K2 Committee, I'm really happy to share they've done a great job at analyzing what exists and what needs to be and have put together a phenomenal plan to move K2 literacy forward. I'll offer it up to Rainey. Rainey was going to talk a little bit more about the phonics

105component. Yes, thank you, Kim and members of the board. My contribution today is just to simply give a brief of where we stand today with the phonics portion of our comprehensive program. I want to dispel the notion right away that we don't have an explicit and systemic phonics program because we do. Words Their Way, which falls under the banner of word study, certainly covers phonics instruction, and it is systematic. It starts in the kindergarten with homographs. It goes to initial sounds, blends, digraphs, diphthongs, all of the things that you would see in a traditional program. What is unique about our particular program is that there are also components that are embedded in the reading and writing workshop. that are the other pegs of our comprehensive program. So in a K-2 classroom, in addition to the

106explicit phonics that's taught through Words Their Way, you would also see evidence of phonics being supported naturally in terms of the shared reading, interactive writing, and some of the small group work. What is a little different about our program is the way that it's differentiated. I take it from some of the written comments that people would like to maybe see a whole group, 30 to 45 minute block, solely dedicated to phonics. In our current model, we have a differentiated group, which we believe speaks to an equity issue. So students are assessed, they are clustered where they're at. And they are instructed in whatever the phonics schedule rigor, whatever level they are at, that's where their instruction takes place. So I'm certainly open. It's always good to reflect. I'm glad the K2 Task Force is looking

107at this. And I'll look forward to supporting their actions as well as your actions moving forward. Thank you. Great. Thank you. So is that no one else is going to speak about that right now? Is that right? Is that? Yes, that's the update for today, but our goal is to bring forward to you the recommendations from the K2 Task Force. And one recommendation is, we want to restate, is that we do need to introduce an explicit program, a component in our current model that addresses phonics. So we will be providing an update on June the 26th. Great. We look forward to that. Thank you so much. And thank you for being here. And I'm glad to see you and glad to know why you're here now. I kept looking to see that I've not left

108something off my agenda. I thought there was maybe a whole item that I was skipping over, but I'm so relieved, actually. So I think everybody, we're at the end. One thing that I think. is sometimes on here as a chair's report but i don't think we need i don't need anything else to be said uh thank you all for a good meeting but what we do need is a motion i move that we end the meeting today yes that's what we needed second Mr. Suarez, seconds Ms. Lorber's motion to adjourn today's meeting. I'll go through the roll call. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Remy Gentry had to leave. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reeve. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. So we are our eight yes and one

109absent. Everybody have a great weekend and see you next week. Thank you.