001So you can go ahead and start. Okay, good afternoon. Welcome to the June 22nd, 2020 subcommittee meeting with the City Council and School Board of Alexandria. We are here to discuss... COVID-19 that's the only thing on our agenda and those things having to how they're impacting the city and the schools so I thought it would start Mr. Jinks would you like to give a an update? Sure. I'm glad to give an update. As you're aware, the governor has been moving us all along. Northern Virginia was a little bit slower there. So we moved forward into their phase two. It focuses a lot on what can be done and businesses can or can't do. And in some cases, it's directly applicable to us because it deals with things like swimming pools. In some cases, you just
002have to derive what their intent is to figure out. what our next steps are. So I'll start with the government opening pieces and Jim Spangler is who's here can talk about the, which I think is most relevant to ACPS, in regards to parks and recreation. But in regards to the government reopening, we never closed. much like the schools, you continued in operation, even though it was virtual, even though in the case of, we said City Hall was open by appointment. And that was really a polite way of telling people, call, and we dealt with those requests for appointments over the phone or by other virtual means. And so as a result, we were able to really protect the public, protect our staff. We went, we had something like we were up to at one point,
003like 1600 people telecommuting, at least some of their job. Our ITS staff, much like your IT staff, really have been working practically around the clock for the last couple of months, and having to basically expand our capacity to handle this much telecommuting. We're probably 10 times more than we were before. um and do that and thinking about security issues and say at the same time Also opening, in the case of the health department, two different call centers to handle huge volumes of whether it's for contact tracers or people just answering the health department's information line. So there's a lot that's been going on. Now with the kind of the reopening of the economy, I pointed a staff group to, we'll be talking about council about it tomorrow night, to go through and say kind of
004how do we begin to reopen and physically populate our city spaces. In some cases we've taken things virtual that we're not we don't want to bring back and in some cases with telecommuting many of the telecommuting cases will stay there but we need a we need to still have a physical presence. There are some jobs that are better done here and So we are in the process of working through what is the much like you're doing with school classrooms. How do you measure six feet? What's the PPE we need for certain kinds of positions, certain kind of forward-facing positions? We need N95 masks. The new OSHA regs saying you have to basically, you have to go through a medical exam to give somebody an N95 medical, at least a breathing exam with an MD. We're
005just kind of, how would we go about doing that? So we're in the process. of, I think we'll spend July really ramping up to a higher level of presence in our office spaces. But we're not, in a sense, I would say we're not intending on pushing the envelope. to get a rush to get everybody back as we can. But clearly, as Dr. Herring has reminded us all, that asymptomatic transmission is still out there. We're now down, fortunately, significantly, a number of new cases a day from, we were running about 50, 60 cases a day a month ago, a month and a half ago. We're now running around 10, 12 cases. So that is much, much better, but it still means. that people are still at risk. So we do not want to put our employees
006at a, just to get them back to work, bring them all back or substantial portion of them. But we know that we need to provide services better, that the people are here to answer the phones so that when somebody calls, we can answer that phone directly and not get recorded and answer, you know, somebody get call back, call you back two hours later. So we're working on those matters in regards to the kind of office-based services, in regards to parking regulations we're still working through. When do we kind of start going back to the old parking regulations? I don't think we're quite ready for that yet. And we have been making changes in the parks and recreation area. maybe at this point ask Jim Spangler to fill us in on that Frank. Sure. Okay I'm
007sharing the screen can you see that? Yes. Okay super. That also means my microphone's working. So as Mark said we're in phase two just about everything we do is open at this point in time we made a decision based on CDC guidelines to open playgrounds in this phase earlier in the process. It was not slated until phase three. Picnic shelter areas that we reserve are still closed. The Nature Center on Ramsey School has some facility repairs ongoing, so it's still closed. And then all of the rec centers opened this past weekend. And we had good use at all the centers, particularly at Chinquapin for swimming. The outdoor pools, July 1st. And summer camp programs are starting as well. They are aimed at essential workers at this point in time. And will expand beyond essential workers
008based on enrollment. One of the things we've, well, we've coordinated two things with the schools. We met two weeks ago on summer space and what was available for use in schools. We worked through and schools were gracious in giving us an access to, I believe it was six different sites, so that we could expand the summer experience for youth. And we have a meeting later this week to begin to talk about what the fall would look like in terms of schools' academic use and then what the use might be for either during the day child care or after school child care. All the big sport programs in terms of regular league play of youth and adult sports won't start until phase three. We allow pickup games and practices now, but not organized league activity. I'll
009stop here and see if there are any questions. Jim, can we talk a little bit about the coordination around camp space and use of school properties to accommodate additional capacity for camps and other summer programs? Well, this time, all of the space that ACPS says was available for the summer based on construction activities, they have made available to us. And we have all of our rec centers in use for space, except the Durant Center, which is being used by the Alexandria Health Department at this time. And the homeless shelter at Charles Houston is beginning to end operations there. So I don't know that there's additional space this summer or that there will be the demand. this summer for the additional space, given the guidelines, social distancing, and the number of students we're able. I don't
010believe we're at a waiting list point at this point in time. Can we talk about that for a second? Because I mean, I guess a couple things. So first of all, I get the sense that we are going to be I mean, we'll see the governor's going to make an announcement tomorrow, but I get the sense we're going to be in phase three, phase three, possibly as early as next Friday. And, and the, if that happens, you know, I also think you're going to see a whole other tranche of workers expecting to go back to work and, you know, pretty much every camp that possibly exists has been canceled. And you're going to have a lot of, employees that are going to need to go back to work for a variety of reasons. And we,
011to the extent we have space, can be part of the solution for helping enable particularly some of our essential frontline workers be in the workplace. And I... It seems to me is we have some opportunities there. We have a lot of unused space right now. And I want to make sure we've fully explored those options before we say that we're not going to be able to create that kind of capacity. Which school sites are we going to be utilizing for summer camp purposes? Yeah, I don't know. I might not be off the top of my head. But again, it was based on which sites they were not doing summer construction activities at. So there are six different sites. Can ACPS weigh in on this with that list? Yes. Yeah, sorry. I'm sorry. This is Alicia
012Hart, and I can weigh in with the sites that we have been discussing with the city. One of those being Jefferson Houston, consideration that's for use by Campania. We have also been looking at the T.C. Williams Minnie Howard space. We have been looking at Polk Elementary School, excuse me, James Polk Elementary School. I'm sorry, I'm trying to read from a list. Charles Barrett and Patrick Henry as well. And I believe at this point, those were the schools that we had provided to the city right now for use. As Mr. Spangler alluded to, we do have a number of construction projects that are ongoing that we had accelerated or tried to. utilize the closure of the schools to be able to get this work done. So by the time we started having these conversations, some of
013that work had already been procured and was already underway. We will, you know, continue our conversations with the city. If any additional space becomes available or project schedules change, we would definitely make sure that the city is aware of that. But right now, those are the schools that we can safely offer based around the construction schedule and planned projects. Okay. I mean, obviously, I can't weigh in on individual projects. I don't know what you guys are doing at every building. I don't know what we're doing at every building. But it seems to me that we should be trying to figure out on both sides of the ledger, the school and city side, any facility that we can utilize for... for some kind of summer programming that we can do safely and comply with the orders,
014we should try to figure out a way to do it. You know, it sounds like on our rec center side, we have two centers that are offline because one with the homeless shelter operation and one with public health operations. So we already start off with two facilities down. on our side, it just seems like we should look at every school facility or part of school facility and try to figure out how to use them. And then conversely, on the same side for us, if we have other facilities that we could possibly... use or even partnering with, I don't know, I mean, does the community college have a facility that's open? Whatever. Like, it just seems like we should be looking for every opportunity we can in this environment. I think I am constantly hearing from
015parents who are very concerned about their ability to go back to work. And it's particularly when bosses start to expect it. And I just. I feel like we can be part of that solution. And I know there's money available for even us to be part of that solution. But we've got to work out the facility side of this. Well, there's more than just facilities as a limitation. The first limitation is the number of people you can have in one facility at the same time and the number of people in the groups. That's limited during phase two. It's larger in phase three. But as the schools, I think, are finding, like school buses is an example, that the social distancing really controls how many people you get together more than the aggregate number you're given by
016the governor. The other issue is if we were able to get more space for some reason and enroll more students, then we have a staffing issue. We don't have the staff available because we did not do the normal summer hiring, not knowing when the phases would occur. So we don't have the staff capacity to expand much beyond where we are now. We're using existing staff that we have. The summer takes a lot of additional staff. It's about a 30-day process to hire staff in the city. I got to tell you, I feel like that's a solvable problem. I mean, I'll be honest with you. On the staffing side, we should be able to solve that. You know, I'm just going to be, I'll be crystal clear. That seems like something we should be able to
017figure out. This is not normal circumstances. We should be able to figure out a way around that. That's just my take. We can talk about that more offline, but it seems like this is not a normal circumstance. We can find staff. There are people, a lot of people looking for jobs, we should be able to figure that out. And I get the spacing issue and all that. And I think that's something that's certainly we have to deal with. But I think that's a function of facilities. I think that's why I'm trying to, I want to make sure we are doubly scrubbing whether we have exhausted all of our opportunities for using facilities that we have at our disposal. The last thing I want to do is be in a situation where we cannot provide a
018service and we have a facility that could have been used that is sitting unused. I just think we have a lot of opportunities that we perhaps wouldn't have under normal circumstances. And let's make sure we're looking at all of them to see what we can do here. So, I mean, we are very likely, as I said at the outset, in fact, I had a call today about this. I mean, we're very likely going to be in phase three on Friday. So I think the expectations for what services we are providing and are going to be able to make available are going to go that much higher pretty quickly. Anybody else have a question about that or comments on either side? Maybe not. Maybe not. Hello? Oh, yes. Mr. Chapman. Thank you. I would definitely echo
019the mayor's sentiments on that. I think, you know, this is an extraordinary time, but as we have seen with the numbers, you do have a number of people who are looking for opportunities. And so I think capacity is something that we need to just work through. I don't think it should be something that we kind of already stop at and say we can't do. You know, we know the summer's coming. Parents know the summer's coming. Everybody knows the summer is coming. I think you are going to have people that are looking for work, but they just don't know about opportunities because they're feeling that everything is closed. And so if we are vocal about the fact that we are looking for people, I have no doubt that there are going to be people that are
020actually coming, looking, and quality people, not just random people, but quality people that would be able to run some of our programming. To start with the fact that all the staff that was going to work at all the camps that are closed this summer are now available. So pretty much every single camp that was available was closed. Yeah, I see that Miss Nolan wants to say something. Oh, thank you chair Anderson. So I just also thought it might be a good opportunity. You know, since with the city sharing what's open and what's not do we want to maybe also share from our end at ACPS where what people can expect with playgrounds because I know that that's been a huge question that a lot of folks asked I thought this might be a good opportunity
021for ACPS to have the opportunity to share where are we with playgrounds as I know that's common question being asked. Dr. Wilkins, would you like me to answer? Sure. Whoever thinks they are the best to answer, I think that makes sense. Dr. Hart, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead, Alicia. That's fine. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Wilkins. So we currently have three playgrounds that open today for use. That was Jefferson Houston, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Tucker. We have repairs that have to occur at 13 other playgrounds. So all of the, essentially the remainder of our inventory, we have a number of repairs ranging from minor to major that need to be completed. Those repairs will start this week. And as those playgrounds come online, I will make sure that both Dr. Wilkins and Dr. Hutchings are informed.
022So that way we can make sure that the information is communicated to the community. Okay, thank you for that. Yeah, it's good to hear. We get that. I was just gonna say we get that question an awful lot after the after the city, city playgrounds open. So that's, that's good to hear that we're, we're getting those, those back online. I think most, most adults and certainly most, most young kids don't understand the difference between a city and a school playground. So it's probably just as well to get us all on the same page on that. Yeah, I think that's good. And I guess, you know, my one of my thoughts, you know, if as we're doing things and there are things like that that come up, I'm wondering if we can our communications office or
023offices could work together maybe to ahead of time to send out the information so that it can be clarified. Maybe I think. And I'm hoping that we don't have to move to a different phase again, but if there are other things like that, it might be good to get ahead of it and do some sort of joint planning on the communications part of it. So if there's nothing more I was going to ask, Dr. Wilkins, I believe, is attending to tell us about on the ACPS side to give us an update. Chair Anderson? Oh, sorry, Mr. Chapman? I didn't see the hand. Sorry. Raised a good point that I just wanted to ask staff a little bit more about. Is there any regular kind of working together of city communications and ACPS communications just on
024a regular or even, I'm assuming during this pandemic, definitely, but... Yeah, I can't speak to every single type of circumstance, but there is a close working relationship between the ACPS communication staff and communication staff centrally in the city and some of the departments as well. Okay, thank you. I mean, I think Chair Anderson raised a very good point to see where it is on specific issues we can kind of combine efforts. Yeah, it might to sort of. educate the public when they needed to know the difference. Yes, like in this situation. So, okay. Dr. Wilkins? Yeah. Hello, Ms. Anderson. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So just to follow on Mr. Jink's comments as far as where the district is. with respect to COVID planning. I'll make some remarks and then I have Dr. Mozingo
025and Dr. Gerald Mann on to talk about the summer efforts that we have going and then the upcoming efforts as far as plan 4.0, which is the plan to open schools in the fall. And that's under a COVID situation. Let me just be clear on that. But as you know, we went through phase one, we went through phase two. We are in phase three, which is our summer engagement plan, and we are in the works to plan phase four. Similar to the city, the challenge that we face as we go into this month of planning in July is, again, the concern about the logistics, about not so much what to do, but how to get it done. So the issue of PPE, right, and the amounts. of materials that are required for that, how many
026gloves, how many masks that we need to purchase and provide. Our class sizes have to still be assessed. How we're going to manage bus operations, again, is another analysis that's underway because you have, for example, guidance that says seat one student to a bus. So if we follow that, what does that mean as far as our capacity to lift the students, if you will, or bring the students to and from schools? Certainly the supplies overall have to be assessed and also the cleanliness in the sense of the repeat or the repetitive cleanliness that must take place in this situation. So for example, instead of having trash cans empty once a day, we might have to empty trash cans twice a day, for example, because of, again, the discarded mask or discarded gloves and other materials
027that may be out there. So we'll be going through the month of July. with our planning teams to make these assessments and then present to the Board of Education an option, a preferred or recommended option later on in the year. So I'll stop there and I would ask if Dr. Gerald Mann and Dr. Terry Mozingo can come on and talk about our summer engagement plan and then also for the fall. Okay, good evening, everyone. So we're going to, I think it will be for sequencing this. It's good to have Dr. Mann just kind of tell you where we are with our summer learning program, which is really exciting. So it's a real good news there. And then I will provide you an overview of the work that has occurred to date with 4.0, and as
028well as an overview of what we will share with the school board on Friday regarding. BDOE's guidance for reopening schools. Thank you, Dr. Mozingo. Good evening, everyone. As Dr. Mozingo and Dr. Wilkins stated, we are planning for 3.0 or summer learning. Tomorrow, we actually have our first of two PD days, which will include pre-K through 12th grade. As you're well aware, we are offering for the first time, probably ever, summer learning for everyone pre-K through 12th grade. For the first time, we are also making credit recovery courses free to students who need those. And if you're not aware of credit recovery, it means that if you failed a course, you can enroll in summer school and repeat that course. We are still charging for new credit courses the fee of 285. Our neighbors, Arlington and
029Fairfax, actually charge more than us. We are offering students fifth through 11th grade, if they're currently, the opportunity for a prep or boost class in their English or math, if they so choose. And then also pre-K through fourth grade, they will be mailed home a kit unless they've opted out. And right now we're around a thousand families that have opted out. And that is pre-K through 12th grade. And then also if you receive a kit, you also have a book and other supplies coming home to you. Summer learning begins July 6th and runs through July 31st. If you are doing our normal summer school, pre-K through eighth grade, it's a four-day week, two hours a day. This can be live or you can access a recorded lesson anytime to access for families for flexibility. If
030you're doing repeat or a credit recovery course, it's a five-day week as we have standards of quality that we must meet as far as seat hours of 70 hours for. credit recovery and 140 for new credit courses. And we do have some enrichment. We have a music camp for current fifth graders to eighth graders. We have a theater slash drama camp for middle school students. And then we also have our AP bootcamp, AP calculus bootcamp. And then we were able to figure out how to do a science. research boot camp. And so that will be, is being advertised through our science teachers at TC Williams and will be available on our WUFU forum this evening. And Dr. Maziega, I'll let you update on 4.0. Okay, thank you so much. Like you indicated earlier, we also
031just received from VDOE the guidance for reopening schools. It was approximately, gosh, 130 some pages, but well done in terms of the specific questions and guidance that must be addressed by different groups and different committees before we can reopen the schools. We will also be required to submit the plan to the Virginia Department of Ed. In addition to that, we have, during the month of June, we formed a thought partners group, which included city and community officials and leaders that actually provided input regarding eight, nine guiding questions that really provided a lot of guidance, some sets of expectations and considerations. for these teams that will be formed. The things that came out of the thought partners were examples such as making sure that we focus on health and safety and academics, ensure that there is
032this collaboration and communication to ensure that we're involving a large number of stakeholders as we move forward. So that was a part of the expectation was that school systems were to form like task forces and get input and guidance. Now, the next step is that we have been meeting with, we formed finally these cross-functional teams and these teams will address the questions that have been articulated by VDOE. There are actually five teams. The teams will, and we're also forming a team of principals and assistant principals. The teams will consist of SEAL, which is social, emotional, and academic learning. That's the team that will help address the rewriting of the curriculum, making sure there's a formative assessment given the amount of academic loss that has occurred, and they will have other actions. There will be a
033human and capital resources team. There's a need to develop a survey to assess the number of potential employees that may be high risk and how we manage all of that. So there are a lot of actions for that team. There's a health and safety team, and that team will focus on some of what you have already described, but making sure that the schools are safe, that the classrooms are safe, and they have a number of guiding questions and actions that must be addressed. Then there's a financial management team. That team will have to, for each of these teams, they will be responsible for developing a budget. A part of that, though, is looking within existing budgets to see if there are ways to repurpose to meet certain needs. So there is a financial management team,
034as well as a school and community relations team. And that team will address all of the communications, internal and external. Well, our next step is we have a meeting on Friday, a kickoff meeting with the the chairs and their leads and getting them very organized around the facilitation that is essential for these teams. The teams will actually work the entire month of July. Dr. Hutchins wanted to have the teams have dedicated time. So the entire month of July, two days each week, we have a, and you'll see all that on Friday where we have a schedule where these groups will work and address a number of questions that we must respond to. After that, our goal is that we, the goal that we're actually aiming for, there's a board meeting on Friday. There's another commitment
035for a report on August the 7th. And there's a commitment for a report to VDOE on August the 14th. The heart of the work of addressing hundreds of questions will occur during the month of July by those teams. Those teams will be responsible for developing action reports. And those are the reports that will be compiled and presented to the board. A part of this process, too, is for the teams to identify ways in which we will get input from different stakeholders, from stakeholders in the community, for people in the schools. I mean that sort of gives you kind of the framework but ultimately the teams will be responsible for responding to all of the guidance and the questions that are articulated by the Virginia Department of Ed. And then that will be compiled and shared
036with our school board and our community for feedback and reaction. So the month of July will be very intense, will be very focused and deliberate to be able to address those many action items and questions to ensure that the schools open safely. In addition to that, on Friday, we will share with the school board some of the recommendations that resulted from... the thought partners. We will also share information about the multiple models that are being considered and those models will be addressed and reviewed particularly by principals and teachers in terms of schedules. Is it a four-day schedule or an A-day, B-day schedule? But we will share more information on Friday about the schedules as well as in more detail about the work. of the actual cross-functional teams and how they will work the month of
037July. And then with the goal of meeting that deadline to provide an update to BDOE in August. So that kind of gives you where we are with 4.0 and the work that is occurring. We also have, in terms of communication on our website, a tremendous amount of information that will be invaluable for the public to be able to follow along with the process and kind of know what is occurring along the way. There's an update about the work with the thought partners, the sentences of some of the research that we have reviewed, an overview of the five teams. the actual chairs of those teams. And then on Friday, we'll have more information for the public. And we also will entertain any questions. We have the FAQs. So if there are any questions or concerns, we
038have said that individuals can contact, obviously, the superintendent. They can contact me. And on Friday, we'll have all the chairs and their names and information made available for them to be able to work with the chairs and co-chairs. So that's... kind of an overview of 3.0, the summer learning, and then an overview of 4.0. I will end like this. Sometimes I think that 4.0 and 3.0 is really like building a brand new world. It's restarting an entire system. And that is why different levels of input is actually critical to be able to get this done and just right to ensure the safety, the health, and the wellness of our. staff, our employees, and our families and students. Thank you, Dr. Mizingo. I just want to add that the board, so the next four board, normally
039we would be ending our board meetings at the end of June, but because of the continuity of learning plan and our wanting to keep updated and on it, we're going to have four meetings. So starting as Dr. Mizingo said this Friday, but then we're having a July 10th meeting. and a July 17th meeting. And the 10th will also include a public hearing so that people can give us input sort of when the plans are being done. And then on August 7th, we'll have another public hearing and a meeting in order to get feedback because by that time, the plan should be well-developed. And before it's submitted to the state, though, there would be some feedback from the public. So any questions for Dr. Mazingo, Dr. Wilkins? Yeah, can I ask two questions? I guess first
040actually for you, Chair Anderson. So that schedule that you just said, is that somewhere on the web that we can share with residents? Yeah, let me check on that. It should be on the school board meeting. I put it on Facebook a little bit. I guess our clerk is on. All of those are posted on the school board meeting webpage so you can view them there. Okay. All right. We should probably, I mean, again, probably more so even than playgrounds, we get a lot of questions about school reopening in the fall. And I think to the extent you guys are going to be having some public meetings, we can help spread the word on that so that folks know how they can provide that input. Yeah, I'll send you the link to the... I mean,
041I've just been typing it in when I was sending out on Facebook, but I'll send you the link to the website where it has it. Okay. Yeah. Whatever. Just if there's some place where we can just tell people, hey, here are the dates and here's how they're collecting employees and here's what they're doing so far. I think that would probably be useful because I suspect you're going to get a heck of a lot of interest. Yeah. And it hasn't, this hasn't been on the schedule for a really long time because of course the guidelines just came out the week before last. responding to the, where we could fit in, where it would make most sense for us to fit in to the work of the cross-functional team. I guess a question for Dr. Mozingo. So
042as you guys think about the options, it seems like that some of the various options or almost all of the various options, probably short of a fully virtual fall, have some work that has to happen as a predicate. There's either facility work or... organizational, administrative work, all that stuff has to happen. And that there's a runway for that. And so I guess talk to me about the things we're doing now that is kind of different from what we would normally be doing in the summer to get ready. And, you know, what maybe from the city side we can do to support those efforts and assist and how we coordinate. Because it strikes me is by the time and I. Gosh, I mean, like Chair Anderson said, you just got the guidelines from the state. You
043know, it's the summer. You're going to have to plan all this. And you guys are basically redoing how we provided education for hundreds of years here and all in one summer. So, but it strikes me as by the time we get to a place where we've settled planning on this in an August timeframe, you know, too late to do anything big and dramatic to get ready. So what are we doing now, I guess, to get ready? if that makes sense. You know, like, are there facility changes we are making already that we're putting in place that we've added to the work that we're doing this summer? Are there different administrative things that we're doing? What are we thinking about as far as how we get ready for the fall? So, okay. Can you hear? Okay.
044A couple of things I would like to mention in Dr. Wilkins, it might be, this might be where we share some of the work that has already occurred with Anita and others in terms of the facility, but you're actually right. The challenge is that it's all interconnected, right? So in order for us to even look at revising the curriculum, for example, in developing a curriculum that addresses the three scenarios, it's important that we have teachers working. So we're in the process of getting teachers. to start working and revising the curriculum. But at the same time, transportation in the buildings, in the staff, all affect the actual plan. So that is why those teams are the nice things. The teams are also addressing those areas. There will be time. We're planning time. for vertical and horizontal
045communication to occur between those teams. For example, if there are changes like in the bus routes, we need to know that information sooner than later. So that decision is one of the decision points for one of those teams. If we discover that we have a percent of staff that are at risk and not returning, then that affects teachers in our curriculum. So it's all... interrelated in that sense. Now, those groups that will be working will be working on a lot of what you just mentioned within those four weeks. So we have to have answers in all of those areas within four weeks. In addition to that, all of the teams must address the three scenarios, not the scenario that relates to traditional schooling, but the scenario in terms of the percentages of students that we
046might have in certain buildings on certain days. So it's all very connected. So the heart of the work will occur in the four weeks. But I know that some of the staff have like I know that they already have some guidance around entering facilities. And so I think that's going to help us in the work that these teams need to do. But that might be more with Dr. Hart. talking a little bit about some processes they already have in place as groups are accessing buildings. But still the challenge for us is the size of certain classrooms because so we, Dr. Hutchins has a staff member that's actually running a formula and assessing classroom sizes because we might would have to, we have to make some decisions around, you know, the number of students that might
047could return on a given day given the size of some of the classrooms. So it's all moving fairly fast in terms of that sense. But I believe that these teams and these different perspectives will be able to address a number of those areas. But I didn't know if Dr. Wilkins, if you want, or Dr. Hart, just to talk about some things that have already occurred in terms of the cleanliness of the buildings or some plans in place that might help move our work further. I'll let Dr. Hart talk about more about on the maintenance side, Mr. Mayor, but I'd like to add as far as things that we're doing differently, as Dr. Mozingo mentioned, we'll know a lot more in the weeks ahead as we put together these work groups. And as they develop their
048action plans, we'll have a better idea to answer kind of the questions that are probably... in your mind as we speak. Some things, though, we have already done. So, for example, you know, we have Samuel Tucker, which is a school that starts early relative to the other schools. We have already put in a request for the school board to defer that calendar start so that Samuel Tucker starts, you know, after Labor Day with the other schools to provide us the opportunity to do some more planning. and to make sure that we are consistent with our standards with respect to these options to open schools. But we are working through the details of that. And again, I hope that we're able to get those. get that information completed again in the month of July in time
049for VDOE approval in August. I asked Dr. Hart to talk about some of our actions already with respect to building cleanliness and perhaps even a food distribution. There's some things there that we have learned as we've gone through that process. Dr. Hart. Yes, so I will speak to a few things that we have employed on the operations side. First being the screening process that we employed. We probably started that back in April, not too long after we went into our virtual COVID operations. As I alluded to earlier, project work still continued. We still had essential personnel who had to access our buildings. So we put together a screening process. That process does entail temperature screenings. We have lists, a visitor list that are updated daily regarding the people who will be visiting our sites, whether
050it's contractors, staff, or any other approved visitors. With that process, the individual will be taken. If their temperature is within the acceptable threshold and they are on the list, they are allowed into the facility. They are given a wristband, which indicates that as they move to different facilities throughout the day that they have gone through the screening process and they were deemed to be okay to move forward with accessing our facility. So we have already have a screening process underway. We also ramped up our cleaning within the facilities. So deep cleaning has occurred as individuals are accessing our buildings. Again, a lot of contract work. So we have a lot of people. in and out of spaces and to that end we want to make sure that our essential staff members who have to still
051report to those buildings are remaining safe. One of the ways that we do that beyond the screening process is to make sure that the buildings are cleaned. Again, a lot of lessons learned in that particular process to include supply ordering and making sure that we have a regular steady stream of not only cleaning supplies, but the necessary PPE to outfit our screeners and our essential personnel with, which we have thankfully been able to do over the last few months. But of course, that will be a major consideration as we go into the reopening plan because All of the neighboring districts will be doing the exact same thing, putting orders in for the exact same materials. So hopefully there will be an availability of supplies as needed as we enter into that phase of planning and
052action. In regards to our school nutrition, our feeding programs, we established our meal distribution programs at various sites throughout our division. And that as well, our staff is having to do the same process regarding screening. So screening has really just taken precedence across all of our landscape, all of our operations. That program, from all that I have been informed by, has been going extremely well. We anticipate having to continue that throughout the summer. If any variations occur with that program, of course, senior leadership, the board and the city will be notified. But to this date, these are the different action items that we have put in place to address COVID-19. These are some of the considerations that we will have to push forward as we go into the reopening plan. And as Dr. Wilkins alluded
053to, as more information is developed and comes out of our cross-functional team meetings and a formal decision is made, that will... inform any decisions we make about physical alterations to our facilities. We have not gotten that far yet. And that's really going to be dependent upon whatever plan we move forward with for the reopening of schools. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Hart. Sorry. Thank you, Dr. Wilkins. Did you have something else to add, Dr. Wilkins? No, I was just going to say that... Obviously, this is a complex operation that we're trying to take on. And I would say that, you know, for the mayor and our city partners, we're looking at what I would term a synchronization matrix that helps integrate all the various functions so that we can see how things might work
054in these various scenarios. And again, hope that we can get that done over the month ahead. thing I would emphasize is I really appreciate the collaboration with the city and the schools with respect to communications and that's as Chair Anderson and Mr. Mayor, you have pointed out, we will need to ramp up our communications on these actions. I don't think there's any way we cannot over communicate, but we will have to not only use You know the website, of course, and the public hearings, but also be very deliberate as far as pushing out information to some of our stakeholder groups such as PTAs and other groups. So that we can keep everybody as well informed as possible as we go through this process and part of that communication is to is to make sure that
055we are linking within the region with our our colleagues and our other school divisions so that we at least look consistent across the area. But again, each division can make its own decisions, but we hope to stay in collaboration and contact with them as well so that we all are more or less understanding what's going on, you know, from a big picture perspective, you know, as we open schools in the fall. Chair Anderson. Thank you, Dr. Wilkins. Yes. And Dr. Hutchings has been in frequent conversations, and I'm not sure, I'm sure other staff as well, with our neighboring jurisdictions, because that's another level of synchronization. Because we, even though we find that we have more employees working for ACPS who live in Alexandria than maybe the city does, we still have a lot of people
056who work outside, who live outside the city. And so what the neighboring jurisdictions, when our teachers have children of their own, what they do is going to also impact the ability of teachers to come to work. So it is incredibly complex across every which way you look at it. Are there any other? Anybody else with questions or comments? Can I jump in for a second? Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I guess a couple of things. So first of all, I appreciate that update. I think that was very helpful. And I think to Chair Anderson's point, this is kind of like a school reopening. This is a snow reopening decision on steroids with all the connectedness to everything else and how complicated it is. And, you know, it strikes me and this may
057cause Deborah to faint, but, you know, this is also kind of a shared services approach on steroids, too, because it seems like we have a lot of opportunities. And I want to flip the conversation that we were talking about on the summer earlier the other way and say that, you know, whatever whatever opportunities we have on our side to assist in the fall. I think we should be able to do. And I'm kind of, you know, again, just to kind of throw some things out there. You know, I know looking at those guidelines from the governor and DOE, that transportation is going to be a challenge. You know, if we have the ability to help with DASH infrastructure, with DASH buses and things like that, you know, as long as you guys are dealing with...
058different schedules and things like that. It seems like we can help there. And I hope we're looking at opportunities like that where, you know, we can facilitate socially distanced transportation. And the same would go for some of our facilities. You know, we have rec centers that sometimes have availability during the day. And a lot of those buildings used to be schools in some cases. So I feel like if we have some opportunities like that where With some inconvenience on our side and some changes on our side, we could possibly free up facilities to help facilitate distance learning. Let's figure out how we do things like that. So I think no idea is a bad idea in this environment. And I hope on both sides, we're looking at all kinds of opportunities like that. We are
059looking at those opportunities. That's the meeting that Mr. Spangler referenced later in the week that I asked to have set up so that we can get in as early as possible and knowing that we will be partners in this and the earlier we kind of know where things are headed, the more time we have to plan right and to think through and work through what all the possibilities might be. And I was just going to say, Chair Anderson actually provided us a list with that question. I think about a couple of weeks ago, because there are some systems internationally that actually had to use other places within a school, within a community for small groups of children to go and learn. So she actually raised that question of us last week, and we will be
060providing that to one of those teams, because that might be a consideration if you can't get them all back in a particular facility. using facilities in the community. Yes, thank you, Dr. Mozingo. And thank you, Mayor Wilson, because now that I'm glad to hear that you're on board with that, because yes, I did. I did send a list. How about these places? And it was a list. So not just actually city buildings, but other things that might not be used as much during the day. So I'm hoping, and I think, and I understand the issue about the summer, but I think what we really need to do and what we're really trying to do is get our buildings in. the best shape that we can because we don't want to be having things happen during
061the year that we have to address when we're also trying to be socially distant. So I think that's why we're trying to get all the maintenance that we need to be done on our buildings. And as we remember, they're old buildings in most cases. And so I think that will put us in better shape to have a good... you know, be successful in whatever plan that we go forward with. So thank you. Is there someone else who wants to talk about or some other part of the COVID thing that we're dealing with as a city or school system? Okay, I don't know. I noticed that I had the February minutes that are attached to this week's meeting. And I have no idea, did we ever vote on the February minutes? I think it would just
062be fun to read them so we can laugh at what we thought was important in February. I know. It was actually the last of when life was as we used to know it, right? You did not vote because the next meeting would have been the March, and that was when everything hit a halt. When we were virtual. That's what I thought. So probably because it's now June, it would be a good idea for us to do that, right? But I don't know. Joanna, can they? Can we do it? So I think we decided to limit the agenda for the meeting to just the COVID issues for this one because there are so many other requirements that you have to do in order to comply with the requirements of the broader authority. So I think it
063probably makes sense to just wait. You'll have to approve minutes of all of these electronic meetings once you have a meeting in person again. Or you can just do them all together. Great. So we'll have a compilation. I just didn't want to, I saw it attached. So I just wanted to talk about it. Yep. I think that was because we were thinking about doing it, but. Okay. Okay. We thought we could have the expanded meeting, but not at this time. Oh, that's why the different agenda. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. All right then. Well, if no one has anything else, it seems like we are, we're done, right? Given our limitations in terms of what we're supposed to talk about. Is that good? Are we good? I don't know. Anything else? All right. So
064do we, are we still getting to, do we just move to, we have to move to adjourn or no? Yeah, probably best to go ahead and do that. Okay. So can I get a motion to adjourn, please? I move we adjourn. I got a motion from Mr. Wilson. Okay. And a second from Mr. Chapman. So we will call for a vote of aye. Cindy Anderson, say yes. Mr. Wilson. Aye. Mr. Chapman. Aye. Ms. Nolan. Aye. Okay, that's four ayes. So we are now adjourned at 6.03. Thank you, everybody. Have a good week. Bye, everyone. See you.