001Yeah, okay. All right, everyone. Welcome. This is the virtual school board meeting ACPS school board meeting for September 17 2020 and we're calling the meeting to order at 335. And I'm going to do the roll call so when I call your name, please indicate that you're here Cindy Anderson here, Veronica Nolan here and just you know Megan Alderson's in the waiting room. Oh, Megan's in the waiting room everybody. Okay, I'll come back to her name. Just a second. Here. Margaret Lorber. Here. Michelle Reeve. Here. Christopher Suarez. Here. Heather Thornton. Here. And Megan Alderton is being moved over, so she is here. We're going to count her here. So everybody except for Ms. Gentry is away on a family emergency. So may I have a motion to adopt the agenda? Madam Chair, I move we adopt.
002Go ahead, Margaret. I move we adopt the agenda for this evening. Second. Okay, Mr. Suarez seconds Ms. Lorber's motion to adopt the agenda. I will call for a vote on that. And sorry, Dr. Adjings is texting about the closed session. So Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Did she make it over? She's in the closed session already. Oh, okay. I see. Jacinta Green. All right. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. So that's seven in favor of approving the agenda. And now. Ms. Lorber, if you could read what I sent you, that would be great. Okay. Madam Chair, I move that the Board convene a closed meeting pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3711-A7 for consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members or consultants pertaining to
003actual or probable litigation, where such consultation or briefing in open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the Board. And... pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3711-A8 for consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel. Second. Ms. Green seconds Ms. Lorber's motion, so I'll call for a vote on that item. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reeve? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. And that's seven, four and two absent for that vote, that particular vote. Okay, so now we need to find the closed session link that was. sent at about 10.02 this morning, if that helps, because that's what I checked for before I got on, and we'll reconvene on
004that side. Thanks. We just need one more. Do we see one? Oh, Megan's here. Okay, Margaret, can you read us out of the closed session, then, please? Okay, Madam Chair. I move that the board certify that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened and are lawfully exempted by the Freedom of Information Act were heard, discussed, or considered by the board in the closed meeting held on September 17th, 2020. Second. Ms. Green seconds Ms. Lorber's motion, so I'm going to call for a vote on it. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan may not be on yet. She's joining. I'll come back. Megan Alderton? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reif? Michelle Reif? Oh, I guess I'm not hearing her very
005well. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Heather's having a problem. Heather's stuck on the, oh, there she is. I'm here now. Okay. Can I get a yes or no? A yes? Okay. Thank you. All right. And there's Veronica. How about Veronica, you want to give us a vote on the certification? You want to give us a yes, but you're muted. Yes. Okay, super. We have eight yeses and one absent. So we can move on now. And the next thing on the agenda is actually our moment of silence. Okay, next up we have our communications and there are some communications that are attached to our agenda today. And then also going forward, we're going to have the written comments, but also we're going to be able to have up to 30 minutes of virtual comments. That's going
006to be a change from our summer plan, which was, you know, very different. So just so people know that. And next up is our reports from our student reps. So you all can take it away. Either Ashley or Lorraine. Oh, there's Lorraine. Hi, everybody. How are you guys doing today? Good. Okay. Well, good evening, everybody. My student report tonight is going to be about student input and engagement, especially for our elementary school students. I empathize 100,000% with the struggle of virtual learning at their age, and I also empathize with the struggle of teaching virtually. with students at that age. Expecting a five-year-old to learn attentively on the computer for six hours is a setup. And even expecting a 10-year-old to learn attentively on the computer for six hours is a setup. When I was that
007age during instruction, I was the type of student who would always get up to stretch or get a drink of water or sharpen my pencil, tie my shoe, anything just to... get moving and get active while I was in class. I was thinking about the best way for Ashley and I to connect with our elementary school students and our middle school students and I came up with two proposals. My first proposal was to maybe talk with the director of student support, Mr. Sampson, about putting together a SEAL lesson or a SEAL activity for them to do in the morning since for the first 30 minutes of of their schedule, it's devoted to SEAL. And from my understanding, SEAL activities deal with social and emotional support and social and emotional learning. So I think that seeing
008a student face or having a student leading these activities and discussions will be stimulating and refreshing for the elementary school and middle school students to see like one of their own actually like leading different support, emotional support. activities. My second proposal focuses more on students being in the loop when it comes to the community. I wanted to ask some counselors or the principals from each elementary school to select a fourth or fifth grader to participate in monthly meetings that would be led by Ashley and I. And in these meetings, Ashley and I would briefly let them know what's going on with what the school board is focusing on that month. And in return, they'll tell us about their concerns and important things that are going on within their classroom and within their school so that
009we know how to give our reports. that like cater to elementary school students and middle school students as well instead of just the high school portion and due to the pandemic Ashley and I aren't able to interact with these students the way we want to but we're not going to let that stop us from interacting at all so that that was my proposal thank you so much for listening thank you All right, so thank you so much Lorraine and good afternoon everyone. So as we know last week was the commencement of the virtual school year so we kick-started the year with some events for the seniors specifically. So we had the last first day at the Chinquapin Circle right around like 5 or 6 p.m. so that was a really fun event. for the seniors
010so they could, you know, socialize with their friends that they haven't been seeing, that haven't seen in a couple months. We had the senior sunrise at the Masonic Temple, which was this Monday. And also we have the handprint on the senior rock, which is something that's currently still happening. And, you know, given the circumstances of this school year, you know, the class of 2021 officers and everyone are making sure to create a fun filled and safe school year for students. So Lauren and I just kind of wanted to say thank you to everyone that's involved with planning and ensuring that all students, especially seniors, have something this year. And for during this second week of school, clubs have started virtually to gather. organized. One club, for instance, which Lauren and I both participate in is
011the Black Student Union. So we had our first official meeting yesterday with a successful turnout of members from all four grade levels. And hopefully with BSU, we're hoping to have discussions that center around those very intentional, meaningful conversations that we wish to have. Many other clubs, such as Key Club, Best Buddies, and the Titan Robotics team have also started to meet virtually as well. And we hope to see more clubs to begin having those virtual Zoom meetings. And last Thursday, Lorraine and I published an article through filling in the blanks in the Alexandria Times with Dr. Hutchings. And to just briefly speak on that, we wish for educators, community members, and especially students to engage with us in these intentional, meaningful discussions that will begin in the coming months. So Lorraine and I also wanted
012to say thank you to Dr. Hutchings, Ms. Virgles, and everyone else who made it. this possible. And if you ever get a chance, please read the article. And as Lorraine mentioned, we're currently working on establishing connections with the middle school representatives to get an insight on each of the middle schools and hear their student perspective as well. And we're hoping to establish a connection also with the elementary schools because it's so important to hear what they have to say too. And thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sanchez. I'll get it eventually. Sorry. Thank you. And Ms. Johnson. Now we're moving on to our consent calendar for this afternoon. If I could get a motion. Madam Chair, I move we adopt the consent calendar for today's meeting. Second. Ms. Lorber seconds Ms. Alderton's motion to approve the
013consent calendar. Is there anything to pull? There's nothing to pull. I'll ask. Yes. I'd like to pull the budget calendar. The budget calendar? Okay. All right. And I don't guess there's really anything that we need to do because we're not using our technology. So let's go ahead and we will. vote on the rest of it without the consent, without the budget calendar on there. So I will call for the vote. Is there anything else to pull for anybody? Okay. If not, then I'm going to call on the consent calendar for everything except for the budget calendar. So Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Werber? I think it might be me. Margaret? I'm here. Yes. Yes. For the consent calendar. My mind was wandering. Yes. Michelle Reeve. Yes. Christopher
014Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. So that's eight yes and one absent. As I said earlier, Ms. Gentry is out of town on a family emergency. So next we will talk about the budget calendar. And so Ms. Green, since you pulled it, if you can start. Thank you so much, Chair Anderson. And first and foremost, I do want to thank Mr. Turner, Mr. Easley, and the team for all the hard work that goes into the budget calendar process each and every year. I do want to say I am disappointed, and I won't beat a dead horse, but I am disappointed that for the third year budget season as a board, we have talked about having an alternative calendar come before us. which did not happen this year. But I am very optimistic with the words
015that Dr. Huckings did say last week that we will be looking into that further with the city and I hope I truly hope that this third time asking is a charm in making that happen. And I do want to thank Ms. Thornton for bringing this issue up again, because it is an issue where multiple board members are very, very serious about wanting this to happen. So I truly am looking forward to this process moving forward and more work being done to make that happen for the next budget process. So anybody else? Let me see. Oh, I see Dr. E. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for bringing that up, Ms. Green, because I know Chair Anderson had shared with us a memo that was put together by the BFAC and the BAC, which are the Budget Advisory
016Committees for our city council and the school board. And I had also went to look up to try to see what was discussed in those meetings. And I found that memo as well as one, you know, going back to 2017. So I know that this issue has been discussed for a long time. I reached out to a member of the back, our budget advisory committee, just to just to kind of hear the perspective about it. And I mean, I think that, you know. As I read the memo, you know, ideally in an ideal situation, the school board would approve our budget before the city manager does present, you know, what he's proposing to council. And so I also, you know, just want to reiterate, this is a great time to really reiterate that. I hope
017we can try to do that next year. I would love to see, have an opportunity to even revisit the budget process a little bit more holistically, not when it's time to like sort of approve the budget. calendar, but maybe at an earlier date, maybe in the spring or something where we can just talk about, you know, what are some of our priorities? Because I guess I kind of get the sense sometimes that the school board members and some of our finance folks are a little bit talking past each other. I'm not sure where the disconnect is happening, but I would just love to really talk through that process a little bit more. I think it would be helpful and it would be interesting to look at what some other school divisions are doing as well.
018And maybe that's a role that the budget advisory committee could support us in because I know that they did reach out to many of us, I think all of us to meet with them and talk about what their role is in terms of working with the board. So I just wanted to kind of add my thoughts after having a little bit more time to reflect on it. Okay, great. Ms. Thornton. Thank you, Madam Chair. And just again, thank you to Ms. Green for bringing this up and pulling it from the consent calendar. I think if we just think about lessons learned from this go around, and I too was a little bit disappointed that we were not able to see other alternatives this iteration. But I think, you know, beginning the conversation much earlier is
019for me a lesson learned. And, you know, I think back to when we had the first kind of presentation of the draft calendar in July. I'm wondering if that might be the best time thinking about next year to talk about alternatives, because definitely, you know, when it's time to approve the budget calendar, I understand that that is definitely a time crunch. It is not possible at that point. But I think definitely, again, from your lesson learned is earlier is better. And I'm hoping that, you know, this is definitely seen as a priority for next year. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. If there's, if there are any other, I don't see anybody else with their, oh, was, oh, Dr. Hutchings wants to speak. I just want to say that it definitely will be a priority. We
020will be bringing this to the board. Some alternatives in June is our goal to make sure that we have alternatives as well as implications for either option so that the board can make a decision prior to us even going. into the budget process. So I think that we won't have this issue in the future and we'll be able to make sure that we're having the discussion earlier so it's not a time crunch. It does afford us the opportunity to talk through. Great, thank you. Okay, so now if I could get a motion to approve the budget calendar separately, that's what we need to do, get it done. Madam Chair, I move that we approve the budget calendar for the, is that SY 2021 school year? Yeah, the FYS. I'm sorry, but it's FY21-22. Yeah, it's
021the FY2022. Yeah, the fiscal year 2022. Yeah. And so do I have a second? Second. Ms. Lorber seconds Ms. Alderton's motion, so I'll call for a vote on that. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Jacinta Green? No. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Michelle Reif? No. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? No. Okay, so that's, we have one down. So that's three no's and five yes's. So it passes. And let's see. Next we have. All right, next we're on to old business. And the first thing up is the request to rename Matthew Murray Elementary. And I have Ms. Abruzzese as the contact person on that. So Ms. Abruzzese, would you like to introduce this? Sure. Thank you, Chair. We wanted to just notify the public and bring to the board's attention the fact that the board
022did receive a petition to rename Matthew Maury Elementary School. It has the requisite 100 signatures. I believe Susan is going to share her screen so she can scroll through the application request and the signatures. It is up now for board discussion. Okay, wait for the sharing of the screen. And, you know, we, as I say, we don't need, people don't feel, they don't feel the need that we have to have a lot of discussion because there'll be other steps. This is sort of a, you know, a first step. And... We do have, we posted a motion to, as a guide for people. So for board members, if, you know, someone wants to speak or if they want to just make the motion to move ahead with the renaming process, that would also be fine. We
023are running a little bit behind already today. So anyone? Madam Chair, I'm happy to make the motion if there is no discussion. We can ask, you can make the motion and we can ask for discussion before I take the vote anyway. Okay. Madam Chair, I move pursuant to Section 3B of Regulation FFR that the school board officially consider the request to rename Matthew Maury Elementary School. Accordingly, the school board hereby empowers the superintendent to initiate the public engagement process outlined in Section 1 of the regulation to solicit community feedback and possible nominations for the renaming of Matthew Maury Elementary School. Second. Ms. Lorber seconds Ms. Nolan's motion. And is there any other, if there's no discussion, then I will call for a vote on it. And I don't see anybody's hands. So, oh, Dr. Reeve?
024Yeah, I know. I just, I felt compelled to really just thank those who submitted the petition. I think that, you know, this is definitely a time of reckoning for some of these names on our schools and in our streets and all of that kind of thing. And so I really appreciate this opportunity to have this conversation. And because we are having it about our high school name as well, I think it's, it's a really, it's a good opportunity to do so. So I'm in support of it. Okay, great. All right, as I say, there will be other chances to say something about this and some community will wait to hear from Dr. Hutchings exactly what might be. be planned for this. So I will call for the vote now on this motion. Cindy Anderson, yes.
025Veronica Nolan, yes. Megan Alterton, yes. Jacinta Green, yes. Margaret Lorber, yes. Michelle Reeve, yes. Christopher Suarez, yes. And Heather Thornton, yes. So that's eight yes and one absent. And so now... We go on to actually hearing from Dr. Hutchings on this topic. Yes. So thank you, Madam Chair. And now that the board has adopted that and said, hey, we're going to move forward, we are definitely prepared to couple this Matthew Morey renaming with the TC renaming process because we already have that in place. And we shared with the board a timeline and the community engagement plan in regards to that. So what we are going to now do. Now that the board is giving us the authority to be able to move forward with Matthew Morris renaming process to refine our plan so that we're
026including Matthew Murray in this work. And one thing that, you know, before we were calling it kind of the TC project or the TC renaming, now this is more than just one school. So we're going to rename this whole process now of more of an identity project of Alexandria City Public Schools, just so that it allows us to talk more than just about even just the renaming piece, because the Redent is talking about the history of ACPS, as well as some of the systemic racism that has happened in ACPS. and currently happening in our schools. But I do know that we have a committee that's already working towards the work that we were doing for TC. And now we're just going to refine that plan. And I don't know if Ms. Burgos had anything to
027add to that because she is chairing or leading these efforts. Sure. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. And I think we knew that you were considering this, and that's what we sort of thought about. And we pitched that to Dr. Hutchings about changing to the identity project, knowing that it's larger than name changes. It's larger than school name changes. It's more about our strategic plan and our combating systemic racism. So we actually worked with the school board representatives. Thank you to Ashley Lorraine. They helped us to refine that as well. We've been engaging them in every stage of this process. And so that's been fantastic. They're actually working with Gregory Baldwin on the student chats that we have scheduled. And so we're firming up those dates. We also have our community chats that we're firming updates with
028and the community members that are going to be hosting those chats. And of course, we have the readings that we have already scheduled. We'll start on September 24th. So we are well into the process. We have our webpage. We promoted it this week in our express. One of the things that our committee that we've been working with has talked about was if the board decided to move forward with the Maury name change that. we would incorporate that in addition to the curriculum that's being developed by Sarah Whalen and her team to put, we're going to have like a four-week curriculum series with our students around really the history of Alexandria. And then, so it was very easy to put in this piece as well. So the way that we've sort of designed the program was
029really beyond just TC. We wanted to make sure that we were talking about the history of Alexandria as well as how that has affected schools, the policies of practice and so on. So at this point, we'll be able to add on this piece and make sure. And of course, one of the things that we talked about was. which is something we're still figuring out how we're going to do is to engage our little ones, right? So it's an elementary school, but we want to make sure that we are able to share with them the why, why their school is being changed, but school name is being changed if it's changed and to really hear from them about their voices and concerns about it as well. So we are talking about that with Sarah Whalen and
030how we do those curriculum pieces to make sure that they are. aware and that we also involve their families since they're younger a little more sensitive and so we want to make sure they don't feel like their the school name is changed they never knew why or how that was done so we're talking more about that knowing that the school board was going to be considering that this evening. Great. Thank you so much. We look forward to being involved in that. Madam Chair? Yes, Dr. Hutchinson. So we will be sharing next Friday a board brief to actually outline because the initial plan that we shared with the board, it was the draft plan. And there has been some revisions with actual names of different engagement times and dates because we did not have the dates
031prior. So we are going to provide the actual final draft or final plan, excuse me, for the engagement piece for the board and the community next week. Great. Thank you very much. Next up, we're moving on again in the interest of time. We're a little behind today. Next up is the review of the ACPS, Alexandria Police Department MOU. And so back to you, Dr. Hutchings. So thank you, Madam Chair. And I am going to turn things over to Dr. Wilkins and Dr. Hart, and Mr. Contreras, to introduce our timeline as well as our plan to revisit the Alexandria Police Department Memorandum of Understanding. So at this time, I'll turn things over to Dr. Wilkins. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. We'll immediately go to John Contreras to go ahead and upload his presentation and to begin. Great.
032Can you guys hear me okay? Okay, good, good. Thank you, Chair Anderson. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, school board. I want to start by recognizing a couple of distinguished guests that we have with us today. Assistant Chief Don Hayes is on. I think I saw him on there. And we do have Captain Shannon Soriano from both from the Alexandria Police Department there with us today. Thank you both for being with us today. I'm going to briefly go over the ACPS process to renew the ACPS Alexandria Police Department 2018 MOU. And then we'll address any questions at the end. You can go to the next slide, please. You can go ahead and go to the next slide. Yeah, I'm having a little trouble here. While we're waiting for the next slide, it's really a short
033brief, so I'll go ahead and start. There you go. So state legislation requires a review of the MOU with local law enforcement agencies every two years, and the following is what our review process will look like. The MOU between ACPS and AAPD. Signing in 2018 will be reviewed by a committee. Committee members include the policy and board initiatives director, school and community relations, student services and equity, the office of communications, safety and security services, the chief of staff, and of course the Alexandria Police Department. The committee will ensure that the new MOU complies with recent Virginia law changes where applicable. The committee will share and publicize the current 2018 MOU and provide a survey to ensure the greater Alexandria community has the opportunity to provide feedback. And that is already up on the school board
034website. The release of the current MOU and the survey starts the public comment period. The review period will actually last through October, October 31, 2020. The committee will collect community input via the survey and a very important public hearing on October 1st and consider this feedback in the formulation of the updated MOU and any future addendums to the MOU. The updated MOU will be shared with the school board prior to its actual renewal. And the goal is to have the updated MOU renewed and signed by the chief of police and the superintendent by November 2nd, 2020. So with that, that's really a rundown of what we're going to go through as a committee and open it up to questions at this time. Okay, questions, people? Questions? Ms. Lorber. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you
035still hear me? Yes, we can. Yes. Okay. Yeah. My main question is, in reading the 2018 MOU, like the third provision, paragraph, talks about an evaluation that gets done. And I wanted to know, can we see this? Do these evaluations take place as it says they do every year or every two years? And if so, are they published? I'd like to know how do we get our hands on the evaluation of the program that's gone on for the past couple of years or so? Yes, thank you for asking that. I have been here since the signing of the 2018 memorandum and I do not recall a review period that has occurred. So to my knowledge, a review of the MOU has not occurred until now. Now, having said that, we can, as a school, as
036a committee, as a community, we can review this MOU at any time. We don't have to wait a year. It will be specifically stated that we can review the MOU at any time in the future. Madam Chair, can I do just a follow-up? Question? Sure. Yeah, just again about, I don't understand that. I mean, I read the, it read as though it was a requirement of the MOU that an evaluation takes place. So is it not a requirement of the MOU that an evaluation is carried out? Because it reads that it is a requirement. So, yes, so it does read, yes, so it does read that there is a requirement for us to make sure that we're doing an evaluation. What Mr. Contreras is saying is that that did not occur during his period of
037time he's been on with ACPS. We do have to submit to ACPS, not specifically, you know, We have to, excuse me, to the state, not specifically around this MOU, but we have to submit a report in regards to safety and security and audits and things of that nature that we work with the Alexandria Police Department to do to make sure, you know, we had different infractions or offenses or disciplinary situations that may have occurred that required the Alexandria. Alexandria Police Department to be a part of, we have to submit those types of reports annually to the Virginia Department of Education. But what we are going to have to do as we revise this next MOU is to be very explicit around what we mean by evaluation, what we mean in regards to meeting with the
038staff and APD, what will be the outcome for some of these sessions. And we really just need to be a lot more specific versus generic. like we have been. Now, this particular MOU is, I believe, a little more robust than we had previously, and it is a lot more aligned with the roles and responsibilities of police officers or school resource officers and the role and responsibilities of administration. That was outlined better in this current MOU, but as we go through this evaluation, we are going to have to have some discussions on. do we need to be more specific in the roles and responsibilities of both parties? Next up, we have Dr. Aviv. Great. Well, thank you. I think I just want to make a quick comment on Margaret's question. The legislation, as I understand it,
039about these agreements, they suggest following this model memorandum of understanding that is supplied through the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety. So I suspect that that's where the language that's in this document came from, but it just sounds like we haven't been sort of following through on what's in the MOU. And I just, I guess, and I knew that there was also a legislative change this past. that requires us to have an opportunity for public input in the MOU and requires us to put it on our website. And I'm really thankful for that because I think this is, it presents an opportunity for us to really have a conversation about it. You know, as we all know in the last months of this year, there's been a lot of talk about the pandemic of
040systemic racism and the need for policing reform. And this board has passed a resolution condemning systemic racism. We adopted our strategic plan that really commits us to the pursuit of racial equity and removing barriers to learning. And so that's, I'm kind of approaching this from you know, how does the SRO program fit in with our values and our goals as a school division? And I appreciate when we were talking about the name change, Ms. Burgos was talking about how the name change fits in with, you know, our values and our goals as a school division. you know, because we don't have the data or the evaluation, we don't really have any evidence of the effectiveness of our particular school resource officer program. I, you know, did my own research on, you know, just what national
041data is available. And it seems that, you know, there's not conclusive evidence that SROs really make schools safer. There's actually data that suggests that the presence of SROs is associated with more suspensions. This is a goal, you know, reducing disproportionality and suspensions that we've identified in our strategic plan. And the discipline data is one data point that we have that we can look at. And I was looking back to the last report we received last fall. And at that time, there was an increase over the previous year in the number of discipline referrals. There was an increase in the number of suspensions. Black males, Hispanic males, and students with disabilities were also disproportionately suspended at higher rates. And these are groups of students that we are trying to address in our strategic plan, some of
042these disproportionalities. And then the other thing was that the number one cause of suspensions was disruptive behavior, which has been talked about. That's a subjective category. It can be influenced by intrinsic bias. And so, I mean, I wanted to use this opportunity to really raise this, especially to my colleagues. Do we really need SROs in our schools? We've seen in Charlottesville, their school board recently ended their SRO program. It's been eliminated in other school divisions. in the United States. And, you know, we've been hearing from community members also who are telling us that they think we should end this program. We've heard from students. I know some students have reached out to me about how they feel like the SRS created an intimidating environment. And I'm not aware that we have any school climate survey
043data, which I would love to see. I would love to hear the student perspective, you know, from a wide... variety of students about their perceptions of the school resource officer program. And then just the last thing is I know that the funding for the program, it doesn't come out of the ACPS budget. It comes out of the city budget for the police department or the police department's budget. But I've been following the conversation that our city council members have been having about policing reform. And they've been they've asked the city manager to create more 21st century models of policing, which relies more on mental health. supports, social workers, and that kind of thing, which is something that we've also been trying to do as a school board. So I'm thinking, you know, maybe those resources
044could be better spent on these kinds of programs that the city is trying to do. And we can rely on our school security officers because we have dozens of them to handle security in our secondary school buildings. So I'd love to hear from some of my colleagues, you know, your thoughts on that. Well, most of them have their hands up, so you're going to be hearing from them, actually. So next up, we have Ms. Thornton. Thanks, Terry Anderson. And thanks to Dr. Rhee for her comments. They very much are similar to mine. I think the hardest part about this is that. We don't have much to go off on as far as how our program has actually been working, exactly because it seems like we haven't really been following the MOU as intended. And so
045the greatest difficulty with that is that we have to kind of look at trends. And nationally, if Dr. Reif is correct, there's a lot of disproportionality that we're seeing in regards to discipline with our minority students, our black and brown students. And just looking at that data, it's disheartening, especially in light of the current racial reckoning that we're facing as a nation. And so I do appreciate the fact that we are having this conversation. And I do think that this is definitely an opportunity to kind of, as part of our strategic plan, to look at the many kind of systematic issues that we've been having. with this disproportionate discipline. But I think for me, I did want to take a step back and have like a technical question answered. And that I did notice that
046the MOU is officially signed by the superintendent and the Alexandria Police Department. And so I was kind of seeking clarity on the board's role as far as its ability to actually revise parts of the memorandum. Because again, we're not official parties to the MOU. So I guess for me, I am wondering, will we eventually have to have a vote to either approve or not this MOU? Because I did notice on the PowerPoint presentation that it just says that it will be shared with the board, the revised MOU will be shared with the school board prior to renewal. So I'm not sure who's the correct person to direct that question to, but I would love the clarity on that. I can answer a portion of that and Ms. Abbruzzese can assist because we just talked about
047this recently. And first and foremost, it is not The MOU is not a board, the board doesn't take action on the MOU. However, it is my hope that we receive feedback from the board as well as from the community so that we can make an informed decision with that information. That really is what this process is about, this kind of hearing. what the board's perspectives are, what our student perspectives are. We are also in contact with the Alexandria Police Department as well and the community. And that is going to really help us to drive any revisions that need to be made to the MOU. I also just want to make one clear point since I, and first off, Ms. Abbruzzese, did you want to add in to that? No, I was just going to concur
048with you. I was essentially just going to respond to the question about the legal requirement. It is not a legal requirement for the board to vote on the MOU. It's traditionally been signed by the superintendent and the chief of police. The legal requirements are for the school division to conspicuously post the MOU on its website. to announce to the public its review period, to review the MOU at least every two years, and to provide opportunities for public input and public comment during that review period. And one point I just wanted to add, thank you, Ms. Abbruzzese, was that I want to make sure that we don't associate the SROs with discipline because those are two different topics and I don't want us to start to confuse the community and make them think that police officers
049have an impact on our suspensions or because that is not the case. This MOU was actually to prevent things like that. Now other school divisions do have situations like that but our MOU was specifically put in place and defined the roles of school resource officers and the school administration so that they do not have any authority in regards to detention, suspension, or anything of that nature. So I just want to make that clear. And that data that we have in regards to discipline is very concerning, but that's an issue that we need to talk about with our staff. It's not a police issue. That is something we need to deal with. in-house and what our culture is within our schools and how we're sending students out and why we're sending students out. And that is
050something that we're going to need to work through with ACPS employees. So I just wanted to make that distinction so that, you know, people can understand policing doesn't cause our discipline to go up. We... internally have practices and we also have policies that we need to, I'm glad we're doing these equity policies that are causing the results that we're seeing with that discipline component. Okay. Ms. Alderton. Yeah, actually, it's funny. I'm coming in on the heels of Dr. Hutchings because that was exactly what I wanted to say. I think in all of this consideration and the things that, you know, I'm glad we are focusing on community input around this issue, you know, surveying, all those things are very important. I think it's very important, however, to be clear on, you know, the discipline issues,
051the disproportionate. disproportionality issues for ACPS, I will say, are not related to the SROs. I think I don't want the community to assume that getting rid of SROs or changing things with SROs is going to change that particular issue. That is an issue that we have to deal with as a division. kids are being put out of class by teachers, not SROs. And so we need to make sure that we address that simultaneously in order to deal with those issues. I also just would urge us in this discussion to remember that relativity matters. I go into DC schools quite a bit. I go into some schools where there are actual metal detectors and police officers are standing at the front, you know, making sure kids aren't bringing them weapons. That is not the environment that
052we have in ACPS. And so I think, again, relativity matters and just being clear on what our culture is in ACPS and not connecting that to cultures in divisions outside of ours because culture does matter. So I just wanted to clarify that point as well. If we're going to address... Some of the issues that I think we're concerned about as we address the issues with SROs, then that a lot of that also means addressing staff behavior to change what it is we're trying to change. Ms. Nolan? Thank you so much, Chair Anderson. And I'm really excited. I'm following on the heels of Board Member Alderton and Dr. Hutchings because I have some similar comments. In fact, I wanted to just give some context and then make three points. First off, I also just want to
053take a moment to thank our two guests, Assistant Chief Don Hayes, as well as Captain Soriano. Thank you so much for your service and all you do for this community. And thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule serving our community to join the school board today. So welcome and thank you. I just wanted to start off by just giving a little bit of context. So I've had an extraordinary amount of interactions with the Sheriff's Department and Police Department in the last particularly decade. Number one, I ran a nonprofit here in Alexandria and was on several committees. Number two, as a school board member, I've had several dealings, including one of my most enjoyable moments as a school board member was participating in the gang task force. Also, just as a mom volunteer,
054as I'm sure many of us have been, I actually have been on a jury where it was a very heavy, serious case that I got. tons of feedback and interactions with police officers who are witnesses. And so just in the last decade or so, I have said numerous times to so many people how I actually think our police department is one of the best parts of Alexandria. In fact, if anyone, I'm sure a lot of folks on the screen are familiar with how policing gets done, and I really think people should be across the nation coming to Alexandria on clipboards, kind of taking notice of how do we in Alexandria do it differently. So, for example, just a few things I wanted to share, three points I wanted to make. So, number one, really appreciate
055the fact that. Board Member Alderton and Dr. Hutchings brought up that in Alexandria alone, in ACPS, our causal relationship with suspensions is not related to SROs. Similar to Board Member Alderton, you know, my career is primarily in both Baltimore City Schools and D.C. public schools, and I have a bit of dabbling in Chicago public schools, and that is a very different environment, and oftentimes when the national statistics are in discussions about SROs, they're talking about a situation like that, not what we have in Alexandria. So just one to make sure that number one we are understanding of the causal relationship does not exist here in ACPS and the point of relativity so thank you so much for sharing that board member Alderton and again like what I said is that the second point I want
056to make which I already stated was that the community policing that we do have within Alexandria I think is ideal and I just want to give a few examples and my third and final point is what do I mean by community policing so number one when the COVID crisis hit, our sheriff's department and those that work for that department were our number one force of volunteers in the beginning with our food distribution. So that's an example of where ACPS and law enforcement comes together for the positive good of our community. Number two is that oftentimes, I'm sure many of us have seen police officers, you know, being reading partners, mentors, buddies within the elementary schools. And so I've been in a number of volunteer situations alongside police officers that are really motivating and allowing young
057people to see that law enforcement is positive and is there for them, which is one of the biggest reasons for SROs within school systems. And the other thing I want to make sure people are aware of is that RSROs, as the TC school board liaison, when I was often walking the halls and also as someone who is a mom to a senior who just graduated from TC, when I walk into the halls and see the CROs in action at TC, they're always high-fiving someone, they're joking with someone, people are coming up and approaching them. In fact, I recently spoke to an African-American man who lives in public housing here in Alexandria. We were talking about this very police force situation. He said, well, thank God at least everyone in the community knows the CROs in
058TC. At least we're not going to have that issue because people are so aware of the good they did. And I thought to myself, I really hope that is the case. RSROs at TC Williams started an after-school soccer club for immigrant students. That is oftentimes the students in the soccer club. It's the only outdoor activity and after-club they're a part of. They also, the police force, I'm sure we're all aware, are the ones that sell Christmas trees at Amtrak so that our low-income students get to go to a sleepaway camp during the summer. And in fact, I know a number of students that have gotten to be the recipients of that sleepaway camp, and their mothers have shared with me that it is the only time, typically, that their students have gotten to go outside
059of the city of Alexandria and be in the woods and camping and things of that nature. We also have one of our police officers that I know for a fact goes to 7-Eleven and purchases a number of gift cards. for Slurpees and lets elementary school kids know that for every X number of books that you read, that they're going to get a free Slurpee. And sometimes he himself is the very one handing out books. So those are just a few. I've got lots of other examples of things that I've just had the pleasure of being a partner of, but I just want to make sure we're not just looking at the nation and what's going on. And there are a lot of communities that do need to revisit this and make sure that. They are
060ensuring that this is a safety issue, but we are exceptionally fortunate in Alexandria that this is something, thanks to the leadership of both Sheriff Lawhorn and Chief Brown and so many that work with them, that we don't have the situation that so many other communities. So I want to make sure that we're not allowing political wins to take away resources from the very young people that we all care about, because that's where I see our SROs focused on. So just wanted to share some of my feedback and thoughts as we promote. move forward with the conversation. Thank you so much and I apologize that that took longer than I was hoping for. Thank you, Ms. Nolan. Mr. Suarez? Thank you, Chair Anderson, and thank you to my colleagues. I really appreciate the robust discussion and
061I will candidly say I agree with aspects of what everyone has said. I will say just on the front end, this is a significant issue nationally. It's a significant issue locally because there's a national reckoning around race in this country, a national reckoning around policing. And I will say I have heard from a lot of students who are seriously concerned about the presence of officers in our buildings. And look, I come from a family where my own parent was a police officer. So I respect police. I respect what the police are doing. I totally hear what... we're saying in terms of all the good things the police are doing in our schools. And I want to acknowledge that. But with that being said, I want to be very candid and blunt and recognize that something
062that Dr. Hutchings said, which is that, yes, this MOU was better than the last one and that it's a little more specific, but it's still really vague. It still has a lot of language that is really troubling. Like as an example. You know, under the investigation section, SROs have the authority to question students who may have information about criminal activity. They have the authority to stop, question, interview, and take law enforcement action without any authorization of the school administration or contacting parents. Like, language like that is giving really extremely broad latitude to the SROs. I'm sure many of them are good, and I'm sure they're doing a lot of great things, but I guess the point I'm making is that this review, I think, has to be taken very, very seriously, and we have to
063really look at the language in this and get down into the weeds of what... to the extent we keep this agreement, what we really want our officers role to be and be crystal clear and align with our policies. We have now adopted a strategic plan where racial equity is the lens to which everything we do. And to Ms. Thornton's point, we don't really have clear data on this. I've heard a lot of anecdotes, they're not the cause of any of our disproportionality, but I don't know that. Like we don't actually have data that says that one way or the other. So I think we need to be honest with ourselves about, you know, what is the information that we have and how are we going to be able to use that to make an effective
064decision? So, you know, to the extent we are evaluating this agreement, I think we need to really think about what is the data that we need to assess the role of our SROs in this agreement going forward and what is the data we need to ensure that. restorative practices, which is, you know, discussing this agreement is at the heart of what we do. Because to Dr. Reif's point, you know, there are school boards that are having these conversations about, you know, are we going to eliminate police from our schools so that we can use that money, you know, for restorative practices, for some of these other things that we care about so much. And I will say very candidly that we um you know struggle every budget cycle when we're talking you know where we
065want to add more maybe resources for restorative practices or or do more to affirmatively promote some of those those things in our schools and we're kind of penny pinching there so you know i i i just i i i want to have an understanding of how you know how much the city because i know we're not spending money on the police but but you know how much the city is spending on on our sros um you know If we were to apportion that money differently, what would that look like? And what could we be doing to promote the PBIS and the positive practices? Because the reality is that we have had the program and there still is a lot of disciplinary disproportionality that's happening in our schools. And again, I'm not saying it is the
066cost. I'm not saying that because, again, we don't have the data. But I want to make sure that. We, you know, go through this review process with fidelity and really scrutinize every single word in this document and make sure it's it's hewing, you know, very narrowly to circumscribe the roles so that we know whether the SROs are the problem, whether the teachers are the problem, whether there's other elements of school culture that are problem. as a result of policies this board is pursuing, like we need to understand where the problems are so that we can address them. So I want to validate everything all my colleagues have said, because I agree with all of your points on some level, but I just want to make sure this process is done with fidelity. And that gets
067me to the last point, which is to the question about the board's role here. Like, I understand that as a legal process standpoint, that We are not going to play the role of micromanaging and tweaking words of this agreement, which is why I'm emphasizing I really hope we take a close look at this and do this. But, you know, as I read the agreement, you know, the board always does have the authority to take action to rescind the agreement with 45 days notice. And I'm not saying this is a threat at all because I, you know, I again, I have police in my family. I respect police, you know, but. This is a really important conversation right now. And I think that we have to take this responsibility in a very solemn way, in a
068very serious way. And I hope that we can all come together, the police department, the school, and everyone, and really think critically about what is the proper role of everyone. Again, through that lens of racial equity, through the lens of the strategic plan. what is the data that we're going to need to make sure that we're able to examine the root causes of some of these issues. Next up, I have Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair Anderson. I have so many questions, but I'll try and limit myself here. My first question is to Mr. Contreras or whoever wants to answer. As far as the... authority of the SROs in our schools. Is there any training that takes place for our teachers and administrators around that? Is the question, is there training for teachers and who else?
069Administrators in our schools. Okay. There is required training for SROs and that class, that four and a half day course is available for administrators. Now, I don't know how many we have sent over the years, but it's actually not required for administrators, but it is going to be for SROs. For teachers and everyone else that's within the school building that or SRO is present, that is. We leave that up. We have left it up to the administrators to make sure and ensure that each one of them is aware of what's going on and how the MOU works, how the student support teams interact with them. But we can certainly outline and detail that a little bit better on this next version of the MOU. And if I may, Mr. Contreras. Apologize, Dr. Hutchings. Go ahead,
070Dr. Crawford. I was just going to say that, yes, Ms. Green, we go in our administrative meetings. We have gone through responsibilities with the administrators in previous years so that it is clear, because I will tell you, having been involved in the development of this, it was a major push to outline the roles and responsibilities. It is not a police officer's job to tell a student to take their hat off, to address the disrespect or something that's happening in the classroom. that Dr. Reif mentioned, that's not a police issue. So that was emphasized and explained and agreed to when we met with our school administrators to make sure that we have our police officers in the building and that they're being utilized properly. They are police officers as school resource officers. And we, as a
071part of restorative practices, want to embrace the positive relationship building with that authority in the. with that authority in the building. So yes, part of how we do that is communication with our administrators and our secondary, because that's where our SROs are, our secondary principals have been involved in that discussion. And I will tell you, and again, I can tell you from personal experience, when we have a report or someone saying that this is how the SRO was utilized, then we follow up with that administrator to say, you know, this is what we... would expect moving forward. This is not a role of a police officer to be engaged in something that is in fact a school administrator's responsibility because it is discipline which Dr. Hutchings referenced. That's our job and we have to own
072those numbers and we have to change those numbers and if you remove two police officers from T.C. Williams saying that SROs don't belong there just to say that's not going to change our discipline number right away. It's just not, you know, we need to do the equity work, the racial equity that we're talking about with the strategic plan to make a difference in how we have a practice of restorative practices and a positive, safe learning environment in the building. And those disciplinary actions start in the classroom with our own staff members. So yes, and the long answer to your question of are the secondary administrators aware of the MOU and those roles and responsibilities? And they are. Thank you, Dr. Carpenter. And can I follow up, Chair Anderson? Yes. Did someone else want to say
073something about that or no? Yes. Madam Chair, this is Chief Hayes. I would like to also say that we make sure that our officers understand that also from an administrative standpoint, that is not their role. And if we heard about that, we would have addressed it. And I'll be honest with you, I have not heard that being happening in any of the schools. Okay, Ms. Green. Okay. Actually, I was going to ask Chief Hayes that. So thank you, Chief Hayes. And then I have a second question about the establishment of the ACPS APD review committee. Who will be involved with that committee and how active will they be? So Mr. Contreras, I know you mentioned it earlier. You want to go through the specifics, though, the specific people, titles, not next year, but people with
074titles of people. So we have the chief of staff. We have safety and security services, which is myself. We have Captain Soriano, Lieutenant May. Actually, it's very difficult. So I'm just going to, I'm sorry, I'm going to go with names. Jennifer is involved, Ms. Abruzzese. Dr. Hart is involved. Ms. Burgos is involved. Dr. Crawford's involved. Let's see, I don't want to miss anyone because most of them are on this call here. And also recently we've involved the principals themselves. I have actually messaged them myself to include them in this because I need to hear from the schools themselves. They're a resource to me. We are a resource to them. So I want to make sure I capture what their concerns are. So that's basically in a nutshell, everyone involved in this review process. I just
075also wanted to add that Kurt Huffman and Helen Lloyd have also been involved too, since it's a partnership and Helen has been helping us with a lot of the messaging. Yes, and I apologize. I knew I'd forget somebody. I just wanted to mention. Madam Chair, and also to Ms. Green, that the committee is not an official committee. So it's not a committee that's been appointed or, I mean, that's really not the setup. It is really a committee that's supposed to really push our thinking and to even like with some of these questions that are being asked of the board, as well as some of the comments that are going to come from our public comments and how we take that and make sure that. we're using you know all of these different perspectives to make
076the necessary revisions um to an MOU so the the goal is to really have a group of individuals um that are working to kind of like dissect the feedback and to make the recommendations um in regards to revisions that need to happen with the MOU. Thank you Dr. Hutchings. Okay um Ms. Greenery does that cover your questions for now? I had one more, but I can wait till later. Okay. Also, I know I sent some comments and questions in, so we have a little bit of time because it's not until October 1st when we hear even the public hearing. So there's some time so people can continue to share their thoughts. But if you don't mind, I think I'll go on to Ms. Sanchez-Villara to speak. You're almost there. It's Villara. Oh, I know Biafara,
077sorry. I sometimes don't speak very well. Okay, thank you. Miss Sanchez, Biafara. So I just wanted to just say that I think with this process, it's very critical of us to really modify the language in the agreement and to be clear of the purpose of SROs within ACPS because speaking with a lot of students on the secondary level, they're not really sure. of what's the purpose of SRLs. And I feel like with what's been transpiring in the past couple months, people are really, especially youth, they're questioning just the purpose and the role and how officers use their authority when... you know, dealing with situations or altercations. So I just wanted to say it's really essential that throughout this process, we really focus on that community engagement part and in the surveys, because that's really where
078we'll understand and get that input that we really need to modify the language and just ensuring that with the agreement, we really align it with the equity plan and our... goal as a school division of really utilizing restorative practices and having those conversations with students before having a greater, before having another, heading into another step or, leading the participation for officers in the conversation. So just really wanted to say it's really critical to really modify that language in the agreement and be clear of what's the purpose of SROs because many people have a misunderstanding and don't really know what they're doing at our school. Thank you, Ms. Sanchez-Villapara. And actually, I know I have, oh, Mr. Contreras, you wanted to respond to that? No, no, I just wanted to go last. I just wanted to
079go last. You're planning ahead. Okay. I see that there's another handout, but I haven't had a chance and I just wanted to. And it kind of works well after Ms. Sanchez Villaparo because that's one of the things in the comments that I shared with Dr. Hutchings earlier this week is what is the problem we're trying to solve? So I just think it needs to be clear. The other thing I would say is that when I got a chance to meet with Chief Brown as part of a sort of orientation for new board members last year. I was so impressed with the mindset of having, you know, we're trying to keep everyone, you know, really have to justify why someone doesn't receive an alternate program. And I think, so I think the intentions are great. I
080feel like it's where, it's a lack of clarity and a lack of, you know, follow-up and maybe a lack of training because I worry, you know, I met with some students over the summer too, and there were concerning things that I heard. And so I think there's a lot of work that... if this is going to work, a lot of work to be done, you know, that training teachers as not just administrators, because I think also this may be a better MOU than the ones before, but I think there might be some practices, some behaviors that are happening that are not consistent with the current MOU or the spirit of the whole thing. And that doesn't necessarily mean the whole thing is bad. It just means like. the implementation is having an issue. So that's,
081I want to keep my thoughts, you know, my comments brief and I will send more as I think of them, but I already sent some. So now I'll go on to Ms. Alderton, who has something to say. Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually forgot a question that I had, but before I asked that question, Mr. Suarez made a comment about data and, you know, we don't have the data. to say, you know, whether the SROs are an issue in regard to discipline or not. And I just have to say, and I think that's why we have to be very careful about how we have this conversation in that we have it with the right mindset because yeah, we want data. And I think that's where the surveys and the community input will come in. But
082we also, At this point, I believe as a school board should understand that SROs are not writing referrals. Okay. SROs are not suspending kids. So we're not going to, you know, see a correlation with that kind of data to suspension. So, you know, I'm just, again, I think we got to be really clear and careful about how we have this discussion and not. make it very purposeful, which I think is what Mrs. Villafar just shared. My question is in regard to, because I think one of the things I'm most concerned about is the input from staff and the students. So, because I really want to gauge, I've also talked to a couple of students as well, but I really would like a broader picture to really get at, you know, how the students are interacting
083with the SROs, how they're perceiving the SROs. And then also the teachers who were in those buildings, you know, as someone who worked at one of our middle schools and the middle schools have SROs. The relationship that the staff had with our SRO was, you know, awesome. Our SRO was a colleague. And so I think as we grasp all these perspectives, like, again, really getting informed from all angles, I think is really important. So how do we plan to get, I think, solid feedback from especially students and staff? Yes, so we will be surveying our staff as well as our students to get just some feedback on relationships that they've had with our SROs. I think one point that is going to be important for us as we begin to, you know, talk through, you
084know, the next MOU was really the outcome that we're seeking. I think that when you look at the current MOU, and I stated this before, I know when we developed this MOU, I know I was on the job for three months at that time when it was developed the last time in 2018. And there's a lot that has been, you know, that has transpired and also that I've learned, that we've learned as a school division over the past couple of years. And I think we have to put all of that into perspective as we're going through. this revision. I think we had an intentional effort or made an intentional effort with this current MOU to really distinguish what an SRO is capable of doing. and what an administrator is capable of doing. And I say
085that that was better than the product, but I also believe in continuous improvement. So I don't think just because something is better that we keep things as is. I think that now we build on the additional knowledge that we now have. And it's not just what's happening nationally, because I think that we are ahead of what people's issues are nationally. I truly do believe that. And the data for that is the current MOU. just look at that, read that and look at what other MOUs state in current practices. But I do think that we can take this input that we're receiving from staff, from students, from our community, and begin to determine what outcome we are trying to seek. Is it building relationships? Because that's a lot of what our SROs are doing. And if
086that is the outcome that we are seeking, then that needs to be explicit in the MOU. that we are, our SROs are here to build relationships with kids or to change the image of what the police officer, like it just needs to be very specific if that is what the outcome, you know, that we are trying to, you know, trying to seek. So I think that what I, the point I'm trying to make is we just need to be a lot more specific in our MOU. It needs to be more robust than it currently is. And I think that we did. uh you know a great job of trying to distinguish between the two but now we need to start distinguishing specifics in regards to roles and responsibilities and of what you can and what
087you cannot um do um i think is going to be important and i think us now making sure things are posted and making sure that things are available for the community to see that is also going to be extremely beneficial for people to not make a narrative around what we're doing within our schools and what the partnership looks like. Okay, I have another couple of people who have already spoken who want to say something again, but I just want to draw our attention to the time, the clock, because we are supposed to already be 40 minutes into our budget work session at this point. And this is a very important topic, but it's one that we're going to see again. And we're also having the opportunity to continue to give feedback and ask questions of
088Dr. Hutchings. So maybe we can wrap up with the next two people and then... and take this up offline and also at future meetings. Dr. Eve? Yeah, thank you everyone for the conversation. I think it's been really, I think it's been really a valuable conversation that we're having here. And, you know, I want to, I appreciate the comments you just made, Dr. Hutchings, and I do agree with you. I know there's a lot of good work that's been happening in our schools. And I want to thank Ms. Nolan for highlighting, you know, all the wonderful things that our, some of our Alexandria police officers are doing. And I just want to say though, that I don't think, you know, not having SROs means that those things can't. happen. And I want to thank Ms. Alderton
089as well for talking about the role of SROs and administrators. And I appreciate that this agreement that we have right now really clearly says that our administrators should not be involved in discipline. I mentioned the discipline data because this model MOU that I think we used to create this one. That's one of the data points that they look at. And that's the only data point that I've seen from ACPS. And so that's the only thing I can speak about. I think that we want to be careful about saying there's no causal relationship between SROs and suspensions because I don't think we just, we can't say that. We don't have the data to prove that. So I think, you know. That's one thing I'd really want to hit on about, you know, and I understand your
090point, Ms. Alderton, about data, but I think, you know, I think having that information, what's referenced in the policy is crime and violence data, as well as school climate survey data, and I agree that the teachers and the students' feedback is really critical, but I think even things around, you know, the crime and violence data would be really important to share out and know about as well. So I just wanted to emphasize that and I look forward to continuing this conversation. Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Anderson. And I just wanted to briefly respond to Ms. Elderton's comments since I was invoked and say, to be very clear, like, I have never believed or assumed that SROs are writing discipline referrals. And perhaps, you know, this comes from my passion, having studied a lot and frankly,
091spent way too much time in a library thinking about the school to prison pipeline. But I will say very, very candidly, like, I agree with this point that we need to be very clear in what we're talking about. And my point is that this MOU is not clear. And I think Dr. Hutchings just made some good comments to that effect about how... you know, what are our outcomes? What's the data we're looking at? You know, what are our, what's, you know, the focus on continuous improvement? Awesome. That's all great. But the reason why we're having this robust discussion is because we don't know what data we're talking about. So like what I was talking about, just to give a couple examples, right, is I mentioned that policy or that language in there that basically suggests,
092in my opinion, that the SROs can stop students whenever they want in the hallway. I mean, yeah, it says criminal in there, but they can kind of do it whenever they want if you read that policy as a lawyer. And so what's the data on that? How often are us or stopping students? Why are they stopping students? What are they doing? Like, so we need to unpack this and really get in the weeds and understand what data we need to be collecting and understand. And, and I will say too, just from my personal research and work in this area, like, you know, it's not just about the discipline referrals and the disproportionality. It's about the school to prison pipeline as well. And there are psychological effects. There are all kinds of impacts that police and
093schools can have. And where's our data on that in Alexandria? Like I'm hearing a lot of these anecdotes, Alexandria is special, we're so great, you know, but we've said that for a long time in many areas in this town, and we've had a lot of problems. So we need to make sure that we're just being honest with ourselves, with the data, looking at all of it, and really just having a very strong laser focus on every sentence and making sure that we're doing the right thing by our kids through the lens of the strategic plan. So that's my point. But I do agree that we need to be very careful about the language we're using and what we're talking about, which is why it's important to have a discussion like this where we're kind of
094unpacking it and getting into the details. And my concern and why I've spoken so strongly on this issue is I just don't want this review to be a perfunctory exercise. I realize it is something that is mandated by statute, and so we're required to do it by the law. I don't want to just be better than the rest because our MOUs worded better maybe than other school districts that are far more egregious. I want us to be the best school division, you know, doing restorative practices and doing the things that we need to do. So I appreciate everyone's comments. I appreciate Ms. Alderton's pushback. But I just will say, like, I really think we can do awesome on this. And so I just want to see that with regard to how we're thinking about the
095data points and how we're, you know, being. specific on the language to miss Sanchez via forest point as well. OK, so Mr. Contreras, you're the only one with your hands still up, so I guess you're it. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to close by saying thank you to everybody, basically, for your comments. I just want you to know that I hear each and every one of you very clearly. And it's my responsibility to make sure this gets done right. So I take that on very, I take that role very seriously and it will be done right. And think, and lastly, encourage your constituents, encourage those that could not be here on this meeting today to take that survey and let us know what they're thinking. Thank you. Thank you. So next
096up, we're shifting gears to summer projects updates. So Dr. Hutchings, back to you. All right. So I'm going to ask for Dr. Hart and as well as the facilities and operations team to join us to provide an update on our summer projects. As you all know, even though we are in a global pandemic, we were still and our team was still working through our capital improvement projects and making sure that we were getting things done on schedule. And in some cases, trying to get some things done ahead of time that were scheduled for next summer. I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Hart to provide the board and community with an update on our summer projects. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchings. Good afternoon and good evening, Madam Chair and board members. This evening,
097the Facilities and Operations Department is here to provide a summary project update for projects that were completed over this or initiated over the past summer. A more comprehensive update will be provided via our CIP quarterly report, and that is coming in October. And I will wait for the, I'm sorry, the presentation to be shared. I don't want to get ahead of that. And so if we can go to the second slide, please. Tonight's presentation will really focus on the three essential questions that are noted on the screen. We will be providing some updates on projects that were initiated and or completed. We'll provide some updates on projects that are still ongoing, and then we will also provide next steps. As Dr. Hutchings alluded to, I have three members of the team here to provide updates
098for their respective offices. Ms. Erica Gulick, who is the Director of Capital Programs Planning and Design. Mr. John Finnegan, who is the acting director for educational facilities, and Ms. Anita Cordova, who is the director for maintenance and custodial services. So at this time, I will turn it over to Erica Gulick for her slide. Thank you, Dr. Hart, and good evening, board members. Hopefully everyone can hear me okay. Okay, so if we can move on to the next slide. So for the Office of Capital Programs Planning and Design, we're really providing an update on Douglas MacArthur and the swing space for you all because that was a lot of our work this summer and we know during the work session you'll get a more thorough presentation on the high school project. So we'll save those updates
099for that presentation. So just to give you some updates on the work, Douglas MacArthur at Taney Ave moved much further, closer to completion. reached pretty much substantial completion in the swing space for the interior renovation. The auditorium has been fully renovated to a gym, for those of you who may have seen some of the pictures from Dr. Hutchings' visit. Our HVAC has been repaired. We did complete that roof work last summer. We've moved all of the items from the old Douglas MacArthur into the new Douglas MacArthur, so all of the teachers... items are there and in their classrooms and they have their spaces assigned. The exterior renovation is for those of you who drive by the parking lot and the loop are all set up all the striping for the parking is there and they're
100to the two schools are now using that parking and access. As far as the new Douglas MacArthur and I know a lot of people have been a lot of you all have been involved in the design process and thank you for that. We have Lauren Krznaricke, The Capacity Collective, During the summer of the design development phase basically that last phase of design before we get into construction documents was. Lauren Krznaricke, The Capacity Collective, finalized and approved for hearing and for those of you who participated, we were approved last weekend by city council unanimously to move forward with this design with some extensive conversation i'm sure there'll be questions regarding that. Our engagement continued throughout the summer. We were really fortunate to have a really committed advisory group, especially during the pandemic, that was able to
101represent our community really well, I think, throughout and was willing to meet in the summer. And so we had two advisory group meetings. We had one community online survey event. We had one community meeting and a school team meeting, even with staff who gave up their summertime to participate with us. We do know that cost is an issue on this project or a challenge that we have. So we did do a lot of value management to get that budget number, that cost number down to where it is today and a lot of cost estimating efforts. And we've also gone through some of the net zero energy ready. We know now based on the city council approval, we're required to be net zero energy, which means we'll have to install those solar panels at the time.
102that we open and if we can move to the next step slide So for the swing space, we have some final building details. We have to get the kitchen up and running. We have some equipment to move around in there. We do have a ceiling repair that is required following some of the more heavy rains that we had. We are required to, we do need to renovate the ceiling in that area. We've been waiting on Verizon to get to us, and I'm sure they will, but our phone line and fire alarm connection are still two of the things that we are we still need to have set up. And as far as for new Douglas MacArthur, you will then the school boards. coming soon to the school board will be the demolition and abatement guaranteed
103maximum price contract package that should be coming to you soon for the old building. We have started the utility disconnects for that building and it's pretty much just a shell at this point. We'll continue to work through interior furniture and finishes design as well as some of the playground equipment and exterior. design selection and so with that i will turn it over to john finnegan to go over educational facilities board members can everyone hear me okay Okay, if we could move on. Okay, great. Thank you. I see the slide. So there's a lot of information here. So I'll go through everything. And if there are questions, I'll take those at the end. But building systems, we're able to accomplish a lot this summer. So that's pretty much the roofing and HVAC projects. And we were
104able to combine some of these, which really is an efficiency of scale. So at Francis Hammond, we have both going on. The roofing. is starting. We did do an ITB in the design over the summer. Construction is just starting on that. HVAC, same thing, design was... initiated and that is ongoing. Over at George Washington, we are doing the roof over the B and C wings. Those are smaller sections of the school. And once these sections of the roof are done, that entire school will be new roof within the last two and a half years. So that construction is set to commence in the next couple of weeks. HVAC. We did the design on the A-Wing and there are a lot of components to that as well. It's a very large school. There's a lot of
105rooftop units and air handlers. And we also have a space on the ground floor behind the cafeteria that is underneath the auditorium that currently does not have any fresh air supply. So we are looking at adding that as well. And that will be our first step. Construction there will be starting in the fall and we'll hit those four rooms first. because there are a lot of different systems at that school. And basically the different phasing will go all the way from this winter into next summer. Over at John Adams, the roof replacement phase one, that is nearing completion and we will roll right into phase two and that will be the entire building. So we were able to combine those phases and get that whole school done by the end of the year. by the
106end of the calendar year. At Matthew Mori, we did some roofing last year and we're moving on to the northern section, which is the cafeteria, classrooms, and we completed the gym last year. The ITB was initiated and completed. We are finalizing the contract to award. HVAC construction has started. Materials have arrived. We anticipate that being completed by October. At Mount Vernon, we are working on the cooling tower. We did the design, that's completed. We are submitting for permits and that will be starting here soon. And that will be wrapping up in the winter. William Ramsey, we also were able to combine roof and HVAC projects. The phase one over there is substantially complete. We are moving right into phase two. And for HVAC, we're doing new rooftop units. The design is complete. The materials are
107arriving, and that will be completed early October. So that's nearing completion as well. So we got a lot of things done this summer, but a lot of it was going out for ITBs, having the bids out on the street, hiring firms, working through contracts, and doing some phasing. So a lot of times we aren't able to. combine the phases and get as much done as we are doing this year. So it's been helpful for us to have a little extra time. If we could move on to the next slide please. Flooring projects. We completed a lot of flooring over the summer. The photos that you're seeing here are before and after shots of a couple of them. But let me just run through a little bit more that we've done. Over at Cora Kelly, last
108year we were able to complete most of the first floor classrooms, switching out to new luxury vinyl tile. So the old flooring system had a couple of layers, including asbestos tiles that were the base layer, as well as asbestos mastic, the glue. So these flooring projects can be quite involved when there's a few different layers and we have to basically segregate the work area, put up plastic, bring in negative air machines and basically funnel the air to the outside. And just in case, as we were doing the work, asbestos becomes friable or airborne. So nobody but those workers can go into this space. So it's quite an undertaking. And we were able to do the classrooms on the first floor last year. This year at Cora Kelly, we did all of the hallways. And we
109were also able to go up on the second floor and do the classrooms as well as the hallways there. The last thing left is the cafeteria flooring. We're kind of combining that with the end of the kitchen project. Over at Francis Hammond, we were able to do the office in the main entrance lobby area in all of the adjoining offices and some administrative spaces. We were able to do that in new carpet tile. We were also able to do the auditorium, similar to what we did at a couple of others. Over at George Washington, We are still ongoing over there. That project we are in the A-wing on the first, second, and third floors. We are replacing all of the tile. So one thing that we were able to take advantage of is some of
110the costs. We were able to get a manufacturer that due to COVID was interested in lowering prices to get some things out and keep the plant functioning. So we were able to take advantage. And that's why we've kind of expanded some of the work areas that we were initially working in. And at GW, we're going to try, we'll keep an eye on what the recommendations are for heading back to school. And if we have the opportunity, we're going to add a few more areas to replace some carpet and some tile, et cetera. Over at Lyles Crouch, we were able to do the main floor. We did number one, the library. Then we did all of the first floor classrooms, which is about 85% of them, that had carpet. And that's an older school. That carpet
111had been there for about 15 plus years. Now we're going to go up to the second floor and replace all of the carpeting on the second floor of Lyle's Garage. Finally, over at William Ramsey, we were able to do the library. We were also able to do the auditorium. We were also able to do all of the kindergarten wing rooms that had carpet. And then we're taking on a couple of other things. Next week, we will finish the new auxiliary gym floor over at T.C. Williams. If we could move on to the next slide, please. We've got a few notable large projects going on. First of all, the T.C. Williams Stadium renovation that has commenced, as you can see from the picture there. That was last week. Three-fourths of the concession building is now gone.
112The press box is gone. The steel structure that was behind the bleachers holding the press box is now gone. And the scoreboard is set to be demolished in the next couple of days. Utility trenching will start in the next couple of weeks. And then you will start to see grading and some of the hardscapes get demoed. So that project is kind of hitting stride now. And that will go all the way through next March. We have a couple of kitchen and servery upgrades, notably Cora Kelly and John Adams. John Adams is complete. We were able to transition that space that had a lot of empty void areas. We were able to combine the uses for a better flow. It's a beautiful new kitchen and servery, and we also updated the entire cafetorium. So that project
113was just finished. Cora Kelly is nearing completion. It will be substantially complete in the next week and a half to two weeks. We did add the cafeteria to that. That was not originally part of the scope, but we now have finished design. We have abated the flooring in there. We will be coming back in with new flooring and putting in some finishes around the walls, etc., covering up the old glazed block tile. and the Francis T. Day Elevated Gym. That project is ongoing as well. They are pouring the biopond right now. Footers, there's only a couple left. That is an elevated gym, so it's going to look like it's on stilts. So there are quite a few concrete and stilt footers over there. That project is moving along. We also have interior work. We had
114to kind of reorganize the third floor where the access is from. We had to redo some offices and some spaces to reconfigure and have new access to through this gym building over to the parking lot where the playground is on top. So that project also will go through next March. If we can move on to the next slide, please. So our next step is first of all closing out all of these projects. There were 48 of them and we are nearing completion or complete in most of those. The building systems, the next things that we will do is combine phasing. So as I was going through my updates you heard that we were complete for example at John Adams and William Ramsey on phase one. So what we are able to do is go right
115into phase two. And that's going to save us a lot of time and money because a lot of times these schools have been added onto so many times that there may be 20 some roofs on one school. That includes the smaller awnings and canopies, et cetera. And they're also at various levels, like the gym is a higher roof. It might even be a different construction type. having the ability to go right into another phase has been key while we're finishing out because these buildings are so large we usually don't have time to finish a whole school in one summer. We're usually only able to do a phased portion. So that's the next thing we're working on is going right into second phases and there's an efficiency of scale there. Also we're advancing HVAC phases. So
116the HVAC projects are actually intertwined with the roof projects many times because the rooftop units sitting up on the roof are on curbs that also have to be flash, you'd have membrane over them because that's usually a leaking point. So it's been nice to be able to kind of combine these projects because it's always difficult to put in a roof and come back later and do the HVAC because then you might be penetrating the roof, reconfiguring things, and then there's warranty issues and leak issues, etc. Also with the flooring, we are continuing on some of the asbestos remediation. So when we're doing these flooring projects, it's not just simply taking out the existing floor and putting a new one in. As I talked a little bit about, it's quite involved and it takes some time.
117So the asbestos remediation is key. So what we've been able to do is methodically go through these buildings every year and get different sections of the asbestos removed and new flooring. Now this year we were able to do a lot more, for example, at George Washington because that school is usually used for summer school. We usually don't have the amount of time that we have this year. We usually don't have the space because it's used for summer school. So we took advantage of that building being empty and that whole A wing, all of the halls will be done. What we'll try and go back and do is some of the office areas and some of the other areas that have been missed and that we would like to continue. There are a few other areas.
118The library would be great to be done, et cetera. So we'll keep an eye on how things are going with the virtual learning and see what else we can undertake. building envelopes. Now that we've got new roofs, we will go to the windows and work on new gaskets, new caulking. We've got a couple of window replacement projects. So all of this work together is really catching us up on a handful of buildings that have kind of slipped and were a little neglected that were causing other problems. for gym floors, etc. So now that we are encapsulating the building with new roof, new window work, we feel much more comfortable about how our systems will work in water intrusion issues, etc. So we feel that we've got a lot done this summer, but we're going to
119try and plow ahead and do a little bit more this fall. And if anybody has any questions. Okay, and I'm wondering... I know Douglas MacArthur was in this presentation, but it's also in our work session. So do we want to, if people have, I just want to clarify, do people have questions? Do we want them now or should they hold those particular ones till the work session? I would suggest if there are questions for Douglas MacArthur that they're held to the work session, Madam Chair. That's kind of what I was thinking too, since there's more information there. Okay, so with that feedback, if people have questions non-Douglas MacArthur related about this presentation, please let me know. Okay, I don't see anybody. So I guess we are good. Thank you for the presentation. You're welcome. I
120really wasn't expecting that, no questions. I'm speechless now. Now my colleague Anita Cordova will be presenting next on her work. Okay, great. Thank you. You can advance the slide in Anita. You have the floor. And so I will actually cover that slide. John Anita is having some technical difficulties, but it's just one brief slide. My apologies. We went through the presentation and missed that last piece. But essentially, the last update is on summer cleaning. And so our custodial staff has still been in the buildings completing summer cleaning activities. There are some spaces that have not been completed due to either ongoing construction or other activities that have been taking place in the building. As you all know, we do still have. Some limited registration activities, our virtual plus partners are now in the facilities and
121some other spaces that we haven't quite been able to get to, but we anticipate those areas being completed by the end of this month. And just a few key items to highlight regarding our cleaning is that we have three levels of cleaning that the custodial staff has been implementing. Two of the most common would be the routine cleaning or the new enhanced cleaning. And the enhanced cleaning, of course, is due to... our response to COVID. And then there are also times where we would have to do a deep cleaning if we have any areas that we know have been impacted by a confirmed case of COVID. So in terms of summer projects for maintenance and custodial services, we really just wanted to speak briefly to the cleaning operations that were ongoing. Thank you. Thank you.
122Okay. Well, are there any questions about this? If not, thank you, Dr. Hart. And I think now we're on to my report, the chair's report, I believe. And I just want to make sure that people, it's been mentioned before, but I want to make sure that people know there is the... the ACPS, Alexandria Police Department, MOU public hearing coming up on October 1st, as well as the FY 2022-2031 CIP and 2022 combined funds budget public hearing and sort of to be able to sign up to speak, please go to the school board section on the ACPS website. And then the last thing on our, the last report on our agenda is Dr. Hutchings giving a school openings report. Thank you, Madam Chair. So as you all know, we are now almost concluding our second week
123of Virtual Plus. And I just have to say hats off just to our team for being able to fulfill the obligation that we set forth to the board back in August when you all adopted the Virtual Plus learning concept for reopening our schools for the first quarter. It is a huge undertaking. It is a continuing project that it seems like it's never going to end you know at this point so I can feel everybody's kind of like anxiety and pain growing pains as we make it through this but I wanted to first start off by commending you know our staff and our community and our students and our parents and families as well as the board for the grace and the patience and the hard work that has occurred. to make this possible. I truly
124believe that without the planning that we put in place over these past several months, I do not believe that we would have been able to actually have an efficient and effective opening of schools this past week. I also want to, you know, just upfront, you know, share with our board as well as with the community that we are hearing some of the concerns that are coming from our staff as well as our students and our families. And it really is a mix, you know, of. things are working and things are not, right? So we're hearing a lot of different stories. And, you know, the unfortunate piece about this global pandemic is that regardless of who you are, your circumstance, your race, your socioeconomic status, you know, what type of home you live in or who
125you live with, everyone is being impacted. by the situation. And we have to keep in mind that, you know, many of us have been impacted since March. You know, in some cases, we've been at home with our kids and our spouse, you know, since March. And I don't know about you all, but that can cause a little bit of irritability out there. Not that if my family's listening, not that they would do that to me. But... In general, I just know that it just causes people to be a little more on edge. So you're dealing with just being trapped and not having your normal life. And it's kind of like being taken away from you without any notice and not by choice. And then you are now forced to learn how to do business and
126work and learning and everything kind of like overnight. So I want everybody to know I can totally feel and understand your pain. So let's go into some of our statistics for the first week of school. And specifically, I thought it was important for us to be able to cover what we're doing in regards to attendance. And there was a question that has come up around how many students are attending, how many students are being logged in. to Clever and into our virtual plus. And I want to just give a caveat and it's going to be so important because Dr. Hoover and Ms. Ronco are going to say there is a caveat to this, Dr. Hutchings, you better say it. And if you don't, before you start saying these statistics, I'm going to have a problem
127with you. So I do want to make it clear to everyone that we still have like no-shows. We still have some data where kids are maybe enrolled that should be, you know, sent to a different school, but we haven't gotten that data to what school to send their documents to. And that typically, and that's a typical thing that happens. It's not just something that's because of COVID-19. This is a typical situation for us that our data doesn't really look clear in regards to attendance and making sure all the right stuff is done. students are in our system until the end of September. But I thought it was important for us to at least give some information of what the first week looked like in regards to our attendance with that caveat being known that there
128are students data that are either no shows or students that should be in a different school division. So some of our attendance right now is not completely accurate. but it gives us at least a ballpark of what our attendance is looking at looking like right now. And it's estimated right now that 7% of our students, they attended less than 50% of days in the first week of school. You know, that means 93% were in our classes, you know, and that is an important statistic for us because it is saying that, you know, our students did show up and students were, you know, at least logged in to our virtual plus. last week. And, you know, the first step in us getting through this whole process is having kids show up and making sure that we're
129able to engage them in some way. That's how we learn what needs to be refined with our program. And that's how we learn what's working and what's not. Out of that, about 78% of our students were logged into Clever during the first week of school. And we did have some, you know, some you know, some conversations and I heard there were some, you know, some misunderstandings about Clever and Canvas, you know, and making sure you log into one or the other and how do you get into your Zoom courses and things of that nature. There are still some things that we are working through. I think we got a lot of those logistics panned out this week. So we should be able to see, you know, different data because we are going to be monitoring
130this data continuously at the end of each week. Just to give us an idea. of what our data is looking like over a period of time so we can start having some comparisons or comparative analysis of the data. Our helpline is another area that we wanted to really share out with the board because our communications team has done a phenomenal job and our family community engagement team have done a phenomenal job with really engaging our families. majority of our helpline calls were from our non-English speaking families, which that is a huge celebration for us because one challenge that we know we had in ACPS and that we've continuously heard from our communities was that we were not reaching some of our non-English speaking families. And this allowed. many of our non-English speaking families to be
131engaged in what's happening, to get their questions answered, and to be able to speak to a live person. You know, it's one thing when you're going online trying to search for information. Everyone on this particular call speaks English and reads English, so that is easier for us to do. Try going onto a website and looking at everything in Spanish, right? If you don't speak Spanish, and I'm just using that as an example, it could be a challenge. And yes, there are apps where you can interpret information, but it's not like speaking to somebody who speaks your language. And this helpline has been extremely helpful to many of our families. We had 2,367 support calls, and that was just the first week. of us being open. And, you know, out of that, 1,851 of those calls
132were non-English speaking families. And that's tremendous for us. We wanted to also just highlight something that our school and nutritional team, they've been doing a remarkable job since March 16th, actually, when we first started to deliver as well as provide meals for our families. But we are providing still over 32,000 meals, and we provided over 32,000 last week, which is very important for us because if kids don't have... food and nutritional needs met, then it is very difficult for them to learn. And that is something that we are going to have to continue to do as long as we're in this virtual plus world, because food insecurity is real. And it is definitely a problem, not only for Alexandria City Public Schools, but also for the city of Alexandria and across the nation. And we
133just need to make sure we are providing those services. We can go to the next slide. I want to bring just some of the success of 4.0, you know, that we have done because we're currently now in 4.0. 4.0 got us to the virtual plus world, right? Well, now we've got to start talking about 5.0. Initially, I thought we were just going to be talking about 1.0, right? We were going to go back to school after spring break. And guess what? We are still virtual in September. So we want to make sure that we are sharing not only with the board, but also with our community that our work is not done. we have to begin to start discussing how do we transition back to in-person instruction? What does that look like? What groups will
134need to do that maybe sooner than later? And just how does this next level? of this virtual world and in-person instruction or hybrid instruction, what will that look like? And we're going to be increasing participation in our facilitated conversations to make sure we're raising all voices within our community the same way we did with our 4.0. We want to make sure we're having that clear communication and we have to encourage our families to make sure that they're following the ACPS Express. We're now keeping it to one week and trying to get everything in once a week so that we're not having people to be confused or feeling like they're bombarded with too much information. But when there is pertinent information to share out, we will have special edition of Express, you know, ACPS Express and
135ACPS Insider that will go out. We try to make sure we're being extremely responsive to all of the new information. I mean, this is one thing that, you know, it's difficult if we say communicate, communicate, communicate, but every day we get new information. So we try not to do it every day because if we would be changing our messaging and info to our families. potentially every day because there's something new that comes about. So we are trying to be responsive, but we're not doing the daily correspondence that we did before to prevent any confusion out there. We're also keeping our transparency and our processes and structures. You know, one thing I can hopefully encourage. the board to do is to have constituents to go to visit our website because there is a lot of information
136that is there that continuously is being updated. So you might have went to a site yesterday and you may go back today and see some more information. That's how rapid things are changing and information is coming in. And we still have the same size communications team, everybody. So I just want to say hats off to them because they are doing like triple the work right now. during this global pandemic and we really appreciate that. And then our decision making piece and that's what I'm going to talk to you all about now. So specifically, this is our timeline and our milestones because it's important for not only the board but for our community to be able to see that over the next few months we will be working. with our division transition team and with our
137school transition team, as well as with our Virtual Plus learning and kind of evaluating what that looks like. And our Virtual Plus partners, which include our childcare providers and our out-of-school providers or out-of-school time providers, as well as even DASH, which is one of our new providers that we're going to be working with. But those are all of our Virtual Plus partners to help this concept. work. And I'm going to specifically not go over each one of these books. I know you've been able to read through this, but I want to specifically talk about some key highlights that are going to be pertinent over the next couple of months. And one is this month, we are having discussions and developing what is our strategy and our plan for our citywide program, specifically for our citywide
138program. These are some of our most vulnerable students with special needs. And we are working through how can we just provide a more robust experience in regards to their educational experience with this virtual plus world and what that can look like for us. And we're going to be sharing out some more information in regards to that really soon. We just recently have surveyed our staff to get an idea of our staff members that are able to come back into an in-person setting. We're now gearing up to. to survey our families who have students who are part of the citywide program to get a feel of who's willing to send their kids back if we are able to offer in-person learning. And this is not. the in-person learning that was before. This is in-person learning that
139is adhering to our CDC guidelines, meaning students will have to wear face masks, there will be social distancing, there will be special cleaning sessions that will have to occur throughout this process, but these are the things that we want to be able to share with our families so that they can give us some data and some information on whether or not they want to engage or permit their children to be a part. of an in-person opportunity if available with all of the safety precautions being put in. We also are having discussions right now about our earliest learners, in particular our pre-K through second grade, because we have heard some concerns from families around the amount of time, you know, on the screen, the amount of time not having some of the transitional time and the
140synchronous learning being too long and things of that nature. But we have taken all of that feedback. And we are working through some possible recommendations and possible solutions for us, providing just different experiences for some of our most vulnerable students, which are our youngest learners. Another key date in October that is important for all of us to know is that on October 15th, our goal is to come to the board to be able to share specifically what we're recommending for the second quarter. And that means, you know, we said that every nine weeks. We were going to be reevaluating where we are. I'm sorry, every seven weeks, excuse me, we're going to be reevaluating where we are as a school division and informing the community where we will stand for the second quarter. So that
141allows a two week kind of period or span, two to three week span for families to make any type of. you know, accommodations that they might need to adjust depending on what we're recommending at that time. But that October 15th date is very important because we are going to be looking at all of our constraints. So, for example, we will be looking at do we have a constraint in regards to transportation in doing this hybrid approach. Are there any constraints in regards to our staffing? Because we are going to be serving all of our staff. You know, right, just recently we surveyed our citywide program staff members, but we're going to be serving all of our staff members to get a feel of what does our staffing percentage look like? Because there are, as you
142know, we'll be able to share with you, not today specifically, but FMLA, there are some extensions that come along. are waivers that come along with FMLA, Family Medical Leave Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, where our employees are exempted in some cases from having to report to work if they have, you know, any type of experience with being quarantined or having someone at home who was tested positive or having childcare issues. So these are some additional exemptions that we didn't, or waivers that we did not have previously that. we're going to have to work through because that does have an impact on our staffing, which could have an impact on how we can deliver in-person instruction to our students. But all of that will be shared with the board on October 15th. Another component that
143I think is very important is the work that we're doing with our Alexandria Health Department because locally, you know, we do have our city data that is shared with the city in regards to the COVID-19 curve in the city of Alexandria. But what we're specifically working or will be working with the Alexandria Health Department on is how does that impact instruction? Does that cause barriers for us to open our doors? And those are some discussions that we are going to be having with the Alexandria Health Department. And we're working through specifically what that communication. and what those specific constraints we're going to have to evaluate and determine. And we'll be able to share more of that out with the board at the October 15th date. So we can go over to the next slide. which
144is I want to open the floor for questions that board members may have. I know that was a lot to digest at once. And it was a lot more than what was on those slides because I don't like to read from slides, people. But it is pertinent information that I think I hope will help clarify some of the questions that we've heard from our constituents. But I would like for Madam Chair to open the floor for any questions so our team can answer them. Yes, Ms. Olderton. Thank you. I had two questions. One is just a general tech question I think is worth explaining because I've been on the end of hearing a teacher having to tell the kids to log in through Clever because it affects attendance. So I just wanted to, if someone
145could share how that works and the importance of that because it does affect, again, it affects attendance, which is really important. And then my second. question is actually I think Dr. Werner would be able to answer. I'm curious as to what the discussions around bringing students back to the citywide classroom. What are the sort of prep and PD discussions that we would need to have? Given the social distancing guidelines and the super high needs of many of those students, we've got mask mandates. And you add that with students who have sensory needs. Some students need toileting. And we really need to make sure that the staff that we have in those classrooms is consistent. and that those staff are qualified to be in those classrooms. So I'm just sort of curious what the discussions have
146been around that, because that is something that really stays on the top of my mind, is not only bringing those students back, but bringing them back safely to a point where it's not only, I guess, physically safe, but also socially and emotionally safe as well. So I know that's a big question, but I just wanted to dig a little, if there was a way to dig a little deeper into what discussions are around that. So Ms. Alderson, I think that is a great question. And Ms. Werner, I know she has been leading a lot of our discussions and analysis of the potential transition of the citywide program. So if I can ask Ms. Werner to. to chime in and to share any insight in regards to the professional learning and what are some of the
147discussions and preparation that we're going to have to do in regards to that. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to share some very complex thought processes and to tell you what we do know and what we still need to discern. There has been a cross-functional team that has been working both through the Office of Operations, the Office of Specialized Instruction, including school nutrition, custodial, and HR, as well as the Office of Specialized Instruction. Also started consultations with principals. So from the perspective of bringing students back, there were four overarching issues that we needed to address. One was PPE components, which included PPE as well as the sanitation. We needed to address transportation. Could we actually bring students back? We have the transportation structure to do that. Secondly, thirdly, could we feed students?
148Could we provide the food that we needed? And fourth was staff. Did we have the available staff? So the very first question that we addressed had to do with safety. You and I've had multiple conversations and we know our population, I think, pretty well. So masks are only the beginning. We really are looking at full PPEs. We're looking at masks, gloves, clothing, because we do have some students, even with CDC guidelines, that we know we're not going to be able to completely social distance. And so we want to ensure that staff have all of the clothing protection and physical protection that they have so that they can be protected. We have also started working with through our citywide programs to help parents shake student behavior to be able to build their stamina around not only
149the virtual learning, but what they would have to do when they come back to classroom. We're talking about practicing masks. some of those other skills. But I will be very honest. There are some situations where we will not be able to do the social distancing. And you mentioned it. We've got children who need to be toileted. We have children who need to be fed. We have students who need hand over hand. So we are working very closely with... team from the citywide coordinator and having discussions about what we are going to need to do to be able to bring students back and how that will work in classrooms. We are very much looking at half day programs right now, but we're looking at half day. We've explored half day and two day, two day. If
150at all possible, it will be our preference to bring students back half day, morning or afternoon just for continuity of instruction. And the operations team believes that that will be a better protocol for them to follow as well. So in doing that, we have written a grant to get the special cleaning equipment so that the rooms can be transformed quickly and they can be cleaned and turned over. One of the GEARS grants that we wrote was for $52,000 to solely for cleaning equipment so that we have the ability to clean the classroom, clean the equipment, clean the materials. We've done a significant amount of work around what other protective devices, shields and things of that nature that we will need in classrooms as well. Does that give you? kind of what you're looking for. Yeah,
151it does. Because I just, it's so detailed, right? I mean, there's so much that I imagine has to go into that. So it's just really important for us to know, like. you know, how involved that'll be in what's needed. And we've been working very closely with Dr. Alicia Hart's team. They've been fabulous answering questions, providing information. When Dr. Hutchings referred to the poll of parents, we have now done a poll of teachers and we have an idea of where we stand with teachers. Pre-K to two only. We're looking at this as a phase in. Remember, we're looking pre-K to two. three to five middle school and high school. We've got to do it in phases. So we have pulled our pre-K teachers and paraprofessionals, and we have a pretty good understanding of where we are
152on that. And so we are getting ready to pull parents next week. to ascertain who is interested and who would be willing to send the students back. I am waiting to get the final overall description. We are going to send very detailed descriptions about what the PPE and cleaning protocols are so that people understand what they're agreeing to and so that they know what can be expected. But on half-day schedules, we're looking at bringing students in. in the morning for a three-hour session, having an hour to turn around in an afternoon three-hour session. We're looking at providing breakfast, lunch, breakfast, lunch, or lunch, snack, and being able to send children home with dinner packs as well so that, you know, we've got the food and the food goes home. So we have worked with transportation
153and they feel very strongly that we can do a morning run, two midday runs, and an afternoon run. So we're hopeful that we can do the four-day half-day. We think it will all, there's so much more educational benefit for it, but it also, we think, benefits our families because the students are in school four days. So those are the things that we're looking at, but you're right. Every time we answer one question, six more come up right behind it. So it's a spider web, but we're working through every single step of it, and we have a very committed team. There are a lot of people involved in this and very committed to... to the outcome of having students back. We're probably looking now, there will probably be someone beginning in October. We had hoped late
154September, our timeframe had been late September, early October. And I think by late September, we'll have all the information we need and then we can start to move to early October. That's my hope right now, but something could pop up tomorrow, but that's where we stand today. Thanks, Dr. Reif. Well, thank you for the update, Dr. Hutchings. And I just want to thank everyone on the team for all of the hard work that I know you're putting in. I think everyone, you know, a normal year is, I think, very tiring, you know, adjustment to the new school year. And I think it's even like more that much more challenging for everyone this year. So just hot talk to everyone for all the hard work that you're putting in. We really do appreciate it. And I
155wanted to say I really. I appreciated that first slide that you shared with some of the data points. That's really helpful to see. I know our meals program is still doing a fabulous job. The helpline, that's so terrific to see that we're reaching out and supporting our elf families in that way. And then the tech support has been, I know, just an amazing job as well. And then I really appreciate, you know, just introducing this like. you know, transition back into 5.0, as you're calling it. I have two questions. The first one is about the, you know, the feedback we're still getting about the amount of synchronous learning and Zoom time for the youngest learners, our elementary learners. And you talked about recommendations and solutions. And I guess my questions around that are like, kind
156of like the process, like the timeline that you're thinking about for that. If there's, I know there's been discussion about a parent survey and are you looking at it, you know, just for kindergartners or like all the way up to fifth grade. So if you could just talk a little bit about that. And then my other question was just related to staffing vacancies. I was curious, you know, how many staffing vacancies we have right now and if we are using substitutes in any way too. Yes, so let's let's start with the first question in regards to my brain just went blank. I'm sorry. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. You know, I got it. It's like my brain went blank. I've been sitting on a Zoom since eight o'clock this morning. But. I think that, you know,
157in regards to us making any changes to some of the feedback that we are receiving, what we're talking with now is so we did meet with our school leaders, met with our staff on Monday. So this past Monday to really get feedback from staff and some of the experiences that they were having. I had the opportunity to be able to speak with our principals on Wednesday. And then today we had SLT. We were able to talk about some of the challenges as well. And one thing that all of our school leaders already do. As we try to have our staff make adjustments, you know, when kids, just like they do in class, like you see a kid fall asleep or you see like you just you react and you respond to that because we do
158want to make sure that when we make, you know, a division wide change that we have enough information and data so that we're not making a change, a significant change every week. Adjustments is one thing. Right. And we want to make sure if we're noticing and this is even with some of our families were saying, you know, my kid can't stay awake and that we really want them working with their teachers to try to work through just some adjustments that can be made for that particular situation. Next Friday, we will be polling or this is where we're going to begin our survey process for our families, because that will give us. three full weeks of being in Virtual Plus. That allows for some adjustments to have occurred because we're not staying true to, we're not
159saying the way we start on the first day is the way we're gonna be for three, you know, we're making adjustments and teachers do that anyway. That's just a part of what educators do. But it will give us now three weeks of families to be able to really talk through. what their experience is like now. Because some people who had a concern the first week don't have those concerns this week because there have been some adjustments made or kids have gotten acclimated. I mean, there's a number of reasons of what could have happened, you know, to change that. But that gives us a solid full, you know, three weeks. We're going to take that data. because that will be a part of the information that we're going to, when we're presenting to the board on
160October 15th, we want to be able to have had data from staff, have data from students, have data from families, as well as all of the other things that I shared with you earlier, like the attendance and the log on time and, you know, things of that nature to be able to make a really informed decision on what we do next. So to answer your question, Dr. Reif. there will be adjustments that are made based on concerns that families are having right now. The division-wide kind of like expectations or refinements, they won't be happening until after we get a clear idea of what is working after three weeks of virtual plus. So we're trying to really hold off for the major division-wide changes for at least till after the first three weeks of this virtual
161plus experience. The second, I'm sorry. I was just going to remind you. Thank you for it. But the second one was about the staffing and using, if we're using substitutes in any way. Yes. So I know Dr. Wilkins is on the call and he can provide, because we just went through some of this information just recently with our data. And Dr. Wilkins, if you can just share with Dr. Reif as well as with the board around our vacancy data, because I don't want to quote the wrong number. Thank you, Dr. Hodgins. I think, again, overall, our staffing for the schools is at a high level, generally over 95%. So the schools are ready and obviously delivering instruction. With respect to the survey for the special needs staff, we took a particular survey of the citywide
162staff. That's approximately And I'll defer to Ms. Werner, but approximately 40 teachers and 30 paraprofessionals to assess their estimate on returning to work. And with those numbers, we are working to make a plan, you know, to provide those in-school services. So that type of process will continue as we go forward, you know, in the weeks and months ahead and assess. our capacity to deliver a hybrid model. Thank you. I know there was another question in regards to, Dr. Reeve, she asked about the HR numbers, but then I believe there was a second part to the question that dealt with substitutes being, are we using substitutes now to deliver instruction in our schools or what capacity if we are using them? Thank you. In regards to substitutes, there's essentially two types of substitutes. Let's say there
163are nine days or less or every other day up to nine days or less and those that are more than 10 days, which are called long-term substitutes. Presently, we've worked out with the school principals to really limit the short-term substitute, those substitutes that are needed nine days or less. And they do that by reassigning the students to other teachers or using paraprofessionals. But that's a way to conserve. again, the use of substitutes and conserve some dollars. With respect to the long-term substitutes, meaning those substitutes that are needed for 10 days or more, let's say if a teacher has a long-term absence based upon some health or let's say a pregnancy, that process or that long-term substitute role is as always, no change to that program whatsoever. Thank you. With the specific numbers, Dr. Reif, we'll
164be able to share that with you in a separate report just because we weren't prepared to have specific numbers and I wouldn't want us to give percentages that are inaccurate. So we can follow up with the board with a specific report. We do have a handy, so there's something that's easy for us to get to the board. It's not going to be a difficult time or difficult task. Okay, I don't see any other hands right now. So thank you very much. Keep up the good work, everyone. And boy, I know the work is just never ending. So now, are there any announcements that board members have? This is the area at the time, the place we are in our agenda. Ms. Alderton. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to share about a particular possible
165partnership between Edututor Virginia and ACPS. As you guys are very aware, and like one of the things that I think we've all been talking about, and it is a hot button issue, is how we are going to support our students who are, you know, going to experience what we've been calling COVID slide. This issue was brought up to our Senator, one of our Senators, Mark Warner, and he sort of had an idea and a conversation to develop a partnership with George Mason University to work with students who are in their teacher ed programs who would like to get some experience with students and tutor students during this time. Elizabeth Lodl, who is a very recent Virginia Board of Ed member, I think she just ended her term, got some folks together, some who were also
166former General Assembly members, other former Virginia State Department of Education board members, and they have really gotten going. had conversations with ACPS, Arlington and Fairfax and Dr. Hutchings and Dr. Mozingo and Dr. Julia Burgos have had a really good talk about the possibility of supporting some of our students and increasing our partnerships in that area. So I'm really excited about it. I have been. I'm on the advisory board for this group. And, you know, I think I just want to share that it's exciting that, you know, people across the state who have the means and who have some capability of rallying people together are definitely doing that for our students. And the concern is particularly around. students with disabilities, students particularly who are marginalized. The efforts are really focused on getting support to those groups.
167So just want to express some appreciation to ACPS. SLT folks who I know are very busy and have a lot going on. I know we have a lot of partnerships, but just continuing to explore that possibility and add more as much support for our kids as possible. So I'm very grateful for that. So that's good news for me. Great. Thanks for sharing that good news. Dr. Hutchings. Yes, before we went into work session, I just there was one question that Miss Autotent asked earlier about Clever and Canvas and the attendance component. And I wanted Dr. Hoover to just respond to that so we can get that on record, because I'm sure that's questions that people in the community are asking, too. Thank you. So Tuesday through Friday, teachers take attendance through PowerSchool, just as they
168would in our normal face-to-face environment. The challenge is Monday, taking attendance through the asynchronous work schedule. So the easiest way to pull the data, this thought process, is to pull it through Clever, because we ask students to go through Clever. As they get to Canvas, we can capture it. So that's really easy for the elementary. And the reason it's more challenging to pull it from Amy Johnson- canvases if you're a secondary student, you may have seven classes and we don't want to require the students to log into every single. Amy Johnson- canvas course for all seven courses on the Mondays so because it's kind of across the time, so it may not be perfect and we're working through everything as we all are through this new process but that's the process and that's the best
169way we thought we could capture it in the Monday great. Okay, it looks like that's it for the questions or the announcements. So now it is time for us to adjourn our meeting. And so could I get a motion? Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn the meeting. Second. Mr. Suarez seconds Ms. Lorber's motion to adjourn the meeting. I will go through to call for the vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alderton? Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. So that's eight yes and one absent. So we are now adjourned at 6.51, but we have a work session that's supposed to end in nine minutes. I'm so sorry for that, for the staff. So let's... I think probably people could use a break, just
170a quick little break. So let's meet again at seven. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Thanks. Just leave us on here.