August 27, 2020 Areas of Focus Work Session

001All right, great. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Alexandria School Board work session for August 27th, 2020. We are starting at 5.02. And today we have our areas of focus and some policy revisions on our agenda. And so we're going to start off with the areas of focus. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Madam Chair. And one, I'm excited to finally talk about these areas of focus because this is how we're going to remain focused this year, I hope. And it's going to definitely keep us quite busy. And also one of the major highlights of today's areas of focus is also talking about the renaming process that we're going to be proposing to the board to use as we're considering to rename our high school. Let's go ahead

002and get right into the presentation. Susan, are you going to be sharing your screen for that? I had not anticipated doing the presentation, but I can. Just tell me when to change slides. Okay. One moment. Well, that's coming up while you're bringing that up. I'll just just to mention to to the board that, you know, that the areas of focus is what we do every year to kind of set the stage for what we are going to be focusing on and kind of like what our marching orders are as a school division. And today we're going to be able to talk specifically about how the alignment occurs. with this areas of focus and how we derive these areas of focus. We're going to be going over some data with the board. So you all are

003going to be engaged, even though we're virtual, you're going to be engaged in some work today to look at some data. And then we're also going to talk specifically, as I mentioned before, about the renaming process that we're proposing and then our next steps as to where we're trying to go. from this day forward. And we hope that there will be an opportunity for the board to ask some of those burning questions that you might have from the materials that you've been reading over the past couple of days. So let's get right into today's, you can go to the next slide, Susan, into the objectives for today. You know what, I don't have the PowerPoint version of it. which I'll pull it up while you're doing this. Okay. So these are pretty much our objectives

004for today. And I've just mentioned to you further that we want to first go over our data and kind of start. from the data component and then talk about, you know, we have more than just a global pandemic that's happening right now, right? We have this global pandemic that relates to COVID-19. And then we also have some, you know, some racial inequities that we're trying to address across our country right now that is going to be very important for us to tie that to some of the work that we're doing as well in Alexandria City Public Schools. And then we want to make sure that we're talking about the connection between our areas of focus. and our strategic plan. And speaking of our strategic plan, you got to start with that. And that's our next

005slide, Susan. It is so important for us to remember that our strategic plan is our roadmap to everything that we do, from the decisions that we make as a school division to the policies and the practices that we're implementing throughout our school division. This is what our roadmap is, our strategic plan. And one thing that we can all agree on with our strategic plan since it was adopted, and I just want to say hats off to our school board for adopting this bold and courageous strategic plan this past June, is that we have a shared mission, that we have a shared vision, and that we also have shared core values. And that it doesn't just stop here. with the superintendent and the school board. But this trickles down into our schools, all the way into

006our classrooms that impacts directly with our students. And that is really the key in how we're making sure that we are attaining our specific goals that we're setting. Our strategic plan also allows us to develop some priorities and to ensure that all of our efforts and the work that we're doing throughout the next five years. are aligned with our mission, our vision, and our core values, as well as with our goals. And then our strategic plan, you know, and this is why I call it bold and courageous. It does allow us a pathway to help us to remove those systemic barriers that have been prevalent in Alexandria City Public Schools for several years. We're hoping that this plan is going to allow us to truly dismantle the systemic racism that... that continues to occur and

007so many facets throughout our school division. Go to the next slide. Susan, this right here just gives an idea of the systemic alignment and actually systemic alignment is one of our goals in our five year strategic plan. This right here is the perfect example of modeling what that looks like. You know, this is, I believe, the epitome of what alignment is all about. When you start with your strategic plan and then we're using our FY21 budget priorities that were adopted by the board last fall. that gave us some direction as to what we needed to focus on in the FY 2021 school year. And that also helps us to develop our focus areas for the 2021 academic year. And those focus areas allows our schools and our departments to have some marching orders on what

008needs to be included or what their focus needs to be when developing their school improvement plans, as well as when developing their department improvement plans. And that will lead to the action steps that all of our schools and our departments will make to have the outcomes that we are seeking throughout the next five years. You know, one thing that's going to be key, and we're going to talk a little bit about this today as one of our areas of focus, is making sure that we're developing the appropriate metrics, which I can't wait to talk about that later on in the presentation. Dr. Hutchings, I just need to close this for one second. Okay. Hold on. I need to unshare. And the next session is really talking about our vision, which is key for us. If

009we can go down to that slide. Because we really have to start with our, I think it's slide five, where it should be the vision. is we really have to start here with what our vision is. This is what we're envisioning for all of our students, that they are empowered, that they're gonna be able to leave Alexandria City Public Schools ready to thrive in a diverse and ever-changing world. And I've been saying this time and time again over the past few months during this global pandemic, this is a prime example of an ever-changing world. You know, we want to make sure that our students, regardless of the situation or circumstance that may come their way, that they are still going to be able to thrive and be advocates out there in this wonderful world. So

010I want us to start with our data, and I'm going to kind of pass the mic and the torch on to Mr. Clinton Page, who was our chief of accountability, so that we can talk a little bit about the data. and actually have an activity where we will be able to engage a little bit about some of this data. Mr. Pick. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchings. Good evening board. Pleasure to see you all tonight. So as Dr. Hutchings shared. You know, this work really is about alignment and prioritization in terms of the new strategic plan. If we are going to focus on the historic inequities that have remained in place in Alexandria City Public Schools over decades, we are going to have to be aligned. We're going to have to

011be prioritized, focused, and very strategic in the actions that we take, not just this year, but next year and the year after and the year after that to dismantle. those inequities. So with that in the crafting of the areas of focus is also as Dr. Hutchings talked about using the strategic plan as the overall umbrella as well as last year's budget priorities from the board and then leveraging our data and an equity focus to drive the areas of focus for the current year. The data on this slide should look very familiar to the board. These are data that led to the budget priorities that the board developed last year for FY21. So you'll see there on the left, the first graphic is showing the disparities in our literacy. This specific graph is at the kindergarten

012level, but we know that those disparities across race ethnic groups are also present at the first and second grade level and led to the ultimate prioritization of K-2 literacy for the division. We also see in the middle, around our talented and gifted access and the disparities there where we have 15% of our black student population being tag identified and 13% of our Hispanic student population being tag identified. While in terms of the overall student body, our black students represent a greater ratio, as well as our Hispanic students representing a greater ratio of the overall student body. So under representation in terms of tag and access. And then also, looking at ultimate outcomes in terms of graduation rate and seeing disparities there specifically for our Hispanic students falling below the division average with 71 percent of

013our Hispanic students in the 2019 graduation four-year cohort graduating quote-unquote on time with the overall division average at 83 percent. So along with those key quantitative metrics and all those metrics that were reported in the data workbook, which was attached to this particular agenda item, we also have a litany of audits and program evaluations that we have gone through in recent years. Susan, if you can go to the next slide. And so we also wanted to call specific attention to those efforts in terms of all of the information that we have gleaned from the various audits and evaluations that we have undergone. I will not go into each area. These are very kind of high-level summaries in terms of the overall audit and evaluation, but knowing that we have audits and action plans in the

014areas of communications, family engagement, our human resources, facilities. our students with disabilities, as well as our talented and gifted program, really thinking about the action items and the findings from those audits to also help inform our areas of focus. You can go to the next slide, Susan. With the quantitative in terms of when we were in in-person school and the metrics that we have in our data workbook, as well as with all of the audits and evaluations that have happened in the last several years, we also need to consider where we were in terms of virtual learning during the school closure period in the spring. and what we learned from that experience. So this slide here speaks to a summary of the various data collection and methods that we used across the critical lever areas

015in our spring closure and the delivery of virtual learning. So in the area of instruction, knowing that perceptions from stakeholders were positive in terms of for those students who were engaged, that they were able to make academic progress. However, we also know that there is a need to focus and increase engagement across all ACPS students and families that we were not engaging all students last spring. And that is something we have to focus on going into the fall. From a technology access perspective, hearing that ACPS has been responsive to technology needs, but then also continuing to do all we can to bridge any gaps or divides in terms of access. As we know, technology really is our lifeline in this term of pandemic and how we connect. with our students, with our families, and knowing

016that it is something that we absolutely have to have if we're going to advance in the way that we plan to advance under our new strategic plan. Then also nutrition, health, and safety, checking to seeing where our students and staff were around emotional stress and emotional wellness, largely. managing that well in terms of what we heard in the spring and also ensuring that we are meeting the needs of families in terms of food and nutrition and servicing those in need with over 30,000 meals served weekly through the spring period. And then lastly, this ultimately is a relationship business and key to all relationships is communication and open two-way communication. So ensuring that we are continuing to actively communicate with our stakeholders. and receive feedback from our stakeholders on an iterative basis to ensure we are

017continuing to refine and continuously improve during this pandemic context. Susan, you can go to the next slide. And Dr. Hutchings alluded to this, but also thinking about the current context of the global pandemic and how that informs our areas of focus. And when we talk about the pandemic, we really are under a dual pandemic currently, where we have obviously the COVID-19 pandemic, but then we also have the pandemic nationally, locally of systemic racism and what we are doing around that particular topic as well. So this slide is speaking to what we know from research around trauma and how trauma impacts students in their learning. We know trauma adversely affects students' abilities to regulate emotions and control behaviors, and I think most importantly, to create meaningful connections and relationships, both with peers and with adults. We

018also know that trauma causes lower levels of academic achievement. and that trauma affected students are more likely to encounter learning difficulties, experience grade retention, display absenteeism, and potentially ultimately drop out of school. And we also know that trauma is not experienced unilaterally equally across all of our groups of students and families, and that trauma occurs certainly across all segments of the community, but research has found disproportionality. in terms of impacts of families in lower economic resources, higher parental stress levels, and those families experiencing insecurity across critical areas such as food, shelter, employment, and transportation. So we can go to the next slide. Taking all of that information and putting it into our brains in terms of our quantitative data, our evaluation data, our data from the spring in terms of where we were during the

019spring closure period, as well as our knowledge in terms of the impacts of the dual pandemic and what trauma. can do to our students in terms of their social emotional health and their ability to access learning. We also need to think about when talking about the areas of focus our strategic plan and the goal areas. So the goal areas of systemic alignment, instructional excellence, student accessibility and support, family community engagement, and strategic resource allocation. And not just what those look like for all, but if you could click Susan, but what those look like when racial equity is at the heart of the work. So not just what does family and community engagement look like, but what does family and community engagement look like through a lens of racial equity? So what does that mean in

020terms of what we need to do to ensure racial equity and how we are differentiating our services to meet our families and our students where they are and not where we ultimately expect them or want them to be? So wanting to think about that as well. in our areas of focus discussion. So next slide, Susan. So this is where we are going to take a virtual risk here as we are asking all of our instructional staff to adjust to virtual learning. We also are going to adjust to virtual learning. So here on the slide, we see the mission of the strategic plan in terms of ACPS inspiring all students in addressing barriers to learning to ensure success. So what we wanted to do is allow the board about maybe three to five minutes to individually

021reflect and list out three critical areas for the coming year that you feel must be addressed based off of all the information we just went through. So the quantitative data, the audit data, the dual pandemic context, as well as our current strategic plan. What are the three areas that you feel are most important for the division to address to advance the organization forward? And then what we'll do is we'll have each board member just share out their areas and we'll all kind of go to a Google Doc where I'll be taking notes and facilitating that process. But just as an example to the grain size, certainly I know you all received this PowerPoint in advance, so you can certainly... put down things that are listed as areas of focus for the year. But also if

022you have other thoughts, those are certainly welcome. But just an example of grain size in terms of what we're looking for would be something like the strategic plan, right? So like strategic plan implementation. That's something that I feel as a board member is one of the top three critical things that we really need to nail as an organization this year. So with that, before I release, I'm going to just allow a little wait time to see if there are any questions about what we're getting ready to do. If you have a question, feel free to raise your hand. Not seeing any questions. So we are going to take about three to five minutes. I'll kind of gauge it based off of reading your faces from video in terms of where each board member is in

023terms of listing out. their individual three areas. And then we'll go through kind of a call out where you'll have an opportunity to share your three areas. So starting now, maybe about 30 more seconds. And I agree, Dr. Hutchings, that silence is deafening. I need to add some kind of music. I'm like, I needed the music. I'm thinking they're going to think we all are frozen. Now we know we got to use our Jeopardy music in the future. All right, let's go ahead and come back together as a group. Veronica, do you mind stopping the share so that I can? I apologize. Oh, there it is. I'm sorry. No problem. All right. So if you all just would raise your hands and Dr. Hutchings will. kind of call on board members with hands up and

024then I'm going to just take some notes in terms of what you all had in terms of the three top areas. Well, I see Margaret Lorber is up first. I think you're on mute, Margaret. How about now? Okay, perfect. Okay, okay. All right. Well, for me, special education evaluation, in other words, my internet's unstable, making special education, special instruction work in our school system. Okay, so I'm hearing special education. Yeah, but taking advantage of the fact that we did this three-year evaluation and we're trying to see what we can, looking at the implementation of the three-year evaluation on special education. That's number one. Number two. The multi-tiered system of support, which is one of the big recommendations of that evaluation, but affects all students in the whole system. And again, gets at that equitable approach

025to education that kids get what they need, different levels. And it's something that's great potential for MTSS, but we haven't reached that potential yet, but I think we will. And the third one is family engagement with an emphasis on families who don't speak English, because I think we've come a long way on reaching out to our families and where we want them to be. But I think we really need to put a lot of emphasis on that two-way communication with all families, but in particular families with limited English, because that's a huge challenge. Great. Thank you, Ms. Lorber. Thank you, Margaret. I see Ms. Alderton. Okay, so I'm going to... piggyback on Ms. Lorber on the MTSS component. And the reason I'm going to piggyback on that is because I think there are a lot

026of things that fall within that. And I'm all about like, you know, the highest leverage tool to meet the most goals. So I choose MTSS because I think it improves special ed. It improves, you know, we've been, we can have a continued focus on the K through two literacy piece and developing proficient readers. It can improve the tag disparity and the honors disparities that we see getting that rigor for all students. And also it will be essential, I believe in, in closing, reducing the COVID gap. which is like, you know, now we have sort of, we need these dual intervention or double intervention pathways, I guess, because our, as I've said many times, our students who had the most needs are now going to. need so much more support in order to make sure that

027these academic and social emotional gaps do not get wider. So MTSS, and then I think, you know, related to that, obviously, is definitely the removal of, you know, any of these symbolic racist elements that we have, combining those two things together to make all of these changes really meaningful. So, you know, that includes, you know, renaming Maury, renaming TC. I think that would cover a lot of ground. So I guess that's two things, but like one of them has a lot of things. Thank you, Ms. Alderson. I see Ms. Thornton. Thanks. And yeah, I agree with Ms. Alderton. It seems like a lot of these things kind of contain a lot in them and they're all overlapping and linking with each other. But for me, I definitely would say number one, of course, is just

028looking at the various disparities, academic disparities amongst our students. Specifically for me, TAG is front of mind. I think for so long, this has just been something that's been very tough to deal with. especially when talking about the push in versus pull out, you know, the under representation of some of our students in the TAG program. I just think that as a community, this is a conversation that has always been difficult and is going to continue to be even more difficult if we're really serious about making racial equity at the center of everything that we do. So I think if we can really kind of have those conversations, that to me, it would be a priority. And I guess going along with that, it's not TAG, but in thinking about the underrepresentation of Black and

029Brown students, I guess I can say it that way, I'm thinking of the over-identification of some students in other areas, like Black males being overly identified as having an emotional disability or requiring special services. So disparities on all fronts, I think we need to focus on. Number two, I just called it COVID recovery. So that includes our reopening of schools, dealing with associated learning losses, the emotional, social emotional components that come with that. I mean, that just is going to have to be something that I think we focus on this year. And then number three for me is community engagement, but again, community engagement specifically on these tough conversations that we need to have. So that includes not only like the TAG and student with disability conversations, but like Ms. Alderton said, our renaming conversations

030for TC Williams and for Maury. I think outreach to a lot of different components of our community and not just the typical ones that we hear from should be something that's front of mind for us. Thank you so much, Ms. Thornton. I see Mr. Suarez next. Thanks, Dr. Hutchings. Yeah, so I think mine overlap quite a bit with some of the others said by my colleagues. So but number one is a different one, which I actually would put first, which is the human resources piece. I think if we're going to get where we really need to be, it's going to be critical that both from sort of an ongoing evaluation and mentorship perspective and in terms of what we do on the front end to hire staff, it's going to be vital that we account

031for, track, and sort of understand where the mindsets of every employee of the division is. in terms of systemic racism. When I talk to students, I, you know, and talk about some of the deeper issues about disproportionality and some of the other things, you know, I hear a lot about how teachers and staff, however well-intentioned, may sometimes harbor some of these implicit biases we've been grappling with as a country, which sort of perpetuates a lot of the inequities that we see in TAG and the disproportionate discipline and all these sorts of things. And so until we... Robust Lee use our HR department, both to support teachers in developing those types of skills and in sort of screening on the front end for the mindsets that we need, or at least a willingness to adopt the

032mindsets that we need to move the needle in the division. I think that we're not going to get to where we need to be, even if we try to focus on some of these more specific. strategies. So that's my number one. Number two is one that I think Margaret touched on and also Heather touched on, which is the communications piece. And I think it goes back to this notion of making sure that we're meeting all kids where they are. and not where we want them to be. I think it's going to be vital that our communication is clear and as Margaret said two-way communication so that we can you know really understand what the needs of our students are at any given point of time and adjust to those needs accordingly and I think that's

033particularly important now during the COVID time when anxiety is high amongst our community, when we need to be clear in what our expectations are, and we need to really serve our community as effectively as possible. So that to me is going to be critically important and training our staff and training the culture within the school division to really be communicative and communicative with all of our families is going to be vital. And then the third area I identified, I think, is another common area. I called it disproportionality because I just think it cuts through so many areas. And so that would cut through the tag disproportionality, the disproportionate discipline issues for Black males, over-identification of students in SPED as emotionally disturbed, you know, disproportionate. you know, graduation rates amongst our Hispanic students, all of those

034sorts of issues. So I think, you know, highlighting this sort of general problem of disproportionality in the division and making that top of mind for everyone because it cuts through so many areas. could be a way to really make sure we're working on those those mindsets and really being intentional about everything we do. You know, and to be clear, my three areas aren't to the exclusion of what anyone else says. I agree completely about the MTSS and SPED being important as well. Those are just kind of the three buckets I put my priorities. Thank you, Mr. Suarez. I see our Chair Anderson. Great. Thank you. Yes, it's hard to narrow to three, right? But we have to narrow sometimes. Well, I put one as the nutrition, health and safety, which is really the seal. But

035I mean, in addition, you know, we're going to have to make sure people have their basic needs met or they're not going to be able to be open for learning. And then also disproportionality. And I think I was more thinking along the lines of Mr. Suarez, not just academic, but discipline, the whole thing, you know, identification, positive or negative about the way things are happening. And then my third was audits, not to forget our audits, because, and I wanted to. name several of them, but I think, you know, the communications, the HR, which does have some overlap really with, but I think we need to remember to keep working toward the continuous improvement for the organization. That's it. Thank you so much, Chair Anderson. See next, Vice Chair Nolan. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Like, I

036can't. imagine disagreeing with anything that my colleagues have said. So really appreciate the robust conversation and the focus, laser focus on the needs of the division. What I had listed and Mr. Page, I was hoping to cheat at first and do three for COVID and three for systemic racism, but you know, I'm not going to do that to you. So if I had to narrow it down to just three, number one, and I'm assuming perhaps this could be with the academic needs, but just access to a robust curriculum that starts early on, you know, Tagsman mentioned honors courses. you know, you speaking to a lot of. college admissions officers. You know, I spoke to one recently that we were discussing, you know, the challenge they find in recruiting low-income students. And it starts early on

037that if they don't have access to the AP classes and they need to have had a foundation to be prepared for the AP classes, that that's one of the challenges that they're having. And so I think it starts early, but again, just an access to a robust curriculum, which is at the heart of literacy. I mean, it all boils down to literacy and making sure that all of our students can read by third grade. Um, The second one I had was, I really, I'm a strong believer in that those closest to the ground and the work really are the ones that can identify both problems and solutions. So I think having mechanisms where the student voice and the staff voice is elevated, whether it be through focus groups, or I know I've been harping on

038a customer relationship management system as well as surveys, but I just think we need to, instead of being an ivory tower that assumes we have the solutions that we're really talking to. the leadership team, that we're talking to principals, staff, teachers, students especially, really getting to the heart of those that are in the day-to-day work, that we are finding out what their voice says and what they identify as the needs, both for COVID and for the systemic racism that exists within ACPS. And again, two solutions to that potentially, I think, are the customer relationship management system and surveys. Because one thing I've always been impressed by in Alexandria, we have such phenomenal feedback. It's just making sure that we have that feedback realized and so that it impacts the day to day. And then the

039last piece I would say is just ensuring that we have a handle on what the needs are of our lowest income students during COVID, especially, you know, like who's not engaged, who's not participating, who is in need of, who's being left home alone. So just, it's really understanding. Where are we at with the needs of our lowest income students who are not engaged and how can we figure out how to make sure they're engaged and continuing to learn during this virtual learning period? Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Nolan. Next, I have Dr. Reif. Well, thank you, everyone. I definitely agree with what I've heard so far. What stood out for me or came to mind for me was determining the key performance indicators for the strategic plan and, you know, if those need to be

040adjusted because of the COVID situation. I agree with the things that people said, but unless we, you know, determine the data for how we're measuring that those things are happening, we're not going to know. that they are happening and how we're moving the needle. So I think determining what we're measuring is really important and making sure that we're getting that data. And then the next thing I had was the reopening plan. We're going virtual right now, but this is not forever. I certainly hope not. So at some point, we're going to be pivoting, whether that's to everyone in person or a hybrid model. And so just really figuring out what are the metrics for how we're going to determine how to do that? Is it going to be a phased approach? Just kind of working

041that out so that everyone is understanding the expectations and can be successful. And I think, you know, kind of along with that too, I was thinking about, you know, this new school year that we're entering is unlike anything we've ever had before. you know, we, that we have to have flexibility to, because we don't know, you know, how it's going to work for all students. I think it's, it might be very challenging for some students in this new environment. And so just figuring out that and, and the kind of aligned with that last thing is supporting our staff. I think that. As I've heard Dr. Hutchings say on a number of occasions, you know, nobody went to a teacher education program to learn how to teach like this. And so I think that in order

042for our staff to be successful, they really need the support, the professional learning opportunities and a supportive, you know, community of other educators, the PLC or whatnot to really support them in doing this work and how to. do differentiation strategies that are going to support all of our learners and meet all of their needs and all of that is going to contribute to our staff retention. So those would be my things. Thank you, Dr. Reif. I have Ms. Gentry next. Thank you. I'm glad I got to go after everybody else so I can say me too. And then I'm particularly glad I got to go after Dr. Reif because she touched on something that I really want to touch on. So I wasn't slacking, but I really I'm saying that I have one thing. And

043my one thing is the implementation of the strategic plan, because I really, truly believe. that this is a crucial year if we do not create. Those, you know, really define, I mean, every single one of the things that I've heard my fellow board members say, I truly believe is embedded in what we've talked about in our strategic plan. It absolutely speaks to the things that the strategic plan said we wanted to focus on. But we have to get to that next step of really defining how we. how we're going to measure that. And if we don't do it through the strategic plan, if we inadvertently say, we're going to work on this, but if we say we're going to work on this, but don't really put it into the strategic plan format and think about

044it, then even if we have some success this year, Every single one of these things that my colleagues have talked about are not something that we will fix in one year. We can make improvements in one year, but all of them will need sustained effort over a number of years. And that's why a strategic plan is powerful, because you can really map that out, what you want to see in five years and how you think you're going to get there and how you think you're going to measure that. You know, I think I think this is just a really crucial year. And it's it's it's amazing how fast five years can fly by if you don't kind of put the time in now. And then you kind of realize, oh, I'm halfway through the strategic

045plan. And man, there's no way we're going to we're going to get to this thing that we all thought was really important. So so I guess my thing is, is really more about the how than the what. But I just really want to emphasize that I think all of these things, we just really need to keep it on the strategic plan idea. And if that means that we come up with some, you know, year one has some specific COVID-related key measurements, I think that's fine. But let's just call that what that is and just say how that might adjust over the, you know, years two, three, four, and five. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gentry. I see Mr. Suarez. Yeah, I just wanted to chime in on that and piggyback on that point because I'm

046glad that both Dr. Reif and Ms. Gentry highlighted that because obviously what we've identified here sort of speak to some of the KPIs we need to have. But I do agree and think it's critically important that we you know, sooner rather than later. And I'm looking forward to what Dr. Hutchings has to say about this, you know, identify some of these metrics, you know, both so that the board can effectively model, you know, how we look at progress and sort of, you know, consider how we're doing over the course of the year. But it also kind of ties back to this HR point I was making before too, which is that, you know, to the extent there are KPIs that we identify that are aligned with the strategic plan, how do those KPIs line up

047to what individuals are doing at the staff level, and how can we make sure that we're understanding how our staff is performing on those metrics? So I would just ditto that and agree that the sooner we can get on top of that, albeit in perfect science right now because of COVID, that work is going to be critically important. So I just, I'm grateful for those comments. Okay, Ms. Green? No, I hang on yet, Dr. Hudson. All good. All good. So my number, oh, I wanted to say this, this is, this is wonderful. The thought that has been put into each of these categories from the board members, this has been really, really, I'm glad I'm going last because it's been really neat to see how it all unfolds already into this. into the graphic that

048we have here. But my top three, number one will be K through two literacy and the continuation of that from the prior school year. And then second would be, and I don't know where we would fit this in Mr. Page, but I would love to see a deep dive or focus from a student achievement gap perspective on the biggest gaps that we have within the minority groups and putting a focus on that. I know that we've done it in the past. I think it was a couple of years ago. We did math with African-American students and we saw a significant increase. I would love to see it broken down, looking at data and where those biggest gaps are and putting a focus on one or two areas to see how we could raise or lessen

049the achievement gap there. And then third for me would be restorative justice, the continuation of and refocus. of that program, particularly after we get out of COVID and back into this. Thank you so much, Ms. Green. Well, I know that Mr. Page, I'm going to keep going, Mr. Page, because I know that you were able to capture this. One, I think this is awesome that board members, one, are able to describe. based on, because this data is not new to board members. It's this data that we're discussing and sharing with you all. This is information that we've been looking at over the past year. You know, last year we developed our FY21 budget priorities using a lot of this data. And, you know, the thing with us is that, with ACPS, not just us, but

050with ACPS, is that our data has been flat for the past several years. And that's an issue. You know, we should see trajectory of increasing our percentages every year. We should see more students engage. We should see, you know, the narrowing of our achievement gap continuously. And that is not how our data is being revealed right now. And I am excited about this five-year strategic plan because we are going to have to be intentional. around specific groups that we need to focus on. You know, when you try to do a blanket, hey, we're going to do this for everybody, you're not resolving the issue, right? And this is why it's so important to have that racial equity piece at the center or the heart of what we do so that we can really be intentional

051about our efforts. So let's go into the specific areas of focus, because you're going to see that some of the things that board members have already shared. Our team has also, based on our analysis and our areas of expertise, are aligned with what the board is thinking right now. And this is why these are the five specific areas that we are focusing on, that we're recommending to focus on this upcoming year. One, first and foremost, as you all know, the reopening plan, I mean, we don't have a choice now. This would never be a focus area, reopening schools, because we do it time and time again, right? But this is a new day. Now we're starting school virtually, right? We had a convocation today, which was phenomenal. Thank you, Corey, for all of his hard

052work. You know, did a lot of work to make sure this convocation was excellent. But who would have thought we would be doing a convocation virtually on a Zoom, you know, webinar with all of our staff? I never would have believed that. But a part of the reopening piece, there are three specific areas that we are going to have to really focus on with our reopening. One is our social, emotional, and academic learning. And that includes all the things that board members just mentioned. MTSS, our special education, you know. making sure that we have the adequate resources and the restorative practices, you know, for example, as Ms. Green was talking about, for the social and emotional piece. You know, all of that falls under SCAL, which stands for social, emotional, academic learning. Technology right now

053is our lifeline. You know, without technology, we can't even function. We couldn't have this board meeting right now without the technology, right? None of us will be able to log in. And we all have challenges every once in a while with our internet access, right? You know, so this is kind of a new day and how important this is, you know, a lifeline for us, which it didn't used to be. It used to just be like a compliment to what we do. Now, this is all a part of how we get things done. which is very different than just a few months ago. And then finally, our meal distribution. Our kids cannot learn if they are not fed. And food insecurity is real. It was real prior to the global pandemic. It is more real

054now that families are losing their jobs. Our families are being evicted from their homes, whether we want to believe that or not. Our families are having issues with trying to make ends meet financially. And they were having problems prior to this. So just imagine that amount of stress that's happening in many households across the city of Alexandria who happen to have children in our schools. The second area of focus deals with a policy equity audit. And this is, you know, as we talked about trying to narrow the achievement gap and us trying to make sure that we're addressing the disparities and the disproportionality that many of our board members just shared with us, we're going to have to make sure that we have the appropriate policies in place that are not perpetuating some of those

055achievement gap issues and disparities and disproportionality that we're experiencing right now. And what we're proposing is that we have, you know, an actual audit of our policies. And this is through the lens of equity, right? So it's not just a policy audit that I know was conducted a few years ago within our school division. This is looking at specific policies and determining whether it is perpetuating these achievement gap issues that we are continuously seeing throughout ACPS. The third area of focus deals with our strategic plan implementation. And Mr. Suarez, you know, he is data driven. You know, I've heard data out of his mouth every meeting this past summer. I'm like, yes, come on, Mr. Suarez. I hear you. I hear you, my brother. I hear you. But we do have to have those metrics.

056We have to have the metrics. How are we going to be able to monitor our progress if we have not established the necessary metrics to determine how we're going to say, yes, we have made progress? you know, as a school division. And we have to know, we have recommendations that were part of, you know, suggestions that were part of the strategic plan adoption back in June, but we really need to nail down specifics to what those metrics are so that we can have appropriate action planning this year, which is our first year. This is the most important year because this is our baseline year for our data for the next five years. So it's going to be very important that we identify the appropriate metrics. The renaming of our schools, right? A lot of people

057right now are tuning in to hear about what are we doing with this whole renaming piece? And, you know, we're talking specifically about T.C. Williams, but we also received a petition about Maury Elementary School. And we're going to be asking the board, do we need to put both of those together? We're recommending that we do. You know, let's if we're going to rename and go down this process for T.C. Williams, we might as well. do the process for Maury at the same time now that we have this you know actual framework that we're trying to use that we're going to be sharing with the board in just a minute it's going to be really soon folks I know that's the moment everybody's waiting for and then finally is our academic disparities component because There's so

058much that's in this academic disparities that has been around for a long time. You know, the K-2 literacy, that is number one. You have to learn how to read between pre-K and second grade, right? If you're not able to read before third grade, you're not able to learn past third grade. You know, you're learning to read pre-K through second grade. That is all a part of the curriculum. It's part of the Virginia standards of learning. And then you pivot into now we're reading to learn from third grade through 12th grade. So if we're sending kids in the third grade, not on grade level, we are actually setting them up for failure. So we're going to have to be very intense and very strategic and intentional about our pre-K, second grade literacy efforts. That is going

059to be key. You know, we're going to have to have reading specialists as teachers, which, you know, elementary teachers and I, you know, I do have an elementary education degree as well. They're taught to. to teach literacy. I mean, that is the base. That's why a lot of elementary teachers don't like going to math. You know, some of them do. I did math and science too, but some just don't like the math component, right? Because we are really trained at the elementary level to focus on the literacy component because you can't do anything else without that. You really can't. It is really key. Our talented and gifted component is so important. We have really been kicking the can down the road about push in, push out. in ACPS, right? We scratched, you know, the tip

060of the iceberg a little bit, and then we back off. Right. We got to just go all in and we got to come up with a philosophy on what we believe as a school division when it comes to talented and gifted, as well as when it comes to middle school honors, because that is another component that we have kind of been tiptoeing around and not really having a deep discussion and developing a philosophy for Alexandria City Public Schools. And this year, we got to tackle what our philosophy is on those two major areas. We have to deal with our students with disabilities, especially our students who have emotional disabilities. We right now have an overrepresentation of black students, period. in our over-identification of Black students, period, who have been identified as having emotional disabilities. And

061we need to make an intentional focus and effort in that. We've been cited by the Virginia Department of Education about this a couple of years ago that we have been working through. to be in compliance with that. And there's been a number of efforts that have been made and we've seen actual progress that we'll be able to share as we begin to talk about this this year, giving our updates to the board in regards to our efforts with that. Our Hispanic male graduation rates is key. You know, we talked about 71%. That's overall for our Hispanic students, right? When you look at our Hispanic males and you look at that data, it is very disturbing. extremely disturbing because our Hispanic males are graduating at the lowest percentage out of all of our students in Alexandria

062City Public Schools. There is something that we need to be doing to ensure that our students make it through ACPS, especially our Hispanic male students so that they can graduate. You know, research shows that, you know, yes. a postgraduate degree or a bachelor's degree will get you a higher income. However, graduating from high school alone at least gives you an opportunity to get a job and to make some sort of living. And with the CTE programs that we now have for students, students can go into these career technical education courses and get these certifications and actually have really good salaries and can make a living. you know, from the CTE certifications that used to be like, oh, you definitely don't want to do CTE. This right now, they're booming. People are making six figures with

063CTE certifications and not a degree. So some of us with our degrees, we're like, well, dang, I feel like we got the tail end of the stick, you know? So we got to start promoting the CTE, especially with all this technology that a lot of our kids are already exposed to and already used to. um we really need to to make sure that we are boosting that up and our high school project is doing a bang up job especially that educational design team i can't wait till we give an update about that in september um or i think it's september to talk a little bit about some of those efforts. But these are the five specific overarching areas of focus that also have subcategories as I went through them. So it's not just five things.

064I wish it was, but we have a lot of work to do. And I want to turn things back to Clint or to Mr. Page so that we can go right into our renaming component. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. So next slide. Thank you, Veronica. So just to underscore Dr. Hutchings' point and what we've talked about so far in this presentation in terms of the prioritization need for the areas of focus, but then also the alignment and some of what Member Gentry shared around these are not one-year initiatives, a lot of them. So thinking about how our areas of focus for the coming year align with our areas of focus from last year. as well as how they align with the budget priorities that the board established last year. So thinking about the strategic plan, the

065high school project, as well as the overall foundation of equity that was represented in last year's areas of focus, we certainly see, again, within this year's area of focus, as well as all the audit action plans continuing to be incorporated into department and or school improvement plans. where that work is really delineated out in terms of the discrete action steps, the measures, and the progress made there. And then also from the budget priorities from last year, the pre-K to two literacy and Hispanic graduation rate, you will see within the areas of focus for the coming year, MTSS and PBIS, as well as restorative practices, certainly carried forward within the reopening plan and the seal work there. Our customer service, cultural competence, staff retention, all highlighted within the strategic plan action planning. So some of what

066we talked about around the HR audit and implementation and ensuring that we know to ultimately do this work. We need to recruit and retain the high quality staff that we currently have within the system. And also continuing the focus around the students with disabilities, facilities and human resources audit. being carried out through the department improvement plan. We can jump to the next slide. And then wanted to bring the board back to just a reflection point in terms of the alignment of the areas of focus with our strategic plan and our core values. So here we see listed our core values under our current strategic plan. and wanted to just allow a couple minutes, maybe two minutes for board members to individually reflect on how the areas of focus for the coming school year are living

067these core values. So how are we welcoming? How are we empowering? How are we innovative in the areas of focus? Give about two minutes for individual reflection and then we'll open it up maybe for a couple comments in terms of what emerged for members as they reflected on how the areas of focus are living our core values. So about two minutes just to think about that. So in thinking about these core values and in the interest of time, maybe if we just have one board member who would be willing to be bold and brave to share. I see member Gentry's hand. Rami, if you just. Talk quickly about what emerged for you in thinking about that. So I think I'm on a what slash how kind of thing this evening. So we'll just go with

068this. But I mean, and these are things that I looked at a lot over the last year because I was fortunate enough to be on the, you know, one of the school board representatives for the strategic plan. I really feel like the first two bullet points are what we want to be. And, uh, and the, the, the, the following three bullet points are how we get there. Um, So that was just me looking at these again, kind of after taking a little break from them and kind of seeing them sort of in a slightly different way. Of course, we need all of them. But I think it's I was really just struck by that, that if we can use the tools, if we can be equity focused, if we can be innovative, if we can

069be results driven, then. That is how, you know, we will be empowering to our students. And a place that inspires each student and staff member to thrive to their best abilities. I mean, if we're really doing that, what a welcoming place to be. Great. Thank you so much, Ms. Gentry. And, you know, as we begin the implementation of the strategic plan. From a decision-making process, we will be revisiting these core values in our decision-making processes, both as leaders and as a governing body, to ensure that the decisions we're making are aligned with these core values and that we're truly living them through the decisions that we make. So with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Dr. Hutchings. So I want to, I wish we had like a drum roll because I wanted

070to talk about one of our areas of focus, which is our renaming process. You know, I had a charge from the board in July to bring to the board a draft timeline or process or engagement process for renaming T.C. Williams. And what we're recommending is also to consider using this same process for renaming Matthew Morey. elementary school as well. But I'm going to run you through this. And before I do that, I do just have a couple of words that I want to say about this whole engagement process. One, I think that there was a lot of discussion around why should we wait and why can we not change the name now? Let's just get it done, right? And I think that the board, you all made a very clear statement around the fact that

071the name Thomas Chambliss Williams was not aligned with our core values, was not aligned with our new mission, our vision, as well as with the fact that racial equity is and will be the heart of our work moving forward. And I think you were very explicit about that. What I'm hoping that we're able to do is allow for our community to be educated around who Thomas Chambliss Williams is, allow for our community to be able to communicate what they have learned and how that makes them feel, and then allow for the board to take that information so that they're hearing the voices of our community to actually make a decision around whether we're changing the name. I think it is so important for us to be very explicit about this and I've asked for our

072two student board representatives to speak today and the reason why I've asked for them to speak. One, We're talking about two young ladies who just happen to be black and brown students in Alexandria City Public Schools. I think that what we have done. is we have not allowed for our students of color to have a voice in this discussion. I have not been able to see all the emails from our students of color. I have not been in a space to talk to our students of color about what this means for them. And we've gotten a lot of emails about this. And I think that if we're going to really hear some voices, I believe this is the time for us to hear the voices of our students of color. And it's not that we

073don't want to hear from our white students in Alexandria City Public Schools, because we do. We all need allyship. That is how anything happened from the civil rights movement to, you know, where we are today. It took everybody coming together to make that happen. So I don't want anybody to misinterpret what I'm saying right now. What I'm saying is that our black and brown voices. have been unheard since the moment T.C. Williams, the school, opened in 1965. No one has listened to that voice. So how dare us now allow for those voices to continue to be quiet. We need to, when we talk about empowerment, we need to bring them to the front of the line to say, now speak and tell us how that makes you feel as a person of color walking into

074this building every day, knowing this man did not want you in his school. That is the voices that we need to be listening to. So I want to start by asking for, you know, Ms. Johnson to start off with some words and then we're going to also go into Ms. Ashley to speak about her experience. So Ms. Johnson, I'm going to turn things over to you for a moment to give you the floor to speak. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. I really... Appreciate your words for today. For me and many other students at my beginning of the school year with the climate of the Trump administration and the murder of George Floyd, I've been passionate about renaming our high school since... Actually, last year when I wrote a paper about a similar issue in my

075dual enrollment class, my teacher told us that most of, if not all of the streets around Alexandria are actually named after Confederate soldiers. And my teacher wanted us to write a paper about defending our position on. if we should rename these streets or not. And my vice president of the Black Student Union had immediately came on and said, none of these streets should be named after any of these people who, for one, fought to keep slavery in America. But two, these Confederates had nothing to do with Virginia, let alone Alexandria, of course, except for Robert E. Lee. But that brings me back to my first point. He wanted slavery and everything. And my parents and I actually debated over this matter for a while. And their point was that you can't erase history. And we

076have to know the history before we change it. We have to know the history to change history. So yes, they were terrible people. They wanted slavery and racial discrimination. But we have to face that Virginia was a Confederate state. That's just a fact. And we can't change that history, but we can change the story and right the wrongs of history. And I think now is the time to do that. And I believe that my class is going to become the change that rights these wrongs. And by filling Alexandria street names with Confederate soldiers, they made sure that Alexandria would be founded on Confederate ideals. Same way with naming the high school after Thomas Chambliss. We're trying to continue, we continue to perpetuate his ideals of segregation, white supremacy, and systematic racism. And when we look

077at our, when we look at our high school now, we are arguably the most diverse school, high school in the Commonwealth right now. 75% of Titans are people of color. And we have three women of color who are members of the school board. We have two young women who are student representatives at the school board. And we have men and women of color who hold executive positions in central office. And on top of all of that, we have a black man who holds the same position that Thomas Chamberlain once did. And I assure you that he is rolling over his grave right now because of who the Titans have become today. And when Titans of this generation, when we see injustices, my class and the classes before me and everybody who's been in school this

078year, we organize and we march and we speak out against racial discrimination and we speak out against segregation that we find here within our school system. While our hallways and our cafeterias may look diverse, our classrooms are not that way. If you take a look at our advanced courses, then you will see that diversity is all but disappears. This is evident in our elementary school tag program. Mr. Page, when he was talking earlier about the data for the TAG programs, Black and Hispanic students make up most of the population in the elementary schools, yet 15%, if not less, of those students are only in these TAG programs. Less than 15% are in these TAG programs. And that's not okay. segregation is still evident in our middle schools. One middle school has a population, has a

079black population of 17% and a white population of 44%. But the other middle school is the exact opposite with 33% white students and 14% black students. As you can see, we have a lot of wrongs to right within ACPS, but renaming the school is the first symbolic commitment to correcting the narrative of Alexandria. When it comes to the process of how we should go about renaming the schools, my principal, Mr. Ballas, once told me that it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebrand a high school. And I understand that there, and that's money taken away from our classrooms and resources that we need in education. So I understand that there are people in the community who want the name taken down immediately, but with that much money at stake, we have to get this

080right. We have to do this right. And I think that the name, and I think that before the name is taken down, we need to at least be on the same page about moving forward. What are we going to name the, what are we going to name the new high school? We need to at least look like a united front to the public about that, at least about what we should name the high school. And now let me say. I understand, like, I stand with my peers and classmates all the way about when we started this conversation of renaming the high school, and I even stand behind the tarping of the marquee. But I ask, but what I ask people to do is recognize that there is not a day-to-day platform for students of color

081to speak about every single issue. And I believe that white allyship is, like Dr. Hutchins said, I think white allyship. It's great to have. It's a very important component in the movement. But the students of color should be on the front lines doing that work, should be on the front line doing the tarping and leading these marches because this is our fight to fight. And Dr. Hutchings always tells the story about how he had to fight to get himself in these honors classes because his teachers and counselors didn't fight for him to be in those honors classes. who did fight for him was those students of color who signed that petition and his white counterparts, students who fought aside him to also sign the petition. They fought aside him to get him in those classes.

082And that's what and that's how our message should really be getting across right now. Students of color need to be leading these marches and decisions and discussions. There's no there's no doubt about that. But as a student representative on this board, my personal commitment this year is to be that voice for the unheard and to make sure that students of color have access to these platforms so that their voice is heard. So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. I really appreciate that. Words of wisdom from a senior, everybody. I tell you, age ain't nothing but a number because that was wisdom right there. Ms. Sanchez Villafuera, I know you had some words that you wanted to mention as well. So thank you again, Dr. Hutchings, and thank you, Lorraine. That was just truly powerful.

083So first and foremost, I just wanted to say that it's very exciting to see that we're going to commence the renaming process, and this is a conversation that we're having. And we're really making strides and efforts to address the issue of systemic racism and to really address who T.C. Williams was and to talk about... how we're going to move forward with the whole process. So, you know, despite, you know, TC Williams being, you know, a person that emphasize and just continuously practice, you know, racist and discriminatory practices within, you know, ACPS, it's wonderful to see how greatly we've shifted that, just that mindset and that ideology and just how we've. created something beautiful and just centered just education and what ACPS stands for is around the equity lens and how we've been really able to

084make educational equity at the heart of every discussion and to ensure all students are receiving the resources and just the resources and all the different things that they need to be successful within and outside of school. So, you know, although, you know, TC, where our student demographics are very diverse and we're a school that is, you know, encompasses, you know, different, various different languages, various ethnic backgrounds, you know, you don't really see that. because, you know, you see the modern day segregation in academic spaces, and it's very prevalent, especially in more rigorous courses like me being in those spaces. Most of my high school career have really exposed me to much of the implicit biases and microaggressions you see. And, you know, being in those spaces, you really. There's just a really big disproportionality in

085the power dynamics. I took a class my junior year, and I was the only other student of color in the class. And we were having conversations about these same issues, talking about these systemic barriers. And to be honest, it was a very uncomfortable experience for me knowing. feeling like I had to defend my, defend an entire, an entire race, having to defend myself and just having to advocate for everyone in, you know, in the Black community, in the Black and Brown community. So, you know, with that being said, you really see that modern day segregation and you really, see the implicit biases and the microaggressions and you really are exposed to the lack of understanding and education from the part of students and also from the part of educators, because there is an unconscious bias

086and, you know, people don't really know they're unconscious, being unconsciously biased until, you know, you make it aware to them. So. With that being said, education is just so important and it's always important to really address those systemic issues and to really teach people the language of inequity, to teach people the language of inequality, the systemic racism. And, you know, that also goes with just the whole renaming process as well. I'm a strong advocate for having discussions about racism, having discussions about, you know, microaggressions and implicit biases, because you really need to get to a common point with people. You really need to create a platform and a community for people. I always say that once you create a platform for people, once you truly have those discussions about racism, have those very difficult discussions,

087With people, you can truly create a community that unifies everyone and everyone is culturally competent and just conscious about people's differences. So, you know. The renaming process is just so critical to have those discussions with people before we make a decision. Because it's always, you always need to be methodical with it. And you always need to really hear out what people have to say about it. You know, especially what, you know, students have to say about it. You know, they need to be centered around these discussions because we go to T.C. Williams right now and... You know, we are the ones that are constantly being in these academic spaces and we know what it's like, you know, being at this at that school, you know, this month, this modern day. So it's just so important

088to emphasize, you know, student voice and just have them amplify their voices and create a platform for them, you know, and especially for students of color. you know, with the tarping, like the people, the students that were leading the demonstration were white students. And, you know, although allyship is just so critical in addressing these systemic issues, you really need the voices of students of color in the front lines so they can talk about their experiences because they face this on a daily basis. It's honestly something inescapable. And just like you said, Dr. Hutchings, a while back ago, You know, we are students of color, black and brown community just continuously faces these systemic issues. Like we can't, like I said, it's inescapable. We can't just forget about it the next day because it's always going

089to be there with us. So we really need to hear those voices of students, of the students of color, so we can really understand where they're coming from and just make a methodical decision that, you know, best fits them and just best fits. what the community wants and what, you know, we really are trying to strive for with the equity plan. So, you know, I just wanted to end off with saying, you know, education just has the power to dismantle all these systems. So it's always, it always starts with education and just having those conversations with people about these issues. So thank you. Thank you so much. And I'm about to get choked up a little bit because I just, and the reason why is because I know that this is going to change your

090lives. I really do. I know that when we give young people the platform, it does allow them to know that they do have a seat at the table. And just to think that black and brown children, I think of just how I had to grow up and not being able to have that seat all the time. The sky is the limit now. I mean, you all have seen a black president. I mean, there's so many things that you have seen possible that just empowers you. It would be a disservice if we did not allow for the voices, especially for a topic like this. We get one shot to change the name of a high school. We got to make sure that our students of color's voices are the loudest ones that we hear and that

091are making a decision. So when that history book is written about this historical moment that I hope happens in December of 2020, that the black and brown students of T.C. Williams led this journey, right? And that becomes the mark that is in the history books. And not to say we don't need everybody else, because we do. This is an all hands on deck, you know, commitment, but our black and brown students voices matter in this particular, you know, fight so I want to just say that, you know, if we look at this timeline and we look at September and October, our goal would be in September that we're doing community readings where Doug Reed, who was the author of the book, Building the Federal Schoolhouse, which tells the raw, real history of Thomas Chambers Williams

092and T.C. Williams High School and all of the systemic racism and where it started and how it began from. special education to talented and gifted to the, you know, all of the modern day segregation that we're still dealing with today. He has all of that historical knowledge about that. Let's have the expert come in and talk to our community so that we can get educated about those things. And this is even for our long time Alexandrians. There are some things in there that I just never knew that I read in this book and he is local. So we're going to have him helping us with some community readings, having student led community chats. Lorraine and Ashley, two phenomenal young ladies, right? They're going to be helping us lead some of these efforts with other students

093who are going to be helping us lead some of these discussions in the month of September. Whether you all like it or not, remember the Titans 20th anniversary is coming up. It is this month in September. It's the next month of September. So everybody's, I mean, we got to be proud of Remember the Titans. Forget the name. I'm talking about Remember the Titans right now. And Coach Boone, who I dearly love. He is the man, right? God rest his soul. But we're having our Remember the Titans watch party, which is a partnership with ACPS, you know, and one of our local organizations here in the city. And making sure that we're using that to also give some narrative and some story to who Thomas Chambers Williams is. And the fact that, yes, the Remember the

094Titans, the Disney version is talking about how a football game, state championship brought folks together. But guess what? In 2020, we're still talking about that. We're apart. So how far did we really get? But that's a discussion we're going to have in some of these community chats, right? And you can't have that discussion if you don't have a community chat. In October, we want to continue having those community chats. And we also want to ask for the board to actually lead some community sessions where you're facilitating with another facilitator, but having different board members. So we'll have a total of nine sessions where board members are able to really facilitate a discussion with, you know, we're going to have a person working with our board members throughout these chats. But conducting, you know, these ACPS-led

095community chats, which I think will be phenomenal and powerful, right? That's going to give you some raw data around what people are thinking about our renaming process. And then also making sure that we have our local organizations. We have so many local organizations here who can lead living room chats and Zoom discussions, who are eager to talk about. you know, this history and to talk about Thomas Chambers Williams and who he is and what this means so that when we get to November and people are doing public comments at our board meetings, you all are hearing people react and respond to what they have learned. You know, we are an educational institution. Our number one job is to teach and to learn, right? Our way to do this business is not to be like everybody

096else. We're ACPS. I never said I wanted to be like Fairfax. I never said I wanted to be like Arlington. I want to be Alexandria, right? Our job is never to be like other people. We have never had that philosophy. So let us pave the way and let people be like us when it comes to renaming. Let's put our renaming process together so that other people will replicate what we're doing to abolish racism in. Alexandria City Public Schools. And then in December, we hope that the board will have enough information to say, you know what, I heard from our students of color, our students in general, our community, our leaders, and we have heard the voices of our community and we are ready to change the name of T.C. Williams High School. You know, that

097is the goal. And once that is done, we will be able to use the months of January. which we can go to the next slide, in February to come up with a renaming selection process so we can go into determining what that new name of T.C. Williams would be in March. And we can start getting into our budgeting and our implementation by April and June. So next year, we are ready to roll with, you know, the new name of Thomas Chamberlain Williams High School. So this is what we are proposing. to the board. I think we have to keep in mind, and I think, you know, Ms. Johnson had mentioned this earlier, it does cost money to do this. That's not a reason to not do it. But when you're dealing with taxpayers' dollars, to

098change names. If the board all of a sudden starts making decisions when it's costing, right now I'm looking at some of these preliminary numbers, just to change a name, it's about $350,000 so far, right? They're still going through our inventory of everything that has T.C. Williams on it, right? But we're already at $350,000. We're talking a lot of money. We're asking the city right now for $288,000 to be able to offer child care. Right. So we got to keep that in mind that we can't just make impulsive decisions tomorrow when we're dealing with taxpayers dollars, period. And I'm just you know, I'm not I know I'm preaching to the choir right now because you all already know that. But we got to take that stuff seriously. It's not just about what we morally think, but

099it's morally we got a whole lot of thoughts and some of our morals a little different, too. We got different political opinions sometimes, I'm sure, and philosophical opinions. But we got to set that aside when we are either elected or hired to lead an organization like Alexandria City Public Schools. So I want to say I am honored to be a part of this team. And I am honored to know that because I get to vote, too. I am honored to know that our elected officials are taking the oath that you all took seriously and that you're following processes and procedures. Simple as that, you know. I know that you all are passionate. I talk to every single one of you and everybody's passionate about this name. I can tell you that. There's not one person

100that I walk out of the room saying, oh my God, this is going to be a problem. Not one of you. We got to follow the process and doing this engagement is going to definitely let not just us know that this is the right thing to do, but let the entire city and anybody else who tunes in to the work that we're going to be doing over the next couple of months know that we should not have a name Thomas Chambers Williams on the only high school in the city of Alexandria. So I'm going to talk about our next steps for a second and I'm going to go into because I got hype and passionate. You know, Loretta Ashley just got me excited. I got off script for a minute. But our next steps is

101to make sure that these areas of focus, that we are able to use this to align with our superintendent's evaluation. You know, my evaluation should be set. based on our strategic plan and our areas of focus every year so that there is no question as to what I should be focused on and what I should be doing. I shouldn't be pulled in a thousand and one directions because we got a couple of emails, right? Those types of things. This will help me stay. laser focus like we did for this reopening. Thank you board for allowing me to be laser focused on reopening and not have those distractions so we're able to do this which we still haven't opened yet. September 8th is around the corner we're still working through that. Incorporating our areas of focus

102into our student our school and department improvement planning is going to be so key because then our departments and our schools have to be aligned with what we are saying is important to Alexandria City Public Schools. And then finally providing the necessary supports to our staff as well as building capacity. Mr. Suarez, you talked about being an anti-racist school division. That means you got to build capacity with your staff. You got to bring them in right so that they believe what we believe is the words you use, bringing them in the appropriate way in the HR relations piece. We got to make sure that they believe that we're going to be an anti-racist school division. And we got to be bold enough that when people don't believe that, that they don't work here. That's going

103to be something that we have to be very bold and serious about. if we are saying that's a part of our core values. We can't like watch when somebody calls and say, oh, well, they got, well, if you don't believe what we believe, you can't, you can't be a part of Alexandria City Public Schools. And we got to have the courage to really stand up to that. So I want us to go into our Q&A. I'm going to turn things back over to our Madam Chair Anderson. I know this was a more engaging presentation because it was a work session, everybody. So it wasn't just sit and get the whole time. But Madam Chair, I wanted to pass things back to you. Yes, thank you. I'm just. to our student reps. I think it may

104only be the second time you've been with us at a meeting, but I'm so happy that I think Vice Chair Nolan and I made a really good decision. So I'm very, very happy about that. So thanks for being with us this evening. All right. Do we have, we have, I see someone has their hand up and it's Ms. Alderton. You can start out the questions. I'm sorry, I'm not even starting off with a question. I just had to, I had to say something to those, these two wonderful young ladies, because you both really gave me chills. I mean, just listening to the maturity in the thoughtfulness, it just, you know, I think sometimes anybody who's been an educator for a long time, you start to wonder like, is what I'm doing worth it? Because it's

105always so hard. And you guys just really, I mean, I'm tearing up because you just showed me how worth it is. So thank you so much. And I do want to highlight one of the things that I'm hearing from your voices is something that I feel very passionately about as well. What I hear you saying is that You don't, I know we're using the word allyship, but I think you guys are saying you don't even need allies. I think what you want are co-conspirators. And that means people who are willing to get behind you, get behind Black folks, don't take over. Because the assumption that you need white people to be your voice is absolutely wrong. you are strong enough, you are powerful enough, and you are smart enough to say what needs to happen

106for you. And I am just so proud to see that because that's what it's all about. It really is. So thank you guys. And, you know, another thing I'm looking forward to is having students hear the stories of have an opportunity to hear the stories of people who've been affected by racism in this city. You know, and maybe I'm going too far, but one of the things I saw throughout the plan that I really like is these conversations with, you know, people who belong to the Secret Seven and, you know, the Departmental Progressive Club, you know, Ferdinand T. Day's daughter, like, Students need to hear from these people who've lived through this, lived through the racist practices in the city for a long time. You know, because that is, those are the, you know, it's

107my social studies teacher is coming at me, but that concept of there's primary sources and there's secondary sources. And the best primary source you're going to get is the voice of someone who's lived it. So again, I'm proud of you girls. I know there's so many more students like you and I want to see you guys. I want to hear you guys. And that's all I got to say. I love you guys. Anybody else have question, comment? It was a great presentation and it had such a great ending. I see Miss Gentry. I think you're seeing like, it's just like, woohoo. I mean, I just, I think we're all so excited to get started. You know, I just, I mean, that's really all I have to say is I am really excited, you know, as

108a history major and a person that works in a history museum. I love throwing history in the face of people. And I'm so excited that I get to participate in a whole process in which the entire city is going to get an opportunity to really understand the history of where they live. Because you just learn so much more than, so I'm just really excited about this. So thank you to everybody. Great, thanks. Yeah. Okay, Dr. Reif, I have. Well, thank you for the presentation. And I think that I agree, you know, to our student representatives, I really appreciate hearing your voices. And I think that You really have made the case for why this should be a student-led process. And so I'm really looking forward to seeing how that's going to unfold. And I guess

109a question that I have, Dr. Hutchings, is how you see the MORI process then fitting into this? Since the student-led process presumably is happening at the high school, how do you see the MORI renaming fitting into this? Yes, that's actually a good question. We wanted to at least present the Maury piece because I know we've gotten a petition, but we officially haven't said we were going into that. That's why you don't see a timeline for Maury. But what we want to do is be able to replicate similar to that timeframe. They're going to be two very separate engagements, so it's not going to be like a TC and Maury engagement session. We're going to have to keep them separate and work with the Maury population in a very similar way. to go through their renaming

110process is what we're planning. But now that we have kind of like a template to work with if the board agrees with this timeframe, we now have something to work with. And it's just a matter of us putting that same information in for the Maury community. Ms. Stortland. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just thank you to our student reps. I think I'm still processing just how powerful the words that you had today. Just the level of complexity that you went into is something that I think as a board member, I'm constantly trying to figure out like how to express those very same things. But I think you hit the nail on the head like this, this whole renaming issue. It is a symbol. So ultimately, it represents something that I think as a division, we realize

111we do not want to have this representing us. But symbols can only do so much. And we have to move beyond the symbols to really do the work that I think we're all talking about doing. And the conversations that you mentioned that we need to have and that need to be led by black and brown students is absolutely critical. And I appreciate it. I think it, you know, this day and age is tough. for a lot of people, but especially for our people of color. Every day, it's something new that we're having to deal with. And for this reason, if there ever was a time that, you know, black and brown students needed to lead something, it's especially important now. And we, most of the board members had no decision in who our student board

112reps were, but what a blessing that it is you two at this moment in time. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now regarding Matthew Mori, I'm glad Dr. Reif went before me because that was actually my question as well. I did just want to put a plug in that I think that there is a degree of nuance in the two different renaming conversations for these two different schools. I think with Thomas Chambers Williams. That is a very regional figure that I think is very kind of unique to the city of Alexandria. I've actually Googled his name multiple times, and his name is always kind of aligned with T.C. Williams High School. He doesn't really exist as a persona to the rest of the world outside of Alexandria. And I think for that reason, it's

113especially important that we have this kind of community education process. If we just change the name the next day and decide on a new name a month from now. what have we as a community really gotten from that? What have we learned from that? So I do think that this is a unique circumstance that is not a Robert E. Lee who everyone knows and is an obvious symbol of the Confederacy. This is something that I do think we require special attention to. Now, Matthew Mori, on the other hand, you can Google him and there's a lot on him. I learned about him in my 10th grade oceanography class. My teacher was very progressive and told us what he also did. But first and foremost, he was an oceanographer, and that's what I learned about him.

114So ultimately, you know, there's a whole other side to him that people need to be educated on. But I think that information is a little bit more readily available. So I'm just to say that to say that if we're going to do these two processes simultaneously, I do think that the T.C. Williams renaming conversation should be at the forefront. Both should occur. But I do think that if we're going to have to figure out how to allocate resources, that would be my my preference. Thank you. Yeah, I'm going to put my I'm going to jump in here because I agree with Miss Thornton. And I think that probably you're going to find that you're not going to have as much engagement necessary. It's also an elementary school, so it might be more with the community.

115And talking to the person who submitted the petition, I think there is sort of an interesting spin, you know, the way history spun. And so there is kind of a. thing to be learned there because uh you know that that even that you learned that he was an oceanographer you know we got into this the conversation about just a few years ago they were singing some song that had Matthew Murray in it which which I was appalled by because we we didn't even I didn't know his first name and I went to the school like I we never talked about him so I thought it was there was some period of time not that long ago I guess that he was somewhat elevated and and and there was the whole history of like elevating people

116who, you know, seemed more, more intellectual and that that was supposed to make it better. So there's a little bit of conversation there, but I agree with Ms. Thornton that it doesn't need to be, and it should be, I don't think it needs to be as, as, you know, exhaustive as, or exclude, you know, include as many things as, as the one for TC. Anyone? Oh, Ms. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Anderson. Yeah, and I want to just ditto much of what my colleagues have said. And I really appreciate the heartfelt comments of the student reps and everything they go through. And I do also want to thank Dr. Hutchings for reminding folks about what the board did do with its 9-0 vote in terms of 9-0 condemning this name. I think the whole board is

117in universal agreement that. this name is troubling and it needs to come off our high school and this is why we need to go through this process to do that. So I want to thank you for that. You know and I also do want to, having heard the student reps and having spoken to students, I do want to address one thing we've heard in the community which is this notion that you know Again, I don't think anyone on the board thinks this name is something that should stay, you know, because of the concerns with the lack of alignment of the strategic plan and all of these sorts of issues that we've identified in our resolution. And I just want to say what I've heard from our student representatives today is, and Dr. Hutchings, I think,

118touched on this, is that they are going to be empowered by this process. You know, they are going to be emboldened to take real action that is going to have an impact on the school division for years to come. You know, I did not hear the voices of two student representatives who, you know, are going to be traumatized, you know, for this semester as a result of this process. And that's because they, you know, understand that the board has condemned this name with one voice. And they also understand that they're going to be empowered through this process. And so I really appreciated the comments that were made, you know, in that regard. I do want to address a couple of the, you know, issues, though, I think the board needs to grapple with going forward

119sort of on this issue. You know, one is, and I think it's been touched on with the Maury discussion a little bit, and this is with regard to our policies. There really is a gap in our policy right now in terms of what the board does when there's a name that is troubling. Like, what do we do to sort of... condemn a name or rescind a name. And I think that's why there's been a lot of discussion and debate in the community around that issue. And I think it's going to be important for the board to at some point, and maybe it goes with this equity policy audit that Dr. Hutchings has spoken about, you know, look at what does this policy look like going forward? And how do we adjust the policy so that

120we can account for perhaps what we're doing this year? But also think going forward about what this renaming policy should look like. Because I think the renaming policy as written really thought about a situation where people present a new name and then they want to affirmatively push for that name. It didn't think about a scenario where community members might want to rescind a name. And I think some of the points that Ms. Thornton made about juxtaposing Maury against TC sort of underscore that. Like, you know, do we need as much time to talk about someone like Maury as we do with the TC, given that maybe our broader community doesn't understand the nuances of TC as much. So I think that's just something that we want to think about. And finally, I do want to

121sort of address the 500-pound elephant in the room, which is this issue of timing that, you know, has come up. in our community with regard to the process. And before I, you know, ask my question about this, I do want to validate, you know, the fact that this is a really thoughtful document, Dr. Hutchings. I think it has really taken into account the, you know, relevant actors in our constituency whose voices need to be heard. I agree 100% that we need to educate our community on these issues and frankly have. the really difficult conversations that are going to make people uncomfortable in our community to move forward as a division. And so I really am grateful for just the thought that has gone into this process and the thought that has gone into really making

122sure that we hear from as broad of a constituency as possible. So I want to validate that. I do also want to validate, you know, that there are some people in the community who are frustrated and feel like, you know, We should just strip the name immediately because we've all morally condemned the name and it is a troubling name. And I get where that comes from. I understand why there's that frustration. But I also do think that, and frankly, some of those voices that may harbor the views of keeping the name, there may be some troubling views behind that. But at the end of the day, you know, it is important that we go through a process that does allow our, you know, black and brown students to be heard, allows the students who are

123going to be the future leaders in this high school to, you know, sort of express their values as it relates to the future of the high school. So, but in terms of the timing, I guess my question is the following, you know, The date for the school board vote right now is proposed for December. And some of the conversations I've had in the community, including conversations with students, have noted that the easier decision, perhaps, may be to remove the name of T.C. Williams. And the more difficult decision actually may be... picking what the new name is. What the new name might be, you know, has a lot of implications, whether we go a particular direction or whatever direction we go. And so I'd like to kind of understand better from you, Dr. Hutchings, you know,

124is December something that you view as a firm date to sort of, you know, have the board vote on whether to change the name? And I think about that because, you know, if we start the process today, that's going to be about four months on the decision to about whether to change the name and only three months on the back end for the decision of. you know, the extent to what we've changed the name to. And so I just want to make sure that we're baking in enough time to have all of the conversations that we're going to need to have. So that assuming we do make a final, final decision in March, we're able to get everything done. And I'm also thinking about this in terms of, you know, looking both at our sort

125of backward looking history and, and as a community grappling with the issues of TC Williams and the racist actions that he took and all the problems with him. But also thinking about how we're going to engage our students in our community on our history more broadly to think about what the new name might be. And I want to be both. backward looking in terms of saying, we need to move, you know, we need to condemn this name. But I also want to be forward looking in terms of what is the future look like for Alexandria and how do we do that engagement as well. So I'm just kind of curious what your thought, you know, what your rationale is behind December, if that's set in stone from your perspective, and what your thoughts are in

126that regard. So, yes. So it's a great question, Mr. Suarez. So one thing is that so once the board says, OK, yes, we want to move with this process, it's not going to happen. Start today. So because we have to open school on September 8th and we have to also provide some of the facilitation training that's going to happen. So we're looking at September is when this. process. And that's why in the timeline you see September is when the community engagement piece begins, not August. I think that, you know, the only wiggle room that I believe is going to be feasible is if the board did not want to use the entire month of November as a public comments time. You know, you may choose to do. one day. That's something that the board would

127have to determine. But the board could choose to have a shorter window for public comments. We gave the flexibility of the entire month of November for public comments and then December for a decision or vote by the board. So I think that's where the flexibility really comes in. But we are going to need the September and October period to do. the robust community engagement that we're planning because it is going to require us to work with our students and things that we don't have access to today. We won't have access and we don't want to tap into them right when school starts either, but we are going to be doing some training with them the week after school begins to start those community engagement sessions. Yeah. And just as a follow up to that, I

128guess I'm thinking about this somewhat in terms of efficiency as well. You know, and do you feel like that you'll have enough time, you know, to sort of figure out the list of potential new names and vet that and have historical conversations around that and, you know, get that ready by March? if the vote were in December. So because part of my question is practical too and thinking about like how are we anticipating that second half of the process during the first half of the process. Yeah so you'll see in the timeline we put we have a buffer towards the end of that time frame. You know we put a March time for the board to to actually make a decision about the renaming or to vote on the decision of the rename or the

129new name and then you'll see to be determined as we get into the implementation typeface we have wiggle room to push that out further if needed so that we can move that into it might be April or it might be May that we come up with a name depending on how how things go I think that because there's so many uncertainties right now even with kind of like after quarter one, we want to allow ourselves to get a definitive on a vote, you know, in regards to are we going to change the name? Yes, for sure. But give ourselves that wiggle room that we could go beyond March in regards to the naming piece, because we might need more time. And it's going to be hard to determine if we're going to need more time.

130And it really just depends on when we see how things operate once we start that whole renaming process. Great, okay, I have Ms. Green up next. Thank you, Chair Anderson, and thank you everyone for this discussion. I'm so happy with where we are at this point in the renaming issue. I wanna say I'm so proud of, also so very proud of our student reps, Ashley and Lorraine. I'm glad I'm not the only one that cries on Zoom calls about our student reps, so. Thank you, Ms. Alderson, for not making me the only one. But you guys are phenomenal. And I hope that in all of our meetings that you will speak up more because we need to hear your voice because everything that we do, it's about you and it should be focused on the

131students. I'm going to chime in and what Mr. Suarez said. The plan, very thoughtful, very detailed. And I see a lot of work went into it. I appreciate it. But I'm just wondering, and you know, Dr. Hutchinson, you touched on it a little bit, but I'm wondering if we'll lose people throughout the process. So I'm glad to hear you say that potentially we could cut some things down in November. But I truly worry about, like I'm already tired of talking about this issue and I'm sure many other people are and I'm just being honest about that. We've had a lot on our plates with this, but time is also money. And, you know, like we've said, like the board has said, we have lots on our plate and lots that we have to focus on

132and want to strategically focus on certain things more than others. So I just worry that there's too much included. It kind of feels like a three credit college course to me with everything. that we're putting into this plan. And I appreciate it. We all appreciate education, but it just seems like way too much in my opinion. And just your thoughts on, will we lose people in the process? Will they be tired of learning about Thomas Shameless Williams? It's just, it's very intense in my opinion, but I know so very necessary, but can it be condensed? I think that, you know, for us, we've been immersed in this for the past several months. Some people have never heard about it. So I think it's, we have to be very in tune to that. I even have

133alumni that I talk to, some of my friends who are just hearing from the grapevine and they're just learning. Yesterday, somebody called, you know, like, so everybody's not as educated as we are because we're immersed in it. And it's similar to when we are trying to inform the community about major decisions. I mean, I classify this as a major decision because there are financial implications that come along with this. You know, this is going to have to be a part of our budget process because we will have to budget for this in FY22. You know, like this is something that is going to have to be. put into the budget. And on top of that, we are going to be juggling. We may have a reduction in our city appropriate. All those things I just

134don't know yet. So I feel that we don't want to. rush without educating people who aren't educated is what I'm saying. But there could be some people who might be like, I'm tired of hearing about it, right? But there are going to be some who just don't know. And I think the biggest key is our students who don't realize and don't know. And we get their attention, which you'll see in the plan, trying to ensure that we're offering some education during our social studies classes. you know, at TC Williams. Like that is a part of putting this lesson into our actual curriculum so that, which, you know, it's a lesson. It's a one-day lesson. So we're not changing the curriculum. This is an add-on so that we can ensure that we're educating everybody. But I

135do know Mr. Ballas and Ms. Burgos, who also assisted with authoring this draft plan, if you all want to chime in, I think that would be great. I'm happy to. I think I agree with Dr. Hutchings. I think one of the things that, and speaking with Ashley and Lorraine, because we have met with them and talked with them about their engagement in this process, and they're fully ready to take on the charge and really engage the rest of their student body. We wanna give them some time to acclimate to the school year. And so we also have met with our student services team who is going to help us to facilitate these discussions and to really put them at the right times based on the student schedules and so on and so forth. So there's

136a lot of those pieces that we need to take into account because the students start on September 8th, but they still have to get acclimated to the new school year school. environments they've never ever been in before virtually. So, you know, I think about my own child when he started school every year in high school and it was so overwhelming just the first few days and the first few weeks just getting to know their teachers and friends. So imagine that in a virtual environment. So we want to give them a little bit of time to acclimate and then really engage them in the process. I think we want to be able to also give the opportunity, as you mentioned, many of the groups that we're engaging, we've spoken to those groups already. They're on board.

137So many of the groups that you've seen in the plan, they're ready to go. They want to work with us on doing these chats. And so certainly, I think, you know, there's always wiggle room. But I think at the same time, there's so much history there. There's so many pieces to policies and practices and things that, you know, there's 30 years of. of unpacking, you know, that really need to go into that. And so I think it's important if the why of, you know, why we're doing this change or if there's a change that's going to occur, really taking the time to allow the community and the students to be able to understand it and be really an example for many other school divisions that are going to be grappling with this because it's not

138the only area that this is going to happen. So why not be an example for others about how this is really... an important topic to take on and something that really aligns with our strategic plan as a first step in looking at how to really combat those racial inequities. So I know that it seems like it's like, you know, equity fatigue, equity, as they call it, equity fatigue, but... I think it's a great time to take with the students and give them time to sort of settle in. And so we're not going to be able to start on September 9th, you know, so we're really looking at ways to do that. And then how many. how many of those chats we do with students, how many of those chats we do with the community. So

139the draft that we gave you really is our best thinking at this point on how we can engage our community and really educate. But at the same time, there's always room for changes and improvement. But I think that we really thought about it from the standpoint of being able to give time to really educate the community in a very appropriate way and to give voices to all the people that are involved. people who've been impacted today and in the past. So that's kind of where the thinking was behind this plan and bringing it out to November. Definitely trying to make sure that... a vote was made before our budgeting process is completed and so on and so forth. So that was definitely something that Dr. Hutchings took into account. But always open for feedback. But

140our team, because we are engagement warriors, we wanted to make sure that people had the time to really understand this process and understand the why. And thank you. And I would just say too that First of all, Lorraine and Ashley, you guys are wonderful. Talk about having two amazing Titans, the right ones on the board at the right time. So representing student voice. Thank you, ladies. You're amazing. I would also say that, you know, Dr. Hutchings, you had done something about the student engagement piece about, you know, kids may not even know. I remember myself when I was applying to be principal of T.C. Williams a few years ago after spending five years at Mount Vernon, walking into my interview and. on my phone quickly Googling, it was like, wait, what does TC stand for

141again? You know? And it was like, I hope they don't ask something like that. But also you mentioned, remember the Titans and a decades old movie now. And. We definitely have a good portion of our student population who don't even know that movie. They've not seen it before. They have not connected with it. And I think that the engagement piece, if you even think of something as iconic as that, and then we're talking about what we're here for and what our purpose is, which is educating. no better real example for our students like Lorraine and Ashley to talk about what it feels like to walk into a high school with a name on it that it currently has. Okay. I think I, I think Ms. Lorber was there, but I think we'll go on to

142Ms. Johnson because I, I think she's, she's getting back on. She's plugging in her laptop, I think. So Ms. Johnson. Oh, yeah, I just wanted to kind of add on to what Ms. Burgos was saying about how the students will keep engaging in everything. And I talked to Dr. Hutchings and many other educators about it, too. And I just wanted to share something. The way that I think about student engagement when it comes to this renaming process, I think of it kind of like watching a TV show. Sometimes the students will skip a few episodes. They won't watch a certain school board meeting that has to do with the renaming of the schools. They won't watch everything. And then there's other students that will just not be a part of the process at all and

143just wait until they make a decision at the end on what the decision was to rename the school. So I think that when you're talking about like students, I think that you should, it's probably easier to think about it like that. Cause I know that that's what, that's how I really understood this whole process. And it's like, also like when they talk about, remember the Titans, I think that how. the football players, how they were really fighting for African Americans to be on, like, to be at that school and be acting. I think that this is really, like, the sequel for Alexandria, and for our generation, this is how we, this is something that we're fighting for. So, yeah, I thought that that would just be helpful to, like, think of it. student engagement for

144this renaming process as a TV show. Not everybody's going to watch the whole thing. There are people who are going to be there week after week being a part of this process. And then you have people who will just wait for the binge and wait till the end of the year. But yeah, I think that it's better to look at it like that. Thank you. Okay, I know Ms. Loeber had been in line before she got knocked off somehow, and so I'm going to call on her right now before we go on. Thank you. Yeah, okay. Thank you so much. I also wanted to, my comments actually are directed at our two student reps, Ms. Sanchez-Viafara and Ms. Johnson. I believe you both expressed a sentiment that is my sentiment, which is Renaming the school

145is symbolic and important, but it's not enough. And the reason I like this discussion about having a longer period to educate the community is it's not that we just have to educate the community about Mr. T.C. Williams. We have so much work to do. It will be meaningless if we rename T.C. Williams High School and we don't make some of the changes that both students referred to in your discussions. I think, Ms. Johnson, you mentioned a little more specifically some of the statistics in terms of the... segregation in our schools, actually, you know, the fact that, and it's related to neighborhoods, et cetera, but we've certainly, the nation has become a resegregated school system. And, you know, we have to make decisions about how far we want to go to correct some of that. And

146some of that's because of the systemic racism that has. force people to buy houses where they buy houses, et cetera. But my main point was to ask the two of you, if you want to respond, I just, was I here? I think I heard that correctly. I think you were both on the one hand gung ho about the name change, but on the other hand, wanting it to be part of a reflection of something much deeper, much more profound that we're all going to be working on. So I'll leave it at that. So you were looking for their thoughts on it? If someone wants to. If they're comfortable, if they want to say yes, I was saying that or no or whatever. So I'll start. Yeah, I was that was kind of like the whole

147the what my purpose of stating what I said. I just feel like it's so important to have those conversations and really get to the root cause of many of these systemic issues. Because like you even said, I feel like it would be meaningless to change the name of TC without having those conversations first, because there are so many things that we have left unsaid within ACPS that really do need to be addressed. And it's a problem. It's honestly a problem. And to be frank. like being in very like you know taking a lot of AP classes like I've you can feel the tension in the class you feel that you know students really don't get along with each other you see that You even experience just like the bias that students have and just the

148fact that they don't really understand where you're coming from or your experiences. So we really need to have those conversations. And, you know, that goes along the lines with, you know, also teachers, just the fact that we really haven't had those very, you know, difficult but necessary conversations. about racism and many of the other issues that we see perpetuating and, you know, education. So, yeah, it's just, I feel like we really do need to have the discussions and really get to the root causes of these issues if we really want to make a meaningful impact in the way we move forward. Ms. Johnson, did you want to say anything? Oh, yeah. I think that, yeah, you're right. That's what my whole speech thing was saying that, I think it's important to, I think it's important

149that student engagement is, that students have a voice in all of this, but also sometimes student, like having students say everything, things could get kind of irrational. And that's why we need adults and like educators to kind of say, this is going to be the plan we're going to get, we're going to get all your demands in, but this is how we're going to do it. So, yeah, I think that is what I was saying. Great. Next, we have Ms. Alderton. Thank you, Madam Chair. Another thing, too, that I've been sort of grappling with and thinking about is You know, we also have, what's it, more than 33% of our population of students, we have English language learners. And so we're dealing with a large number of families where we need to be strategic about

150communicating to them as well. How do we get them involved? And we know, you know, we've talked about this before, you know, that it's very challenging. to engage those groups because of language barriers, cultural barriers. And so I think it is worth the time. Like if there is an opportunity, it is with this to be even more strategic and think harder about being better at engaging those families who are also marginalized. So. I think that's just another thought that, you know, I'm throwing out there and I hope that we can, you know, really work on as a part of this process. Because that is another voice that, you know, we've said multiple times, we haven't necessarily done the best at engaging. And I know that's a lot of work. I mean, we've talked about how

151difficult it is with all the different languages that come with that, you know. 120 languages, 100 different countries, if I got those numbers mixed up. I'm sorry, but the point is that that is a lot of work, and we need to be strategic in that arena as well. Thank you. Next up, Dr. Reeve. Well, thank you everyone for the conversation. I've really enjoyed hearing everyone's perspective. And I just wanted to make a couple last remarks. You know, I do want to acknowledge as Mr. Suarez did all the emails that we did receive from people encouraging us to really change the name like immediately. And I guess I want to say that, you know, that call really challenged me because I share the passion about this issue. But Where I kind of landed at the end

152of the day is that as elected officials, you know, we really have to protect this democratic process and we really need to ensure that there is a community discussion. At the end of the day, it's in all of our interest to do this in a way that feels fair to everyone in our community and that gives everyone that wants an opportunity to weigh in that opportunity to do so. Ms. Johnson, you know, talked about this concern that I certainly have, which is that, you know, we're living at a time in American history where, you know, civility and fairness and the democratic process itself is really being challenged. And, you know, and so I think that, you know, we really have to process is just really important and having a fair process and really engaging the

153community because so many times people find out about these decisions after the fact and they somehow feel cheated wherever they stand on the issue. And so I just want to say that, you know, I do, I did land on really believing that a community discussion is important. I think that, you know, what the timeline looks like, that's something that people can, you know, negotiate about. And I appreciate the conversation that's happened about the timeline. It did seem definitely very elaborate and kind of laborious to me when I first saw it. But I think, like I said, our student representatives really made the case for the value of having a student-led process. And I think if we can use these community conversations as an opportunity to draw people in and further our other racial equity work

154that we're trying to do, then that's really great. The last kind of thing I wanted to ask about with regards to the timeline, though, is I loved when Ms. Johnson said that this could be a sequel to Remember the Titans. I love that idea. And what I was thinking about was, you know, this class of 2021 that is going to graduate having gone through this process. And, you know, what is the name that's going to be on their diploma? And are we thinking about, you know, looking at your timeline, it almost looks like it would go into effect in the next school year. And I'm wondering if we can make the name change. You know, this is something maybe the students want to weigh in on through the process, and we certainly won't decide this

155right now, but is it something where at the end of this process, we want the class of 2021 to be able to have a new name, should we vote on a new name on their diplomas at the end of this process? So just... thinking about that and thinking about getting to a name, a new name in time that would allow them to kind of embrace that too before their graduation if we choose to go in that direction. So some thoughts. Yeah, who's gonna, who's gonna answer that one or is someone gonna give it thoughts on that or is that just for, for later? Is that for later, do you think? Yeah, I think it would be difficult for us to answer something like that today. But I thought I didn't know what was the question,

156though, Dr. Reeve. I thought you were making remarks for us to ponder, because I think that's a really good point. And we would have to do just a little dig a little deeper. I mean, because if we if we choose to change the name, we still have to change the name officially through the Virginia Department of Education. So it's acknowledged that there's a number of things that I don't know the answers to. off, you know, off the cuff right now. So we would have to dig a little deeper, but we can definitely investigate that to know, like, what is, how does that process work once we make a decision and actually changing it so it can show on a transcript or a diploma. Okay, so to be determined later, I see Ms. Johnson has her

157hand up. I just want to say that's a really good question because it's something that I know that me and my peers were like also thinking of like if we're going to be able to have um if we have T.C. Williams as our um as the name of on our diploma or if we get the new name and um I think that was for me I think that like my class we've been the last to like have everything like when they um when they made fifth graders not be able to do um S.O.L.s for writing anymore. We were the last class that had to take the writing S.O.L. and we were like, why couldn't they just do it earlier? But and also that the same thing happened to the writing S.O.L. in eighth grade. And

158this just like happens over and over again. So I think that that's a really good question. But I think I honestly think it would be fine either way. I think if we keep it T.C. Williams, then people will look at our diploma and see that it's a story behind it, like be able to say. My class, the next year, my class, we made this happen. We were able to change the name and everything. And if we get the new name, then that's also the same story. This is the first year that they got to name the high school this. And so I think that it's definitely like a conversation for later, but I think that it's like, okay, either way, because it'll still be the same story. Okay, thank you. So we have, I want

159to remind people, we still have policies to discuss after this. But also, I'm wondering if, Dr. Hutchings, this is the last time before school starts that we're actually going to be together. So I didn't know if you wanted to say something about a little report about update on the reopening. Yes, I will give a little report on our reopening. I'm like, okay, what's that? Yeah, but it's a big deal. September 8th, everybody, we will be opening virtually to 16,000 plus students in Alexandria City Public Schools. And we are really fired up and ready to go. Today, we started off with our convocation, our staff, they are back and they are working virtually, of course, but they are still working. And, you know, our major. component to prior to school starting is to build some capacity

160with our educators, because we did not, as I said earlier, Dr. Reeve said this earlier too, we didn't go to school to learn how to teach online. And we want to make sure that, you know, our staff, that they're equipped to be able to serve our students' needs. Our technology department started our Canvas camp that started today, and it's also tomorrow. Next week, we're going to be going over our common planning, I'm sorry, curriculum and common pacing of our curriculum with our staff so that everybody is in tune so that we can have no matter what school you're at, no matter what teacher you have, that we're moving at the same pace and of course still making adjustments because some kids, they still need some sort of acceleration or additional supports, but we still do

161that anyway, but just making sure that as a division we are moving. at the same pace. Then we also are going to be having our students arrive, you know, virtually on September 8th. This week or at the end of this week, we're going to be sending out our schedules to our families. So they should hopefully get them by next week. We also have had some videos that were just released recently to provide our families with an overview of what the services look like from an elementary perspective or middle school perspective or high school perspective, from a student with special needs to students who are English learners and ensuring that our families, they know what their child's day will be like. We are adamant about the fact that kids are not going to be sitting on

162a computer from eight o'clock until three o'clock every single day. And I'm an advocate for that too, because I do not want my own children sitting in front of a computer. all day long, right? Especially since they don't have glasses as of right now. I'm sure they will with our jeans though. But we want to make sure that we are allowing students to have those movement breaks and that they're also having opportunities to work in small groups and not whole group all the time and have that one-on-one instruction that many of our students will need throughout this virtual plus process. And then finally, we're going to be releasing some more information about our child care, which I think is going to be... extremely important in services for our families. We're going to be releasing some

163more information about that this Friday to our community. Right now, we already have many Virtual Plus partners already established, and these are from free services to services that are provided on a sliding scale to our families. It's based on income. So we're making sure that regardless of what your particular financial circumstance is, that there are some options that are out there for our families. to keep in mind, though, we do have limited space because we still have to follow our CDC guidelines and we still have to have the adequate staffing to be able to provide these specific services to our families. So it's not free for all that we have enough for 16,000 students. You know, that is not going to be possible for us. We couldn't even offer open school because we can't service,

164you know, 16,000 kids. And that's one of the reasons why we're doing our work. Plus. This fall, it's just not feasible. But more information about that will be released as well. So we're excited about the first day of school. Our team is, we're ready to roll. It is going to be probably one of the most unique first days, not just for Alexandria, but for all schools across the Commonwealth of Virginia. But I do know that our team is prepared and we are ready to roll. And seeing some of our staff today and talking to many of them who had just, you know, come back from their summer. break, if you want to call it a summer break, that they are also fired up and ready to provide our students with the best quality education that

165we can possibly do in a virtual plus environment. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, great. Everybody, I don't know about you, but I could use just a little break. Oh, Ms. Green, did you want to say something or do you agree with me? Yes, I do, but I have to say something too. Okay. I wasn't sure. That's okay. I wanted to see if Dr. Hutchings could introduce Dr. Sims so we could welcome him. That's right. So our new Executive Director of School Improvement, Dr. Anthony Sims, has joined us. A round of applause to Dr. Sims. You know, like so many other of our new staff members, we always say thank you all for saying yes. We extended the offer, but they had to say yes to come join the ACPS family. And we are so excited

166to have you on our team. You're already bringing, you know, a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table in regards to school. improvement planning and our principals, they are fired up. Our staff are excited. I know that Ms. Alderton, she was able to serve as one of the board representatives on the interview team, and she was happy when you were selected to be a part of our team. So welcome, Dr. Sims. I don't know if you want to make a couple of remarks to the team, and then we can take that break. Oh, you're on mute, Dr. Sims. I know your break is very important, but thank you so much, Ms. Green, for allowing me to say hello to all of you. This is such an exciting time for me. I don't think I've

167ever started in a place and received so many warm welcomes from people that I haven't had a chance to even meet. So it speaks volumes about what it's like to come and be a part of the ACPS family. And I'm really looking forward to... also being a part of such a historic time in a district that's taken very seriously equity for all students, creating access and opportunity for students and the conversation that just took place. And I think I just had to tell Dr. Hutchins, the students were just fire. I had no other way to explain. And so when you see that kind of promise in a district and also the strategic thinking. to help elevate opportunity for all students like that is just a great place to be. So thank you so much, Ms.

168Green, for allowing me to say hello. Thank you to the board for allowing me to join. And I really am looking forward to my experience here in Alexandria. Thank you so much, Dr. Sims. Welcome. Okay, everybody, how about 10 minutes? Is that good? So I have that at 728. So 738. If we can meet back here, that would be great for policy discussion. Thank you. Okay. Anybody out there? I see some of you. Hello. People are there. Oh, good. Okay. I'm here. Anybody missing? Let's see. Margaret and Megan, are you with us? Margaret and Megan. I'm here. Okay. Megan, are you back? I am. It took me a minute to find my button. No problem. No problem. So just one more thing before we go on to policy is to give, sort of to wrap

169up the engagement, proposed engagement for the renaming. Are people, you know, and we're not able to vote, this is a work session, but kind of a thumbs up, sort of thumbs down indication that, you know, generally we're... We're okay with this. I think there could still be some discussion about whether the votes in November, December, we can work on that. But just generally, so that staff can get working on this. They just wanted an indication that this is generally fine with people. So if that's the case, we could do like a thumbs up. And okay, we have a screen. Oh, sorry. Okay. I just want to, I thought, I don't know. Maybe you should have a few with it. And, and, uh, Ms. Gentry, are you good? Cause I can't see you. Oh, weird. It

170says I'm, it says I'm. It says my video is happening and I'm looking at myself. I guess I'm just... Well, maybe anybody else can. I don't know. My thumb's up. Okay, good. That's all we needed. Now I'm going to turn it over to our policy guru, Ms. Abruzzese. Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Perfect. Okay, thank you. I'm trying to be modern and use my AirPods like Dr. Hutchings. even though it goes against my grain, but I'm going to try. So tonight we have policy revisions for you that reflect COVID-19 related public health recommendations and protocols, as well as some distance learning related guidance. Primarily, these policy revisions are going to be effective for the 2020-2021 school year only. I will note when the changes are statutory or technical adjustments that would carry

171beyond this year, but the bulk of the reason that we're addressing them in this early work session is because they are changes directly due to COVID-19 and they'll be applicable for only this year. So before we get started, I'd like to kind of frame out the discussion by just letting you know there's about five subject areas we're going to be covering. I'll go through two or three or four policies in each subject area and then pause for questions if that works for everyone on that topic. And the groupings broadly relate to assessment and grading, attendance, health and safety protocols. facilities usage, and emergency preparedness drills. So those are the areas where we have some impacts policy-wise. We are going to start with IFA, policy IFA and regulation IFA-R, which are regarding assessment and evaluation. And

172I've asked Susan to share her screen. She's going to start on the regulation instead of the policy because the changes, they mirror each other. They're the same changes in the regulation and the policy. I did want to note for members of the public before we get into the details that our practice is at the end of each policy or regulation. We list all the cross-references to our other policies that are related to make it easier to find them. We also list our legal references. which form the basis for our policies. This might be statutes, this might be Board of Education regulations, things like that. But I mention this because I want to just point out that for these revisions, we have also listed and included the links to our guidance documents, our source documents for

173these changes, so that the public knows on what we have based our recommendations. So CDC guidance, Virginia Department of Health, VDOE. So you have extra references listed in these policies. So it's easier for folks to find out where we are getting our recommendations from. Okay, so we move on to IFA and IFA-R. And the main point I want to make for IFA, which the part that was covered in IFA, which is also modeled here in the regulation. is to build on what Dr. Hutchings said earlier, is that for this school year, it is critical and all course curricula, assessment, and grading will be aligned regardless of whether we are in person or using distance learning. Our phase may change during this year. Our implementation may change to hybrid. We're going to be assessing, as Dr.

174Hutchings said, after nine weeks. And so I wanted to make it clear that these changes are for the duration of the school year, regardless of whether we are doing in-person instruction or distance learning. But everything will be aligned. We have also made some minor changes here to update the language for our newly adopted strategic plan. The policy and regulations still refer to our old strategic plan. Now in the regulation, one of the main points to make here is this first bullet. Unlike the tail end of last year, the fourth quarter, we will be providing new instruction. There are no waivers this year from the state on new instruction. So all students will be receiving new instruction, regardless of whether we are in-person or distance learning. Now, you see an asterisk there after the first three

175bullets. We felt it was very important, especially this year, to make sure we are really defining our terminology, careful with our terminology. Distance learning is what we are calling the remote instruction that students are receiving for courses that they typically would receive their instruction face-to-face in a school building. And because there are some different guidelines for programs such as TC Satellite Campus or online programs, online courses that might be through Virtual Virginia or something like that, we wanted to be really careful with our terminology so that those don't get confused. So again, we will provide new instruction this year and as well because there is going to be so much instruction, especially at the beginning of the year, all of it provided virtually, student support teams will be working with parents and teachers to really

176identify and provide support and interventions for students who demonstrate a pattern of late or missing work. That's really critical that we are identifying those students and reaching out to them early since we are not seeing students in person in our building. Another point I'd like to make on this page is that just like new instruction is not waived for this year, assessments are not being waived by the state. So there will be an assessment plan for the year and it will adhere to VDOE requirements. If we go on to the next page, we wanted to stress that teachers will be provided with new training and support regarding delivering remote instruction, identifying students' academic needs, addressing learning loss, etc. But there's extra training and support to teachers this year to support them in the remote instruction

177environment as well. And also then to point out that there will be opportunities for reassessment this year. Reassessment expectations and opportunities will be spelled out on each course syllabus. The practices for reassessment will be consistent school-wide, but that will be another opportunity for our students to demonstrate mastery. The other change in this regulation, if you scroll to page five, is merely that we've added a few new definitions to the glossary section at the end. We have added definitions, but it was important for asynchronous and synchronous learning, as well as the definitions for equality and equity from our new strategic plan. Okay, so then we will move on to our next. regulation, which is IKCR, which is our grading regulation. Again, the changes primarily for this regulation primarily apply for this school year only. We have

178laid out again the difference between online programs and distance learning. And the main takeaway here is that again, grading is not waived by the state this year. So grading and calculation of grade point averages will occur as they do during a traditional year. Whether or not your grades are earned in a remote instructional format or in person, if we go into the hybrid model, the grading standards will be the same as our typical grading standards, and they're spelled out later in the regulation. We did want to point out, because there are going to be some semester-length courses this year at the high school, that the calculation for semester-length courses is slightly different. This is not a change. This is the way they're calculated in PowerSchool now, but our regulation did not previously spell out that

179difference. So we thought that was especially important this year. Also, the fact that whether or not a course has a final exam and how that will play into the grade calculation will also be included in each course syllabus. And the final point on that is, again, this is not new, but we felt it was important to underscore it, and that is this year, communication between teachers and families regarding grades is going to be vital. The communication will happen consistently, regularly. Our standard is that grades are posted every two weeks in PowerSchool, and that will continue to be the case. If you look on page three of the regulation, this is not COVID related, but we realized that we had omitted in the past the fact that at the TC Williams satellite campus and for some

180of the online courses, some of the grades are calculated differently than our standard grade calculation, and we just wanted to differentiate that. Then we can move on to, oh, actually, this is a point where I was going to pause and see if there are any questions about assessment or grading. Dr. E. Thank you. My question is kind of for Dr. Hutchings. How are these changes communicated down to all teachers so that they understand the expectations? Like, especially I'm thinking about the one where it says that. There'll be interventions for students who have a pattern of late or missing work. Like how is this communicated to teachers, this policy, and how are they supported in accomplishing that? So a part of our professional learning week, we have a section that goes over policies for the year.

181This was one of the reasons why we wanted to get this done today so that we can share with our staff some of the updated policies and revisions. But typically, it always happens. I mean, it just so happens we now have everything related to COVID-19. But that is the time frame that principals share with all staff some of the policy changes. I don't see any other questions. Shall we move on? Okay. So now we are coming to policy JEA, which is compulsory attendance. Now for this regulation or this policy, I should say, the changes in this policy are statutory by and large, but it is important to note, obviously, attendance is going to be a really hot. topic and it's something that we have gotten creative to figure out solutions to for this year. The

182state has provided some guidance because compulsory attendance and recording of attendance is not waived this year. So we will be taking attendance every day. The changes you see here in this policy primarily reflect amendment of Virginia Code 22.1-254. and 22.1-277.2. The reason that these are important, if you scroll down to where you see the first blue text there under compulsory attendance, is the definition of attend has been changed in 22.1-254 and also reiterated in a superintendent's memo earlier this year. But the fact that statutorily the definition of attend was changed is especially- relevant for us this year because you'll see that it includes essentially off-site programs, remote learning. If you are attending not just inside a school building, you are still considered attending. The other change to that definition was there was actually a lawsuit

183and you'll see the language change right above that was changed from sending to causing to attend. Parents are no longer responsible, held responsible for merely sending their children to school, but they must cause them to attend. It's a higher bar and that was changed in the law. Those are really the main points I wanted to cover in that policy. So we can move to JED. which is another policy about attendance. This one specifies exactly how we handle absences, excuses, and dismissals, whereas the last one really covered the legal obligation for students to attend school. So as I mentioned, there is no waiver on recording attendance this year. And so we are going to establish some procedures for how that's going to happen. I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions on this. I know we've

184been... Mr. Sampson and Ms. Runkle have been hard at work on some FAQs about this. And so staff have really been talking this through. But I did also want to mention that other changes that you will see reflected here are statutory changes. There were changes not only to code sections regarding excused absences and unexcused absences, some of the timing of the interventions. but also some changes to the standards of accreditation. And so primarily what you see in here reflects those and also the Virginia administrative code. One thing I'd like to point out on the first page, in the center of the page is where it says that we will now establish procedures for interventions when a student engages in a pattern of absences for less than a full day. That is now a new requirement

185in the Virginia administrative code for us to spell out what that. what that intervention looks like. And so you'll see that in the regulation that we'll view in just a moment. On the second page of this policy, you see primarily technical amendments to clarify. First, in the first paragraph, that the attendance officer or a designee is permitted to file official court documents, official state forms with the court regarding petitions of non-attendance. There was a lawsuit that claimed that attendance officers who were doing this were engaging in the unlicensed practice of law. So this is really a technical correction just to clarify that. And then under section two, under 22.1-258, it is now made more clear that whenever a student fails to report to school, the parent is notified each day. I have a question. I

186think that Dr. Wilkins is off mute. He's having another conversation, another phone. That's not for us. I'm sorry about that. Dr. Wilkins, I believe that your Zoom is not muted. Sorry, I wasn't sure if that was for me. So I was asked, sounded like he was asking a question at first. So I was listening, trying to see if that was for me. But it is a good question, actually, and one that I'll answer when we talk about the regulation. As you can see, they're having conversations about it, watching the video. So I'm sure that's him in one of our single videos. It is absolutely relevant and one that we have discussed, and you will see it specifically addressed. And really probably more interesting conversation than these technical amendments that I'm reviewing at the moment. So

187we will get to that in just a moment. So parents will be notified each day with a robocall that their student was absent. What I wanted to kind of point out for this section for this year is, you know, what does this look like for this year. So we've talked this through and given that attendance is going to be taken throughout the day it's going to be taken in each class at the elementary level it'll be taken by the homeroom teacher and then I believe also by the special teachers, but it will be taken periodically throughout the day, given that, and especially given. the details of which I'm going to cover in the regulation of how we're going to take attendance on asynchronous Mondays, what's going to happen is that robo calls will go out

188each evening to give teachers time to make sure their attendance is up to date, check it over and to account for the full day of recording throughout synchronous and asynchronous activities, whether or not a student attended that day. We lost an air pod. Okay, so now we move on to page three. These are simply technical adjustments to the schedule and the process of intervention meetings. No major changes there, just some changes in the language. And then on page four, another technical adjustment, really a change in Virginia Code 46.2-323 regarding the language of if you have at least 10 absences. the principal may notify the domestic relations court, which may take action to suspend your driver's license. Okay, let's move on to the regulation because everyone is interested in these questions. How's this going to work

189this year? So attendance recording for this school year. Again, I want to point out that attendance will be taken five days a week in every class, regardless of whether or not teaching and learning occurs synchronously or asynchronously. Now, one of the terms of art that VDOE has created that's particularly relevant here is that attendance is being recorded to ensure that there is a meaningful interaction happening with the student each day, regardless of the instructional model. And what that means is a two-way engagement between the student and staff that allows feedback or input from the student. So that's a term of art defined by the state for this year. But the point is we need to ensure the well-being of these students by connecting with them every single day, whether it is synchronously or asynchronously. This

190is aligned with the return to school plan. There's a superintendent's memo specifically on this. You'll see it. You'll see the reference to it at the end of this regulation. So how is this going to work? Let's look at Section B. How's this going to work for this year? So attendance is going to be recorded in PowerSchool. Teachers are going to take attendance. They're going to record it in PowerSchool. And if it is a synchronous session, it is going to be, you know, they're going to take that record of who was on Zoom and who wasn't. And if it is asynchronous learning, there are a number of ways that they can record attendance this year. It could be logging into Clever and working on an assignment. It could be submitting an assignment. It could be an

191interactive communication via telephone or email between the student and the teacher. There are several different ways that we can document participation for that day and specific guidance that the state has provided for exactly this sort of situation. But again, something that is ensuring a meaningful interaction, ensuring that the student is engaging in their learning, their education on those asynchronous days. Now, it is important to note that some specific attendance modifications may be made for students with 504s and IEPs. And I know that Ms. Werner's on the line if you have any specific questions about that. Again, parents will receive a daily robocall in the evening if their student missed any classes that day. And for parents, and this goes to Dr. Wilkins, a very prescient question. And that is, if a student cannot log on,

192if a student has a technical difficulty, if you miss a Zoom, is it an unexcused absence? Well, the answer is yes. However, just like in... In the school setting when we are there in person, parents or guardians have three days to call the attendance line and say, my son or daughter couldn't log on, they couldn't make the class, here's what's going on. And that unexcused absence will be converted to an excused absence. So it is the same process as in a traditional school year, parents will call the attendance line. We obviously recognize that some technical issues are going to come up, but at the same time, we've got to be keeping track of who is engaged, who is engaged in their learning, and if we are not keeping attendance and keeping track of the engagement

193of the students, then these students are going to fall through the cracks. So in order to identify who needs extra support, who is not participating, we've got to take attendance. Besides the fact that we are required to do so by the state. The final bullet on page one, again, we wanted to underscore that there will absolutely be interventions when we see a pattern of repeated absences to support these students and find the kids who are, we need to address the learning loss and we do not want any students falling through the cracks. Okay, on page eight. This is where the new requirement is for the Virginia Administrative Code 8VAC 273020. This is where we are required now at the bottom of page 8 to spell out what our supports are if a student engages in

194unexcused absences for less than a full day. As you know, a student is officially absent as far as our recording requirements to the state if they're absent for a full day. but we are also required to detail our supports if a student misses less than a full day. And so you'll see here it includes conferences, development of a plan to remove the barriers, you know, why is the student missing class? And we want to get the parents or guardians and the support teams together. And of course, obviously, the last step would be to involve court services. Okay, the last regulation I have to review before we pause for questions is JFC-R, that's the Standards of Student Conduct. And all I really wanted to say about this, and this is just for transparency sake and a

195kind of forecast for the community, is just to let everyone know that Student Services is working on an addendum to the Code of Conduct for this year in recognition of the impact of the distance learning environment. there are going to be some changes to the expectations. And although those have not been posted on the website yet, I know they're still being developed. I'm sure they will be by the beginning of school, but this is really just for anyone throughout the course of the year who pulls this document up online to review the code of conduct knows that there are specific changes for this year only. Okay, now this is a good time for questions about attendance. Ms. Thornton first. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Ms. Aberzazy, thank you too for going through all of these

196policies. I am thinking back to policy JEA, which statutorily we now have to say that parents must cause their children to attend rather than send their children to a public school. Can you define for us why it is now cause? And the only like I'm thinking in a distance learning environment like what does that mean for parents? Do they have to make sure your kid gets a Chromebook and then they can just leave and never you know monitor whether or not their child logs on every day or not? Like what does that mean statutorily cause? And two, secondly, I'm thinking about so for an unexcused absence, basically we're putting the onus on parents to communicate with us. to let us know like why the kid was absent that day and whether or not it should

197be excused or not. But a lot of these parents, as we all know, are not going to be online every day monitoring phone calls and emails. Is there a way for students, especially secondary students, to be more proactive and communicating if they had a technological issue? And maybe that's why for this day, they should have an excused absence and not an unexcused. Or is it strictly reliant on parents to do all of that? No, that's a great question. Thank you for that question. There are several questions in there and hopefully I'll touch on them all. First of all, on the cause to attend, as I mentioned before the change in the statute, there was also a lawsuit and I can send you that reference if you're interested. But essentially what the court said and now

198what the General Assembly has said through legislation is that just, and I'm simplifying this, but essentially watching your student walk out the front door is not enough. There's a higher bar for parents. They have to make sure their children are attending school and that is legally their responsibility to help ensure that their child is actually attending. To see them walk out the door is not enough. they have to follow through and be part of that process if the student is not attending. And so you see laid out in the regulation a lot of details about conferences with student support teams and school personnel and parents and guardians and such, but the fact is the bar was raised. And so you see that really reflected also in your second question, which is about, is it the

199parent's responsibility to call the school? Well, there definitely could be increased communication between secondary students and their teachers. However, it is just like our policy in any regular year. It is the parent who must call. and tell the school why the student was absent. It is not enough for a student to just say, I was absent and then it is not excused by the student. Okay, so if you are under 18, your parent is still legally in charge of you and the parent must call the school. And I think either Ms. Runkle or Mr. Sampson or Dr. Crawford may wanna speak to that more. We've definitely had a lot of discussions about. the onus on parents this year and ways that we could help make the process smoother for them with the calling in to

200the attendance line or emailing the school and such. And so I don't know if they want to take this and run with it a little, but we have definitely sort of been talking through the options here. You really, I mean, I'll just jump in. You hit the nail on the head there that while we know we're in an atypical setting in all aspects, given that these are minors, we still do need verification from the family if there was, whether it was an illness or a technical issue with the computer, with the parent or guardian confirming that that was the case. Really trying to be flexible to make sure that there's a window there. and we can update the attendance so that if it was marked on excuse and it wasn't excused absence, certainly we can

201get that in. The communication piece should be there with the teacher and certainly anyone, a social worker, whoever, the tech support if there's an issue. So that's not new coming to anyone. But unfortunately, you know, it's not a situation where a student can just say, my computer didn't work. and then we excuse the absence. Knowing that we use this for our state recording and really tracking where the issues are and how we can support students within our MTSS framework and all those interventions that Ms. Abbruzzese mentioned that we have experience with, we need to make sure that we've got set data that the verification is coming from parent or guardian. Thank you. That's really helpful. And if I may, Madam Chair, just a quick follow-up. So just to clarify, so there is no time requirement

202that parents or guardians have in which they can contact the division to notify them why it should be excused? Just like in a traditional school year, they have three days. Okay. Okay. Ms. Nolan? Thank you so much, Chair Anderson. Thank you so much, Ms. Asperzazi, for all of your hard work. I really appreciate it. I know this has been just phenomenal. task to try to, you know, reimagine the school division as well as figure out what policies are aligned with that. So I also just want to say thank you so much to Mr. Samson. We're so fortunate to have you in the division. Thank you so much. And I always love seeing Ms. Runkle at school board meetings. So I'd be remiss if I didn't give a special shout out. You know, your presentation every

203year at the data is one of my favorites. So thanks. Good to see you. My question is, I just want to overemphasize, I know that this is going to be a huge concern for all of us, but in particular, I'm worried about the students who they're going to be in charge of child care needs of younger siblings or neighbors. And so that's going to be a real reality of what we're facing and parents will be forced to leave their household. And so what are we doing to accommodate families where the ACPS student is in charge of taking care of younger siblings and how how will that be worked out? Thank you. I'm losing track of the days, so I can't remember if it was today or yesterday, but we just had a meeting about this.

204So I don't know if Dr. Crawford or Mr. Sampson, you'd like to address that. We were just talking this through. I can jump in and Mr. Sampson, please add on. It's an outstanding question and there's not a simple answer to it. We know that there are lots of variables going on this year in the home setting and in the work setting for our families. We certainly are hearing that from the survey results. We're honestly, we're hearing it from our partners and in the childcare meetings that we're having that providers are asking, what do we do to assist? What we have said is, number one, we can't waive the attendance. When it's synchronous, we need to see the students. That is one of our accountability measures. If there's a barrier, like child care, like something along

205those lines, then our goal is to be aware of that, work with the family. And part of that is why this attendance tracking is so important, because if we are seeing absences, whether it's a period or a day, that teachers are reaching out, our social workers, our SST, our principals to find out what's going on and then how do we work with our partners to support the family so that if it's a seventh grade child with a second grader, the seventh grader can focus on their learning. Unfortunately, we have experience in this area because this happens, you know, even when we're face-to-face that we have older students who are responsible for various family responsibilities. So our what do we need to do there? We need constant communication, we need to get in there early, and

206we need to work to provide support so that any student in that house can access learning. And one of the ways we're going to be able to determine that is through this type attendance tracking. We wouldn't know that if somebody didn't have to report. We wouldn't know what the barrier was. We just would think, you know, the student just wasn't logging on. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I really, truly appreciate everyone's hard work because I know we're all concerned about all of our students, but we also recognize as a division, the challenges, particularly our most vulnerable students have. So I know everyone's on it and I just want to say, thank you. Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Anderson, and I appreciate the comment Ms. Nolan made. That isn't a particular scenario that I

207had thought about, but I want to talk about another type of scenario, which is kind of along maybe similar lines, but slightly different. And before I go through the scenario, I want to say I do appreciate that there's a recognition in the policy of remediation. or supplemental remediation if students are absent and making sure that we're going back and we're providing students with that opportunity to maybe remediate learning loss. But something I want to talk about is sort of the interplay between the attendance policy and remediation. I do worry that, you know, a lot of these policies as constructed, and frankly, it's a lot of this because the legal framework, you know, are punitive. I am a little worried about the sort of vagueness of this cause to attend school. And I'm particularly thinking about,

208you know, I. the sort of issues with technology that I was emphasizing at the last meeting. I'm very concerned that there are going to be students who Comcast is not turning on their internet or, you know, their Chromebook is busted and they're not going to be able to access school. And at that point, it goes back to what I kind of said last time. I feel like we were grading students and we're holding them legally accountable, potentially for truancy. I think we have to assume more of that responsibility and burden. And I almost wonder if we need to think about. Is there a category of absences that are not just excused, but our fault, such that we need to remediate that like we need to do something about that and I think about this in

209terms of, you know, in special education if you're not providing the services you have to provide compensatory education as a matter of law, like I almost I almost wonder if we, you know, if we are not, you know, doing what we need to do to ensure that certain kids who may be underrepresented or not have all the resources they need to access school, then should we be assuming a burden in that particular instance? And should we be tracking that and then providing remediation proportionate to those absences? I think about the situations where when I was in public school and the bus was three hours late. And I got to school three hours late. That was an excused absence, you know, but that was three hours of learning loss. Here, that might not just happen on

210a random day. It might happen for extended periods of time for students. And I'm hoping none of these scenarios come to pass. And I'm confident in our leadership, to be clear. And I'm, you know, hopefully something like that never happens. But I do think once we start taking attendance, it's going to lay bare a lot of inequities in the division. And so I'm just wondering how we're thinking about that and just how we're thinking about. the remediation piece generally, like who's going to be providing that remediation in the event students have absences? Is it going to be someone who's on the grade level team working with the teachers? Like, how are we thinking about that piece? Because I really am worried about this issue and just want to make sure we're being really systemic about

211linking, you know, missed days and attendance. And it's particularly if it's our fault with the need to remediate as necessary. Now, that's a great question. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Dr. Hutchings. I was going to say that, you know, I think, Mr. Suarez, you bring up a point that we've been talking about. For one, I think we have to keep in mind that some of these challenges, now granted, the virtual world is a little different for us, but in regards to like truancy and things, these are challenges that we've had prior to this global pandemic. So we also know that we have social workers, we have psychologists, we have teachers. who are going to provide whatever the additional support might be depending on a student circumstance. And us having this attendance requirement is actually going to

212allow us to be able to provide the necessary service because now we'll know that we need to investigate. Whereas in the spring, when kids were absent, they were just absent. If they didn't show up, they just didn't show up. Parents were saying, my kid never shows up. we're going to follow our necessary protocols to determine why was the student not on Zoom today. Then we might find out the child was watching another sibling or the child is sick or their internet is not working. And then we'll be able to actually provide those additional supports, whether it is now a Kajeet or a new Chromebook or our school social worker contacting and working with the family. So I really do believe that the... Compensatory requirements that we are required to do. is going to enable us

213to provide the necessary supports when needed. But I wanted to start with that. But Dr. Crawford, you may have some additional information you want to add to that. I think 100% of what you just said. And that's what I wrote down is, Mr. Suarez, you said, you know, we should be tracking. I think that's the importance of the attendance. That is giving us the tracking that we didn't have in the spring. So it was really hard to sometimes identify the families who or at need, you know, in need and at risk versus those who just were choosing not to sign on. So I just, I support what Dr. Hutchings said. The other thing to remember is that we have a plethora of communication options for our families. So in these situations, let's say you don't

214have internet, you know, we have our parent hotline that's in multiple languages now. We have principals who know their families very well. I would just say. You know, we need to continue to push those and communicate and give options. If you are having a challenge other than, you know, sending an email, which I think we've been able to do. Schools have boxes that they're receiving the back to school folders in. If you're not emailing or can't put in the mail, they can drop it off in person. Just being creative with things like that to make sure that we've got strategies to hear from our families if there is a barrier. But I do, I mean, I just have to say, I think that the attendance piece is actually going to help us, hold us accountable

215in making sure that we've reached out to families. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Crawford. And Mr. Suarez, I just wanted to address one other element of what you brought up because you raised a really good point. This is back to regarding the legal language of causing to attend. So it's really supposed to be highlighting there the basic legal requirement that parents need to ensure that their children, if they're older than five years old, attend school. you know, if I'm happy to rework that language to really just... convey that point that parents are responsible. And it also was really kind of intended to address when the school discovers that there is a non-attendance or an absenteeism problem and you start going through the intervention steps and you're having the conferences. This also is pointing to when

216you have a situation where the parent or guardian is uncooperative. So it's really speaking to that basic legal requirement. you know, not necessarily the specifics of the technical problems we may encounter this year. So I'm happy to rework that language because I think it should be really clear that we're really talking about that baseline requirement there. Yeah, no, that's helpful, Jennifer and Ms. Arbazazi. And what I would just add is something I was thinking about as you were saying that is if you think about it, right, the prior legal language required the parent to send and as the school we simply received and then we provided instruction, right? And so that's where the burdens were. Now they have to cause to attend, but there are things that we can influence that may prevent. the student

217from attending even if the parent tries to cause to attend and so I just think it's about kind of where the where our burden is now and what more do we need to do in this situation and it's hard for everyone but I but I just want to make sure that everyone is getting a fair shot and we're all on the same page about that of course but it creates a new new challenge for us as well. Miss Johnson? Oh yeah I'm not sure if my question if it has to do with something else or if it goes under absences. But I just had a question for, um, about tardies. I know like a lot, like in high school, there's a lot of people, there's, um, There's like 10 people at a time each period

218in their academies looking for passes so that they could go to class. So I guess my question is just how are they going to deal with tardies on the secondary level? Like is the Zoom going to, if you're late for the Zoom, is it just like going to make you wait until your teacher or the host lets you come in and you have to? go with the whole embarrassing thing where they ask you in the middle of the Zoom or are we going to be able to go like Zoom in our academy? Like, how is that going to work with TARDIS? That is another outstanding question. And, you know, we haven't. in the policies and regulations, we don't always hit the granular level maybe that we should, because that's the level where people really have

219questions, where the rubber meets the road. So that's a great question. And that's another thing that we were just discussing in the last 24 hours. So I don't know if you want to take that one also, Dr. Crawford. No, just to say that we're really, you know, this is, as you just highlighted, this is a delicate situation because just like if we were late, if I was late to today's meeting and Dr. Hutchings wanted to say, why were you late? It'd be a little awkward to do over the, you know, everybody listening. So we have to work out some pretty specific things for teachers on how they can follow up, knowing that you coming into class, maybe 10 minutes late on the spot. questioning about tardies isn't, it's just not something that, you know, we're

220going to be able to do. It's a very good question. As Ms. Everson said, not spelled out in the regs yet, but, and part of it is getting the feedback of our teachers. You know, we've been doing the regulations, of course, and complying with everything, but we now have the benefit of having staff members back. And as Dr. Hutchings said, you know, we'll be reviewing these policies with the staff. and some of these changes and they will ask the same questions and they will give us good feedback. So thank you for the question. I actually have some questions. This one makes my, I was thinking that when Mr., when Dr. Wilkins was talking, it was my head, like I would inside my head, that voice inside my head, because this one makes me really, really

221concerned. You know, one of my concerns is even the three days to get the, to convert it from unexcused to excused. I mean, do we have latitude on that? Can it be a week? Because I'm worried that some people are going to know. what to do and others won't. And, and also I see that the unexcused for actually withdrawing people from, from school, it. It used to say unexcused, I think, but now it just says 15 days. Is that the change? So I worry, and now I'm thinking about one of our goals of Hispanic graduation, and I'm really worried about this because I'm worried already because I worry about the synchronous learning because I know that, you know, from people I know that, you know, sometimes they're having to go to work because their parents

222even lost a job. And so I'm worried how we're going to deal with all of that. I also know that they're not that some, you know, immigrant families, even if they're legal, I've heard directly from someone that they won't apply for. any aid because they're worried that that will interfere with their being able to become a citizen eventually. So that is pushing more. And it was even the national news where this kid has his laptop at a fast food place open and trying to do school while he's working. So I just. This really makes me so nervous. And I don't know if we've thought about, I mean, I'm sure you've thought about all those things, but how I'm worried about someone slipping off after 15 days seems like a lot of schools to, but in

223this age and with coronavirus, I feel like three weeks go by, I can't even account for my time, you know? So I worry about that. Or someone having to go off to a relative suddenly because they can't cover. You know, that happens anyway, I know, but it's going to happen more now because we're not having the same child care opportunities. Again, those are great questions, and I'm actually glad you brought that up. I'm going to take the first two, and then I'll let Dr. Crawford elaborate. The three days notification to change an unexcused absence into a verified absence, that is a legal requirement. So that's no change for us, but that's a legal requirement for three days. The 15 days, I'm especially glad you brought up because that is a type of, in reviewing this,

224we realized we had a typo in our regulation and I actually switched the version online and sent the board an email today to alert everyone, just so you'd be aware. In reviewing this, we realized the law says 15 days, period. Excused, unexcused. If you miss 15 full days of school, we are legally required to unenroll the students. Our regulation had that word unexcused in there, but that was not correct. So we are correcting that typo in our regulations so that we are in line. But again, the thing to keep in mind is, as you said, essentially, by the time you get to 15 full days of absences, there's a real problem there. And that's why, you know, you have that system of interventions spelled out by law leading up to that. You know, there are,

225there are gates. there are requirements at the five-day mark, the six-day mark, the ten-day mark. You know, there are requirements all along the way of interventions, conferences with the parents, you know, things we are required to do to keep it from getting to such an extreme number of days where the student has missed the full day. So you're absolutely right. And I'll let Dr. Crawford expand on the intervention process we have. But unfortunately, the three days and the 15 days are hard deadlines. Well, and Ms. Anderson, your comment about we have, you know, we know we have these scenarios regularly, and we do. You know, we track our truancy and our attendance when we do our meetings with school administration. That's one of the measures we look at. We know that that's an accreditation measure.

226So we are mindful of that and trying to work with the... usually administration and SST, again, to get back to what's the cause of the student missing school. And we know that even though we had these situations pre-COVID, they will likely be exacerbated because of the situation that everyone is in, many people are in right now. And so it's... We are truly grateful to have full SST members in schools. Not all school systems do. Not all school systems have social workers who are there who can follow up on all of these things. You should not get to a point where you're right, you have three weeks of not seeing a student and we have no contact. That's a huge concern. That's why that five, six, 10 day, those markers are in there. and spelled that

227within the regulations and well trained for our social workers who document what happened after five days, where's the written attendance plan. All of those structures then remain in place even though we're virtual for the reasons that you said that we do not want a student to fall through the cracks because they're doing something to support their family. So you know that the 15 days is not something that we can change. We talk to the state regularly during the course of the year if we have a situation where we don't maybe feel that the student, maybe we're aware of information and we need the state's guidance on is there flexibility there and there is not as the regulations are currently. If we have a student that had a medical situation, I do want to say we

228know that we have supports and we would look at something like homebound if someone had a medical, be it. physical or mental health related situation, we have avenues there to support the student outside of the 15 days. But it's relying on the processes that we have in place through MTSS and others and just, you know, making sure that the students are aware. through action, that there are people who care about them and know that they're missed when they're not there. So it's that relationship building that has to happen. We've been saying this through all of our training, connection before content. It's getting to know what your student situation is as soon as we return. So you know who's vulnerable to those situations. We don't have to wait 15 days to learn that, you know, you

229are working. We have a student working to support their family because we're hopefully getting to that early and helping them out. Sorry, that was a little bit of a soapbox. And also, I just received a really excellent question, an important question. Thank you, Ms. Werner. The 15 days are 15 consecutive days. So I'll reread through this and make sure that that's very clear, but it is 15 consecutive days. Great. Thank you. I think I saw, Ms. Alderton, did you have something? Or no, maybe not. No, it really wasn't. I was just extremely impressed by Ms. Johnson's question about tardies. I even think about that, just the concept of, you know, being tardy to assume what the implications are because there are in-person implications. So the kids have brilliant minds. I know, I know. Okay, it

230looks like we've done that one for now. Okay, let's move on to policy revisions related to health and safety protocols. This is another hot topic. So we're going on to policy JHCF, which is student wellness. I don't really want to discuss COVID-related changes here. I want to discuss those in the regulation. But what I really want to draw your attention to for the policy itself. is that unrelated to COVID, we did add in section three here because last year when we were reviewing this policy with Shab, we realized that our... general illness guidelines for a normal year are found in our family handbook only. And they had been inadvertently omitted from policy, even though we do have the illness guidelines and policy for staff members. But they just, for whatever reason, had never made it

231into the student wellness policy. And so in reviewing this again last year with Shab, we had made a note. the next time that this policy was reviewed, we would make sure to add them in. So these are the guidelines from the family handbook every year. And we just put them in and tried to make it clear that these are not, you know, the metrics that we are using in this COVID related year, but we wanted to make sure that they were in there. But now let's turn to the regulation and discuss our new enhanced protocols and precautions for this year. We are in JHCFR. Again, we are discussing enhanced health and safety protocols, and we can go through them in depth in this regulation, and then we can probably go a little more quickly through

232some of the subsequent regulations because you will really see this same language in the regulation regarding staff health. regarding visitors to our buildings. So it's language that's going to mirror each other. In this one, it is regarding students. Essentially, what we want to communicate is that we are going to adhere to the CDC mitigation strategies to minimize the spread of COVID-19. And what that means for us is that on school property for this school year, we are requiring protective face masks. And when I say on school property, that includes our buildings, our grounds, school buses, ACPS provided vehicles. This is during the school day and at school sponsored activities. And of course, we recognize that there are some situations where you will need some limited exceptions, but they are going to be limited to protect

233health and safety. So if you have a documented medical reason why you cannot wear a protective face mask, then of course an accommodation will be made. If you are engaged in eating or drinking or exercising, you know, when we transition back into the hybrid model for students who are in PE class under the supervision of a teacher while they're exercising and socially, you know, physically distanced, I should say, six feet apart, you know, there will be some accommodations made, obviously some exceptions made. But our baseline rule for this year is on ACPS property. there will be protective face masks required. I also, there is a sentence right after this couple of bullets, which is also extremely important, I think, to point out, and that is, if a student does not have a face mask, one

234will be provided. you'll see that same sentence in the staff policy and in the visitor policy. If you do not have one, one will be provided. And also the language, you will see similar language in the student policy and the staff policy is that instruction is going to be provided this year on how to properly use protective face coverings. So students will receive instruction and teachers and all staff will receive some guidance on this as well. Now we are to letter B and the other important point for this year is that for students anyway, parents or guardians are responsible for assessing their students' health each day before they go to school or to drag CPS property in person. We have the same requirement for staff. There's going to be an ACPS health screening checklist that

235parents and guardians will review for their students each morning. You know, you're checking for fevers. Have you been exposed? There's a whole list that is gonna be based on guidance specifically from the CDC and I believe specifically refined by the Alexandria Health Department. I know we're working with them on developing the specifics. But there will be a responsibility to screen the student's health every day at home before they're going to the bus, before they're going to school. And again, we will continually monitor the guidance because it's also important to communicate to our community that the guidance may change. You know, we've all seen the recommendations evolve since March. And so some of the guidance coming down from the CDC and the health department, the Virginia Department of Health may change over time. And so some

236of our recommendations may have to change. And also some of the questions on the questionnaire may have to change. But we just wanted to. you know, put that out there and recognize that things may change over time. If we go to the next page, what I want to touch on now is this is regarding, and I'm at the very top of page two, I want to talk about the requirements for PE, recess, and physical activity. So we all know that in this regulation and in the next policy, which is IGAE, or I have it maybe two from now, physical education and recess, this board, you know, the Alexandria City School Board is, as a group, a huge supporter of active learning. physical movement, engage students. We've all seen the research of how it really helps

237and drives your learning if you are not just sitting in a chair and not moving all day, obviously. So this board established guidelines that go above and beyond the standards of quality a couple of years ago. What we need to recognize in this distance learning environment is that even with the accounting of synchronous and asynchronous time, you know, we are going to be striving to meet those goals. But really, for this year, we are striving to meet the goals of the standards of quality, not the standards that the school board went above and beyond for. And I'm talking about recess minutes. Our current regulation spells out. minutes that go above and beyond for PE and both recess. And so we really just need to point out and be clear that in this distance learning environment,

238that is going to look a little different. And I know that with the student schedules and of course, Dr. Crawford, maybe Mr. Stanton can speak to this more when we get into the Q&A part. But I know that, you know, there have been a lot of conversations about this and consideration. of it in developing the student schedules and making sure there are movement breaks and active learning exercises and, of course, standard PE instruction as well and how is this going to look in the remote learning environment. And so it's really being worked through. But I did want to mention that for this one school year, there were the guidelines in the current regulation. are frankly, they're probably not realistic. So we need to strive to hit the SOQs. And again, we will continue to review

239any directives from the state on this. So I know that they're working on that, addressing it as well. So that covers really that policy. And if you look at the next one, which is IGAE, IGAF, that's really the same content. And so there's nothing really new to review there. It's just the same language. And I think we should probably move on to GBE, which is staff health. And I am going to transition to my old fashioned earbuds because I've just heard in my ear that my AirPods are dying. So give me one second here. Can you hear me? You should be able to hear me now. Is this good? Okay, thank you. Okay, so we're on policy GBE. Again, like I sort of forecasted earlier, the language here mirrors the requirements in the student wellness

240policy for enhanced health and safety protocols when we are on ACPS property. Staff will also be expected to wear protective face masks. And the exceptions here are slightly different. If it is necessary for the staff member to perform his or her duties and an accommodation is required, So for instance, if you are teaching a student with disabilities, maybe a hearing impaired student who needs to see your mouth moving and lip read or something, you know, of course we would make accommodations if it is necessary to perform your duties. Also a documented medical reason is another example of an accommodation. I didn't list it in here. I noticed it earlier. I also need to list in here, you know, when the staff member is eating or something. So, I mean, there are some limited opportunities for

241accommodations, but again, it's the same general rule. The extra step that staff need to take beyond our students is that students are going to be receiving that health screening at home with their parents or guardians. But for staff, we will be conducting temperature screenings at our screening sites as we have been since March before reporting to work inside any of our buildings. Any questions about leave that are related to COVID-19? Any questions about returning to work? If you have, for whatever reason, when answering that health questionnaire, it has been determined that you should not report to work in person. Questions regarding return to work, questions regarding leave should just be directed to the Department of Human Resources. Okay, this is a good point, I think, to stop and ask questions about all these enhanced health

242and safety protocols. Anyone? Ms. Lorber? Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Jennifer. It's always so fun to see you and hear you, regardless of what the topic. I may not have been listening carefully enough, okay? But I'm curious about what happens when... I'm really embarrassed because I don't think this was in there, but I know the teachers have had questions about what happens, what is our policy if they get sick? Was that what you just said? And I just sort of zoned out. If they have to take... quarantine for two weeks because of exposure, say an exposure in their family or something. And so they notify nothing in the school system, but they notify us, HR, that they've been exposed. And so they're going to go into quarantine. Do we have a policy that, do they know what

243will happen? Like, do they take leave? Did they take, did you just talk about that? Because I apologize if it was in there. Jennifer, did you hear my question? No. She did not talk about it. I'll just jump in. She just mentioned when there are questions of leave, that they would go to human resources and that they would be able to respond on did leave need to be taken or was there another avenue that needed to go down? Yeah, and one thing that we do have with the Family Medical Leave Act, there are some extensions that come along now with this global pandemic and COVID-19. Yes, we can now. For some reason, I'm sorry, I have lost my ability to hear you at all. I'm looking at you blankly. I'm going to just pitch to

244Dr. Crawford while I figure this out. I honestly have no idea what was asked. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. So FMLA has some extended regulations that now apply to families and employees if they're in a situation where they're quarantined or if they have a family member who has, you know, been diagnosed with COVID-19 and things of that nature that affords them additional leave options that were just not available prior to our global pandemic. But so HR. Can I just follow up? Will our staff be informed about that in advance that the FMLA, you know. Yes. Yes. So we're a part of, yes. So part of our, our staff handbook and expectations, our goal is to provide them with that, but we want to make sure that staff, their first point of contact is HR because there

245are so many circumstances that it can be different for one person than it is for another. It depends on who the family member is, is family living in a household. I mean, there are a number of factors that there isn't a blanket kind of like answer. for our staff. So that's why we are having them work with HR anytime there is a situation because we have to look at each case very, very differently. Okay. I don't see any other questions about that one. Can you hear me again, Jennifer? Okay. So I think you can keep going. Okay. Sorry. I don't know what happened. All of a sudden you all went silent. I could see Ms. Lorber talking. I had no idea what it was about. Okay, so, and, and forgive me, are we moving on

246now beyond health and safety. Yes, I think there was no other question. Okay, so we are on to policy KK, which is school visitors. And really the takeaway from here is that this language is aligned with our language for health and safety protocols for staff and for students. But I wanted to really highlight that the rule for the year is that we are limiting non-essential visitors and volunteers in our buildings this year. And this is a direct recommendation from the VDOE's phased reopening guidance, recover, redesign, restart. So we are following their lead and you know in fitting with health and safety recommendations that you want to limit interactions as much as possible within the student's school day and limit the number of interactions they have with different people we are going to follow this guidance.

247So that begs the question of course what is an essential visitor or volunteer? who will qualify to be in our school buildings this year. And you see that here on this page under letter A, essential visitors, volunteers and activities are defined as those who are supporting the provision of in-person student support at our schools. So even before we are fully open to all of our students, we know we are providing some in-person supports to some students. And if you are involved in helping us do that, then you are considered an essential visitor or volunteer. If you are supporting or performing operations and maintenance, obviously, and families when they are picking up or dropping off any students who are receiving support or in-person learning in our buildings. So again, temperature screenings will happen when you arrive

248at the building for any visitors or volunteers. Face masks will be required. We will provide one if you don't have one. And again, the same accommodations will be available. If you have a documented medical reason for not being able to wear one, or if it is necessary to the actual provision of support that you are there for, then of course there would be an accommodation. Now, volunteering is still going to happen in our schools this year. I know Mr. Huffman and his team have been really hard at work figuring out what volunteering is going to look like this year for our students. We have fantastic community partners who really provide a lot of support to our students, and we are so grateful for their assistance. and we certainly want to encourage that. So I know

249there have been a lot of conversations about how that looks kind of in a virtual world. And I'm sure he's happy to answer questions. But the bottom line is that anyone who's interested in volunteering in our schools this year, supporting our students, it is all going to be coordinated through our partners that are approved by Mr. Huffman's office, the Office of Community Partnerships and Engagement. And so if you contact his office, you will be working through one of our approved partners. And there's a whole series of protocols that have been worked out, a whole series of processes, procedures. But, you know, there are also memorandums of understanding. Everything I think has been very well thought through and we definitely want to encourage people to still support our students this year, even though it will be

250virtually, but he has developed a process for that to work. The next policy is KG. This is community use of school facilities. And what I really want to highlight here actually is a statutory change in looking at, you know, how our facilities are going to be used this year if we are limiting visitors and volunteers to only those that meet the definition of essential. I was also reviewing this policy and there is a statutory change to point out and that is, as you all know, obviously the superintendent is authorized to allow the use of our school facilities for non-school purposes, as long as it does not impair the efficiency of the schools. However, the superintendent is going to be required to provide a monthly report to the board of all of those community uses. So

251just like the board receives a monthly financial report, a monthly HR report, you will start seeing a monthly community use, you know, facilities use report as well that will go to the board each month. Okay, next is our regulation, our implementing regulation for that policy. It lays out the same public health protocols we discussed above. And the only real difference here is to point out that any actual requests for use of our facilities need to be coordinated through not only Mr. Huffman's office, but his office is going to work in collaboration with the Office of Maintenance and Custodial Services to review all of those requests. Okay, that is the end of the health and safety and the, oh, I should say we finished that. Now the community use policies, there's just one left. If anyone

252has any questions on visitors, volunteers, use of our facilities this year. Ms. Lorber, did you have a question? Yeah, I do. I have a question. Thanks. Sorry to be asking these questions. I wasn't sure if it was just up from last time or not. I just double checked. No, no, it's new. It's new. Can you hear me? Okay. I didn't see, when you talk about essential visitors to the school, I'm wondering, you know, we've had a few letters to the board from teachers wishing that they could teach from their classroom. And I know not all the teachers want to do that, but some do. I'm surprised I don't see their teachers listed as a conceivable essential personnel. I was wondering about that. Sure, sure. Thank you. That's a great question. No, you are correct. They

253are not covered under this policy. They would be considered, you know, staff covered under the staff policy, but I do see that Dr. Hart is on the call. And this is again, another hot topic, lots of conversations on and I'd like to ask her to address it. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we hear you. Sorry, great about. So in regards to teachers utilizing the school facilities, what we have done from a facility standpoint is we have asked our principals to just, we've provided them guidance in terms of access to the schools, the different. We're working to create a matrix in terms of being able to share what areas of these schools are being used. And in that vein, really, it's really going to end up being a principal decision, of course, working with

254facilities to decide. Whether or not individuals will be allowed certain access to their rooms, we are providing a certain time frame in which individuals would have access to the building. And really, those time frames are to help us with our cleaning activities and to make sure that we have the capability to keep our facilities safe during COVID-19. So facilities is not actually the department that's deciding whether or not teachers can teach from classrooms. However, what we are doing is working with the principals to provide framework and guidance. for access rules and availability and making sure that we are staying within. our social distancing capacity guidelines as we are creating this overarching matrix of multiple users potentially using our school. So we know we have administrators coming in. We may have teachers that need to teach

255from their classrooms. We have some construction work going on. We are also working with our virtual plus partners as well. So we just want to be very cognizant of the fact that we are providing guidance for access, but we do not want to. you know, negate the social distancing requirements that we do have. And I'm sorry if that doesn't directly answer the question, but facilities is not really the determining department as to whether or not teachers will be able to teach from their classrooms. Any other questions? I don't see any. Is everybody getting tired? Probably. I called it. My guess was about four hours and we're at 8.59. So is that it? Or is there one more? We've reached everyone's favorite point in the evening, and that is the final policy. Oh, the final one.

256Okay, go for it. I wouldn't want to leave out the last one. I know it's the moment you've all been waiting for. So the final policy is EBCA. This is regarding our emergency preparedness response drills. I wanted to bring to your attention a statutory change, really two statutory changes, but also for our community and for our staff, what's quite important is the note at the top. Everyone knows that we have a schedule of all of the different kinds of drills that we are required to run in a year. That schedule is dictated by the state. We will not begin those drills until we have students in our building. The schedule is very prescriptive. It's very prescriptive in the law. It says, you know, within the first 20 school days, you must do X or something.

257Now we are starting September 8th, but we are not starting the clock until we have students in our building. That does not mean our full cohort. It means even if we are providing in-person student supports to a small number of students, that will start the class because we will have students in the building. And obviously having everyone know what to do in case of a drill is very important, whether we have a few students or we have all of the students. So that's one thing to point out for this year. But then in addition, I want to just point out the statutory changes. And those begin at the bottom of page one. And that is there are some minor changes to the timing of threat response drills and the number of threat response drills required.

258But the main change there that I want to bring everyone's attention to is the last sentence. And that is we have a new legal requirement to notify parents. before we have a lockdown or secure the building drill. Now, the requirement is that we must notify them at least 24 hours in advance, but that is as specific as it gets. So as you can imagine, it is not best practice. It is not recommended to broadcast the exact date and time of a drill. So that will not happen. And a lot of school divisions are handling this by putting out a blanket notification and announcement to parents at the very beginning of the year because the requirement is that it has to be at least 24 hours in advance. And if you put out an announcement at

259the beginning of the year, that qualifies. Or you can put the announcement out closer to the time of the drill. So I just want to make everyone aware that the notifications will go out prior to any drills, but it will not broadcast the exact date and time of the drill. It may say something like, you know, in the next week we are scheduled to have a drill or something like that. You know, I leave that to the Office of Safety and Security Services for all those details. But this is a new requirement. And so parents will be receiving that communication. The second statutory change is at the top of the next page. And this relates to pre-K and kindergarten students, our youngest learners. There is a new. I don't know if you want to call

260it exemption, but there is some new latitude in the law that says that pre-K students and kindergarten students are exempt from the lockdown or secure the building drills during the first 60 days of school. So while these students are really getting used to school and they're getting used to their surroundings and their school year, even if the older students have these drills, which they are required to have them within the first 60 days, our youngest learners will be exempt from those. However, there is still one lockdown secure the building drill required by the state after the first 60 days. And so these younger students would participate in that one, but not at the beginning of the year while they are getting acclimated to everything. Finally, the last sentence of the policy is just also a

261new requirement in the law 22.1-137.3. For those of you who are interested in that is merely to say we are required to provide training. I know for the threat response training for our staff, the online training qualifies for that. The students obviously receive training and have these drills as well, but we are required to spell it out that we are providing the training. And we are ready for questions on the final policy. I have Miss Gentry. Hi, thanks. So just one thought that occurred to me when Ms. Averzese was saying that the 20 school days clock starts as soon as you start with the in-person instruction again. You know, we obviously don't know exactly what we're going to do, but I've certainly heard that one of the ways that some people are thinking about doing

262this is that, you know, maybe just a much, much smaller group of people is coming back. I guess my question is, is that, you know, if we did that, I understand that that maybe smaller group would get their drill. But if later in the year, the larger, you know, school group was going to come back, you know, would we have to, we might need to think about having an additional drill when we come back. It's also I'm thinking, hmm, you know, if we do a hybrid, if, you know, again, this is, you know, some people are, you know, you know, one group of students come on certain days and another group come on another days. Maybe we might need to have two sets of drills. So I don't think it's anything that we need to

263actually reflect in this policy. But it did just give me pause and make me think this could potentially be. One more fun, exciting, additional bit of work that might come about in this very bizarre year. Just we might need to do far more drills than we might have normally done beyond the legal requirements. Right, right. And it's an excellent point. And fortunately for us to be able to adapt for this year, the way the law is written and the way it's reflected in our policy is that these are minimums. So we are required to have at least this number, but we can certainly have more. I know Mr. Contreras is on the line, and I know that he has carefully worked out a schedule of drills with the Alexandria Fire Department, and I'm sure the

264police department as well. And I'm sure they will be revisiting it if it needs to be adjusted at all. But I'd certainly like to let him address that, because I know they've definitely thought about this. Yes, thank you. We can certainly tailor. the drills as needed, but we can also make sure that as kids return, as students return to the schools, we, the way that, the way we won't restart the two hour, the two drills within 20 days clock, but we can all, they can easily fall in to the schedule, wherever the schedule is. If they return in November, we can, we can make sure that they, that the schools follow the, the drill plan. starting in November. If they come back in January, the same thing. So we'll catch them up, but we won't

265do extra just to catch them up. We'll make sure that they have the sufficient amount of instruction and training and drilling when they return. Thanks. Mr. Suarez? Thank you, Chair Anderson, and thank you, Ms. Ambrosisi, for giving us all these policies and running through all of them. I have sort of more of a global question, sort of a procedural question. So it seems like, you know, in light of the pandemic, the way procedural release would work is we'd adopt these policies for 2021, but then we'd revert back to some non-COVID policies after the pandemic ends. And so that sort of begs a couple of questions that I just thought we might want to think about. One is, you've obviously put a lot of work into this and all of these policies sort of relate to

266public health emergencies generally. So I almost wonder if these policies should be their own entity in and of themselves that, you know, when there's a public health emergency, these are the policies. So that this work is memorialized and, you know, is there to draw from in the future. I hope there's not another pandemic for another. hundred or a thousand years, but who knows, you know, we just don't know. So, so this is just a lot of work that we'd want to memorialize. That's, that's one thought. And so I'm curious how procedurally this works. It just seems weird to like tweak the policies a year and then tweak them back, you know, the same policies. That's number one. Number two is. It's sort of relating to our equity policy audit that we're undertaking this year. Like,

267I feel like the policies we're going to want to submit for that evaluation are not going to be the COVID policies because they're temporary policies and they have all these other things that are not normally part of the school division. So I'm just trying to think about if we change the policies now to include all this COVID specific language, is that really what we want to be, you know, evaluating for purposes of this equity audit? for policy. So I'm just curious what your thoughts are on those. Like, you know, obviously we need to comply with the law and, and, and be aligned with all the statutes and stuff, but I'm just curious what your thoughts and reactions are to that. No, those are great questions. The way I had before your question, the way I

268have envisioned it working is that on the 10th, these policy changes would be up for adoption by the board. They would continue throughout this year. And then, you know, if we are going back to school in fully in-person learning next fall or even before that. you know, if they needed to revert and these specific provisions that are in here now kind of time out, then we could strike those provisions via board brief. You know, I tried this time to really put the COVID specific language at the very front of each document so it could also be easily removed and, you know, you can publicly do that. You know, because they are written to timeout, they're clear that they only apply for this one year. And so you could strike them by a board brief, just

269those provisions, once they're no longer in effect. So that's the way I had imagined it, so that you're not constantly revising, adopting, you know, just for one year. But your idea of, you know, kind of... warehousing them all together in one spot and then, you know, they're just triggered if X happens. You know, that's a really interesting, it's a really interesting thought. I want to, I'd like to really think about how we would do that. And the idea of memorializing them is really valuable. I think for our purposes at the moment. If you had to ask me this moment, I think my recommendation would be to continue with the current plan and at least approve these provisions on the 10th so that they are all in place at the beginning of our year. But I

270do think that if the board determines that they want to go about this in another way, I'm definitely open to suggestions and we could tweak it procedurally for sure. Yeah, and I wouldn't want to forestall, you know, implementation of anything. I'm just kind of curious from like a longer term perspective if that would be useful. No, it's a, your point is well taken because on, you know, for instance, the grading policy. I'm sure when you were reviewing it, you saw that at the front of the grading regulation. Now I had the provisions for just this year and the tail end of the grading revision, the grading regulation was all strikethrough because it was the provisions from last year where we said we weren't awarding grades. So, you know, your points well taken. Great. Ms. Johnson.

271Okay. My computer, my. camera's right here, but I have the monitor over here, so I'm trying to focus on it, but in new, my friend from New York, in her school system, she had, like, a problem with, within her school system of, like, outsiders hijacking classrooms, like, on Zoom and, like, online during, during classes, and There's no like policy. There's no like official policy or like drill to know like what to let students know what they're supposed to do in like a moment where they're like if their classroom is being hijacked or anything. But, um, I just wanted to know if like if it was if something was said about it before they're like, um, how do I say it? Like if there's a, um, if there's something that we should know what to do

272if we get in like that situation or is there something written down in like the policies that talk about that or yeah. No, that is a great question. I know that was a really big concern for schools all across the country last year, the Zoom bombing, so to speak. But I see that our indomitable Dr. Hoover's on the line, so I'm going to let her address that. Thank you. Sorry, it took me a moment. Well, a lot has changed, even with the Zoom application and the security that we have put on. Your teachers have gone through, or today and tomorrow, they're going through a lot of training that shows them exactly how to set up their Zoom classes to avoid those situations. The passwords have been encrypted, so we shouldn't have those problems. We had,

273I think last year, over at one point right before spring break, I think we had almost 5,000 Zoom sessions. So we had less than five issues with Zoom. And that was before all the extra security. So, you know, we're doing the best we can as far as using the technology well and teaching the teachers how to use it and avoiding students sharing passwords because that's really what happens. It's more than the technology application. It's actually user error or... Just maybe discipline issues. So I think we're in a good place for that. And so we do everything we can. I can't promise we won't have issues or something won't happen. But, you know, it's just really also a classroom management issue. And it falls under discipline and the same sort of things that would fall. You

274know, you have to address in a virtual world as you do a physical world. OK, anything else? Anyone else have any questions? If not, it looks like we might be done. We might be done, everyone, for today. But we have another meeting tomorrow. We will see each other tomorrow at noon for a closed session. I mean, we have to call them. We're going to, I guess, have to have the two meetings, even though, because we have to call the regular meeting, go to the close, come back. But then I will see you there. Everybody have a good evening. Dr. Ajit. Thank you.