November 16, 2020 School Board Meeting Preliminary 2022 Employee Compensation Overview

001So now it's 4.05. So we will, and we know that Rami's not coming for another like 25 minutes because she got a sudden work commitment that popped up. So we're going to go ahead and get started because we have quite a few topics to cover. And the first topic is employee compensation overview. So I'm going to turn over to Dr. Hutchings to lead us through. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. And yes, we do. We're going to go ahead and start off with our compensation study. If you all recall, last year, we had our first compensation study that was conducted by a third party for ACPS. And this is a practice that we're hoping to continue just to ensure that we are providing quality and good salary and benefits to our staff that are comparable. to

002other school divisions in the Northern Virginia region. So at this time, I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Wilkins, who will introduce our third party team. I know that Dr. Turner, I'm sorry, Mr. Turner. So I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Turner then. All right, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Turner. I just got a text saying turn it over to Dr. Wilkins, but I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Turner. And he will introduce our third party team who's conducting our employee compensation. Thank you, Dr. Hutchins. And Susan, I don't know if you're able to pull up our PowerPoint for us. I'm going to get it started and then I will turn it over to Heather, our third-party consultant at Segal. I just want to get the presentation

003started as we typically review the comparisons for the WAB jurisdictions of several different job classes. And as Dr. Hutchins just said, last year we started to do a third-party compensation study on particular job classes to make sure that we're competitive across all. of our job classes. Typically, you know, in this preliminary compensation review, it's done internally and we look at our largest job classes. So our teacher pool and principal pool and bus drivers and instructional assistants. Thank you, Susan, for pulling that up. Next slide, please. So today we want to be able to answer three questions for the school board and those of you. So how are we evaluating the compensation of our other positions? So that's the third-party compensation study that we've been doing. What types of raises have been issued by ACPS and

004surrounding jurisdictions in recent years? As I'm sure everybody would like to know that, you know, how the pandemic has been affecting the ability to do salary enhancements across the jurisdictions. And then lastly, how do our current ACPS teacher and other position salaries compare to our surrounding jurisdictions? Next slide, please. So, as we mentioned, the Human Resources Department has been doing a competition study with a third-party consulting starting last year. Last year, we took a look at our bus drivers, monitors, mechanics, instructional assistants, principals, and senior leaderships, and we put into place a three- to five-year plan to be able to get those to a more competitive level. salary amongst the surrounding jurisdictions. And the reason why these positions were in our first year compensation study was from the internal look where we saw these positions

005at compared to our surrounding school. This year, we're in year two, working with Segal Consulting, and they're getting our compensation. I will toss it over to Heather to go over the student. I know I'm going to ask another favor, but can you pull up Heather's slides, please? It might be easier if I pull it up, Dominic, because I think... I don't have the PowerPoint version, so Heather will have to show. Oh, let me un-show mine so you can share yours. Sorry about that. That's okay. One second. Is it showing? Yes. Fantastic. Okay. Well, thank you, Dominic. I wanted to share with the board just a quick status update. I only have about five slides here, a bit of an introduction, and then talking about which employee groups we're studying, and then talking about the market

006comparators and data sources, and the types of information that we're collecting and analyzing, and then finally the timeline. So just a very quick update, but I'm going to go through these. So as Dominic said, as a result of HR audit some time ago, ICPS engaged Siegel to conduct these market assessments. And the goal is to determine your market position. And that is for total compensation for pay as well as benefits for selected employee groups. As Dominic mentioned, it's on a rolling basis, a few groups each year. So in January of this year, we share the results from phase one, and we're now beginning phase two, which we anticipate will be completed in early 2021. We're using the same methodology and approach that we used in the first phase. And I did want to say also

007that, you know, doing this kind of periodic market assessment work is a standard HR practice, and it helps you. make business decisions, ensures that your current compensation package supports your objectives. And really a lot of organizations, particularly in the corporate sector, but also in public sector, do these kinds of periodic studies, either on small groups over a long period of time or comprehensive study school-wide. But this is good HR practice to do what you're doing. So phase two, what types of employees, employee groups are we looking at? For this study, we focused primarily on positions that are paid on the support staff scale. And we looked through a number of job families to make sure we had representation throughout different areas, departments, divisions, functions, and so on. So as you see here, we have jobs

008in the facilities area, building engineer series, skilled maintenance work leader. and a maintenance supervisor. In food and nutrition, we're looking at the highest level of nutrition assistant plus assistant managers and all levels of food and our school nutrition managers. We're also looking at some general administration jobs, administrative assistant one and two, and then two types of executive assistants. The fourth job family we're looking at is human resources, and we have different types of functions within human resources for benefits, generalists, and also recruitment, talent acquisition jobs. In information technology, we're looking at the technician one through four series. So we're getting all levels in that area. And then for school administration, if you recall, last time we looked at school principals. And you had asked if in phase two, we could also look at assistant principals

009or assistant school administrators. And so we're including those in the analysis. So who are we comparing you to, comparing your pay and benefits to? Of course, primarily school divisions, and the list here is the exact same that was used during Phase 1. But because many of these jobs are not specific to school divisions, that is facilities, HR, some of these other jobs can be found in a lot of different areas. We're also including two local governments, the city government and Arlington County. And we're also including private sector data sources. So we can see if the market is different or similar among school divisions, as well as local governments and then local private sector employers. So those are three market segments we're looking at. And what types of information are we looking at? Same as we

010did last time, we're focused primarily on pay and benefits. So that's the sort of the blue area over here, just that one piece of total rewards of compensation, primarily pay and benefits. But I did want to mention that, you know, while we see what the market is and we can quantify these elements of compensation, of course, there are many other reasons why people work for an organization or why they leave or why they stay, including affiliation, culture. Profession and possibilities, meaning career advancement possibilities. So while we're focused on some of these more quantitative aspects, I did want to just show you this whole picture and say that's really just one piece of the puzzle in looking at how competitive your total rewards or total compensation program can be. And then last slide here, a bit

011on timeline. We're working on the draft report now. Should be done, I think, within about a week or so. And then work through the final report with the HR department. And we anticipate coming back to you and sharing results in January of next year. So with that, that's the update. Any questions or thoughts? And thank you, Heather, for that. And Madam Chair, part of today's presentation was really to give the board kind of just a heads up of what was in progress. You know, I know that the board will await to see what the specific outcomes from this are. And the goal is that whatever the outcomes that come out of this compensation study, that some of that may be included in the FY22 budget. Those will be discussions that we'll have with board members

012during our two by twos in December prior to the presentation of the superintendent's proposed budget for FY22. So did you, Dr. Hutchings, did you want questions at this point in the presentation or no? I think that, you know, if there are burning questions about some of the process, I think it's good to have those questions now, but we don't have any of our comparative analysis data as of now, because all of this is just in progress. So the goal was to at least share with the board what the process was. So if there are process questions, I think this is the appropriate time to ask those. But we do not have analysis information or data at this moment because we're... It's still in progress and it should be completed over the next couple of weeks.

013Right. I see that Dr. Reif has her hand up, though. I'm not sure. Is this a process question, Dr. Reif? Yes. Okay. Thanks for that presentation, Ms. Kazemi. And I wanted to ask about a process. It is a process question. Something I noticed about the compensation study last year after we met with you and I was looking at it a little bit more thoroughly. And I noticed that. On the executive summary that you gave us, you know, it provided the ranking system, right, for each of the different positions you looked at, both based on the base pay as well as the total compensation. And what I noticed is that for our hourly employees, it used the minimum pay range to compute the ranking. that are more on salary, it used the midpoint range. And I

014was wondering if there was a rationale of that because I, you know, my own kind of feeling when I was reading it is, you know, how comparable, like, why are we using a different point to measure these two categories of employees? So I didn't know if there was some kind of methodological reasoning behind that. And then I was curious, my other question for you was around those other categories beyond the pay and benefits. You talked about affiliation, culture, profession, and possibilities. Is that something that you all do any assessments on, or is that just like for our information? I was just curious if your company does that kind of analysis. Yeah, let me take the second question first. Yes, those are things that certainly our firm or firms like ours can look into. It's, you

015know, less quantitative, you know, more qualitative and understanding, you know, what. how people perceive or understand their opportunities, how they feel in terms of the culture and that kind of thing. But yes, that's something that can be measured and can be incorporated into analysis like this. This study, of course, is just focusing on those pay and benefits aspects. What I did that was for your information to say, you know, this is not the only reason people come to work for an organization. It's just the pay and benefits. And on the first questions, looking at the rankings, I'm trying to remember what the specific rationale was, but I think when we were discussing this, for the hourly positions who were focused at the minimum, because these are typically entry-level positions, you're looking to recruit somebody early

016in their career, and we wanted to get a sense of what is the ranking at the beginning of the pay range. So when you're posting a... a pay range for positions, that's typically what you would see in the posting is a minimum up to somewhere maybe close to the middle of the range. But that's a typical hiring range that you would see for a non-exempt or hourly position. But for the school principal positions and other exempt positions, those are ones where you're usually posting the full salary range. And somebody, because they come in with experience, are not generally brought in at the minimum. That's been my experience. Now, please, you know, anyone jump in here, you know, Dr. Wilkins or Dominic, if you recall anything different from that. But if my memory serves, I think

017that was the thought process at that time. That's correct. We want to be able to make our position competitive, both at the entry level and at the bottom of the scale, as well as in the middle of the scale as well. And then when we looked at the... I guess the salary adjustments, what we were trying to do over those three and five years is be able to bring up both at the bottom and at the top, into the top half of those jurisdictions. So again, we want to be able to compete for those entry-level employees at the bottom of the scale. And then we also want to make sure that our more seasoned professionals also have a competitive pay as we move the top of the scale up as well. Yeah, just if I

018could just follow up really quickly on that, I guess, you know, as I'm listening and thinking through that, I know that, you know, like, for example, in the category of bus drivers, right, we've had, there's been a shortage of bus drivers. So I can certainly understand the rationale of wanting to bring in people at the entry level. But I also think that, you know, in the drivers and also in the paraprofessionals, we have a lot of people who stay in these positions for quite some time. One of the things that stood out to me last year with the instructional assistants or paraprofessionals is that, again, we were, the ranking was based on the minimum, like the very entry level positions. But if you go up higher, our paraprofessionals or instructional assistants, they, the base pay

019actually does not stay competitive because they have a bit stronger, you know, the benefits package. It keeps them at a higher range. But at any rate. That was the reason that we did not raise their pay last year as part of our as part of the analysis, but then I noticed i'm just looking ahead and into the presentation here that it seems like they have now slipped in the ranking they went from. You know ranking third last year at the hourly at the entry to like ranking five, so I guess, this is my question like if we're. you know, we didn't raise their, we didn't raise the instructional assistance pay last year and now here they've dropped in terms of your internal data this year. So like this just feels like a whack-a-mole kind of

020game that we're playing here with the, you know, with the compensation analysis. I'm just, any insight you can provide into how to just, like how this is successful in the long term, I would appreciate that. One thing that's important that we are consistently doing is that we do conduct an internal kind of comparative analysis every year. So we're constantly looking at where the rankings are for our different staffing groups. And we, from that, can make different decisions in regards to how we're going to. continue to be competitive. So I really, the goal for us is that we're not in a situation where we're continuously avoiding or ignoring, you know, certain groups. So then we get back to the situation that we had, which started this whole third party employee compensation study last year, was that

021we neglect certain groups, and then they just get further and further and further behind. And then it takes forever to try to catch them up. So I know Mr. Turner may be able to talk to how the internal comparative analysis occur and what we do with that data moving forward. Mr. Turner. So, yes, we want to pull the presentation back up and move through those job classes. So, again, the internal, we look at our larger job classes that we have throughout ACPS as a part of this preliminary study that we provide the school board each year. Again, our larger job classes are obviously our teacher pool and then our instructional assistant and bus drivers, followed by principals and assistant principals. So, next slide, please, Susan. Well done. It's stuck. Okay. I think as that's coming

022up, I think the biggest thing is that, I mean, it is a budget decision that we have to make to close the gaps, you know, earlier. But I think we have to keep in mind that we can only do so much, you know, like if we're trying to look at multiple employee groups, it's hard to try to do everybody all at one time. So what we're continuously trying to do is when we're doing our analysis is looking at from that period of time. what are some of the kind of like pressing or pressing is not the right word, but the employee groups that are really making it to the top that's showing a significant gap. And we're trying to really get a hold of those specific employee groups each year as we're looking at these.

023But you may want to talk specifically about this slide right here, Mr. Turner. Sure. So I will say it is a little bit of a whack-a-mole to try to keep up with the competition of all the surrounding jurisdictions. And we put several different things in play to try to stay competitive. For instance, some years we might offer an MRA market rate adjustment. Some years we might take off the bottom step and add a new top step. So therefore, that doesn't have a budget impact, but it allows people that are going further in their career to have another step. to be able to move up to. And other jurisdictions take the same approach to try to stay competitive as well. So as other jurisdictions move their pay scales and do different things with their pay scales,

024it is a moving target, right? So, I mean, the goalpost kind of does move as we move throughout the years. And one of the things that we try to do with this preliminary compensation study, as Dr. Hutchinson said, is identify those job groups that have a big gap. between us and our surrounding jurisdictions and then work with our third party to say, okay, these are the ones that we saw that we look like we're not that competitive with. So can you do some more analysis for us? And then we have to internally, HR and FSD, look to say, okay, what is the... excuse me what is the plan going to be to how we address this are we going to try to give um different mras um and then what is the the long-term plan

025for acps are we trying to attract uh more entry-level employees so we bring the bottom step up or do we want to be able to keep um you know more seasoned staff longer in acps and we move the top of the scale up So if we obviously had the bottom of the scale be number one and the top of the scale be number five, again, we want to make sure that throughout a whole scale, the bottom, middle, and top, you know, is on that top half of our surrounding jurisdiction, then the message that we're saying is we're trying to attract more entry level. And if we flip it, then we're trying to say we want to keep more seasoned employees over the long term of their career. So, again, we're looking at, you know, multiple

026different ways to be able to try to address our pay scale. Obviously, this year, for fiscal year 2022, you know, we want to be able to look at both, you know, potentially salary enhancements or, as what we did in the past, lop off the bottom step and add a new top step that has a lower budget impact to. to ACPS when we look forward. So on this slide, as you see, last year... really nobody gave a step more MRA. ACPS, we gave a MRA to those specific job classes in the compensation study that we saw that there was a wide gap between us and our surrounding jurisdictions. And we took a three and five year approach to try to move those job classes up into the top half of our competitors here in the DMV

027area. So we hope to obviously be able to do that moving forward. I don't know those that were listening to the city council retreat a few weeks ago and how they were talking about, you know, not giving increases to you in a row would be difficult. So we'll obviously be looking at our budget to see what we can do for a salary enhancement for our staff going into fiscal year 2022 as well. Next slide, please. So we start with our teacher pay scale. So in ACPS we have three different scales for our teachers, bachelor's degree, master's degree, and master's degree plus 30. Teacher pool is obviously our largest job class in ACPS. So for us For our bachelor's degree, our first step, as you compared it across the WAB jurisdictions, wasn't in the top half,

028but as we move to middle of your career and end of your career for bachelor's, we're up at the top, in the top half. Next slide, please. Oh, and 18% of our staff have bachelor's degrees. For master's degree, 63% of our teachers have a master's degree. Again, we're pretty competitive all across the board, first, middle, and top for our master's degree. Again, top half on all of them, or top third really for all of them, three, two, and three. Next slide, please. And then our master's plus 30. You'll see that we're in top third for, again, first, middle, and last step for our master's degree plus 30. 30. The one thing that you'll see on the note that Arlington, they do offer a career advanced program, which would increase their top of the scale by

029a few thousand dollars, I believe. And one of the things that we don't have in ACPS that a few of these other jurisdictions in the area that they do have is a PhD scale. So if we were to compare, you know, apples to oranges, our master's degree plus 30 to some of the other um phd scales then you would see that top of the step um go down from three out of nine um to to a lower rank um but that would be apples to oranges comparison so we have compared all the masses degree plus 30 across these jurisdictions next slide please So the instructional assistant. So this information is taken from the wavy guide. That's why we don't have Prince George's County in there. They didn't have information provided to the wavy guide. And

030you'll see, excuse me, the beginning alley is, you know, right at the bottom of the top half. And then as we move up, it's three. So this is. For the way we got is taking all your paraprofessional, so your paraprofessional one to four. So this is the top of our scale for paraprofessional four and the beginning of the scale for paraprofessional one. Next slide, please. So bus drivers, as we saw last year and the past several years, we weren't very competitive with our bus drivers. And as Dr. Hutchins had us do the third-party compensation study, we looked at a way of how can we become more competitive with our bus drivers, be able to recruit more bus drivers to come to ACPS and then keep them for their career here in ACPS. So we put

031in a three-year plan for them to be able to try to... move up their salary pretty quickly. Obviously, it's very hard to do it in one year, so that's why we had a three-year approach. We were able to keep that MRA in place in last year's budget and starting to move their beginning of their salary up. And it will take a little bit to move the top of the scale up to the top half because of where we have been ranking. But we are on that trajectory with that three-year plan that we put into place. this year. If you see on this chart, you'll see two outliers, really. Most of the other jurisdictions, the maximum on the scale is right around about $35. But Arlington and Prince William County, they both have a maximum of

032above $40. So they're kind of the two outliers when it comes to the maximum or bus driver salary. And you'll see everybody else is grouped right around the $35 an hour range. So we're trying to get in that range. Next slide, please. Our elementary school principal, this was another one of the job classes that was in the compensation study last year that we're trying to move up and become more competitive for principals and senior leaders. We had a five-year approach, so a much longer, slower process to be able to get that. competitive, but we do have that plan to be able to move our rankings up for elementary school principal as well. And not just elementary, but elementary, K-8, and middle school principals were a part of that compensation study last year. So the first

033step again was seven out of 10 and the top step eight out of 10. If everything stays the same, we're hoping to be able to again move these both the first step and the top of the scale up to the top half of the jurisdictions. Next slide, please. Then with our senior leaders. So again, the low end eight out of eight at the bottom, the high end seven out of eight, we put in the five year plan to be able to address this as well. And again, What we're trying to do is move us into the top half of our surrounding jurisdictions. Again, we're not trying to be number one. As you'll see, some of these jurisdictions, they're paying almost a quarter million dollars for some of their senior leaders. We're not shooting to be

034above a quarter million dollars with our senior leaders, but we do want to be more competitive than seven out of eight and eight out of eight. Next slide, please. And then a total compensation package. So this is what Heather just talked about a little while ago as a part of the Segal Consulting Group, taking a look at all of the compensation that we offer our employees. So not just the salary, but also the health benefits, vision benefits, dental benefits, retirement packages, and so forth. So based on the way we looked at these items, we actually offer the best competitive package out of those jurisdictions. So that's, you know, our retirement package. Again, we've talked about how we have a Platinum Plus healthcare plan for employees quite a bit. So all of that coming into play

035and the amount that ACPS puts into our healthcare plans for employees really makes our total package be very competitive. And one of the things that Heather did mention in her presentation, keeping employees, you know, you have those other... pillars there to be able to keep employees. And we also do some of those things as well, such as tuition reimbursement. We have career development where we are able to get staff to go to different conferences and expand what they know and what they're able to bring in. into the classroom or bring in to central office, as well as a program, grow a teacher. So if you start as a paraprofessional and you want to become a teacher, we have a program we're able to do that as well. So we really want to, here in ACPS,

036be well-rounded with all of our compensation, as well as the opportunity that we are able to provide our employees to really make them feel like this is a place that they can stay for a long time. And with that, I believe that is the last slide I have. turn it back over to the chair for questions. Okay, I'm going to do something unusual and start with a question of my own. And that is on the bus driver one. Do we think it's, I sort of think that it might be important to actually look at what DASH pays to at least DASH, if not DASH and Metro, because it seems that they're really our competitors as well. And I think we want to keep an eye on that. Is that something you've thought about? Or does

037that make sense? So I believe in last year's compensation study, we did look at some of those companies, but I can't recall off the top of my head. But I know for all of these positions, because we know that school systems aren't our only competitors, we did want to be able to look at what some of these private companies pay as well. Yeah, because that's the same geography. I think that dashes probably are most likely, and that's where I think we actually had people. So I would think we want to keep, of course, their budget is very stressed now too, because they also rely on city funding. Anyway, that was my thing. Now, Dr. Reeve, you have a question? Yeah, thank you. I don't know if you can pull the presentation back up, but on

038slide seven and slide eight, I noticed that on slide seven, you looked at page number seven. You see here on slide seven, you have the entry range, the middle and the top. And then if you go to slide eight, if you go to slide eight now. You just have the beginning and the end. And for me, as like with my researcher hat, like I really am interested in seeing when we are just looking at all the employee groups, speaking for myself, I would love to see the data like consistently presented for every group if possible. I mean, this was kind of what I touched on a little bit with the. with the question I was asking earlier about the executive summary last time. I mean, I definitely understand what you were saying, Mr. Turner, about,

039you know, do you want to, is the goal to recruit more people in the front? Is it to hold more people in the back? But just as a board member looking at this, like to be able to compare position to position to position, it would be helpful for me. I would love to see like all three categories for each group. So I just wanted to kind of. put that plug in there. And then I was curious, you also made a comment about we generally do the compensation study for larger groups of employees. And I think this has come up before the parent liaisons, which I think is such a critical position in ACPS. And I'm not sure how other school divisions use that particular position. It seems to be a position that can be forgotten

040about a little bit sometimes. And so I just know that they play such a crucial role. And I know that I've heard from some that they are interested in more professional learning opportunities too. So I just wanted to hear some, any thinking about, you know, looking at the compensation of the parent liaisons in particular. So at this time, we did not have the parent liaisons as one of our employee groups. That is a unique position for us in ACPS. Every school division does not have parent liaisons. They're not fortunate to have the funding to do that. But we do know that that is an area. for us because family engagement is one of our key components, is actually one of our goals. So that is definitely an area that we want to continue to make

041sure that we're not only providing professional learning for parent liaisons, but also having competitive salaries for our parent liaisons. So we will continue at least monitoring that. In regards to the slide with the high end and the low end and not the middle, we can just make sure that we're providing more consistency with the way we are displaying our data moving forward. And we will be able to do that. Right. And to Dr. Hutchins' point, those positions... aren't compared in the wavy because every jurisdiction doesn't have those specific positions. Then when it came to the not having that mid-range there for I think those other three categories because we did pull that data primarily from the wavy guide but we can do the same thing like we did for the teacher scales and just go

042to each division's HR page and pull the actual scale to be able to put in the median for those positions as well so that's not a problem. Okay, Ms. Lorburn. Thank you, Chair Anderson, and thank you everybody for the presentation. I just wanted to support a little bit what Dr. Reif has said. I kind of agreed with her. I kept wondering why we would show the middle for one group and not the other, and I just want to say I think that would be helpful. And regarding parent liaisons, while not every jurisdiction has them, Fairfax and Arlington certainly have. comparable numbers and I've had them for a long time. So I think that would be at some point. I mean, my first reaction to as well, we have so few, but it would be great

043to be able to compare at some point the salaries between at least Arlington and Fairfax because they have significant numbers. And I'd be curious. I mean, it's a small, a small little segment. But again, I just wanted to speak up that Dr. Reif isn't the only person interested in this. So thank you. We'll be sure to bring that forward. Okay. Thank you all. I think that's it for the questions that I see right now. So we could go on to our next thing, which is the major, the overarching CIP presentation. Dr. Hutchings? Yes, and thank you, Madam Chair. And today's presentation, this is our work session number one for the Capital Improvement Program budget. And today we're going to focus on FY22. So we want to keep our questions to FY22 because our work session

044two will focus on the full 10 year span of the CIP. We also are going to be having our two by twos starting tomorrow with board members. So I think it's important for me to just remind the board that we're going to have opportunities to really talk more in depth so that prior to that work session two. a lot of the questions and ask that you have will be included for the community at that time. So I wanted to start with that. I also just wanted to remind us as we did last week or as I did last week with the fact that we are experiencing an economic downturn right now. This is going to have a significant impact. not only on our CIP budget, but also on our combined funds budget for FY22. And

045I think it's just important for us to keep reminding ourselves about that. This is a year like no other. And there's so many uncertainties that it is our responsibility to be fiscally responsible and to try to make sure that we're making decisions with the information that we have right now, knowing that things could change. Things could be better. Things could be worse, right? But we are trying to at least respond with the information we have now and also in preparation of the economic downturn that we are experiencing within the city of Alexandria. I'm not going to go through every single one of these slides because many of the slides we just reviewed last Thursday, but I do want to find or ask the board if there are any questions in particular, if we can flip

046through, and I believe we can go through to slide six. One more slide. One more slide, yeah. The reason why I fast forwarded to the discussion slide is because I wanted to see if there were questions about the PowerPoint presentation last week so that we can take those now. And then there are a couple of additional slides that we want to share that were not presented last week that relate to the targeted facilities assessment. Because I do think that that is an important component that we really need to discuss and how that's impacting the FY22 budget. So were there any specific questions? from board members in regards to the alignment that we had for the budget priorities that were approved by the budget. I'm sorry about the school board. And then also in regards to

047the FY22, we provided a summary about FY22 with the board. We also discussed the Douglas MacArthur project in particular. And I know that there may be some questions in regards to that, but I wanted to make sure that we opened the floor for some discussion around those items before we went into some of the new information. Okay. Any questions? For that on those. Dr. Reeve. I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I understand. So if we have any questions about the Douglas MacArthur project you were saying to ask that right now. Is that what I heard you say? Sorry, I was on mute. Yes, I think that that's a good time now for us to talk through that. We shared that information last week and I didn't want to go through last week's presentation

048again with the board. Yeah, I was wondering, I saw that there's a community engagement session that's planned for November 30th, I guess. or that week or something. And I know we've gotten some feedback from some members of the community in the past from some of the civic associations and whatnot about the community engagement around the Douglas MacArthur project. I recall one email that we received asked about, you know, if the meetings would be virtually available, which I'm assuming yes. And something about having the documents shared ahead of time with the community so they could review them and kind of come. with their questions prepared. So I was wondering if you could talk about that. And then if there was anything I've been very interested in, if there's any planning for some kind of farewell, you

049know, to the building and everything since the demolition is coming up here. So I never had heard of any events planned for that. And I was curious. So I know Ms. Gulick is on the call and she'll be able to elaborate on this. But one thing I would like to say in regards to the community meetings, first and foremost, when we just this past spring, when we were hosting our community meetings, we had just pivoted into this virtual world and it was a new thing for everybody. So I just wanted to preface the conversation with that because there were lessons learned by us pivoting to virtual. and not being in person. And then not only that, it's important for us to always keep in mind that we prefer to share information with the board first

050and then share information with committees and groups. So sometimes we do hold information until it goes before the board. And that is just because it's important for you all to provide some guidance and insight so that we're not causing confusion with going ahead of. sharing it with the board and then going public with that information. So those are some of the things that have happened this last go round. I do know moving forward that the goal is to continue to have virtual meetings because we're still in this virtual space. I think that Ms. Gulick can elaborate a little bit on how the November 30th structure will be. I do know that our community was informed well in advance. That's why, Dr. Reif, you are familiar with it now. But we did share out early on

051that we were having this session and we tried to get the word out to our community because everybody's anxious to hear about what's happening with this progress. But Ms. Gulick, if you can talk to the specific agenda for Douglas MacArthur's meeting on November the 30th, that could be helpful. Of course. Thanks, Dr. Hutchings, and thank you, Dr. Reed, for the question. So just to clarify, on November 30th, we'll be having a Douglas MacArthur advisory group meeting. So that is that smaller group. And I think, as Dr. Hutchings said, we learned a lot in kind of that pivoting to the virtual world and had to lean very heavily on our advisory group. to kind of get the feedback from their communities because we didn't have as many community meetings as we might have had we not

052been in that virtual world. So on November 30th will be a Douglas MacArthur Advisory Group. We're also intending to meet with staff that day. And we had originally proposed doing the community meeting on December 2nd, but in speaking with the communications team and understanding some of the other things we have going on in the division and some of the discussions I believe Dr. Hutchings is doing that week, we've decided to move that community meeting to December 7th. So it will be the following Monday and that'll be a broader community-wide webinar style meeting like we've been doing for some of our planning to return. meetings as well. The purpose of them are to update the community on the budget, on the progress of the design, on the timeline, and also to get ready for some pre-construction

053activities. So we have to talk about some of the things that people should expect to start to see and all of that. We are now targeting, hopefully you all will be able to approve the demolition and abatement contract prior to our winter break. And so that's when the work will begin. Even then, we won't see it right away because it will mostly be interior abatement of the building, getting rid of trash, rodent control, stuff like that. And so, but we do want to get out to the community that first week of December just to explain to them the types of activities they should see. We'll also be requesting to do surveys of adjacent properties to make sure we don't cause any damage to other people's homes, stuff like that. So that'll be the intent of

054those meetings. Thank you for that. And I guess there's also a meeting for the high school project on Thursday, this Thursday. There's like so much going on and I just want to like, I almost forgot about that. So maybe you could talk a little bit about where that project is too and how that community meeting is going to be structured this Thursday. So this Thursday is really just going to talk to kind of our progress and how we're moving into the design phase for the high school project. We've been sending out communications to the community, but this is just an opportunity to talk about what the design phase means and how we're now transitioning into a new phase of the high school project. A lot of that information, we're going to be able to kind

055of share information the board already knows in regards to where we're going. with this design phase, but that is what the update is this weekend. And Dr. Reif, you are absolutely right. There is a lot going on and we are still in a global pandemic. But our marching orders have been to continue to proceed with our CIP projects, which we're trying to do in spite of the global pandemic. And it is a lot for our team, but we are going to keep working through that. I always have to say, just a reminder to the board as well as to our community that, you know, our facilities team has not grown, you know, tremendously, even though we now are working with a half a billion dollar 10-year CIP. Now we're working through. How do we kind

056of transition our team and expand our work? That was a part of the reorg that started last year with the facilities and operations team to get adjusted and prepared for this huge CIP that's coming our way. But there is a lot. that is happening in regards to our projects, the high school projects, the Douglas MacArthur project, all of just the non-capacity projects that we have going on, and then trying to work through how do we adjust to prepare for students to return back into our school buildings for in-person learning, and the community partners who are currently using our buildings for child care. So these are multiple kind of like projects that are that our team is working through, but we're going to keep working through them. And I do appreciate the team. I want to

057publicly just acknowledge the team for their hard work because a lot of times people don't get to see what the facilities and operations team is consistently doing. But behind the scenes, they really don't stop working because the projects don't end. Yes, to that end, I know that there's been some discussion also in the community about why isn't it down yet, you know, the building. But I know because I've had to make calls to Dominion Power that there is a lot of stuff that has to go on behind the scenes. So I know that even just the power disconnect for the building and also the house next door, you know, there's just lots of pieces that have to be done. to happen before the building can come down. So people are waiting for that, but I

058think we can assure them that we're working toward that goal and we'll all learn more in the December meeting. So I've asked Ms. Nielsen to send us the invites to those meetings so that we don't forget about them because I think it's true, it's easy to get lost on our calendar. So I don't see any other questions right now, so I think we can go on. So I'm going to ask for Dr. Hart to take us into the next portion of the presentation, which specifically talks about our targeted facilities assessments and what we're doing with that data and where we stand now with some of the findings that came about from those targeted facilities assessments that were conducted last year. So Dr. Hart. Thank you so much. And Susan, can you move to the next

059slide, please? And good evening, board members. My apologies for not having that introduction first. As Dr. Hutchings said, just wanting to now transition into an update regarding our targeted facilities projects, excuse me, targeted facilities assessment, priority assignments and projects. And so I'm actually going to hand this portion of the presentation off to John Finnegan in just a second. But I wanted to also just reiterate, and thank you, Dr. Hutchings, for speaking to this a few moments ago, that really since January and our realignment within the Educational Facilities Office as well as Erica Gulick's office, the Capital Programs Planning and Design. We are now planning to really be able to execute this massive CIP program that we have ahead of us. And that really includes looking at our staffing, the realignment in Erica's office, particularly to

060where we've been able to fund a few positions out of the CIP to really be able to support her leg of the work. And we do believe that in the next few years, we'll really get into a good flow of not only being able to implement projects, but really being able to execute them in a much more efficient manner. So we're definitely looking forward to that. And to tee up John, just wanting to quickly recap that back in August of 2019, we had our target facilities assessments findings that were shared at that time with the board. And there were four priorities that were assigned based off of that assessment. We had our priority ones. two's, three's, and four's. And the difference in those priorities really just stemmed from when the recommendation was to address the

061timeframe in which to address those particular items. And so if we move to the next slide, I will turn it over to John Finn again to get a little bit more in depth about specifically our priority one projects, our statuses, and what's coming in the future. So John. Thank you, Dr. Hart. Good afternoon, good evening, Madam Chair and Board. So let me just start with the priority one projects. First of all, I did want to note that we are not only doing priority one projects. We have undertaken priority two and priority three projects as well, just because some of those are smaller projects and they're easier to implement while we're doing some of the critical priority one projects. But as you can see here, there were a total of 58 priority one tasks in the

062targeted assessment. You can see what we've done there. Eight were completed, 15 in progress, 21 planned to be completed by next summer, and then 14 that were pushed out planned for future completion. Now, some of that is planned for future completion is some of the larger things that they put in there as critical one, but it's planning for modernization for Cora Kelly and George Mason, and then the actual funding for those. That's what a lot of those 14 for the future comprise. And then I just wanted to roll through a little bit of the rest of everything. The completed projects are typically our larger projects. So fortunately, we were able to complete a lot of roof and HVAC projects and water intrusion projects this year. So those are typically larger projects dollar wise as well

063as for the schedule. Those are longer projects as well. The other thing that we were able to do that kind of rolls into the in progress is advance some of those phase twos. So on a number of our roofs, it was a phased project. For example, William Ramsey, it's a large building with a lot of different roof sections. We were able to complete phase one and roll right into phase two. So phase one would be under completed. Phase two would be under in progress. So what we tried to do is basically get the critical projects that were a little larger that also had far reaching effects, whether that's leak, mold, or possible damage to other assets. That was the priority. then the projects that are in progress are basically ones that will be completed over

064the next several months prior to completed for summer. And basically those needed further investigation. So there were a handful of mold, drainage, and HVAC issues that we had to do a little bit more investigation to find where sources of some of these issues were. do a round of testing before we can do remediation, et cetera. And then the plan for summer 2021 projects, a lot of those are projects that required fiscal year 21 funding, which as everyone knows was held when COVID outbreak happened. The city kind of put everything on hold and then we did not find out until the summer that we did receive most of our money. But unfortunately, that took away some of our planning efforts. And now we're going through some of those invitation to bids, designs, etc. So a handful

065of those things also needed a comprehensive approach, like carbon monoxide detectors. That's a small project, but it's at each school. combining that to get one contractor to do all of those. Some of those also include kind of grouped Priority One projects. So for example, in the targeted assessment, they would have a line item with a handful of things in there. It would include grading, hardscape, drainage. It would be about 10 different bullet points. And we're kind of getting to each of those. So they're kind of in progress as we speak. So that's kind of where we fall. A lot of these things just needed a more comprehensive approach. We've got some courtyards in some sites that are causing issues to the building because some of our stormwater structures are outdated. We also found that George

066Washington has a water table issue. And we've seen evidence with that with the city. They've been putting in inlets along Mount Vernon Avenue. So we are... Again, addressing a lot of those things and that's why some of these are noted as either started or planned for summer 2021. Are there any questions at this time? I would say let's get through the presentation and then let's go into our questions because I want us to. at least try to keep us on schedule. Okay. And I would just say the last component there, again, getting back to the plan for future completion, besides the large outlays for the modernizations, there are also a few projects that are comprehensive in nature with HVAC. For example, over at George Washington, our immediate need is to get fresh air into the

067four rooms that are underneath the auditorium that have never had fresh air supplied. So that is what we're working on right now. We also need some new boilers. We need to do pumps, et cetera, et cetera. So it's the overall requirements for that building because there are so many sections to that building is quite intense. And so we phased it out over a few years. So that's another component for the planned future completion. And that's pretty much everything. And we can move along. Thank you. Okay, Susan, if you can go to the next slide, please. And so this particular slide just highlights what is new in the FY22 CIP. John has spoken to this in some of our most recent updates, but essentially continuing our flooring renovation projects. We have Douglas MacArthur, which we really

068wanted to be able to speak to specifically. We do have... Two items that we wanted to itemize specifically in the FY22 CIP to include our solar panels as well as our underground utilities. And so those are broken out along with costs associated with those. FC Hammond, John Adams, Mount Vernon, TC and Transportation also have a number of projects that are in the works for FY22. And more details on these particular projects will be shared during our two by two meetings. Next slide, please. And so this is just the slide that we showed last week, which is our CIP budget summary for the next 10 years. As Dr. Hutchings alluded to, today's session is specifically to focus on the FY22 CIP, but we also just wanted to make sure that you all are aware that over

069the next few weeks and as we continue to have our two-by-twos, that we will get further in-depth into the CIP budget summary, which will also be covered during the next work session. This slide just continues to reiterate the major events and activities that we still have upcoming, and that was shared last week. So I do not want to regurgitate that for you, but that the calendar and the major activities are shown on the screen. And that concludes tonight's presentation. So Dr. Hutchings, do I turn it back over to you or Madam Chair? Yes, I think at this time, I think it's important for us to open the floor for discussion in regards to FY22. I do want to make one point that is not on one of the slides, and that is the high school

070project, as we are now going into the design phase of the high school project. I know we kind of alluded to this earlier. when Dr. Reif had asked her question. I do think that it's important for us to begin to be looking into, and this will be tomorrow, I know we're having our joint session with the city council and the school board, but talking about some of those co-location opportunities. Part of these co-location opportunities are being included in the design phase, and it doesn't necessarily mean that we are doing all of these co-location opportunities. It's hard to... weed out what is possible and what's not without having that into our actual design so that we can see what works and what can't work. And that's something that we did not include in this particular presentation

071because we're focused on FY22 and not specifically the high school project. But I think this is the right time for us to talk through some of that with the board because I know you're going to be engaging with the city council. tomorrow in their joint session. And I think that the two topics that will most likely come up tomorrow with the city council is going to be Douglas MacArthur and the high school project co-locations. I think those two topics will for sure come up in addition to anything else that might be pressing from the city council, from the school board. But I just wanted to mention that to the board. I know you all have access to the presentation. that is for tomorrow. But I wanted to make it clear that because these co-location opportunities

072are part of the design phase, doesn't mean that we're doing all those things in the co-location, because that was some confusion with the Douglas MacArthur project. And then when we talked about George Mason, so I'm going to keep saying it every time we talk about the high school project, that this is looking at specific co-location opportunities as a part of the design, but it is not committing to doing anything. in regards to those co-location opportunities. It just gives us more data as we explore these possibilities with the high school project. So with that said, I want to turn things back over to Madam Chair to open the floor for questions. So just to be clear, we're going to have some questions about the 2022, but do you also want, if we have any questions about

073co-location or any comments about co-location? I would think this is a good time because I think that since we have an open forum right now and we know we're going to be meeting jointly with the city council tomorrow, that I would like for our team, since we have our team here, to be able to answer questions that board members may have during this work session that relate to the high school project and co-location specifically. Yeah, I think it might be good to see if there are just questions about 2022 and then we'll ask about the high school project, MacArthur, whatever co-location things to sort of. feel prepped for tomorrow. So if there's sort of general questions about the 2022 that are not those three, I see Ms. Lorber has your hand up. So we'll start

074with her. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation, the recent one. Oh, you're frozen. In fact, that was exactly what you all just presented. Is it better now? It keeps going in and out. Yeah, you're going in and out. How's that? I'm getting closer to the, is it better? Yes, it's better now. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Yeah, I was concerned about the prioritization of the assessments and I was glad you showed that chart again. My question, and maybe you covered this and I just didn't hear it correctly, but. Last year, we were given, you know, we knew that the CIP was going to address gradually the variety of priorities that had been identified in the assessments of the schools, the five, six schools. And I'm assuming that because we've had to, this next CIP

075pushes George Mason, Cora Kelly, and Maury out even further than they were. I'm just curious. What extra burden, and maybe it's obvious from this thing, I don't know if I should know the answer to this. It seems clear that that would add some cost to this new CIP because we weren't going to address certain things for Cora Kelly, George Mason, Maury, knowing that they were going to be redone or rebuilt. So what's... I feel like maybe that was covered, but it seemed like too long a question to wait for the work session. Ms. Lorber, no, it wasn't covered because we're going to talk specifically about our future CIP projects at work session number two. So what we are solely focused on right now are FY22 CIP projects. But next week, we will be discussing specifically

076about George Mason, Matthew Morey, the new school, as well as the transportation site. So we'll be looking. at FY22 through 31 next week. So we did not mention anything about George Mason things because today we're focused on FY22 items. Okay. I guess it's just so there must be then some impact. So yeah, there is an impact. Yeah. Okay. All right. Specifically through what some of those implications are with Fortuna. I mean, because of course it does save dollars in the CIP for next year, but then- It does. It's a risk of, you know, the cost being higher in the future. And we're going to talk a little bit about that next week during the full 10 year span. All right. Thank you. And I think you're also, I think Ms. Ober is also referring to

077not only is it going to cost more if we wait, but also we're going to have to fix things that we wouldn't have had to fix because we're going to keep it longer. That's what I was referring to primarily. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. And that leads me to just, I think we clarified this another time, but whenever I see asbestos through the presentation, I just want, for the public's benefit, that maybe confirmation for the public that those things are not a danger right now. The reason we're removing them, they're not really a danger until you're removing them and then you have to be careful about it. So no one is being put in danger of having asbestos. I just, you know, a yes, a confirmation is all I'm looking for because. You're correct,

078Chair Anderson. Okay. Because I just know people get really nervous with that word. So Dr. Eve. Thank you for the presentation, Dr. Hart. I think like it was really clear. The information was really clear this year and that was like super helpful as a board member. And I also just wanted to mention that, you know, I've been looking at the facilities website on the ACPS website and it's also like very, it's been recently reorganized and. It's also there's information on each school so you can link to each school and their facilities projects. And so I just wanted to commend you all for all of that because I think it's really helpful for the community. And it's easy for us as board members to point folks in that direction. I guess I have two questions. One

079is just with... the chart on slide 10 about what's new in the FY 2022. I was just curious understanding how you determined what those were, if those were some projects from more out years that came in closer, or if you could just talk about how you determined those things that needed to be added. And then my other question, I would be remiss if I didn't bring this up, Dr. Hutchings, is about the system-wide line item for curriculum and instruction materials, because I know I've been talking a lot to you about the textbook issue and, you know, just hearing a lot from parents who are requesting from the schools to get the physical textbooks because for whatever reason they feel that their children are having a hard time with using the online textbooks. And I, and

080some of these parents have said that they You know, have been told they cannot get the physical textbooks and and and so for me as a board member, I will just say, you know, that's frustrating because I know how much of a priority it is that we put it in the CIP budget. So if you could just talk about those two things, the textbooks and then the how you were determining the projects for 2022. So I'll take the textbooks first. And that was that's misinformation that that is out there. So there were some situations where staff or principals may have said not to. But since I've got recognition of that or I was informed about that. Our textbooks are available to anybody who needs them. We are in a pandemic and some people are at

081home and their students are going to be better served by having a physical textbook with them versus an online textbook. So no students should be denied that. And if you are still getting emails about that, please let me know because we'll make sure that our principals address that immediately. That shouldn't be the case. Our books are here for our kids, not for us and to be in a closet. So we want to get them out. I think the challenge initially. why some of this misinformation went about was that schools had set certain dates to have families come and pick them up and people misunderstood that those were the only dates. Whereas if once we were informed that somebody missed those times where schools were issuing textbooks, that we would work within their schedules to make

082it possible. And I think that was the miscommunication that happened with that. But since the families that I'm aware of I believe that they have received the textbooks that they've needed. And we want to make sure that kids have textbooks or supplies if they need them. That's something that is non-negotiable for any of our school buildings. In regards to the second question that related to, tell me again. That was just the projects that are in 2022, just understanding how they came about. And they decided, and Dr. Hart, she can elaborate on that one. If you don't mind, Dr. Hutchings, I'm actually going to ask Erica and John to speak to specifics about how those projects really were the ones that made it to the FY22 CIP budget. But really quickly before I do that, Dr.

083Reif, I just wanted to thank you for your comments regarding the webpage and tonight's presentation. The team and I have been working really hard to make sure that we are proactively sharing information, good, bad, and ugly. We want to make sure that neither the board or the public is having to pull that information out. out of us. We believe that's very important in terms of being transparent with our communication process and also just really improving the dynamic between facilities and operations and our stakeholders. So thank you so much for that acknowledgement. And Erica and John, I'm going to turn the first question over to you all. Okay, so as far as what projects were added to the 2022, basically that was by taking a more comprehensive approach and looking at our lifecycle analysis of a

084lot of our assets. So we understand what COVID has done and it's going to be tight over the next couple of years. So we're looking at all of the priority ones and whether we have the funding allocated in current fiscal budget or upcoming fiscal budgets. and then adding to supplement some of those things. So for example, Cora Kelly, over the last couple of years we've done, we've been pretty comprehensive in getting all of the abatement. asbestos abatement completed. We just have a few areas left. So that was that request. Mount Vernon, the chiller, it's at the end of its life. So we needed to get the money for asset replacement there. And then there's a few in there that are kind of life safety issues. The transportation services fire alarm system is very outdated. In

085fact, if the alarm went off, A bell rings, but nothing goes back to the fire department, we would still have to call the fire department. So there's a few things there that we felt were critical that we needed to update John Adams fire alarm systems out of date as well, so it was really looking at the funding that we have and then what assets are coming up in their life cycle. I think John pretty much covered it, but I would just say related to kind of Ms. Lorber's question before, adding back in the Cora Kelly and the transportation facilities fire alarm, some of that was, you know, discussion between me and John saying, okay, if we push out the modernization of those projects, you know, what do we realistically need for them to maintain functionality?

086And then Douglas MacArthur, which we've talked about, which was an addition for the solar panel purchase and the utility undergrounding required by the city's DSUP that was approved. Great. Thank you. Are there any other questions about the 2022 budget items before we go on and talk about tomorrow's anything that people feel that they have that they want to ask about and talk about before tomorrow's meeting with council? Since I don't see any other questions, why don't we go ahead and go on to that about any questions about co-location, any questions about how, you know. what you see, what questions you have, you know, for tomorrow. I see Dr. Reeve. Yeah. If Dr. Hutchings or Ms. Gulick, if you can talk about where the Joint Master Plan Task Force like processes in terms of their research

087on co-location, just wanting to understand any updates that you might have about that. So Ms. Gulick, would you like to speak to that? So we recently did a survey and maybe some of you saw that. So we're now compiling some of the feedback that we received from that survey. We're still working through kind of establishing the framework and are going to start to look at kind of specific co-location. opportunities that could take place to kind of further explore. As part of, it's kind of overlapping and running in parallel with the high school project at this point, because we are still working through the joint facilities master plan while we're trying to establish what co-location opportunities we're going to pursue on the high school project. But I will say we have about, you know, six to

088nine months left in that process and hoping to establish kind of that complete roadmap and decision making. And it's also critical, I'll just say here for my fellow city team as well, that the Joint Facilities Master Plan is studying more than just co-location. It's really about establishing kind of a common set of just a baseline for us to work from and how we make decisions and things like that for our CIP projects regardless of. whether or not there's a co-location opportunity. So more to come on that. We are hoping to do a bigger community meeting, but are likely going to wait until the new year to have that conversation to provide an update. This is why it's so important to have these co-location opportunities as a part of the design, because we haven't really explored

089some things like, for example, affordable housing. That was one of the big topics that came up with the co-location. If we don't really have that data through a design process, we don't have information to really inform the board about it, to say what are the pros and cons to it, because now it's just like a hypothetical, which it will still be hypothetical even if it's in the design phase. I want to keep saying that. It doesn't mean it's going to happen. happen, but we'll have more concrete information that we really do need for future projects. So this is a really, really good opportunity for us to have, you know, that tangible data that we've all been requesting. I mean, I know the board wants to see that as well as our team. So I think

090this is the way for us to really get some more of that data that we've all been wanting to see. Well, I'll say I'm very happy to see that project, what is sometimes called the project management triangle, the scope, schedule, and budget triangle thing, because I've talked about that over time, because it does bring it home that when you mess with one part of it, you're going to give up something in the other areas. You're either going to, you know, if you increase your scope, then you're going to have increased budget. Or you're going to have a longer time, you know, schedule. And so that's a thing that I think it's a good thing to frame around having our discussion because we can't have everything for the budget that we have. We just can't. And

091especially doing it in the time we need to do it. I mean, that's really where we're going to have to have a reality check about that. But I guess one thing I have, and again, I should know this probably from what it is, is that I know we have some enrollment drop off. But so the numbers that we're seeing in our CIP booklet, though, are those adjusted in the out years for that or are they the same as they were? Right now, they are the same as they were. I know it's Erica, Ms. Gulick on here. It switched around for me. But is she on here? She is. She's going to get an answer, I think. Go ahead. I'll let Ms. Gulick answer that. No, that's okay. So like Ms. Runkle presented you that enrollment

092report last week, we use that same data to do enrollment projections. So they haven't been updated yet. We know kind of this year will be a little bit of an outlet. outlier year. So the enrollment projections that are included in the CIP book are last year's final enrollment projections. So they will need to be updated. Because I can see, you know, people maybe, you know, not excited that we have lost people, but maybe excited about the possibility of it solving our problems. But it really doesn't. You know, I've seen some of that a bit on social media. Well, now you have plenty of space because some people left and it's just not the case. And it's not the case. And I wish it was that easy because the thing is, when our doors open back

093up to our school buildings, people are going to come back. And we were already overcapacitated. in many of our school buildings. So it wasn't a matter of when we become over capacity. We were already over capacity. So that has been our challenge, unfortunately, over the past several years. And it's going to take us several years to actually remedy that problem. I wish it was the global pandemic to solve it, but it's not. Oh, I know. I have to say I was shocked anew by the numbers when I looked at them today. You know, the projections for the shocked anew at some of our schools and how overcrowded given that we just did redistricting. It doesn't seem like that long ago. All right. I see Dr. Reeve. Thanks for that. So what I heard you saying,

094Dr. Hutchings, is we are interested in the, with the architecture and engineering process to, and the design process to look at co-location, all types of co-location, including affordable housing, so that we can collect that information. And so that's kind of when we're going into the conversation with council tomorrow. that's part of the presentation and just you know a conversation about that i guess i guess the question that i have is um you know because the board voted to do the connected high school network and do the building at um on the minnehauer campus but i guess i'm wondering with regards to zoning How if you could just kind of maybe miss Gullick, if you could talk a little bit about that, like how I know that they've had to accommodate some maybe some zoning adjustments

095because of we're swapping the fields and that kind of thing. And so I'm just wondering how co-location and zoning kind of play together. Like, I guess if you can talk about like what, what kind of possibilities are available with regards to the zoning, if that makes sense. I hope I'm making sense. You are making sense. And just so I can clarify a little bit, a part of the architect firm's contract will be that initial month, month and a half timeline for pre-design for us to hopefully get. the idea of what co-located services will be on the Minnie Howard site. And so really working through answering our questions that we have about it so that by time we get to mid-January, we're able to say, okay, here's what's going on the new Minnie Howard site. So

096just to say that. As far as zoning, we have been in conversations with the city about what zoning would look like for Minnie Howard. And regardless of whether we co-locate. affordable housing or a rec center or whatever it may be, we will require a rezoning just because of that switch, just because of changing the public open space and intending to replace that same amount of public open space, but certainly changing it. Because of where it's located, it's kind of at the intersection of a few different zoning. So if you can picture where the site is, there is a commercial. piece kind of adjacent as well as townhomes near that. And so it offers an opportunity to be a little bit more flexible. I think depending on what we do, we're probably going, we might need

097a floor to area ratio increase at the site if we're maintaining that five and a half acres of public open space. And so those are things that we've started to talk about the different options for that and the city has a few ideas about how it would work. But ultimately, certainly the different uses that could be a part of co-location will play into the zoning. But it's not to say that they are the reason that we will have to rezone. I hope that was clear. So I guess I'll just ask, where are we planning to end with? Because we do have a timeline for when we have to have this decision made about what kind of co-location opportunities. And so what is the expectation or what is the aspiration for where we should be at

098the end of the meeting with council about this? And are you going to kind of include the... the deadlines that we're working with. Yeah, so the expectation is for us to be able to put these co-location opportunities into our scope of work for the design phase so that it allows us to explore all of these different co-locations. So when we're coming back to the board with actual design of the Minnie Howard project or high school project at the Minnie Howard campus that these particular colocation opportunities are incorporated into that. And then we can at that time make a decision on whether we want to pursue those particular opportunities. So the goal is that tomorrow that the board, as well as the city council, are in agreement just that we are exploring these colocation opportunities so

099that it will be a part of our design when we bring it back to the board. Okay. So anyone have any other comments about that? Questions? And pre-design, sorry, not design, pre-design phase. Cause I know I don't want Erica to get on me. Pre-design, not design. And I already know she's, cause I started making faces. You coach me well, Erica, pre-design. Yeah. Great. All right. I don't see any more. So if I guess if something comes up and some people are having their two by twos tomorrow. So I guess. Yeah. And we will be able to talk more specifically about all this during our two by twos over the next week. So board members, please know that you're going to have some more information in the next week. We'll be able to talk more specifically

100about the full 10 year span as well. Okay, great. So now we can go move on to our. Our next topic, which is the special education disproportionality. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So we want to go into, as the board has asked for this year, which I'm total support of, is making sure we provide updates on our areas of focus. So we want to make sure we're focusing on. or providing an update on one of our focus areas, which is special education and our over-identification of African-American and Black students in specialized instruction, specifically in regards to emotional disturbance or emotional disability. Sorry. We want to make sure that we are capturing that. I fixed it, Ms. Werner. So another thing that I want to just preface as I turn things over to Ms. Werner, who

101was our executive director of specialized instruction, is that, you know, this topic, I think, is probably one of the most important conversations that we are going to have. And specifically, it's because this is a national issue and our data is even worse than national. data. And that's a problem. So, I mean, it's a national problem. We're in a worse situation than everyone nationally. And if we don't get, you know, our, our arms, hands, legs, feet wrapped around this, then this is going to continue to be prevalent within our school division and it's completely unacceptable. So I think this is probably the first time that we're going to be this bold about our information, but I think the only way we're going to be able to solve our problem is by calling it is what it

102is and putting it out there for the public to see that this is a crisis and it is an issue that we need to tackle now. we cannot afford to continue to wait. So with that said, I want to turn things over to Ms. Werner and we're going to begin our presentation. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. As Dr. Hutchings said, I'm Terry Werner and I'm the Executive Director of Specialized Instruction. And I welcome the opportunity to discuss with you this evening, coordinating early intervening services and just what that means and what it means for Alexandria City Schools. Our essential questions. What is the current state of coordinating early intervening services here in the city of Alexandria? And what impact does it have regarding the identification of black and

103African-American students with emotional disabilities? What I'd like to be able to do is introduce two of our team members who are going to be presenting with us this evening. I have Dr. Anita Reed, who is our new CEIS clinical specialist. Dr. Reed joined our team this July from... Arlington County, where she had been a licensed clinical social worker for over 20 years, working, providing direct services for students with disabilities, especially in separate programs for students with emotional disabilities. But she also did some significant work around disproportionality of identification and working with Black students. to address emotional behavioral needs. We also have Dr. Shermaine Moore, who is our clinical psychologist. She has been on our team for the last couple of years. She is our MTSS and eligibility specialist, and she works in conjunction, as both

104team members do, with the Office of Student Services around the implementation of our MTSS services, as well as our school-based teams when they are determining eligibility with students. for disabilities in ED and OHI. So I paused, yes. All right, so let me take the ability or the moment here to sort of give you information around CEIS and who can benefit. I know that we've had some of these conversations in the past, but we may have some board members who have not been part of those conversations. So what I would like to do is sort of share that information with you. Coordinating early intervening services is a special designation identified under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and implemented through... regulation and directive from the Virginia Department of Education. If a school district is significantly disproportionate

105in identifying students out of a particular protected class or category, Over a three-year time period, they are identified as a mandatory CEIS school district, which means you must, by regulation, withhold 15% of your IDEA grant to provide early intervening services. Those early intervening services mean that you must spend that money to provide services for students in the general education setting. and it is to provide students in the identified class to ensure that they are not referred on for special education evaluation. So we really are looking at addressing the behavioral needs of students and providing the staff with the skills that they need to serve those students in a gen ed setting. So that's really where we focus. CEIS is so important. Go ahead, Susan. I told Susan when I paused to change the slide. No,

106she's doing it right when I paused. So why is CEIS important? CEIS is important because we want to break the cycle. We want to stop the idea that special ed is the place where people go when there are problems. Special ed should be the last resort. So what we are really looking to do is what supports do we need to provide both to students and staff so that they can clearly identify needs and implement services so that we break the cycle. We want to make sure that we recognize that if we delay those supports, we are going to exacerbate issues. So we want to make sure that we get in early and we get in effectively. And we want to make sure that special education evaluations, referral for child study is the last resort. So

107we're really looking to ensure that special ed is the last thing that people choose. So this is designed to provide all of those upfront supports. According to the earlier meeting services are determined based on a specific ratio. There is a mathematical formula that is applied at the state level based on our December 1 count. So when we do December 1 count, we identify students both by disability as well as race. And so they apply this calculated formula and they determine if we are over-identifying. The divisions that are over-identified are notified by the state, and we have to set aside that money. And we actually discussed this last when we did the IDEA annual plan, the IDEA grant. We specifically noted that we had set aside the money to do that. ACPS has been notified of

108our significant disproportionality for the 18-19 school year, the 19-20 school year, and we just received notice on Friday that we are identified for this coming year yet again. So the CEIS funding, as I said, 15% of our total amount, both 6-11 and 6-19, the preschool and the Part B school-age student. Grant is set aside. This year is $551,000. We had to develop a very specific plan as to how that was going to be spent. That plan was submitted to the state and has been approved. We are using a combination of staff and professional development to spend that money. We are focusing solely on groups of students who are identified as disproportionate. So while we may expand beyond that, we must particularly serve the students that we are looking at. So for us, that population right

109now is black students who have been identified as. students with an emotional disability. So we are really focused and targeted on providing specific and direct services to our Black students through the MTSS and early intervention process, especially for students that may be exhibiting behavioral challenges that are adversely affecting their school-based performance. So I want to take a minute now and turn it over to Dr. Germaine Moore, who is our MTSS and eligibility specialist, and she is going to review some of the data. And then Dr. Anita Reed will follow her and talk about the implications of that data and some of the recommendations and ideas that we have to address needs. And then I'll be happy to answer questions at the end. Germaine? Thank you, Ms. Warner. So here's a snapshot of national risk ratio

110data. So in the United States, Black students are nearly one and a half times more likely to be identified as a student with a disability. When it comes to emotional disabilities specifically, they are twice as likely to be identified. So the state average is slightly lower than the national data with a risk ratio of 1.6. When it comes to our school division specifically, we are double the national risk ratio and more than twice the state risk ratio for identifying Black students as emotionally disabled. So here's our historical risk ratio data that is calculated by VDOE and it's provided to us annually. And so since 2016, it has been trending downward and we can contribute. attribute this, excuse me, to strategies that we've been putting in place. We did just receive updated numbers from the state

111today, and some of those are corrected numbers. So the 2017 risk ratio is 4.25 and 2018 is 3.56. Our risk ratio for 2019 is 4.05. We wanted to know the why behind our risk ratio data. And eligibility decisions are based on data. So it was critical to examine the data that is being used to justify these eligibilities. We wanted to take a deeper dive into the practices of identifying Black students with emotional disabilities. And we focused on eight key areas. In particular, the racial background of people who are making such referrals. as well as the demographics of the schools where these students attend or attended, the cause of the referral, what behaviors brought the team to the table in the first place in light of the presence of adverse childhood events. and the data that's

112being used to make these decisions, especially considering the quality of MTSS data that's being collected. In other words, are teams really exhausting all of their general education resources and moving up those tiers of support? So as you can see, nearly half of the referrals for Black students as ED come from schools where the student body has a white majority, and yet those schools represent only one-third of our schools. And although Black students represent just over one-fourth of the student body overall, they account for nearly 60% of our emotionally disabled population. If you look at the numbers even deeper, our Black boys outnumber Black girls two to one. So I'm now going to turn it over to Dr. Reed to share more findings. Thank you, Dr. Moore. So we wanted to know the why behind some

113of the data that was just presented by Dr. Moore. And some of the significant findings were, first, the data revealed that if a Black student was referred for an emotional disability evaluation, The referring source themselves was never a Black or an African American staff person. Next, in half of all referrals for new evaluations, 70% of them did not implement robust MTSS strategies prior to making a referral to a child study. The remaining half of students included 15 students with an existing disability who were reclassified as a student with an emotional disability. And then the remaining 15 were an equally number of transfer students who those are students who came into our district who already had an ED classification. Dr. Reed, can I, I want to emphasize a piece of data on this, particularly for our

114school board members. If you look at the second bullet. If you look at the numbers here, we had approximately 60 students referred for special ed evaluation. Half of those students were new initial evaluations. And when we looked at all 27 of those new initial evaluations, we found that in 70% of the cases, there had been no prior intervention, no MTSS, no going through the tier one, tier two, tier three intervention protocols that we had, that schools skipped over all of that and went straight into the special ed process. So for us, this is a really critical finding. So there are several recommendations that are being made to address this issue of disproportionality. Recommendations which align with our 2025 strategic goals, specifically the strands of instructional excellence and strategic resource allocation. We will be providing regular

115and ongoing professional development to teachers, administrators, and staff who participated in MTSS on a variety of topics. For example, culturally responsive discipline, relationship building, issues regarding mental health, juvenile justice, emotional and cognitive development, just to name a few. The other recommendation addresses the changes to the special education assessment and evaluation process and tools that are used to assess students for an emotional disability. In addition, you will see links to the corrective action plans from PCG and the VDOE evaluations. Next slide. With the support of doctors Hutchins and Mozingo, we will hold a series of workshops during teacher work days and professional development days, and we're calling them Lunch and Learn. Educators and clinicians who are thought leaders and experts in their fields, such as Dr. Keith Wilson from the University of Kentucky, who is an

116expert in cross-cultural issues in education. Dr. Carlton Green from the University of Maryland, who's a leader in the field of race, racial identity, racial justice, and healing, are two of the many experts who will address the various topics related to the issue of disproportionality. We are excited about these workshops. As we know, they will help further our discussions and allow for a deeper dive into topics that would greatly influence our work as educators. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Reed. Thank you, Dr. Moore. I appreciate everything that you've shared with us. We would welcome the opportunity to answer any questions that the board might have at this time, but we wanted to give you an overview of where we stand with our CEIS process at this point and what our plans are for the rest of

117the school year. Thank you. And Madam Chair, before you open the floor for questions, there's just one quick comment that I wanted to make. And by no means are we criticizing, you know, our staff or putting all of our staff members down or that type of thing. I want to make that very clear. The point that we are making is that. We have not provided adequate training for our staff to be able to really understand how do you ensure that we're not directly sending our students right down the path of identification of an emotional disturbance or I'm sorry, emotional disability prior. to following MTSS, which is our multi-tiered support systems that we do have in place? And then also, what are those different supports that could be behavioral supports that could be put in place

118prior to going into an identification process? And I think that because we've had a practice where I don't know if we've questioned it or if we've pulled the data and analyzed the data the way we are doing now. But this is a practice that I think has been a part of our culture for a long time. And it's just been acceptable. And we may have indoctrinated people into operating this way within our school division. And it is a disservice to children by operating like this. So the point that we are making is that this. culture is going to have to shift. There is no option in regards to how this culture, it has to shift because this is just unacceptable in regards to the outcomes that we are having right now with these practices in

119place. So, but I do want to just, you know, make it very public that we're not trying to bash all special education teachers. We're not saying, you know, special education staff, you know, they've, they've that they're wrong or that they're bad or anything like that but there's a lot of room for growth and that some of this data is showing that biases that people could bring to the table and this is why this equity work is so important biases that people bring to the table can have an impact on who you send to an identification a hearing and i just have to say culturally especially for black people. And I'm speaking as, I'm just going to use some examples. When people say things like Dr. Hutchings is preaching, Dr. Hutchings is screaming, Dr. Hutchings is

120loud. Culturally, that is a part of black. You come to my family, everybody's acting like I'm acting right now because it's a cultural thing. You know, we got to start embracing some cultural. kind of gestures and ways of expressing ourselves and not allow those biases to start to identify kids that they have an issue or they have a problem. And we also have some students who have some significant home life situations and that adverse childhood experiences is real, you know, so it's not necessarily the child has an emotional disability. The child is going through some things at home so anybody would act out. You know, if you're dealing with some challenges and problems with homelessness or neglect or some form of abuse or even a divorce, you know, of parents in a household, those have

121a significant impact on children's behaviors. And if we're not implementing certain supports to address those behaviors, we find our kids going down this path and being, I think, misdiagnosed. But I wanted to just kind of put that out there before we got to our questions. And Dr. Hutchings, if I might just share one more thing before the questions start that follow up to that is one of the things that I would like to share with the board that we are doing is we have done a lot of work in partnership with the Office of Student Services. And so much of the ruler training that is going to be taking place this year is being funded by CEIS services. Many of these social emotional screening tools and activities and implementation strategies that are being used are

122also being funded through CEIS. So this really is a very integrated approach to looking at the problem. And it does provide that professional development that you were talking about. And it is the gen ed teachers that provide the referrals, not the special education teachers. So I did want to make that clear. I said special ed, I was meaning general education. I apologize. Madam Chair, I'm turning things back over to you. Okay. Well, at any rate, it's really good that we're talking about it because we can't do anything to change things unless we acknowledge the problem and figure out why it's happening. So first question is Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Anderson, and thank you for the presentation. Obviously, the data that you've shown is very distressing, but it's important that we're transparent about these challenges

123and that we address them head on. And so I very much appreciate the presentation and that we're being honest with ourselves about some of these things. And I would echo what Dr. Hutchings said about the fact that we need to tackle this problem head on, but obviously no one's trying to blame anyone. We just have to acknowledge that this is a real challenge and it's something that we must tackle. And the findings that the schools that are disproportionately white have disproportionate referrals and that white teachers are disproportionately referring students of color for ED, we need to talk about that. We need to be transparent about that and be honest with ourselves about that. and tackle that head on. So I appreciate that. So I think, you know, I just have a couple sort of thoughts

124and sort of questions relating to that, that I'm curious. I mean, number one, I'm sort of, I'd like to understand what our goal and sort of our thinking is around MTSS and how we, you know, you know, ensure that teachers, and this is globally, I think this applies whether it's ED or any other disability, you know, go through the tiers of support and exhaust those tiers to a certain point before you start to see a more formal referral. And so I'm kind of curious what we're thinking in terms of going through those processes and how we can structure that in almost our, whether it's our policy or just the norms of when a referral is even entertained, you know, so that we can kind of have gatekeeping to ensure that there aren't these disproportionate referrals.

125And then the second sort of thought and question I had is, you know, because we have such a problem with ED referrals for our Black students in particular, you know, have we considered, and I wonder if other school divisions have done something like this, you know, having some sort of diverse committee that, you know, when there is a possible referral after exhaustion of the MTSS, that sort of evaluates the situation and provides feedback and has, I don't know, honestly, if it's veto power, but some sort of ability to sort of provide a check, you know, in a conversation around, you know, making sure that things like implicit bias and some of these things that we're trying to address as a division aren't the root cause of some of these referrals. So I'm kind of curious

126what your thoughts are on those issues. Mr. Suarez, you just made me so happy because you just hit on the two biggest issues I wanted to discuss. So we didn't get into it in the discussion about the CEIS spending, but our CEIS plan this year. identified three staff members. We have hired one and we are going to post, just things have been so crazy. I mean, we're in COVID. But we have identified two other critical members of our CEIS team. One is a behavior specialist, and I'll get to that in a minute, talks about the front end. But the second is a diagnostician. I had approached the Office of Student Services last spring. and had a conversation about establishing an ED evaluation team. And that is a team that does the ED evaluations all over

127the district. And in addition, They, instead of having school-based teams do it, we have the central office team do it. So we have a diagnostician, we have a designated school psychologist or psychologist or two, depending. Dr. Crawford and I have had conversations about this. And we are also going to have Dr. Moore sit each one of those meetings because she sits the eligibility, but she also does the MTSS work. So she's got that link. We have also put into place that you cannot bring a student. So we are doing a little bit of gatekeeping. You cannot bring a student to child study without all of the MTSS data. So if you are bringing a student to child study for ED, and I'm going to be very honest and tell you, we're also looking at OHI

128because the message is getting out about ED. And so people look at OHI instead. So we're looking at our ED evaluations and our OHI evaluations, and we are ensuring that people have gone through all of the required components of the MTSS process and afforded the students every opportunity to have all of that early intervening services. Those early intervening services, we have a very coordinated plan with Dr. Reed, and as soon as we're able to hire the behavior specialist to provide some really intense support to school-based teams. around skill development, intervention strategies, how to really clearly implement an intervention and take data, have six to eight weeks of real true input and intervention and look at the data, make decisions around that data, as well as coach and model and support and do some co-treatment. Yeah,

129not treatment, but co-therapy, co-interventions with students in the MTSS process. So we have a really coordinated, integrated plan. And thank you because you asked the questions that I exactly wanted to share. Okay. I just want to, there's a little jargon in there. I think OHI is other health impairment. Is that because I don't know who all is with us. So I just, I just wanted to put that out there. Next up, I have Ms. Alderton. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Dr. Warner and team for sharing this information. I think even some of it kind of. took me back, given like, you know, the levels and the fact that, you know, we're actually double the national average, I think says a lot. So I just had a couple of comments. You know, I think

130I'm glad to hear that this is a topic for equity training, because I don't think people necessarily frame this type of thing under an equity discussion all the time. And so I think this would be good just to open some eyes. I know, you know, I think special educators have a certain lens. And, you know, I've found that one of the things that's often missing for general educators, general education teachers is some important knowledge about special education, how it works, how we come to the eligibility process, you know, all of those things can inform, hopefully, maybe how people even come and start thinking about referring kids. So again, glad that's being added to the discussion around equity and in training. My second comment is that, you know, if the board wonders why I keep saying

131MTSS, MTSS, and I'm going to just keep saying it over and over and over again, this is why. Like, this is why. If we, if done well, this is the net that catches these kids. You know, I can't tell you how many times I'll even just go with like learning disabilities. I've had people come to me and say, this kid can't read. They can't read. And then I go, you know, I would go and say, well, let's teach them how to read them. And you teach them how to read. And it's like, no, they weren't disabled. They're just disadvantaged. Nobody ever taught them how to read. And so, you know, these are the things that we have to do. Like, that's the culture shift that I hear you guys talking about that I think is

132very exciting. And again, board, you know, colleagues, if you get tired of me saying MTSS, I'm sorry, but this is why. Thirdly, I do want to stress too that this is why our K-2 literacy initiative is so important as well. Because, you know, this is how things, you know, this is how we bring it all together. You think about, you know, you got to think about, and I know oftentimes, I don't know if people know that kids with emotional disabilities often have super high intelligence. But for whatever reason, they're just not performing academically. And again, you have to think about sort of the mindset of a child who's highly intelligent, but knows that they weren't given certain skills to be successful in the school environment. And so. you know, academic disparities also cause behavior concerns.

133And so I think, again, that's why focusing on K through this K through two literacy can be huge in even helping, you know, sort of helping the funnel to get even more narrow as we move on. And then my last thing, and this is a question for sort of anyone here who sat in an evaluation meeting, you know, one of the questions that I think is so funny, we always, always, always never want to honestly answer is that third question. And that is, you know, is the challenge or I can't go over the language, but the deficit, is it a result of a lack of appropriate instruction? And when we sit at the eligibility table, how many people, honest, don't want to honestly answer that because then it comes back to the adults. It comes

134back to the fact that this kid has been at your school, you know, for two or three years and you haven't done the things that you should have done. And so I think maybe part of that culture shift is. you know, starting to have that discussion about being honest at the table about answering that question, because I know I've been at the table before and, you know, it's who wants, who wants to be the one to go there. Right. Who wants to be the one to actually start that conversation? So I think that's just another, you know, is there a way I guess this is a question I've always wondered, is there a way to really start to talk to teams about honestly answering that question at the eligibility table as another net? to catch

135these things before they get to making that eligibility decision. So Ms. Alderton, MTSS, MTSS, MTSS. That's coming right back to it. That is why we are making the MTSS documentation. And that is why we are not going to enable teams to go forward with our ED and looking at some of our OHI, depending on the categories of other health impaired that people are looking at. We are not going to allow those child study referrals to go forward until we have true, solid intervention data. So what have we done to affirmatively apply research-based strategies and interventions to address the needs of students? And what are we seeing from the data? And when are we being able to honestly look at data, make changes to add additional strategies, really track and monitor? And that is a good

136minimum six to eight, probably really a 12-week process before you can ever say that. And so we really have to look at the history of interventions as well, because if we are looking at a student who is in the third, fourth, fifth grade, or even in middle school who hasn't had those services, we are really, we've got to build a car. And so we really have to be honest and start to talk about what is it that we need to do to support them. We are really pushing the MTSS process first. Okay, thank you. Next up we have Miss Nolan. Thank you, Chair Anderson, and thank you everyone for the presentation tonight. Obviously, these are sobering statistics, but ones that, as Dr. Hutchings said, we will address head-on so that you can't fix what you

137don't see. So really appreciate the conversation. I also just want to say special thanks to my colleague, Miss Alderton. You have been leading the charge of MTSS. the entire time. In fact, I think I need to get you a cape that has MTSS on it in the back. You've been our superhero and making sure it's always part of the conversation. So we really are fortunate that you keep ringing that bell as it's obviously critically important from a board perspective to make sure the staff knows that's something we support. My question is actually, I apologize, I'm not sure who is the right person to share it with, but Dr. Hutchings, you have mentioned the importance of also understanding some of the trauma that our students are going through. And I know that Smart Beginnings for several

138years had sort of led the charge within ACPS to ensure that much of the staff, particularly those that were pre-K through second grade, were trained in ACEs and understanding how to recognize it, how to address it. So I'm just curious because sometimes when students do go through trauma, it can be misunderstood as emotional. disability and that is a reality of many of our students in ACPS regardless of what your background is have experienced trauma whether they're coming from a war-torn country or they live in debilitating poverty and so I'm just curious if we could just get a little bit more information about what is the support that the staff is getting and recognizing the trauma addressing the trauma and also what support are we providing the students and families as that often is a cause

139of the misdiagnosis. Thank you, Ms. Nolan, for that question. I'll start off and then I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Moore to just elaborate a little more. But a couple of years ago, we actually started with our Leadership Institute and we specifically. focused on adverse childhood experiences. And the purpose, and that's ACEs, the purpose in that was because, you know, I think a lot of our staff, we have not had the formal training around what that means and how it can manifest in certain behaviors in your classrooms and those connections. Like, how are these connected? Dr. Crawford and her team did a lot of work. in this specific area with our psychologists and our social workers and our counselors. A part of the discussion today was just making sure that we are identifying

140some of the different adverse childhood experiences that students may have throughout not just pre-K through second grade, but pre-K through 12th grade, because some of these experiences happen at different points in time. throughout their educational career with ACPS. And I used earlier divorce because divorce was a new ACE, ACEs that didn't used to always be on our ACEs list. Divorce can hit any student. It's not just socioeconomics, race, you know, and it could be at any age and all kids, if any of you, which I. I'm a product of a divorce household, but it has an impact on children in a lot of different ways. Every child deals with it in a different way. And if our staff are not equipped. or trained to know how to ask the right questions and to also stay

141in tune and in a relationship with their kids or having some kind of relationship with their kids, they're not going to be able to identify some of these. But Dr. Moore, you may want to talk a little bit more about ACEs. I know it was on our slide earlier. Yes, thank you for that question, Ms. Nolan. I would say broadly, because I sit these eligibility meetings, that if I were to put them in a category, there is a question that we have to answer at eligibility about environmental or economic disadvantage. And that is usually where the question about ACEs does come up. It is a topic that... counselors, social workers, psychologists tend to be a little more well-versed in, but general ed teachers have usually less familiarity with the relationship between the two and how

142that comes to affect behavior. So that's certainly a topic that could be addressed through some of the professional development topics that we brought up and mentioned, because sometimes there are many conversations that we are having at the table about how this trauma or this event then impacts the student in the classroom. Thank you so much. And if I may add, we actually have had just a reminder, especially for folks, the board members that are, this is their first term. We had the pleasure of learning from, as we were exiting our last term, we know that Mr. Seth Kinnar, when he was a leader at Charles Barrett, really embraced the ACE training. And many of his staff and the administration, they're really... put the finger on that as the reason that not only did their suspension

143data go down, their special education was always known for actually being in strong shape, but also that the teachers really embraced it and shared that it was the same year that not only did suspension data go down, but their SOLs had a spike. And when asking anecdotally the staff there, they really pointed to that ACES training and really embracing it as a school atmosphere is why that occurred. So we do have... experiences within ACPS that it's been known to address some of these concerns that we all share. So thank you for that, Dr. Moore. Really appreciate it. Really thrilled to have you both, you and Dr. Reed on the team. So thank you and welcome. Okay, Dr. Reeve? Thank you everyone for this conversation. It's been really enlightening and I'm really glad that it's a

144school division where we are having honest conversations about this. And Mr. Suarez kind of touched on this. I am really curious though about this piece of the disproportionality in referrals coming from schools where white students are the majority because I know we've talked a lot here about the need for staff training and that kind of thing. That's very interesting to me. That suggests some kind of school culture issue that's going on. And I know from, I see Dr. Douglas Reed here, I suppose for our next topic that's coming up on the agenda. But, you know, as Dr. Hutchings alluded, like our school division does have a history after integration of, you know, pushing some students into special education, Black students into special education. So I am curious, like, if anyone wants to speak. a little

145bit about the thinking behind that and I'm also thinking about you know you touched on the intrinsic biases and I'm just wondering you know even beyond the staff but the school community as a whole like how raising awareness of these issues with the whole with the whole school community might be useful and then and then my other question was on the memo that was with the presentation, I saw that it said the superintendent recommends the school board monitor the implementation of the coordinated early intervention services. So I'm interested to hear how you see us doing that moving forward. And in particular, the issue of professional development for staff. I was wondering who was going to be prioritized for that. professional development? Is it all school? Is it particular schools, particular staff members at school? So

146if you could, is it like a required training? Is it an optional training? So if you could speak a little bit more about that angle, I would appreciate that. So a part of MTSS is division-wide. So that's a huge advantage for us. It's not optional. And we are also with, and this is why the equity work is so important. I mean, this ties completely closely to our equity work. It ties to cultural competency work that we're already doing within the school division. So all of this goes hand in hand. And I think this really validates the strategic plan 2025 and all of the things in regards to like our focus areas. Why? they were important and why our data read the way it did, you know, a year ago and how it really needs to

147read differently moving forward. So this is non-negotiable for all staff. The training is non-negotiable in regards to our equity training. ACES training is non-negotiable. All of these professional learning opportunities are out of our professional learning department and office. Corey. Corey, what's Corey's last name? Kapelsky. Kapelsky, thank you. What's Corey's last name? Corey Kapelsky. I'm sorry, Corey. I do know your last name. I just didn't know how to pronounce it right. Corey Kapelsky is overseeing our professional learning, and this is why it's important to make sure that our MTSS model, it really drives our professional learning opportunities for staff. Also with our teacher evaluation, which we're going to be providing the board with an update on the evaluation, the refined evaluation system in January, you're going to hear more about that, but you'll see how they're

148all aligned with one another so that it is not, you know. Seth Kennard starting a program at his school and they're benefiting like crazy. And then we have other kids who aren't, you know, throughout the school division. We're trying to find best practice so that it's uniform and that it is an expectation regardless of what school you're at in ACPS. Dr. Hutchings, if I could also add in behind that, I have some information that I'm going to ask Dr. Moore to share some of the research articles, Dr. Reif, that goes to one of your questions. But we particularly are focused on... Following the equity lens, we are doing these virtual lunch and learn sessions. That is one of our ways to target administrative staff to provide this information for them and any relevant SST team

149member or other school member that they want to have join us for part of that. We're also going to have a similar presentation with the principals. getting in touch with them to be on their agenda so that we can share now that this has been in front of the board. We want to share this with principals and we're going to give actually we have individual school data. So we're going to start to work individually with building principals and their teams. That's part of the work that Dr. Moore and Dr. Reed are going to do to really look at what are the practices, what are the trends, what are the things that we're seeing in individual schools and work. Different schools need different things. There's different supports and lots of people are in different places. So

150we want to work to support schools so that we are seeing, as Dr. Hutchings said, not just something that happens in a pocket, but something that happens systemically. And Dr. Moore has some information also. Can you share, Dr. Moore, what you found, the research articles you were talking about? I would rather send that information on to the board. Yeah, so we'll send it on to the board and we'll get back to Dr. Reif. Okay. Yes, I can send those on. Great. Thank you, everyone. We look forward to seeing what happens as this progresses and we check in later. So I think that's it. I don't see any more questions for that. So we have one more topic on our tonight's agenda and that is the renaming recommendation. So Dr. Hutchings. Right, I wish I had

151a little drum roll like brrrr. It's time finally, everybody. But let me just first start off by just saying I am so glad that we were methodical and strategic about this whole renaming process. Tonight, when we discuss or when our team shares kind of like our progress and our process, I think that the board and the community will be really impressed with taking the additional time to get things right. I know that when I talk to people now about Thomas Changeless Williams or about Matthew Morey. They know more today than they did back in June about who they are and why the school should not be named after them. And it's thousands more. We're not talking about five more people. Thousands more know the difference and know why these names should be changed and who

152these people are. I'm not going to take up any more of the presentation. I'm going to turn it over to our people of schooling, Julia. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings and Madam Chair, Madam Vice Chair and school board members for this opportunity to present this evening on our work over the past months to engage our community in the identity project for a robust public community engagement process. But before I begin, I want to acknowledge the team, which I know Dr. Hutchins will share a little bit more information about that later. In particular, I also want to acknowledge that Dr. Reed is with us this evening, who was very instrumental in helping us with our community readings. So you'll see different members of our team tonight, not the whole team. We had many other players as well

153that helped us with this. But I'm going to sort of go through some of those beginning pieces, and then you'll meet some of the other members of the team as we go along. As you all know, this process began on June 16, 2020, when the school board received a petition to consider changing the name of TC Williams High School. Interestingly enough, that was around the same time that I began. So it was really interesting to see that this was one of the first things that I would tackle, but exciting to take it on. And so glad that I was here to be part of this process. And as you know, this was followed. On August 6, 2020, he went with a petition to consider changing the name of Matthew Morey Elementary School. And you'll see

154some of the clips that we received and some of the coverage that we received about changing the name of the school. Specifically, as many of you have learned through this process, Thomas Chambers Williams was the superintendent of ACPS from the mid-1930s until 1963. He resisted desegregation and argued that Black and white students learned differently and should remain in separate schools. And then we also learned about Matthew Morey, who was an oceanographer who served the Confederacy. He helped oversee Virginia's military preparations and resistance to the Union, including improving the effectiveness of underwater torpedoes or mines. Matthew Morey Elementary School was named after him in the 1920s as part of a movement to create an image of the war as a heroic narrative and justify the South's loss. So why consider the change now? Many people asked

155us about that, and especially specifically we're in the middle of a pandemic, and why would we do this now? So as ACPS is critically aware that there's a pressing need in our schools, our community, and our nation to find ways to talk about race constructively and respectfully. One of the ways that we can move forward is by acknowledging our own history. While refusing to allow the history to define who we currently are as a school division, This year has made this even more pressing. We aren't just facing a pandemic that is disproportionately impacting communities of color, but also a social justice crisis, a crisis around racial equity. Many people call this the dual pandemic that we're facing right now. In addition, in June this year, the school board adopted a new strategic plan with racial

156equity at the heart. Equity for all 2025 is a bold and courageous roadmap. that is timely and will position ACPS as a national leader in redefining pre-K through 12 education as a deliberately inclusive and supportive experience where all succeed. The plan's mission, as you know, is to ensure success by inspiring students and addressing barriers to learning. The plan's vision is about empowering all students to thrive in a diverse and ever-changing world. Going forward, racial equity will be at the center of every decision that the school board will make. These factors make for a stark contrast between our values as a school division and the names our schools were given by past generations. So this is such a mismatch, and let me talk about why. Today, we have students from 121 countries who speak 120 languages.

15730% of our students are English learners. 36% of our students are Hispanic and 28% are Black. They all come together to learn at Alexandria's only high school, T.C. Williams. Yet the school is named after someone who believed Blacks were inferior to whites and who believed that Blacks and whites should not be educated together. Moria was named as part of a movement to justify the South's loss after someone whose actions would today be considered treasonous. So this is a little background on the project, which we have learned over the past couple of months, believe it or not. It's been at least three or four months that we started this process. And I'm going to pass it over to Helen, who's going to talk about the engagement process itself, the many factors, the many strategies, and then

158you'll hear from some of our other members. So Helen, please take over. So thank you, Ms. Burgos. There were three key factors in the engagement process. Firstly, we needed to ensure that it was committed to be a student-led process. I think your audio is a little bit. I'm just going to unplug and I'll do it without. Okay, is that a little better? That is thank you. Okay, all right. All right. So, the 3 key factors in the. Secondly, we need to create opportunities to hear from. It's still doing it. Do you have another system or something on? Is there like a phone or another? No, there's nothing on. I've been listening all day with my audio. Julia will verify that. I'm not doing anything as you're talking. Okay, I'm going to carry on. If it

159continues though, Julia, I think maybe it was, I thought it was free. Okay, I thought maybe I stopped sharing. I'm sharing again to see if maybe that would help, but maybe not. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I'm going to try again. I can hear it crackling already. Do you want to just do my slides, Julia? Yeah, I can. You take over. Can you screen share then? I will take over screen share. Okay. You need someone else to read, Julia. Let us know if you need us. Okay. Sorry, just give me a second. not prepared to do these slides. So give me one moment. That's all right. You can handle the Julia. Of course. I, of course I can. I just need to get prepared because I wasn't prepared. Okay. I'm like, welcome to

160take. I'm just waiting for Helen. I'm just waiting for Helen to share, share the screen and then I can get going again. Did she disappear? No, she's there. Probably trying to get it back. Yeah. It just give me like 10 seconds. Like me, she was not prepared to share her screen. So she has to get it ready. I mean, I can start because I mean, I think, well, she's not, she can't see, I guess not, you know, can't see the slides yet. I'm going to say, go ahead. We can go ahead and just start. Let's go ahead. Talking through it. Okay. All right, sounds good. So we had some key factors that were really crucial in this engagement process. One was that we were very committed that it be a student-led process. Thanks to our

161two school board representatives, Lorraine Johnson and Ashley Sanchez-Viafara, they were excellent and really led that process with the student chats, really informed us and helped us throughout the process. and gave us advice and really talked to us about the things that they wanted to see and invited others to participate. So I really want to applaud them for that because they were really instrumental in that. We also wanted to create opportunities to hear from various segments of the community, which is what you'll hear a little bit more about tonight. And then of course, as all of you know, we invited you to be part of the process, co-host our sessions so that you could hear firsthand from the community and some of the conversations that were being had. So we thought that that was very critical.

162Are we still not sharing slides? Maybe. Can you take over? I'm about to share. Okay. Okay. So can you go to slide eight, Helen, please? So. So here's a little bit of a summary of the communications and engagement plan. On July 10, 2020, since the school board voted to consider renaming T.C. Williams High School, and on September 17th to consider renaming Matthew Mori Elementary School, the school board approved an engagement plan to ensure that these changes were wanted within the broader community and that all voices were heard in the process. Our Department of School and Community Relations developed four key strategies to ensure the engagement goals of the school board were met. One is for education and information. It is critical to have an informed community to come to an informed decision. This includes students

163as well as the community as a whole. Strategy two, student engagement, student led. As I mentioned before, it was very important that our black and brown students were heavily involved in this process. We needed them to feel it was theirs. The third was community engagement. Alexandria has just one high school that is very much the heart of our city. Therefore, we would not consider changing a name without involving the community. And lastly, key stakeholder input. We needed to ensure that our African-American community who were made. to wait for desegregation and whose land we took via eminent domains to build T.T. Williams as well as our 71 Titan team were involved. We also wanted to ensure that the Latino community had a voice as well as the NAACP and represented from Alexandria's Black History Museum. It

164was essential that we engage these communities involved in the process. Next slide. For the information and engagement education portion, which was a strategy one, we divided this into two different audiences, our students and our wider community. And from here, I'm going to ask Ms. Kenetra Wood to share some of those insights. And like I said, Dr. Reed is here, who was very instrumental in that process as well. Thank you, Julia. ACPS wanted to ensure we provided opportunities to learn for everyone. For the community-focused part of strategy one, we held three read-in sessions. Our goal was to educate our staff, students, and community, as well as set the stage for the remainder of the process. We invited Dr. Reed, a social historian from Georgetown University, to present episodes from Alexandria's history. His book, Building the Federal

165Schoolhouse, has become a foundational text for our history, and so he was the perfect person to host these sessions. Dr. Reed has joined us, as Julia has said, so we'd like to welcome him and thank him for being here tonight. Read-in number one focused on T.C. Williams' demand versus T.C. Williams' high school and its diversity of today, while still showing the racial inequities and divides. Read-in number two focused on Alexandria's role in massive resistance, school segregation, the standards implemented to maintain segregation, and the correlation to today's form of resistance and indifference. Read-in number three focused on the real story behind Remember the Titans. This segment took us on a journey. a journey to remember the Titans, a journey of myth versus reality, and cherished us with remembering the Titans, imagining the Titans, and fulfilling the

166promise of the Titans, leaving the audience to accept the responsibility of a Titan, to rise and defend the value diversity brings to our community. I'd like to now pass it on to Sarah Whalen, who will talk to us about how we educated our students throughout this process. Thank you, Ms. Wood. For the student education part of this strategy, we developed lessons that built on those community conversations and read-ins to bring those conversations into the classroom at an appropriate level for our students. So the goal of those lessons was to help students understand the conversations that are taking place in our community and in other communities around the country, and to allow students to come to their own conclusions about renaming based on what they learned about the namesake. So for TC Williams students, we developed

167a series of four lesson plans that all students participated in through their classroom field time. And the lesson started off with the big idea of what's in a name, what does our name represent about us, and to what extent are the different names of ACPS schools reflective of our community, both within our school and the larger community. And from there, then we started to delve into some of the topics that Ms. Wood just talked about, about the history of segregation in our community, of massive resistance and integration. And lessons focused on the history of T.C. Williams as a superintendent, and then also on the legacy of Remember the Titans. The students participated in classroom discussions about how well the name represents the school. And this is another chance to engage their voice and to have

168a chance to really think about what the school name means to them. So they had a chance to share their opinions within their classrooms, and then they took the ACPS survey about whether or not the school should be renamed. Similarly, for the Matthew Mori lessons, we started with the historical information that was being presented to the community and developed lessons to help bring those conversations back into the classroom at the appropriate level for young learners. So now I'll turn it over to Mr. Powell to talk more about the elementary lessons and how that went. Thank you, Sarah. At this point, we're going to show you just a small, short extract from one of our fourth grade Virginia study classrooms that took place a few weeks ago that was centered around the renaming project with Ms.

169Houston. Can you please cue up the video, please? I was not given a video. It's fine. It's fine. The video I can play it. I can play it. Helen's just having some sound issues with her laptop. So, you know, we're trying to be really good about not switching out laptops and technology because we know students need it. So we're sort of keeping up with what we have. So just I can play it. Give me a second. I'll show it again. It's a great video. I can hear you now. Yeah. Can you hear the video? No, let's go ahead and allow Julia to pull it up. Oh, I think I know what I have. Sorry. I have to allow this. Yeah, okay. People are going to say, what are y'all trying to do? You're trying to

170slow down making this decision. The board needs to know what you're doing, Dr. Hutchins. Are you going with path of school name, TC or not? Now you're... I still hear that sound again. Now I'm slow too. Something's going on. Yeah, I don't see your it's not do you want me to try? I think I have a video for that. Julie, if you're going to present load, it should come through. I want you to know that I tried all these. Like, 20, an hour ago. I think the sound is. We can send it to board members. We'll have to send it to board members. And maybe it's posted already on free posting. We'll see the movie. Madam Chair, I say, let us just send the email. We can be in suspense as we are for every

171Netflix thing that we're looking for the next episode. The worst part of it is that it wouldn't stop. Shut everything down. Sorry. All right. Continue to. With the PowerPoint presentation. Yes. I'm glad this is recorded so I can go back and laugh at this one day. Yeah, but it's sad. It's all these wonderful videos that we prepared and they were working just an hour ago. We only have six attendees on right now. People will be sent to us and we get all of the video links sent to us. We will. And they're also post, they do work online because I watched it from the ESB. So it is available for people to see. So that's a good thing. Okay. So Helen, do you want to take that goal? Julia, I just shared, we're ready. If

172you're ready to go, I can play it. I think we want to move on at this point because we're worried that it's going to, I think people got a gist of it. Try the Matthew Moore. If it works, it doesn't just move on. Yeah, I think we're going to have to skip over the videos. I mean, I want to be able to see them, but I just think that we need to get through the content and we'll be able to share the links with the board. I do want to give Ms. Houston a shout out. She's a fabulous teacher. I see that she was the one featured in the video. She is awesome. And Matthew Morey. And I will say, knock on wood, we've actually had, you know, fairly good technology going with our meetings,

173karma. The city council retreat was, they had a little problem with all their technology. Everybody kept getting thrown off throughout the day. So I felt happy that we haven't had that so much. Knock on wood. All right, go ahead. There was a lot of bandwidth issues probably that Saturday morning. Yes, probably. Yeah. I also know that video over Zoom sometimes is challenging. So, yeah. We'll look forward to it later. Okay. Well, I think let's keep moving. We have lots of other good content to talk about, and we'll definitely send you all the links so you can enjoy them. Okay. So I think this is Pete. All right. Good evening, everyone. Can everyone hear me? Yes. I do. I'm going to get into this right away to try to make up some time. I do want

174to vouch for Julia and her team. Everything was smooth, including the videos during our run through just a few hours ago. But let's we are moving on for strategy to student engagement. As we said earlier, student engagement, particularly for our students of color, was a top priority. This is a voice we don't hear from often enough. Student engagement was led by our two ACPS school board student reps, Ashley Sanchez Villafara and Lorraine Johnson. The students were involved in planning meetings, which were focused on ensuring Black and Hispanic student voices were involved. We asked the two school board student reps to design the logo for the TC part of the campaign with us. This was before we received the Mori petition, and we needed to widen our brand into the identity project once the Mori petition

175came in. I'm going to note here that the identity project brand with its fingerprint was chosen to reflect who we are as a division and our values as a whole. And in-class lessons kicked off with student voice about why change the name. The students also took over the superintendent's local newspaper column for a month. The students ran three different student forums where they could discuss important topics around the name change. And we also had student moderators for all 10 of the forums and discussions with the community, students, and the read-ins. I'd like to give special shout out to some of our students who were involved. Peter Ritzgala, Fina Owusu, Karam Berjas, Helen Risi-Dupont, Sarah Deffendorf, Lorraine Johnson, Ashley Sanchez-Villapara, and Giselle Hughes. And now I will turn it over to Tanika. Thank you, Pete. Building

176on these education and student engagement strategies, our community engagement efforts really hinged on four conversations that gave voice to the myriad experiences, perspectives, and questions that exist here in Alexandria, not only around the renaming of schools, but really how our students are living and experiencing equity for all. Outreach for each of these conversations was robust and multilingual, and for many families, the message or invitation that resonated was simply, what's in a name and why is ACPS considering changing the names? One family forum focused primarily on Matthew Maury Elementary School and the renaming of that institution, and three additional community conversations centered the broader identity project. Our goal with each community conversation was to build on the educational and awareness work done by our colleagues and ensure that the discussions were relevant and accessible to the

177diverse families that we serve. To achieve this, we were happy to have the support of a combination of panelists that included one of our student representatives to the school board, city leaders like Audrey Frazier, and alumni of T.C. Williams High School who are now regarded as civil rights leaders, education policy experts, and community leaders in their own right. They really helped us foster a thought-provoking conversation across the series and additional exchanges with other attendees that examined the renaming of schools in light of Alexandria's history of desegregation and massive resistance through our current context of the dual pandemics that we and our families are navigating, and finally through the lens of our strategic goal of equity for all. I'll now turn it over to Mr. Porter, former principal of T.C. Williams and former student of Matthew

178Maury Elementary School to provide some additional information on the key stakeholders who are engaged in the community conversations and throughout this process. Thank you, Tanika. And as Tanika mentioned, important components of this were our stakeholders. In this process, we wanted to ensure that we provided total transparency as well as soliciting maximum input from the community. We included, as was noted, a number of key community stakeholders to include Audrey Davis, the director of the Alexandria Black History Museum. Cindy Benavides, a TC grad and the CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Erica Miller, another TC grad and the child of two Alexandria icons, Melvin and Eula Miller. Gwenda Fuller, daughter of Ferdinand and Helen Day, leaders in the civil rights effort in our community. Ashley Sanchez-Villafarra, TC student and school board rep, as previously

179mentioned. Earl Cook, former police chief and a member of the 71 Titans football team. Christopher Harris, another TC grad and current president of the NAACP. And school board members, while all were involved, three, Ramey Gentry, Michelle Reith, and Margaret Lorbert, served as panel moderators for the three community sessions. Additionally, PTA members and so many other members of the community, including myself as a former TC principal, and the many staff and students throughout the city were involved. This wide swath of community involvement is so indicative of and important to our community. It serves to provide the essential input needed in decisions such as the consideration for renaming our schools. On the next slide, we had hoped to present a video of Earl Cook talking on behalf of the 71 Titans. Obviously, I don't believe we're going

180to try to play that, and so I'm going to turn it back over to Julia. Thank you, John. And now for some exciting information, I think what we had really looked to achieve was to make sure that we reach many members of our community. And so I'm going to go over some of the data. There's a lot. I wish I could just touch on some pieces, but I'm going to touch on all of it because I think that was really the point of this whole process was to make sure that we reached people and that we got the voice of the community. So during the community communications and engagement process, we actively engaged 6,777 people via the Zoom read-ins, student forums, and community sessions. We also saw 10,366 engagements via the identity project pages of

181the website. The read-in pages of the website had 2,888 webpage visits, and the read-in videos had 2,510 views. 1,360 on Facebook, 324 on YouTube, and 826 on Zoom. All 4,000 students at T.C. Williams and 400 students at Matthew Mori had the opportunity to learn about the names of their schools and discuss them. The student forums had 133 webpage visits with 1,518 total video views, 1,101 on Facebook, 164 on YouTube, and 253 on Zoom. The community conversations had 198 web page visits and 1,871 total video views, 1,244 on Facebook, 175 on YouTube, and 452 on Zoom. We had engagement in multiple languages in all sessions and all communications went out in four languages. Our key community stakeholders have resoundingly endorsed the name change. While the 71 Titans have shared mixed feelings on the topic, the majority

182understand the need. You also heard Herman Boone's daughter speak on behalf of both coaches who oversaw the winning 71 championship, Herman Boone and Bill Yost in support of a name change during the school board public hearing. All community and student discussions as well as the public hearing are in the report attached to the presentation that we posted that compiles a summary of the engagement and data around the identity theft. One of the points to note is that we did not hear much resistance to changing either means. The feedback we collected was mainly in the affirmative that people did support any change. Next slide. We also conducted a survey to gauge the community's position on the name change. To ensure this informed data, we asked people their opinions on how well they understood the history before

183we asked them their views on the name change. The survey opened just prior to the first community session on October 13th and closed on midnight on October 28th. We encourage students to complete the survey following their in-class sessions. We received a total of 3,198 responses. Those included 36% from parents, 34% from students, and 13% were from TC alumni. Our demographic breakdown for survey respondents is summarized as follows. 20% were Black or African American, 14% were Hispanic, and 49% were white. Of the parent responses, 43% of the responses were connected to T.C. Williams, 23% were connected to George Washington Middle School, while 12% were connected to Matthew Mori, but the rest connected to other schools. Of the student responses, 87% came from T.C. Williams, while 9% came from Matthew Mori, but the rest connected to other

184schools. Of staff responses, 55% came from TC Williams, with the rest fairly evenly split across all other schools and central office. As for understanding the history, which demonstrates an informed decision around TC Williams, 86% strongly agreed or strongly agreed or agreed, while 13% disagreed or strongly disagreed. As for understanding the history around Matthew Mori, 69% strongly agreed or agreed, and then 31% disagreed or strongly disagreed that they understood the history. Of those who took the survey, 85% said they felt well-informed or really well-informed about the identity project, which I think was a really great success. That was really one of the main things that we wanted to accomplish, one of the main goals and objectives of this project. 15% said they did not feel well informed about the identity project. So that's something they will

185need to work on in phase two as if the board votes to rename the schools, it gives us another opportunity to try to raise more awareness about the identity project. Next slide. So regarding the name change for TC Williams, you'll see that 75% were in favor or strongly in favor of a name change, while 25% were against or strongly against a name change. Next slide. And regarding the name change for Matthew Maury, 72% were strongly in favor of a name change, while 27% were against or strongly against a name change. Next slide. So this was a really great video that we put together that really was a compilation of all of the different sessions that we had. And I'm afraid to try to show it because it may not work. But as we said, we're

186gonna share. About the segregationist views of the person for whom the school was named was something that I had to wrestle with. There's a presumption. Yeah, I would say so that it's okay. That school should not be named TC Williams. He was a known racist. To hear about the segregation. So, as I mentioned, and Dr. Hutchings mentioned this earlier as well, that many of these, all of these videos are posted online. So anybody who, we'll send them to the board, of course, and one email, but you can view them online at any time. So I'm going to now hand it over to our superintendent, Dr. Hutchings, to talk about what a name change would cost. And then he'll... to queue it up actually to Pete, I'm sorry, to Pete Ballas to talk about the cost

187for the schools as well as Ms. Powell. Great, thank you. So we're just going to talk a little bit about budget. What would this cost to... change in name of a school. So Matthew Mori's budget, as you can see here, is an estimated $5,770 to include things like marquee and signage. And the estimate for TC Williams High School is $358,000, which includes a lot throughout the building and repainting. So both estimates do include a 10% contingency for any unforeseen costs. And we can move on to the TC slide. So specifically for TC, you see a breakdown here of where the costs are. In order to do, I'll take you a little bit through our process, in order to do or to know what expenses we would incur. If there was a name change at TC,

188we started a school-based team to do an entire school review of what would need to be removed or replaced. So we conducted physical school walkthroughs to identify many of our items and recorded all the areas that would need something to be removed, something to be replaced or repainted at our campuses. Our school-based team included lead administrator for operations, Mark Eisenhower, our director of athletics and student activities, James Parker, and King Street administrator, Michael Birch. In order to get all cost estimates, we also collaborated with Dr. Alicia Hart and her staff to get the best estimates we could around possible budgetary needs. And in this review, Mr. Parker also had to get cost estimates for all new athletic uniforms and any sort of signage or things in our athletic areas, including the gymnasium, which were some

189of our biggest ticket items. I will now toss it over to my friend and colleague, Victor Powell. Appreciate that, Pete. Very similar to TC Williams, just obviously on a very smaller scale. As far as our budget, obviously did walkthroughs with our building engineer and consulted with our treasurer for various items as far as making sure we were getting the best price for those cost estimates. And then also looking at the signage within the building as far as outside, but also within the safety panels within our building. I'm saying that we don't have athletic programs and other facilities that TC Williams has. It couldn't be a larger contrast as far as the larger school in ACPS and the smaller school in ACPS. So that's where you see the cost estimate being a little bit under $6,000.

190I'll toss it back over to Greg, I believe. So, yeah, so with the recommendation, of course, that I am going to be recommending to the board is that the board approved the renaming of the T.C. Williams High School and Matthew Morey Elementary School and to empower the superintendent to seek the community's input in nominations in accordance with the regulation FFR. And this will allow us to develop naming recommendations for board approval in the spring of 2021. And the new names would become effective at the start of the 21-22 school year. As I stated earlier, I think it is so important for us to have gone through this process of just making sure we're educating our community and our student body on both schools, T.C. Williams and Matthew Morey Elementary School. And I think it was

191also important for us to allow our students to lead. these efforts, specifically having some of the marginalized community members to be a part of this discussion so that people aren't speaking on their behalf. They're able to share their truth and their experiences walking into these types of buildings and having these experiences. I want to go a little bit through the next steps, which is our next slide that specifically talks to if the board does approve for us changing both Thomas Chambers Williams High School and Matthew Morey Elementary School, that we will move into phase two. And this is the process of a selection for the new school names. We are hoping that if the board does approve for these name changes, that we can launch the phase two in December of 2020. So that will

192be next month, that we will be able to share our communications and our engagement plan with the board. for the name selections next month as well, and that we will begin to allocate funds for FY22, for the FY22 combined funds budget, anything that's associated with these costs, because we will need to make sure they're included in next year's budget. So with that said, I want to turn things back over to Madam Chair. I don't know if there are questions that people may have before we go into that. I do want to thank all of our Identity Project Design team. I mean, I know we had a little snafu today with the videos, but you can see the videos online. And I want to give a special shout out to our school board representatives because Ashley

193and Lorraine, they were remarkable throughout this process. They led these efforts in ways that, you know, I just could not have imagined doing if I were a senior in high school. in a global pandemic. I mean, they were running these sessions, community sessions, they were contacting their fellow classmates to get engaged and involved and, you know, getting information for us and doing some research as well. And I just want to thank them for their hard work and dedication. And it says a lot about not just the school board, but our school division to allow young people to lead these efforts. That says a lot about us, you know, and I think that they are the next generation. You know, I always say Lorraine and Ashley, either one of them could be the president of the

194United States 30 years from now, if they choose to do that. And I will definitely vote for them if they choose to do that. Just make sure I get it toward the White House. But I'm very proud of them. I know you all are too. But I want to open the floor for questions, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you for that. Yes. It's been a really amazing process. And I want to thank Dr. Reed who's, who's joined us tonight for, you know, leading or for being a part of the three along with, you know, with Ms. Wood. And so that was really, I very much enjoyed listening to those and being a part of those as well as the community ones. I think there was maybe only one I missed because I had a conflict. All

195right, we have something from Ms. Gentry. Really just a quick thank you to everyone for this work. And I really do just want to emphasize something that I think we've been hearing, which is, you know, I think a lot of people appreciated a lot of, we saw a lot of community members participating in this project. We see the numbers and we've heard from people. I know that there are some people that were frustrated with the pacing of this. You know, what I would say to that is that we still, are on track to have a new name for these two schools by the beginning of next year and what we have gained is a really important educational opportunity for everyone and for everyone that says well you you knew this was bad and and and

196this was horrible and why didn't you you know and and so you know just go ahead and change it i think that's the point because tc williams was not a name that just popped up this year when there also happened to be maybe a growing national awareness of some of the longstanding issues we have with race in this country. And yet for years and years, even again, as it was pointed out to us as far as this educational process, there were members of the Alexandria community that were repeatedly calling for this name to be, for the name to be changed, and they were ignored. And I really do think it is important for all of us to understand that because we're going to have a lot more educational moments in the years to come. you

197know, learning about this one name does not equate now understanding the history of racial injustice in the city of Alexandria. There's going to be a lot more learning opportunities for all of us. And it's through that that we are better able to address some of the very issues that we were talking about tonight. in terms of, you know, racial disproportionality that we're seeing in some of our groups in our schools. So, you know, for those that were impatient, I think we'll find, I think, I hope you are now feeling like it was worth the wait. Okay, next up, I see Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair Anderson. And thank you, everyone, for your hard work and dedication around this process. I do have one question about the numbers for Matthew Mori. Susan, I don't know if

198we can pull up that slide. One moment. Thank you. Do you know approximately what slide it is? Towards the end, wasn't it? The budget. Slide with the numbers 23 and 24. Great. Okay. Thank you, Susan. And I'll probably never say this as a school board member ever again, but are you sure you don't need more money? The number seems kind of low to me, particularly for signage for the school. Or, you know, is there anything else that's needed inside the school that we would need to change the name or the logo on? It just, the number just seems kind of low to me. No, I totally understand. And thank you, Ms. Green, for that question this the signage includes the signage outside of the building as far as the letters at the front of the

199building and the signage on the marquee that is out in front of the building as well. Inside of the building, there really isn't any signage outside of the safety panels. So for example, the fire panels when you first come into the building, as far as the basement and things like that. So they're very small. There are a few signage items that would need to be replaced on our playground that have the name on there, but they're very much Really the largest ticket would be the signage just on the actual building because the letters would need to be specially obviously made in the company that isn't giving us a different course. We had to go through a different company, but this is the, we highballed the quotes that were given to us based on the signage.

200So I totally understand what you're saying. You think it should be larger, but as I said earlier, in a joking manner, you know, we're the smallest building. They're really, it's not like it's. other signage in our building with Matthew Moore's name on it. The things that do have his name on it might be plaques and whatnot that are in our storage, but as far as signage on the building or for that needs to be replaced in that capacity, this does fit it. We can definitely collaborate with facilities to do additional walkways to ensure that that's the case. but we tried to use the high quotes that came in just to make sure we were coming in appropriately, but there's really only three or four locations in our building, either externally or internally, that really need

201to get any signage replaced. Yeah. And one of the advantages, I mean, I think one of the advantages of an elementary school versus a high school is that there really isn't the gymnasium, the auditorium, you know, all of those things that are named or have names after the school that Matthew Moore and a lot of our elementaries don't have, which that is an advantage when you are changing the elementary name versus a middle school or high school program. Thank you, Mr. Powell. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Yes, it's funny. They didn't always used to have Matthew on there. It's got more letters than when I went there. It was just Moray School. I didn't even know it was Matthew until my kids were in school. So I don't know when that changed. But I have Dr.

202Eve. Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for the presentation and for working on this project over the last couple of months. I also had a question about the budget for the high school name change. I was curious about the uniforms, since that was a big chunk of it. Are those uniforms that would typically be replaced anyway? Or I was just curious a little bit about that. And then if you, Dr. Hutchings, if you've considered, you know, doing any fundraising about this, because I mean, I... I don't know that we could raise that much, but I do think there are people who would want to contribute to this effort. And given the fact that we are in a pandemic and money is tight, I just think it would be a missed opportunity not to reach out to people.

203But I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. And I have one other question, but I wanted to note on the report that was sent of the engagement to the board. I noticed that the link. for the survey responses was not working. So I just wanted to flag that because I definitely wanted to read through the responses. And then my other question, in addition to fundraising, was about what to expect at the meeting on November 23rd, because I think This seemed like kind of like the presentation and I don't know, you know, we don't have a lot of folks attending this evening and so I, of course, I'm sure people in the community will want to see this information. So I don't know if you're, if it's going to go out on express or will

204there be some kind of presentation on the 23rd. So if you could just let us know what to expect. So to answer your first question, so some of the uniforms are things that are going to be replaced, but some are not because we don't replace our uniforms every year. They are placed on a rotation basis. And these are the uniforms that have T.C. Williams. You know, some of our uniforms have just Titans on them, but these are all uniforms that have actual T.C. Williams or T.C.W. on those. So in order for us to be able. to transition into changing a school name, we would have to take all uniforms that include that and not continue to follow the rotation that we typically do. So to answer your question, no, all of the uniforms that are

205included in this were not planned to be renewed. To answer your second question, which was about. One fundraising and then what to expect. Yeah, and I'll have Ms. Burgos talk about what to expect. But in regards to the fundraising, we're always open to fundraising and to receiving additional dollars. I know there is some interest out there. We have like athletic boosters. We have the PTAC. So there could be some opportunities for our community to fundraise and for us to get some additional dollars to assist with this work. So we are definitely going to be open to that. We'll be talking with Kurt Huffman about some of the partnerships that could possibly assist with that funding. And Ms. Burgos, if you can talk a little bit about kind of like the next steps. Sure, thank you.

206So yes, we will be putting this in express on this Wednesday. There'll be a link to the presentation from this evening. We weren't planning to present again next week, but certainly that would be up to the board if you wanted us to present parts of it, maybe without the videos this time. We could certainly give us a summary, perhaps, if that is what the board desires. I guess that would be something Dr. Hutchings and Ms. Anderson can follow up on with me on. But I think we were not planning that at all. So it would really be up to what the board wants to do because we presented it tonight. Okay. I don't see any more questions. So I think we might be done. Thank you. Dr. Hutchings, do you have anything else? I just

207wanted to once again thank all of our team. You know, Dr. Reed is on here who's devoted a lot of his time free of charge to us, which was wonderful. And then our communications team. I mean, I know we had a snafu tonight. Everybody, please don't let that damage all the work that you've done or make you feel bad about all of the work that has happened. Because earlier today, we went through this whole run through and... It was perfect. I watched the videos. I listened to all of everybody's comments earlier today. So I just want the community to know that our team has worked really hard. And I want to just acknowledge you all for that. And this was a long process, you know, going from June till now. But look how fast November

208came. I mean, it's now here. Thanksgiving is next week. And it's unbelievable to me. I feel like it was a blink of an eye. And I'm glad that we did take the time. to educate our community and to allow our students to lead the way. So thank you to the communications team as well for all the work that you all have done. And I'm looking forward to the vote next week so that we can begin our phase two and really get this show on the road because it is a long time coming. And I appreciate the fact that Ms. Gentry acknowledged. all of the people for several years who have been advocating for this name change and no one ever listened. So thank you to the school board in general for saying, you know what,

209this matters to us. We want to do something about it. And in spite of what's happening nationally, our strategic plan said racial equity was the heart of our work. So even if we were not in this dual pandemic, I know that our school board would have still. pursued this if we will receive that petition. So I just appreciate you all for being courageous and bold enough to say not under our watch. So thank you. Thank you for at least giving us the opportunity to do this. Dr. Hajnia, I just want to say thank you very much for entrusting our team for doing this work. I think the school and community relations team has really actually enjoyed working on this project together. As I mentioned last week during our audit, that it gave us an opportunity

210to actually work together as a team for the very first time and really learn about each other and our talents. But I also wanted to say, too, I really want to thank Mr. Ballas and Mr. Powell who jumped in. and really were instrumental in this process as principals and trying to lead schools virtually. It wasn't exactly easy, but they were so great and making sure that we had all the information that we needed and that they engaged their students as well as their families. So I just want to give a special shout out to them for being so great and helping us through this process. Okay, and I think we need to, the conversations are the basis of a lot of other things that we need to address because we need to get beyond the

211symbolism. And if we don't, then that's going to be a problem because I think the other things are what will move the needle for students. And so I think that allowed us to hear those things and set the stage for pursuing those after this. I don't see any other hands. And so I think we're done, everyone. Thank you very much. And we'll see you most of you tomorrow on Zoom. Bye.