July 10, 2020 Special Call School Board Zoom Meeting

001Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this special called School Board Meeting for July 10th, 2020. We're starting this afternoon at 12.02. And so I'm going to ask for roll call. So please say you're present when I call your name. Cindy Anderson here. Veronica Nolan. Present. Megan Alterton. Present. Rami Gentry. Present. Jacinta Green. Here. Margaret Lorber. Here. Michelle Lee. Here. Christopher Suarez. Here. Heather Thornton. Here. So all nine of us are present and accounted for. And now we'll move on to our moment of silence. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Now, could I get a motion, please, to adopt the agenda? Madam Chair, I move we adopt the agenda today. Do I have a second? Second. Ms. Green seconds Ms. Lorber's motion. And so I will call for a vote on the agenda, adopting the agenda. Cindy Anderson, yes.

002Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Rami Jantri? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay, that's 9-0 to adopt the agenda. And next up, we have our public comments. portion of this meeting because this is after all a public hearing on the continuity of learning plan but also I'd like to say that we had 65 public comments that are posted with today's meeting and just a reminder to people that you can do that for each and every meeting post comments and if you want them included to be publicly seen. Today we have a few speakers on I think we have a total of eight speakers for the Continuity of Learning Plan. So we will start with those people right now. First up is Sharon Woodmare. And

003you have three minutes to speak. Thank you for coming. Okay. So I think you can hear me and see me now. Yes? Yes. Yes, we can. Thank you. Okay, good. So good morning. Thank you all for having this meeting. And first, I want to say that I really commend ACPS for having a very clear process this summer to involve all stakeholders and give parents and teachers and students and other members of the community a chance to have input on what schools will be like going forward during this crisis. I am a parent of TC Titan, and I'm also a teacher in another school district. So I'm going to speak from the perspective of both a teacher and a parent. And what I want to say first is I think everyone agrees that in an ideal

004perfect world, we would be able to return to education like it looked like last February. because we all agree that would be what would ideally be best for our kids. Unfortunately, the virus has other ideas and it's not last February. So I want to kind of make four main points of things that I really hope that ACPS and the board keep in mind moving forward. The number one is prioritize the safety and health of all. stakeholders, kids, but also teachers, paraprofessionals, office staff, everyone who needs to be in the school building, because no one is going to be able to learn effectively if we do not have an environment where people feel safe and where people are not stressed about the health risks to themselves and to their families. And I would strongly urge the

005board to make sure that ACPS is following all CDC and World Health Organization guidelines as far as safe procedures and making sure that all of those guidelines are really being followed for the health and safety of everyone. Second, I would really like to make sure that we recognize that face-to-face is going to look vastly different right now going forward with those health and safety guidelines, and it's going to be much more difficult to have engaging interaction in a face-to-face setting. And I think we need to really take a serious look at, in those cases, where face-to-face is appropriate and where it's beneficial and children will get the most out of it, and where it's actually safer and more beneficial to continue with distance learning, because there's a lot of things you can do with distance

006learning to encourage interaction and create... safe classroom environment that really cannot be done if everyone is six feet apart wearing a mask. And I also am going to run out of time, but I want to... Yes, I'm sorry, your time is up. Okay. I'm also going to, I'll submit some written comments as well. Thanks very much. That would be really great. Thank you for submitting the written ones as well. Thanks for speaking and appreciate the input. The clerk has asked me to ask people who are signed up to speak, if you could please use the raise hand feature if you haven't already. And so that we can, that we have rearranged people. So I'm going to go by my original list. Next up, we have Carolyn Meza. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can.

007You can start. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Hi, thank you so much for the ability to provide some comments on the fall continuity of learning plan. My name is Carolyn Meza, and I have three children. Two attend Polk Elementary. One is a rising first grader, and my eldest is a rising third grader. My eldest daughter has special needs and has an IEP. I'm here to advocate for a continuity of learning plan that specifically addresses children with special needs. During the spring, it was impossible to provide her with the support she needed to succeed. The content and materials provided were beyond her capabilities without support. She was lost and confused, and both of us were frustrated all the time. I'm concerned that there will be a one-size-fits-all approach to school in the fall. In reviewing the materials

008provided, it looks like it's either hybrid or distance learning. I don't see that there are any plans being made for additional in-person classes for students with disabilities, English language learners, or students with other needs beyond what is being done for the general population. I understand that distance learning continues to be difficult for everyone. I have a typical rising first grader, and while it's very hard, at least in some ways it's manageable. I know if I take the time and follow the guidance and instruction provided, she'll likely succeed. I do not feel that way with my eldest. My husband and I both work full time. Educating my daughter with special needs via distance learning is proving to be impossible. She's unable to work independently and requires constant supervision to try and keep her on task. Even

009then, I don't think it's working. She's falling further and further behind and I'm unclear how to help her. Virginia's phasing plan specifically calls out the ability for schools to educate special needs students in person in phase one. I understand that Prince William County is allowing special needs students to attend in person four days a week, and Loudoun County is also proposing allowing special needs students with more in-person class time. I'm asking that your plan include differentiation for a population that would benefit the most from in-person schooling. Thank you again for all you're doing. Thank you for your input. Now we'll move on to, I have Rita McCord next, please. My name is Keita McCord and I am a parent of a rising second grader and a rising kindergarten student at Mount Vernon Community School. Thanks

010for having me. It is what it is and I'm really glad that you all are looking at solutions that most closely resemble the in-school learning that we had. I hope you're exploring outdoor classrooms, indoor swing spaces, different solutions for different grades, and different times throughout the day for synchronous learning because I know some parents aren't home during the day to help their students get on Zoom calls. However, no matter what mix of in-person and virtual learning is determined, it sounds like it won't fill 100% of the hours of a normal school day. So how can we support our teachers and our homeschooling parents by filling in the remaining hours with amazing supplemental learning experiences? How can we think of this as an opportunity to engage the community around investing in and educating our youth? I

011think we can all play a role. I'd like to see us mobilize the various stakeholders who are ready, willing, and able to be a part of the solution. Pieced together, we can support teachers to offer robust learning environment for our students. Any of the stakeholders I will list can support learning virtually for one-on-one experiences, small group learning, or even for the whole class. However, I also think we can safely employ these stakeholders as roving or traveling tutors to meet small groups of students in safe indoor or outdoor spaces near their homes. In-person learning has so many benefits, as you know. So the stakeholders I see that can be part of the solution include the parents. Many parents already volunteer in the classroom. They're already planning to support their child's classmates with their assignments this fall.

012Let's work with them. Student teachers. They can't get their practical in-class experiences this year. They're ready to think creatively and know best practices and online and in-person learning. Do we have partnerships with the universities? Recent high school and college grads, their plans have been disrupted. Maybe they can become a local service corps of tutors to aid students. Even current high school students, can we create a service learning credit for them to tutor their younger neighbors and help teach them? Retirees and people who have been furloughed from their jobs. A neighbor of mine has been giving my daughter individualized Spanish lessons once a week over Zoom. I bet there are many amazing volunteers in our community who could do the same for a variety of subjects. Nonprofits, many are already ACPS partners and cleared to work

013in the schools. Let's mobilize them on a larger scale to serve our students near the students' homes on days they aren't at their schools. and local businesses and historic sites. We can partner with them to offer virtual field trips so students can learn more about our strong community. I know Act for Alexandria has set up its COVID response fund. Perhaps with this fund and other philanthropic dollars, we can offer stipends to support some of these individuals. It's our imperative as a community to do all we can to ensure our students stay engaged and excited to learn and importantly feel valued by their community. Let's invest in them. Our actions today will have profound consequences for years to come. So I'm volunteering. I would love to join any teams that exist or be part of mobilizing

014a new one to connect the stakeholders around this ambitious and necessary effort to supplement school learning. I think we should mobilize our resources today to minimize academic learning loss and maximize social emotional learning going forward. Thank you. Thank you. And hopefully, do we have your statements in writing? I'm not sure. I do a lot of them. But if we don't and you're speaking today, it would be really helpful to also get them in writing so that we can be sure that we don't miss any of the details. Next up, I have Cindy Hart. Hi. Are you able to hear me? Yes. Thank you. Hi, my name is Cindy Hart and I'm the chair of SEAC and the mother of eight, including two with special needs who might be interrupting me while we speak. First, I

015want to share my gratitude to you all for the enormous amount of time and effort that you've devoted to provide for the children of ACPS under the most trying of circumstances. We know it's been hard for you too. I've been in contact with many families of children with special needs about their experiences with the Continuity of Learning Plan 2.0. Though there was some confusion about how the Zoom time related to the IEP services and if missed related services would be made up, many parents agreed that their children's teachers did work tirelessly and truly did what they could to support their students. But at the same time, families say that this instructional model is unsustainable. It did not work for most SPED families. As an aside, in case you don't know, our students struggle, our special

016needs students struggle with being able to attend to live Zoom. Even when there is direct one-to-one Zoom instruction, some of our students need direct adult support on the home end, and that adult needs to have strong behavior management skills, which may require the assistance of a behavior professional. So I'd like to share a few specific priorities as we move forward. One, the solution should not be one size fits all. Many, if not most of our SPED students require a level of instruction and accommodations that makes distance learning extremely challenging. And many SPED students have suffered. So if we end up using a hybrid model, which seems likely, special needs students must be given priority in returning to the school setting. Many will need to be in school for more time than their typically developing peers.

017Those in the citywide classrooms, for example, may need to be in class double the time of the average student. Two, if we end up in a distance learning model for those who must choose us for health reasons, we need to ensure that there are consistent resources and Zoom times relative to IEP services across schools and across teachers at any given school. Some students will need one-to-one direct instruction plus behavior support for the families. Three. As ACPS focuses on providing our special education students with a free and appropriate public education or FAPE, communication of what is being done is really important. Parents want to hear details and specifics from Dr. Hutchings on down to school principals and others. If parents don't hear details, they get worried. Perhaps a separate SPED section on the ACPS communications could

018serve this function. And for parents, we'll need details about each model before they make an informed decision about sending. their children back to school or not. Thank you again for your time and for your work on behalf of your children. I wish you all success. Thank you for your comments. And next up, we have Nusiba Abo-Isa. Cindy, I don't know that that person is still on the on the meeting. Are you there? There you, we hear you. Sorry about that. No, no, no problems. Just please go on. All right. Okay, thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts and feedback. As a parent of three children in ACPS and as a staff member of ACPS, the survey that was sent out to the community and to the staff was not detailed enough. The information

019given was alluded in the guidance given by Governor... Ralph Northam, parents and staff need further information to make an informed decision regarding the reopening of schools for children and for themselves as staff members. Prince William County Public Schools released their proposed plans to the public this week. In their plans, they showed thought and care for their faculty and staff as well as their children. As you all know, many of the faculty and staff of ACPS have school-age children. I, not only as a parent of a rising fourth, second, and preschooler, but as a staff member of ACPS, would like to see some thought put into how we will be able to return safely for all, but as well as for the faculty and staff to have a place for their children where they will be

020learning. In the next coming months, many of us will have to make difficult decisions whether we will be able to continue working because of the lack of childcare or school settings for our children. We all love what we do as members of the ACPS family and do not feel as if we should have to choose between taking care of our families or being part of the ACPS team. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Next up, we have Katrina Ambrose. Go ahead, Ms. Ambrose. Okay. Sorry about that. Many of my topics have already been touched on, but I just wanted to say the surveys, as a teacher and a parent, I don't think it really allowed us to get our feelings and opinions across. I am the parent of three students, all at

021different grade levels, high school, middle school, elementary school, and I could only answer the survey for my oldest child. All three of my children are very different learners, and I know some of them. A couple of them would benefit from fully virtual and they did pretty successful the past few months, but I have one that would definitely benefit from a hybrid plan. But I couldn't voice that in just one survey. As a teacher, the survey we were given We didn't have the same option that the parent survey did. They basically, the parent survey, we were allowed, we could virtual or hybrid. They outright gave us that choice. What do you prefer? Teacher survey, we didn't get that choice. It basically, if it just had us, well, you know, but sorry, I didn't get a chance

022to write down all of my thoughts. But I wish the teacher survey would have given us the voice if we preferred virtual or hybrid and it didn't. And that's pretty much all I have to say. Thank you, Ms. Ambrose. If you wanted to submit your comments, if you want to write them up and submit them again, then please do. Or if you think of other things. Thank you very much, though, for giving us that input. Next up, we have Andy Baker-White. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yes, we can hear you. All right, thank you. Good afternoon. I'm the parent of a rising fifth and third graders and appreciate the opportunity to comment on the continuity of learning plan 4.0. While I want my kids to return to school, it's something that... And

023also where there's lots of vocalizing. Repeated outbreaks have been tied to these types of settings, including bars, churches, childcare centers, and overnight camps. If we want to get back to some semblance of normal, then we must prevent the spread of the virus. At this time, I fully support the virtual option because it's the better option to help stop the spread of the virus. And there are three primary reasons why I prefer this option over the other. First, our community transmission level is not sufficiently low. The WHO advises that before reopenings occur that the test positivity rate should be at 5% or below for at least 14 days. And Alexandria has had few of those days, and the current seven-day average, which is now above 7%, is trending upwards. These rates are indicative of the community

024transmission level, and also that available testing is unable to provide us with a full picture of the virus's spread. Second, we need to assure that testing and contact tracing in schools will be adequate. Without these, the risk of sending the kids back to school cannot be safely managed. We need to know the time it will take for test results to come back and the length of time it will take for contact tracing. If these are too slow or delayed, then the virus can quickly spread through a school and into the community. Third, the adherence to the required social distancing and social gathering guidelines under the hybrid option will be difficult to maintain, and their failure will lead to outbreaks. Enforcing physical distancing within a classroom and throughout the school will be challenging, and other mitigation

025measures such as PPE, increased disinfecting, plexiglass barriers, and adequate ventilation will be costly. Even with these measures, it will not be a matter of if an outbreak occurs in a school setting, but rather when. Because of these concerns, I fully support the fully virtual option. Again, I want my kids back to return to school, but it must be safe for everyone, and I fear that under our current and foreseeable circumstances, the physical reopening of schools in any manner will promote the wider spread of the virus. We've seen this play out with the reopening of bars, churches, and overnight camps, and we don't have to allow it to happen in our schools. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Lindsay Stewart. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. All right, great. Good

026afternoon. My name is Lindsay Stewart, and I am an ACPS elementary teacher. In my 11 years in education and my eight years in ACPS, I've never felt so strongly the need to advocate for both my and my students' safety. If we were here today to talk solely about what is the best choice academically, my comments would be vastly different. Believe me, I want to be back in the classroom with my kids. However, we don't have the luxury to consider how to reopen our schools solely from an academic perspective this year. If we've learned anything since March, it's that no one wins in the pandemic. COVID cases are still active in our city, state, and nation. And experts state continued social distancing, use of masks, and avoiding crowded places are the best ways to lower our

027risk. ACPS is underfunded and underprepared to return safely in person with the current mandated guidelines. Opening schools in person creates vectoring and safety concerns for students, staff, and their families. Until a vaccine is available or additional funding is secured to create additional jobs, the burden of extra cleaning, cost of PPE, and enforcing social distancing with young children falls solely on the backs of overburdened classroom teachers and staff. I'll give you three examples. In Arizona, a teacher died after teaching a virtual summer school program with two other teachers in the room, following all CDC guidelines. The other two teachers also tested positive. An in-person pre-K summer school program in Florida closed after a child tested positive and exposed all students and staff. And finally, Israel's head of public health stated in testimony to the Israeli parliament

028that schools, not restaurants or gyms, turned out to be the country's worst mega-infectors behind their massive spike in COVID infections. Therefore, I see the safest solution is an improved virtual plan for the fall, which also gives us more time to figure out how to open schools in a way that is safe for teachers, students, and families. This plan, though, must be equitable for our students with special education plans, such as IEPs, those with 504s, those receiving other special services, and those without adequate access to internet. I realize that the ask here is significant, but the ask should not be the loss or significant impairment of a child, staff member, or family member's life. Thank you for your time and understanding that we cannot approach this solely through the lens as to only what is best

029academically at this time. Thank you. Next up, we have LaGina Gross. Ms. Gross, are you able to unmute? I am muted, but I'm Christina Boringer. How about if we go to Christina Boringer first? Yes, I was on schedule to speak. If you don't mind just waiting, Ms. Gross, we'll get to you next. Should I go ahead? Yes, go ahead, Ms. Borenger, and we'll go back. So now we have both people online, so that's great. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the school board, Dr. Hutchings, and the larger ACPS community watching and listening online. My name is Christina Borenger. I'm an Alexandria resident and a lifelong educator at Samuel Tucker for the last 16 years. I'm a member of the EAA. I serve on the Virginia Education Association Board, and I'm an NEA director for the

030National Education Association. After listening to last night's public hearing with only two speakers, I felt I needed to speak today. Let me start by saying unequivocally that I want to be in my first grade classroom in the fall, but only when it's safe. I want to teach my first graders in the room that I would carefully prep, but only when it's safe. I want to see those yellow school buses roll up to Tucker, but only when it's safe. I miss my Tucker colleagues, and I want to be planning and collaborating at school, but only when it's safe. Like you, many of you, I want to visit my parents who live far away. I haven't seen them since mid-February because I promised myself I'd only see them when it's safe. I know these decisions are difficult,

031and I know there is honestly no good solution to this massive problem. We need to stay focused on all of our students. I know distance learning online is hard. I learned it on the fly and did it for 13 weeks, and I just started summer learning this week with rising first graders, 23 out of 40 on my roster attended so far. I don't know a single educator who thinks this is easy for students either. We are all doing the best we can with what we have. I know parents are having just as hard of a time getting our littles to sit still, our older ones to find that intrinsic motivation to keep learning for the sake of growing their brains and building their sense of self. But we need to remember that we are all

032in this together. Any plan that has children and staff in our school buildings must ensure the safety of everyone. If you're going to have educators in a building and return to schools, then you must provide proper PPE for each and every one of us every day. Can you ensure that every school will have enough soap, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and the proper cleaning products and materials for custodians? Excuse me, to keep our building safe, because I remember the cleaning list that were posted in classrooms during H1N1. And even though my building custodians are amazing, that list is near impossible to get done with the staff we have. If you are going to have students return to schools, there must be six feet of social distancing on school buses and in classrooms. And when age appropriate,

033I would want face masks required as well. I know it's hard to keep those masks on and not touch our faces. I still struggle with it. To be honest, I think I've only made it three hours. I understand the reality of lunch in classrooms, but who will supervise that while I'm taking my 30-minute lunch? Can you imagine a six-year-old having lunch in a classroom, not sitting with friends, and probably minimal talking because they're all six feet apart? I caution you, I warn you, I implore you and everyone listening to really consider what school will look like for a little one. School as we know it is gone for the foreseeable future. I know our kids need to see each other. I know face-to-face instruction is best. But asking me and every other educator to choose

034between our job and our health and the health of our families is unconscionable. I will happily go back to work, but only when it's safe. Thank you. Thank you. And now, sorry for the confusion, but we have LaGina Gross, I think is still with us. I no longer see her on the list. Well, be bad. All right. Is there anyone else? Ms. Anderson, I did reach out to her as well. So I apologize for that confusion. Well, I think, yes. So we had a couple of people who added at the end, and I think we chose a different one to go with, which is why two people ended up in at the same time. All right. So we have lost Ms. Gross. And is there anyone else, Ms. Nielsen, that you? No, I think we

035have gotten everybody who had signed up. Okay. Great. So that concludes the public hearing portion, but anyone on, if you have more information that you'd like to share or more thoughts about the reopening process, please be sure to email us either through the normal email channel or to be attached to next week's meeting. But I would say the sooner the better because more information that we have earlier, the better off we are. So now we're on to the next item, which is the introduction of our student representatives for the next school year, for the 2021 school year, which is really an exciting time. And they are actually both have joined us today. So a shout out to Ashley Sanchez-Biafara and Lorraine Johnson. Welcome. And we're so happy to have you. We look forward to working

036with you in the next year and hopefully sometimes in the same room, but we're just going to have to play that by ear. So at any rate, thanks. Thanks very much. No. We will hear from them in subsequent meetings once they're made official. And they'll be made official, actually, with the next part of our meeting, which is the consent calendar. So if someone would like to make a motion to approve the consent calendar, that would be great. Madam Chair, I move that we approve the consent calendar. Second. Okay, I have Ms. Alderton seconding Ms. Lorber's motion. Is there anything to pull from the consent calendar? Okay, if there's not, then I will ask for the roll call vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Oh, sorry,

037I didn't hear. Sorry. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reeve? Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay, great. That's 9-0. Consent calendar is approved. And now we have Ms. Johnson and Ms. Sanchez Villafara officially as our student reps. So we'll give them a little applause there. And we look forward to working with you. And now for sort of the big event of hearing about our continuity of learning planning. So I will be turning that over to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Madam Chair. I see we're converting over to our presentation. My computer acts funny when people share their screen. I don't know why, but I need to figure that out. I have to talk to our technology people. But first, thank you, Madam Chair, for turning things over to us. And I just want to thank all

038of our staff members who are part of this entire process. This is probably one of the most challenging times for any school division, not just across this country, but I think across the world. because none of us have experienced the global pandemic that we're going through right now. And unfortunately, we don't have, you know, an example of what to do in this moment. So we're all learning and growing together. And I've said this time and time again since March, you know, we are so much better than apart. And this is definitely going to require us to have an all hands on deck. approach and I just wanted to commend all of our staff as well as all of the people who are involved in the planning process right now and that's including students, staff members,

039parents as well as community members who are devoting their time to make sure we get the best plan possible for our staff as well as our students and you know something that's very important for us is to make sure that the health and safety of our students as well as our staff is at the forefront for everything and every decision that we make. And one thing I have to say, I know I've received some emails around, you know, comparisons to ACPS and other school divisions, and we should have our information out right away. And what we are trying to do is not be the first to have information out, but to make sure we're bringing our teams together to really talk through logistics. and how all of this is possible and how does it work

040from transportation to facilities to the actual asynchronous and synchronous learning that has to occur during this process. And that takes time. You know, we want to make sure that we're taking the necessary time to really think through each of these possibilities so that when we share with our community what we believe is best. for us reopening our schools that we have been extremely methodical and strategic and have a deep understanding around the implications for our decision making. I do want to thank all of our families who have taken the time to complete our surveys most recently. We still have time. We still have until July 12th. So let's please get them out or get them done. If you haven't already, we really need that information. And intentionally, we did not ask parents, do you want

041to come back or not? Right. Because we're going to be surveying our families again towards the end of July with. once we have more information that we're sharing out with our community so they can make a better informed decision around their family, as well as our staff included. This process during the survey was to get some insight so that our planning teams could use that information and that feedback to make the most robust reopening plan possible for us. So I do want to share that. Another piece that I think is important for everyone is there's some feedback that we have been receiving around the spring and the learning that took place during the spring. And there's a lot of lessons learned. I mean, we have to keep in mind on March 13th, when we closed

042our school buildings, we were planning to come back in three weeks. You know, we weren't planning to continue to be in a virtual setting. on July the 10th of 2020. You know, that was not a part of our planning. But just like everyone else in this country, the global pandemic, you know, happened. And we are working through that. And there has been a lot of lessons learned along the way. And one thing that I just want, you know, our community to understand is that through those challenges that we experienced this spring, with our asynchronous as well as our synchronous learning opportunities. We are refining our approach with our learning and we are taking the pledge to ensure that every single one of our students are engaged, you know, in our learning process and that requires

043us shifting to having equal access to an equitable access for all of our students and meeting them where they are meeting them with the particular needs whether the student or the family has so that they can have a prosperous learning experience and that throughout this experience not only are they learning but they're growing and that is going to be key to our young people but we're making you know that pledge to also ensure that we're meeting the social and emotional needs of our students and our staff. This is a very challenging time, I think, for so many people, not just our kids, but also our staff members, having to be home with their children or with loved ones or having their own health conditions and things of that nature that may put them at risk

044leaving their homes and the anxiety that comes along. uh with that that we're going to need to make sure we're providing you know social and emotional services and supports for our students and our staff we're pledging to do that and we also want to continue to make sure that our families uh during this time um that their needs are being met with uh technology access with meals for um our students uh during this time which you know are our health department, I'm sorry not our health department, our nutrition department has done a phenomenal job with you know feeding many of our our students over these past several months. So you know at the end of the day the pledge is that we're doing everything possible and everything that we can to meet the needs of

045our students. So I wanted to preface that discussion today with those things. I'm hoping that you all are in for you know a treat of information. today. You know, today is our update. We're having another update next week. Today, we're going to focus on more of the foundational information that helps us get to the, you know, the harder work that we're going to be sharing out next week, which is actually scheduling and different scheduling modules or models that we'll be sharing. But let's go into our central questions for today. So today we want to be able to share with the board, as well as with our community, what we've accomplished. You know, the last time we had talked about, we had the opportunity to talk about our reopening planning was on June 26. And we

046want to share where, you know, where we've come thus far. And we also want to be able to talk about some of the current work that our cross-functional planning teams are conducting right now. We had our kickoff this past Monday, and we'll be able to talk a little more about some of the norms and the work that has been established. You're even going to get an update today from the chairs of each of our cross-functional teams to share information out with you. We also want to talk about the voices of our stakeholders, and that's our students, our staff, our families, our community, and how we are planning to get them engaged. throughout this process and to also keep them informed. So we are going to give you that information today. And then some of our

047future milestones. People say they want to know something today, but even with the timeline we have, it's actually... pretty quick, you know, it's a quick turnaround. And it is not allowing us, you know, the time that I think it really, we really do need, honestly, to be able to put together a plan for the unknown and the uncertain. But we're going to work within our means and our timeframe and stick with our milestones. But we want to share out and just continue to remind our community and the board of those future milestones. So looking back, you know, on this past year, I'm sorry, these past couple of weeks, it feels like a year. These have been some of the significant things that we have looked at. And I want to really point out the fact

048that health and safety. You know, just recently, I know many have heard President Trump and the U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, talk about the need for kids to go back to school in the fall all at once. And, you know, I have to publicly state that that is definitely not possible if we're putting the health and safety of our students and our staff, you know, at the forefront and also our community. And we are following the CDC guidelines. So that's the Center for Disease Control and the VDOE, Virginia Department of Education guidelines, to make our decision making and to do our planning. And it would be harmful for us, and I think completely inappropriate for us as a school division, to send all of our kids and our staff back to school. at the

049beginning of the school year, all at once, and not adhere to the social distancing and social guidelines, social gathering guidelines that have been set. So we're making sure that health and safety is at the forefront. Our guidance, our input, and our feedback has started this spring. You know, we started doing our pulse surveys in April and also May. June or the May-June timeframe. And that information, which we had over 5,000 comments, open-ended comments, because we had open-ended questions for that. And we had to really analyze all of that information, you know, those 5,000 comments, some paragraphs of feedback. And we're making sure that all of our planning teams have that information to help guide our decision-making and what we're going to be presenting to the board in a few weeks in regards to our plan.

050And then finally, opportunities are challenges and uncertainties. And, you know, one area or, you know, two words that I use constantly with our team is grace and patience. Right. Those are the two words that I'm consistently using. I'm going to add a third, which is flexibility. Because of our uncertainties and because information changes so quickly. We have to be extremely flexible as a school division. And this is a time, unfortunately, we're not able to say this is the only solution to solve our problem. Every decision and every solution and every plan we bring to the table is not going to make everybody's lives perfect and it's not going to make everybody happy. And we have to go into this, unfortunately, knowing that. But what we have to strive to do is use these challenges and

051these uncertainties as opportunities to make a difference for our young people, as well as to not replicate, you know, the lessons that we've learned, you know, over these past several months. And we're definitely making a pledge to do that. These are just our guiding principles, and I think it's important to always revisit these anytime we come before the board, because this guides the work that our planning teams are doing. And this is something that we really have to believe in and keep at the forefront of our decision making so that we are not just looking at providing that equitable, I'm sorry, that equal access that we did, you know, in the spring, but that we're providing that equitable access. um to ensure we're meeting kids where they are as well as staff where they are

052So with that said, I'm going to turn things over to our chief academic officer, Dr. Cherry Mozingo. I just want to publicly just state this. Dr. Mozingo, you have been working tirelessly. And I know you spend just the same amount of hours as I do. I have to review everything you send me. And our team knows that, you know, I read everything that comes across my desk. Well, now not across my desk, but across my email. or Zoom or Google Doc. But Dr. Mozingo, you have just really been doing an exceptional job. And I know that we have stretched your thinking and your leadership, but you have risen to the occasion. And I just want to publicly just say thank you for being the co-chair and the co-lead for this work. So I want to

053turn things over to Dr. Mozingo. Dr. Mazinga, I don't think we can hear you. Can everyone hear me? Now I can, yes. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchinson. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you also for your leadership and support. What I really wanted to do today is just quickly highlight some essential areas so we can move on to, as he indicated, the heart of this presentation and really beginning to hear from some of the chairs and the co-chairs and the work that is occurring. This is just an example of some of the outputs, some of the deliverables that's guiding our work. As Dr. Hutchins has already indicated, these teams are really delving into a lot of questions that focus on formative assessment, scheduling students, transportation, cleaning facilities, ensuring safety. So their work is guided by... some

054deliberate questions. Next week, we will begin with principals involved in the process. We'll begin to look at schedules, elementary, middle, high, no recommendations, no decisions have been made, but we'll begin the conversation with the teams. of looking at some potential examples. In addition to that, I think someone has already mentioned this, we know that under the SEAL team, they will be engaging various teachers and others that will re-examine some of our instructional materials that will have to align to the models that are actually chosen. And lastly, here's just that our commitment to continue to get a lot of involvement and engagement so we can deliver the best. plan to the state for Alexandria. The next slide, the decision was to create these five teams that are listed here at the top. And then below the

055teams, you actually have the core instructional leads for the various areas. We have also hyperlinked for you 100 plus members that are working with these various teams. And you'll hear more from the teams later. This is really important. And working with education elements, and you will hear from them later, we know that reopening brings with this, obviously brings a lot of emotions and feelings and just, it's just so uncertain. So all of the work of our teams are guided by these norms. You see that there are five norms here. Psychological safety is very, very, very important. being prepared for the meetings, being present, being dependable, timely, and making sure that there's structure and clarity. These are just how we just wanted to highlight for you just some of the accomplishments since our last meeting. As

056Dr. Hutchins indicated earlier, we did initiate the cross-functional planning teams and they have actually started working. We have also, and you'll hear more about this later, about the survey that was developed and launched. And you'll hear more about the actual survey. And lastly, you will hear more about the facility capacity. later during this presentation. Now what I'd like to do is turn it over to Simma Rheingold to kind of describe for you where we are in sprint two. We have finished sprint one and now we're beginning to start sprint two. Thank you, Dr. Mozingo. And thank you to everyone for having us here again this morning. I guess actually it's now this afternoon. There is an enormous amount of work ahead of us. And as we just heard through public comments and through the conversation

057opened by Dr. Hutchings and Dr. Mozingo, there seems to be an entire year amount of work that we're trying to fit into this summer. Typically, districts and divisions spend years planning, and right now we have weeks to plan. And so as you can see, the way that we make sense of all this work is by staging out the major conversations and actions and tasks in a series of sprints. As Dr. Hutchings went through, we completed Sprint 1, which started on June 22nd and went through at the beginning of July, and we are currently in the middle of Sprint 2. During our conversation today, you'll hear each chair share their reflections about our work that started this week with the bigger cross-functional planning teams. They'll discuss the decisions and the conversations that they're having with their

058planning teams and that they are digging into. We will also preview some of the scheduling conversations that we will have this next week. across the different cross-functional planning teams. And then you'll notice here that our conversation on next Friday, which is on the 17th, will be a deeper review of the work that the teams complete this next week. So this is... hot off the press. As we discuss, as we get into our meetings, which are two hours each morning on Mondays and Wednesdays, we then summarize out the information. We share that back out with the team, and then we share it directly with you. A lot of the items that were highlighted today from the community members, we will be building out in Sprint 3 and Sprint 4 as well. I'm going to hand this

059over to my colleague Natalie to detail out the series of synchronous meetings and asynchronous tasks that the teams will be digging into this week. Thanks, Emma, and good afternoon, everyone. This is Natalie from Education Elements. Thank you for having us. As you can see here, this past week, we initiated our cross-functional planning teams, really working with leaders and staff to really involve them in discussion and analysis about decision-making we're making within teams, across teams, and across the various reopening models. We also worked with teams to review a staff and family survey data. This will also be work that we bring into next week in order to build a deeper understanding of needs and requirements for the opening models, particularly when we start to have conversations about master scheduling. We really want to start to think

060about what are the options that are going to align with each of the models that best serves our stakeholders and keeps everyone really safe. What are implications that we should be thinking about? And also, of course, what are the financial, the operational? the staffing and again, safety considerations. And then finally, we'll also be preparing some prototypes for discussion that we will be reviewing with stakeholders, including school leaders, community members, and our thought partners. We also wanted to highlight deliverables that we're working to produce every week when we work with our cross-functional planning teams. We've linked them in this document for your review as well. The first is what we call a facilitator's guide, which is what the chairs and co-chairs use to guide discussions during their meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays. And the second is

061the planning workbook, where they capture their thoughts, their decision-making, their notes that happen during these meetings. And I think another celebration to mention here is that across these teams, we're working with over a hundred staff members, family, and community members throughout this process. Okay, we're gonna turn it over to the co-chairs for SEAL. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you, Dr. Mozingo. As Dr. Hutchings and Dr. Mozingo and education elements have outlined, we have a lot of work to do over the next three weeks. And Dr. Crawford and I would like to make sure that the group understands that CNI alone. is a big group and so we've split that into CNI one and two, but Dr. Crawford and I also have co-facilitators. And so we'd like to highlight that we have our Executive

062Director of Specialized Instruction and Tanya Maya Harding co-leading one group. And then the other CNI group is co-led by Dr. Nickerson, our Executive Director of English Learner Services and Ms. Julia Newfer, our STEM team coordinator. And then also for accountability, we have Mr. Clint Page, Mr. Corey Kapowski leading professional learning and for student services and support, Mr. Daryl Sampson. And then for technology, we have Dr. Hoover and Ms. Emily Dillard leading some of this work. Also, as the groups this week, all the teams completed the workbook. We also had discussions around initial budget applications, key decisions that we needed to make, and then also reviewing the. essential questions that came from our VDOE guidance document. And then there was a series of readings and data sources as we try to bring the entire team up

063to speed on what we need to understand and learn as we try to make an informed decision and recommendation to the board and to Dr. Hutchings. And at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Crawford, who will talk you through some of the initial discussions that the SEAL team overall had this week. Can you hear me okay? Sorry, had the mute on and I was trying out new headphones so you didn't hear children in the background. But thank you, Dr. Mann. Good afternoon to everyone. Appreciate the opportunity to share the work of our SEAL committee. First, I'd like to give thanks. I know that Dr. Hutchings, Mozingo, and Mann said this, but just that our committee members have been... phenomenal and our core area leads have committed such a significant amount of

064time to our meetings this week and their work has been critical to furthering our reopening discussion. Dr. Mann highlighted some of the big areas that we talked about this week in our subgroups, including success measures, equitable services, the questions from the VDOE, as Dr. Mann said, budget implications, and key decisions. Within those discussions, we had several themes emerge. And what we do is we have a workbook that the team is able to work within both individually and as a group to record their discussions. And then we as chairs go back and look for areas to highlight with the group overall, but also themes. So I'll just take a moment to highlight some of the themes. First and foremost, every group within our area recognized the critical needs within social-emotional academic learning, social-emotional learning specifically, and

065trauma-informed instruction at the very beginning of our return, whatever that may look like. We know first and foremost that this has been a traumatic experience for all involved, but in particular for our students. So the theme emerged, making sure that we are putting social emotional support, mental health support, trauma-informed care at the very beginning of all return and relationship building. Within that, we're also looking to identify a screening tool that is specific to COVID-19 and PTSD-related events for children and adolescents. That's something that the SEAL student support team has worked on specifically. I would take a moment just to share an example from this week's summer school that really drives home our students' needs within social and emotional learning. At one of our middle school programs, the students had an opportunity to voluntarily choose to

066have a counseling lesson to provide some social emotional support. We had over 100 students on the first day, I believe, who joined that lesson to get support from a counselor. So I think that tells us just right there the needs that the students will be bringing back to the classroom that we have to respond to so that they're available for learning. So obviously, social emotional learning at the forefront for all of the discussion. Very importantly, following that, when we talk about academics and just functioning overall, the teams discussed and identified how will we assess and intervene immediately to identify any areas, making sure that we're differentiating and adjusting instructional priorities. and approaches. Obviously, as was mentioned during the comments already, we know that we have a diverse group of student learners who need differentiation from

067our students with disabilities to our English learners in our classroom, and they all fall within our MTSS supports that we want to make sure our Tier 1 is going to look different regardless of the model, but needs to be just as supportive. Another area that every group mentioned, I think every individual mentioned, was how are we as this reopening process going to clearly communicate within the subgroups, but also the larger group on the whole? And then what are the professional learning opportunities and needs for our staff members around classroom management, classroom setup, and differentiation for our student population? So, driving home again, the communication, the collaboration aspect, and the social-emotional learning needs of our students was at the forefront of our work this week. Dr. Mann mentioned that we will dig deeper next week into

068explicit scheduling and have a discussion with the board next Friday about that. I'm happy to turn it over to Mr. Page to talk more specifically about accountability. Thank you so much, Dr. Crawford. So just a overview of the survey design. So starting with, we all know that decisions are as good as the information on which they are based. So the critical importance of continuing, if you haven't yet filled out the survey, please, please, please staff. as well as families take the time if at all possible. Also, if you are a parent or guardian of multiple students within ACPS, please do, if time allows, go in and take the survey multiple times with each individual student in mind, knowing that we know that decisions may vary based on unique student needs. So given all of that,

069we designed the survey for just-in-time data. um knowing the incredible dynamic environment in which we are all in perceptions change and data shelf life has never been shorter so we designed the survey to be as close to the actual planning process as possible. And again, the data from the survey will be used only to support the planning of the 4.0 teams. So no information filled out on the surveys are permanent decisions for staff or families. It is simply seeking their perceptions in terms of where they are today based on the information that they have. And certainly I know in the PowerPoint moving forward, you'll hear more about additional feedback loops. that'll be coming up as additional information is coming out. Also based on the timing of getting the just-in-time data for the survey, we knew

070and strategically planned for qualitative data to come in in June in our last pulse survey where we asked the question around what can ACPS do to make you as comfortable as possible in returning to in-person instruction. The accountability team has been working tirelessly over the last several weeks to translate thematically code and group those hundreds of pages of open-ended comments. There were over 5,000 received and we will be supplying those qualitative data based on thematic to the individual planning teams as well as the quantitative data from the survey this week to best inform the decisions moving forward in 4.0 planning. And I will turn the mic back over. Good afternoon. I'm Sandra Hardiman. I'm the co-chair of the HR Capital Programs, Facilities, and Technology Planning Team. Dr. Stephen Wilkins is our chair. We have 30

071team members that are contributing to three core areas, Capital Improvement Programs and Facilities, which is led by Erica Gulick. I lead Human Resources, and Technology is led by John Kreitz. I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Gulick, who's going to address facility capacity, school social distancing, and seating impacts of social distancing. Thank you, Sandra, and good afternoon, everybody. So just want to briefly go over some of the assumptions we're using at this time for planning for reopening and keeping in mind that ultimately social distancing will look different in every school, in every grade, and in every specific classroom. So this is just to get us to a place where we can have numbers that we feel comfortable planning on. that we would be able to execute learning safely. So our goal is to aim

072to maintain six feet of distance between everyone, staff and students at all times. And so what this may look like is different entrance and exits, having one-way hallways, especially maybe at younger grade levels where maybe we want to require students to wear masks. Thinking about what PE and recess might look like will also be important considerations, as well as providing that extra time for times of transition to ensure that people are able to maintain distance. Currently, the number we used, we've had several of our architects reach out to us and just kind of let us know, hey, this is what we're doing and looking at schools. And so given some of that information, as well as just knowing what six feet of distance. and providing the space you need for your actual person, that 65

073square feet would be a good planning number for us. And as I noted here, that's per person that includes staff members. And so just thinking about the considerations, we think that provides enough contingency room to account for, you know, strangely or maybe different configurations of classrooms, cabinetry, and different furniture that may be. And some of this is all based off of the database of all the spaces we have in all of our facilities that could be. inaccurate depending on when they were measured or how they were measured. So we feel that we feel pretty confident with that number. It also assumes one teacher per classroom including and it says here including at kindergarten and pre and pre-k where we know we typically have paraprofessionals in the classroom. So just considering even with push-in models and

074things like that this of course isn't a definitive and we can certainly provide room in classrooms that need to have one more than one staff member. But this is just the numbers that we're considering at this time. It's using all the next chart that will show is using all current classroom spaces. So we did not take into account using spaces like gyms or cafeterias for learning at this time and think that that's something that maybe we would explore further in the future. I would note that as we anticipate adding spaces to the core instruction learning environment, we also need to add staff. So just thinking about the impact of that. It assumes that desks and furniture will face the same direction. Again, assuming that this could look different in every classroom. And that transitions will

075be eliminated or limited. So the more we have students transition, including at the secondary levels where they transition for every period or every block. that exposes more students to different things. Again, we may choose to continue with that transition, just impacts how our capacity might be. So if we can go to the next slide. This is the preliminary math based on those assumptions that we've been able to calculate for each of our individual schools. The first column lists the school facility. Please note that John Adams, I know I get in trouble for this every time, it does include the early childhood center spaces within that number. The second column is the sum of what we're calling a social distance capacity. So that is the 65 square feet per person. We also did an iteration in

076the third column of if we did not want to have more than 10 individuals in any one room at a time because we know that was some of the early guidance that was being distributed and so we did do that analysis as well. The third and fourth columns adjust for secondary capacity if we do continue to transition between every period or block. So you can see that they drop lower. For example, at Francis Hammond The social distance capacity would be 852 students adjusted for their schedule that they have operated on previously. It drops to about 682. So just thinking about that impact. In the sixth column, you have the current capacity. So that's the capacity we typically compare the schools, their enrollment to. The seventh column is the projection, the projection we have for next

077school year. Again, I do not anticipate that the impacts of COVID will leave us with an accurate enrollment projection again this year, but that'll be something we continue to monitor in our enrollment meeting. And then getting into the percentage column, you see how the percent of the projected students that we could fit based on the social distance capacity and then no more than 10 capacity. We have highlighted here George Washington and hoping that we really get two takeaways from this. One being we can acknowledge that how many total students we think we can fit throughout our facilities, which is a little bit above. Erica Carroll O' 50% of our total projection, but that school by school, it looks very different. And so if you think about some of our older, more crowded schools, it'll be

078much more difficult to achieve Erica Carroll O' a 50% capacity. And so thinking about what additional spaces could we use for those facilities and also thinking about how does that impact the model or the schedule that we pursue. So that's all that I have. I will turn it back to you, Sandra. Sandra Llanes- Thanks, Erica. The Human Resources Work Team has been focused on the impact of the workforce plans on our staff. Of course, there's many elements, some that are legally binding, such as like FML and leave, and then other things that we just need to consider on the HR data that we have available. So this chart represents that 65% of our workforce don't reside in Alexandria, and we need to be very sensitive to the lives of our staff and their families. considering

079their commutes, their schedules, child care needs, and the school plans in the communities that they reside in. Again, this is representing residency as reported by our personnel database. As we continue to work this week, we'll look at other data that we've received, including those that have been previously mentioned in the presentation today. Okay, good afternoon everyone. My name is Dr. Alicia Hart. I am the chair of the cross-functional planning team for health and safety, along with my co-chair, Dr. Marcia Jackson. And so you'll see that our core areas include student health, cleaning and maintenance, PPE or personal protective equipment, school nutrition, security, and transportation. Before we get into the next slide, I just want to quickly highlight the diverse membership of our team. We do have expertise from physicians. We have expertise from epidemiologists, we

080have school nurses on our team. We also have a number of our staff and leadership from various areas across the division. So from school nutrition services, transportation, safety and security, as well as instructional leadership and representation. So we have a number of principals on our team, also teachers and representatives from special education. Next slide, please. And so what I wanted to briefly discuss are the seating impacts of social distancing when it comes to our transportation planning. As you can see before you on the screen, our fleet is comprised of various size passenger buses. We have 30 passenger, 53 passenger, 65 passenger, all the way up to 77 passenger buses. You'll see that there is a normal capacity column, which illustrates how many passengers we can typically carry on these buses. If we go to a

081one student per bench approach, you will see how those numbers reduce significantly. And then if we employ a one student per bench alternating approach, those numbers reduce even further. Next slide. And so some of the assumptions that we employed when we were developing our first analysis of the transportation plan really centered around our ridership. So we have 10,000 students that are qualified to ride the bus. However, approximately 65 students actually participate in the ridership. For fleet utilization, we currently have a total of 123 buses in our fleet. If we use all of those buses, it will leave no contingency options in case a bus breaks down or so on and so forth. We can have multiple transportation models and scenarios based on the utilization of our fleet. We currently run 102 routes with two runs,

082and we are anticipating those runs having to increase to three to four. And again, this is our initial analysis. That number will probably change as we continue on the path of planning for reopening. We are also including the assumption that siblings will be allowed to sit together, and we're defining siblings as children that reside in the same household, regardless of their familial relation. And so I thought it was important to illustrate two prime examples of what social distancing on our buses could potentially look like. The first example that you see highlighted with the green dots illustrates the one student per bench approach on a 77 passenger bus. You'll see that students are allowed to sit one per seat. And typically on a 77 passenger bus, we can sit two to three students per seat. So

083you see how that number drastically changes. And then if you go down to the bottom illustration, that is the one student per bench. alternating. So one student on every other row. This, based on industry conversations right now, is the approach that most school divisions are going with because it increases the amount of social distancing on the buses. However, it does further reduce our capacity to be able to transport students using this model. And so here is our first iteration of a general analysis for our transportation capacity. We are providing two scenarios here. The first scenario being if we only utilize 90 of our buses, and the reason why we chose 90 buses is because theoretically we could transport our existing ridership of 6,500 students using 90 buses. If we employed the one per bench model,

084that reduces our ridership to 1934. If we further reduce that to the alternating model, we are now down to 971 students that we could potentially transport on 90 buses. You will see that that is a capacity change of 70% and 85% respectively. If we look at the second scenario, which is to utilize our entire fleet of 123 buses leaving no contingency, we could theoretically transport 2,726 students using the one per bench model or 1,367 students using the alternating model. Again, with the capacity change respectfully of around 70% and 85%. We thought it was important to share this. Again, additional iterations will come as we continue the planning process, but wanting everyone to understand the significant changes in our transportation ability based off of social distancing models. And so I will turn it over to the

085next group. Good afternoon. Hopefully everybody can hear me. My name is Dominic Turner. I head up the financial management cross-functional planning team with an excellent co-facilitator and Mr. Robert Easley, who also heads up the budget subcommittee. I have Mr. Michael Covington heading up payroll, Ms. Deanna McMullen heading up procurement, and Ms. Mariah Ronkel heading up technology for us. As we know, regardless of the model that we choose to go with for reopening, we know that it's going to have to fit within our financial constraints. Fortunately, in ACPS, we have the ability to be flexible with our budget because we know, depending on the model, we're going to have to pivot funds throughout ACPS. If we go with an all tech, all virtual model, we're going to have to pivot funds to assist with technology services.

086If we go with any on-site model, we're going to have to pivot funds to facilities and transportation to assist there. We were fortunate to not have to um code any of our expenditures in fiscal year 2020 to our cares act funding that leaves the total 3.7 million dollars available for use in fiscal year 2021. The deadline for us to submit our application to VDOE is August 1st. And as we said back in the spring, a broad spectrum of qualifying expenses that fit underneath the CARES Act. This month of July, the United States Department of Education just issued an interim final rule on the CARES Act funding, which essentially stated that if a school division were to use the funds to support all schools within the division, the division would have to calculate the equitable services

087to provide to the private schools within its jurisdiction. So for us, the city of Alexandria, in lay people terms, that means that there has to be a set aside of the funds to provide services to private schools within the city of Alexandria. There are several things that we have to go through to complete our application for the Virginia Department of Education. And a part of that is the intent to participate for the qualifying private schools. So that letter has been sent to all those qualifying private schools. They had 14 days to respond. And then we have to have a consultation with those private schools to go over the qualifying expenditures as well as the plan for ACPS. So those meetings are being scheduled. We've gotten back the letters of intent and we'll be moving forward.

088With that said, again, regardless of the model we go with, we know that it has to be within our financial constraints and we know our budget is going to have to be extremely flexible to move funds throughout ACPS. Next slide and I'll turn it over to our next speaker. Good afternoon. I'm Julia Burgos and I want to introduce myself. I'm the new chief of school and community relations, but I am also joined by a wonderful co-chair, Kirk Huffman, who is the executive director of community partnerships and engagement. And I do want to start out by saying that I've been here for a week. And so much of the work that has been done has really been done by that team, starting with Kurt, as well as Helen Floyd, who heads up communications. Family outreach is

089being handled by Tanika Toucan. And then, of course, our FACE team by Krishna Leidman. I wanted to also say that there's plenty of other people that we have on the team. We've actually just added one of our family liaisons and also a parent liaison, which we felt was a really important component to add to our team. I think what's been really wonderful about our team has been the collaboration that we've had in bringing the two departments together and really shows the... the collaborative effort of both teams and the expertise. I've been very fortunate to be able to start with such a big project but also being able to see the expertise of the team and working together. So I've been really excited about that to be able to sort of dig in with them over

090the past week and they've been a great support. So I just wanted to thank them for all of the work that they've done prior to me starting on board. So I'll move on to the next slide, which really kind of outlines where we are this past week, as we will discuss. This survey went out and we've been really focused on that for the past week, making sure that we are outreaching to families and ensuring that we're hearing a great deal from them. So that's going to really help us to shape our plan. And we want to thank everyone for that participation and that we have a couple more days. So we want to make sure that we hear from every single family member in the city of Alexandria. And I'll focus primarily on this slide

091on the plans that we have. Our team has been hard at work planning for community conversations about reopening, which will be taking place over the week of July 20th through July 24th. And we have scheduled a couple during the day, but most of them are in the afternoon at four o'clock. Tentatively, I'll give you the schedule, but we're still confirming with our moderators. And then I will tell you what the... describe to you a little bit about what the conversations are going to look like. So on Monday, we're hoping to host in the afternoon at four o'clock Monday, July 20th with Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority community. We want to work with the Teachers Advisory Council and staff on Tuesday at noon on July 21st. We're hosting a special needs session on Tuesday, July 21st

092at four. And then we're going to host a series of conversations in different languages. So the Arabic speaking community will work with them on Wednesday, July 22nd at 4 p.m. The Spanish speaking community on Thursday on July 23rd at 4 p.m. And then the Amharic speaking community on Friday on July 24th at 4 p.m. And then we'll also be hosting one with the Parent Teacher Advisory Council on Thursday, July 23rd at noon. So I want to reiterate that we're still working to confirm some of the moderators and the participants that will help us to drive the conversations and we'll be sending out more details early on next week. I wanted to sort of describe why we went the route of having community conversations about the reopening. We wanted to make sure that everyone had an

093opportunity to participate in those conversations. And so what they will look like is that we will have a moderator that is a community member to help us drive the conversation. Of course, we'll have our superintendent, Dr. Hutchings, and then we'll have several staff members that are experts and subject matter experts in the areas that we are looking to. to discuss. And so once we have that all firmed up, we will share that. One of the unique pieces about this model is that we would allow people to communicate with us through chat, sending us questions in advance so we're prepared, as well as taking some live questions during the actual conversation. One of the aims of having these conversations is really to sort of look at the survey data that we've already received and have a

094deeper discussion about what are some of the concerns or challenges or some of the things that we need to know, some of those nuanced things that would not necessarily come out in a survey, be able to have a conversation. So this is probably one of the easiest ways for us to be able to engage everyone and hear from everyone and also address some of the questions that are coming up in the community. So we'll be sort of firming up, as I said, those details in the next couple of days. and then we'll be able to share that information with the community. But just to sort of recap, we'll have two of those conversations on July 21st and the 23rd at noon. And then throughout that week of July 20th and 24th, every day at four

095o'clock, we'll have one for different communities. And of course, everyone is invited to participate in any of the ones that they feel that they wanna participate in. But we also wanted to make sure that we were reaching every member of the community. Okay, next slide. This sort of provides an overview of where we have come from and where we are now and where we're going. And so, and what has been really evident is that our community is critical to our success. And so, we had many of the Thorpe partner meetings to sort of fuel this discussion and begin this discussion to get us prepared to this point. Of course, what's driving this is the state guidance that we've received from Virginia. And at this stage, we're at the cross-functional planning teams. And that will drive

096a lot of the conversation that we have during the community conversations, as well as leading us up to the board vote. And so we've been working very hard behind the scenes. And next week, our team, the communications school and communications team, will be working with all of the different teams, sort of spread apart, peppered into different groups, so that we can help shape how some of that conversation. some of that communications and family and community engagement will take place and sort of being sort of at the table while those discussions are being made. So we're really excited about being able to be part of those different groups next week and to lend our support. And lastly, I'm just looking at the month ahead. I know that Dr. Mozingo mentioned this earlier in the very beginning

097of the presentation, but we're definitely in the sprint and next week we'll continue our sprint. And for two, as we finalize plans and getting us all the way up into the board vote, as well as submitting our plans to the state. There's a lot of work ahead of us, but I think I'm excited to be part of this team. There's been a lot of wonderful expertise and very deep thinking about the reopening of school and making sure that we're providing a robust and meaningful experience for our students. And then just looking forward on some of the upcoming deliverables today, you've received updates from all of us chairs. We're going to be doing some deep dive into the survey results as soon as they're completed. Continue to further explore the designs of the hybrid and virtual

098master schedules based on the information that we're receiving. And then of course, as I mentioned, solidifying the plans for the community reopening conversations. Thank you. And I'll turn that over back to Dr. Hutchings or Dr. Mazingo. Hey, Madam Chair, we just want to open the floor for any questions that board members may have in regards to the information. I know it's a lot of information that we're sharing with you, as we have to keep in mind, this is a lot of work. So it is always going to be a lot of information next week. I think it's going to be more so focused on the schedules and what potential schedules will look like. So we're going to spend a lot of time with CEO next week, but we want to open the floor for any

099questions that board members have. Okay, we have questions. I see lots of hands. We'll start with Dr. Reeve. Hi everyone. Sorry, I'm in West Virginia where the Wi-Fi is not great, so I am calling you on my phone from the car, but thank you so much for that presentation. I thought it was really great. I really appreciate the methodical approach that we're taking and the responsive approach as well with the sprints, and just really kudos to everyone for the teamwork in this presentation. It was really great to hear from all of the chairs of the various committees, and I just had two questions. The first was about the survey that went out this week. I apologize if I missed this in the presentation, but we've received feedback from people who really wish that the traditional

100model was included as an option. I understand that. it's the least likely. However, it seems that it might be helpful to understand the interest level just in terms of managing expectations if that, you know, does prove to be completely unfeasible. So I wanted to get some feedback on why that option was not included in the survey. And then the second question had to do with a guiding principle around you know, building trust and allowing creative ideas for reopening. I was really pleased to see that as one of the values. And I just wanted to understand how you all are thinking outside the box. I know. One of our speakers today during the public comment, the public hearing, she made a lot of great suggestions about partnering with different organizations within the community. You know, something

101I've been thinking about just reflecting on all of the options that I've been hearing is the fact that we have, you know, elementary students, you know, I do not do very well in a virtual model. Secondary students, generally, it can be. more developmentally appropriate for them. They are more capable of being self-directed. So, you know, thinking about something like, could we use our secondary schools to spread out our elementary students so that they could go in person full-time in a socially distanced model? So just if you could speak to how the team is really thinking outside the box, because I think from an outsider perspective, it seems that all of the school divisions are kind of just locally and perhaps... you know, nationally coming to the same model of this hybrid option with, you know,

102making fully virtual learning available. But it seems like everyone's coming to that one conclusion. And so if you can just talk about ways you're thinking outside the box, that'd be great. So I'll have Mr. Page talk a little bit about the survey piece, just to answer your second question. I think it is important for us when we're talking about innovation is looking at how is it even operational or feasible to even do the hybrid approach? So we're taking a very deep dive into logistically, does that work for transportation? Logistically, does that work for the staffing if we're going to have some sort of hybrid approach? So that we're not just doing what everybody else is doing. We're doing what is going to best serve the Alexandria City Public Schools community. Because there's so many external

103and internal factors that has an impact on whichever option we go with. And unfortunately, we also are going to have to be able to pivot if there is a situation where there's outbreak or there's an uptick in numbers. or any situation that may possibly occur to just our unforeseen circumstances. So what we're doing that's unique is we're making sure that when we're looking at a hybrid approach or looking at the actual 100% virtual, we are looking at the feasibility of... of each of those options to even see if it's possible. Because the concept might sound great to everybody and everybody wants it. And then we get into a situation where we don't have the staffing to make it happen. Or we don't have the way to get kids to and from school in a safe

104manner to make that happen. So those are some of the things we're doing. Mr. Page can talk a little bit about the question on the survey or the questions not including all students returning back to school. Sure. So just to, we want to be as transparent with our community and public as possible throughout this process. And I think as illuminated in the slides that we went through today when considering the social distancing guidelines and all guidelines from the current federal, state, and local levels around how to do this safely. The option of having all students back at schools full time is simply not feasible if we are to adhere to those safety guidelines. So we did not want to put an option in a survey that we knew based off of our planning factors, as

105well as based off of current federal, state, and local guidelines would not be feasible while ensuring as best we can the safety of our students and staff. Next up, I have Ms. Gentry. Good afternoon, everyone. And again, thank you so much. I think it's wonderful for everyone to see just how many staff have to come together across all the different areas in order to think about this. This really is, you know, this is fundamentally rethinking the way that we're. that we're providing our core service of educating children. And I, you know, it's, it's, it's a huge undertaking and I appreciate all the thoughtfulness. And I understand there's a lot that's still being worked out. I had one kind of clarifying question related to the portion that Mr. Turner was talking about. I just want to

106understand the portion related to the, the, the three point. million CARES funding. And based on what you were saying, it sounds like there's a portion of that 3.7 million that might ultimately go to some of the private schools in the city of Alexandria. And I was just wondering if you could just kind of give us a timeline of when we're going to know that and when we're going to know what that amount will be. because I can only imagine that that will significantly impact all of the other planning that everyone else is doing. Sure. So the deadline to return the letters of intent to participate forms was today. So hopefully by the end of today, we will have all of the letters of intent to participate. Then next week, we are scheduling the consultations with

107the private schools to be able to go over what the use of CARES Act funding can be used for, ACPS's plan. Just a reminder in the spring, the superintendent said our broad focus areas would be distance learning, meal distribution, facilities. And the fourth one is slipping my mind right now. Meal distribution, distance learning, facilities. I can't remember the fourth one off the top of my head right now, but those were the four broad areas that ACPS would be focusing the CARES Act funding on. Once we have the consults with the private schools, we would then be able to put together the application for VDOE, and that will define the set aside that we have to keep for the private schools. So the formula is essentially based on the per people. So the enrollment that we

108have versus the enrollment in each one of the private schools. And that's total enrollment in the private schools, not just the Title I eligible enrollment in the private schools. So we should know August 1st, again, is the deadline. So we'll know the proportion that we have to set aside for private schools when we submit the application August 1st. Okay, I'm sorry. And one more clarification. So we had our four items, including things like meal distribution. Is it that they would also, if they're going to use the funds, they would have to use it under the same broad categories or not necessarily? Yes, we want them to use the funding in the same areas that we are because, again, it's the equitable services. So we are using our money on cleaning. We'll provide the equitable services

109and cleaning. We would like them to use it in the same areas that we are. Ultimately, that's going to be the discussion that we have at the consultations with the private schools come this next week. to be able to go over that plan, outline that plan. Ultimately, we want to steer away from equipment purchases because any equipment purchases are technically owned by ACPS and we would have to inventory and account for those every year. And if they wanted to dispose of any of that inventory, that would have to come through us. So the money never actually leaves ACPS. They would be submitting their invoices to to pay for these services. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay. Next step I have Mr. Thank you, Chair Anderson. And I just want to echo everyone's gratitude to

110the team. Such robust presentation and so many just complex pieces that we're trying to fit together here. And so just wanted to shout out the team for all their great and hard work thus far. So my questions are sort of twofold. One is, I just want to preface by saying... including the drum I continue to beat, which is that, you know, I think during this pandemic, we really must reconceptualize schools as a service, not a place and really focus on that. And so to me, I think it's really important that. we're not only thinking about the service as a service for students and families, but also as a service for the teachers. You know, we heard a couple of the teachers make passionate remarks today about how, you know, their health could be impacted by

111this. And I know that that's where we're entering this discussion, but I think that's going to be critically important and sort of feeds into my first question, which is about the prototypes that we were told about in the beginning. And I guess I'd just like to have a little bit of a better understanding of what that deliverable is going to look like. Because obviously at some point, the board's going to be presenting certain options in terms of what we're going to do as a division. And as Dr. Hutchings has said, it's really important that we preserve flexibility, you know, through both the initial planning and frankly, even once the school year begins. And so I just kind of want to have a better understanding of how we're presenting those prototypes, how we're centering, you know,

112the impacts on both students and teachers, like pros and cons types of things in that analysis. And then also how we're conceptualizing those prototypes so that we can maybe think about ways to combine them or do things in different ways because it's going to be really important to understand how these different models might fit for different families, which So that's sort of one question. And so I'll put that to the side. But the second question sort of relates to the data piece. And, you know, we... We've done this survey recently to sort of gauge what people's interests are in terms of what school option or model might be preferred. Obviously, it's going to be very difficult to get every person responding to that data. So I want to know what we're going to do to

113make sure that we've really gotten all of the input we can from all families in terms of what their preferences are. once the survey is completed and once we see that maybe we've only gotten, you know, n percent response rate. And then the second question, which is sort of related, is we just heard a teacher speak to us about how even in the summer school we had 40 kids enrolled, but only 23 were up. And I continue to be worried that we may not be reaching all of the kids technologically and the summer months are a valuable time to like shore up that data as well in terms of, you know, making sure that all of our kids have access. So I'd love to maybe someone answer the first question first about the prototypes, but

114then second, just folks answer. how we're going to make sure we get as much of that data as we can, especially from an equity standpoint, to make sure we're reaching all our kids. Yes. Okay, so... Noted question, Mr. Suarez. But I'm going to have two people actually answer that. I'm going to first have Semma Reingold talk about the actual modules that we're going to be sharing with you all. And then we'll have Kirk Huffman talk to you about some of the community engagement that's occurring. Sure. Thank you for this opportunity. So when it comes to prototypes, this is a term that is typically used in software development. So it is not something that is typically used across districts. So a prototype is an example, and it is a somewhat quickly put together example that we

115can use to demonstrate what it might feel like to be in school next year. And so what we will do as part of the planning teams over the next few weeks is create prototypes for the different schedules. And this will help to uncover all of the aspects around meals and transportation and transition between classrooms and a lot of the details that the different chairs and representatives explained today. It'll help pull those together and make them feel a lot more like an actual student. teacher, staff member, or parent, family member is going through that schedule. So the prototypes over the next week, and we can actually present this to you next week, the prototypes, the different sections of it will be customized with the leaders, with the chairs here. And the prototypes will likely be in

116the format of a PowerPoint presentation where it has a demonstration of what is a day in the life for a student. what are the different considerations the student's going to be going through, and what are the recommendations for all those different what we're calling modules of school nutrition, of entering and exiting the building, movement between classrooms, and different policies and procedures that will be addressed. More to come on that. And what I can also put together are some example prototypes that we've worked with other districts and other divisions on. So you can start to get a look and feel as to what type of information will be presented in that. Hi, good afternoon, everybody. In response to community engagement, let me back up a bit and just let you all know that if you weren't

117aware, our office and our parent liaisons and our division-wide language-specific parent liaisons are continuing throughout the month of July to man all our hotlines, all our email questions that come to them. phone calls and are offering support for any question that comes in from our community. They're on every day. They're on from Tuesday to Fridays, answering many questions in terms of everything from summer. summer opportunities for students to any kind of question and connecting them to the right resources. So just so you know, that's still going on in a very high manner. They're even going to help us with making sure that parents know about the survey, those types of things. And the great thing about it is. We're managing that so that they can pivot as quickly as possible to the latest messaging and

118getting that out through our very hard to reach families. We know that was important and because the parent liaisons and the vision-wide parent liaisons have such strong relationships with those families, we know that many families go to them as a trusted resource for information. So that's happening and we have continued data and reflection on that data. in terms of the impact that they're playing. In terms of the upcoming community engagement about reopening of schools, as Dr. Burgos had said, The week of the 20th, we're setting up multiple conversations, community conversations with our different stakeholders in terms of everything from Aminharic families to Arabic families to Spanish-speaking families to our PTAC families that are involved with PTAC and just understand that avenue and pathway to engagement to our special needs. And what we're doing is we're

119setting up those chats in a consistent way through the week of the 20th, where before the chats occur, there will be opportunities for those parents and those stakeholders to ask questions. And then we'll look at those questions that come in before the chat. and find are there patterns and questions? What do we want to make sure that we address during the chat that Dr. Hutchings and probably another staff member will be part of those chats along with a moderator that has a real trusted relationship with that group. So if it's ARHA, for example, we're going to go to the director of ARHA that does their programming for students and families, and we're going to let them moderate that with us. We want to have a real community connection with these chats so that we're, again,

120that we're really doing trusted relationship type information with these groups. And that'll happen the week of the 20th. We're also going to have consistency in those so that there's clarity and information. You know, as you, as we all know, our office's overall goal is to sponge up the information, ask some questions about that information, make sure that it's, we can get it out to all our stakeholders in a clear and consistent way. So that'll be happening over on the week on the 20th. But again, it doesn't just stop there with our group, obviously, and communications working together collaboratively. We're doing everything we can to keep communication, starting with our hardest to reach families, really dedicating intentional means to how do we do that in multiple ways. And that's what's happening over these, it's actually since

121March, but we continue our work throughout the summer, of course. Thank you. Okay, next up, I have Ms. Lorber. So those who are today also said, I was so impressed. Ms. Loeber, is there a way to make it, you're not coming across very clearly. Can you maybe get rid of the video and does that make it better or no? Oh, let's see. Let's try that. Now it's working. Now it's working. Okay. Really? Trying. Yes. Yes. You were not working before. Oh, interrupt. It's coming and going. I think it's not really. Should I go to someone else and come back to you? Okay. Let's go on and I'll come back to Ms. Lorber because she might need to get rid of her video to get a better, a clearer connection. Next is Ms. Thornton. Thank you,

122Madam Chair. And thank you so much to all the cross-functional planning teams. It's just truly impressive, the undertaking that you all are doing right now. So it's much appreciated. I do want to go back to Dr. Reif's initial question about how we are looking at the... hybrid model and whether or not it can include some 100% in-person learning for some of our students. I did want to clarify that as part of the hybrid model, are we considering certain grades being 100% in-person? Or are we considering this hybrid model for all grades equally attending school in the same manner? And the reason why I think that's an important clarification is that there has been some guidance that many people have been kind of sending us, whether it's from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and we've heard

123some things from a national level, from the administration as well, about why it's important for all students to have, you know, some in-person experiences and to see to their social and emotional needs. It's particularly important for our younger learners. So I just wanted to get clarification on whether or not this hybrid model can include 100% in-person learning for some grades and possibly not others. So in regards to the hybrid question, those are some of the discussions that our team will be having next week as we're looking through the different types or forms of schedules. We have to look at multiple implications for all of the different types of models. So having all elementary school students in and having our middle school and high school students at home, you know, consistent. If you look at our

124data, you'll see that most of our kids who are not engaged were at the secondary level online and virtually. So there's just a number of factors that we're going to have to look at. Our team will be considering multiple types of scenarios to determine what is going to be the best fit for ACPS. And that's some of the reasons why when we ask the question. about the hybrid approach, why you have selected the hybrid approach, it gives us an idea of just what some of the thinking behind or reasoning behind that selection to see if it is even feasible for our families. But yes, we will be looking at multiple scenarios. that could also include having elementary students in schools, but that has not been presented to the table because our planning team will not

125be looking at scheduling until next week. Okay, Ms. Lorber, let's try you again and see if we can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you, but you're kind of going in and out. So let's try, let's try though. All right, I'm gonna get to the mode. It's still going in and out. Yeah, it's still going in and out. At least for me. I'm in the phone. Go to the next person and I'll charge my phone. Got it. Got it. Okay. Next we have Miss Nolan. Thank you, Chair Anderson. Again, we have to continue thanking the staff and every single individual that spoke today. I mean, it's just really inspiring. I think we are all witnessing the collective best of ACPS, and we are so fortunate to have each and every individual

126that spoke today sharing what their feedback is and the process they're going through to be ones that are their leadership sharing with our children. So thank you so much. I mean, I think it also bears repeating that. The emphasis is also what a true crisis this is. I mean, the questions and the logistics are absolutely unfathomable and daunting. So I know that we as a school division are laser focused on the reopening of falls. And I appreciate that given the. an imaginable task at hand. So my question is, first, I just have a two-parter in terms of the work that's being done with the groups. Number one is, just for the sake of the community, Dr. Hutchings, do you mind sharing with us how did this 100-member group get recruited and how did that evolve

127just so that the community is aware? And then the second is, how are we continuing to offer feedback? Are the community members, is it the survey? Is it the, I know you have a series of where folks, is that the main, I just think it'd be great to hear publicly how it came about, how people were recruited, and then also like the feedback loops that people are receiving to continue feeding information to these groups of individuals while we're still making decisions. So I'll start with the conversation about how people were recruited, and then I'm going to ask for Dr. Mozingo to kind of take it home with that. Initially, some of the characteristics we were looking for for individuals who were part of the planning team were people who had an area of expertise in

128each of the five categories. So some form of expertise, whether they were a staff member, whether it was a parent, because we have some parents who are happen to be doctors and who happen to be nurses and part of the medical field, things of that nature. And then we also wanted to make sure that we had our stakeholder groups identified, such as, you know, our staff member group, a parent group, a community member group, a student group, just making sure that we have multiple perspectives and diverse perspectives around the table. We also were looking for specific characteristics of people that were able to look outside of the box, right? We did not want someone focused solely on how things were because we're not going back to how it was. So we need people who are

129able to really think about really the unforeseen circumstances and trying to develop something that doesn't exist today. So that requires a really open mind and that were some of the characteristics that we were looking at. Dr. Mozingo, if you can go into more details around how our chairs developed their actual team member list over the past several weeks and how that came about. I certainly will do that. Thank you so much. So one of the things we also did, I just think, let me just step back just a second. Early on, when you read all of these reports that were by several commissions and other groups, it was first stated that every system must have across, kind of every system must have perspectives from different groups involved in this decision. And like Dr. Hutchins indicated,

130we knew early on. we need to look at every element of the school system. So the teams represent every aspect of the school system, as well as parents in the community. So that was the first decision. In terms of ways, so what the chairs have done, an invitation was developed. So right, we prepared an invitation. They gave a lot of background information to those that could be invited, including information about them. thought partners, including information about some of the goals, some of the meetings. And so the chairs actually also sent invitations to various individuals. Also, we have, we are working with the Teacher Advisory Council. We just had a conversation with them around identifying teachers, as he indicated, with those characteristics. Teachers are volunteering. And really, regardless of the number. we're looking at those people

131and sending them to the various committees to be able to get an invitation and participate. The other ways, lastly, for people to be involved, obviously, is through the FAQs. We're getting lots and lots and lots of questions, and I know that communications is responding. The survey was another way for input, larger input, and what Ms. Burgos just mentioned, that was another example of ways to get community input. And also we have individuals are emailing us directly, whether it's coming from the community or board members, anyone that interviewed, I mean, excuse me, emails us. We're looking at those individuals and trying and making a decision and then sharing those individuals with the different. with the different chairs. Now, remember, we also wanted to try to make sure we keep the groups a certain size. So what

132is also happening now, we're creating like sub teams. We have the core teams, we have the sub teams, and then other groups are being formed that can address other areas. So I hope that answers. We pretty much are saying yes and giving people an opportunity to participate based upon those characteristics. And in addition to what Dr. Mazingo has mentioned, with our community conversations. They are going to be open to the community, even though it's targeted groups that we're looking at, it's open to all of our community to be engaged. And we are recording all of our sessions and posting them on our ACPS at home website. We're strongly encouraging for our community members to stay, you know, in tune and involved with that because that allows the community to see firsthand some of the conversations

133and things that are happening behind the scenes, you know, to get to some of the pre. presentations that we're sharing out with you all, but we're strongly encouraging our community to be engaged in the community conversations. We appreciate the fact that the board is also opening up these public comments opportunities because we really want to get the word out that public comments allows for people to speak. I mean, even today with some of the feedback, I know I was taking notes about, you know, some of those things. I'm sure my team members were as well because that's meaningful input that, you know, can help us make the best plan possible. Thank you. So my two-part question was, one, just to understand the framing of how this came about. Then my second question with the actual

134work of the group, are they, it's almost like, I imagine, like a war gaming room where they're looking through all the different scenarios. And I really appreciate Ms. Reingold's sharing with us the prototypes. I'm assuming that we're not only thinking about... worst case scenarios, but also a variety of situations that could occur. And so I'm just wondering, what is the communication, as you noted, Dr. Hutchings, we're likely going to have to unfortunately go through perhaps a few. different scenarios during without the school year. So what is there like a flow chart or what's the communication going to be to parents so that they can really walk through easily what the levels of decisions were made, what to do in a worst case scenario. If this happens, then we go to that. I'm just curious about

135what. the thinking behind that and then the communicating to parents so that they understand all the different scenarios that are going to pop up during the year. So when we're introducing the plan to the board, we also will be sharing contingency plans, you know, and some of our contingency plans might not be anything that we've created right now because we don't know what the situation may, you know, what situation may unfold in the future. But really some of our contingent. contingency plans fall back to what we had to do in regards to concept, not necessarily the same way of delivery, but what we had to do on March 13th. And that was going to 100% virtual. I mean, that's always going to be, no matter what school division we're in, the ultimate contingency plan is

136if things spike, things shut down again. we're going to go back to that virtual learning. What we have to prepare for and what we want to be able to engage the board and the community in is what virtual learning is going to look like. Because either option, whether it's hybrid or 100%, virtual learning is going to be involved. So we're going to have to provide the necessary professional learning to ensure we don't have some of those same hiccups that we had in the spring. We're going to also have to determine what does this virtual learning experience look like now from the lessons learned. But to answer your question, Ms. Nolan, we will have a contingency plan for whatever plan we share with the board. on August 7th, the final plan. And most likely our contingency,

137when all else fails, is going to be back to 100% virtual for all of our students and our staff, similar to what we had to do in March through June, but refined and not the exact same way it was done in March through June, but with some of the lessons that we learned from that. So making it a lot more robust. Okay, Miss Lorber, are you there? We're going to try it again. And then if not, maybe if you can hear me, then you can email the question to me and I can do it. But let's see. Are you there? Yeah. I'm going to text you. Okay. Okay, you're going to text me the question, I think. That was in and out. Okay. Okay, got it. Okay. All right. I don't have it yet, but

138I will be on the lookout for it. And I'm going to go to Ms. Alderton in the meantime. Okay, thank you, Chair Anderson. And again, thank you to the team. You know, just like Ms. Nolan, I think we can't even sort of restate how huge of a lift this is. One of the things that I've been grappling with Sort of wraps around to some comments made by Ms. Lindsay earlier in the public comment, and then also a notion set forth by Mr. Suarez. And, you know, it's coming from this as an educator and as a teacher, school is a place, but education is an experience. And so, you know. One of the things I'm struggling with in the discussion is the simple notion that in-person school is better when in-person school will not be like

139in-person school under normal circumstances. And so, you know, that really sort of has gotten me around to, you know, maybe part of this process is about figuring out what our real priority is. And so, you know, I'll explain a little bit. And then see if you guys have any comments. But, you know, I say that because, for example, we'll be asking teachers to teach in ways, I think, in both circumstances, but particularly in the in-person hybrid model that we've told them are not effective for years now. So a socially distanced environment kind of goes against some of the components that we know promote high quality instruction. you know, if kids are all facing forward in rows, you know, most of what we're looking at is lecturing, right? Lecturing kids in rows, you know, group work,

140the removal of haptics as a form of communication, you know, reading body language, you know, including facial expressions, which is 70, you know, 75% of communication is nonverbal. It's, you know, like I said, it's body language. It's how we use our bodies. So, you know, you have a masked teacher. The thoughts that go through my head around that, you know, I really struggle with. And also the amount of additional training that will be required because now we're looking at, you know, in an in-person model, we're looking at. training on how to use the PPE, you know, that really would need to be an extensive component of the PD required. So what I'm getting at is I'm wondering if it's helpful to frame the discussion on what the true purpose is of coming back to in-person

141learning. And I, you know, I don't, I'm not at a point where I really have an opinion on this, but I'm just sort of thinking, you know, if we can frame what we're trying to do, maybe that might help. me or help us make decisions a little better. You know, for example, if it's for the convenience of a place to stay, which may be a safe place for kids to stay, which may be a valid need, and that's what it has to be. But I have a hard time asserting that it's for the education that they will receive because of the environment under these protocols. So the, you know, the execution of the learning and the learning experience also matters. So I guess what I'm getting at is through all these discussions, is there going

142to be like a look at instruction and what it will look like and how effective it can be under this socially distanced model? Because that I get all the physical stuff, right? We got to be safe. We got to be healthy. But that doesn't necessarily lend itself to high quality instruction. So it's such a deep conversation that I think has to be also brought into the mix. Yes. You know, Ms. Alderson, I think you bring up some really good points. And when I started off, I had talked about our opportunities, our challenges, and the uncertainties. And I think this is one of our challenges, but it's also an opportunity because we haven't always done delivery of instruction well, you know, across the country anyway, right? We haven't always had a way to teach all kids

143and meet every child where he or she or they are. And I think it's important. for us to provide professional learning on, well, what does this look like with our new normal? Because all of our practices and all of our professional learning thus far has been geared towards having a full class of students. all in a room, able to use manipulatives and share them and be in groups. You know, we got away from the roles and we were putting people together. So they were actually closer in a lot of our structures, which it's going to change, you know, so we are going to have to provide some professional learning on our new normal. What makes this very complicated is that as we define what instruction should begin to look like, the external factors is some

144families. whose kids also need the instruction we've set up, may not be able to come into that environment, right? For whatever reason, right? The staff member who is able to deliver that instruction now may not be able to come into that environment. And they might have started there and then it can't be there. And it could be at any given moment. That is what makes it so complicated because it's like we always have the risk of somebody getting sick, right? That's just, that's a part of life it used to be. Now with this COVID-19, it's a sickness that spreads that leads to death. It's not a cold. It's not, you know, a situation where you're going to be out for a day and you'll be back and everybody's like, hey, how are you doing? That

145type of thing. It's a stigma that comes along with this now. The moment somebody's tested positive. And if they make that information aware to others, people become skeptical about being in their presence. You know, it's the fear that happens when one person in a classroom gets test positive and we have to do something where people in that classroom now have to go into a quarantine for 14 days, you know, and that class no longer is there. I mean, so. The point I'm making to you is indeed you are spot on in us providing the professional learning about how to deliver instruction in this structure. And I'm also including the complications that comes with the external factors once we define what we want to do. There are also external factors that makes this situation even more

146complicated, you know, for all of us. So your point is well taken. And this information that our SEAL team, our social, emotional, and academic learning team will be grappling with over the next couple of weeks. Okay, I have a question from Miss Lorber because we're having technical difficulties. And it's ACPS has families speaking a total of 100 different languages, but it's only been our practice and we've only talked about really reaching out to the top three. She says there's also sort of a next level of eight languages that we know about. Is there a way to have reaching out to the others? maybe have a meeting where they have their own interpreters for the eight languages. So that, because, you know, maybe the ones that are 10% or more, I don't know. So she's seeing

147really more than the top three. She's kind of curious about what we're going to do for those language speakers. So, Ms. Lorber, that's actually a really good question. And some of the things that we are already doing is using our language line. You know, it's so important. And there are multiple languages through our language line. And it's pretty much the language of your choice. And that's a way for families to communicate with the school division and for us to communicate with families. Where we may not have an actual translator on staff, we do have our language line that assists us with defining, you know, what language we need to use. And that's another reason why when we do our enrollment for all of our students that we ask the language spoken at home because that

148gives us an idea of what service or additional service we're going to need to provide those families. So we will continue to use our language line, our language services. I don't know if Dr. Nickerson is on this call because I can't see everybody that's on here on this Zoom. But Dr. Nickerson, if there's anything that I've left out, can you please add or confirm? They inform me and I keep all that in my head, right? But sometimes I can get some things wrong. So I want to make sure that I got this accurate. Dr. Nickerson, she must not be on. But Dr. Mozingo, I'm sure you can confirm that as well. She just texted me. She is not on. But what we can do is follow up with some ways in which we are going

149to provide more support in that area. I'm texting her back and forth now, Dr. Hutchins. Okay, well, that's great. We'll get more information. But thanks, Ms. Lorber, for that question. I'm glad we could get it out there. Next, we have Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair Anderson. Last but not least. All right. I guess for the ninth time, ninth school board member to thank the committee leads, committee chairs, everyone involved with this process. We know it's not easy and we just greatly appreciate your hard work and dedication to making this happen. So thank you. I have a question and a comment. And the first one is for Mr. Page. Really impressive numbers on our survey. And there you are. Hi, Mr. Page. Very impressive numbers on our survey that's come in. And, you know, it's just

150important that we try and reach all of our parents and particularly those with multiple kids. And I did hear you say earlier in your comments that parents could take the survey multiple times. Now, with that being said, are they able to do that using the same computer or does it block them out from taking it? I've had multiple questions on this come in over the past week. So just wanted to clarify that. Yeah, no, they can absolutely use the same computer and IP address in responding to the survey with each student in mind. It will not block them or restrict their access in any way. OK, wonderful. Thank you. And then I just wanted to. to thank Ms. Burgos, Mr. Huffman. The robust community engagement plan is absolutely wonderful. It's so important that we do

151reach out to those community, the leaders in those communities and working with those. parents and families that we do make sure we touch them that you know get in touch with them with many creative ways so I really appreciate the plan I look forward to hearing more about how we're actually going to get the word out with the kids you know not being in school with us I know it's going to be a little bit different but I would like to hear ways that we're going to push the word out about those community engagement meetings but thank you so much. for the work that's going into that and trying to get, you know, the diverse groups involved in what we're doing. Thanks, and I can just add that one of the things that we're planning

152as part of our communications plan, we've been sort of working together over the past week and we have a meeting today as well to sort of solidify those plans moving further in terms of what they have to formatting and what they look like, but one of the things that we're planning to do is engage our bilingual family liaisons. and Tanika have been working on a plan with Kurt on how we're going to do some of that targeted outreach to ensure that we have those families. One of the reasons we wanted to engage our community partners is so they can help us be sort of those ambassadors and make sure that all those communities are coming and participating in those conversations. And so we're hearing from everyone and we know that they'll be sort of invested

153in that since they'll be part of the conversation. So that was sort of one of the... one of the reasons that we wanted to include them in addition to be able to have that trusted voice helping us to deliver that information and answer the questions that are pertinent in the community. And to add to that we're also Doing some community outreach in different ways, kind of connecting to already like Facebook groups. I know there's some Spanish speaking groups like Casa Chirilacua, those great areas that have Facebook kind of community meetings. And Krishna speaking at those and kind of giving them some information. Arha, same way. I know our link clubs where Shanna Sampson runs our link clubs, our after school. We're still connecting with those families. So we're doing it through those channels also. So

154as Julia said and with these additional ways, we have a pretty good plan in place to really find multiple ways to do this outreach. Great, thanks. And actually, I didn't ask any questions yet. And I also want to thank everybody. It's such a complex puzzle to solve. I wanted to just circle back a little bit about what Ms. Thornton and Dr. Reif said about spaces and thinking about them in unusual ways. It also came up at the City Council School Board Subcommittee meeting, and I had someone email me about it yesterday. And that is spaces that aren't. even currently in our inventory, but that we might be able to expand to. And I'm wondering if there's anything to report about that. At this time, we do not have anything to report about that. And Dr.

155Hart, I don't know if you have, I know our team is still having discussions around that, but I don't think we have anything to report at this moment. No, we do not have anything to report at this moment. The other thing that I had that I hadn't asked about that came became apparent to me through a community member was thinking about what is our relationship with sort of our after school, the rec and the campagna, if we can in some way expand like the time that kids, if we're having a hybrid model, that they would be able to spend more time during the day. Yes, so we are having constant communications with our PCA as well as with the Campania Center and just having discussions around, you know, how do we manage the space? Because

156right now where we are, we're in a place where it's going to be limited, especially if we get back to a hybrid approach, because there's still now kids, additional kids coming and staff coming into school. you know, on those days and trying to meet those social distancing and social gathering guidelines just makes it even more challenging and limiting in regards to how many people are able to be in spaces at particular times. But yes, we are in constant contact with RPCA as well as with the Campania Center to try to coordinate and work collaboratively on whether it's after school, before school, or just child care services and offerings that we may be able to provide. So those are discussions that we are still having as well. Great. Thank you. So I think everyone's had a

157question and I don't see, I see a hand raised, but I think it might be left over. Ms. Green's hand is still up, but I think. I think maybe. Yes, that's leftover to answer. My apologies. That's okay. I just wanted to make sure before you said there are no hands up. There was one. All right. So we look forward to the update next week. I know I am. We're all waiting anxiously to see what great work comes out of it. So we will move on now to our next item, which is the draft budget calendar and Dr. Hutchings. So at this time, I would like to turn things over to our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Turner. Yes, good afternoon again. So the draft budget calendar was asked to be presented to the school board last

158fall. We wanted to be able to get a draft. to each of you all before the start of the new academic school year. We worked with the board clerk, deputy board clerk, and director of policy, as well as Ms. Erica Gullick to be able to put together the dates for next year. We would definitely like to get any feedback from the school boards on any dates that may need to be changed. And once we have that feedback, we'll be able to put together The final draft was submission in September and adoption in September. I see that. Is there any? Oh, yeah, sorry. I see we have a hand. We have Ms. Thornton. Yeah, Ms. Thornton has a question. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Turner, were you finishing a comment? No, I was just going to

159turn it back over to the chair. Thank you to you both. I just had a quick question. So if we look at the calendar for February 16th and February 18th. I believe on the 16th, that's when the city manager is estimated to present the city's fiscal year 2020-2022 budget or proposed budget for the city. And two days later, on the 18th, the school board adopts our combined funds budget. And I know this has been brought up in kind of previous iterations of the budget season, but I really do think that those two dates should be reversed somehow. I think oftentimes what happens is the board is still in the process of determining our proposed budget. Sometimes it's at the last minute that we come up with our final determinations. And oftentimes I think what happens

160is the city presents a budget that appears to include everything the school board wanted. But it's hard to say that that's the case when we haven't officially voted on a budget yet. So I just think kind of procedurally, it would make more sense for us to have fully adopted and voted on our budget before the city manager is presenting something which supposedly includes the school board's budget. estimates for the budget for the coming year. So I know, I mean, I've been told in the past that it will be difficult to kind of shift those dates for administrative reasons, but I did want to bring it up again and just to see if it is something that's in the realm of possibility that's going around. So one of my cliche quotes that I say during our

161financial management cross-functional team is we can do anything, we just can't do everything. So we can definitely move that forward if we want the other school board date that it could be approved on would be February 4th, but doing that would cut out many of your work sessions and compress any of the responses to questions. to use the public hearing to determine what your questions are going to be to staff and so forth. So if you move to February 4th, it would just cut out many of these things. Right now, we're not in a position to answer those questions, but I think if that is something. would like to discuss that we open up for a discussion meeting in September before this budget is counter-adopted just so that we can clearly know what outcome we're

162seeking, why, what are the implications so that you all can make an informed decision around the change of that. And that would need to be some collaboration with the city as well, just to, you know, on their end to have some discussion around, you know, does that impact anything? I don't know that answer right this second. So I would want to be able to. conversation with the city manager and the rationale for the timing that it currently is and how it has been doesn't mean because it's been that way, we have to always keep it that way, you know, but at least for us to know specifically why we would like to change it and what implications, if there are any, that could occur. I would be open to those conversations. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings.

163Next up, I have Ms. Gentry. Thank you. So wasn't what I was going to ask, but I would just say that I think we have heard this enough over the years. And I think in terms of the timing of those two moments, the release of the city manager's budget and the school board adoption, and I think it's one of those things where even if You know, even if there wasn't actually a whole lot of daylight between what the school board was was planning to adopt and what the city manager was was was planning to propose. I think it does. I think it does. It can lead to an optics or perception issue. And I do think that that I think I think it would be worth exploring it, or at least. And to other points,

164it might be that we have that discussion and then we realize that the trade-offs don't work. But I think we've heard this enough times. There isn't a whole lot of movement that we can't necessarily systematically rethink every single aspect of the budget calendar, but it does seem that there's enough interest in giving this one area a hard look that it's worth using. you know, saying that now and seeing if we can use some of the time between now and September to look at it. And then whatever we decide will have been a sort of robust investigation and discussion about it. I actually just wanted to point out again, this is sort of my trend for this meeting today. You know, I was just asking earlier the questions about the CARES Act. It's just kind of

165a reminder to everyone that regardless of what kind of budget calendar we're looking at now, Guarantee this will be a weird budget year. We don't know what additional funding might be coming our way or what additional expenses might have to be moved or adjusted. So I think all of us are just going to have to be very mindful that this is going to be. not a normal budget year because of the extreme situation that we're dealing with with the pandemic. So just kind of a reminder to all of us about that. Okay, I don't see any other questions, but we can certainly look. I mean, I think that would be a reworking of the whole thing if we look at that. So that seems like it's going to take some time. And so we'll wait

166to hear what comes of that. And so thank you very much, Mr. Turner. All right. Next up, we have the the policy about renaming that's on the agenda. And so that's one of the things that the school board is responsible for is policy. And we have joining us today, our policy director, Ms. Abruzzese to talk to us about our policy and the regulation. Thank you, Chair Anderson. Good afternoon, everyone. The chair did ask me to speak this afternoon to let the board and our community know that on June 15th, the board did receive a request with a supporting petition to rename T.C. Williams High School. The proposed new name was Tubman Chavez High School, and the chair then subsequently asked me to review the controlling policy and regulation. for this issue. That policy and regulation

167that's FF and FF-R, non-sponsored naming and renaming of schools and school division facilities. What this policy and this regulation do are they authorize the board to name or rename any building, facility, room, field, grounds, or any portions of a school division facility. Specifically, the regulation in Section 3 addresses renaming of existing schools. This section discusses that the board at its discretion may consider requests to rename an existing school and lays out that that process begins with receipt of a request and supporting petition as has happened here. Upon receipt of such a request, it directs the board, it directs that the board may vote to pursue such a request to rename an existing school. Now, a vote to pursue a request is not a vote to rescind the current name, and such a vote does not

168commit the board to any future renaming. It is simply a vote that directs the superintendent to initiate a robust public engagement process, which is then outlined in Section 1 of the regulation. We're going to just walk you through a few of these steps just to give the community a sense of what would be involved here. So it would begin with the superintendent developing a timetable and list of tasks that would be required for the renaming. The timetable would allow for adequate time for the completion of all tasks. And the timetable would determine the time periods for submission of community nominations for new names and also for community voting, staff tabulation and compilation of the results. It also sets out the plan for community meetings, public hearings, surveys, polls. There's broad latitude in what ACPS platforms

169may be used to secure nominations, etc. At that point, after the review of community nominations, the superintendent would formulate his recommendations for the board's consideration and submit his report to the board. The board, of course, would then follow regular order upon receipt of that recommendation and report, meaning that the board would receive it at one meeting for information. There would be a public hearing subsequent to that. And afterwards, there would be a second regular board meeting where the board could potentially take action on the superintendent's recommendations. Now, the regulation does also direct that any final board action be completed in time to purchase new signage, equipment, materials, anything requiring a name. So that is a short walk through the policy and the regulation. And I believe that the board would like to have some discussion

170on the matter at this point. Anybody questions? I don't have anybody's hand up. So I don't know if they have questions about the policy. Oh, Dr. E. Dr. E, there we are. All right. Well, thank you for that overview, Mr. Abbruzzese. And I just, I know that we also have a motion that's been shared publicly that's on the table. And I just wanted to take an opportunity to thank everyone who signed the petition and who has written to the school board. We had many public comments, as you mentioned, Chair Anderson, that are available for anybody to publicly view if they'd like, if you go to the agenda today. And one of the things that has been demonstrated to me over the past month since this issue came up is that, you know, many people in

171our community, even alumni of T.C. Williams High School, current students and parents really do not know who T.C. Williams was. And I think because of the movie, Remember the Titans, some folks might even associate that name with desegregation efforts. But as we all know. Superintendent T.C. Williams was in fact somebody who supported segregation. And I think that really runs counter to our values that we're just that we have today that were exemplified by our resolution condemning systemic racism, as well as our new strategic plan, which places racial equity at the center. And so I. You know, I think it's long overdue that the school board considers renaming our one high school. So I do support pursuing this request. And I, you know, but I also support a process that fully engages our community so that

172we can hear from all members of our community who have something to say about this. I think that's the right thing to do in a democratic society. And I. I know the motion is not on the table yet, but I wanted to ask, within the motion, it recommends a process for the superintendent to come back with a presentation and recommendations in the spring of 2021. And I know that was, Dr. Hutchings, that was your recommendation based on the timeframe that you felt was feasible for you and your team. And I was just wondering if you could speak to why you think it would take that amount of time in order to come back with that presentation. Absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Reif. So there are a number of factors that are going to be important for

173us to consider if we are publicly engaging as well as collecting the necessary data for the board to make an informed decision. And what I wanted us to be able to do is to have a time frame due to the uncertainties for the fall and not knowing exactly. We are planning to open September 8th, but it's hard for us to foresee if that's all going to happen as planned. We didn't expect to have a pandemic on March 13th. We expect to be back three weeks after that, but that didn't occur. So I'm trying to prevent us from making a commitment that because of unforeseen circumstances, we're not able to really. live up to that expectation. What I can say is that during that time period, our goal is that once we know that our students

174are safe and our students are in our schools and we have our plans and they're solidified, that we are willing to go full speed ahead to get that engagement piece. and to get our community involved and to educate them and to provide the board with the necessary data that they're going to need or that you all are going to need to make an informed decision. So we hope that we don't take until the end of spring, you know, to do that. That is really not the expectation, but we wanted to give ourselves just some wiggle room because we don't know specifically what's going to happen in the fall. And that's going to drive how this whole you know, situation pans out. Another piece that we have to keep in mind, not knowing how the fall

175will look, is that, you know, is this public engagement going to have to be a virtual thing? Is it going to be something that's in person? You know, are we going to have all of our staff in the office? Are we still going to be doing it virtually? You know, there's so many factors that come into play that right now are uncertain that it's hard to give a definitive date. But our goal is to try to move this process as quickly as possible. And on August 27th, I'll be able to lay out more specifics in regards to what that timeline could and should look like, just to give the community an understanding of how long this will take us to do. And I think one key factor for us is making sure, something I've been

176sharing with a number of people that I've met with, you know, just recently, is just making sure that our students are also educated and engaged about the situation and understand what the implications of this means, you know, and us hearing them out. I think the one thing that we should be willing to do is to allow for our young people, which I believe are the next generation of leaders for all of us. to have a voice in this matter and to help us so that when we're talking through our decision or when the board is talking through their final decision on what needs to happen, that they're able to use specific language from people or our students who are being impacted by the situation. And I think that I just want to get this plug

177in while I have the mic is, you know, You all said it well, you know, in the draft motion, we are calling Thomas Chambers Williams exactly who he is and for who he is. And we're letting the community know what he stands for. And I think the more we educate people, we will see how does that impact you and your learning? How does that impact you if you're now walking into a school knowing that this person did not want black and white children together learning, you know, and it was over his dead body for that to happen, you know? So I think that this is going to be a very robust process that will allow the board not just to get the feedback from the community, but also to understand all of the factors that

178changing a name, you know, brings such as finances and changes of, you know, our gym and our stadium, which our project is currently in place now. All of those factors just need to be worked through so that you all can be extremely methodical as well as well informed when you're making your decision. Okay, next I have Ms. Thornton. Thanks, Chair Anderson. And thank you, Ms. Abbruzzese, too, for the clarification, just walking us through our policy. And thanks to all the community members that have taken time to submit this petition and get this discussion going. I did want to acknowledge, because I think it's important to do so, the people that brought this issue up before in the past. And for whatever reason, you know, the discussion did not occur as robustly as maybe it could

179have at those times. So I just do want to take a moment to acknowledge Mr. Glenn Hopkins and the Hopkins House, who first brought this up in the early 90s. Mr. Howard Woodson, the former president of the Alexandria NAACP, who really kind of tried to get this conversation going as our high school was being rebuilt in 2004 and 2005. And I understand completely that current events have made these efforts, which have always been existing in Alexandria, really come to the forefront. And we brought in... diverse segments from all over our in our community who are now really engaged in this conversation. But I do think it's important just to acknowledge that you know folks of color have been talking about this for a while and I'm glad the moment is now making this a conversation

180that we can all have as a community. And so I guess looking at the petition at hand, I completely agree with Dr. Rape that now is a time for us to definitely look at pursuing this name change, especially in light of our recently passed resolution condemning racism and upholding equity, and in light of our new strategic plan, which places racial equity at the heart of our work. I did want to ask for some clarification in line two about the timeframe that's in the motion that we've posted, which hasn't been officially brought up yet, but we all have seen it. I guess this is a question for Ms. Abruzzese. So the motion as it currently stands, which lists a timeframe of receiving the recommendations in the spring of 2021. Does that as written Ms. Avrasazi leave

181room or flexibility for the board to request those recommendations sooner if it's determined that the COVID reopening plans is not as all in competency and time and consuming as we anticipated that it will be in the fall? Is there room or flexibility as the language is currently written for us to request those recommendations sooner? Thank you for your question. The motion currently has the wording that you see on the screen now that the superintendent will present his report to the board in the spring of 2021. The spring, that language was used because it is flexible. I do not anticipate that it would come to the board sooner than that if we have the full and robust public engagement process. Of course, The board absolutely has the authority to request it earlier. You could also recommend

182a language change in the motion that says school board by the spring of 2021 instead of in the spring of 2021. But the language I believe was, you know, everyone weighed in to provide flexibility. Next I have Ms. Nolan. Thank you, Chair Anderson. And thank you so much, Ms. Thornton, for your opening remarks. I think there is there does need to be homage paid for, and particularly our African American community that has fought for this for so long. So really, I just want to say thank you to that. I first I just want to appreciate all the folks within the community who are really passionate about changing the name of segregationist. That's a signal to me that we have allies in this work that wanted to help ACPS dismantle racism. And secondly, I also just

183wanted to share as a board member that I, for one, and no one I've spoken to is defending the actions of this gentleman. In fact, we just have to also acknowledge he did not act alone and that we really need to think about our community and what it was like back then that he was able to do this work. of segregation and that we still obviously have room as a community to dismantle the racism that our very youth in ACPS experience on a daily basis. So again, I just wanted to share the good news is that the majority of us as neighbors are on the same page regarding the type of community we want to leave in. We're on the same team here and that the school board. I believe shares this vision, which is

184why we recently approved the strategic plan that after over a year of planning, it has racial equality as its singular driving force. And because we're committed to that being our lens, it's why the board right now is supporting the process that's in place to accept a petition and to request now that we proceed forward with the superintendent and his team to return to the board in August with the analysis of how to proceed. All of us on the board obviously have spoken to a large and diverse group of people and with regards to this issue and I really appreciate that the majority overwhelming majority of those that I've spoken to, including those that signed the petition support this process. I do think it has to be noted that there was a small subgroup who wants

185to demand the change of the vote today. And so I just wanted to publicly share my feedback to this group that wrote in why it's my hope that as a board member, the process plays out. Number one, I just hope that the community can appreciate that this board is committed to a transparent process and is not willing to make such a monumental decision during a time when they're traditionally on recess, where there'd be no transparency, no announcement or community engagement. So I have to believe. that this community in Alexandria that really supports and wants democracy embodies those principles and wants that to be this to be a transparent elected governing board. I also just think we need to provide this superintendent and school division the headspace to be laser focused right now on how to

186open schools in the fall. I mean, I can't imagine. I have to imagine actually that every single person that is sitting here listening to this entire school board meeting understands the monumental circumstances we have before us and the fact that the National Department of Education is making every single school division design. This playbook, I find it appalling because this is indeed a crisis that the safety of students and staff has to be paramount, as well as how to academically remediate students. Literally every moment this summer has got to be devoted to what are we going to do to academically remediate students who've been out? without instruction for six months, especially given that our school system is 63% free and reduced lunch rate. And I have to believe with Alexandria being such a small tight-knit community

187that we really do understand the crisis our low-income children are experiencing right now. It's overwhelming. So I just want to emphasize what a crisis we're in and that we have to allow the division and the superintendent, Dr. Hutchings, every single minute devoted over the next month so that we can submit our plan that is due August 10th to the state. I also just want to say, trust me, I really wish I could look at the community in the eye and say that a name change should absolutely be our top priority. Sign me up for that gig after this presentation. I wish that that could be our focus right now. It would be amazing. And it wouldn't be, it would mean we're past the crisis that we're currently in. So while for the sake of a

188transparent governing board and the need to make students' academic remediation and safety our top concern, I believe in this process and I'm grateful for it. But I just want to share that I do really take it seriously every single person that signed their name to this petition and I see you as an ally in this work, as there's much action that needs to be done so I really hope we can come together in community and think about some things like, can we all, I thought I really appreciate that earlier speaker that talked about volunteers like can we get every single person to volunteer and mentor a kid. Can we all be donating to the scholarship fund this year given that how many kids are going to have to have financial means it might not be

189able to go to college. Can we support volunteer Alexandria. with food distribution given the enormous need we have. I mean, there was one call I listened into to Fairfax County. In one week, what Fairfax County Public Schools distributed with food, we, Alexandria, a much smaller subset, we gave the same amount of food. So there's significant need in our community. And then also, you know, we could think about giving a kid a job given the amount of families in need right now. Again, I don't want to, I don't want the people that have been advocating or writing in to feel that I hope they feel good about this process moving forward. But we are going to need your energy and allyship if kids in our community are going to have a fighting chance to have the

190education they deserve. So given the amount of interest this topic has, I just wanted to say a few words. So thank you so much, Chair Anderson, for the opportunity. Thank you. Next up, we have Ms. Alderton. Thank you, Madam Chair. And so I really just want to, I mean, I've heard every single board member so far has, you know, echoed a lot of my thinking. So I really appreciate the opportunity to work with such thoughtful colleagues. Because, you know, these are just not easy times. At the very least, these are just not easy times. So, you know, I appreciate Ms. Reese's reiteration of the fact that like, you know, We, I think everybody on this board and on this panel definitely understands and knows and does not probably does not want, I'm going to say

191does not want the name of a segregationist or a racist on a building, on public property. For me as a member of an elected body, I do value democracy. I believe that I must always adhere to a democratic process. And, you know, My thoughts and my opinion alone can't drive my governing decisions. So I really appreciate the opportunity to open this up as a robust process that allows as many constituents as possible to chime in because whether we want it to be or not, it is a controversial issue. And so we need to be hearing from constituents who don't look like us, who don't speak. our native language, you don't think like we do. And I would venture to say if we fail to allow that type of due process, you might be concerned as

192a community as Ms. Nolan said. And the other thing that I want to highlight is something that Dr. Hutchings highlighted, which is the students. You know me, you hear me speak, I'm always talking about the kids. They should be at the center of all of our decision making. And I think the change that we seek, what I'm hearing from the petitions is really like this call around our culture as a country. But I believe the change that we seek for our country will only be sustained by allowing the emergence of our children's voices to be heard and teaching them all, all of the steps that it takes to save this world. As a social studies teacher, I believe, I really believe that the condition that we're in right now, which I think most of us,

193especially those who submitted the petition, The world as we know it today, it really is a major reflection of our failure to teach both the necessity and the power of civic duty in our schools. So here lies a major opportunity to involve our students at TC. This type of change needs to have student voices at the center. The process needs to be an educational moment for them on transformative change. But we have to teach our students that sustainable transformation takes thoughtful work. It takes research. It takes data collection and analysis from which we draw final conclusions. So I appreciate this process really allowing our kids to jump in and learn something real here. And, you know, finally, I think my final things are about the value of education and some of the, you know, I've

194seen a lot of the feedback, received a lot of the comments. You know, my professional experience on what it takes to be an educational institution that has the vision and the tools required to affect transformative change really leads me to one core value. And that's, you know, we have to focus on the students in their full educational experience, the full educational experience. So for me, this whole process is not as simple as ripping down a statue. It is, it's, you know, education is a much more complex art and dance. And. And so, you know, I think I can definitely assure you that. So, you know, trying to do all of this in the midst of a pandemic is it really isn't the equivalent of walking while chewing gum. I would tell you that most educators

195are they already know how to walk and chew gum right now. They're walking while chewing gum and juggling 10 balls at the same time on a tight rope that is. There's no end in sight. So I appreciate this process also as is really important to give staff some time to work really double duty here to address the needs of our students in our population. We have a 60% farm rate. So, and I, you know, I'd like to share too, I've been doing some work with folks at Hutton Mifflin. who are pretty much experts on intervention. And one of the things that they've been sharing as they've done their research is that in this particular climate that we're in right now with the pandemic, whatever your secondary and tertiary tiers are of support that you currently

196are required for your students, you can expect that number to increase by 25%. So that's an additional 25% of our students in either tier two or tier three categories who are going to need additional support and intervention. And that's not a heavy lift. I mean, that is, it's an extremely heavy lift. So, you know, as we tackle. all of these racial inequities. And I think the pandemic has really brought about and highlighted how vast these racial inequities are. I think we need to do all of this thoughtfully. We need to do it in a thoughtful fashion and we've got to do it at the same time, one next to each other. So again, I appreciate everybody's input and comments. And I think... As a team, as your school board, you know, I think we're ready.

197But again, in regards to, I know there were questions about the motion, so I just wanted to share my thinking around all of this. And I appreciate the time. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Ms. Gentry. Thank you, and thank you for letting me go later. So I can start off by saying I just want to, you know, echo the wonderful remarks that all my previous colleagues did. Really, just to reemphasize, you know, please know that the board's adoption of this resolution, this is our commitment to doing this process. I understand. the members of the community that sometimes get frustrated with the pace of change. Just please know that... This is a reality of democracy. It's a reality of working with, of being an elected body that actually does value public engagement and

198transparency in our process. And that is part of what happens. And it's also that on top of all of that, which we would be advocating for in normal circumstances, we are dealing with a truly unprecedented set of circumstances with this global pandemic and those of you that are perhaps watching this meeting I hope you were joining for the first part of the meeting so you could just hear just how much work everyone is having to do right now in order to do that. You know, we've heard from some people that have, you know, pointed out, again, that are maybe frustrated with the rate of change, you know, that have pointed out, you know, some of the faster action of the removal of statues or monuments that are connected with, you know, honoring the Confederacy or

199people that were involved with the Confederacy. And the only thing I would say about that is that. You know, when we think about the statues that are coming down, while that might have felt fast at the end, even that was part of a longer process. There was an entire discussion that was happening at local levels going all the way back to the protests in Charlottesville with frustration about how there wasn't local authority to be able to make decisions about these kinds of removal of these kinds of things. led to a process going through the state, the Virginia state legislature, which led to legislation being passed, which led to the ability for statues like that to come down. If local communities were interested and willing for it to happen. So even that process, which has now

200been able to happen faster and those statues are gone, still had to go through a process. And we will have to go through a process. And ultimately, in a lot of ways, we're dealing with a different thing. A statue is a static object that is on a plot of land. And one... could make a decision to remove the statue and then that static plot of land, there is nothing time sensitive or urgent about deciding what goes there instead. This decision will have to have multiple, multiple changes. It's surprising how much goes into a naming. And one of the things that we're going to learn through this process is the community and the school board are all going to learn about all of the things that are involved in that. so that we would be ready

201to fully implement if such a change would happen. So I hope that all of the people that took the time to sign the petition, that took the time to have written to us, I hope that you maintain your passion and your enthusiasm as we continue through this process. And I also hope that you maintain that you... contribute that passion and enthusiasm not only to this issue of the renaming, but as many of my colleagues have alluded to, when we adopted the strategic plan with the focus of racial equity, we did that because we knew that we had multiple, multiple areas throughout our division that needed focus in terms of racial equity. Anything around the renaming of the school would really only be one of many things that we would need to do. And we're going

202to need community support and dedication for many, many other endeavors that we want to tackle in the next five years as part of our strategic plan. So thank you very much. Okay, next. Last but not least, again, Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair Anderson. I'm not last. No, not last. I appreciate that. All good, all good. I, too, want to say I'm so very thankful to work on a board that supports doing the right things for our students and our school system. From our stance on racism to our strategic plan based on racial equity. Very, very, we have great respect for you all. I am going to be a little bit different on this one. I do think that this process can be done faster. If it's truly what we want to do and what we

203believe in, it can be done faster. And I am all for getting our students back to school, making that happen as soon as possible, with whatever plan that we decide to take. But from that point on, we should be focused on something very as important as this and taking the segregationist name off of our only public high school. This has been in works for many years. We're trying to get this done. And I'm thankful for those who did sign the petition that are advocating for this now. It does need to happen and it needs to happen sooner than later. Thanks. Okay. I have Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Anderson, and thank you to all my colleagues for their really thorough and thoughtful comments on this very important issue. You know, I wanted to start from

204the place of, you know, as folks were saying, T.C. Williams, you know, he... is despicable. And what he did was, is really a scar on this community, you know, and really entrenched the sort of, not sort of, but the de jure and de facto segregation that still persists in Alexandria City Public Schools to this day. But I also want to emphasize that, as a couple of my colleagues referenced, you know, he didn't do it alone, and this board was responsible. for a lot of that conduct. You know, I look back at the opinion I referenced a couple of meetings ago, the Jones versus City of Alexandria, where the school board with T.C. Williams, you know, is in the opinion or is advocating in front of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, pushing for

205maintaining longstanding segregation policies that this school division had. And so I just say that because, you know. There's that history. There is the history that I want to acknowledge from both Mr. Woodson and Mr. Hopkins, the efforts they made to, you know, raise this issue, which, you know, candidly, we're not taking all that seriously. And we're not, you know, considered even in a meaningful way, you know, by the community at that time. I think maybe around that time, people were focused on the Disney fairy tale that had been created years earlier or a few years earlier with Remember the Titans or the community perhaps wasn't ready to have that conversation in a really serious manner yet. But I just wanna say unequivocally that... This board's actions, at least in the time that I've been on

206this board, unequivocally demonstrate a commitment to racial equity and justice. And, you know, everything we've done in the last four board meetings, you know, has exemplified that. Or the last three board meetings, at least, has exemplified that. First, with the passing of the... resolution against systemic racism, which, you know, is merely symbolic for the most part, but is an important initial step, especially in this climate of racial justice with what's happened with George Floyd and everything else that's going on in our world right now. Then in the next meeting right after that, we passed the strategic plan, which is the first, in my understanding, and no one's corrected me on this, so I think it's true, the first strategic plan in the history of the Alexandria City Public Schools that has called out racial inequity

207by name and has said that that is the lens through which this board will make every single decision. going forward and and so that's critical and then in in this meeting um you know we we're doing two things that i think are are consistent with with that one is and i wanted to just take it a point to give a shout out to them is is we just appointed two excellent student representatives um one of whom is is ms lorraine johnson who um i i still remember her poignant and critical remarks that she made during the high school project vote, you know, really unpacking some of the systemic racism that continues to exist at TC Williams and also Ms. Sanchez Villafara. both of whom are part of the Minority Student Achievement Network, both of whom

208were featured in an article in Theogony talking about how there are AP classes at TC that might only have one student of color and talk about the disparate graduation rate between Black, Hispanic, and White students and also the diplomas they receive in the division. So I'm excited for them, you know, to, you know, continue to unpack the legacy of the school division and frankly hold this school board accountable you know for for some of these real issues um you know and then this transitions us to this motion that's been put on the table or that will be put on the table which um you know is is really saying to the community we take this seriously we condemn this name of a racist. We're saying he is a racist. We are saying that he did

209things that were morally reprehensible. He perpetuated massive resistance as someone who's been an anti-segregation advocate for many, many years and an integration advocate for many, many years. Like that's something we need to be calling out. And I want to just acknowledge a couple of the concerns that have been expressed by the community from this motion and address them. One is the trauma. You know, I want to validate the fact that there are people in our community and particularly students of color who, you know, continue to experience trauma as a result of this name being on the building. And that is a problem. And that's something we need to talk about in the fall. What I will say, though, that is in taking this step, what I hope the community will appreciate is that. The board

210is saying with one voice, or will say with one voice, that this name is morally wrong. This is a morally reprehensible situation that we have the name on this school. And so the school board is telling that to every student. And so the board is not taking a position of endorsing this name. It is taking a position of condemning this name and saying, we need to have this critical discussion, which again, has never been had before. I ask folks to consider that. The other thing that I just want to say is that and acknowledge is I understand that some might see this motion, you know, some have suggested that this motion is an effort to delay. I hope that the comments from my colleagues and also from Dr. Hutchings have allayed that concern because, you

211know, we are in the midst of a pandemic. I think there are, you know, this board would in a non-pandemic world prefer to, you know, finish this process sooner. I'm confident that that's the case. And, you know, so there is really no effort on the part of this school board to be dilatory. And we very much want to address this issue head on and have the thoughtful. process that does comply with our responsibilities as a public body, you know, promotes transparency, and also, frankly, complies with legal requirements. There have been litigations in other, you know, towns around these processes and making sure they're followed faithfully. And as a lawyer, that's something that I think is important as well. So I just wanted to, you know, thank my colleagues. I did want to acknowledge, though, the

212community and how some members of the community feel about this, because there has been trauma. There has been, I think, a distrust in this board. And I think that's why there's the, you know, we got to do it now. We got to make sure we complete the process with, you know, very quickly. But, you know, I laid out some of the things this board has been doing, and some of my colleagues did that far better than I did as well. Just to underscore that. this board is committed to racial justice. This board is going to look through everything through the lens of racial equity. And I'm confident that this process will be executed with fidelity in a way that's faithful to our community and faithful to the request that's been made via the petition. So

213those are my comments. I appreciate everyone taking a moment to listen. Thanks so much. Thank you. We have our new rep, Ms. Sanchez-Fiafara, with a comment. So I just wanted to say that, you know, I agree with all the board members and, you know, saying that we need to focus on a student voice because I feel like that's the center of you know, us being able to make, you know, adequate decisions and intentional decision for the, you know, the education of students. And so I just wanted to say, I've always focused on the importance of addressing racial inequity and just the importance of being culturally responsive and understanding that, you know, We live in, well, in Alexandria, the TC community, school community. It's such a diversified community with students of multifaceted identities. So I feel

214like it's always important, you know, to center the conversation on student voice because we are the ones that are going to school and we're the ones that are experiencing these biases, these microaggressions. the racism firsthand. And so, you know, I just wanted to say that, you know, there are many logistical factors that go into that. And there are many. you know, conversations that need to be held before a decision is made. But certainly, I feel like this is the appropriate time to begin the study process. And like Ms. Board Member Green was saying, Jacinta Green was saying, was that this conversation has been in the making for a very long time. And we've had these conversations in the past. So this is, I feel like it's only fitting to do so right now, knowing that

215we've seen the events transpiring throughout the country and you know going back to the whole point of like student voice and social media is one of those resources where students can amplify their voices and honestly it's it's just amazing to see how students have been able to internalize all everything that's been happening throughout the country and been able to to utilize their voice and their platform to educate others and really get the message out that you know racism the the negative implications of racism and you know the five faces of oppression and just educating others on the importance of being culturally responsive and and internalizing these behaviors and so with that said um i feel like a very good place start especially you know focusing on the student voice is going Unfortunately, I think we

216have a technological problem, but it was very nice to hear from our new rep the first day. I feel good about our selection, for sure. I want to hear more. Yeah. You're back. You're back. Sorry. Yeah, I just wanted to finish off with saying it's great that we've started to have these intentional discussions because, you know, I feel like it's, I always say it's everyone has a... everyone has a role in the work of anti-racism. So that's kind of just what I wanted to end off with. Thank you. Thank you. That was very nice. Look forward to seeing you again next week then. For sure. Thank you so much. I think Dr. Hutchings wants to add something now. I mean, I'm talking after Ashley. I mean, this is what it is all about. You know,

217this is the next generation. And I'm just, I'm inspired to see our young people at this time have their voices heard, especially for the simple fact that, I mean, your voice is power. And when you learn that at a young age, You're unstoppable. You are literally unstoppable out in this world. So Ashley, just keep that up. And this is what it is about. You know, I've heard all of you. I want to just say I'm honored to be able to be a part of a team and to have a board to call it is what it is. Thomas Chambliss Williams is in segregation. He's a racist. He did not want black and white students under the same roof. And we're saying it. And we were saying this prior to this race issue that's happening all

218across our country, or the racial conversation that's happening across our country. We were providing this information last year. We were talking about... Parker Gray's 100th anniversary is coming up in September. We were talking about making sure that we had a strategic plan that had racial equity at the heart of our work and making sure that equity for all was the center of what we do. And this was prior to everybody else was sending petitions and everything. And I just want to thank Ms. Thornton for acknowledging Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Woodson. And all of those that we're just not aware of. I tried to find what were the other petitions out there too, because I know they're probably more. And I think it is so important for us to know that we stand on shoulders of

219people like Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Woodson who were turned away. They didn't even get a chance to talk before the board of why this was not important or the board to engage in a discussion on why this was not, you know, a good name for our high school. So I just commend the board for even taking it this far. And, you know, the goal is to take it to the finish line. And I love the fact that we are also talking about the democratic and the democracy that's so important. I know Ms. Alderton spoke to this and others. I just can't remember everybody who spoke to it. And the simple fact that it is so important for us to also engage our community. There's always two sides to a story. It doesn't mean that stops

220or deters what we're doing. But if we're not taking that oath and saying we're going to hear out our community. and hear from all of our stakeholders. And mind you, I have been listening to people all the time. No matter what they're saying out of their mouths, I got to spend my time to listen to them. You know, that is what our community deserves. And that's just following and respecting, you know, our policy and what we stand for. So I wanted to say that I do want to go back to what Ms. Abruzzese had mentioned earlier. And, you know, I think it is important for us, if the board is willing, to change the motion so that it says by the spring. of 2021, because that does allow us to acknowledge there is a sense

221of urgency and it will allow us to, you know, from our teens perspective to one, let's ensure that we get our kids back in school and let's get it, you know, reopening, make sure that everybody's safe. And then two, to make sure that with this public engagement and us. you know, gathering data that we're doing it with fidelity as Mr. Suarez said, that we're making sure it's a robust engagement, but that we're doing it as soon and as quick as possible, right? So that gives us that flexibility if we're saying bye, that it doesn't require us to wait until the spring, you know, it's going to allow us to do it as soon as possible. So I just think that that to me will be a really good. addition or revision if the board is

222open and willing to do that madam chair yes thank you um I think at this point, I think everybody who's wanted to speak has been able to speak. And one thing I will say, we don't usually post motions like this. Well, we don't usually post motions, period. But this is a lengthy one. And because we're doing things virtually, it would have been hard. I wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding with the public reading of it. or also even between board members because of its length so that we could be sure that we could all see it. So I think if somebody is wanting to make the motion, they can make it with right away because we haven't made a motion yet. Madam Chair? Yes, Mr. Suarez. Yeah, I'd like to go ahead and

223make the motion. And just before I do so, I'd like to thank our student rep for already proving what I had said before, which is that we will be held accountable for racial equity and particularly from the student voice, which is going to be key to this process. So thank you so much for your remarks. And thank you, Dr. Hutchings, for also... offering the sort of friendly amendment to what's drafted. And just for full disclosure to my colleagues, what I will read will include that change. And for the public, it will include that change. And having heard no objection from my colleagues on that proposed change. So Madam Chair, I make the following motion. In recognition of Juneteenth and to reaffirm that Black Lives Matter, the Alexandria City School Board unanimously approved a resolution condemning

224systemic racism and affirming a commitment to educational equity for all students, families, and staff. The board resolved in that resolution to foster an inclusive educational environment where every student, staff member, parent, and community member is treated with dignity and respect and reaffirmed its commitment to continue fighting for racial justice. On June 26, 2020, the school board adopted the Equity for All 2025 strategic plan, which will guide the school division's work from 2020 through 2025. The plan has a forward-looking vision of, quote, empowering all students to thrive in a diverse and ever-changing world, unquote, and dictates that, quote, racial equity will be at the center of every decision that the school division will make, unquote. The strategic plan references the fact that ACPS resisted desegregation efforts throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and even into the 1970s, well

225after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. The strategic plan acknowledges that modern-day segregation still exists and that the school board's work to eradicate de facto segregation is not yet done. Madam Chair, on June 15, 2020, the school board received a request to rename T.C. Williams High School that was accompanied by 100 signatures of Alexandria residents as required by Regulation FFR. It is well documented that throughout his tenure as superintendent, Thomas Chambliss Williams exhibited racism, fought to maintain segregation in ACPS, and promoted the school division's massive resistance to desegregation efforts. This is inconsistent with the forward-looking vision and values expressed in the Equity for All 2025 strategic plan. The board condemns Thomas Chambliss Williams' past actions to promote segregation and racism within ACPS and agrees that this is an appropriate time

226to examine a name change for Alexandria's only high school. I therefore move pursuant to Section 3B of Regulation FFR that the school board officially consider the request to rename T.C. Williams High School. Accordingly, the school board hereby empowers the superintendent to initiate the public engagement process outlined in Section 1 of the regulation to solicit community feedback and possible nominations for renaming T.C. Williams High School. I further move that at the August 27 work session, the superintendent and school board shall discuss the scope and process involved in a name change. Given the global pandemic and the school reopening planning currently underway, the superintendent shall initiate the public engagement process in the fall of 2020 and present a report with recommendations to the school board by the spring of 2021. Second. Okay, I have Ms. Alderton, seconding

227Mr. Suarez's motion. And we've already had a great deal of discussion, but is there any other discussion? Because if not, I will call for a vote, a roll call vote on it. I'm seeing none. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alterton? Yes. Remy Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Margaret's having some technology issues. Oh, yeah. Margaret texted yes. I think that's okay. The clerk can tell me. She's having communication issues. Michelle Reeve? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay. That's nine to zero that it carries. And thank you, everyone. Great discussion. Great comments. Now we're almost to the end. In my report, I only want to make sure that people are aware of the additional public hearings on the continuity of learning plan. So we have one on Thursday, August 6th at

2287 p.m. and another on Friday, August 7th at 12 p.m. So that is all that I have. Dr. Hutchings? Yes, Madam Chair, I just have one quick update, and it's regarding a welcome to all of our new administrators, as well as central office administrators and leaders. And we just released today, our news release, we were able to, or the board was able to approve some of our final hires, which we're really excited about. So you all can look at that press release that's gone out. I think it's so important for us to remind our community. that I came before the board back in January, actually in December initially, in January it was approved to conduct a reorganization of our central office. And that went into effect July 1, which was last week. And unfortunately, we

229didn't have a board meeting until July 10 to be able to share that information out. But I am so excited to have so many new faces and also some people who have moved into new roles and positions within our school. And this is to help us attain those goals that is in this courageous and bold strategic plan. Like we needed to have that efficiency and that effectiveness and more accountability in streamlining some of those roles and responsibilities to make all this possible. So I'm looking forward to what the future is going to hold. And I just wanted to get that out there to our community. And you'll see the news released today. Super. Thank you. Now there is nothing left other than adjourning. So if somebody would like to move. Madam Chair, I move that

230we adjourn. Second. I heard Ms. Green second Ms. Gentry's motion. And so I'm going to call for a roll call vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Amy Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Oh, yes. Yay, Margaret. Okay. Michelle Reeve. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay, everybody, that's 9-0 to adjourn, and we're adjourned at 3-28. Everybody have a great weekend.