July 17, 2020 Special Call School Board Zoom Meeting

001Welcome everyone to the virtual special called school board meeting for July 17th 2020 and we'll start we're starting at 12.02 p.m. and I'm going to call the parole if you could tell me that you're present when I call your name. Cindy Anderson here. Veronica Nolan. I know she's here. Veronica Nolan. She's frozen. I'll come back to her. Megan Alderton. Present. Ramey Gentry is absent. Jacinta Green? Here. Margaret Lorber? Here. Michelle Reeve? Here. Christopher Suarez? Here. Heather Thornton? Here. And I go back to Veronica. She is here. I'm not sure what you want me to do with that, Ms. Nielsen, because we see that she's here, but she can't. She's frozen. So do I say that we're eight or seven? I'm sure she'll be able to log back in. I think we're eight present, one absent.

002We'll move on. She's going to be able to come back. So now we will start with a moment of silence. Okay, everyone. Now could I have a motion to adopt today's agenda? Madam Chair, I move we adopt the agenda for July 17, 2020. Second. Mr. Suarez seconded Ms. Green's motion to adopt the agenda. Now there is something, and Ms. Nolan was going to play a part in this, but she's having technical difficulties as she's just texted me. To amend the agenda, we have a, and I think you all received it, a supplemental personnel action item that needs to go on the consent calendar. So maybe Ms. Nolan, you're here. I think she has the motion to amend. I apologize. I had technological issues. Okay. So we're at the place of amending the agenda. We first

003need a motion to adopt. Oh, we have that. Yeah, we have. Ms. Green moved and Mr. Suarez seconded. So now this is the place where we have to amend if we're going to amend, I think. Okay. Madam Chair, I move that we add the supplemental personnel actions to the consent calendar. Second. Ms. Dr. Reeve seconds Ms. Nolan's motion to add supplemental personnel actions to the consent calendar on today's agenda. So I will call for a vote on the amendment. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Mimi Gentry is absent. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Werber. Yes. Michelle Reeve. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. So that's eight yes and one absent. So now we have to actually go and vote for the agenda as it has been amended. So we have that. We've

004already had that motion and a second. So I'm now going to just call for the vote for that newly amended agenda. So Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. So that's eight yes and one absent. So now we have, we do have public comment that has been posted to this meeting. We have 10 public comments, I think right now. And so as people should know that you can submit these public comments for any of our meetings ahead of time and that way the public gets to see them as well as the board members but you can also continue to send it to the board an email and all of us plus the superintendent receive that so now we're

005on to the school that the consent calendar if i could get a motion to approve the consent calendar madam chair i move that we approve the consent calendar Second. Okay. And so is there anything to remove from that consent calendar? No one wants to move it. We only added the one thing. So I will call for the vote on the consent calendar. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reeve. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. So that's eight yes and one absent. So now we're going on to the Continuity of Learning Plan 4.0 update. And so I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Madam Chair. And we have a great team on here. We are so excited to share out this

006information with you all. Hold on, I'm trying to get my computer right. To share this information with you all. As you all know, this is unprecedented times. I know people are like, Dr. Hutchings has said that a million times. I know Ms. Green, she reminds me all the time. Dr. Hutchins, how many times you gonna say that word? But it is, right? Like it is just times that nobody would have ever imagined for us. And, you know, as you all are getting emails, I'm receiving emails as well, as we see some of our school divisions kind of showing or implementing. are sharing out their plans for the fall. And, you know, our community is encouraging us to do a number of different things. And, you know, I think it's important for our community to continue

007to have a voice. And I just want to make sure that we, as a team, understand the extreme importance of us analyzing our school division's needs, as well as our school division's data and our school division's feedback and insight and the implications for our decisions. We have to make sure that, you know, when we are proposing to the board on August 7th, the recommendation for our reopening plan, that we have justification in sharing with the board, as well as our community, as to why we want to do this option. I think it's important for all of us to know that keeping the health and safety. of our students and our staff will always be at the forefront of our decision making. And in addition to that, we have to make sure that we're providing guidance

008and we're providing options for our families. And they may have child care needs. They may have special services needs. They may have educational resource needs. Our staff may have professional learning needs, expectations that need to be set for them, and educational resources as well, so that when it's time for us to release our plan, we're able to emphasize these specific areas and to inform our community as well as the board to know that the hundred plus people who are working through this planning process that it is well thought through and that when we propose our plan that it can be implemented with fidelity. Still knowing that there are ever-changing situations that can occur because there's so many uncertainties in regards to our future. But I wanted to start off with that because I just know

009that there's a lot of questions and I can't wait until next week to be able to engage with our community, with our community chats that we'll be talking a little bit about today. And I do want to, you know, thank all of our families and our staff members who completed the survey. just last week. And we're going to be going over that data with you all today as well. So let's get into our essential questions for today. And specifically, we want to just talk about some of the work that has been happening over the past week. I mean, it's only been a week, but there's a lot that has happened between last Friday and this Friday. And we want to specifically touch on some of the master scheduling work. that has occurred. We want to

010share with the board some of our continued conversations that are happening with our community and all the multiple channels of communication for us to get feedback and insight from our families as well as our staff. And then we want to share out our future milestones because, you know, this process is going by really, really fast, right? But we are staying true to the actual sprints that we shared with the board initially on June 26. And we're right on target with all of our milestones thus far. And our goal is to continue in that positive trajectory. These are guiding principles. I think it's always important to just remind the board as well as our community that, you know, we are not haphazardly just making up this plan, that these are specific guiding principles that we're looking

011at with equity being, you know, at the forefront and the voices of all of our community stakeholders, lessons that we've learned, you know, between March and June and making sure that we are making revisions to how we deliver our instruction and valuing community collaboration, you know, is so key. with the city, that's with Campania, that's with RPCA, that's internally with our ACPS internal stakeholders, building that trust and allowing creative ideas for reopening. I just got an email recently from one of our planning team members, and I was like, well, thank you for sharing that. And I'm going to share that with the team because that was a really good point. You know, we have to make sure we're valuing and gaining that trust from all the experts we've asked to be a part of these

012planning teams with us, remembering that we have to be flexible. Right. And not only with the flexibility, we have to also provide that grace and we have to be patient. Right. We are in a situation where everybody is kind of emotional levels are high. And, you know, because it's so uncertain, people want answers today. Right. In order for us to give concrete answers and for us to provide the appropriate guidance so that we're not pushing something out there without having, you know, some answers to very important questions. We have to take our time and be methodical. with this approach. And it is going to require us, you know, just to be a little more patient to make sure that we get this right. We have to be clear, we have to be consistent, and we

013have to frequently communicate with our community. And then finally, we just have to show that everybody has the access to the technology, because that really is the lifeline for any virtual learning that will transpire in the future. So I'm going to turn things over to our chief academic officer to kind of take us through our cross-functional planning teams, and then we're going to go right into our presentation for today. So Dr. Mozingo. Yes, good afternoon and thank you, Dr. Hutchins. And by the way, happy Friday. It's good that it's Friday. I know that we continue to share and make comments about the cross-functional planning teams. And we just wanted to briefly share with the school board as well as the community, just some thinking again about why we chose the cross-functional teams. And also to

014say that we still have new members joining the cross-functional teams. I think early on, we knew that. The diversity of these teams would provide us a various experiences, expertise, and that they would truly critique the ideas that are being presented in the various meetings. At the same time, we also knew that this structure would provide for deeper thinking, particularly with the complexity that's associated with reopening. Additionally, we knew that we would have less isolation by increasing And starting with these teams, it would allow a lot of diversity in terms of perspectives and viewpoints. And also, as he said earlier, this cross-functional team would keep the system and the process moving towards ensuring safety, the wellness of students and staff, as well as what is paramount, delivering high-quality instruction to students, regardless of the instructional model

015or models that might be. recommended to the board later in August. We just want to thank them for their continued dedication and support. Last week, we also shared our outputs. We wanted to just remind everyone again that these are the outputs. These are in process. Again, we are using the guidance from the Virginia Department of Ed. The teams have workbooks have been created and they are really going through and answering lots of questions in these workbooks that where they gave explicit guidance. for different areas, whether it's facilities, whether it's SEAL, whether it's professional learning. Later today, as he indicated, you will learn a little more about the instructional models that have been reviewed and examined. And then eventually we'll come back on the 7th with more ideas in terms of materials. And eventually we're moving

016towards August the 14th, which is the actual report that will be submitted to the VDOE. So at this time, what I'd like to do is turn it over to Natalie Hall, who works with Education Elements, and she's going to take us through the next three slides. Thanks, Dr. Mazingo, and thank you to the board and to the ACPS community for allowing me to join you at this meeting today. As Dr. Mazingo mentioned, I'm going to walk us through the next few slides to share some of the progress that we've made over this past week and in this current sprint, Sprint 2, as well as to highlight some of the deliverables that we're going to start to tackle moving into next week. So this week, we worked really hard on developing more decisions and guidance around

017our master scheduling approach. We've also talked a lot more about what are the implications of various schedule options in terms of capacity, in terms of transportation, staffing, and budget. And moving into next week, we will do a lot more discussions around action planning and building out what we are calling a playbook. And I'll describe what that is in a couple slides. Moving on to our next slide here, we have much to celebrate. coming out of Sprint 2 and coming into Sprint 3. First and foremost, as mentioned last week, we've worked really hard to initiate and work with these cross-functional planning teams. These are made up of stakeholders across the division. We've also worked really hard to review survey data and to really think about what are these data points telling us and how are they

018going to inform our decisions moving forward. As mentioned on the previous slide as well, we've worked really hard to evaluate data to inform what are... our schedule guidance will be moving forward and moving into next week we will start preparing schedule prototypes and playbooks for leaders across the district. Moving on to our next slide here as mentioned here's a little bit more detail into what we mean when we say playbooks versus prototypes. Mr. Suarez in particular we remember last week you had another question about this so wanted to take some time to to dive into this a little bit deeper. So in our cross-functional planning teams, we've done a lot of hard work to review best practices and data coming out of the CDC, coming out of our thought partners, looking through survey data as

019mentioned. And as we start to come up with scheduling guidance, we're thinking about what is feasible for transportation, what is feasible for our budget and for our staffing. And these constraints are going to help us understand which scheduling or which scheduling guidance should we go with moving forward into the fall. That's kind of the what and the how is what we think about when we say playbooks. So playbooks are resources and guidance to help leaders and their admin teams understand based on the decision that we make about the schedule, how do we go about activating, how do we go about moving the work forward around specific focus areas that the cross-functional planning teams are working in? So that's what we're moving into next week. I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to Drs.

020Crawford and Mann to talk a little bit about updates from our cross-functional planning teams. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Ms. Hall, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm very happy to be able to introduce our SEAL teamwork. As Ms. Hall said, our work this week really centered on reviewing the survey results. We worked, we started with each of our groups with a larger meeting so that we ensured that cross-collaboration between the work teams that we'd gotten feedback on the previous week. Each subgroup wanted to make sure that we still had the big picture. So we were able to review much of the operations data as well as the survey data that you'll hear about shortly from Mr. Page. And that supported our work in looking at building the schedules and the guidance and the prototypes. So very excited,

021as I said, to introduce Mr. Page in a second. Dr. Mann will then walk us through the different schedules that we looked at and gained information from a specific, a discrete scheduling group. as well as our two curriculum instructions. We have our professional learning group, our student support services group, and our technology that has continued the conversation of analyzing what our student and staff needs are, and then looking at hybrid versus all virtual. to see what's the distinction. Some of the services may be the same in both of those models, but how will we provide the required services within those three areas? That information then has supported the work that CNI and the scheduling group is doing. very another productive, challenging and hard week for us with challenging discussions with our work groups, our principals,

022and then of course gathering community information. But I think a very, very productive week as you'll see from the accountability and the scheduling slides. So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Page. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Crawford. Good afternoon, everyone. So I just want to start with an overview in terms of the survey data and the design. So these survey data are designed to be just in time data to assist in informing the planning process. So wanting to know from a snapshot in time where our families and where our staff are and their thinking as we point towards the fall school reopening. So with that said, and I could have underlined and put in 62 font the historic participation rates that we saw in the surveys and This truly was a team

023effort as much as I would like to think that I can alone garner almost 12,000 family responses and over 2,000 staff responses, I cannot. So amazing work from the school and community relationships department, as well as our principals, division leaders, and our key community leaders in getting the word out and really pushing folks to respond and lend their voice. to help inform the thinking in the 4.0 planning as we point forward. So with that said, we saw almost 12,000 family survey responses, which included historic participation rates across all groups. With that historic participation rate across all groups, we did see a reduction in underrepresentation within groups, which is a great thing. With that said, still work to be done to fully eliminate underrepresentation within some specific groups. For staff, we saw over 2,000 staff responses,

024which was fantastic. And then also, before getting into results, it's always important to talk about limitations. So one limitation in all survey work is that there can very much be unique needs and attributes of non-respondents. So that is something that is always important to keep in the forefront of our mind as we go through these results. Another critical factor, particularly in regards to the current context of the global pandemic, is that the environment in which we all operate is rapidly changing, and that may also likely influence and change our perceptions very rapidly. So these data do represent a snapshot in time in terms of the information people had when responding to the survey. And also, and I think most importantly, that survey data is only one data source and that to truly inform our decisions

025moving forward, it is the multitude of data sources across quantitative, qualitative. best practices, professional wisdom, etc. that is truly going to lend to the greatest decision making in terms of what is going to be best for Alexandria City Public Schools and our students. And one final point before we push into actual results is data, particularly quantitative data, are most powerful when we allow them to challenge our pre-existing assumptions and beliefs. So looking at these data with open eyes and arms to truly unpack and understand what we're hearing from the almost 12,000 family respondents and over 2,000 staff respondents. So in terms of results, this first slide is speaking to our family preference. We saw across all respondents 60% saying that they currently preferred a hybrid approach with 40% saying that they currently preferred a fully

026virtual approach in terms of the reopening in the fall. We did see some disparities across race ethnic subgroups where we saw almost three quarters of our white families saying a preference towards hybrid with approximately half of our black African-American families and Hispanic Latino families saying that they prefer to hybrid. So some differentiation there. When looking at these results by grade bands, we did see some preference towards a hybrid approach at the primary year. So pre-K through two, we saw 65%. preferring hybrid as well as at our high school grade levels 9 through 12 at 63% with slightly lower rates of a hybrid preference in grades 3 through 8. So shifting from families to staff and asking staff their likelihood to return to on-site work in the fall. We saw 63% of staff saying that they

027were either somewhat likely or very likely to return to on-site work in the fall. We saw the highest likelihood of return to on-site work coming from our support staff. with central based licensed staff and central office staff coming in right around that mean of 63%. When we broke it out across grade level bands to see if there were meaningful differences either in staff who work with pre-K to two versus three to five, six to eight, nine through 12, et cetera, we did not see any large differences across the grade level bands in staff and their likelihood to return in the fall. So understanding both the current thinking and preferences of families as well as the likelihood of staff to return in the fall, we wanted to gain an understanding of what were the key drivers

028in that decision making both for families and for staff. And what really came out here and was crystal clear is both our families and staff are laser focused on health and safety. Both health and safety for students, health and safety for themselves, as well as health and safety for their immediate family, given the nature of the global pandemic. We also saw a high focus, both from families and from staff, on the learning and needs of students. When we began to break these results out, we did see some differentiation in the preferences in terms of driving the decision making, where we saw hybrid approach, families prioritizing learning and social needs, whereas those who were selecting the fully virtual approach overwhelmingly cited their students' physical health and safety as being a critical driver in their decision making.

029Next slide. So then we also wanted to gain a sense of where stakeholders fell in relation to safety measures related to in-person return. So we saw a vast majority of families and staff strongly supporting the various safety measures that we queried within the survey. The one that did pop out in terms of having a lower level of agreement was in particular the students having meals within the classrooms. and staff in terms of what that means and what that would look like. So seeing 64% of staff there. We also did do, you know, we cut these data a lot of different ways. And specifically when looking at mask wearing, we saw roughly equivalent support rates across grade level bands for family and staff ranging from 88 to 95% in support of students and staff wearing masks.

030Then last but not least, I know the board has received information in terms of planning factors as it relates to transportation and social distancing measures and what that means in terms of capacity. So we wanted to take a snapshot or get a sense of where families were in terms of their potential utilization of transportation should we return to a form of in-person instruction. And so we saw 37% of family responses citing that they would. look to utilize ACPS transportation should we come back to in-person instruction. So that can be used as a planning factor moving forward in the next few weeks for our transportation folks as we build out what that means and what is possible there. And with that, I am going to turn it over to Christina Strunk. Thank you, Mr. Page. And

031I want to start off by saying thank you to the board and the ACPS community for inviting us into this process and conversation. I'm going to talk first broadly about the way that we're approaching scheduling, then go into some more details about the considerations that we're bringing forward as we're testing out schedules. Then I'll toss it over to Dr. Mann to talk through the models that we're basing our tests on. So like Ms. Hall said at the beginning, we really want to make sure that we're basing our decisions and our frames on guiding resources from the national, the state, and the division level. So looking across our community, both to our neighbors who are close by, as well as across the United States, to really build ideas on what are emerging best practices. This week

032we really focused on two models, our hybrid model, bringing in some students for in-person learning, as well as a 100% distance learning model. On the next slide. You'll see some more detailed details about where we went with our schedules. So we looked across example schedules and plans from Northern Virginia, DMV, and across the United States to really see what trends were emerging so that we could really be informed by those practices as we're building the frames for our master schedules. We had a series of planning sessions, and what you'll see here is that we're really guided by those guiding principles that Dr. Hutchings presented at the beginning, that we really wanted to make sure that we're bringing in a variety of voices from across the community. So we brought these planning sessions to our overall

033cross-functional planning teams so that we could get really aligned on common language, on the considerations that we're building for our schedules. We included voices from division leaders, which included principals, teachers, and we're going to be including those community conversations moving forward. We also really wanted to make sure that we were informed by the survey data so that we were really building based on what were the drivers for families and staff. Our goal is to create two to three sample schedules with division guidance so that we can really, again, going back to those guiding principles, provide opportunities for flexibility for school leaders while also having really clearly aligned division guidance. So on the next slide. What you'll see are the considerations that we pulled after we looked at the plans that are emerging from neighboring plans,

034as well as what we know is best practice for students and staff. So what we were considering as we were building out those model schedules are what are the days that students are going to be attending? Was it best practice for consecutive days versus alternating days? What would be the benefits and considerations for each? We also really thought about who was attending, what are the ways that we're grouping students to have more or less time in person, and how we can really tailor those to the needs of each school. We also are beginning to think about the synchronous and asynchronous guidance across the division. What do we really want to make sure is true for all students, regardless of which school they're at? We also want to make sure that we're layering in teacher considerations.

035So what are the ways that no matter what the context is, we're building opportunities for communities, for strong relationships, while also prioritizing safety and giving teachers time for planning, regardless of the scenario. So when we pull together our principal groups, we pull together all principals to talk about these design considerations. And we also pulled together cross-functional planning teams. These are some of the trends that we heard from those groups. So it's really important to us that these groups feel that they are listened to, that they are a part of the process, that we're really informed by what is top of mind for each stakeholder group. You'll also see that it's really important that equity stays at the forefront and that we're really clear about how we are guided by the work that's happening around us.

036So as we move forward into testing and pulling out trends from the school leaders who are testing out these schedules, we really want to make sure that we're continuing to build in opportunities for a variety of voices and being really clear about our expectations for the entire ACPS community. So I'm going to toss it over to Dr. Mann to talk through the two schedule frames that we pulled for school leaders to test out over the next few days. Sorry. Thank you, Ms. Strunk. And good afternoon, everyone. As she stated, these are the two models that I'll be going over that a smaller group of principals will be testing. If you're wondering who's testing that for us, that's T.C. Williams, George Washington Middle School, Cora Kelly, and John Adams. And you'll notice here what you've seen

037across the DMV that there's a planning day. for staff and also we've for the test we've gone with an AA so you have the students would have two consecutive days in the building and then they would have two consecutive days at home and flip-flopping if you're in group A or B but what's new here is that we heard loud and clear from our principals and with our cross-functional planning team was that we wanted to see if we could prioritize in-person learning for our special populations. No special populations being our students with disabilities and EL learners. And so right now our principals are working with educational elements and others to test if this is actually possible. So keep in mind that this is not a daily schedule. We don't have a period of time where classes

038are meeting. but can we actually make it work from transportation capacity in the building and what would a schedule as they start to test and use information from Erica Gulick and our transportation department to see if this is feasible. And so some of the emerging questions and barriers, different requirements and the toll on teachers if you have in-person learning five days a week for certain groups. And then also attendance. We're still waiting for this Virginia Department of Education to give us guidance how attendance will be handled. And then just again, as I stated, capacity across all of our buildings. We know we have some buildings that have lots of space, but we know at Lyles Crouch and GW particularly that they have some smaller classrooms. And then also just the demands that would have on

039in-person learning and a hybrid model for our students. And so for a virtual model, again, still a planning day. And then this would be for elementary and secondary, both schedules. So you see blocks or subjects. So this is, again, as they test out, would we have alternating days? Would you have some classes on one day or the other? But just giving the principals a chance to test out what this may look like. And then once we know what will work, we will then develop what would a week look like. Furthermore, each day and by period. And then as we make recommendations for what it means to be clear on synchronous and asynchronous expectations across the division, that those would be layered in there. And then also considerations for both as what does the planned day

040look like? Would this be virtual? Would this be in the building? And then also... One of the considerations is what do we do for professional development for staff as we know lessons learned from the spring and also the summer. What do we need to enhance and prepare them for? And then lastly, just making sure that we take in screen time and then as one of our guiding principles that everyone has access to technology. And at this time, I will turn it over to Ms. Buros. Thank you, Dr. Mann. And I want to just give a snapshot of some of the things that we're working on, particularly around the community chats. We've been very focused on getting those all set up. And I really want to thank all of our community partners who agreed to work

041with us and moderate those sessions, as well as some of our staff participants and family groups. We've been very fortunate to have them working with us hand in hand in setting up those sessions. And I think we're all set. We've also been getting a number of questions. throughout this week that we've been calling through and preparing for. So I wanted to just thank everyone for that. But I also wanted to talk a little bit about some of the work that the team is doing that we've been working on this week. We've been looking at things in three buckets. One is what do we need to let families know prior to the decision on August 7th? What does August 7th through September 8th look like? What are the pieces that we need to produce in terms

042of materials, visuals, community outreach and engagement? And then what do we need to have prepared after school starts and helping families navigate, whether we're in person or 100% virtual, what does that look like? And many of the models and the materials and the plans that we have, they really work for both, which is great because it helps us to prepare in advance. In addition to that, we're sort of working on... meeting with the other teams. We had an opportunity to listen to some of those groups this week and learn about what those groups are doing as well so we can prepare. So we're really thankful for that. And I think we have a great process moving forward. So with that, if we could go to the next slide. I want to talk a little bit

043about the reopening of school community chats. We have seven, as I mentioned last week. And I think for many of them, we have actually been able to include many of our subject matter experts as well around the school division who will be helping us to answer those questions. But one of the patterns that we're seeing is many of the questions that we have been getting have. we're prepared with in our FAQs that we do have posted online, which is great. So we had anticipated many of the questions that will be asked, but then we're sort of looking for those nuanced questions that some of the groups will have, and we'll be working on those. And of course, we'll have live questions throughout the chat. So this is the schedule. I really hope that many of

044you are able to join us. We're encouraging people to join us for several of the chats. The one thing that I do want to point out is on... Tuesday, our chat starts at 1230 and it'll be to two o'clock for the staff session since we have lots of staff that are going to be participating and we have staff representatives for that particular chat that will be joining us to lend their support as representatives. As well as the PTAC session on Thursday, we do have parent representatives that will be participating as well. So those are designed a little bit differently, but that one will only be for an hour. So I encourage you, I have the link to the actual chat page on this slide if you want to participate. We have already, like I said,

045collected all the questions in advance. And so we'll be really focused on the live questions during the session for the second half of the chat. Next slide. We have also been very fortunate to already enlist the help of our school board representatives, Lorraine Johnson and Ashley Sanchez-Villapera. They have worked with us this week to put the student chats together. One will be at nine o'clock on July 28th for the elementary school students, 9.30 for the middle school students, and 4 p.m. for the high school students. More information will be posted today about those chats in terms of the questions. that we will be receiving in advance. And Lorraine and Ashley have both been great in helping us to figure out ways that we can reach students throughout the summer. In addition to that, these chats

046will be co-moderated with Dr. Marcia Jackson. We all met this week to prepare for the chats. And she will also be working with the student support team to get that information out to students. in a variety of ways. So we hope to have many of our students working with us, particularly with Lorraine and Ashley pushing it on in many of the social media channels. So we're excited about that. They were actually very excited about participating with us for the chats and they thought it was a great idea to hear from them. So we're fortunate to have their help with that. And next, I want to talk about a little bit of the outreach that we've been doing to families. Particularly, I want to acknowledge the team for the building specific and division-wide parent liaisons that

047have been working very diligently to reach families through phone calls and text and hotline messages and emails. They have been really working. very hard to reach those hard to reach families and make sure that they have the information that they need, particularly around the survey. We had some data that I want to share with you as a result of those outreach efforts. The parent liaison placed more than 325 calls to parents using targeted outreach lists during that time. We saw the response rate for Latino families increase from 13% to 21%, and the response rate of Black and African-American families increased from 15% to 19%. While we still have much work to do in these areas and reaching our families, it was encouraging to see that with more efforts and our team working really hard, we

048can definitely reach more of those families. And we'll be talking more about how to increase those response rates as we move over time. And then, as I mentioned earlier, our team really did the yeoman's work of recruiting those community partners to work with us and moderate the chats. And they're very excited about participating with us. And that will be a great opportunity to have a trusted voice during those chats to ensure that people feel comfortable about asking questions and being informed. I also wanted to just touch on a couple of other things that our team has been doing. We've been supporting families from pre-K and K-12 to register. our family to register. We've been continuing to manage and implement our parent information hotlines and information lines, as I mentioned earlier, collaborating with the Link Club

049program for students and families to ensure family engagement and information dissemination. And participating in community meetings is continuous to educate parents about ACPS resources and summer learning. And then of course, We have been very focused on relationship building, sustaining with our current partners, even during this time. So just a little snapshot of the work that the team has been doing. I'm really proud of all of them coming in here and being here for two weeks. I have really learned how much they do in a short span of time and how much they are dedicated to reaching our families. I will look forward to continue to work with them to increase those efforts. Thank you. And I'll pass it over to Dr. Mazzinco to finish this out. Okay, thank you so much. I hope the board

050and the community can really see, wow, June has been a very, very, very busy month with the teams, with the community outreach. But when you look at this little diagram here, what we want to show and say is that Sprint 1, we, yay, we've made it through Sprint 1. We still have some other work and decisions, but... Just the collaboration and the coherence has been tremendous for Sprint 1. Now you can see that we are moving into Sprint 2. Next week will be a very, very busy meeting and a week for the teams. There's a tremendous amount of work that will have to occur next week and the following week. But you can see that we are on target and we are as a team and a lot of the community support meeting many of

051these milestones. Now, we want to share with you briefly some items that will be presented on August the 7th. These are upcoming deliverables. I know that Dr. Hutchins did start off by mentioning some of these. So we just want to give you a little more specificity. Number one is the scheduling prototypes. After the schedules have been developed, there will be this feasibility assessment, as Ms. Hall mentioned, and the teams will be looking at. to what extent does transportation affect the particular schedule, right? How will facilities impact the feasibility of and impact that particular schedule? Meal service, even during the school day, moving kids around, what does that actually mean and how will the schedule facilitate or not facilitate? And then the staff survey, the results that Mr. Page presented. What is the impact of if

052you have staff members that may or may not return? How do we manage that? What will be the impact on that in terms of schedules and registering students for courses? So that's the next step of the work for the teams working with education elements is to look at the feasibility. of these schedules and the impact and the relationship between these different areas. And there is also a series, again, of guiding questions for each of these teams to address as it relates to these schedules. I think Ms. Hall also mentioned earlier playbooks. You will see on the previous timeline that we indicated that teams would begin to prepare reports. The playbooks serve as the beginning of some of the reports that will be prepared. You will also remember that in 1.0 and 2.0, we did provide

053explicit guidance for certain roles. We will also make sure that explicit guidance will be included in those playbooks. As she said earlier, there will be division guidance as well as actions on behalf of the schools. So we will be able to share that on August the 7th. As Dr. Mrs. Burgos just mentioned, she is working with her team on collecting more information from the community in different groups. So we really want to be able to report out on what we're continuing to still hear from the community. And lastly, we will have a report from each of the chairs and the teams in the five areas that's listed. CEO, human resources, health and safety, financial management. and the school and community engagement. So we have a tremendous amount to accomplish between now and August 7th, but

054we do want to assure the board and the community that the system and we are on track to meet the various priorities and milestones. So now at this time, I'd like to thank everyone for their presentations and I will turn it back over to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Dr. Mozingo, for co-facilitating and leading these efforts. And then also to Education Elements, I have to give a huge shout out to our consulting group because they have done a tremendous job with, you know, just guiding, facilitating, pushing our thinking throughout this process. And with that said, I want to turn things over to Madam Chair to open the floor for questions from board members. Okay. Let me look at my... I have two people. I have Ms. Alderton first. Okay. Can everybody hear me? Yes. All right.

055Thank you, everybody, for the presentation. Again, I truly appreciate the time and thoughtfulness going into making these decisions. Three questions. came up for me. So I apologize. I have three questions that I want to just throw out. And if you need me to repeat any, please tell me. My first question was, will there be a focus on like limiting, I'm calling it cross-contamination, but I don't even know if that's the appropriate word, but limiting that between staff and students? Because, you know, If you have one teacher who's seeing multiple groups, right, should an infection occur, it'll be likely to affect multiple cohorts. So just have we thought of that? Are we thinking of that as we design the schedule? If that makes sense. Do you want me to just end there and get that answered

056and go to the next or ask them all at the same time? So go ahead and ask them all at the same time. All right. My second one is, how are we thinking about minimizing double planning for teachers? And that might be a question for Mr. Mann because he's working on schedule. Because when I think of the hybrid schedule, when I'm in my mind, and I could be wrong, there may be different ways to flesh this out, but we've got online courses or virtual. learning, synchronous and asynchronous learning. So there's planning for that. And then there's planning for in-person. So just wondering, you know, how we're thinking about minimizing double planning for teachers. And then the third question is around FAPE. So that might be for Ms. Werner. One of the things I've been thinking

057about is the social distancing guidelines have a strong potential to limit the special education settings, given the limitations of what we may want to have in place, right, in terms of kids not going across multiple groups. So I'm having a difficulty wrapping my head around, you know, Are we planning on having these discussions with parents? Are we planning on sort of maybe having to think about redefining FAPE for these circumstances? And maybe an example would be, you know, if we have a child, if we have students who we say, who we've said, like, they need X support in a co-taught setting, but they might need to be in a self-contained setting for a different content, like, how do we make that work and if we can't make it work like what's the discussion that's going

058to be had with parents that makes sense So it does. It makes a lot of sense. And thank you, Ms. Alderton, for those questions. We're going to have Dr. Crawford kind of start off with responding to the question regarding any spread within the classroom from teacher to student or student to teacher or staff member, because that is a discussion that's happening with the nursing group. So Dr. Crawford can answer that. And then we're going to have Dr. Mann speak to. uh your question in regards to double planning for our teachers um and then miss werner will be able to answer the question regarding faith Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Alderton. Excellent question. Will there be a focus on limiting the cross-contamination? Yes, absolutely. That's a critical piece to what we're doing when we're talking about

059scheduling. As Dr. Hutchings mentions, number one, we do have the health and safety work group who is working with that lens, including some of our school nurses. We're continuing to receive feedback, too, from the state within our health services. There was just a... a call yesterday with the state to make sure that we're staying up to date. Dr. Lane actually participated in that. Some of the ideas when we talk about in-person instruction, we've discussed looping, which is a recommendation that has come from many of the reopening resources that we're looking at. The small group obviously is critical and maintaining the mitigating measures such as the six feet, the masks, things along those lines. So in the case that there was a positive case, you do have a smaller group that you need to do contact

060tracing with. So we're looking at looping. There are recommendations. where we can of having the classes stay together in one location and then the teachers moving so that there aren't as many exposures to other students and staff members. And again, going back to the survey, that's one of the concepts of having the students eat lunch in their classroom to limit exposure, obviously not doing cafeteria, but if the kids eat lunch in their classroom, then that would also limit. any cross-contamination. We're looking at arrival time, who is in the hallway at the same time. I can go on and on and on, but that is absolutely at the forefront of... our minds when we are doing the planning. And that's also where the collaboration comes in because we've got our instructional experts, but we know we've

061also got our health experts who are the other work groups. So taking their recommendations with the state, the CDC, the health department, and putting them all together. We've maintained great communication with the health department. Dr. Herring and company are actually preparing a resource guide for us. as we look at reopening that they're going to share and then hopefully come in and do some training with us to make sure that we have everything measured and put out. So yes, absolutely. That's the explicit lens of the health department. They've already given us some guidance and it's at the forefront of everybody's mind. That was a really long answer, so I apologize. But I can go on and on about that discussion. Ms. Alderton, your question actually came up in the secondary breakout session about scheduling. And so

062what we committed to the principals, and we will bring this up with our cross-functional planning team, is how do we structure the planning day? Because that was the exact question, is how do we make this planning day work for teachers? To your point, so it's not double planning. So we still are working on how that structure will be. We don't have the fleshed out answer yet, but that was one thing that we know as we continue to work that was paramount is this planning day, is it for the entire week? Is it for Monday? And so that's all of those questions branch off of your main question. So we want to figure out what's the best for teachers. And then that'll be part of our discussion with the CNI one and two groups because we

063have teachers there to also get their perspective on how we should structure the planning day. Ms. Alderton, I am going to respond to your question about students with special needs. That was a multi-layered and multi-level question, so I'm going to try and break it into parts, and if I missed something, please come back and remind me. So let me start with the overarching issue that the definition of FAPE has greatly expanded during the period of COVID-19. have provided lots of information to parents about FAPE and how we're approaching FAPE throughout this process. And we will continue to do so. FAPE is definitely in the forefront of the decisions that we're making. In terms of how we are looking to approach services, there really is a two-prong approach. Students who access the citywide programming as opposed

064to students who access their special education services through the general ed setting. And so those decisions have to be made differently because they bring different needs to the table and have different instructional needs. We are exploring different options as to how we memorialize what we're going to be doing and what we're going to be offering. But know that we are planning. One of the things that we're considering is the options of developing distance learning plans for individual students that document what those services are going to look like and how they're going to be provided. we've got to do some other things first. Other decisions have to be made first before we can go to that. The other thing that we're working very closely with and that will impact what decisions that we can make and

065services that we can deliver are also going to be predicated upon transportation options and the operations in terms of how we can get rooms cleaned and how we can address those needs as well. And we've done a significant amount of research and work around the PPEs that are going to be needed for staff and students because we are going to have some very specific needs around that as well. And we are working to create cohort bubbles so that we keep students, especially those with the more significant needs and that are more medically fragile, that we keep those cohorts together. Does that answer everything? Yeah, it does. Are we... Yeah, because again, it's just, it's so complex, like given like the settings that we normally offer versus even with in-person, we're not going to be able

066to do things as usual. We will not be able to replicate everything. You mentioned students who get pull-out services as opposed to students who get co-taught services. We definitely have mechanisms to do both. Okay. How we carry that out and may both of those happen every day and each time, I can't answer that question at this point, but we have done a significant amount of work. We have a superior instructional specialist team who has worked very closely with teachers and provided all kinds of resources and strategies and coaching as to how we can do. self-contained classwork, pull out and do self-contained work, as well as do co-teaching. Because, you know, as we've experienced, you can do breakout rooms with Zoom and, you know, they can be together and then we can do a breakout room

067and do some targeted direct instruction and the students can come back. We can do stations, you know, have a version of stations. That's one of our big co-teaching components. So there are definitely ways to do that. What I will tell you is that our number one focus is on recovery. How do we assist students and support students to recover what they've lost? We're not going to be able to make up. You know, we're not in a makeup mode. We are in recovery. And what can we do to ensure that we get students as much direct instruction as possible so that they recover the skills so that they can move forward? Okay, and I apologize. One last thing related to this. Are you expecting to have to make IEP amendments at all? That's why we're talking

068about the distance learning plans. I am hopeful and other jurisdictions are using this. And that's one thing that the BDOE has talked about as an option. Because we wrote all of our IEPs with the expectation that we were going to be back in school. because we were unknown. So for us to have to go back and rewrite 1800 IEPs and still try to instruct students is not feasible. But that's why we are looking at the distance learning plan option as the interim way to memorialize what those services are. And many other jurisdictions have used that approach as well. Thank you. Next up, I have Dr. Reif. Great. Well, thank you, everyone, for the presentation and just for everyone for all your hard work on, you know, developing this plan for reopening. It's definitely a big

069undertaking. I had a couple of comments and questions about the surveys. So maybe geared more for Mr. Page. First of all, I just wanted to say, you know, kudos to the team for the great results and also to Ms. Burgos and her team for... the outreach push. It's really great to see the reduced under-representation and I'm really excited also about the community chats that are coming up and how they're tailored to different stakeholder groups. I just wanted to make a comment about the parent survey. I'm really glad that you emphasized that it was a snapshot in time, Mr. Page, because I have been hearing some feedback from parents who, you know, had been supporting the hybrid model and now they're feeling, you know, more like they're leaning towards the virtual model with the increasing number

070of cases that we're seeing. I also wanted to mention that I heard feedback from a number of parents who said that they wish that one of the things they could say was influencing their decision was their concern about the safety of staff members because they also are very concerned about how going back will influence the health and safety of our staff as well as their children. And I wanted to, one of my questions about the parent survey was on there, it said that parents would be asked to make a decision about their commitment to return to school in late July. So I was wondering what was going on with that, if that was still being anticipated, if you could talk about that. And then my other question was about the staff survey. We heard some

071feedback from some teachers that they were not asked which model they preferred, the way that parents had been asked that question. Instead, they were asked. how likely they were to return in the hybrid model. And I just, I wanted to say one of the things that I noticed about the results of the staff survey is that almost 40% of our staff said that they were unlikely to return if there was a hybrid model. And so this is very concerning to me and I'd like to understand how this is impacting your decision-making. So maybe that's more for Dr. Hutchings. If you could just. talk about those two things, that'd be great. So I'll start off and then Mr. Page, I'll turn things over to you to kind of finalize everything. First and foremost, I think, you

072know, the key point that Mr. Page made earlier was that this is a snapshot for a particular period of time, and we have to utilize multiple data points. You can't get everything you need in one survey. And if we try to ask every question possible and get everything from the survey, that would just not be a good, you know. only source of data is, or sole source of data was what I was looking for, especially with how things change so frequently. Look at where we were last week and look at where we are this week. In just a week, in this area, look at all the changes that have occurred. Next week, we're going to have, you know, actual opportunities for the community to engage in discussions and for us to answer questions via Zoom

073or the different Zoom that we're having. We're also continuously receiving emails and we respond to our emails and we read all of our emails and they're also given to the appropriate planning groups. So when people send in things, we don't send it to everybody. We send it to the group that is working on that specific topic so that they can put all of those key factors into consideration when we begin to finalize our planning and talk about the feasibility of our planning. So I'm going to turn things over to Mr. Page to finish off with the top two questions that were asked by Dr. Reif and anything else you want to add, Mr. Page. Great. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. So I think the one question in terms of. the difference in question type between the

074staff survey and family survey is really in terms of what we were trying to gauge in terms of a planning factor were how many families, right, in terms of their current perception were planning for in-person, whatever that may look like in a hybrid model versus a fully virtual, because that. factor influences potentials and what can be offered or could not be offered based on current rates of interest. Likewise, staff have, right, their willingness to return or not return to work influences what we can or cannot offer in person. So really just trying to get the best planning factors we can in terms of where we are, both from a staffing perspective, in terms of how many staff. do we say are feeling likely or very likely to return to work? And then from a family

075perspective, how many families are feeling like they are going to be interested in returning to some form of in-person schooling? So that's why those questions were worded. that way. As it relates to the timing of kind of the next major data gathering, that's going to look a little different in terms of, you know, these have been... You know, this last effort was a survey in terms of perception. And then we'll be reaching back out towards the end of the month to gauge kind of where families are in terms of their planning, as well as staff to kind of facilitate the finalization of that. So that will be coming. And as far as I'm aware, it's still targeted for the end of July timeframe. Just a follow up to that. I mean, are you and maybe

076this you don't know this for sure yet, but are you anticipating that question is going to be like, are you returning to ACPS or is this going to be a are you going to do the hybrid or the virtual model if there's two choices? Can you give us any more specificity on what you're looking to ask at the end of July? Yeah, it's going to be more so in regards to if we are able to meet the CDC guidelines about safety in our schools, would you return or would your child return to school knowing that we're able to meet those requirements? And that is really what the key is, because if we're able to meet those requirements, whether it's two days a week or five days a week, right, it is, would you? send your

077child back if we're able to meet those CDC requirements or not. And that really is the key because that is what the key driver is for all of the plans, whether it's a hybrid approach or not. We're looking at, are we able to meet the CDC requirements to keep our staff and our students safe? If that is not feasible for us, then a recommendation is not going to be to open our schools anyway, right? So that's why it's going to take us the time that, you know, our planning teams are doing right now to determine the feasibility so that when we are stating whichever plan we choose or recommend to the board, we're able to articulate why. this is the option that we're proposing and why we couldn't do some of the other things that

078we have been working on or some other things that people have been discussing or sharing with us to consider. We want to be able to be clear about that with the board as well as with the community. Great. Next up, I have Mr. Suarez with a question. Thank you, Chair Anderson. So I have a couple buckets as I tend to. So one area that I wanted to talk about is, and this is from the premise of, I think there's only one certainty in this very uncertain time. And that is, there is going to be at least some virtual learning. And I say that for two reasons. One, some teachers have clearly indicated that they do not want to go back. Second, families have unequivocally indicated they don't want to go back. And I think that

079is going to be consistent. And even more families may say that as time progresses. So operating sort of under that premise, I'm really wondering what we're doing to think outside the box in terms of innovation around asynchronous learning, around remote education, because as Ms. Alderton said last week, which I thought was really profound, whether we're in person or asynchronous, learning is going to be fundamentally different. And so I'm just wondering, like, what we're doing to set that up from that premise that there is going to definitely be remote education. What are we doing to to think about asynchronous learning options that may be different from the typical offering that may be accessible to all kids, whether they're gifted or whether they're gifted or tag identified or special ed identified everywhere along the spectrum. And I

080really want to push us to just sort of be thinking that way because no matter what, we're going to have some sort of. remote situation. So that's sort of my first comment question. And I'm just kind of curious what we're doing to set that up. And we've gotten a lot of comments from teachers that affect like that they really want more professional development around those sorts of issues. And, you know, getting away from the learning packets and some of those types of things. So I really want to hear what we have to say about that. The second, and maybe if we can go to slide 20 of the presentation, that would be helpful. The second thing is I really appreciated when Dr. Mann in talking about that slide, he mentioned some of the testing that

081we're doing around the hybrid models. And he noted that, you know, we're going to have to be different for different populations in whatever we propose. Like, and he has in person for special populations. I know that some districts have already said, and we've already talked about special education a little bit through Ms. Alderton's question, but, you know. You're going to have to have certain populations where maybe because of the learning loss or the needs for an in-person education, maybe parents are more willing to trade that off vis-a-vis the health, right? Because for all of this is about risk preference and it's about balancing the health considerations, which are first and foremost with the educational considerations. And so what I've been hearing a lot in the presentations. are kind of about the logistics and the, you

082know, how we're going to fit the pieces of puzzle together, how the schedule might be cobbled and things like that. And as we get into this, I guess, third sprint, I'd like to understand more, like, and maybe this is just more of a comment on what I'm hoping the final product looks like, like, what is the educational vision? you know, that is driving the different aspects of the decision for different populations, you know, and so one example on the slide 20 is for special education, but other things we're seeing from other school divisions, you know, our K to five might look different from six to 12 and things like that. So I just kind of want to push a little bit and sort of understand. how we're going to be thinking as we kind of

083take the puzzle pieces we're sort of assembling and put them together and construct that puzzle based on an educational vision that's aligned with the strategic plan and also, you know, considering some of these health trade-offs. So I know. There's a lot in there, but I'd love to hear first, you know, my first question about what we're going to do globally about virtual, because inevitably there's going to be some virtual, no matter what. And second, how we're going to, you know, create, construct this plan in a way that's faithful to our educational vision around the various populations that we're serving, all of which have very different needs across the division. So thank you, Mr. Suarez, for your question. I'm going to start off and then I'm going to ask for Dr. Mann or Dr. Mozingo to

084kind of elaborate. First and foremost, let me just say that, and we've stated this time and time again, from March to June, there were several lessons learned. From March to June, the goal was to ensure that students had access to technology, had internet access, had learning packets, that everybody had those types of things. As we now begin to look at the fall, whether it's virtual or a hybrid approach, there's still a form of virtual learning that's going to occur. And we are going to have to take, and which we're doing now, is taking into consideration all of the lessons learned from March to June. For example, the amount of flexibility that we had from March to June was significant, which in some cases caused some students to have one experience. and other students to have

085a totally different experience. And that's why we see such a hodgepodge of reactions and people's feelings about the spring. Some people said it was great. Some people said it was horrible. Some people said I liked it. I didn't like it. My child was engaged. My child wasn't engaged. I saw the teacher. I never saw the teacher, right? Because there was a lot of flexibility. Moving forward, we're going to have to have a lot more concrete expectations around how learning is being delivered, whether it is- person or virtual. Like we're going to have some clear expectations around that. Simultaneously while we are building and trying to develop these different, you know, prototypes in regards to our scheduling. We have a group of educators who are working to determine what are the essential expectations and what types

086of professional learning are we going to need to provide our staff moving forward? Because no one went to school to learn how to teach kids online. None of us did that. We might have had some experience with it. If you took a Teletechnic course, I remember I took one Teletechnic course, which was horrible for me like 15 years ago, right? I couldn't do it. I'm like, I can't, I need to see somebody. Now I can't see people, even if I want to, right? I can't, I'm a people person. I can't see people, which it bothers me. I have to go running to see people out in the world. So we are going to have to train our staff to be able to deliver instruction. And we also are going to have to train our staff

087on what does student engagement now look like virtually. You know, we had moves and techniques when we were touching shoulders and we were clapping and we were getting reactions and we were bringing props. You know, we've been trained to be in person. you know, educators and now we're being forced to be online. So that professional learning is definitely going to be key as well. I think that you all will, the board as well as our community, will get a better understanding of what the learning is going to look like. as we get further into this planning process. We're still really in the developmental phases of it because we had to think through, all right, if we're going to do a hybrid approach and have some in-person instruction happening, how many kids can even be in

088the school? How often are they going to be in school? That kind of determines what type of learning and how we're going to deliver instruction. So we had to get through some of that to even start thinking about. what, you know, the learning delivery piece would look like. But I want to turn things over to Dr. Mann or Dr. Mozingo, if there's anything that you want to elaborate on or, you know, provide. Well, I'll just, okay, thank you so much. And I think you actually captured really a lot of what I wanted to share. But I do want to add two things, two points. One is we actually started working with some of the instructional teams, the coordinators, probably about four to five weeks ago. And one of the areas of focus was to begin

089to identify strategies, best practices, what would instruction look like in a virtual setting? And so that is what they're working on. That was one of the reasons that whether it was literacy, math, science, social studies, we have teams of teachers, teams of teachers that have been identified to work on developing the instructional best practices in a virtual model. What will happen is, and it's kind of high level, but once the decisions have been made around the actual schedules. then the instructional components will fit those in. The goal is to be able to share that information on August the 7th. There will be, we have talked about the amount of professional development that we'll need to provide. There will be a professional development plan, particularly for many of our teachers. But I want to also say

090we have some instances of this already occurring. in terms of our summer learning. So there are some lessons that we can learn. I think the biggest change for us would be at the elementary level, right? Because at the elementary level, when you think of the literacy block, literature circles, kids working in small groups, cooperative learning, what does all of that look like, as Ms. Warner said earlier, using breakouts? So there are some best educational practices for a virtual setting. And just finally, At the core of this, we really, we were talking with Dr. Hoover the other day about also working with us in terms of technology. We see this as an opportunity to change the instructional setting. We see it as an opportunity to really, really engage students. So I really look forward to our

091bringing that back later. We've also sent staff some best practices around. even outdoor education and what would outdoor education look like even if you're there two days a week. We've got some ideas from what is occurring in Finland. They have a whole fabulous outdoor education program. So we're looking at integrating some of those best practices and the goal would be to bring that information to the board and others on August the 7th. So I know it seems like a process, but you have to work out your logistics and the schedule. At the same time, please be rest assured that we have instructional staff and teams that are working on this virtual framework and what it would look like. Yeah, no, thanks. Go ahead. Sorry. I was gonna say that was one of the reasons why

092it was so important to have our teachers and our principals a part of these planning teams, because they're going to be able to really push our thinking and to be able to say, but what about X, or Y, or Z? And if it's even feasible. One other piece that I just want to touch on, and it wasn't a part of your question, but I just think it's in addition to, as we're talking about the learning delivery. and engagement, it's important for us to make sure that whatever model we choose, that we also provide some options in regards to like childcare services and other things that kids might need. If we were to do 100% virtual, we can't just say 100% virtual and you know what, everybody, you're on your own. We really need to work

093with Campania and RPCA and finding some... ways for families who are required to go to work and their kids cannot be at home all day, every single day, you know. So we are going to have to take this time to be investing in that as well. And that is something that I think is going to be key for us to make sure. And that's why we need that additional time. So when we are sharing out. you know, our plan and our recommendation on August 7th. We're also sharing the implications and letting families know, and this is what we know that this has an impact on your family, but these are some other things that we have to offer, you know, to assist you throughout this period of time. And I think that's going to be

094so key and well worth the wait. If when everybody sees on August, they're going to say, oh, Dr. Hutchings, thank you for taking the time, right? Because if we release things now, make decisions impulsively. We're not going to be able to even answer questions that people have. We may not even know how the logistics are going to work. And logistics are so important with these plans right now. That is the issue, I believe, with many school divisions across the country is that they're releasing plans without even going through the logistics to see if they're feasible or to know what your implications are. So we're trying to avoid that. Yeah, and thank you. Thank you both for that. I mean, that was tremendously helpful. And to your last point, Dr. Hutchings, that's exactly why I said

095I understand that we kind of need to lay the puzzle pieces on the table, you know, and understand them. But I'm now thinking about that we're in this next phase, like, you know, how are we justifying how we're going to make potentially fit those pieces together. And so just two, two, two comments, last comments based on what both of you indicated. One is, I think it would be great if in the final deliverable, you could show your work a bit in terms of like, you know, Dr. Mozingo just mentioned outdoor education. There's been a lot of talks about all these sort of outside the box ideas in the community, outdoor education, using facilities from the city, all kinds of different options that we've heard. And so I, it would be great if we could see

096in that final product, here are all the like, you know, really interesting ideas that we considered and either adopted as part of the plan or perhaps you know said oh maybe that's not going to work as part of the plan. I think that would just show the community you know how creative we're being with these cross-functional planning teams and the work that we're doing in this. And then the second thing is it's going back to my original comment. I think insofar as there are you know different proposals for different subgroups in terms of you know special education students, there's more in-person instruction or anything of that nature, I think it would just be helpful in that final deliverable to sort of explain this was our educational vision and this is why we're making some of

097these proposals that are slightly different for particular subgroups and things like that. So I just think that would be helpful as we go through the process and it would help me as a board member to evaluate the plan and move forward with that. Thank you, Mr. Suarez. And everybody is working towards that. So we do have specific planning teams that are looking at students with special needs, students who are EL families, students who might just need additional resources. And that is why we're shifting from that equal access. to now equitable access, which means we really need to have different tiers of how we're delivering instruction, as well as how we're engaging certain students and their families based on their need. And that requires a lot more time. It's easier to just say everybody gets the

098same, right? And unfortunately, as you all know, when everybody gets the same, or when we have that perspective of everybody gets the same. we're literally leaving a lot of people behind because the only people who are going to be able to receive or even engage are the people who will, that we're, you know, that we're trying to customize, you know, whatever the delivery is for. So we have to have diversity in regards to how we're going to deliver, how we're going to provide resources and how we're going to engage in. It is going to be a little complicated, but this is what we do as educators, right? And I keep telling our team over and over again that, yes, these are, we're going into, you know, a space that we've never been. However, because we're

099educators, we do have that creativity. We do have the innovation. We do have the passion, you know, for young people. And using those qualities, I think, are really going to help us to create the best possible plan for our population. Great, thanks. I told Ms. Gentry that I would ask her question, but I think it was just answered, so now might be a good time for me just to put it out there again to reiterate. Hers was about will the aftercare and other things coordinating with Campania and RAC, it is on the same timeline as everything else, so you're expecting that information to be with the August 7th report out, correct? That is correct. Okay. So I just, I told people that Ms. Gentry had a question. I didn't want people to think I'd forgotten

100and I wanted to make sure it was just clear. Next up, I have Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair Anderson, and thank you, everyone, for the robust discussion. My question, and mine might be a little bit early to Dr. Hutchings, but I was wondering, as more and more school districts roll out their plans for reopening, how does that affect us in our planning process, particularly around, you know, staff, teachers and staff that live in other areas that have school-aged children? that you know will have to be at home for virtual learning. I know you mentioned child care but I don't know how that really works from a standpoint of you know the older kids. But you know could you talk a little bit to that and also how has communication and collaboration been between the school

101districts in the area? Yeah so one that's great questions Ms. Green. I think most importantly absolutely the decisions of other school divisions who neighbor us or who are in this region have an impact on us. They will. And last week when we shared kind of like where our staff live, you know, meaning the areas we had like Arlington and Fairfax and Maryland and that type of thing, that was intentional to start sharing that information out and for us to start seeing where our staff lived. So as different school divisions are. kind of sharing out their plans, we can see the impact that's going to have on us, right? And one thing that our teams are doing is they're looking at, you know, based on all of our neighboring school divisions and the, you know, implications

102for their decisions, does it allow us as a school division for whatever choice we're looking at, whether it's hybrid or virtual, is it now feasible? based on these external factors. So we have to put all of that into consideration, which it is very helpful when we are kind of, we're watching what's going on and we weren't first because you go first, you think of Fairfax right now. And I hate to, I'm not comparing anybody. So nobody out there say I'm comparing Fairfax to anybody. Scott Braband is a dear friend of mine. I love you, Scott. I'm not trying to put anything down. So please don't take it that way, anybody. Fairfax put their information out first, right? You have divisions now in the past week who are saying they're going 100% virtual. So now you

103know for sure Fairfax is going to have to revisit their plan. Some way, because they may have people who live in those areas, right? So they may, it may not change it at all. They still may not change their plan. They still may go with what they originally wanted to do, but it does have an impact on them and they have to revisit what they have already put out. And that changes some of their planning, you know, of what they have already shared out with their community. What we're trying to do is we're making sure that by the time and we're staying true to our plans. You all don't see us. You haven't seen this change in time that we're going to give you information. We bring the stuff that we say we're bringing to

104you. Now, we're working like crazy behind the scenes, you know, but we're sticking to our milestones so that when we get to August 7th. We have used so many data points in addition to just the surveys and the community chats. But we're looking at our outside school as well. And we're going to be presenting the best thing possible based on the feasibility and what everybody else is doing. Our relationships are really in communication between all the school divisions. It is solid. You know, we have a Northern Virginia region meetings and our regional meetings. I think what has happened, though, from the last, you know, from our first time meeting as a region is saying, hey, everybody, let's try to do the same thing. Right. And let's release it at the same time. You know, that

105was our plan like a month and a half ago. And look at where we are now. But I think what happened during that time was that we realized. Every school division in every city has different challenges, has different needs, has a different population that they serve. So there is no cookie cutter. We all can do the same thing in a situation like this. You have to try to meet your community and your population and what is feasible in your city. the best as you can. And I think that that was kind of like what we learned over the past month and a half as a region. But we're in constant communication. You know, we share out our communications before they go out publicly, you know, internally with the superintendents. We talk to each other and

106say, hey, this is what we're going to be presenting to the board. Or, hey, this is what we shared, you know, at our board meeting. This is what we're thinking. So we have those discussions, you know, internally. We're continuing to do that. Okay, next up I have Dr. Reif. Thank you. I'm glad you touched on child care because that was one of the things I was going to ask. I think it is a huge factor for both working parents as well as our staff members, so I'm glad to hear that there's... discussion ongoing with the city and our community partners about how we can think about meeting that need for families. Also, with either model that we go with between the hybrid or the virtual model, many parents we've heard from have shared that they

107need more support in terms of understanding how they can best support their children. And I mean, that's something I've heard even before, you know, this pandemic, but I think it's so critical now that, you know, guidance that we can give to parents who have some of them have said, I feel like I'm at the teacher's aid, you know, here, and I just, I don't know what I'm doing. I need more direction. And so I was wondering how you're thinking about that. If any of the cross-functional planning teams, if that's part of what they're working on. And then, and then my other question was just, since we're not meeting again for three weeks, which is a long time, I was wondering, you know, what, what kind of information will the board be receiving between now and

108August 7th? Will there be board briefs? Will we be getting updates on your planning? Or are we just going to get the whole thing on August 7th? So if you could talk a little bit about that. So the board and the community is going to receive weekly updates. So we want to keep the community engaged throughout this time, too. That was a part of our commitment so that when we get to August 7th, it's really just everybody seeing a culmination of everything over the past several weeks. But you all are getting bits and pieces of the plan every week. And that is intentional. So you all will see that. There will also be videos similar to last week how I did like a Q&A video so that then that's another form of communication that goes

109out to our communities, just updating them on where we are, you know, and then all of our sessions, which I hope people are tuning in, are being recorded, you know, because we really want people to see like some of the organic discussions that are happening. behind the scenes and also how some of the questions that our community members have, how they make it to the planning team meetings and they're discussed too. So it's just validating that people's voices truly are power. And this is a very collaborative effort that there isn't a plan. You know, there was a rumor going around. There's already a plan. If we already had a plan, I wouldn't be wasting my time up all night, everybody. Let me tell you all, I wouldn't. I would just say, here's the plan. This

110is what we're going to do. But we want to respect the process and we want to respect the 100 plus people who are devoting their time every single day. You know, it's a huge ask over this past few weeks. And this is it's still not over for us. We're still working through this. So by the time we get to August 7th, you'll see a combination is the point I was trying to make. What was the first question that you had asked, Dr. Reif? It was about support for parents with whatever model we go with. I think that there might be a stepped up need for how they can help their kids. Yes. And yes, we have had discussions. So our planning teams are having discussions around not only the supports for staff, but also what

111are some supports that can happen in the home. I think that what we had with a lot of parents sometimes having to do a little extra between March and June was because of so much flexibility we had between March and June. And it's not that we don't want our staff members to be able to balance, you know, work and in their just personal lives. But we are going to just have to have a little more structure and some more concrete expectations around the time that, or the commitment that teachers and staff members are making to interact with kids. So it's not kind of like what you think is best. We're going to really have to have a minimum. requirement so that everybody knows what they should expect. And then we also are going to have

112to go through our expectations for other sub groups, but other staff staff groups other than our teachers who can also provide the supports. And it might have to be virtual, but that is still a support that doesn't require now a parent to have to do that. at home. We've also been talking about having some tutorial videos and things for families because we didn't have that between March and June of just like, how do you use when you get a box at home? How do I use this stuff? You know, like just something that can give you like some cliff notes or what am I supposed to do with all these things? And these are lessons that we've been learning from the summer learning kits that have gone home. You know, because people are like, okay,

113well, what should we do with the clay? What should we do with the crayons? You know, kids are just playing with them. So what's the educational component to that? So those are some things that we are working through. Great. So I think. I don't see anybody else's hand raised right now. So we look forward to seeing that the update as we as you all work on it and between now and the next meeting and then the full reveal of the plan at that time. So we will have two more opportunities for public hearing at on August 6 in the evening at seven and then on during our next meeting on Friday, the 7th at noon. So those will be both times when people can speak. So now we'll go on to the weekly Q&A. I

114mean, I'll just get a time check. It's 1.38. So now would be the time for sort of other Other questions that are unrelated to the opening, if people have comments or questions about something else. Dr. Eve? I was just curious to get an update on how the summer learning program has been going. Yes, Dr. Mann, if you can give us an update on our summer learning programming. With all the 4.0 talk, it's almost like 3.0 doesn't exist anymore. But we are in ending week two this week. Saw things settle down. We actually, I think the thing that excites, I think the team the most is we've had parents calling and emailing. Can I opt back in? Which I think it bodes well for us as a school district. I don't have it at the ready.

115I was ready last week, but Dr. Reeve, you beat me to it this week. Our attendance, we actually saw attendance go up. So we do know students are accessing. live instruction in elementary from 9 to 940 or 945. And then we know our middle school students and high school students are doing their boost courses. We just had the drop period for our students if they were taking a credit bearing course. So we had a number of students drop those courses. And the high school did a good job of reaching out to families to say, hey, Susie or Johnny haven't done any work. And for the first time, from my recollection, we are giving families if they dropped a refund. And that's usually not the case, but we also know these are hard times. And then

116we're still collecting our data as far as attendance. And then also, I wish I had a video ready to show you. We have our third and fourth grade students are actually now current fourth and fifth grade students uploading videos to Canvas. and some of their work. And so we plan on having a showcase for the school board when we do our summer school report. But the team, there's like I've been saying, an army of people working tirelessly to make this happen. And next week I will have, we don't have a meeting next week, but August 7th, I'll give you a number of how many students have actually participated over the month. And this week started our music camp. Super, thank you. Ms. Alderton? Yeah, Chair Anderson, unless there are any more comments related or questions

117or comments related to summer school. I'm happy to go last just because my, I have comments that I'd like to share unrelated to summer school. Yeah, no, this was, this is kind of the potpourri area. So. All right. Well, thank you, Chair Anderson. I actually wanted to take some time to share some comments because we did the, The board voted around a motion last week around T.C. Williams renaming. And so this topic has really brought up for me the depth of why we need to have conversation around racial equity in all of our decision making. And so we actually received some. still received some emails expressing some disappointment around the, I guess, lack of what is seen as an expeditious process around this. So I wanted to take a moment to clarify some of my

118comments from last week, but really expand on them as well, because I just want to be clear with the public, my thoughts around racial equity. I just felt like at this point in time, it's really important for me at least to be clear about my thinking. So I apologize because some of the comments may be repetitive, but there are some new ones that I'll be sharing as well. So I think I just wanted to share that my thoughts around the TC name change really fall into what I consider to be three. major thoughts and three major buckets. But then there's a fourth one that sort of sums it up for me. So again, the first issue is around governance. And I just want to respond to that for the community and begin with a very

119clear point. I do not believe nor do I want the name of any racist or segregationist or Confederate or symbol of such on any public building or property. I think the motion is very clear around the board's understanding of who T.C. Williams was. what he valued, what he did not value, and T.C. Williams' values are not my values. But as a member of an elected body, I do value democracy. I believe that I must always adhere to the democratic process, and my opinions alone cannot and should not drive my governing decisions. It is important that as a governing body, we create space, time, and a process that allows as many constituents as possible to chime in on controversial issues. And that includes hearing from constituents who do not look like me, do not speak the

120same language that I speak, and do not think the way that I do. Let us also be reminded that this was a school that was important enough for Disney to tell a specific story, whether we agree with that or not, and it resonated not only in our community, but around the world. This was a school that was important enough for the community to debate for months whether it should remain one high school or two. with many arguing of the importance of its legacy and the division that would be created if all of Alexandria's students would not have the option of attending T.C. Williams High School. And at the end of the day, it was important enough for the school board to vote just this past September to keep it one high school instead of building

121a second. Surely we need to make space for all of the voices that will emerge through a robust process. This leads me to my next point, the students. If you know me or you've heard me speak, you know I believe that our students should be at the center of all of our decision making. The change that we seek for our country will only be sustained by allowing the emergence of their voices and teaching them all the steps it takes to save this world. As a social studies teacher, I believe that the condition of the world as we know it today is a major reflection on our failure to teach both the necessity and power of civic duty in our schools. So we have an opportunity here. This type of change needs to have student voices

122at the center. This process needs to be an educational moment on transformative change. And we must teach our students that sustainable transformation takes thoughtful work, research, data collection, and analysis, from which final conclusions should be drawn. Our TC students need to be the changemakers here. They need to have co-ownership in this process, and they need to know that that involves hearing all sides of a story and listening even to people who don't agree with them. Just a few months ago, I taught this alongside other elected officials in our community to some of our eighth grade civic students at George Washington Middle School. I have to now be a model to them by saying what I mean and doing what I say. This leads me to the next point. I am, if you, I'm so, you

123know, the value of education here is so important. My understanding and professional experience regarding what it takes to be an educational institution that has the vision and the tools required to affect transformative change has led me to one core value. And that is that the focus always has to be on the students and the full educational services, the full educational experience that they receive. Our educational institutions have been amongst the greatest, most powerful, and egregious perpetrators of racism in this country. One of the greatest ways that a slave master exercised control over a slave was to forbid them from learning to read. Slaves were forbidden from accessing literacy. This was so important to a slave master that if a slave was found with a book, they would be whipped and even killed. So the data

124in ACPS is strikingly clear. We have not overcome. Not only have we created segregated tracks in our quote-unquote integrated schools, but the data also shows that we are failing black and brown students in both access to curriculum and the development of essential skills. And 400 years of drinking the Kool-Aid will not be an easy detox. It will not be easy for any one of us, but especially not for our staff and our teachers. This is very difficult work. It takes immense dedication. immense time, energy, and commitment, and it must be prioritized. I say this to say that the issue of renaming T.C. Williams is not as simple as ripping down a statue. Education is much more complex. I can assure you that after 16 years of this work and trying to do all of this

125in the midst of a global pandemic is not the equivalent of walking while chewing gum. Most educators walk and chew gum while juggling 10 balls at the same time. But at this time in history, we are now doing all of those things while walking on a tightrope. The balls are on fire and there's no end in sight. This indeed is not a trivial place to be. And it's even more troubling when you are managing a population of students at an approximate 60% farm rate. I work closely with experts who are talking seriously about the number of students who will be impacted by this pandemic. It is no small task. If we truly believe in racial equity, we must have a laser-focused lens on the educational experiences that we provide to our students of color. I

126believe that Dr. Hutchings came here to bake the best cake the world of education has ever seen. and that to support him, I must give him and his team the time and space needed to do that. When the board decides the name will change, surely that will be the icing on the cake. But let us also make sure that we actually have a cake to put the icing on. So Dr. Hutchins shared a song sort of in the beginning of all of the movement that we're seeing now, the Wake Up Everybody song, which is by Harold Melvin, Blue Notes. And I sort of, it makes me think of Spike Lee, the Spike Lee movie, School Days, where at the end he says, wake up. And that's my concluding plea to the staff, to these communities

127and the families of ACPS. It boils down to those words, wake up. And Alexandria, wake up. Do not be satisfied with a school board, city council, or state official that will act quicker on removing statues and changing names than addressing the root causes of racism, because shiny objects lose their luster over time. If you want to be an ally, help me to build something that will actually last the test of time. Black Alexandrians, rise up. Call out white instigators who are okay with saying to you or to the school board or to anyone that I know we're in the middle of a pandemic, but. Because there is no but about living through a global pandemic as a person of color. In fact, this is a pandemic that is multiple times more likely to have a

128negative impact on your life and the lives of your children. And that should not be trivialized. To say that I know that there is a pandemic, but. is a statement of your privilege. That level of privileged talk cannot be covered by a name change, nor for a street, a school, or a statue, and it shouldn't suffice for you either. If you have a hate has no home here sign in your yard, but choose to use social media or other coercive tactics to bully or disparage your elected officials, please wake up. These tactics are no better than those used in the development of propaganda that causes political discord from the quote unquote other side of the aisle. I've quietly watched it happen to council members, the mayor, school board members, Dr. Hutchings and other officials. Wake

129up, America. Demand that your government is not interested in political pandering, but instead focuses on the development of processes, systems, and sustainable infrastructure that works to serve the common welfare is outlined and prioritized in our preamble. And finally, just for the record, I will not politically pander to anyone. It is not my style, and you will not get that from me. But hopefully we figured out by now that this type of politics has gotten us nowhere. It hasn't gotten my people anywhere. And it is yet to move the needle for students in ACPS. We are a wealthy locality. There's no excuse for our outcomes. So wake up because black lives will not matter until we do. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Alderton. And I have Dr. Hutchings wants to speak. I just wanted

130to say, wow. You know, I think that it's an honor to be on, to be a part of a team where the board does have the courage to speak up and speak out. And Ms. Alderton, I mean, your words as you were speaking really resonated with me. And I think what you're saying are things that a lot of people think, especially African-American people think, I believe, and I'm not speaking on behalf of African-Americans out there, but we don't say. And for you to have the courage to speak your truth, I think is so important. And, you know, I think that people are underestimating as we're getting some of the emails that are coming in. I think sometimes people underestimate really how difficult this reopening piece is. It is tremendously a lot of work. I mean,

131you all are just saying this was just three days of work that we're sharing with you all today. That's just three days of work. This is why I get five hours of sleep, you know, a day. Because I'm having to read all these documents. I have to make sure that I'm staying engaged so that I'm making the right decisions and using our feedback from our community to make these informed decisions. And it has taken a toll on all of us. But we know we have to do it for our young people and our staff. And at the end of the day. We're trying to release whatever the plan is going to be on August 7th. It is taking everything that we have in regards to our energy. And this is the summer. I mean, we've

132already gone through a pandemic from March to June. It really hasn't stopped for our team. And I think that the board has made it very clear with, you know, who Thomas Chambliss Williams is or was and how his. values did not align with our mission and our vision and our core values. And it doesn't align today. I think it was very clear. And I would expect some of the feedback and some of the approaches that people are having in our community. I would expect that if the board said, absolutely not. How dare you think we're going to change the name of a school? But that's not what, you know, I heard from the motion that happened, you know, last week. I heard that you. I really wanted to just make sure that you are staying

133true to a process. And I think that that's really important. You know, one last final thought, and I'm going to just get off my soapbox as well, because I wasn't planning to even go here. But I just think that it's important, especially for me as an African-American and an African-American man in this country. When people come at me with what I need to do to become an anti-racism or anti-racist. Not that Black people can't be racist because they can, right? However, you don't walk in my shoes. So you can't tell me if anybody's going to be advocating for somebody to change something or something to happen in regards to racist acts, it is going to be me who's a product of this school division. I've seen it firsthand of exactly what happened when I was

134a student from kindergarten through fourth grade. And now as a superintendent, I still get to see the same stuff. happening. So if anybody has a visceral reaction to what needs to change, trust me, it's me. So you're not going to win a battle fighting me to tell me what needs to happen. I already know what needs to happen. You're not telling me anything new. So I just want people to understand that, you know, I believe in one, this board. I also believe in the strategic plan that we just adopted. And I'm one proud to be able to be the superintendent at this very time in our history. And I know that our team is going to be committed to the charge you all gave me. And that is to come to you on August 27th

135with a plan of action so that we can move forward with this renaming process. And we're going to do that. You know, we just want to right now focus on getting that reopening piece done. And if you just allow us to come to bring up here on August 27th, we can lay out how we're going to get all this done. I think everybody at this point can really just calm down and allow us to reopen our schools and put our focus on that just so we're not, you know, being taken off off track. which I think is kind of happening. I see it slowing down a little bit. So I hope that it continues. Just let us get to August 27th and let us go through this process over the next several months. So I

136don't have anything further to say, Madam Chair. Just thank you, Ms. Alderton, for your comments. And thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to even speak. I know I wasn't. I just wanted to respond. No, that's fine. It's called the Dr. Hutchings Q&A, and so that allows you to speak too. So thank you. So that's it. I already talked about the things that were listed under my chair's report, and that was just a reminder again, another hearing on the 6th, another hearing on the 7th. The one on the 6th is at 7 p.m., and the one on the 7th is at... noon so you can contact the clerk to sign up for that but also we'll be posting all the anything that you write in for the meeting as well so now we actually have

137a closed session that we need to go into so if vice chair nolan could could read us in if she's she's had some connectivity problems so are you with us miss nolan I think I literally saw her like drop off my screen. I think she did drop off. I said something to her and then she dropped off. So I think Ms. Alderton, could you help us out then, please? Yes, I can. Madam Chair, I move that the board convene a closed meeting pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3711A1 for the discussion and consideration of employment. performance and contractual matters for 35 specific public employees. I can't. Sorry, I was I don't know how I muted myself. I'm sorry. I don't know if that was heard that about Miss Alderton making the motion and Miss Green seconding the

138motion. But then I somehow got muted. So now I'll call for roll call vote for closed session. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Yes. Okay. She's back. Megan Alderton? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reeve? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay. So that's eight yes and one absent. So just a reminder to everyone, we need to leave this meeting and go to the other link that you had. And so we'll meet you on the other side. Thanks. We weren't sure. Okay. Madam Chair, I move pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3712. I move that the Board certify that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened and are lawfully exempted by the Freedom of Information Act were heard, discussed,

139or considered by the Board in the closed meeting held on July 17, 2020. Second. I think I heard Ms. Alderton first seconding Mr. Suarez's motion. So I will now call for the vote. Cindy Anderson. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Werber. Yes. Sharif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Okay. So that's seven yes and two absent. Veronica's yes. She froze out again. Oh, is she? Yeah, she said to your internet screwed up again. Susan, you decide whether Veronica is absent or yes, but either way I think works. Okay, so now we just need to adjourn. Madam Chair, I move we adjourn this meeting. Second. Ms. Green seconds Ms. Lorber's motion to adjourn. I will call the roll. I beat you, Chris. I beat you. Yeah, she did. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan, I

140don't see her. Megan Alderton. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Chau Reeve. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Uh-oh, he's frozen. Uh-oh. Yes. Oh, there he is. Heather Thornton. Our internet is like giving up on us. Really? I think we burned Zoom out. I think we did too. I think we have another seven yes and two not present at this moment. All right, everybody. Have a great weekend.