001Welcome everyone. This is the virtual special called school board meeting for June 19th, 2020. We are going to call the meeting to order now at 12.02 p.m. So I'm going to start with roll call. So please indicate that you're present when I call your name. Cindy Anderson, present. Veronica Nolan, present. Megan Alderton, present. Rami Gentry. Present. Jacinta Green. Present. Margaret Lorber. I think you're muted, Margaret, I think. Which I see that you're here, but I think for the public record, we have to hear you. Okay. I used the bar, the space bar, and it didn't work. Sorry. I have trouble with that as well. I found that not working as well for me sometimes. All right. Michelle Reif. Present. Christopher Suarez. Present. Heather Thornton. Present. Great. So now we're going to start our meeting with
002a moment of silence. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Now, if I could get a motion to adopt the agenda for today. Madam Chair, I make a motion that we adopt the agenda for today. Second. I believe I heard Ms. Green second Ms. Lorber's motion to adopt the agenda. So I will call for the vote. And 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 agenda is adopted 9-0. Next, we have public comments. We didn't receive any to be attached to the board meeting today, but just remind people if they would like for it to be actually attached to the meeting. This is an additional way of communicating with us during this time of virtual meetings. Then
003there is a way to do that so that you're... information is not only seen by board members and and the superintendent but also by anyone viewing our agenda uh so next up we have the um consent calendar and so if i could get a motion to approve this consent calendar madam chair yes oh you're frozen now i'll try and move that we adopt the consent calendar Okay. Ms. Alderton, seconded Ms. Gentry's motion to adopt the consent calendar. Is there anything to remove or pull from the consent calendar? Madam Chair, I'd like to pull the appointment of Daphne Dennerville Davis to the TAG Committee, please. Okay. And now I'm pausing, but there's no pause needed because there's no electronic way of making that happen. So we're just going to have to remember that as we go
004on. So now that is pulled, so I will continue to vote on the rest of the items. So I'll call the roll call. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Margaret still. Yes. Oh, great. Yes. Did that work? Yes, it did, but you're freezing sometimes. You must be at home. Yeah. No? Yeah. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay, that's 9-0 to adopt with removing the one tag appointment. So then next we go on to the removed item. And Mr. Suarez, would you like to make a comment? Yes, I would, Chair Anderson. Thank you very much. And before I speak about the appointment of Ms. Denneville Davis to the Tech Committee, I'd be remiss not to also mention I think my gratitude
005and I'm sure the board's gratitude for the donation we just passed in the consent calendar from PTAC for the Khajiits. You know, the technology needs of our students are vital right now and I'm very grateful for that donation. So I just wanted to recognize that. Now, the reason I pulled Ms. Dennerville Davis appointment from the consent calendar is I just wanted to take a moment to talk about TAG and just express my excitement for Dr. Davis' actually appointment to the committee. She's a speech language pathologist with a PhD in educational psychology with a focus in sociolinguistics. has a remarkably relevant background to the work of the TAG Committee. But what I'm most excited about is her reason for joining the committee. Her goal in joining it is increasing equity in gifted education and services. She
006believes that ACPS has the potential to become a model for gifted education in our nation's capital and that too many of our talented and gifted Black, Brown, English language learners and low socioeconomic students go under identified. because of the measures we use to assess their form of genius are biased and unformed and don't take into account their many talents. And she notes that these trends are disturbing and I agree. And the thing that was most compelling too about her application to this committee is she provides a personally relevant perspective. She's an African-American woman with a doctorate and again, an educational psychology who notes her personal story and her application of how in high school, her guidance counselor recommended that she attend a community college and become a secretary because of how she scored on a
007test. And she ultimately, again, became a PhD. I think her story just exemplifies exactly why we have so much work to do in this division, in TAG, you know, really understanding. what what grit is understanding all of the qualities that make someone someone who could be successful and again holding high expectation for all learners and so I'm just really excited about Dr. Denerville-Davis's appointment to the committee. I think she's going to add an invaluable perspective to the committee and especially at this time when racial you know conversations are happening. I think it's really important that each and every meeting we talk about the imperative of addressing the segregation in our division head on. And that is unfortunately exemplified in our TAG program. So I'm just really excited about her appointment. Wanted to highlight that. And
008also just wanted to highlight one other thing as just an update to the board from the TAG meeting this week that just happened. We had our first sort of Zoom version of a TAG meeting. in several months as a result of the pandemic. And just for the board's edification, I wanted to say it was a really good meeting. I think there was some real conversations around what TAG might look like in a post-COVID era. And so I'm excited that we're having those conversations. And the committee resolved to continue to meet over the summer to really think outside the box in terms of how we can deliver instruction to students. And one thing that came out of that that I think the board would benefit from hearing is we talked a little bit about how, you
009know, in this post-COVID era, education has become more of a service than a place. You know, a lot of times people think about education as being a place. place, you're in this building. But, you know, in light of the COVID-19 situation, I personally think we should be conceptualizing education as more of a service. And that means maybe when we're providing quote unquote tag services or other services that may not have been afforded to the general population. How can we provide those services more broadly so that all kids have access to these educational opportunities? So that is just food for thought that came out of the meeting. The sort of focus of why I pulled this is because of Dr. Dennerville Davis, who I'm really excited about. But I figured I'd use this opportunity to also
010make the point about TAG and how we conceptualize it in this unique situation and how we can perhaps use this as a springboard to make things stronger in the division. So with that, I yield back. Okay, great. Thank you. Those were great points. And I did notice and I was also excited about that. And I was going to mention the Khajiit streamline report, but I still will maybe in case people turn in later. And because we can thank them multiple times. Does anyone else have a comment about the pulled item? Yeah, if I could, Madam Chair. Yes. I'm actually... Thanks for that, Chris, because I was actually excited to see Daphne's name. I actually had the opportunity to meet her last week. Randomly, I sort of got pulled into some discussions with some moms at
011Mount Vernon who were trying to really figure out, you know, some anti-racist work that they could do with the students. And I just would have to say that she is definitely an amazing choice. She, her perspective will be invaluable. She's very real and she's very raw, which I think is, you know, necessary at this time. So if I can publicly say like, thank you, Daphne, and I'm excited to have her on this endeavor. It's awesome. Okay. Anyone else? If not, then we need to still make a motion now to put this wonderful person on the committee because we don't want to forget that. So could I get a motion, please? I'll make the motion to add Dr. Denerville Davis to the committee, tag committee. I can't. Ms. Green seconds Mr. Suarez's motion. So I will
012call now for the vote and answer when I call your name. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan, yes. Megan Alterton, yes. Ramey Gentry, yes. Jacinta Green, yes. Margaret Lorber. Margaret, can you, I know Margaret just texted me that she's having trouble. She's having communication trouble. So I don't think she's even hearing me now. You're muted, Margaret. I don't know if it can work. Oh, she can't hear anything. So I don't know. All right. So I'll go on through the list and maybe Ms. Nielsen can tell me what we should do. If I can just record by her texting me or what. Michelle Reeve. Yeah. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay. Ms. Nielsen, what do we do about Ms. Lorber? Do I count it as an absent because she's just not able to hear us? I
013just record that she was unable to vote. Okay. But we do have to hear her. Yes, and one with technical difficulties right now. Correct. She's unable to hear is what we're seeing. Yeah. Yeah, she said she can't hear anyone. So I don't know what we can do. Maybe should she try again to reconnect, maybe get out? Yeah, I'm reaching out to her right now. Okay, good. Okay, thank you. All right. Now on to old business. And this is exciting old business. And I wanted to... It's the resolution condemning systemic racism and offering our commitment to educational equity for all. And again, once again, I want to thank my colleagues. I want to thank Ms. Thornton for starting this and for everyone who contributed to this. And as an extra, you know, wonderful thing is that
014this is now going to be voted on today on. I thought something was going on with my screen on Juneteenth, which is a significant day. And so it's really nice to commit ourselves to this resolution on this particular day. So before we have, or actually we can have a motion in a second. And then if anybody would want to say something, I will ask for comments. Madam Chair, I move that we adopt the resolution. I can't. Miss Green seconds Miss Gentry's motion to adopt the resolution. I believe it was Miss Thornton. Oh, was it Miss Thornton? I'm sorry. No, it was Miss Green. But either one worked. Oh, it was? Okay, sorry. Now my screen is mostly taken up by the resolution. I saw Miss Thornton's lips move on my screen. Going on. I think
015it wasn't fast enough, Chris. Either one worked. I know. It's like the buzzer on Jeopardy, right? Okay, so now we have a motion. Ms. Gentry made the motion and Ms. Green seconded. And so is there anyone who would like to say anything at this point in time? I have Ms. Alterton's hand up. Oh, sorry. I think I just didn't put my hand down. Oh, sorry. Okay, so does anyone have any discussion about it or we can just go ahead. There was a lot of back and forth with people and we read it last week. For those of you in the public who weren't here last week, we read it aloud last week. Okay, so seeing none, I will call for the vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Rami Gentry. Yes. Jacinta
016Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Leaf. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. Thank you, everyone. And there was actually a media thing from communications that was devised yesterday for this and sent out yesterday to the news media. Okay. So now we're going on to our new business. And the first item up is social studies textbook adoption. So I will turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm excited to talk about this social studies adoption, especially during these times as we're talking about our history, right, and knowing our real history in our schools. But I'm not going to steal the thunder of our team, so I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Mozingo to introduce our guest today, Ms. Sarah Williams. Dr. Mozingo. Yes, good afternoon, everyone, and
017thank you, Dr. Hutchins, and I will not steal her thunder either, but I'd like to introduce Ms. Sarah Whalen, who is our instructional specialist for social studies, and she's going to describe to you kind of the process and the materials and the level of engagement and next steps, but at this time, Sarah Whalen. Thank you, Dr. Mazingo and Dr. Hattons, and thank you, school board members, for your time today. I think Tanya is going to share the slides. Yes. Okay, there we go. So as we get started today, our essential questions are to think about our process, so why we are looking at new textbooks right now, and the process that we have been through so far, and a little bit about the materials that we are recommending and the next steps. As we get
018started, I think it's important to keep in mind that the textbook is not the curriculum, that it's one resource that we have, and that it's really important that our curriculum is more inclusive and expands beyond the standards of learning and beyond the textbook resources, and that it incorporates professional development and really equipping our teachers to be able to teach history and social studies effectively. So we'll talk more about that. So in terms of where we are in this process and how we got here, as you know, textbooks were shifted to the CIP budget to make sure that we can stay on a consistent review and adoption schedule. The VDOE approved new standards for social studies in 2015 and reviewed textbooks in 2017 and 18. So where we are now, last year we went ahead and
019purchased, we did a textbook review process for third and fourth grade with our operating funds because we had a fairly urgent priority there because those materials were very much out of alignment with standards. So last year we did third and fourth grade for this current school year. And so now the focus of this current adoption is... 6 through 12, sorry, excuse me, K through 2, and then 6 through 12 in our advanced placement courses. Tanya, can you go ahead and make those slides full screen? Thanks. Tanya, if you have a second monitor connected, it might be displaying on the second monitor. If you disconnect it. I'll take it off. Okay. Sorry. Is this better? Yes. Okay, sorry about that. Thank you. And you can go ahead and go to the next slide. Thanks. So a
020little bit about our process that started in the fall. And obviously, like everybody else, we had a lovely process laid out and then plans have been changed to adjust to our current situation with school buildings closed. So in the fall, we started with identifying our review criteria for our books and starting to get a sense of what is currently available and what the VDOE had approved. And then we organized an RFP process so that we could look not only at what VDOE had approved, but additional resources. And then we organized our textbook selection committees that would review the book by grade level and by course. We organized an elementary and a secondary committee and reached out to principals to identify teachers to serve on those teams. As we received the materials, we organized those committees
021and started to review them. And those meetings continued after the school closures. We had a lot of virtual meetings. So our members of the textbook committee were responsible to go gather more feedback and bring that to the review committee and to the RFP committee. So from here, we are putting forth our recommendation. As the process continues, we will continue with the procurement discussions and then purchasing and providing professional development to teachers. Next slide. So a little bit about our textbook selection committees. I mentioned that we had both an elementary and a secondary committee. Both committees had classroom teachers, including general education teachers, as well as specialized education teachers and EL teachers. And then we also had instructional specialists from the curriculum and instruction department. We had an English learner specialist on each committee, a specialized
022instruction specialist, and representatives from TAG and honors. We also had a TIS, technology integration specialist, on each committee to think about the digital part of the resources in their instructional side, and then also somebody from the technical side to make sure that whatever we were looking at would be compatible with our current systems, especially to be used in Clever and Canvas. the criteria that we had identified that were specifically very important for us to make sure that they were aligned with the standards of learning for sure. And it was important to us that the materials promote social studies skills and not just deliver content, but that they would engage students in inquiry and analyzing maps and looking at primary sources and organizing and presenting information and the skills that are crucial to social studies. We
023also looked at the adaptability for our range of learners to make sure that the resources provided support for all of our students to be scaffolded or to be accelerated. And we also looked at the quality of the digital resources to make sure that the digital side of the resources offered something additional, that they were easy to use, that the digital piece would contribute to the resources being flexible, and that they would provide additional amounts of teacher support. And then we looked to evaluate the resources on their consideration of multiple perspectives and telling an inclusive story. Okay, go ahead, Sonny. So in terms of what the committee actually recommended, you have a full list, but I'll just briefly give you a couple of highlights from that. For K2, the committee recommended that we add on to
024the purchase that we did last year and choose the same publisher that we had for third and fourth grade. And some of the things that the committee recognized the strengths of those materials were their strong alignment with the standards of learning, their flexibility in terms of using the resources for literacy skills for doing some of the integration and those early grades between. social studies and literacy and the fact that they included some performance-based assessments that teachers felt would be very useful in their classroom. For grades 6 through 12, there was one vendor that led the way here and so for grades 6 through 7 and grades 9 through 12, there was a choice that was made there to recommend the National Geographic's Engage book. So the one piece missing there was eighth grade National Geographic
025did not have a an offering for eighth grade civics and economics so that was a different choice. But for the National Geographic some of the strengths identified there were excellent online materials that were very flexible and adaptable that could be modified reading level within that text very easily and a lot of teacher guidance a lot of videos and interactive materials online and of everything that we had to review, people felt strongly that these books were the most inclusive of multiple perspectives of telling a complex history. At the world history level, they felt like the book did a better job than the other choices of teaching it as world history and European history with a little bit of the rest of the world in it. And in the American history books telling a complex story that
026told the truth about some tough historical things, but also in talking about marginalized groups, that wasn't the only story there were also lots of stories of cultural celebration in some of those books and contributions to the country that felt like a good representation. So those were the 612 books. And then for the advanced placement books, you have that list there. Those are a little bit more varied. We had teams of the teachers who teach those advanced placement courses who reviewed those. and put forth their recommendations of what would be the best fit for each of those AP courses. And right now, so we have provided a process for public review as required by our policies to allow people to review and comment on the textbooks. So we have set that up given our current conditions
027online so that people can log in and see the materials. And so those instructions are available. And then we also know that that might not be an option for everybody and some people might want to see them in person. So we have set up a process at the textbook warehouse where we'll be adhering to social distancing and temperature screening. and those procedures, people can set up an appointment to so that they can use a book there. So that process will continue through June 30th. And then our next step, as I said, is to continue that public review and answer and respond to any questions that you may have. And then from there, we would initiate, complete the procurement process and start purchasing materials. And given our current conditions, obviously, the priority is for the digital
028resources to make sure that those are up and running by the new school year. And then with decisions about... further delivery of print materials to happen after that. Also throughout the summer, we'll be planning professional development to make sure teachers are familiar and know how to use the resources. We have a day set aside, our division-wide professional development day before the school year starts. And then that training will continue across the year on our professional development days. And also in smaller groups as needed through webinars and individual support at the PLC or the school level to help teachers access those resources and make sure that they're using them to their fullest. We'll also make sure that the professional development includes TISs and administrators and everybody that needs to be involved to make sure that this
029process can be supported. So I think that is it. I'm happy to take questions now. Dr. Mozingo, did you want to add? Yes, nice job. We just now want to open it up if it's okay for any questions that the board might have. Great. Thank you so much for that presentation. I see some hands and I take them in order that they were raised. Ms. Alterton is first. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Ms. Whalen. I am really glad to hear about the professional development going along with the textbook. And my question about that is, do we know if there will be or can we sort of require some emphasis with the professional development on actually, I guess, differentiating the use of the textbook so that, you know, I think it's sometimes it's really helpful for
030teachers to have like some direct instruction, I guess, on, you know, using the textbook as a differentiated resource. Like, you know, you can for all tiers of support for kids, like, you know, using this with the ELLs, how would this work? Using this with kids with disabilities or, you know, kids who for example, might have, you know, written expression issues, how would this work? So just like tiering that support. So not only like, these are the cool things that the textbook offers, but how you can use it successfully with all students. Yes, thank you. That will be a key part of our planning process. And what was really nice about this process was having those voices already at the table to start to choose which books. So I think having the EL instructional specialists and
031the specialized instruction specialists, as well as teachers representing those different areas, I think they have already kind of started to take ownership of those features. And I think they'll be really helpful in helping us design that professional development to make sure that those features are clear and to make sure that we are. Those experts know best, and we need to make sure that we're adapting the professional development offered by the vendors to meet our particular needs. So, yeah, that will definitely be a part of it. Thank you. Next up, I have Dr. Reeve. Right. Well, thank you for the presentation. And I signed up to go review the books, the textbooks next week. So I'm looking forward to that as a history teacher myself. It sounds like it was a great process. I was interested
032in there was a comment you made that, you know, the textbook is not the curriculum. And you also talked about how just for anybody who's listening, who's not aware that, you know, the city council was very interested in. us moving textbooks from our operating budget to our capital improvement budget because it was one of those things that wasn't always, you know, sometimes getting cut out of the budget. And so I'm just kind of curious about that because I know last year was the first time I think it was in the capital budget and we purchased math textbooks and then I noticed that my daughter's middle school teacher was not really relying on that new textbook very much. And, you know, and then, you know, and then in addition to that, I've heard from, you know,
033parents, I think, you know, this idea that the textbook is not the curriculum. I think that. parents might still feel like the textbook is the curriculum. And so when they're not seeing textbooks, you know, textbooks can really, if they come home with a student, it can really help, I think, the parent to support because they have a better sense of what the child is learning and they can kind of walk through a textbook. Whereas some of the online materials, I think it's parents can get a little bit more detached, I guess, from that. So my question is just, you know, how can we make sure and know that teachers are really using the textbooks? Is there data that you're collecting? I'm really curious if there's like post-purchase data in terms of like, you know, after
034the first year, like what kind of feedback you get on it. But also, you know, is there any thought given to, since I know that the online and the physical textbooks are bundled together, you know, was there a way to... maybe send the physical textbooks home. I don't know if they're consumable books or whatnot, but just thinking through some of these issues, I'd love to hear your feedback. And I was also curious, what is the lifespan? Like once you purchase these social studies textbooks for these grades, then when would we have to purchase them again? I think, am I frozen? Am I working now? You're working now. Okay. Okay. Everything froze for a moment. So I, Dr. Mizzengudget, were you commenting? No, I just, you're good. Keep going. Okay. Thank you. And I will try
035to answer the part of the question that I can and others feel free to jump in. I do think you're right that the textbook can kind of help ground a family and helping to understand. I know some of our textbooks will offer, you know, a newsletter home that teachers can copy that shares kind of what the focus of a current unit of study is. And that could be a way. We do plan to order enough book, print books, that a book could be sent home. If a child has an IEP and needs a book at home or by request, we have typically found that if we have one print book per student, they're just not used. We don't have the need for that. But I think we can certainly explore and have further conversations about
036what we want to provide. I think as the books become more, as these resources become more rich with online materials, that a lot of... a lot of the engagement that's happening there with students reading and responding online. So I think we could do some additional training through the work that is done through the PTA and through school-based meetings to help parents know what resources are available. And I think that PD that I mentioned, where we make sure that we're all on the same page, that administrators and all instructional staff know these resources, I think that part is going to be really important. And I would just reiterate what Ms. Whelan just said. And that is the fact that, you know, it is important for us to make sure that we're providing the professional learning when
037we adopt our textbooks. I think what happens is, previously, is that we may have adopted textbooks and it's kind of like, here's your gift with no training. And you don't know how to utilize it. And I think us having these training sessions and also making sure that we are providing professional learning on how do you use the textbook with the curriculum. And that is going to, I believe, have teachers feel more competent in using it in the classroom because that really was a missed opportunity in previous adoptions. It was not that we didn't offer it, but it was just offered if you chose to sign up for it. It wasn't something that was required to do when we're spending millions of dollars to purchase a textbook. They can't afford to be sitting on a bookshelf
038or in a closet because they are aligned with state standards. They are aligned with the ACPS curriculum. They do provide supplemental resources as well online that I think could be extremely helpful for our families as well as for our students. And we really need to do a better job of. at the beginning of the year laying out how our parents can actually use the different teaching and learning resources that we have in our school division. So we're giving them some insight because we're, you know, sometimes we assume parents know. Parents are not educators. You know, parents didn't go to school of education to get degrees to be teachers. And there's a way that we can provide some guidance and some training for our families too to know how to use these resources at home. I
039just wanted to, can I just follow up with a quick, I just wanted to mention a quick story that really illustrates what I'm talking about. A parent shared with me that her son, who was in a middle school science class, you know, like I've seen this with kids today that they, since they're not as grounded in textbooks, they just want to Google everything. You know, when they're, when they're struggling with an assignment, they just want to Google and look for the answer. And the parent, you know, had gotten a copy of the science textbook and was like, here, let's look at the science textbooks. And when this child actually went and looked at it, they were like, oh, wow, there's like all this information in here. You know, so like students really need to understand
040how great these resources are and that it's all, you know, it's kind of it builds together. So, you know, Googling something, you're not going to find the kind of information that you need that you can find in textbooks. It is really wanting to make sure we're getting the most of our money as you're as you're saying, Dr. Hodgkin. And Madam Chair, if it's okay, I just wanted to answer the second part of Dr. Reif's question regarding how often we purchase materials. It's every seven years in the state of Virginia, every seven years. And the advantage now by having funding within the CIP, it will enable us to get back on track with the state and be aligned with the standards and the resources and the materials and professional development for our teachers and opportunities for
041parents also. Thank you. Thank you for the question and the answers. Very, very informative. Mr. Suarez is up next. Thank you, Chair Anderson. Yeah, and I think my comments and questions sort of build off of what has already been discussed. I definitely want to echo what you said, Dr. Hutchings, about the need to not just adopt the textbooks, but to train teachers effectively on it. And so my question is sort of along two fronts which are interrelated. One is buy-in, and one is sort of what I would call filling in the gaps, right? I had a chance to look at some of the textbooks online through the links that you sent. And I was looking at the Cata 2. And there's a section in it that talks about 10 great leaders. And one of the
042leaders is Columbus. And one of the leaders is MLK. The reason why I scrutinized that was because I wanted to see, you know, what does this textbook do about Columbus? Obviously, he's a very controversial figure. And, you know, the textbook has a little box and it says Columbus was not a kind man. He treated the American Indians poorly. So it does reference the fact that he was not a good guy. The MLK section of the book, it talks about that he was civil rights leader, that he, you know, did peaceful protesting and things like that. And the Civil Rights Act was passed. And that led to some progress, but we still have a long way to go. And so I think. both of those texts, you know, there's some textbooks that wouldn't even acknowledge those
043things at all. So those would be eliminated from our list entirely. But there's no perfect textbook. And, and I think, you know, I think some of the questions or some of the textbooks might have gaps in terms of the values we hold. in Alexandria, you know, the fact that we want our kids to understand, as you said, Dr. Hutchings, the full history and so forth. So I'm sort of wondering if part of the PD we're doing is going to, you know, have teachers sort of walk through the textbooks, look at maybe gaps that, you know, need to be filled, you know, so that so that the full history is understood. Obviously, grade level appropriate. I just quoted from a second grade textbook. I don't know how much you want to go into detail about the
044bad things about Columbus in second grade, you know, but you have to, you know, sort of look at that. And I'm wondering if that's a vehicle perhaps to build buy-in amongst staff, you know, for the new textbooks as well to sort of get them excited about the new textbooks, excited about the way Alexandria. you know, city public schools is going to approach the curriculum and so forth. So that's sort of one sort of theme of my question that I'm just curious about how we're thinking about that. And then the second one is sort of related to Dr. Reif's question about mailing the textbooks, but just more generally about COVID-19 and how we're handling this. You know, obviously, like I said, I just was able to look at the textbooks online. they are an online resource
045for people to look at on their computer screen. So I'm wondering how much we are training the teachers to, you know, know about that option and being able to ensure that kids, if they aren't able to receive the mailed copy, to actually be able to look at the textbook and being able to engage with it in a meaningful way. Because I do think in light of COVID, we have, you know, sort of new obligations in terms of... Again, going back to what I was saying about service earlier, providing a service where everyone can access this material. So just curious what your thoughts are on those two areas. Okay, so for part one, for filling in the gaps, I think that's crucial. And I think somebody has already referenced our curriculum that we have in Canvas.
046And so part of the work after the new adoption will be to go through the curriculum units that we have laid out and say, here are some good resources within the textbook. The textbook doesn't do a great job at this topic. So here's an outside resource, an additional resource that helps tell a more complete story. And then I think a big part of it is building the skills of... teachers, but also students to be able to read a textbook critically and say what's missing here and what other stories are not being told here. So I think it's building that capacity in our teachers to help students do that. Because you're right, there is no perfect textbook. Every textbook leaves something out. Every textbook is missing a story or written to tell a story. None of
047it is neutral. There's always a perspective there. So it's getting students to critique that. And that is what I think we are really trying to develop in our social studies teachers is how, again, we teach those skills. And so we are doing other things in addition to the textbook. focus on document-based questions where students are analyzing texts and writing about them and we hope that those will those skills that they're developing will cross over. So I think it's the work of writing the curriculum to make sure that we have additional resources for anything that's missing from the textbook. It is making sure that we are building their skills through professional development and then I think it's encouraging the conversations that we are really starting to have now. at the school level with administrators and with
048senior leadership team about how crucial these conversations are and that we can't not have these conversations and that they have to be. And I think it's helping support teachers and knowing that they will be supported if they teach something that's maybe not in the textbook or that is not in the standards of learning exactly as they are written, but if it's something that we have identified as an important topic. And one of the things we've been looking at specifically is how we can tell more Alexandria stories within our curriculum because, you know. It's all happened here. Every key issue in American history has happened right here. So making sure that teachers know those stories and can share them with our students. So I think that buy-in of that side-by-side work with teachers and identifying those
049additional resources and then critiquing the text. I do think they have started to buy in through this adoption process. I think we have some teachers who are really excited about what's coming on. And I think our technology has come so far in terms of being able to integrate with Clever particularly. I just want to, as a parent, how great that has been for my ACPS third grader, for all of her things to be right there and to be able to find them. And I think the integration that we'll be able to use with these textbooks will make it much more seamless for teachers and students and parents to know what's there. And then I think the second part of your question was about the how we respond in terms of the pandemic and making sure
050that we get materials home to students. And now that we are working on efforts to make sure that we're connected digitally to all of our students, including now K2, which is really exciting. I think for those books, there are some options that we could consider in terms of if we're not mailing an actual book, if there are, as we have done with our learning packets throughout the spring, that there are pieces that we can pull out of that to include in mailing home to make sure that everybody has access to that. And then again, including other resources outside of the textbook in those learning packets, I think is important because again, this is not gonna tell the whole story. So I think in terms of the response, obviously the priority first would be everybody get
051digitally set up and then move forward with plans as we know more about when we're opening and what would be available at the warehouse to store print books until we can get them into kids and teachers hands. Did I answer your question? We have more. That's good. Thanks. Okay. Okay. We're on to Ms. Nolan. Thank you so much, Chair Anderson, and thank you so much, Ms. Whelan, for your incredible presentation. I actually was going to ask about the professional development, but that's been more than well covered, so I just wanted to take the opportunity to just say sincere thanks to you for your leadership at ACPS. You know, I've been involved in education for 23 years, and I have a friend of mine who's the head of social studies in another division that's in the
052D.C. metro region, and she has a growing frustration as to how often social studies is not considered an important piece of curriculum and feels it's been overlooked just as a sector. And I just think, you know, we're so fortunate in this division that that's not the case. And that thanks to your leadership, you know, I've had the pleasure of being at the national history presentations that you do. And just, there's so many things that you personally, thanks to your leadership weave in throughout ACPS that I just think that we're fortunate that these textbooks have been used in other jurisdictions throughout the history of time to paint a narrative, you know, and not necessarily kind of gloss. over some pretty trying times that without that knowledge, it's imperative for our students' education that they have that
053knowledge. So I just want to thank you for your leadership for all that you do and what you do. And then also it bears importance that, you know, I see Dr. Mann is on the... zoom meeting as well and he always makes sure to mention you and your leadership with the education design team and all the work you've done with the high so you sort of like you really take seriously that uh bottom line in all of our job descriptions other other uh other items you know as needed or other duties as assigned thank you so you really you really take that one to heart Dean, that you've helped out with the high school design. So I imagine, Dr. Hutchings, that the educational design team is going to be really imperative as we figure out,
054because we have such a, I've always said, and anytime I get to mention it, that it's such a phenomenal group of TC teachers that really understand on the ground and all the different actions and students that are served, that I imagine, Dr. Hutchings, you'll be relying on their leadership as we figure out Continuity Learning Plan 4.0, as they're going to have such helpful feedback. So in advance, thanks to you and Dr. Mann for all that you do, the leadership for that. committee. So just wanted to echo my thanks and just say how important your work is and how thankful we are for it. Thank you. And yes, thank you all for embracing the importance of social studies. It really matters. Yes. Thank you. And thanks for all the great questions. And I, in listening to
055the conversation, I'm sure reminded of the, like a light switch going on when social studies teacher, like first, you know, suggested that you had to question maybe what was written in the book, you know, the things even that you read, and that just opened a whole new, I mean, even just that looking at, you know, the examples Mr. Suarez gave, you know, so that it shows like, hey, you know, everything you've been hearing might not be right. That just opens people up for really researching things themselves, which we need a lot more of that today. We always have, but... but never, I don't know if it's ever been more than today. So with all the social media and things that we have available to us. So if this is the info, this is when it's
056on our agenda for info. And as was said in the presentation, the review is through the end of the month and then it will come back for approval on our July 10th meeting. You know, you can certainly if something comes up between now and the end of the month, please, please contact Dr. Hutchings so that our questions, your questions can be answered so that we can keep this on track, which. So anyway, so thank you everybody for that presentation. And now I think we'll go on to the next item we have is discussion of the Samuel Tucker Elementary School calendar. Dr. Hutchings. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So as you all know, we are experiencing a global pandemic right now. So a lot of the decisions that we're making is due to decisions that, you
057know, unfortunately people are making all over the country and rather all over the world. We have asked for Samuel Tucker's principal, Mr. Rainey Paschal, to be... on today's Zoom just to provide us with some insight as to why we believe that this is important for us to have the Samuel Tucker's calendar aligned with our other school calendars. But I'm going to turn things over to Mr. Paschal at this time to just give some insight around how you worked with your staff and families. to talk through this very important topic and what we're recommending to the board. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings, Madam Chair, board members. Thank you so much for the time today. As you all know, some of you, well, personally know well, just how much we treasure and value our programmatic status. our modified
058calendar in the intersession program here at Samuel Tucker. It really defines the school culture here and gives us a sharp vision for using every additional resource to meet the needs of our students. So in the midst of the pandemic, actually very early on, conversations began to surface, especially because it hit right at the front end of our spring intersession. and the reality that intercession as we know it will probably not be available to us until we are well beyond our current state. So conversations formally surfaced in the May 19th PTA meeting where some parents actually brought up the notion of, are we going to consider pausing our calendar? And of course, once the ball started rolling there, the conversations deepened, they continued, the hard questions were asked. And so within a short period of time,
059we were having serious conversations about proposing this in actuality. The real focus is on alignment. The importance of being one. With schools across the city, as we dive into 4.0, knowing full well that a unified calendar would support limited city and school division resources, allow us to be on the same pacing guide, all the ACPS-TV resources were all aligned with the traditional calendar. So we've had substantial public input. We had a webinar on June the 5th. We took a Zoom poll, I should say, excuse me, a Google form poll for one whole week, the first week of June. We had staff meetings, leadership meetings. And then, of course, we took the results of the poll. which showed strong support across the board from a community that again holds this calendar dear. So we moved the
060proposal forward with a little bit over 70% support for a one year. modification. And every time it came up with the parent, you could almost viscerally see the comma come up in front of them and say, but don't forget, it's for one year only. So there were two contingencies really that surfaced with our main stakeholders. Parents and teachers alike wanted to make sure that this was a one-year only modification. Your approval on May 29th of the 2021 calendar, our modified calendar, excuse me, 21-22 calendar, kind of sealed the deal that this, there is no, this is not a veiled attempt to make any permanent change to our programmatic status. The second contingency, also shared by all stakeholders, was that this not impact our staff pay cycle during the financial impact of the pandemic. You might
061not know, but our pay calendar is just a little bit different. Why not? Everything else at Tucker is just a little bit different. But we worked with HR and with payroll to make sure we could iron out those difficulties. And once those two contingencies were cleared, it really has been smooth sailing. So I appreciate you entertaining this proposal. We support it. I support it personally. I feel very confident we have the broad support of our community to align ourselves during the midst of this COVID pandemic to better serve our students. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have some people with questions. And first up, I have Ms. Gentry. Thank you, everyone. Thank you also, Mr. Paschal, for joining the meeting today. I really just wanted to emphasize that, you know, I was able to
062attend some of the webinars and I got to hear and I've been following along with some of the comments and the feedback that have been coming from the Tucker community. And I really do think that, you know, there's... I think everyone is very on board with all the really good reasons for doing the calendar this year. And I do think... the only hesitancy that I was really sensing was people being worried that it was somehow opening the door and putting the modified calendar at risk. So I just, I hope that we as a board are able to continue to articulate our support for this program, that this really is just only, you know, because of the very unique circumstances that we find ourselves in. For those of you that are newer to ACPS or... or
063a newer to the board, you know, it's, it's, I can certainly relate to where that concern comes from. There was definitely a period of time in ACPS where it really. It really was it really did feel to the Tucker community that they were having to to put wage a full on campaign every single budget cycle in order to preserve to preserve the modified calendar. So I I really do understand where that where that concern comes from. I think. Fortunately, we really haven't seen that in the recent years, but I just I wanted to give some context for that and just, you know, hope that my fellow board members will join me in reiterating our support for this program. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, I have Miss Nolan. Thank you, Chair Anderson. And always good
064to see Mr. Pascal. I definitely consider myself a member of your fan club. So it's a pleasure seeing you today. So I just I absolutely hear what you're saying, Ms. Gentry. And I appreciate you sharing that important history, because I do recall like when I first was on the board, that was the number one concern of please don't mess with that. And actually, I have the opposite issue in that not only do I not. want to touch the modified calendar, but I'm curious if there's ever a way to expand it to other schools. And Dr. Hutchings, I don't know if the... you know, given this moment in time with COVID and what's going to be happening with the ins and outs of the school year, you know, the data does point, as we all know,
065that the summer slide is exceptionally detrimental, particularly to our lower income students. And I've always, I'm just curious, is there ever any thought to our down the road or some vision or goals of having more schools go to a modified calendar, particularly ones with a larger percentage of our free and reduced rates? I just think that this would be a nice moment. to understand is that even on the cards or is it something that maybe we could consider in the future just given that the data all drives to oftentimes those being opportunities for students to not experience that summer slide and not have to have always be able to go further in their academic instruction. There hasn't been a discussion that we've had in regards to expanding it at other schools at this time. But,
066you know, there's right now the doors are open for a number of discussions with some of the challenges that we're going through right now. But it's not been something that we have had a discussion about expanding our modified calendar. Got it. Maybe it's something in the future we could keep on the table just because of the data that points to it, and especially given we don't know what this year is going to hold. So thanks for being open to that, Dr. Hutchings. I'll just interject a historical point since Mount Vernon used to be. So Tucker has always done well with the modified, but actually. Mount Vernon used to be and it actually, the data showed that the very group that was supposed to be helped by the program, actually their stats went down. So that
067was very interesting and rather surprising, but a fact. all the same, you know, it did not, you know, that the EL population, their scores went down over the time that it was modified instead of up. And actually though, then the, the white students at Mount Vernon were probably the highest achieving in the city. I mean, we're talking a percentage point or so. But just that historical perspective. I mean, I totally support the Tuckeran. It's been working well since the very first year. And there were confounding factors because Mount Vernon had multiple things going at the same time. And actually some issues with the way that the, actually the language program was implemented at that time too. It was rather exclusionary and had some issues. I see. I could just add to that. I'm sorry. I
068thought your hand was just still up. I just, I appreciate that. Thank you so much for adding that because that's, I have the good fortune of having a conversation with folks that were part of the decision team for that. And you were absolutely right that the. They said the data was skewed because there were too many initiatives going on in Mount Vernon and there was just too much to oversee that it just did not, nothing was being implemented with fidelity. So thanks for adding that last sentence as well to give the explanation of why the data wasn't as strong. So much appreciated. Right, right. Ms. Alterton? Hi. So just, I wanted to piggyback. I think Ms. Gentry set a good foundation on. you know, what some of the issues were, could have been. So I
069won't reiterate that. But what I will say, I just want to really, I think this is a testament to Rainey Pascal and how, you know, there's something about your leadership style that you just made. I mean, this could have really been. You know, knowing the community, knowing our teachers, like this could have been a very contentious issue. And you just sort of. put it together so nicely and brought everybody together to ultimately come up to what was the best decision for kids. So I just want to thank you for always being able to do that. I always say you have like this magical way of just really rallying people together. So, you know, if I could say anything about this, I think this is absolutely a testament to your leadership, Rainey, and thank you so
070much. Thank you, Megan. Thank you very much. I don't see any other questions. So I believe, is this on, I guess, for next week? Is that right, Ms. Nielsen? Yes. That's correct. Okay. So this is info and then action will be on the 26th for the change for just this year because Tucker does really well. It's great. I agree that it's great that the change has been made with so seamlessly in terms of getting people on board. Okay. The next thing we have, I believe, is a report, a chair's report, which I think. Before we get to the Q&A. So there's a couple of things. As Mr. Suarez said, I wanted to thank again the PTA Council for organizing so quickly to raise $32,000 for Khajiit's because this was really something that was, you know,
071standing between students being connected and not. I mean, it's just that simple. But that's their lifeline to us right now. And then also I wanted to. I'll let everybody know that we know that there's renewed interest in the names of our ACPS facilities. And so we will be discussing when we reconvene in the fall, we'll have that on agendas. We'll put that in the agendas. And the last thing for my report is just to remind people, the last joint school board city council subcommittee meeting is this coming Monday at five o'clock. So if you want to zoom in and watch that or see it on channel 71, there's their links to see it by zoom, or you can, you can watch it on channel 71. So that's. all I have for today. So on to
072the Dr. Hutchings report and Q&A. So thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a couple of updates I wanted to give before we went into Q&A. And one is in regards to our reopening planning. because I know it is a hot topic right now and will be until our doors actually reopen, right? In whatever way they're going to reopen. We did have our first meeting with our cross-functional planning team chairs this week, and we were pretty much laying out kind of like our strategy as well as potential agenda for our planning teams that will be doing really the hands-on work. throughout the month of July in preparation for also the June 26 meeting that we're going to be sharing information with the board next week. Something that I think is key, I've said this before,
073but the engagement that happens from different stakeholder groups is going to happen during our planning. meetings and that is where a lot of the groundwork gets done. We also are going to engage different community stakeholders and that's including staff, our students, our parents through focus groups and feedback sessions and online surveys and online comments to receive. from our different stakeholder groups so that we can put all of these perspectives into consideration or take all these perspectives into consideration when finalizing our reopening plan. I think it is important. I know that we have seen, you know, some really, you know, laid out plans that have come from other school divisions. The guidelines just came out last Tuesday, right? I want to make sure that we are digesting the guidelines from the VDOE and yesterday's. video Q&A
074was specifically on that. If you haven't had an opportunity to watch it, I strongly encourage you all to watch it. It's a little long. It's like 28 minutes, and it's because it's covering a 138-page document. So it's a lot of information, but I think it's going to be very informative. And over the next several weeks, you're going to be getting chunks of information out to our community. But the point that I'm making is we really need to encourage our community. to know that we have to have flexibility, we have to have some patience, and we also have to provide some grace because we're all going into a new school year and this is territory that no one has ever been. So nobody has the golden ticket or the answers, right? And anybody who's saying that
075they do, they're not telling the truth because things, as you all can see with this global pandemic, tomorrow, things can change overnight. You know, we could see a spike in cases and guess what? Everything can be shut down again in a week. So we have to keep that in mind, that we want to make sure that we're being very methodical and strategic with our planning and that we're not being impulsive and reactive. Because what ends up happening when if we go down that path of impulsivity and reactionary, we have to redline everything that we've done. And we don't want to be in that situation as a school division. And I think that I am continuing to work with our regional superintendents. We do have meetings every week, every Wednesday we meet. And I can't say
076that everybody's following some of the agreements that we said we were going to do. Like we were going to share out our overview on June 26th. That's next Friday. But you see some are already out there. No pun intended to my colleagues. I understand we all have different communities that we serve and sometimes you know politics force us to have to you know go against some of the the commitments that we've made but I want to stay true to what um you know we we had discussed as a region and I want to make sure that um as a school division we are aligning our work with the VDOE guidelines. We also have engaged education elements and in an update I provided to you all last week. This is an organization that is actually working
077with our region four. I just had a link to it, so I didn't tell you a lot about them. But this is a consulting group that is working with region four to make sure that our plans are collaborative and that we're working together. We have engaged. um education elements to uh to assist us with some facilitation of our internal work um just to make sure that you know Dr. Mozingo and I, we were facilitating this in order for us to be sitting at the table too. We need another facilitator for the next couple of weeks to work through at least our June 26th board meeting, as well as some of the planning work that's going to happen in the month of July. In order for us to truly be engaged, we're going to have to
078have, or we have to bring somebody in to assist us with some of that consulting. So you're going to see. some of our consultants next Friday in our board meeting to provide you all just with an overview of how they assisted us these past couple of weeks. Everything is still time sensitive, of course. So we're still moving at a rapid pace, but we're trying to not go so fast that we're missing a lot of opportunities and information. So that was one point I wanted to make. The other piece relates to our strategic plan. I know you're going to get this information next week, but the comments that we have been receiving, we are grateful for. Thank you, board members who have been sharing feedback from constituents that you have spoken with. We have taken all
079of our comments from staff, from community members, from parents, and consolidated them. You will see an attachment of that for next week's board meeting, just so you can see a compilation of all of the comments. And the accountability team is also working through how these comments have made adjustments to the strategic plan. And we wanted to be very explicit about that. I got to review those documents today. I can't wait until you all get to see them. I think they're uploaded on Tuesday for you all. There's a couple of revisions they're still working through. But it really gives you a clear understanding of how feedback from our community makes it into the adjustments and the revisions. of the strategic plan and the accountability team has done a phenomenal job with that. So just hats off
080to them. I think you all will be very impressed with the document when you see them next week. Then my final thing before we go into Q&A is I think it's important. This is something that I was grappling whether I would even mention it or not, right? Because some things could be a waste of time, but some things can also be teachable moments. And I think the climate that we're in right now, I think that we should begin to start defining and using examples of different experiences that relate to the reason where we are in this whole race relations crisis across America. And today I wanted to just define a word microaggressions, right? And I wanted to define it and I wanted to use an example of it because it is important that if we
081don't speak our truth, we won't see change. If we don't call things out that we see with clear examples, people think we're blowing smoke. And I think that, you know, this past week I received this email. from one of our constituents, you know, that pretty much stated wearing a T-shirt or wearing a hoodie makes you unprofessional and incompetent. That's pretty much what the email stated, verbatim, almost, right? I'm giving you a gist of what that means. And for something like that to go to an African-American man when we had, you know, protests and we had movements in regards to Trayvon Martin and his hoodie. Right. Young black boy that was shot and killed, by the way, with a hoodie. Those conversations that we have been having over the past years, that is an example of
082a microaggression. And what that leads to is it makes it appear as if because of what I have on my body, that determines how competent or how professional I am as a superintendent. And I find it highly ludicrous and unacceptable. And I think that we have to call ignorance what it is when we see it. And if we don't, then people will continue to think it is OK and it is appropriate for you to send information like that. It's not. It's not OK and it's not appropriate. And one thing that I take very seriously is professionalism. One thing that I take very seriously is making sure that not only our staff, but our students and our families know that I am in this global pandemic just like them. And I am at home with our
083two children. I am at home with my wife trying to figure out how to work 20 hours a day because I work more now than I did prior to this global pandemic in a house with my children. So I will not put on a bow tie every day and get on this camera to talk to anybody. I just won't do it. Because I am dealing with everything everybody else is, too. And I think there's some insensitivity that comes along with that comment. And it's even deeper than that. It is a microaggression. And it is a prime example of one that happens too often across this country, including to the superintendent. And I wanted to put on the record, and I debated about doing this, but I said, you know what? If I don't use my
084platform to speak my truth, then shame on me. So I'm going to use every platform and every opportunity that I can to give clarity, understanding, and education around what this country, and particularly Black people in this country, deal with every single day. Because I guarantee the Facebook CEO is not getting that email. I guarantee Bill Gates is not getting that email. I guarantee Beyonce, who's not putting on her makeup and putting all her hair and stuff on to get on Zoom because she's at home with her kids and her husband is not getting those types of emails. But you know what? She might because she's African-American. But the point that I'm trying to make is that if we don't call what we see. Shame on us. And we need to start standing up and speaking
085our truth. And if we're saying that racial equity is the heart of our next strategic plan, we as a board, superintendent and staff, especially our senior leaders who are on this call right now, need to make sure that we are not allowing people to get away with it. And we're exposing the same way Amy Cooper was exposed when she was in Central Park, calling the police on a black man. So that's all I had to say today. And I hope that this message, you know, it's not as personal attack on anybody. It's not if somebody takes it that way, that's their issue. This is me speaking my truth. And this is my truth only. I'm not speaking on behalf of ACPS. I'm not speaking on behalf of the board. I'm speaking on behalf of Gregory
086Carl Hutchings Jr., who also happens to have a doctorate in education. That's it. I'm done. So I want to open the floor for questions. I know you all probably have some questions that are unrelated to this that I might be able to answer, but I feel like I have to get that off my chest so I can move on with my life and the next things that we need to work on. And that's making sure that our young people have high quality education and that we're removing barriers so that they can be successful and that they can grow up and love each and every person in this world, regardless of what they wear. Okay, I see a couple, oh, I see a lot of questions, but I will, I just want to say right now
087that we're at 117 or 118, sorry. I'm not trying to discourage questions, but we have a closed meeting and I don't want anyone to have to drop off because of work commitments. So I don't know, I should have seen. Sometimes people tell me ahead of time that they're stuck to that. So give me a little text if you are going to have a problem if we go over for the closed meeting, because I don't want, I think that's very important, our closed meeting. But again, I'm not saying that to necessarily discourage questions, but just try to keep it real in terms of our time today. I have Mr. Suarez with his hand raised. Thank you. I'll keep this very quick in the interest of time. My question, Dr. Hutchings, is about the Pulse survey. We
088just received that this morning in the board brief, the updated version. And obviously, some of the data suggested that a lot of things are going well from the perspective of many parents and so forth. But my biggest concern is about the data point. that less than half of teachers reported that 50% or more students were engaged in learning. And it sounded like that trend was the case both in May and June. And so I'm just wondering what we're doing over the summer to sort of unpack that and understand why that is. And I'd like to, as a board member, see more data around, you know, if the teachers are reporting that, they must have a sense of... which students in their class are participating and not participating. And I'm wondering if we have that robustly
089compiled somewhere and are really unpacking that because it sounds like based on what I've heard about our discussion so far in the reopening, that it's going to be virtually impossible to have 100% in-person reopening, which means inevitably there's going to be some virtual component to what we do if kids are in school part-time or something like that. So I'd just like to know. how we're going to use these summer months to really unpack that and use that data to make sure that we're reaching as many students as possible. So absolutely, we are unpacking that. And one thing that in particular that we're looking at, and this is one of our planning committees that's going to be working on our curriculum instruction for the opening of school. One thing that we have to use as we
090develop our reopening plans, there's been a lot of lessons learned with our virtual learning for the past three months. We have, in a sense, you know, our focus for the past three months, honestly, was equality and not necessarily equity. And what I mean by that is we made sure everybody had a device, we made sure everybody had internet access, but we did not take it a step further to ensure that certain families might need additional supports with that particular device because they may not have used a device before. Some family might have needed some type of training, some family might have needed a coach to contact and follow up to do some extra, you know, we just, we... haven't we didn't make those adjustments and it's because we were trying to you know adjust to
091this new virtual learning overnight so i understand why so i'm not putting anything down team everybody i know we all worked hard right so i'm not saying that we did anything wrong what i'm saying is that these are the lessons learned we have to now get into our equitable virtual learning experiences um and this is something that we are going to have to really um you know, unravel to determine. Is it because families didn't have either the time? Is it because they didn't know how to use the device? Is it because of the grading policy that we put in place? Because I can tell you with a high schooler in my own house that she knew all I had to do was 60%. So all she did was 60% to get her pass, which I'm
092like, Micah, that's just being lazy, right? You know, that's my opinion. But she gained the system, right? And I'm sure other students did that too. And we're going to really have to take a look, especially with the feedback we've gotten from our teachers, that those grading policies really force kids not to have to really be engaged. I mean, they just they didn't. It was good for what we did, though. So I think that for a student who was not performing at high levels and needed that extra A in fourth quarter, it helped them in a lot of ways. Kids who already had A's and could do nothing. I mean. I know an example of somebody who did that, right? Because they already had an A. Why do I have to do something extra? So I
093think those are some lessons learned that we are going to have to work through. Our team is definitely doing that. Okay, I have Dr. Aviv. Thank you. Yeah, my question is also a little bit related to summer learning. First of all, congratulations for making it to the last day of school, everyone. That's very exciting. It's been a very challenging year, as we all know, but we did it and we have to acknowledge that. But I just I was wondering, I just wanted to follow up because, you know, we only have one more school board meeting next week, which before the summer learning starts. And I know our agenda is very full next week. And so my question is really about. what parents, who parents should be expecting to hear from about their summer learning assignment,
094like their teacher assignment. You know, when is that going to be shared out? Who is it coming from central office? Is it coming from the local school? And as school board members, if we encounter, you know, parents who are having problems or questions, who should we be referring them to since they, their teachers are now, it's officially their last day. Yes, we should be referring them to their principals for right now during the summer. But Dr. Mozingo or Dr. Mann, you may want to elaborate a little more, you know, how you get information. I can answer that. Dr. Reef, you must have been in our summer school meeting this morning listening in. So we are planning two modes of communication, one to the general public coming from Dr. Mazzinco that will go out next week,
095just reminding them that summer learning is happening and a link to the website and then also a link if you want to opt out. Right now we're close to a thousand opt outs. for the division. Then once we have the hiring complete, which we're still working on right now, and the class rosters and lists are up, we will then send out one. So you'll get one as a parent that will say, here's how you can access Clever. Here's your teacher. If you have a boost course, here's your teacher and when they'll be available and how to contact them for support if needed. And the same will happen for credit bearing and credit recovery. They'll have that information before July 6th, but next week will be the letter that states we're having summer learning as a
096reminder. And here are the programs if you want to opt out. And then the following week, you'll get the one that actually says here's your teacher and how you could actually access everything. Everyone will go through Clever. no matter what grade level they're in, but we also then you'll have the information for your teacher. If you have people have specific questions, they can send their email to the summer school email that we set up or also email me or Dr. Alicia Kincaid. Great. Thank you, Dr. Mann. Now we have, it's now 1.25, and I'm going to ask Ms. Nolan to read us into close, but before I do, I just want to remind people that we are going to leave this meeting, and Ms. Nielsen has sent us another Zoom meeting that we will, so
097we leave this one, we go to the other one, and then before we adjourn, we're going to have to come back to this one again, so to do the adjourning in public. So, Cindy, may I interrupt? Just make sure, board members, that you do log out of this meeting because you can't be in two Zoom meetings at once. Okay. So we're ready, I think, for Ms. Nolan to read us and to close, please. Thank you. Madam Chair, I move that the board convene a closed meeting pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3711A1 for the discussion and consideration of employment, performance, and contractual matters for 25 specific public employees. Second. I have Ms. Green seconding Ms. Nolan's motion, so I will call the roll call vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes.
098Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reeve? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay, that's 9-0. So we'll log out, see you on the other side there. Okay, we are back. Do we all make it to the other side? All right. All I need now is a motion to adjourn. Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn. First, we need to certify the closed meeting. Thank you, Susan. Thank you for being here. Sorry, Ms. Nolan, you need to certify our closed session. Thank you. Pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3712, I move that the board certify that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened and are lawfully exempted by the Freedom of Information Act were heard, discussed, or considered by the board
099in the closed meeting held on June 19, 2020. Second. I need a second. Second. Oh, was that Mr. Suarez? Okay, Mr. Suarez seconded Ms. Nolan's motion, so we'll call for the vote. Cindy Anderson? Cindy, I don't think you can drive here. I apologize. I just wanted to note that Ramey, I mean, she's coming to the other meeting. She's coming to the meeting. Sorry. Okay. I apologize. Oh, no problem. Okay, Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton is absent. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
100Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Laura second Ms. Gentry's motion so I'll do the roll call for adjourning Cindy Anderson yes Veronica Nolan yes Megan Alderton is absent Ramey Gentry yes Jacinta Green yes Margaret Lorber Yes. Shall we? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. All right. So we are eight yes and one absence. And we are adjourned at 2.30. Thanks, everybody. Bye, everyone. Have a nice weekend. Bye. Cindy? Yes. Cindy, can you just tell me who seconded the adjourn? That was Ms. Lorber.
101Thank you. Sure. Thanks. All right. Bye, everybody.