August 14, 2020 Special Call School Board Zoom Meeting

001And so you're good to go, Cindy. Okay, great. Thanks. Welcome, everyone. This is the ritual special call and school board meeting for August 14th, 2020. And we're starting at 12.03. I'm going to call everybody's name for a roll call. I'm Cindy Anderson. I'm here. Veronica Nolan. Here, present. Megan Alderton. Do we see Megan? Her mic is muted. Oh, it is. Okay. Megan? Present. Oh, great. Thank you. Ramey Gentry? Here. Jacinta Green? Here. Margaret Lorber? Here. Michelle Reif? Here. Christopher Suarez? Here. Heather Thornton? Here. Okay, so we'll now start with our moment of silence. Okay, could I please get a motion to adopt the agenda for today? Madam Chair, I move that we adopt the agenda for today. Okay. Ms. Green seconds. Ms. Lorber's motion. And to adopt the agenda, as I said, we had a

002couple of additions. One, a personnel thing, which normally personnel for July and August, since we don't meet during that time, just goes into September. But since we're meeting, they wanted to add this one. So, Ms. Nolan, do you have the motion for adding the agenda items? I do thank you so much chair Anderson I move to add supplemental personal actions to the consent calendar and add enhanced continuity of learning plan 4.0 reimagining schools to old business second okay Ms. Gentry uh seconds Ms. Nolan's uh amendment to the That seconds the motion of Ms. Nolan. And so I'm going to call for the vote on amending the agenda first. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Werber? Yes. Michelle Reif? Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay,

003that's 9-0 for the amendment. And now we have to adopt the agenda as amended. So I'll call again for the roll call. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reeve. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. So that's 9-0 to amend today's agenda. And then we're now to the comments section. And there are three public comments this week that are posted with the meeting. And today's the last scheduled meeting until September. So comments, you know, look for information about comments closer to when we start in September because we'll... likely go back to having them in person in some way. So we'll be getting more information out. Well, not in person, but virtually, but live next month. So now we have, next we have

004the consent calendar. If I could get a motion. Madam, here I move we approve the consent calendar. Second. Ms. Alderton seconds Ms. Lorber's motion to approve the consent calendar. Is there anything to remove? Right now, I will ask for a roll call vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan, yes. Megan Alderton, yes. Ramey Gentry, yes. Jacinta Green, yes. Margaret Lorber, yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. So that's 9-0 to approve the consent calendar. And now we're on to old business. This is one of the things that was added for today. It was going to be in the superintendent's report, but because it had a lot more information than a usual superintendent's report, the clerk said it was better and more appropriate to put it under old business. So I'm going to turn

005it over to Dr. Hutchings now. Okay, sorry, I had to unmute myself. Thank you, Madam Chair. And first off, I just want to thank you all for allowing us to add this as an agenda item because we've gotten some emails and some questions recently. And, you know, I thought it was important for us to be able to share with the board, just to clarify some of the scheduling that is occurring that was released on Wednesday, and also talk a little bit about facilities access and some of the survey information. from the survey that we got. We're going to be sending a board brief out later on this afternoon, but I thought it was important for us to actually be able to have some dialogue about it too. So it will be public this afternoon as

006well. We're also going to be sending out a special edition of our A.C.P.S. Express this afternoon. So everything that's on here today that we're recording is going to be a part of that. So the community will still have an option to see all of this information as well. And we will have a link to this recorded meeting so that people can chime in if they were not able to tune in today. So I wanted to start with that. And then I wanted to say that I did bring a little crew with us to give an overview to the board. I was in the mood of feeling like I was at the Essence Festival today. So I had to put on my blue linen, folks. I said, you know what, I'm not going to put on

007my typical bow tie today because it is the summer and I wish that I was out of town doing something fun like the Essence Music Festival, even though that's normally in July. So I said, let me pretend today. That's my whole self-care piece. But I want to start off by introducing to you all some of our wonderful principals, because we do have them on board today to give some insight around our schedules. And this week, this wasn't the full. day in the life of a student this week. We're going to be sharing some more information out next week with more of like what does a typical full day look like. This week was really about sharing the time allotments with our community and with our families so they can know the type of time that

008has been allotted for different portions of the day. And I hope that today our principals will be able to clarify what happens during those particular times. So to get us started, I'm going to ask for Mr. Sampson, who is our Executive Director of Student Support Teams, to give a quick overview of how we developed our student schedules and how we started working through the master scheduling piece, what type of input went into that, and what were the marching orders to get to where we are today. So Mr. Sampson, I'm going to turn things over to you. Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchings. And it's great to be with you all again this week. So as we talked a little bit about last week as part of the cross-functional planning team process, one of the

009areas that we dove into, particularly in the SEAL subgroup, was thinking about student schedules and what that would look like, both potentially in hybrid and also in the virtual environment, which is where we're headed this fall. So we did work with a smaller group of principals to develop the hybrid schedules. And then we knew that as we looked at the virtual models that we needed to really involve. all of our principals. You know, they're the ones that have the needs of their communities, their staff needs, and the needs of their students at the forefront. So we had them all be part of the planning process that was highly collaborative. And I do just want to say here very briefly that they're just a great group of people and professionals with whom to work. So I

010really appreciate all of the time and effort that they've spent on this. And then as part of that process, they also went back and worked with some of their staff and brought that back to the group as we started to build out what do we want to have across ACPS as the schedule for our students virtually. So we did work within some guidelines. So one of the things we really wanted to emphasize was this need for social emotional academic learning to be present in every day that our students were touching base with teachers. You know, we know that the students are going to have needs based upon the lengthy school closure as well as the continued issues with systemic racism. So we wanted to make sure that that was right there at the forefront. We

011also knew that we heard loud and clear. from our parents in the spring at all levels that we needed to really ensure that there was time for movement, time for breaks as part of the school day so that it was not students sitting in front of a screen from 8 in the morning until 3.10 in the afternoon, but that there were opportunities both for some independent work as well as to get up and move a little bit, especially developmentally with our younger students. And the other another big thing that we really thought about was making sure that we had greater consistency across our schools as to the times that our students would be working more face to face in a virtual model. And then when they might be doing some more independent asynchronous types of

012work. So we really wanted to ask for some level of consistency amongst the schools by level. So elementary, middle and high. So we then we also wanted to ensure that we had that synchronous time where students were engaging with the teacher and their classmates, you know, in real time. We wanted to make sure that we had quality asynchronous resources and opportunities for our kids to where they had voice and choice in some of what they were doing, even if they weren't directly engaged with a teacher at that. point in time. And then we also knew that we wanted to think about, you know, translating the small group work that a teacher might do with certain groups of kids in the classroom as part of, say, a reading lesson. We wanted to make sure that there

013were opportunities for that, too, using some of the breakout room features that we have in Zoom. We also wanted the secondary schools, based on feedback, to explore opportunities for to support students so that they could juggle fewer classes or fewer assignments at a time, knowing that, you know, sometimes it could be overwhelming. So we wanted them to look both from a scheduling perspective, but also from sort of a process perspective in their buildings as to how they could try to streamline the amount of work and the types of work that students were doing. In order to accomplish all of this with our teachers moving into a fully virtual model, we knew that we wanted to set aside Mondays as time for teachers to be working on professional development, having time with teams to collaboratively plan

014for grade levels or across content areas, and that then students would be able to work on some of those high quality asynchronous experiences on Mondays. So we do expect that students will be participating in asynchronous experiences on Mondays and that at the same time our teachers will be working to plan for that upcoming week as well as deepen their own learning about virtual environments. So, and overall, we're really working, the next step for us is really to work on that timeline of when we're going to be able to release things like school schedules, grade level schedules, and student schedules, certainly before Labor Day, but even if possible, you know, what can we get out to families, even within this month of August prior to the start of September. So I will turn this on over

015to Heidi and the early childhood. Thank you for that overview, Daryl. Good afternoon, everyone. A typical day for a VPI student will begin with 75 minutes of asynchronous choice time. This means that the student will not be on Zoom live with the teacher, but may choose to do an activity from a choice board or to use the Clever platform and choose from a wide variety of activities, including online learning on websites or watching a video of a lesson that the teacher has made in advance, all by using the new tablet that will be provided by the district. This will be followed by about 75 minutes of synchronous learning, meaning the student will be on Zoom with their class in large group, working on building the classroom community, social-emotional learning, and self-regulation. They'll do fun and

016engaging activities such as greeting each other, playing cooperative games, practicing calm by deep breathing, discussing study topics such as what do we want to learn about trees, and shared writing as the teacher writes some of their responses on the screen. They will have a 10-minute movement break, which is so important for our youngest learners, as Daryl mentioned, before they have 30 minutes of small group instruction, such as counting objects or developing literacy by sorting pictures of toys that begin with the same sound, such as ball, book, and bubbles. The next few activities all involve asynchronous learning using their tablet, choice boards, or free play outside. Students will be able to choose to watch a teacher read aloud for 15 minutes from a variety of books, all available via their tablet. There is a 30-minute period

017for outdoor play and exploration, and teachers will supply ideas for parents to try outside and for safe physical movement and play inside. There is a 20-minute period for choice time, which includes students accessing structured online program activities using their tablets. After 30 minutes of lunch on their own, students will have encore classes, which will be both live on Zoom on some days and recorded lessons that can be watched on the tablet on others. The afternoon block, a synchronous live Zoom instruction, includes a 30-minute community building closing meeting to greet our friends again, review the day and our learning, and to hear a second read aloud. After another movement break, students will transition to a second 30-minute period of small group instruction. At the end of the day is a 60-minute rest period for students. Teachers

018will use this time to connect one-on-one with families and to provide coaching on how to support their child's development and learning at home. We've also posted schedules for early childhood special education programs. While these programs differ in the length of their day, they do share the same curriculum as VPI, and they offer specialized instruction, as noted in students' individual education plans. Thank you, and I'd like to introduce Principal Pascal to review the elementary schedule. Good afternoon. The elementary virtual plus template before you reflects instructional time frames that will be common across all schools. Although we're all likely beginning our day with SEAL, it is not meant to imply that every school will move from SEAL into ENCORE. Everyone can't have PE at the same time, right? I also want to take note that 30 minutes

019of recess is not listed on what's before you. Beyond the first block of time in the morning, the order of subjects will vary from school to school and from grade level to grade level within schools. We can't perfectly duplicate a classroom lesson in a virtual environment, but Virtual Plus will more closely approximate what a brick-and-mortar lesson might look like. The flow between live instruction and independent work will be familiar to students as they are accustomed to learning through the workshop and station rotation models. This should also set parents' mind at ease that live instruction is not simply a continuous screen time experience. So let's talk specifics. Across all subjects, elementary lessons typically begin with live instruction from the teacher with students gathered as a group. It might sound like this. Writers, today we're going to

020learn how to combine two words into one, notice contractions, so that our writing can match the way we talk. The teacher presents, models the skill, and slowly releases practice opportunities to the students while they're still together to begin to apply the skill. Once the teacher is confident students are ready to work independently, it's off you go, writers. I'm eager to see you edit your personal narrative for contractions. Students then work independently for a 20 to 40 minute period of time on the learning objectives just introduced. This generous chunk of time provides the teacher with opportunities for small group work, often with the help of additional instructional staff. Zoom has this wonderful feature called breakout rooms that with the click of a button simulates what would happen when a reading specialist or paraprofessional would invite three

021to five students to a corner of the room for targeted instruction. Students may also rotate through a series of stations or centers during this time. The needs of students with disabilities will be met in accordance with their IEP requirements and the needs of English language learners in a virtual setting will be met through direct services from EL teachers through the general education classroom and or a block of time set aside for ELD and intervention services. Most importantly, I want to dispel the myth that students will be sitting in front of a computer screen from 8 to 2.30. In addition to the time when students will be reading independently or completing written assignments, movement breaks will be embedded throughout the day. In addition to 30 minutes of recess, students will have a 30-minute lunch as well

022as two 10-minute breaks or the equivalent of an additional 20-minute break when they can completely back away from the computer. Even beyond that, rest assured that teachers will insert multiple stretch, dance, and get the oxygen back to your brain breaks often throughout the day. If you've ever been in an elementary classroom, you will know that a brain pump dance party could break out at any time. On Monday, sure child will have access through Canvas or Clever to a variety of activities and instructional resources to engage in independently, such as projects, recorded instructional videos, and online assignments. Now, Ms. Bynum will talk about the K-8 schedule. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to present the K-8 schedule. Dr. McCain, the head of school from Jefferson Houston, and I collaborated heavily with the elementary and middle

023school principals to create our K-8 schedules. We wanted to ensure that we aligned to the core tenets of both elementary and middle school while aligning both of our schools so we could maintain consistency throughout the K-8 program. With our elementary schedules, both schools start each instructional day with a 30-minute sealed block of time that addresses the socio-emotional needs of our students so that they can start the day on a positive note. Each of our schools have 60 minutes of math, 60 minutes of science and social studies, 20 minutes of movement breaks that are embedded and broken up throughout the day, 30 minutes of recess that is coupled with a break for the teacher as well and for office hours, 45 minutes of encore, 75 minutes of core reading. at least 30 minutes of office hours

024for teachers and a 30 minute lunch and a minimum of 45 minutes for intervention and enrichment. The intervention enrichment block provides each school with the unique opportunity to have talented and gifted services, English language services, specialized instructional staff working with our students and interventionists and coaches as well working with our students. to work closely with them to provide them all of the instructional needs that, to address all of the instructional needs that they may have. Each block starts with live, highly interactive teacher explicit modeling, followed by the addressing of misconceptions with the students about the skill or strategy that is being taught. This is about 15 to 20 minutes at the beginning of the lesson, and that's the total amount of teacher-directed learning. And the remainder of the instructional block will be asynchronous learning or

025independent learning and an opportunity for teachers to work with small groups or individual students as needed as we do within the classroom environment. For our middle school K-8 schedule, we work very closely with both Hammond and GW middle schools and their principals and their teams to align our schedules. Like our elementary students, our middle school students will start the day with a 30-minute SEAL lesson to address their social-emotional needs. They have four classes per day that are all divided by 10-minute movement breaks, and they will also have an elective each day. Staff have office hours twice a day, and there is a 30-minute lunch for staff and students. We are also excited to offer an eighth period on B-days that affords the opportunity for enrichment, intervention, and fun projects. In addition, the teachers will start

026their day and their day and also have, within the middle of the day, coupled with the student lunch and movement breaks, an opportunity to address any concerns of the students or parents through office hours. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bynum. Good afternoon. The middle school virtual plus schedule was collaboratively developed by our middle school principals, myself, Ms. Peters, and Mr. Mazur, our K-8 principals and directors of counseling. As shared by my pre-K, elementary, and K-8 colleagues, the middle school schedule also consists of asynchronous and synchronous learning models. The middle school schedule will be consistent across all middle schools with a learning model that allows time to learn new content, receive intervention, and opportunities to build community with their teachers and peers. Each Monday is an asynchronous planning day for staff and a learning day for

027students. On staff planning days, administrators and staff will spend the day in school-wide meetings, professional learning to continue ongoing training in our Virtual Plus platform. content professional learning communities, grade level team meetings to ensure cross-curricular collaboration among teachers, and individual planning for weekly instruction. It is important to note that there is planned and ongoing professional learning for teachers in the use of Canvas in all applications that we use through Clever. In addition, under the direction of Dr. Mann, central office instructional specialists and school-based instructional coaches will be supporting our teachers in the implementation of the curriculum in our virtual plus environment. On Monday, students will engage in their asynchronous learning. On asynchronous learning day, students have flexible and equitable opportunities to complete their learning throughout the school day. All asynchronous learning activities will be available

028in Canvas with the learning day beginning with a student-directed Nearpod activity on social and emotional learning. Students can then use the time for completion of their asynchronous learning activities through Canvas along with their scheduled movement breaks and lunch. Tuesday through Friday are synchronous learning days. Middle school students will follow an A-day, B-day block schedule. This means on Tuesday and Thursday, which are considered A-days, students will follow blocks 1, 3, 5, and 7. Wednesday and Fridays are B-days in which students will attend blocks 2, 4, 6, and 8. The instructional day begins at 830 in the morning with a morning meeting that focuses on social and emotional approaches to learning that allow students to build and maintain positive relationships and most importantly, create and maintain a positive school climate. After the morning meeting, students will then

029transition to block one on an A day and block two on a B day after a 10 minute movement break. Each block is 60 minutes utilizing a station rotation model. During each block, the instructional model during the 60 minutes consists of 20 minutes of synchronous whole group live instruction with their teacher. After whole group instruction, students transition into 30 minutes of station rotation, which can include asynchronous independent work, asynchronous choice board activities, which provide teachers opportunities for differentiation to allow student choice as well as assessment, and synchronous targeted small group instruction. The targeted small group instruction will allow our EL and special education teachers time to provide EL and special education services in the virtual classroom environment. The targeted small group instruction will also support differentiation in our honors classes as well. The 60-minute block

030ends with 10 minutes of regrouping and an asynchronous exit ticket. Again, between each block is a 10-minute break to allow for movement and time away from the computer screen. On A days, students will take four content classes, and on B days, students take three content classes along with their eighth block. Students also have 50 minutes of their scheduled time for a break and lunch within their school day. Block 8 is an additional online support for students. During Block 8, students will participate in scheduled extended advisory. school counselor-led wellness and fitness Friday activities, which further support social and emotional learning, virtual library services, virtual talented and gifted support, and a virtual teacher-led tutoring center to include language arts and writing, a math center, a science center, social studies center, and elective center. The instructional day ends

031with... 40 minutes of asynchronous and synchronous student support in which teachers can pull additional small groups for targeted support, as well as assist students with their asynchronous activities. In conclusion, the middle school principals are excited not only about the structure of this schedule, but the rigorous teaching and learning that will be maintained in our Virtual Plus environment. Mr. Ballas will now present the high school Virtual Plus schedule. Thank you, Ms. Peters. Our overall schedule was collaboratively developed as part of our work with the cross-functional planning teams and reimagining how we teach and learn at the high school level. The schedule incorporates building on strengths and addressing concerns from our spring virtual delivery of instruction due to COVID-19 school-related closures. The Titan Virtual Plus schedule for the Minnie, Howard, and King Street campuses consists of courses

032that run all year long, as well as courses that run semester long. Our goal... was to develop a schedule that would adequately address the virtual home workload for our students and our staff. I will walk you through what a day will be like for students while also explaining how students will be earning graduation bearing credits and being able to be successful on assessments related to those courses. Our schedule incorporates asynchronous and synchronous blocks of time that will enhance the student learning experience while also providing time for targeted interventions and support. Finally, you will hear many similar themes with the middle and elementary schools showing our systemic alignment pre-K through 12. As you previously heard, Mondays will be asynchronous learning days for students and professional planning, learning, and collaboration time for staff. Students will have learning

033assignments from their teachers posted on campus. Tuesday through Friday, the Titan Virtual Plus schedule runs from 8.10 a.m. and ends at 3.10 p.m. We will begin each day with a block of synchronous learning from 8.30 to 10. So I'm going to go back one line, if you don't mind. Tuesday through Friday, the virtual Titan Plus schedule runs from 8.30 and ends at 3.10. We will begin each day with a block of asynchronous learning from 8.30 to 10. During this time, students will be working on assignments posted in Canvas, working in small groups, and participating in targeted interventions and support as determined by teachers. This will also... Be in ample time to have case managers meet with or check in with students who received specialized instruction. Our first synchronous block of time will begin at 10

034a.m. Students will be in the session for 60 minutes. This will be every Titan's home base where they will receive content learning in a year-long course, as well as social-emotional academic learning lessons, which are vital to supporting our students during this time. Again, this first synchronous block will run all year long. Students and staff will then have a break after this block for lunch. Beginning at 12 noon, students will then have three more synchronous learning blocks that will meet each day, Tuesday through Friday. These blocks will last for 50 minutes each, with 20-minute breaks in between. During these blocks, students will participate in semester-long classes. and receive direct instruction from teachers, but also have opportunities for high levels of engagement and discourse. This is not meant to be hours of screen time with students passively

035listening to adults speaking. Our staff will be working with technological tools to keep students engaged and challenged. These three classes are meant to last one semester, thus completing these three courses at the end of quarter two. During semester two, students will continue with the asynchronous learning block from 8.30 to 10 and their first block year-long synchronous class for 60 minutes each day. This is no change from semester one. But now students will have three new synchronous classes for semester two. At the conclusion of the second semester, students will have completed classes in their first synchronous block in addition to the three synchronous blocks for semester two. So, by the end of the school year, students will still be able to complete seven courses, just as they would in a traditional school year. Our semester-based schedule

036will allow students and staff to delve into content deeply, while also allowing for time to address credit recovery. It's also important to note that this is not less work for students, but it will mean fewer classes to juggle at one time. In addition, teachers will have fewer students at one time in a semester-based model, allowing them time to get to know their students as well as dig into the content. Students will also be able to use the 8.30 to 10 block of time in semester two to prepare for tests in AP. advanced placement, dual enrollment, or any other end-of-course assessments. Some courses, however, will need to run throughout the entire school year. Courses that will require this include certain career and technical education courses, advanced placement courses, and specific courses designed for students receiving EL

037services or specialized instruction. I would like to specifically reference our AP courses. We are currently working with teachers to determine and finalize which AP courses will be year-long and which ones will be semester-based. We are taking great care in making these decisions. For those AP classes that will run semester one, we are aware that the AP exams are not until early May. To continue supporting these students in February, March, and April, we will be using the 8.30 to 10.00 timeframe of the schedule to ensure that these students are prepared for their AP exams. College Board has also developed robust materials that teachers and students can use during these months to keep the content fresh prior to the exams. In early September, students and families will receive their schedules with specific information regarding which courses will

038be year-long and which ones will be semester-based. Our staff is currently working diligently to ensure that we make the most of our current situation by maximizing opportunities, learning, and equity for our Titans. Our satellite campus will continue operating on a trimester system with students taking two courses from September to December. two more from December to March, and the final two from March to June. Students will be enrolled in these courses in conjunction with any courses they may be taking at either King Street or many Howard campuses. Online AP courses at Satellite will continue to run for the full year. Satellite will be embedding SEAL lessons into the advisory structure and community circle groupings. Academic advisors will continue to meet with students daily. and Satellite will continue to offer AM, MPM sessions for students to ensure

039maximum flexibility for our students, especially those with hybrid schedules. Thank you, and I will now turn it over back to Dr. Hutchings. And thank you to all of our principals who were here presenting today. And they're going to stay on because I know the board members may have some questions. I want us to transition into our facility usage and access because a part of us now going into our virtual plus world this fall, it's going to be important for us to also understand how. are we going to have access into our schools? Because just because our students aren't coming into our buildings every day, there is some activity that's happening and will be happening in our school buildings. So I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Hart, who is our acting executive director of

040facilities and operations to provide us an overview of our facility usage and access. Dr. Hart. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings, and good afternoon, everyone. So as Dr. Hutchings introduced, we do have a few activities that are ongoing within our sites, and this first slide really just illustrates what are the categories for those activities. So we do have some athletic conditioning program activities that are ongoing, as well as on-site registration. We are working with our community partners for summer programs, such as RPCA and Campania. We also have some instances where there are school tests that need to be done on site because they require a proctor. We continue to work with the city regarding coordinated events such as elections. We have our ongoing meal distribution at a few of our sites. And then we also have a

041few business, IT, and facility operations that are occurring on site. The one thing that I really want to focus on today is our employee access to the sites in light of COVID-19. So what are the items that we are currently saying yes to? We are saying yes to access for requests that directly support the facilitation and instruction of, excuse me, facilitation and coordination of instruction. Any requests that require for staff to go into the buildings to retrieve fundamental supplies and materials in order to telework. We understand that we also have some employees and students who may be departing from ACPS and need access to the facility to gather items. We already spoke about earlier some approved city-coordinated events. And then any task that has to be completed on site and is a primary component of

042that individual's work program. We do, in addition, have a few activities that are occurring at central office to include our new employee onboarding, so fingerprinting, receiving badges, so on and so forth. Maybe retrieval of financial items such as paychecks. And then again, any tasks that our staff has to go into central office to complete and as a primary component of their work program. With that said, there are activities that we are right now saying no to. And those include any requests that do not directly support the facilitation and coordination of instruction. Requests that can be completed virtually. Requests that are not an essential function of the work program, and today we give an example of retrieval of clothes, for example. And then requests that are unable to achieve social distancing requirements. The one thing that

043we are keeping in mind is that we want to minimize and manage building access in an effort to keep everyone safe at this time. And so to tie into the previous slide, we've created a decision tree. And this decision tree will be used by our principals to really help guide the access process. So we are starting off with the question of does the request meet the criteria that was mentioned before? If no, that request should not be approved. And if it does, the next question we need to ask ourselves is can this activity adhere to social distancing requirements? If yes, it will move on to the supervisor or the principal to be reviewed and approved. And if it cannot, then we will say no to it because we want to make sure that we are

044adhering to our health and safety protocols. And then if the principal approves the request, Then those names of those individuals who need access will be submitted to our maintenance and custodial services office, at least 48 hours in advance. This will allow us time to coordinate with our internal staff such as custodians, our building engineers, our maintenance staff so they are aware of who will be in the building, as well as making sure our screening logistics goes off without much of a hitch. And if the principal does not approve, then that request is not approved and those individuals will not have access to the building. And so we want to continue to encourage and speak on what are the health and safety necessities for accessing our sites. That includes making sure that access is being deemed

045as essential. We're encouraging, of course, for individuals to bring and wear PPE. And if they do not have a face covering, we will provide that. We want to make sure that we are steadfast with our social distancing compliance, that we are adhering to our screening measures, and that we are also managing the hours of access. To that end, we are creating a phasing plan for access. And the first part of that phase is our pre-virtual plus plan. We have titled it such because we understand that there are certain activities that principals, administrative staff, and maybe even some instructional staff need to access the building for in order to prepare for our virtual plus launch. So those dates would be August 24th through September 4th. And the hours of access would be 8 a.m. to 4

046p.m. Monday through Friday. Those limited hours are due to a few things. We do still have ongoing summer cleaning activities such as stripping and waxing our floors. We have continued preventive maintenance and repairs that are ongoing. And we do still have construction activities that are ongoing. Because we have a myriad of these activities that are currently taking place, we do want to make sure that we are limiting access, limiting interaction as much as possible, again, to keep everyone safe. And then the second phase of this plan would begin from the start of school being September 8th through the end of the first quarter at minimum. And who this would particularly impact would be, again, our school leadership, instructional staff, administrative staff, and our virtual plus partner programs, and then any in-person supports that are deemed

047necessary to occur during this time frame. We are expanding hours of access for this purpose to be 6.30 a.m. to 7 p.m. in two certain categories. So we have Monday through Friday access for our school leadership and administration. And then Tuesday through Friday access for any essential needs that teachers may have in the case that for whatever reason they would need to come on site to facilitate their classroom instruction for that day. We do anticipate for our summer activities to be completed as well as major construction to be completed in this timeframe. Next slide. And so what are our next steps or our first steps? We presented this plan to the principals this past Wednesday. We are also having meetings with principals next week, as well as with our Virtual Plus program partners to start

048building out and mapping out what the access looks like at each site. And then the goal is to develop our site-specific schedules for each site that can be shared, that everyone can understand. And that also makes sure that we are keeping in mind what is the allowable social distancing capacity for each site with all of the activities that would be ongoing. We look to finalize this overall matrix by next Thursday, the 20th. We want to have a day or so to introduce this plan to our internal staff so that that way they are well aware of the changes of access. And then we plan to go live with our first phase Monday, the 24th. And so that concludes the presentation regarding facility access. I will pass it on to Mr. Page for his part of

049the presentation. Thank you so much, Dr. Hart, and good afternoon, board, and happy Friday. Early August, meeting with the board, so different year, certainly for all of us. I want to do a high-level overview of the Virtual Plus Supports poll results, which closed this past Sunday. So just as a reminder, the intent of this poll was to gauge the scale of need. in the critical areas in the supports and also hear voice from stakeholders to the specific needs that they're citing and helping to refine our ACPS Virtual Plus supports planning process. In terms of participation, we had over 5,300 families respond to the poll, over 1,500 staff respond to the poll, and approximately 500 students. We saw representation consistent with our recent survey efforts, both at the end of July and early July. And certainly

050knowing as an organization that we continue to value stakeholder voice and input and will continue outreach and engagement efforts as we go into implementation around the Virtual Plus model. In terms of the high level results, what you see here in the visual in front of you is the percent of respondents citing need by a critical area in terms of supports. And what we see when we look across the different stakeholder groups represented is we see instruction and technology having the greatest need of additional supports across families, students, and staff. We also know that child care is a critical area of focus for our families and our staff, and we saw 36%. of families responding that they would require additional supports as it relates to child care. When we further broke out those results, we saw

051in particular elevated needs for support for our youngest learners. So pre-K to two coming in at 49% of families requesting additional support and grades three through five at 41%. We also know when looking at these critical areas and while we have them kind of artificially broken out here in terms of instruction, technology, childcare, et cetera, that is not how families experience these needs. And we know that these needs for many families cut across a multitude of these areas. And so what we saw in further diving into the data were themes that emerged across multiple support areas. with families of L. are students with disabilities, Hispanic, Latino, and Black or African American students reporting higher rates of needing additional supports. As Dr. Hutchings alluded to earlier, there will be a detailed attachment with further survey results

052included in the board brief going out today. And we will continue to work with both our planning teams as well as others in terms of engaging in the qualitative data and using that to inform our planning moving forward. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Huffman. Thank you, soon-to-be Dr. Page. Good afternoon, board members, Dr. Hutchings, community. I appreciate the opportunity to provide some updates regarding our cross-departmental and community provider child care work as it was identified as a plus area for exciting virtual plus model for our most vulnerable families. As you can probably assume, things are evolving each day and moving quickly. Just like the other presenters have said, it really takes a collective collaborative effort to put these things into place and to ensure success. As I mentioned last week,

053we've been meeting with multiple providers each Tuesday and just sponging up as much information as we can from our potential community child care providers. This information continues to be captured and if we think about a sponge we're just kind of wringing it out now and laying it all on the table so that all the logistical puzzle pieces can be put together so that we have a clear path forward on the content of each of those pieces and then like I said putting them all together. Since last time I spoke to the board we do have some updates and I spoke just last Friday so it's quick turnaround but we do have some updates. One of the update areas is regarding our work to clarify the supports that our providers are requesting from ACPS and how

054we may help with those requests. One of the top requests we're hearing from our providers is technology support. Our wonderful chief of technology, Dr. Hoover, talked to the group last week about the opportunity to potentially have a technology liaison that would connect with the provider's point of contact to discuss any challenges or questions that arise at their sites during their programming. She also alluded to some upcoming tech guidance videos and things that they're doing on our end that they could also utilize at their sites. Another area of movement involves our facility usage. You heard Dr. Hart say that Ms. Cordova from Facilities and Operations is going to be reaching out to those providers, I believe she's already started, who have requested ACPS space and will be working through those needs and details this week and

055early next week on an individual basis. We know that some of the considerations will be in terms of sites, its geographic locations and community need. provider capacity and even where we have currently 21st century sites, we need to align some of, we need to align that work with these sites so that they can also support it. So that's going on as well. We also, Dr. Crawford and Dr. Mann spoke at the last discussion and talked a little bit about the daily schedules and had initial discussions on how ACPS can support our providers in the area of social and emotional needs. In regards to the partner connection and engagement piece, you know, we have, I've said it before, we're so lucky we have this incredible umbrella of partner supports in this community. Different categories are represented

056in those partnerships, these Virtual Plus partners. That includes those that could provide childcare, supplemental partners with different specific supports such as STEM and dance and mentoring and all those different supports. And together, they all have one common goal and that is to support the students and families in this Virtual Plus model. In addition to connecting our official Virtual Plus partners to school and department leadership, I've also been working to create a network for those partners that truly supports them connecting with each other. I've been meeting with them on an individual basis to work through their vision of support, expectations, and then how they can connect with each other in this umbrella to provide a collective collaborative effort. What has certainly helped is that we have these strong relationships with many of our partners already. I'm

057so proud to say that our partners immediately are pivoting their programming and their vision to support and continue to connect with students and staff in this new model of educational instruction. So the message here is on the key updates is that we continue to move forward with multiple meetings and individual discussions with providers, city representatives, including even the community human services we just met with them, organizations and foundations in order to strategically work together to serve our most vulnerable students and families. For these next steps, as we work towards into August, we've got some next steps. So you see the reflection, but really we're now in, now that we've received the results, we're going to really look into analyzing them. There's some analyzing that needs to be done, but this is just one data point.

058We know that we had a afterschool work group that. did a survey a couple years ago that talked about after-school care, and we can use that data also to help us with our providers. The providers have data that they've received about child care needs, so we're going to really analyze that data. We're also in the process of creation of a child care provider ACPS proposal that would be presented to align stakeholders and ACPS leadership. This outline will be based on the information gathered and clearly provide details of the ACPS support. Eligibility, which includes this qualification rubric that we're putting together based on multiple categories and using the example of our title work that we do with students. There's a criteria there and eligibility that we can use as an example. We'll look at facility. This

059proposal will have facility usage. sites, budget needs, capacity, all those other logistical puzzle pieces. The proposal will certainly be a unified effort with the hope that providing this clarity and this proposal will support quick movement to implementation phase. And then last, obviously, if you've got this proposal and you've got everything looking good and in place, you're going to have to make sure you're going to get it out to your stakeholders and your families. And so there's going to have to be a marketing outreach campaign that will successfully disseminate child care information and guidance of all those all those areas to our most vulnerable students and families. In conclusion, I know there's still questions to be answered and remain. Again, we're working forward in a smart pace with many pieces starting to be put into place,

060but several more we're working on. We know that having information to families soon is important. And I truly know that because we're so fortunate to have such a committed group of internal leadership and providers. along with other community partners that will be able to move quickly as possible so their families have sufficient time to make the decisions needed. So all stressing safety first because we know that's an overall view that we need to have also. Thank you. All right. Thank you all. So I know that was a lot of information that we wanted to share to the board. That's why it's great to have a wonderful team. So I didn't have to do all that by myself. So I want to turn things back over to Madam Chair. I'm sure you would like to open

061the floor for any questions, but we are here to answer any of the board has. Yes, I see the first I have Miss Gentry with question. Hello. I'll actually, I'll ask two questions at once and then that should take care of me for today. So my first question, thank you for really helping us walk through the day. You know, I think we're starting to get more and more of a picture. Of course, you know, we'll wait until, you know, I think we'll, even more stuff will become clear as we go through. But I found myself today thinking about the question, two questions related to the schedule. One's more student-focused, which is a question of lunch. Lunch is like, I mean, most of us remember that as like a key socializing moment. And I'm wondering if

062there's been any thought about, is there a way that lunch isn't just take off your headset and go away, but is there some kind of way that ACPS can still help students? socialize in what would have traditionally been the moments of socialization. And then my next scheduling question is around our staff that's going to be putting all of this together. These are really robust schedules that are really full days. But of course, we know that our staff, I mean, we have at least the information from Mr. Page's that... you know, we have the 11% number of the staff maybe have some childcare challenges. So if they are having to juggle kids that are home, because we know kids are going to be at home because all of our other, you know, even whether they live

063in Alexandria or they live in a neighboring jurisdiction, we know all of our neighboring jurisdictions are also going to start virtual. How can How can the staff work with their school leaderships to craft some schedules? And, you know, one thing that I just thought about that, I know that a lot of the other divisions are doing something similar with this idea of like a planning asynchronous day. And just off the top of my head, I wondered if any if there had been any thinking or value in like if we have our asynchronous planning day be different from one of the other divisions days, that that might be one way that we can. offer a little bit of relief or flexibility. But any ideas like that or other thoughts, I would really appreciate hearing it because

064I know it's got to be a, it's a stressor for parents everywhere. And I'm sure that includes some of our teaching staff as well. Thank you. And thank you for the question, Ms. Gentry. And I'll have one of our principals be able to respond to that. I would like to say, I think that one thing we're all going to have to be able to do, and that's everybody, regardless of your situation, is there really is a huge paradigm shift that is happening that we've somewhat adjusted to in some ways. Some of us... you know, have been forced to adjust faster than others. Like myself, I had no choice but to adjust or I wouldn't be able to operate and function, you know, as superintendent. But I think that we are going to have to help

065our students and our families with this adjustment too. And if we can't replicate certain things, we might begin to discover some new ways of having socialization or interactions that are different from how they used to be. But I would like to hear from any of our principals. I know that you all were working as a team and a group. We showcased a couple of principals today, but it was really all of our principals who were involved in this work over the past several weeks. Would anyone like to chime in or possibly share some of the discussions that you may have had on this topic? already. Well, I'll give it a shot, Dr. Hutchings. You know, first of all, Ramey, thank you for the question. It certainly presents a double-edged sword, as many parents have said

066to me, they want their kids to kind of back away from the computer completely for a period of time. One thing that has surfaced is the possibility, and I honestly can't confirm that it's feasible. Could the teacher leave the Zoom room open during lunch and the teacher back out? Any students that want to back out, do so. The others enjoy lunch with their classmates in the room. That certainly has surfaced as one possible way. The other, I think, families are working behind the scenes to create some of those structures informally. And we'll learn more about that and ways we can support them down the road. Does that help? Dr. Hutchings, if I may add to the conversation, particularly regarding the lunch, it's in the middle of the instructional day. So we did. you know, think

067it was important for students to back away from screen time. The importance of the eighth block was for that socialization. We have, we will have a variety of activities that will take place from Wellness Wednesday and Fitness Friday, community circles, opportunities for kids to engage with their friends and peers through our virtual library services. So we will have structured time for them to have time with their peers, but the lunchtime in particular. because it fell in the middle of the instructional day just to give their eyes a break from the screen. Would any principals be able to speak to the teacher question? Because I think you had a second question as well, Ms. Gentry, in regards to our staff and the fact that they are home with some of them, 11%, according to our data,

068are speaking to some of the challenges that they're having with child care. And can you talk to any of our principals, talk to that? Because I know one specific thing that I heard principals talk about is teachers are not expected to be on for seven hours straight, you know, so that they also can have some opportunities to, you know, not be on the screen. But if any of our principals can share out, that would be great. I could speak to that briefly. One of the reasons we set up the preschool full day schedule the way we did, you'll notice that the day starts with asynchronous learning. And then there's a chunk of asynchronous learning in the middle of the day as well. And that's to support all families, the families of our children and our

069teachers' families, because we know that those mornings start getting started in the morning. You know, people may have to get multiple children started on Zoom. And we just want to kind of be respectful of the fact that for our families that we serve and for our teachers and their families, a little flexibility at the beginning of the day can be really helpful. And then we also tried to build in that middle of the day chunk. So again, families can work with their kids and see their needs. Families at home as well be able to gauge whether their child needs to go out and play more, for example. Sorry about my dog. So I think that's one thing. And then I also think we just have to be really. you know, respectful and supportive of our

070staff. And as we start this process, listen to them and try to continue building the strong relationships that we have with them so that we can help them manage some of that pressure and anxiety that they will be facing. And I would echo what Ms. Haggerty said. And our schedule was set up with a lot of feedback that we got from staff about what we all know virtual home life teaching to be and virtual learning to be. We also start with asynchronous time, as Ms. Haggerty said. And also, it's part of the reason we went to our semester-based hybrid type of schedule that would allow students to juggle fewer classes at one time, still completing the same amount of courses they would in a traditional year, but fewer to juggle at one time. And if

071I could just chime in from the middle school perspective, on Mondays, although they're planning days for teachers, there are three structured meetings, and then the remainder of the time would be individualized planning for teachers, just keeping in mind that they are juggling home and school life. And then during instructional days, the Tuesday through Friday, the teachers, while they have their scheduled you know, scheduled time with students, they do still have their scheduled planning period throughout the day, their lunchtime, as well as their office hours, which would not necessarily mean that they're on with students at that time. So their scheduled breaks throughout the school day, they are not on the computer for the whole seven hours per day. Absolutely. And we will definitely keep the breaks. flexible for the teachers and allow them to have

072that time to use as they need to use it so that they are not stressed. And we keep in touch with them quite regularly and we'll do so and make adjustments as needed. Okay, thank you very much. Next up, I have Dr. Reif. Okay, well, I just want to thank everyone for the presentation. It was really informative. I really enjoyed hearing about all the aspects, and I know you all have been working really hard on what is a very challenging situation. This kind of builds off of Ms. Gentry's question. Dr. Hutchings, in the ACPS Express that went out this week, I did appreciate that there was a statement in there from you that a virtual learning environment is not best educational practice. And I would agree with that. And I appreciate you putting that out

073there. I realize that this is kind of a situation where there really are no perfect solutions, because sometimes when you try to solve one problem, you can create others in doing that. But with regards to the schedule, when I first looked at the elementary schedule, and I'm thinking right now about some of our youngest learners in particular, because we have heard a lot of feedback from parents who are concerned about the amount of screen time, as we've just been discussing. As a parent of a second grader and a fourth grader myself, I certainly share that. So when I first looked at the schedule, I guess what I want to say is I saw that, you know, the symbol for the independent work and the asynchronous work. And in my mind, I was thinking that this

074was offline time, you know, but then listening to Mr. Paschal talking, I realized that. oh, some of this is going to be online work as well. Like, for example, if I know if my second grade son had a choice board and he had an opportunity to go play what I call a video game on ABC, like that's what he would be doing during his choice time. So I guess what I was wondering is since, you know, since the Chromebook and the tablets are like this really this important tool for us to connect to our students. And I feel like. we're kind of framing our day kind of, you know, with that device in mind. I'm just wondering if there's been some thought given to. What are the best practices around learning offline, you know, even

075though we can't meet in person? Like, kind of thinking it like that, like, you know, project-based learning. And I understand that our students have very different levels of support at home, and that can be a big factor. But just thinking about ways that we can get them offline doing meaningful work. throughout the day. And then, you know, coupled with that, my second question kind of related to that is. You know, another concern I've heard from the younger parents of younger children is this issue of the transitions, you know, to kind of go online and log in and then to break and then come back and then break. That for some children, especially the younger kids, those transitions can be really difficult. And parents, I know from experience, can have serious power struggles around those times.

076And I'm just curious about how the attendance is going to work. And what kinds of flexibility you are going to allow for families who may be having these kinds of power struggles around keeping their children connected through the full day. So I'm going to start off and then I'm going to have one of the principals kind of chime in or anyone who wants to chime in can for that. So first and foremost, I have to say that I think that. This adjustment for everybody is very difficult. And I do still stand behind, and I'm glad you mentioned it, Dr. Reif, that virtual learning is not the best practice for every student. For some students, it works really well, but it's not 100% of our kids who are going to be engaged in this type of

077learning. And we have to acknowledge that. But then we have to also add the caveat to, because we're in this particular situation right now, and we have to adjust, we're going to have to figure out how do we help people, whether it's our students or our families or staff along the way, because it is kind of our new normal for today. Hopefully this won't be forever, right? But it is our new normal for today. So it's more of like, how are we going to now support our families and support our students and support our staff members so that they can make this transition and hopefully it's on a temporary basis, knowing that there still may be some additional supports for some of our families. And one thing that is important to your second question is

078around. you know, families who might be experiencing some students who just are not as engaged and having difficulty getting logging on and those types of things, that our student support teams are really here to assist with that too. You know, one thing that kids are, especially our younger students, they are resilient and they're impressionable. So when you begin to develop routines, especially for early learners, regardless of what the routine is, even as, you know, I'm thinking through our, that's why we had to come up with routines in my own household, you know, didn't work so much with my older daughter, but a little better with, a little better, not the best with Gregory. But when you put our students into an environment where you have consistency and routines and that you're reinforcing that continuously. over

079time you will see that students will just begin to adjust and there's similar strategies and tactics that we use when we're in person. Now this is virtual so it's going to be a little different but I think that we no one has had that experience yet because in the spring it was so flexible that it and it wasn't as structured or wasn't required to be a structure so it was like hit or miss. depending on who your teacher might have been during that particular time. Whereas this is a lot more structured, which we have to be because of. One, we don't have the waivers from the VDOE like we did in the spring. Before, we were waived from attendance. We were waived from assessments. I mean, we were waived from everything. That's not the case

080this go-round because as a local division, we're making the choice to be virtual. It's not that the governor has mandated all schools to not be in person. I wanted to start with that, but if there are any principles that want to elaborate, because I know that you all have more firsthand experience that you can share, please feel free. I see Rainey moving. Yeah, Ms. Reed. Go ahead, Rainey. I applaud your notion of bringing up the idea of problem-based learning. I was on the phone earlier this week or in communication with a fifth grade teacher who was gung-ho about inserting some science-specific problem-based units of study that she can introduce. And that would allow for some of that, the flow between the asynchronous time to be completely offline time and not just on Monday. It doesn't

081correct the issue of kids having to come back on and transition, but it does help with that. And I do want to reiterate that the asynchronous options don't always have to include a computer option at all. They could be reading a book, writing a letter to a family member. So we certainly want to dive into Virtual Plus, knowing that there are many new innovative ideas are going to surface that we're going to want to capture and nurture so that we can find that blend. This is Ingrid Bynum. I've been hearing that I can't be seen. So, so Mr. Oh, there I am. Okay. So I wanted to just chime in that now that we are solely having to rely on a virtual experience, we are going to have to have a paradigm shift in how

082we deliver instruction. We are going to have to focus a lot more on alternative assessments, which The easiest ones to do when you're transitioning to alternative assessments are always project-based learning. So it'll give children an opportunity to maybe interact with the outdoors, interact with their home environment, and different ways of being able to assess what they're learning. So I'm actually very excited. I know during... when we had the springtime, when we had to transition into virtual learning, our teachers are very excited that we could actually stop relying so much on paper and pencil so that we could do some fun things with the children. So we will be focusing on alternative assessments and alternative way of children being able to demonstrate what they've mastered through the learning. In addition to that, the asynchronous learning, children

083will be able to have an opportunity to focus on other ways of demonstrating what they've learned. And I guess I want to just say that through... other digital ways as well, not so much relying upon it very heavily, but in terms of intervention programs and things like that as well. So we'll do some digital, but we do want to focus a lot on getting them off of digital, but being able to have the opportunity and choice. I think Mr. Sampson, I know he was doing a lot of work with our principals. You may want to chime in because you had a full overview of everybody's perspective about this particular topic. Sure, thank you. So I want to reiterate what Dr. Hutchings said. First of all, that, you know, student support team members, so your school

084counselors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers are available in the individual schools, particularly if a student is struggling with overall transitions or sometimes transitions between certain subject areas or certain classes at the upper grades. We're able to like work and problem solve with with families to sort of see what the root cause might be and then to try to come up with a plan of attack. I do know that, and I believe this is through FACE, but Mr. Huffman can certainly chime in, you know, we're working on some seminars and some workshops that our team, SST, can also support along with FACE to assist parents, like how do you start to develop you know, a strategy or a schedule in this newly virtual environment? And how do you help to manage some of the emotional or

085behavioral struggles that some of our students might be having as well? So I know that we're also going to try to be proactive and get some additional information out there specifically for families on some of these issues. I could also briefly speak to some of the, you know, questions you raised. And we really thought about these things as well with preschool transition. And just, you know, my first. concept on the schedule was to really break things up from a developmentally appropriate practice idea, not have the kids on the screens for more than like 20 minutes at a time. But what we learned from summer school, and we learned a lot from our summer school implementation, and we got great feedback on it. And the teachers really, in the conversations, what we learned was it's very

086difficult for families to get their kids transitioning off and on. And so if you look at our schedule, you'll see that that's why we chunk sort of an AM period of synchronous learning and a PM period of synchronous learning. And we're going to, you know, my view of this is we're going to try this. And, you know, if a child feels like after 20 minutes, they need to get up and move around, that's going to be okay, right? We're going to start where we are. We're going to have the kids have a really positive introduction to school. And if we need to adapt as we go, we will. But we did really think about those transition, try to plan smooth ones for the families at home. Did anyone answer how you're taking attendance? Is it?

087per class, like especially at secondary? I'm really interested to hear about that. At secondary, it would be through power school by class for all class periods. As Dr. Hutchings mentioned, the state has not waived attendance requirements, so we are going to have to be as close to what we would do in a traditional school year, understanding that we'll have different avenues to not report attendance because that will be through power school, but just different ways, like on our asynchronous day, we will look for meaningful contact as opposed to, quote, seat time or time on Zoom. And we will be able, which we weren't able to do in the spring, is because we're taking attendance, we can follow up when students are not coming in to find out what's going on the same way we would

088do if they were in person, because there may be some supports that families need so that their kids are present. And it's just a matter of us now following up to see, hey, what's going on? What is it that we can do to support you during this time so that, you know, we're giving families what they need so kids can be engaged? Great. Thank you. That was a lot of information. Next, I have Ms. Lorber. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Can everybody hear me? Can you hear me? Yeah? Okay, good. First off, great to see everybody and really fun to have the principals here sharing your experiences and giving us a sense of reality about what's going to go on in the schools. My two questions sort of build on other people's questions. The first one

089has to do with, Dr. Hutchins, you just mentioned the fact that we're going to follow up with students who aren't attending. Can you talk a little bit about, do we have sort of anything systematic in place? Are we building a systematic way of really figuring out who's participating, who isn't, and what we do to assist, whether it's one-on-one phone calls, whether it's, you know, what is our plan around not just attendance, but participation. And I guess, and I want to link that. My second question is about where are we on internet? Because obviously that's also key to kids performing. So I guess I wanted an update on. internet and family access and then just a sense of if we are looking at this systematically on participation and how we follow up with these families with

090kids. So I'm going to have Dr. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Lorca for those questions. I'm going to have Dr. Crawford answer the question regarding the systems and processes and protocols we have in place in regards to students being or not being engaged. And then Dr. Hoover is going to answer the question about internet access and our technology update. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Ms. Lorber. Excellent question. And we know that this is a critical area for us when we talk about SEAL. That is one of the benefits of taking attendance and of the grading aspect that we are going to be able to monitor students' participation so much more closely. I'll bring you back to last week as well, knowing that. SEAL is a focus of ours and we'll be doing some of

091our informal and formal assessments through our screeners. We're going to be able to identify students' needs a little bit more specifically. So if we're able to take a look at who may be the most in need and then classroom teachers really closely monitoring participation and working with their SST, specifically social workers. then we know that we're going to be able to be a little bit more effective with our outreach this year because we have some accountability measures. And I'll just pause to make sure, Mr. Sampson, did I cover as executive director of SST, did I cover the team's work? Sure, and we did do this work back in the spring with students that weren't engaging. The attendance will be helpful this year. I'll transition over this to Dr. Hoover. I think one of the things

092we're going to be looking at is as we see students that aren't participating, is one of those barriers a lack of access to internet? And so then we'll be able to sort of follow up and connect them, the student and the family then, to the resources that are available to get that access. Could I just ask Mr. Sampson and Julie, just in response to the response, a little question. It's going in and out of my head. Oh, yes. Do we have sufficient, do you have sufficient support team staff? I'm wondering if, considering how many students there are in the system and how many students there are in the schools, you know, each of our schools has one social worker, one. Are we comfortable that we have enough staff to do this follow-up? And I'm thinking

093even possibly nurses, you know, we could be expanding and really making, I guess, if you can tell me a little bit more about the thought that's going into using this SSTs and feeling that we have adequate coverage for the numbers of students who may need follow-up. Well, we know as we come into the fall that we, and there's lots of research and articles about this every day, that the social emotional needs of students are at an all-time high, that we've got trauma levels. So that's where we are really looking to have a collaboration, thinking of our MTSS pyramid. doesn't all start with the social worker or the psychologist. We need that collaboration and communication with all of the other staff members in the school system. And so we know, as I don't mean to keep

094going back to the screener, but that will help us. And really, when we talk about the needs of the fall and the numbers of students, you know, that's what our staff deals with on a typical year. And I can assure you that if a staff member feels that they have higher number of students or a population of students that they need additional support, they do reach out to us and talk about if they have a lot on their plate or they're concerned about X and they need additional support, they work directly with their directors of their student support team areas. And, you know, I know we have the principals on the call, so they can chime in, but it's a team effort at a school system. So if you have a... someone who knows a

095family well, it might not be an SST member who reaches out and provides that support. But I do feel like we're in a good place. We monitor that every year. And everybody knows that their role is going to be a little atypical this year and how we provide that support to families. So I really appreciate the question because we do monitor our ratios and our numbers every year. And we're going into a time that we've never worked in before. So we'll have to see how the supports are being delivered. Excellent question. And like everything, we are flexible and we are a team and we will do what we need to to support our students and our families. Ms. Bynum, I was going to ask, I know you were talking about relationships earlier. So if you

096can just talk to that, because that's one of the key pieces. And then we're going to go to Dr. Hoover to answer the technology question. Yes. So back in the spring when the quarantine first came, we had students who just disappeared. And so we really relied heavily through our PLCs, having the opportunity to talk to staff members to find out who had the best relationships with individual students. And we actually had those staff members reach out. We did home visits. Even though it was during the quarantine and we were a little concerned about safety, we thought that our students were more important to us, that we really needed to get together and decide who was going to go visit, who was going to call. We were relentless about calling. We emailed, we sent text messages.

097And so we do plan to do that this upcoming fall as well, just to make sure that we are able to. make sure that the children's needs are met. It could be any one, you know, any myriad of reasons why students aren't engaging, but it's critical. And so relationships, even for our new students, because we are transient, we do plan to Zoom with them to start to build relationships with them as well so that we can bring them into the fold of having. that connection with our staff members so that they will want to show up and be a part of a school day. Thank you, Ms. Bynum. But Dr. Hoover, you want to answer the question regarding the technology access or internet access? Sure. You know, I believe internet access is going to continue

098to be a challenge and a fluid challenge for many of our families. So one thing we're going to be doing a little bit differently this, starting this month, or currently, is we're really formalizing our relationship with the social workers and helping having them help us bridge that gap to our schools and really do a more personalized touch and identifying the families that need the internet access. And so we're looking forward to that partnership. I think that will help us tremendously. And then in addition, you know, we talked about internet essentials last year. Many of our families had lots of challenges. However, one of the barriers has been changed as far as a sponsorship with them. So we're working to create a sponsorship with them that will allow us to prepay for the families for the

099year for their internet access. They do, however, still have to qualify. And that is a challenge for our families. And so there are some barriers, but we do believe that. With the help of the social workers, we'll be able to maybe steer more families to the Internet Essentials solution. And then we'll continue our Kajeet program as well. And so we have about 450 additional Kajeets that we'll be able to expand their use. And so part of our work this summer is reaching out to families who have them, making sure that they still need them, and kind of checking in to see what we can do. And then next week, we'll start families can... go ahead and they are identifying themselves through our form and can go by TC Williams to get Chromebook help and internet

100access support. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. Great. Thank you. Next up, we have Ms. Nolan with a question. Thank you so much, Chair Anderson. And thank you so much to everyone for all of your hard work. It just continues to be amazing. And it's clearly with given how many folks are on the Zoom, it's just a Herculean effort done by so many. So we're really grateful. My question is actually some questions I'm receiving from families about the high school. And so if you don't mind, if I could ask Mr. Ballas, I thought you did such a great job with your presentation. If you don't mind just digging a little bit further, the majority of questions I'm receiving are just the understanding of the four by four block schedule. Some common questions I'm getting

101is what made this the recommendation, concerns about learning loss, particular in classes that are music or the arts oriented math and foreign language. Like how does that, is there a concern about learning loss? And then also, are there going to be any unintended consequences in terms of AP preparation or the college application process as a result of switching for one year to four by four? So those are the common themes I'm receiving. So if you wouldn't mind, I would love the opportunity for parents and students concerned about those areas of focus. If you don't mind just sharing a little bit more information, that'd be really helpful. Absolutely. Thanks, Ms. Nolan. The high school schedule is one that was created. If I could start, I would start with the why. We are, as I said during

102my presentation, we did take a lot of feedback from our staff and our students around what the spring was like for them during the school closures. There were feelings on both ends about feeling overwhelmed and also how much of your virtual home learning and teaching experience it is that you can handle at any given time. During our work with the cross-functional planning teams, we looked at all different possibilities of opening and returning to school or not returning to school or rather return virtually. We looked at doing eight periods a day, all day, every day. We looked at doing an A-B schedule. We did wind up coming, it's actually not a four by four schedule. So I just want to make sure that people understand it is a semester based hybrid schedule that does include blocks

103of year long classes. So for example, a student will take seven classes as they traditionally would have done any prior year. This year coming up, they will also take seven classes. The first block is the embedded year-long class, a little bit longer than the others, where that's their home base and their SEAL lessons, as well as a content class that will take place all year long. We are working right now and continue to work, the administrators, the teachers, collaboratively with our director of guidance and working with Mr. Sampson. Looking at which courses are also going to have to be year-long. You referenced advanced placement, I believe. Is there going to be a loss there? We're looking at which ones can be year-long. If a student was to go into having beyond their first period block,

104having to take more than one year-long class, it would jump into, let's say, They have two more AP classes that they'll be taking. They will jump into an A-day, B-day schedule for throughout the year. That's not for all AP classes, but for... So it's going to be a highly customized and tailored master schedule to each kid. It's a lot of work that we're doing. Back to the why of the decision. It was one that we really looked at how to make work life and learning life manageable for our students and for our teachers. Hearing that a student will have fewer classes at a time to handle, as well as for teachers to have fewer students to teach and monitor and assess and give feedback to at a given time during a semester was a big

105bonus. We did collaborate with other people in the cross-functional planning teams, but we also worked with our school leadership team to identify what are any of the potential pitfalls, what were their reactions to it, and to start action planning right away, specifically around which classes would need to be year-long. Now, I'd also point to Satellite Campus as kind of almost a model for this. If you take a look at how they tailor their learning and also have fewer classes at a time but just spread out. Now online learning and virtual learning are two different things. However, if you take a look at that model, that's something I think an example we could look at to that staff who've been kind of preparing for this type of learning for their, as long as they've all been

106there. So they were also a good model for us to look at. Anybody who takes an AP class, if there is a semester one AP class. which also goes along with the learning loss. If that ends in January, how do you keep or prevent learning loss or keep someone prepared for their end of course assessment? You would have the, we have the 8.30 to 10 timeframe in the mornings every day. And so that will be an opportunity for students to be, to prepare for tests. I know our teachers are up for the task on, I know certain days when throughout the school year. We have our English teachers ask and we invite as many students as we can to do this type of preparation for a test or that type of preparation for a test

107and they make it happen. So I have no doubt that our staff will come to the plate ready to deliver. I am trying to see if I answered everything it is that you asked here. I believe so. I think maybe just a little bit more about is there any concern of a learning loss? Because I just know that that's another. I mean, on the one hand, I will share with you that I have taught this schedule before and it's been well and it also does prepare kids for college. So I know this is how it's done in college. But I know that some folks that this is new to them are concerned about potentially a learning loss of, let's say, like in a Spanish class or something or a math class or something like that.

108Maybe if you could just end with that, any other concerns about that as well. Is there any concerns about the college application process? Is there any unintended consequences for that? I think those are the only two remaining. Okay, so for semester-based classes, again, if you are in semester one taking a course that will run from September to the end of January, you will be taking that course every day, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and you have your asynchronous Monday learning days. That course does end for that student at the end of January, and they start a new course in February, much like we all did semesters in college. For this, for learning loss, we again, we're going to take for the second semester advantage of that 8.30 to 10.00 timeframe, assuming there is no change or

109there is where this kind of schedule also is flexible to adapting return to physical plant or whatever happens. So this schedule also allows maximum flexibility for us, whatever the decisions are as we move forward. So learning loss, we will be addressing during that 8.30 to 10 timeframe. Sorry, that was such a verbose answer. In terms of college and whether or not it'll affect that, students will still have seven courses listed or however many they're registered for for the whole year. Our school profile that colleges get and look at will... explain our schedule and how it's listed. So if colleges are getting, looking at mid-year point grades or quarter one and they see four classes have grades, three do not, there will be an explanation along with that. So no, it should not impact. There are

110schools across the country that do, as you referenced, a four by four, even though it's not a four by four, that do do that kind of model that still successfully. navigate the college application process. And our staff is here to help. Got it. If I could just end with just sincere thanks to Mr. Ballas. I think we are so fortunate to have your leadership during such a tumultuous time, as well as the other principals that are some on the Zoom and some are not. I know this is super complicated. So just really appreciate your continued thoughtful leadership. So thanks. Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. Thank you. And one thing as you're going to your next question, Madam Chair, is we'll be able to share out in our newsletter, I think, to

111the high school, just so that we can provide some clarity to this, you know, our students and our parents of what Mr. Ballas had just mentioned. And I think the biggest takeaway from this is that there is a safety net. that we are creating for students who are doing a four by four schedule or semester course where we are able to provide those academic supports between the February and June timeframe. And that this isn't something that was just created today. And I think it's important for us to know these are models that are used at high schools across the country. even when we're not in a pandemic. So it is not a new way of learning, but it's new for TC, but it's not new to the country. So I just want to make that

112clear to us. So it wasn't something we made up. Okay, great. Next up, I have Ms. Green with a question. Thank you, Chair Anderson. I actually have two questions. That's okay still, right? Yeah, that's fine. With questions. No problem. No problem. Hello, everyone. And I echo everyone's sentiments. Thank you so much to our wonderful principals for the detailed information. And as Ms. Lorber said, it's always wonderful to have you on our calls. My first question is pertaining to the TAG program and how that would be implemented through the virtual model. And then the second question is for our kindergartners starting this year in our underserved communities, many of which have never attended school before, will we be providing any extra resources for them? I know there was a kindergarten orientation, but I just feel that

113they will need some additional support coming in, never being in a school environment before. Good afternoon. And so just to speak on behalf of the elementary group for the kindergarten students, we actually, instead of K-PREP this year, we decided to do something entitled kindergarten kickoff. And so all of our kindergarten teachers that traditionally do K-PREP, and I think Polk is using their paraprofessionals next week as well. do the same. We're going to be making phone calls and having Zoom meetings with families that have signed up and registered already for kindergarten. So we have questions that we're going to ask them. Questions such as, does your child know their colors? Have they ever had a hearing and vision screening? Things like that so that we're able to have the opportunity to plan a little bit for

114them. And we're going to enter the responses on a Google Doc. So as teachers are assigned students, they have a little bit of information about them at that time, you know, just prior to being able to start seeing them on Zoom. We're also going to have our teachers, once they are assigned their class list, call each individual family to welcome them. And we're hoping this, you know, we're able to work this out. And of course, our kindergarten teachers will be available. to parents during office hours. And to answer the question about the Talented and Gifted program, the students will receive the Talented and Gifted services during their English Language Arts Core Reading Block. They will also receive math services during the math block, and we have our intervention and enrichment block as well. So the

115students will receive instruction during the enrichment block that's tailored just for the talented and gifted students. If I could add for the middle school level, both middle schools have a tag coordinator. Our tag coordinators work very closely with all of our teachers to provide differentiation support and lesson planning in our PLCs, which will now take place on Monday. In addition, all of our middle school tag students complete a DEP, which is their differentiated education plan, through their classes in the area in which they're identified for tag. Our tag coordinators will have a virtual. tutoring session or virtual support session during the eighth block so that our TAG students are able to Zoom with them to get support on their DEPs, in addition to getting support from their normal content teachers on their TAG students. I

116mean, excuse me, from their normal content teachers regarding their DEPs. So our TAG services at the middle school level will continue as normal, but just in a virtual environment. Thank you. Great, thanks. Next up, I have Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Anderson. And thanks to everyone for the presentation. This has been very robust and very detailed and very thoughtful. And I really appreciate all the effort that's gone into it so far. So thank you for all that. So I want to start my questions just sort of like with a recentering on the statement I think I had said at the last meeting, which, you know, to me, and I want to echo what's been said about this being a paradigm shift. And I also just think it's a fundamental shift in sort of our moral

117obligations as a school division in that, you know, We are taking attendance and we are grading. And because of that, I think we cannot, you know, let up in any respect in making sure that all of our kids are able to be in school the first day, from the first day, and that all of our kids are able to be engaged in school to the extent possible under these, you know. very difficult, you know, and I want to acknowledge that very difficult circumstances. And so my questions sort of center on technology and communication. So first, With regard to technology, and I want to reiterate, you know, my praise to Dr. Hoover and the team for the rollout that happened in the spring. It was excellent under the circumstances. We weren't caught flat-footed like some other

118divisions, and I think we did a really excellent job under the circumstances. You know, but now that we have sort of this runway before the start of the school year, I want to understand better. what we're doing to get our ducks in a row to know exactly which kids do have a tablet and internet and who do not have tablet and internet. And my hope is that we're going to be in a position to have that data. well in advance, like a week or two at least in advance of the start of the school year, so that some of the aforementioned follow-up and engagement can happen on the front end, so that we don't have students who aren't showing up the first two weeks and we have to follow up, and there's now truancy implications

119and learning loss and inequity implications to all of that. And I also heard in Dr. Hoover's remarks that there are some barriers. And I just want to state, you know, very directly, you know, that if those barriers are of a political type of nature, if they're of a nature, you know, relating to, you know, structural racism or issues that affect some of our families, I want to understand that because it. I don't want us to open up in the fall and have, you know, a substantial proportion of our families who can't get internet for some political reason or for some other reason that's morally wrong, right? And so I guess, you know, it's partly a plea and partly a question, like, you know, insofar as there are real challenges for our kids getting a device

120or getting internet. I think the board needs to know about those challenges. I think we have to have the data set forth about, you know, who is affected by that. And we need to be proactive as possible to make sure that we can get 100% of our kids with the relevant technology and things that they need going into the school year. And I think it's going to be critically important. I know I've beat a dead horse with this, that we have robust data through the whole division that at the school level that shows us how we're doing with regard to people having the technology and with regard to, you know, being able to access the internet. And, you know, perfection might be impossible, but the more of that data we have and the more we're

121on top of these issues, the better. So, you know, I know we're working as hard as we can, but I just say that in the spirit of if there are serious barriers that the board can... be helpful with. I just want to know what those, those things are. So, um, yeah. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Suarez. So Dr. Hoover, she can add on to what I'm going to start off us here. First, first, great question that you're putting out. And I do want to just say this initially is that in the spring, we were not taking attendance. We were not ensuring that everybody was, you know, so we are in a very different situation this fall. We're going to know instantly that somebody is not getting on. you know, because we're now taking the

122role. So then we're able to follow up with families and to find out, is it because you don't have internet service or what is it? The same way we would do if they didn't show up at school on that day. So I think we're going to have better data in the fall. We're not going to have anything new. There's nothing new today that we can give the board that we haven't already given you. So I just wanted to make that clear. When school starts is when we're really going to get, that's going to be our baseline. First week of school, that's going to be the baseline. The first day of school, really, is when we're going to find out who's not showing up, and then we're going to be able to contact and find out

123why. I think when we talk about some of the barriers, and this is something that, you know, I don't think the board can help unless we change the, you know, President of the United States, you know, stance on not working with China, because we receive a lot of our technology devices from China. And that's why they're on backorder right now. A lot of things have been banned from coming to the US. So then when we're trying to identify companies that are here in the United States. Everyone is also trying to identify those companies in the United States. So they're backlogged. So some of these things that even though you get in your shipment, it says this is when something is going to come to you. that date changes. And as you all know, with Amazon,

124I know I took two months to get my weights, right? Finally got them. And every week they would say, oh, it's going to be a new day. So those are things that we cannot predict. And sometimes we really don't have control over. But I would like for Dr. Hoover to provide just some more details. I know I'm giving the big picture from what I know, but Dr. Hoover, you may want to give some more specifics. Certainly. There's some challenges. I want to talk about the internet access challenges in a moment, but to follow up with Dr. Hutchings was saying. School divisions across the country are having a very difficult time receiving technology right now and their computers. We are in a good position because we already have a lot of them. But we do have

125our Chromebooks back in order. I'm not concerned about third grade, but we are working on solutions to make sure to do our best efforts to make sure everyone has a device that first day. But there are real problems, and I believe you will see more and more of that in the news. As far as internet access, just a couple of our challenges last year, one was being a stay-at-home order, which made it difficult because we had to mail everything. And honestly, one of my biggest lessons I learned last spring is if you're a family in poverty or in need, you don't receive your mail. So it was a real challenge to get. mailed packages to the families. And so we had a lot of people helping us, but that is unfortunately not something we have

126to deal with now. And now we can have direct contact, you know, safe pickups. But that was one of our challenges last year. Most of the challenges I was talking about was with the Internet Essentials Program. So number one, you have to be free and reduce meals. They require that you provide identification. They said not your social security. A lot of our families are not comfortable with that. And so and then our language barrier. You know, when you have to wait on the phone a long time and, you know, it was just navigating new processes. So some of those were our challenges, but we had a lot of staff helping our families last year. But that's why Internet Essentials was more of a challenge. And I think it will still be a challenge to some

127families, which is why we also have our Kajit program. Those were the problems there. As far as the first day, you know, we've done surveys before, but as y'all know, not everyone returns to surveys and especially the families that, you know, really may need the extra resources. So we're working with our schools and as a set of social workers and student support services to go through our population. And we already have 1,400 households or about 1,200 households that have the Khajiits right now and following up with them to make sure they do need it. It is working. And I really believe an advantage of our size of our population in Alexandria is that we can do that with our schools. We can call our families. We can address our families. We've got some data in

128our back-to-school forums that's saying, you know, whether or not you need internet access, but I think for us, our best data is working with the schools and collecting it that way. Great. And thank you both. I mean, I think that was tremendously helpful and made me think a little more about the issue. So I have a comment in response to that, but then that will transition to me to my second question. So my comment is, that's really helpful. I would push on, insofar as our baseline data is the first day of school, a suggestion I was going to make is, why don't we try to have some sort of tech check? a week or so in advance of the first day of school, you know, so that we have some sort of data point, you

129know, in advance of school opening that we know, A, whether our kids have a device, and B, whether they can access, you know, from that device. And to Dr. Hutchings' point regarding, you know, China and the ability to receive technology, I have seen communications from the community to the effect of, hey, we already have a device. We don't really need one. You know, so, you know, so if someone else needs it, let me have it. So I wonder if there's an opportunity there to understand where the needs are and insofar as there are shortages to ensure that we can make sure all kids have something at the start of the school year, even if. you know, there's some sort of political issue with regard to receiving it. And same goes for the internet. Like if

130we can do a tech check with it. And it kind of transitions me to the question that I had about communication, because I really appreciate a lot of the comments that Ms. Bynum made, both with regard to the fact that these... home visits are being done, proactive communication for the K-prep teachers are reaching out before the start of the school year, all these sorts of things. I think that a lot of these sorts of communications are going to be important. And my second question was about... sort of how we, you know, think about communication in this environment and how we're more systemic about it in terms of the data, in terms of, you know, making sure teachers see it as part of their duty. Because, you know, normally you might have a parent-teacher conference, right,

131at the end of the quarter, and that's in person. And there's all kinds of equity issues with that, as we all know, and as I know from when I taught sixth grade. You know, but... Here we have an opportunity to maybe be more fluid in our communications, be more proactive. And it goes back to the point I made last week, which is that to really see inside your classroom now requires something different because the classroom is everyone's different environment that they're in. And so, you know, any thoughts that you have on my final comment on the technology would be helpful. But then I'm wondering what the what our thoughts are as a division in terms of. you know, being more systemic in our communication, making sure that all teachers are aware of the learning environments

132that, you know, their different pupils are in, and how we can, you know, make sure that we're using that data so that we're, you know, delivering as effective instruction as we can, understanding that this is not the most effective type of instruction, as Dr. Reif and Dr. Hutchings mentioned before. So I'd love to hear thoughts on that. May I answer the tech ready idea? So and they expressed this past week, we put out that starting on Monday at TC Williams, who said get tech ready for our fourth through 12th grade graders. So between eight and four on Monday through Thursdays, we are expecting kids can sign up or doesn't matter if they come by. to drop off their Chromebook if it needs to be fixed and if it needs to be swapped. So we are

133trying to get ahead of the issues with our students that currently have the technology and picking up internet access if they need it. So that's one thing we have started and will actually kick off on Monday. Okay. Yeah, I guess my one just sort of, you know, I think that's great. I just would say that to the extent we can put the burden on ourselves to make sure that we're gathering the information, I think that would be better than, you know, placing the burden on the students to do that. And obviously with the K-3, I'm nervous about it too because of the tablets, you know, that's a new initiative. And what does it look like there in terms of, you know, what percentage of students have that, you know, have the tablet and have the

134access? So once we deliver them, they will all have them. So the goal is right now our K-2 kids do not have anything. So we are delivering all of those devices to them. So we're going to know where we don't just, you know, send them to any house. So we're going to have an idea of all of the devices that have been sent for K-2 out. We're going to know who got them, what ones are returned, because sometimes people do change addresses and that type of thing. but we will have all of that information once we begin to mail those out. We also know that from R312, there's some people that we may have missed, but for the most part, we know that everyone has a device, unless there's somebody that we just, for all

135this time, we just didn't know. What we also want to make sure we do is that if people have these devices that are now broken because they've had them since March and they've dropped it or whatever might have happened or it's not functioning, that we are replacing them. And that's something where we need people to let us know that it's broken. broken. It's hard for us to, you know, just give every release a new device to everyone. And typically families have been really responsive with that. And that's why we have our tech helpline and, you know, our email and all of that. I mean, we're very responsive when we get those calls and parents have been very responsive, fortunately, because they want their kids to have, you know, their access to their technology devices. And

136also the kids want to have access to their technology devices. Okay, we have a question from Ms. Nolan. Sorry, I still had a standing question about the communication. And I was wondering what thoughts were on that in terms of, you know, because traditionally you have a... you know, report card pickup, one time check in a year. I thought Ms. Bynum had some really great thoughts and ideas regarding, you know, teachers being proactive and checking in, you know, via home visits and, you know, possibly doing other things of that nature. And I'm just sort of wondering, you know, what are we thinking systemically in terms of how we're going to make sure. teachers are fully aware of the circumstances of all of their students so that we can educate them to their maximum potential. And how

137can we collect data on that to be systemic and effective in that regard? Because again, it just goes back to the paradigm shift. Like we have to think differently now. And I think it's going to be critically important across the division that teachers are attuned to all of their kids' circumstances in a manner that they never were in the past. I think this is always important. even when you're not in a pandemic and you're not doing virtual instruction. But now this is like that much more important. And I just want to understand like what we're doing as a systemically, what kind of collaboration there's been across the principals to be systemic about that. Because this is a huge issue. And like I said, there's already inequity problems with the nature of report card pickups in

138a typical school year and sort of check-ins with teachers. I feel like now with the pandemic, we have an opportunity to enhance equity because the communication is more fluid, perhaps. And so I really want to understand what we're thinking in that regard. Sorry, I missed responding to that question. So specifically, we do have professional learning that is set up for our staff. First and foremost, I have to just say that our staff has always been in tune to our students and home environments. I mean, that is something that even if we were not in a global pandemic, we know that your home life has an impact on your academic and your school life. So that was the point. And that's always being involved and engaged and having our social workers and our student support teams

139to help. um in those specific areas as we're transitioning into virtual that expectation has not changed. The difference is that now you may have a session that's virtually versus in person with the student. So it might be on a Zoom or on a telephone call or on FaceTime. But a part of our professional learning the week of August the 24th, there are strands that we're looking at. SEAL is one of those strands, socially, emotional, academic learning. And that is where knowing where our kids are from and what they're experiencing in their households in regards to this. social and emotional health is a priority for us. So that is where that training comes from. On Mondays throughout the first quarter, as of right now, being that we're going to be in virtual plus, that will also

140be opportunities for us to do professional learning. So professional learning is just not the week before school starts. Every Monday, we have put into our schedule to be able to do planning, to be able to do collaboration with our teams through our professional learning communities, and then also to build. professional capacity with professional learning on those specific days. So that is how all of that will be a part of our teachers and our staff in regards to their growth, their professional growth in that area. Okay, thank you. I have Ms. Nolan up next. Thank you so much, Chair Anderson. Again, just thank you so much, everyone. I think one of the things that's so obvious is just how much work there is to be done. And it's just there's obviously there's still work that's going

141to be done, given just it's unprecedented that this sector is having to change drastically with just so few resources. So I guess my question, if I could just summarize it, Dr. Hutchings, is. With the remaining last details in terms of child care, you know, how parents can expect to be communicated with their teachers, what's the assessment going to look like, what professional development opportunities will be available for families on how to engage, when do you foresee those last tying up details being completed by so that the community can be aware? So I'll have Mr. Huffman kind of share out. I do want to give a caveat to dates that we give. We have to keep in mind that everything we share something else ends up occurring later. So we have to be flexible to know

142that information we give out could always change based on the situation. I'm going to even use childcare as an example. We open up childcare options. We get to September, the curve has, you know, increased and now we can't be open anymore, you know, and now you have no options. That's potential. So we all are going to have to keep making sure that our families have contingency plans the same way we have to have contingency plans as we move forward. forward so that we're not relying on one particular source because we might be in a situation where we just can't offer it anymore. But if Mr. Huffman can provide some of the dates that we're currently working with, I think that could be helpful to Ms. Nolan's question in regards to like, when will we have

143things solidified in regards to like childcare? What is the goal that we're setting in mind to have those, to have that information? Excuse me. Thank you, Ms. Nolan. So as Dr. Hutchings says, things change. We have to be ready for that. But we're looking at, as I mentioned in the slide. having this proposal out to all stakeholders next week so that then we can make a quick pivot to this online enrollment. Because remember, we're serving the most vulnerable students and that criteria and everything will be in the proposal. If we can get a check off and everybody says, yes, this is the way we're going to proceed, then we can get into the implementation that following week. Every indication, every hope is that obviously we would have it as close, ready, you know, open and

144ready to go with these child care providers when school starts. But there's so many different factors in place from the provider side. You know, they still have to work through some things and staffing and and if they have to hire more staff. And there's just so many logistics on that end. But we're hopeful. Like I said, proposal next week. The week after, we really start to figure out how to get the information out for an enrollment form for our most vulnerable families. And then we start to really put things into place on starting up. So hopefully... You know, we're looking if we push and go in September, for sure, at the beginning of September, we want to be closer to that ready to go. In addition, I just want to make sure we really realize

145we're talking about our most vulnerable families and students. There are other child care providers in this community that are already up and running. We're going to list those. We're going to have those options for other families because. So that's a, you know, if you're talking 36%, I think that came out, there could be families that say, I just don't know where childcare is available. I can pay a fee. I'm just, I'm just making you an example. I can pay a fee, but I don't know that. So we're going to get that information out too, because some of those sites are up and running external. Plus we have different specific sites like, like the YMCA they're up and running, you know, they're trying to figure out their model, but I think they could reach out to

146some of these private early. care providers, you know, so it's a combination. I'm more concerned with those vulnerable families and getting that up and running as soon as possible around the start date of school. I hope that helps. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And I think it's important, Dr. Hutchings, to reiterate to the public as well, when we start sending out these details, that there might be needs of contingency plans, because I think right now, being that it's in the plus, that's what people are banking on. Yeah, but my follow-up question then, if you don't mind, Dr. Hutchings, is I imagine there's also going to be budget implications for this. And so when will that discussion take place on a board level? Yeah, so we're having those discussions now. We have to keep in mind

147that this child care issue is not an ACPS solution. You know what I'm saying? How do I phrase this? We're not in the business of child care. You know, we don't have a budget for child care. This is a community. issue that, you know, that's why we're bringing our community partners and we're working with the city of Alexandria, because it has to be an all hands on deck. It can't be like ACPS is going to solve our child care because we're not we don't even have kind of like the the expertise in some areas in regards to child care because we're an educational institution. We don't. We're not a childcare institution. We need to make that clear. So that's why we have to collaborate. But there are some financial implications that come along with this

148that we are talking with our Virtual Plus providers now. We're talking through that. Like, how are we going to be able to... offset costs, especially if we're focusing on our most vulnerable families. You know, many of our providers already have sliding scale kind of like policies and membership fees that are in place right now. So we're still working through all of the financial implications right now. So I don't have that answer for you today, but I do know that we are not in a situation where we have, we can budget childcare. We can't use tax dollars to do that. We can't use federal dollars to do that. We can do things like provide in-kind space. We can do things to provide the technology. These are things that we're already doing, giving kids Kajeets, giving kids

149technology devices, allowing people to use our spaces without paying a fee, you know, providing meals for students. Those are things that we're able to do, but we can't write a check. to pay everybody's childcare fees. So that is why we're working with our virtual partners so that we can work through some of these financial implications. Got it. And I so appreciate that. And I'm sorry, I don't think I was clear to it. I imagine just overall, there's going to be budget implications that the city, this, the division is facing with having to go virtual. And so that's what I just. Oh, yes. Okay. Got it. Yes. We as a board, do we have to, is there going to be a discussion as to what the budget implications are? Cause I imagine that's one area of

150we'll need the board support in or. Yeah. So one thing, I mean, we we've already kind of shared with the board. kind of the budget in regards to like some of the funding that we have. We saw we've already gone through our budget reductions. We've gone through the CARES Act funding that we received. So similar to what we do every month with going over our budget. and looking at our financial statements, I think that we need to start having that discussion during those times in our monthly board meetings where we're sharing on a continuous basis and not like we wait until to do a big presentation. I think we may want to have discussions on how we look at our monthly statements and maybe talk through like some of the implications that came about because

151of Virtual Plus. And that's something we could talk through. through one of our board leadership meetings on how we do that this upcoming year. But I think that might be the best kind of way to really start talking through. So then on a monthly basis, we're talking about our finances because we are going to need to keep that up. And it's a great question, Ms. Nolan, because we still have to keep in mind that the city could have more reductions during the year. You know, so it's not like we're all clean and everything. Our economy is not back to normal. Everything's not open right now. You know, everyone's not leaving their homes and operating as normal. So we may see more reductions in the next couple of months for this fiscal year, for this fiscal

152year, not for the next one. So I think that we should be monitoring just like we are internally on a monthly basis. I think we probably should be having discussions. during our financial statements each month with the board. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Thank you. I have Ms. Werber up next. Yeah, thanks so much. Just a quick question. I just want to be sure I'm not confused about one thing. This is with regard to the English language learners. I think it was in Dr. Bynum's presentation, but also in a couple others. Is it the middle school where they said 45 minutes a day for special groups such as EL? And what I wanted to ask is, is there a difference in... how we are going to respond, educate the level one and two, the very beginner

153EL students with the other students who can probably be included in regular classrooms. How that's happening in minutes per day or whatever. Thanks. Dr. Nickerson, I think she's on. She can answer that one. Yes, thank you. Thank you for that question, Ms. Lorber. We will have, for our English learner students at all levels, actually, elementary school, middle and high school, a dedicated English language development block for services where ELL students will receive direct instruction from ELL teachers, you know, and incorporating listening, speaking, reading, and writing aligned to the WIDA. standards. And then in addition to that, they will also receive services through the general education classroom, right? Our L teachers will be working with the general education teachers. They will continue to collaborate with the general education teachers in planning the lessons, ensuring that there

154are scaffolds included, and being a part of the PLCs. And what's nice with Zoom is there's also the capability for those breakout rooms and the small group instruction. So I think that's what you were referring to. So our L teachers will also be able to work with students at the varying proficiency levels through those small breakout rooms so they can meet the needs of the different levels of proficiency. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you. I would like to reiterate that this, and I agree with Dr. Nickerson, but this is not new for us. So I don't want you to think that this is something that we're just going to implement that's brand new just for the virtual environment. We do address the needs of our children through the English language development curriculum. And with

155at least, I know at Patrick Henry, and I know it with my colleagues, schools at least 45. to about 70 minutes a day so that we're able to meet their needs. Great. Thank you for the clarification. Mr. Suarez. Thank you. Yeah, I just, I wanted to follow up briefly on the discussion regarding the child care because I just want to reiterate, like, you know, because of the fact that we are holding students accountable for attendance and grading them, like it's our, it's our moral, we are not in the business of childcare, but it is our moral obligation to ensure that, you know, all of our kids have a safe and equitable learning environment. And, and so I guess what I'm saying is I, I, I, it's my hope that, you know, if it's the city's

156responsibility or the school board's responsibility, you know, I think we just need to be clear about that. And we need to make sure that we're, you know, communicating who is providing the relevant service. And, you know, and I think this requires outside the box thinking, and I think it requires a certain level of... creativity. I appreciate Mr. Huffman's reference to, you know, there are going to be some families that are needier than others, and there are going to be some who, you know, maybe we can assist with their ability to get child care, but others we can't because financially we're very strapped and everyone's financially strapped right now. But I think, you know, given the amount of maybe confusion or just, you know, information that still needs to be conveyed on this, I just want

157to comment that I think it's going to be critically important that we manage the community's expectations in terms of what are the different levels of need and what are we providing or not providing to folks depending on those levels of need. And in so far as the city might have more of a responsibility for child care to support this effort vis-a-vis the schools. We need to be clear about what that looks like. And I know there have been some creative ideas in other districts. So, for example, I know Montgomery County has done his is rolling out something where they're using the schools for some child care. But child care providers are administering the child care in the schools. Right. So it's not that we're doing the business of child care, but, you know, we're providing

158the facility. So, you know, it's somewhat of a comment, but somewhat of a question of. you know, if our position, I think we are in the business of ensuring that all of our kids have a safe learning environment and it's just, and that's why we're doing the technology provisions, even though we're not in the business of technology, right, in this unprecedented time. So, you know, I hope that, you know, we're coordinating with the city, you know, on what this looks like and You know, if, again, if this is a political issue where our board needs to work with council, you know, I just want to make sure I understand that because it's going to be really important to make sure that on day one, again, everyone has a safe learning environment where they can learn

159and access the technology. I just want to respond, so I'm on the record, that I wasn't saying that it's not our problem and that it's the city's problem. What I was saying is it's a community effort. It is not solely the responsibility of the ACPS. It's not solely the responsibility of the city. It is a community effort. It's going to require all of us to work together. And that's what brings the innovation. We haven't had a virtual plus partners. agreement that we shared with you earlier today. That's new. We're developing that. This is why this has taken a little longer. We're not starting something or taking on something that we already have. We're literally creating a brand new way of doing business in Alexandria City Public Schools. So I want to make it very clear

160to you as well as to our community that I'm not stating that ACPS is not responsible for child care. That is just not our business. We're not experts in child care. we have to rely on the child care providers to know well how does that work what are the types of licenses you're going to need to do certain things how does it work with the funding how does it work with if this is sliding scale we don't do sliding scale so what does a sliding scale mean how do you know if somebody's eligible So these are all the things that we're having to work through is what I meant by my statement. I just want to make that very clear because I do not want the city to believe that I stated anything about this

161is a city problem. This is a community problem. And the community is meaning ACPS. We're here to say with open arms, we want to work with you because we know from 830 to 230 or 830 to three or whatever time your child is in school. We want to be able to provide the educational supports regardless of where they are, whether they're in a home, whether they're in a building, whether they're at a facility, whether they're out of town. We want to be able to educate them because that is the business that we are in. And we're going to be collaborating with everybody that's out there as our virtual partners to make this work. So I just wanted to make that very clear so I don't get any emails about. me saying that this is not

162an ACPS problem. This is a city problem. This is a community issue that all hands on deck approach is needed to make it work. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. And I just I would just say I really appreciate the clarification because I assume that's what you had meant. And also, I had written down on my pad before I started talking community like this is a community effort. And that's the key. And, you know, I just want to make sure we're not in a situation where there's finger pointing. I think we all have to come together and we all need to make sure that all of our kids have access to a equitable learning environment. And so whatever it takes and what that collaboration looks like. I just want to say whatever the board can do to

163help, if counseling needs to be involved, what kind of team effort needs to happen, just know that we're a resource for that. And that's the spirit of my comment. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I was just reiterating what I said earlier, too. So I didn't change my words, what I said earlier. I'm saying the same thing that I said before to everybody, community effort. I just wanted to make it clear on the record. Okay, thank you everyone for all that and it is really great to see all the principals and hear from everyone today and central office staff. I think that's it for our questions right now, but as always board members will know Dr. Hutchings email address, so we can certainly keep sending him some other questions if they come up after thinking

164about today's meeting. So now Dr. Hutchings, we're to the superintendent's report, which I think this is what we just had. That's what we just had, yeah. I just had other people talking for me. That was the longest one on record, probably. But great. Great all the same. And thank you for the clerks for realizing it should really have its own title. So now it's this report for me. And I don't have a report, but just to, and I can't schedule lawn service for my neighborhood. So you're probably hearing a lot of noise in my background right now. But the 27th of August is our annual work session to talk about focus areas. Additionally, we're going to talk about the renaming because we. We have the TC renaming and that will also be on the agenda.

165People have, I had a few questions about that there was a meeting attached that day, but we don't need a meeting now. The meeting was only added at the... policy directors request earlier this month because there are some virtual related virtual schooling related policies that we need to work on but they're not ready for us so there's no need for that so we're just going to have our what we had planned at the beginning the work session with the areas of focus and the renaming So we now are going to read into closed session. So if I could get Ms. Nolan to read us into closed session, that would be great. Absolutely. 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,

166performance, and contractual matters for 10 specific public employees. Do I have a second? Second. Second, Ms. Nolan's motion. So I'm going to call the roll call for a vote. Cindy Anderson. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Okay. Oh, sorry. Michelle Reif. I guess I'm not able to hear because there's too much noise in my background. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Did I give you Michelle? Michelle Reif. Did I get you? Yes. Great. Thank you. All right. So we're all President and County Board. So we're going into closed session. And I have had requests from board members to have a break in doing so. So happy weekend to everyone who's not going into the closed session. And we'll let's take a like a. five

167to ten let's say seven minutes seven minute break and we'll meet you on the other side so about two thank you thank you all right hello everyone long time no see i know i know it was a long one where's cindy oh there she is just started raining i know i know really hard at least where i am susan did you miss us i did um good answer Jamie's on the attendee side. Yeah, we'll move Rami over. Why does Rami always come over there? You know what? She had trouble this morning, so let me just see. There she is. I feel like she's always having to be brought over anymore. I don't know why that is either, but we will work on that. Is she doing it from the calendar? Oh, we have everyone. Oh,

168you're on mute. I'm clicking the link everyone else is clicking. I'm having a computer issue. I'm going to have to get some. Can we make them? Oh, we have to be called out of the closed session, right? Yeah, we have to certify. Yeah. Yeah. So Veronica. Maybe if Veronica can't do our certification. Yep. Pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3712, I move that the board certify that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened and are lawfully exempted by the Freedom of Information Act were heard, discussed, or considered by the board in the closed meeting held on August 14, 2020. Second. Okay, Ms. Lorber seconds Ms. Nolan's motion to certify the closed session. I'm going to call for the vote on that. Cindy

169Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Ramey Jantry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. So that's 9-0 to certify the closed session. May I have a motion? I move we adjourn. Okay. Second. I heard Ms. Green. Second, Ms. Gentry. It's a very quick motion. And so I'll call for the vote. And Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Rami Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reeve? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay, vote is 9-0. The meeting is adjourned. Have a good weekend. Bye. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, Cindy. Sure.