001Good afternoon, evening, everyone. This is the virtual special called meeting for the Alexandria School Board for September 10th, 2020, and we're starting at 5.02. And I will start with calling attendance. Cindy Anderson, that's me, I'm here. Veronica Nolan, present. Megan Alderton, here. Rami Jantri, here. Jacinta Green, here. Margaret Lorber. Michelle Reif? Here. Christopher Suarez? Here. And Heather Thornton? Here. All right. We're all here and accounted for. And we're going to start off with a moment of silence. Okay. Thank you, everyone. May I have a motion to adopt the agenda for today? Madam Chair, I move that we approve the agenda. Second. Ms. Alderton seconds Ms. Gentry's motion to adopt the agenda. I will call for the call, do the roll call for the agenda adoption. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Ramey
002Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay, that's 9-0. The agenda is adopted. And now we need to adopt the consent calendar. May I have a motion to adopt the consent calendar? Madam Chair, I move we adopt the consent calendar for today. Yeah. Do I have a second? Second. Ms. Green, yes, thank you, Ms. Green. Ms. Green seconded Ms. Lorber's motion to adopt the consent calendar. Is there anything to remove from the consent calendar? Okay, seeing, hearing nothing. I will call for a vote on the consent calendar. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Megan Alterton? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Margaret Werber? Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. So that's 9-0 in support of the adopting the consent calendar.
003So now, the only thing that we have next is, I believe, the superintendent's report before we go on to our work session. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I wanted to take this time to really report about the first week of school because we just completed day three, which I cannot believe, of our virtual plus learning environment. And I just have to first start off by thanking all of our staff for making it possible this week. A huge shout out to our. uh technology team because that really is our lifeline to do anything in ACPS uh during this virtual plus world and uh Dr. Hoover and the IT team has worked you know tirelessly to ensure that our students have the appropriate technology devices and access and that the zooms and everything is working in regards
004to like canvas and I mean we had over 5,000 technology devices over the past week provided to our students and that is from our you know our IT team. passing these out at different stations and working with our schools to get them to our families and our parents. And we are working with families who are unable to get to the different locations. So please, if anybody's out there who knows someone who does not have a device, for them to contact the school, because the school will make arrangements to make sure that our students have their devices. We will do whatever we need to do, including if we have to come and take bring-ups at you because nobody can come out, we will get the device to you. We will do that. But we just need
005to know who still needs devices out there. So please just, if you know someone, please have them contact the school. immediately, but also our staff we are monitoring because now we take attendance. So we know students who are not in attendance or who are not logging into the Zoom that phone calls are being made to families to determine what is going on in that particular situation. I also just want to thank our food services because we're still providing meals for our students. And I have to also just give a special shout out to our principals because they have been, you talk about heroes working on the front line. I mean, people sometimes don't realize all of the work principals have to do to make things like the first day of school or the first week
006of school happen smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. There's a lot of planning that comes into that. being in a global pandemic and still being able to do that in some cases from your living room or your family room or sometimes the office by yourself you know that type of thing uh it's tremendous a tremendous job that our principals and our school leaders are doing to make that possible. And I also just have to talk about some of the people who work behind the scenes because you all don't really get to see our senior leaders as well as our directors and our coordinators who work in central office and what they do to make all these things possible because they work just as hard as everybody else. They just are not out on the front line, that
007they're behind the scenes and helping and supporting and assisting our schools so that they can operate effectively. just want to make sure that our senior leaders and our coordinators and our directors and all of our central office staff that they understand their hard work is appreciated as well. And any other staff members. So I just highlighted some folks, right? But anybody else who made this possible. This week, I've heard a lot of positive feedback from our families about their experiences with our virtual plus, especially with the first day. I was really excited to hear a lot of commendations from our community. We also have some concerns that we really are going to have to work through, which is, you know, it's going to take time. As I said, time and time again, we don't have
008a playbook. in how all of this works, you know, because this is new for everybody. So when I'm talking to my superintendent colleagues, we're like, okay, well, how was your day? Everybody's kind of learning as we go along with this together. But one thing we know that we are going to just have to have discussions about and revisit and analyze more specifically is really our younger levels, our younger students, you know, our students in pre-K through second grade, and just what that looks like in regards to their day. And we are establishing, we met with our principals today at our weekly meeting to talk about how we establish an advisory team. And this is a team of teachers from all of the different schools at all different grade levels who will be working together to
009really, you know, talk through some of the obstacles that we have with the Virtual Plus. That was just unforeseen. I mean, we had to... go into implementation to determine like what works, what doesn't work, what are the things that need to be tweaked. But having that discussion with, you know, the people who are really right there and in the moment with our students is going to be extremely beneficial for us. We know we're going to utilize our Mondays, fortunately, because their Mondays are already scheduled for professional learning and staff meetings and team meetings and things of that nature. So we have the actual time to be able to do this weekly. We're now just working through with that. structure looks like at a very rapid pace. So we're going to be sending some more information
010out to the board as well as to our schools just around how we monitor our progress and make refinements and what that looks like. We have to be very careful. It's something I shared even with our principals today. We have to be mindful that, I mean, we're on day three, that we're not, the moment we hear something that we try to change something instantly because we will be shifting and changing every two or three days, you know, so we're going to have to really have. a system in place on how we make any adjustments so that we're not impulsively just, you know, like haphazardly making decisions really quickly without having a plan for it all to work effectively and efficiently. So we're going to be working through that at a very quick pace. So it's
011not, you don't have to wait weeks for that, but we'll have some more information early next week for, to share out with our. with our community. Another thing that I wanted to just to mention in regards to the opening of schools, next week we are having discussions or we're going to be offering some of the child care options that we shared with the board a couple of weeks ago. You know, the goal is to begin those on Monday, this coming Monday. And we do have a process that we have looked at applications. We've contacted families who were eligible. for these different programs. And we are seeing that, you know, there is a need out there that people are wanting to have these childcare options. And fortunately with our Virtual Plus partners, many of them already
012have, you know, we're gonna be offering some free slots, but many of them already have sliding scale options as well. that they're going to continue to have these sliding scale fees for our families. And that's regardless if you're at a Title I school or not. What we're offering, you know, as a ACPS kind of like free option is for the Title I, for our Title I schools. There are some very strict requirements that we have with that because we are utilizing, you know, federal dollars to help us to afford some of these child care options that we're looking at or learning opportunities that we're looking at for our students. But we are making sure that we're looking at the need that parents are sharing with us and that we're collaborating with all of our Virtual
013Plus partners to make adjustments and refinements along the way. And I think that we have to accept, which is this is a tough pill to swallow for, I know for me, I know for our team as well, is that we're not going to be able to do everything for everybody all at once. And that's hard to say that in a school division, but it is a reality, especially with so many constraints that we have from technology to space to staffing to dollars to just being in a global pandemic. I mean, these are all constraints that just doesn't afford us to say we're going to solve 100 percent of our problem. And we couldn't solve 100% of our problems prior to the pandemic. So, you know, it's even more difficult to try to resolve 100% of
014our problems now. We are having discussions about special education as well. These are students with special needs and having just our conversations to try to finalize our planning in regards to that, because we do want to be able to offer. some options for our families who have students with special needs. There are a lot of parameters and there are a lot of things that we have to put in place to ensure that this all works appropriately and that we can deliver on what we are sharing with our community. And this is why we are taking a little time to make sure that everything is done so that we can actually deliver what we're saying and that we can meet the needs. of our students with disabilities who will be able to engage in some of
015these offerings. You know, right now, all of our students are virtual. I mean, that right now was our learning approach. That was what we agreed upon, what was approved back in August for us to start the year was that we were going to have 100% virtual and meet our students' needs, their IEP needs virtually and provide those services virtually. In addition to that, we are just looking at what are some, you know, some other alternatives and potentially in-person options that we can offer some of our students as well. And then we have to determine, okay, well, which students are there because we can't bring back everybody. So then how do we say yes to some, no to others? So there's so many factors that come along with, you know, wanting to make a decision like
016this, that it's not as fast as everybody would like it to be because there's so many complications to it that once you make that decision there are some implications for another group when that decision is made and then how do you address that so um we're just working through all of those dynamics and if you all have questions later i know miss werner she's on the zoom today and she'll be able to answer any further questions that we have But all in all, I am very, very pleased with this week and what we have been able to accomplish during these unprecedented times that everybody is experiencing across our nation. And I just want to commend all of our staff for everything that they have been able to do. One final thing before I open the
017floor for any questions of Madam Chair, if there are any questions from board members is our helpline, which was something that was very important for us to have for our families. And many of our families took advantage of that over the past couple of weeks. I shared some statistics with you all in my superintendent's update yesterday. I'm going to be providing some more formal information once we get through our first week of school. But we have been very pleased with the amount of you know, engagement that families who typically have not felt like they have been engaged or that they have been forgotten that we're trying to make sure that we are making opportunities and engaging, you know, our underrepresented families so that we can hear their voices and that we can make decisions that
018are going to address their needs as well. So with that said, I will conclude with my first week or day three report to the board. Okay, thank you. Yes, I apologize. We had sort of transitioned to the Q&A during the summer when we were meeting weekly, and we actually put on the agenda today that is report, which is what we had been doing, which doesn't usually have questions, but because it's the first week and people had questions, we'll have to be more intentional about the wording, whether it's a report or a Q&A on future agendas. So if people have questions right now about the opening. week please raise your hand and then we can call on you. Ms. Alderton. I'm sorry there we go. Yeah I was just wondering have we heard any feedback? I've
019seen a lot of feedback from the family side and was there any feedback from just teachers on how things are going for them so far? Maybe not but I was just wondering if there had been any. You know, I've been receiving some several emails from our teachers and principals have also we talked about that during our principal update. Many of our teachers, they are unbelievably there. happy with the transition and they felt that we did because we had our professional learning time over the past week we were able to prepare the staff for our students I mean some things of course you just don't know until the kids arrive and in a virtual world right but for the most part the staff have felt that they have been supported that we have been prepared I
020think that we are this Monday principals are going to be meeting with all of their teams and their staff members to get specific feedback around the first week of school. We're going to start utilizing our Mondays to do check-ins with staff so that we're hearing firsthand what are some of the concerns. So we're not waiting until they kind of like escalate into major issues, but affording. our staff the opportunity to share with their principals and then we still meet with our principals each week so they're able to share out with us so we're addressing those concerns early on but so far there's been a lot of positive feedback from from our teachers in regards to the first week of school It is all consuming though. I ran into a teacher yesterday and she was telling
021me about starting and I saw her think about it. And when she realized that she had just started teaching the day before, I could see like it had seemed like a long time and a short. And so I felt for her because I realized it seemed like a long time since Tuesday morning started. And it was only Wednesday evening. But she was happy. But I just think it's all consuming. And it is exhausting. You're right, Madam Chair. Because I think that when you're trying to engage kids online, it's very different than engaging kids in person. And it does require a lot more energy. And you don't realize that, especially if you have your own children at home. or your spouse at home, or you're just at home, right? I mean, it's a very different environment.
022And for many educators, you know, and I'm just speaking for me as an educator as well, your classroom is kind of like, that's your place. It's like an actor in the stage, you know, and not having your place, it forces you to now be that educator, that teacher, that engager in a very awkward environment, like sitting at a table. or in your living room, you know, or in your own personal office at home. So that brings challenges too. And I don't want to underestimate that. So I'm glad you brought that up, Madam Chair, because that is something that is constant with our staff that they've been talking about because they are home. They are being pushed into discomfort. But I do know, and I shared this with them repeatedly, but I do know that, you
023know, our staff, they are so resilient and they will overcome. right, some of these challenges at this time, and we're going to keep supporting them as much as we can to make it as smooth as possible and as easy as possible. Next up, I have Ms. Nolan. Thank you, Chair Anderson. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchings, for just such a fantastic recap of the opening. First off, I just wanted to say that thank you so much for also acknowledging what some of the younger learners are going through in your opening remarks, because I know the majority of the feedback we have heard that echoes some concerns is the kindergarten. age range. So it's really excited to hear that that sounds like that's an area of focus of yours as well. And that we look forward
024as a board to hearing like what your recommendations are for that. The second thing I just wanted to say is thank you so much also for sharing, like just acknowledging the hard work of the staff. It's really been amazing. I mean, I've had the sincere pleasure of getting to, you know, watch the teachers on Zoom. You know, granted, I'm doing my own work, but, you know, you can hear it in the background and it just seemed they're so engaged. I hear fun music being played to start off, kick off some classes. food distribution. I had the pleasure of helping out a neighbor that needed some and got to see that oil well-oiled machine, but especially I have to give just humongous kudos to our IT technology department. I know everyone's working really, really hard, but
025I know that's become the infrastructure and the basis of the entire school division. I had the pleasure of being online during you know, the student help desk. And for those of you that perhaps don't know in the community that door number seven at TC Williams is a phenomenal resource that ACPS is providing for those that are having technology needs. And I just, I mean, to see just the hustle of these individuals and the care, lots of languages from staff are being spoken, assisting all of our parents. The line went by exceptionally quick and just smoothly. All the questions were answered. And this coming from someone who would, I would diagnose myself as technologically challenged. So for me to have such a positive experience, I just can't say enough about how hard ACPS is working. So
026I really appreciate that. My question actually, though, was going to be one of the questions I'm getting from parents, even though things are going as well as they could, is does ACPS have, it sounds like they're going to have an assessment tool along the way in terms of gathering feedback from families and the staff that you just recently talked about from the principals, like there's going to be check-ins like formally on Mondays, but could you share just a little bit more about what is that assessment loop going to look like, both from your team as a staff and the families, and then how are you as the supervisor superintendent, kind of assessing like where, what checkpoints do you have in your head as to like, what decisions are you making? Like in terms of like,
027are we going to remain virtual? Do we have, are we going to at some point go higher? Like, do you have like a checklist or something that you're kind of focused on with your leadership team? And do you mind just taking a moment to share that with the board and the community? Because I know that's, that's a question I've been asked that frankly, I wasn't able to respond to. So, so one, thanks for the question, Ms. Nolan. And yes, we definitely are going to continue to assess kind of like where we are with this whole virtual plus environment. One thing that we have put in place and we shared this back in August is that we have a transition team that will come back together every seven weeks. And what we're specifically going to be
028looking at is. okay, some of the constraints that we have from transportation to staffing to finance, you know, to space, all those different constraints that we do have, it's a reevaluation of, okay, well, how are those constraints now? Because we are trying to work through some of those constraints. So for example, even with the staffing piece, we're surveying our staff members to find out who can. come back so we can get an idea of, well, how many staff members really can we have feasibly back into the building? And then that equates to how many students, you know, so it gives us kind of a ballpark of how many kids we could serve if we were to have, you know, our staff back in the building. We are also trying to work through how do we
029come up with a formula to address the transportation issue? The biggest issue with the transportation. are the CDC guidelines and the constraints that come along with. having kids not sitting together on rolls of buses. And that right there, it limits just the amount of kids we can bring to school. And without us purchasing additional buses, that just brings a whole nother challenge, you know, to us getting kids to and from school. So that's another major constraint. So that's not something that's light. But those are the types of assessments that we're looking at in regards to our constraints. We also are just evaluating, and these are going to come through surveys, similar surveys that we did over the summer, with surveying our families to specifically ask about the current state. How is the instructional delivery happening,
030you know, within the home now with our virtual plus? Are you still having childcare issues? You know, is the time on the screen too long for your kid? You know, like all those types of questions that we really just need some concrete data on will be able to allow us to make an informed decision. But the transition team, and these are members that were part of the reopening team that were identified already, they will be looking at all of those data points. every seven weeks. And then we'll be making a determination on whether to open or not. The biggest factor too is also going to be kind of like what happens in regards to like our citywide data and kind of what does the COVID-19 curve look like? Is it flattening? You know, what I'm
031hearing right now from a lot of the medical profession. professionals, is that we could potentially see a spike when flu season comes back, you know, and that's towards the end of our first quarter. So, you know, these are all factors that we're going to have to begin to look at to assess whether it's the right time for us to transition into that hybrid approach. We do already have the hybrid transition prepared and ready to go because this summer we already developed to do a hybrid and we developed to do virtual. So we already know how we're going to do it. you know, pivot into a hybrid. It's just a matter of when we hit the green light to start that. Thank you. You're welcome. Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Anderson. And I just wanted to
032ditto what's been said, the kudos to the staff and everyone for their hard work. The reopening has been really, I think, well received in general, although obviously there have been a couple areas of challenge, which have mainly been the K-2, as you acknowledge, Dr. Hutchings, and also the special education. So I appreciate you calling those areas out, because from my perspective, if there are sort of two areas where there may need to be an accelerated in-person or an adjustment or something like that. I think those are the areas where we might need to do that. So I look forward, as Ms. Nolan said, to kind of hearing your thoughts on next steps for those things. And with regard to the K-2, as you've mentioned, and I'm sure we'll talk about in a priority session, I'm
033particularly concerned about the literacy before third grade and how we're going to think outside the box to get all our kids there if we make changes to the schedule or how are we going to partner with maybe... other entities in the community to kind of ensure that. That's what I'm particularly concerned about. My question probably won't be all too surprising and it's basically about I'm kind of curious where we are in terms of the attendance and how things are looking vis-a-vis last year. So I don't know if you have that from you know off the cuff. But I would be great if we could get a sense of kind of how did the first day compare to last year in terms of, you know, percentage of students who were in school. How has that trajectory
034maybe looked over the first three days? Have all of our teachers been getting to 100% of their classroom? And kind of what are we doing to sort of track that and make sure that we're reaching all of our kids? Thank you, Mr. Suarez, for that question. And that's actually a great question. It's something that we're working through. What we are looking at is the first week of school. So we do not have that data for you today because we want to be able to have our, we're tracking our data by weeks. So week one, we'll be gathering our data through our attendance kind of software to determine kind of what our attendance rate was for the first week. And then we're going to start doing comparisons each week to determine if. we're staying flat if
035we're seeing an increase if we're seeing a decrease and then start to dig a little deeper to determine why that's happening but we'll have some more data for the board as well as the community to share in regards to our attendance and how that's functioning after this week. Dr. Reif? Thank you. I have two questions. Well, first, I just want to also thank everyone for all the hard work. I think that, you know, all things considered, we got off to a really good start. And I know that I have been working tirelessly, all the departments and technology, you know, getting the devices to the kids. And I just want to really thank you for all of that effort. you know, also I know the teachers are really, you know, also putting in a lot of
036time and energy and I'm hearing just all positive things about the effort that they're putting forth and I just kind of wanted to kind of agree with what I'm hearing from some of my colleagues about the issue with the K-2. I just thought I would like chime in a little bit with some of my experience because I have an eighth grader, a fourth grader, and a second grader. And what I've found is with eighth grade, with secondary, I think that this model seems to be working for them. They're totally capable of functioning within the day, the full virtual day. For fourth grade, it's a little bit more challenging. but it's working okay for us. But for second grade, my experience is similar to what I think we're hearing from other families, where it's just the
037amount of Zoom time is very, it feels very excessive for this age group. And it's, you know, I have a child who's capable of, you know, handling the technology, knows how to, you know, mute himself, raise his hand or those kinds of things. But it's just the attention span, I think, for this age group is just really challenging. And I just kind of, you know, Mr. Suarez mentioned, you know, accelerating, maybe looking at how we can pivot for some of these groups. And I just kind of wanted to ask a little bit about that, because I know, Dr. Hutchings, you're putting together this virtual plus advisory team with teachers from every school looking at, you know, adjustments that might need to be made to the model. And we just talked about this survey, but it
038sounds like those things, I mean, those things sound like it will take until maybe October even to get some of those changes in place. So one of the, I guess what I was thinking about, you know, in the spring, we really heard, I think, from parents that they wanted more synchronous learning. People really seem to, the kids seem to really enjoy the synchronous time. It seemed to work best for kids. And there was issues with consistency across the division. So I think we've tried to solve that problem with the model we have here. But speaking for myself, my second grader went from two 30-minute Zoom sessions in a week to basically five hours on Zoom every day of school so far. And I know when you all were rolling out the plan, it sounded like
039there was going to be kind of like a large group. you know, instruction and then breaking into the smaller groups of the breakout rooms. And that part I think hasn't been happening. I think it's very challenging for teachers, especially with K-2, like putting them in breakout rooms when you don't have the staffing to really like go into each breakout room and support that. And so you know, like the sense that I'm hearing from parents is just really wanting to like pull back some of that time. What I've noticed also with my own child is that like for about an hour to an hour and a half, he's good. But after that, it's like, he starts to really check out. And then after lunch, you know, he's able to come back and do more as well.
040So, you know, even if it was an hour in the morning, an hour in the afternoon, I think something like that would be a lot more manageable, but I just, so I guess my question is how, is there a way to pivot sooner? I totally understand your concerns about, you know, not wanting to jump in and make a change and then having to change again. And, you know, and one thing I'm also thinking about is that the teachers can really read a room, you know, when there's, I think it's, it must be really hard for teachers of K-2, you know, watching the students, because I've seen the students in my child's class and they, you know, sometimes they look very tired, you know, and so what kind of autonomy do the teachers have to you
041know, say, we're going to do the group instruction for 20 minutes, and then I'm going to send you all on your own. And I'll see you, you know, as social studies in like an hour or something like that. So if you could just speak to that a little bit more, that'd be great. Yeah, so the goal really isn't to wait for a month to make any changes. We really want to, and we don't plan to make changes tomorrow either, but we do want to make sure that we're inquiring with the VDOE as well. So one thing we have to keep in mind, we have to meet compulsory attendance requirements, and that impacts our funding. So we don't want to lose dollars right now. So that's something that we just have to, I mean, you got
042to call it what it is. We can't afford to lose money from the state. not right now because we've already cut our budget by 12 million dollars so we can't act like that doesn't matter because it does. But two, we have to be able to really hear from all of our teachers and the goal is to that principals are going to be meeting with all teachers on Monday to get an idea of what are some of the concerns that they saw throughout the first week. So we can determine like you know is this a common theme or is this kind of like just certain kids you know um which i think we're going to see some common themes and threads you know with some of the information is what i predict um But we want
043to make sure that we have that concrete data. So then when we are sharing that we are changing, you know, whether it's our timing or the scheduling or how we're delivering instruction, that we have a purpose and why it's happening. And it's not because we got some emails from people, you know, we want to be able to say we worked with our staff. This is the feedback we got. We also heard from parents. We had our principals doing some classroom observations and this is what they witnessed. I mean, I've been able to do classroom observations too. So I got some, you know, anecdotal data that I can share, you know, as well. So then we are really making, you know, a solid decision that's based on, you know, data and is informed. So we're hoping
044to have something in the next week or so, honestly, about how we're going to pivot or move forward and what that will look like. But we just have to do some checks and balances with the VDOE. We have to make sure that we're getting all the input from the staff and not making our own inferences, you know, based off of what some people have told us, because we really need to hear from all the staff on this one. That's great. Thank you. And my other question was, I think it's more for Dr. Hoover, which, again, you know, I think your team has done a terrific job getting the technology out to everyone. So thank you so much for all the hard work. I wanted to ask about just any challenges you might be running into.
045I mean, I have heard a few issues people have had with like screens freezing or video, you know, sometimes like the teacher's screen will be frozen or. I know there's been a lot of emphasis too on getting the technology to the students and I'm wondering about what kind of needs if staff members are also having some technology support needs as well. So if you could talk about that a little bit. It feels like everyone has some needs right now. And so we're working through those. And certainly we haven't had any division-wide technical issues like screens freezing. I mean, I know in my house, about 1230 every day, our internet seems to slow down for a little bit. And so I do think families are experiencing some bandwidth issues. I actually was talking to Dr. Nickerson
046earlier today to see how we can help our L families before they even get a device to give them kind of a preview through the L office before they even, as they register there, before they get their devices. We're constantly thinking about I hope we've certainly learned lessons, but I'm going to hope that we never have to implement these lessons again in another pandemic. But I do think we are continually trying to identify what else is needed and then how we do that. Right now, our major push is to get the devices, get our kids connected to their classroom, and then we're going to be able to do some additional refinement. And I think our community needs some more support on learning the tools. We're just starting to pull some data about how many families
047have their PowerSchool accounts. I mean, it's tremendously more in the past, and we want to get through the week before we can share some of that. I am grateful for the things that do not happen and did not happen to us. So I think we had a relatively smooth start. I know it's not perfect for everyone. I think the teachers did a phenomenal job in their learning and have built some great courses. There's always some glitches, Zoom links not working, but that's going to be worked out through these first few days. We've got our eye on it, looking at anything that emerges and then really also working with our partners, and I say partners, my colleagues. I've got to shout out to Volunteer Alexandria. They've been phenomenal helping us with some bilingual support and just
048extra hands-on support because, yes, my staff is amazing. I could not be more proud. I do also feel like the community has come in and really supported us. That's a big part of our success. That is really great to hear. Ms. Green? Thank you, Kate Anderson, and I will keep this quick. I was just wondering, Dr. Hutchins, when we receive the attendance information, I guess in the next couple weeks or so, would it be possible to get an update on enrollment as well? I'm hearing that a lot, well, a significant amount of parents have... pulled out of ACPS to go to private settings because they are in person or private schools because they're in person. And I was just wondering, you know, there's many reasons why people, you know, don't come back to school, whether
049they move or not. But is there any way that we could tell how many might have done that potentially and just what the enrollment would be compared to prior year? So we typically do our enrollment report in October, but I know Dr. Crawford can provide us with just some insight in regards to withdrawals because they all come out of Dr. Crawford's office. So she can give us kind of an idea without saying concrete numbers right now. But Dr. Crawford, would you like to respond to that? Absolutely. Good evening, everyone. Nice to see you. The questions related to attendance and enrollment are also intertwined at this point in the school year because this is when we have our students who are new to us coming in, but we also have our drops for students withdrawing. And
050we have our 10-day, what's called the no-show report that's part of the student record collection, the report that Dr. Hutchins just referenced that you will get. When schools do withdraw, They are requested to give a withdrawal code. So we'll be able to give you information based on that withdrawal code. And my office also, or my department oversees the home instruction numbers. So we would be able to tell you the estimate of students who are going to home instruct. So that withdrawal data will be helpful, but it's really, you know, we need the first couple of weeks to make sure that that's clean before it gets reported on. And I'm going to look at Dr. Hoover because I know Ms. Runkle gives us that report every year. Make sure I covered that correctly. You did a
051great job. Thank you. Thank you. Always a great report from Ms. Runkle. We always love it. All right. I don't see any other questions for now. But of course, you know, you know, the email address to send them to, right? So now if I could get a motion to adjourn so that we can go into our work session, that would be wonderful. Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn. Second. Ms. Alderton, second Ms. Gentry's motion to adjourn. So I'll call for the roll call vote. Cindy Anderson, yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Megan Alderton. Yes. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay, that's 9-0 to adjourn, and we're adjourned at 5.43. But don't go anywhere, because it's not over.