November 23, 2020 Superintendent's Proposed 2022 2031 Capital Improvement Program Work Session

001was in my time frame. All right, so now welcome to the work session for tonight starting at 825. And so I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. The first is our CIP work session. Thank you, Madam Chair. And with that said, I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Hart, our Acting Executive Director of Facilities and Operations, to introduce our team so that we can go into part two of our CIP, which is having discussions around the full 10-year capital improvement program budget. Dr. Hutchings and good evening, Madam Chair and board members. Susan, do you mind sharing the presentation? As Dr. Hutchings alluded to, myself and Ms. Erica Gulick and Mr. John Finnegan will be going through tonight's presentation, which is a review of the 10-year proposed CIP program. Sorry. No worries. I'll

002be right there with you. Sorry, my screen is not showing up when I'm on. Hold on. Thanks so much, Susan. And so for tonight, there are a few essential questions that myself and the team will be answering. The first being, what are the program goals for the FY22 through 31 capital improvement program? What are the major capacity and non-capacity projects included in this proposed 10-year CIP budget? What are the new projects in the FY22 and FY21? What are the next steps in the CIP process? We've shown this slide before, but just want to reiterate that we have developed our CIP based off of the school board CIP priorities, and that includes systemic alignment, instructional excellence, student accessibility and support, strategic resource allocation, and family and community engagement. Next slide, please. Sorry, my screen is not

003showing up. So, I'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My screen is stuck. I don't know why this happens each time. So, one second. Okay. Okay. Let's try that again. No, it's not working. One second. I'm sorry, not having luck with this. I don't know what's going on. One second. Let's try. There we go. Oh, I'm not sharing. One second. Sorry, too many screens. There we go. Thanks so much, Susan. And so what are the goals of the FY22 through 31 CIP? There are five major goals to improve. So, the first one is the CIP standard, which is to improve the CIP at the ensuring the equitable distribution of projects across the division, addressing our targeted facilities assessment priority findings two through four, major system replacements at a

004few of our schools, continuing to address capacity issues with new facilities, as well as maintaining our facilities that are planned for modernization through replacement. And I will turn it over to Ms. Erica Gulick. Thank you, Dr. Hart, and good evening, board members. So here you just have a full summary of the proposed FY22 to 2031 CIP. You can see we have roughly 425 million in capacity projects, which are new building projects, our new school projects, and then we have about 127 million in non-capacity projects, which, despite the dollar amount, ends up being a big chunk of our work and a lot of projects that Mr. John Finnegan and his team complete each year. A lot of our summer projects are included in that number. So our total proposed FY22 to 2031 CIP is 551 million

005and 483,000. We can go through the next slide. And so just to briefly touch on some of the capacity projects in the CIP and going through the high school project, we've had several years of funding. So initially 5.3 million roughly in 2018 and 2019, combining those two years worth of budget to really start the visioning and the planning for the high school project. That's what has supported a lot of our consultants team, as well as our contracted staff, including support for the educational design team, and just making sure that we're able to move through the planning phase of the project. Our design funds, roughly 15.4 million, will fund our architect and engineering design contract, as well as some of the pre-design work that we're hoping to get solidified in the coming weeks. It's important to

006note that we did not receive funding in FY2021 for the high school project due to some of the deferrals that Dr. Hutchings had mentioned about budget cuts and that the city council included in their revised budget. So we did not receive funding in FY2021. However, we will be able to continue to support the project to make sure it stays on track, we believe, with the available funding. And then proposed in the CIP, we have funding for construction in FY2021. And COPDcible supports for construction in FY22 and 23, which will enable us to complete the full project on schedule. And so that total budget is roughly $195.6 million. We can go to the next sign. навah Wanted to talk about the other school University projects that are in the out years of the CIP. So the

007first one being George Mason, which should beForgus work,folks. b amongst others.abно me me me Fruf заг à my rrfullyj As was mentioned in previous work session, we did push back the George Mason and Cora Kelly projects by one year and the new school and Matthew Mori projects by two years, which resulted in Matthew Mori kind of falling off the 10 year CIP, but certainly still being planned for further out. We've updated all these budgets based on some of the recent information we've been able to realize on the Douglas MacArthur project, working with the city on what their cost estimates are looking like. Cora Kelly was updated from a renovation in addition to a complete new building. And so those are what some of these budget updates include in the 10 year CIP, we can go

008to the next slide. And then just to talk a little bit about the transportation facility we know a lot of our work is the schools but our transportation facility has been in our CIP for some time and it is being pushed out again to FY 2023. We're still working on that. We do know we have been able to complete some projects there as kind of an interim solution and it was included as part of our targeted facilities conditions assessment to make sure we're providing that facility what it needs to stay functioning. But we are working through with the city on the Woodar Willer campus master plan to determine ultimately what will be the full program that will be included on that site. That is all we wanted to talk about capacity tonight so I will

009turn it over to Cora. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. John Finnegan to go through some of the non capacity. Thank you, Erica. Good evening, board. Susan, if you could go to the next slide, please. So far non capacity projects we just wanted to reiterate the priorities. If you recall, we talked last meeting about the priority ones. Those are the projects that are more critical, where there were currently 58. And those are at various stages of whether they were completed this past summer, or have started or ongoing or in the future, etc. Priority to our potentially critical we will address within the next two years. Priority three are not yet critical but necessary in priority for our recommended. We will address in five to 10 years. Susan, if you could advance, please. Thank you. So, the

0102022 to 2031 non capacity projects will focus on priority projects, two to four. Examples include. Finalizing finishing up some of the phasing of the roof and HVAC work that we've been that we have started and some of them we had advanced will also be some flooring replacements which includes some asbestos work site hardscape projects. That's asphalt milling in relaying of the asphalt stormwater improvements which is everything from bioretention areas to cleaning out our sand filters, etc. And plumbing upgrades because some of the plumbing assets. Are getting pretty old. Susan, if you could advance, please. So what's new in this budget. Fire alarm systems we've got quite a few antiquated systems we are currently working at a couple of schools to upgrade George Washington and James Polk, or finalizing those. But here's a few more that

011we will work on the next year. Also Patrick Henry completion fund that's $3 million. That was basically given back. Because of the change. Of the. The cost of the project. And then the cost of some of the site work. And that's related to keeping this wing space. And then also increased technology funds. Susan, if you could go forward. In here, everything is laid out. These are the new projects. Through 2022 to 2031. There's a handful of. Projects within some of those things. And you will see on there also. Susan, if you could forward, please. And so. I'm sorry. I was saying, thanks so much. I can cover this. This last slide for the, for the team. And so essentially we just continue on with our CIP budget process. Today's. You know, presentation is our second

012work session that focused specifically on our 10 year. Proposed CIP. Over the next few weeks. We will have to add delete sessions. We'll have to add. We'll have to add more. We'll have to add more. We'll have to add more. And then we'll have to add more. We'll have to add more. We'll have to add more. And then on November 17th. The school board. We'll adopt this particular. Proposed CIP. Well, I should say we'll adopt the proposed CIP budget. At this time. If there are any questions. We'd like to be able to turn it over. Back to you, Dr. Hutchings into the board. I'm hoping that we can go ahead and go right into our discussion. In regards to the, the 10 year plan. So. When I turn things over to madam chair, so we

013can begin. Our discussion about the CIP. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody have questions. I know we had questions and written answers earlier. Or last week. Dr. Thank you for the presentation. Dr. Hart. I wanted to ask a question about the. The targeted facility assessments. I was thinking clarity around this issue. So. I know we did it on some of our high needs schools. Just recently. And that, that gave us the one, I think it was. A little bit of a. A little bit of a. A little bit of a. A little bit of a. A little bit of an explanation. And so we're tackling those things, but. I also understand that you were. Mentioned doing another. Facilities. I

014think it's called the facilities condition assessment or something like that it's. More broad and it's going to be of all the schools and that somehow it's going to be. Connected to the joint facilities master plan, I think. I guess what my, the question I'm trying to get to is. You know, it's, it seems like we're always doing these assessments. And also, it seems like, I think from a community member standpoint, it could appear that whenever we have new people in the position, we're doing new assessments. And it's like, what are we working towards, I guess, is my question. And I noticed when the city council had their work session on the CIP budget, where I know there were some school staff there to answer questions. They were discussing, are we getting to a point where

015the prioritization with the school buildings and the city buildings are going to be like an alignment? And there was some explanation that it's a little bit complicated. But I just want to understand what we're working towards and in an ideal scenario, how often are we doing these assessments? Absolutely. I can definitely provide some, hopefully some clarification around that, Dr. Eve. So I do think that there is a sense of... Wanting to really establish a true baseline for our facilities. We did have the targeted facility assessments, and they were just that. They were specifically targeted to some of our facilities that were in the worst conditions and had a need for us to be able to address the most critical items to be addressed. With that said, most industries would really recommend that you have a

016full-on comprehensive facilities condition assessment that starts as your baseline. And then every three to five years that you're doing another. That really is the process that helps inform your capital improvement budget to some extent. And I feel like it really is something that we need to do. We all understand that we have... Our facilities are aging and some of them are really already aged. And so we really do need to understand how much more life can we get out of these facilities? What projects should we complete that wouldn't be good? And when will we need to come to Dr. Hutchings and to the school board with the recommendation to either do a full-on renovation or a new facility build? And in order to do that, you should really be using the data from your facilities

017condition assessments to make those judgments. In regards to how it ties into the joint master plan, I will ask Erica to speak to that specifically. Thanks, Dr. Hart. So the reason it ties into the joint facilities master plan is that we're trying to be able to look at all of our facilities. Basically on this, all of our facilities. On the same dashboard with the same information, understanding the needs throughout the city. So we know how to prioritize as a city as a whole, not just as a school division. And so the facility conditions assessments will enable us to kind of compare apples to apples when it comes to our facilities and in determining the need going forward. Great, thanks. And just to follow up to that, do you do... Is this typically something where you

018would want to do all of the facilities condition assessments at once? Do you do them at one time or do you stagger them? And then just what is the timeline? If you could just give us an update on the timeline for this joint process with the city, that'd be great. Absolutely. In terms of process, I do believe best practice is to have all of your facilities assessed at one time. That way your baseline information is not having to be staggered over a year or even more than that. But I do also think that it depends on financial availability. So I think that the school divisions do stagger them just because it's more cost effective to do it that way. In regards to timeline, we, myself, John, and Erica, are working on refining the scope for

019the FCA, excuse me, facility condition assessment solicitation. We do hope to have that out for bid mid-December. I would assume that in working with procurement, we would be able to award early, well late winter, early spring. And then be able to really have a schedule in terms of how long those assessments would take to work. assessments would take to be completed. The goal, of course, is to have a final report prior to us getting into our next year CIP budget development cycle. That way, there are any projects that we need to include or we would recommend as part of that budget cycle, we would be able to do so based off of those report findings. And I would just add that, yes, we would like to do them all in the same year, but the

020key is getting the information for lifecycle reports. So it's getting all of those assets into a database and understanding when the boiler needs to be changed at George Washington, when the boiler needs to be changed at Charles Barrett, etc. So just getting that data into a form that we can use is key. Great. Thank you. I don't see anybody else with their hand raised right now. Are there other CIP questions? Okay. And I'm wondering, can we, it's not on that, when are our assets going to be completed? Ad deletes due? When is that date? I don't have trouble looking things up. I can answer that, Dr. Hutchinson. Ms. Gulick, thank you. Sorry, just because I just talked to Mr. Turner about it. So Mr. Turner will be sending out the ad delete form to all

021of the school board members tomorrow. They are due back Tuesday, December 1st by noon. So if you didn't have Thanksgiving plans, you can now come up with ad deletes. Thank you. Fun times. Fun times. Fun times. Thank you, Ms. Gulick. All right. So seeing no questions, I think there's no reason to stay on this topic. We can move on to our second topic of the work session. Dr. Hutchings? Thank you, Madam Chair. And our next topic is we've been providing updates to the board in regards to our areas of focus. And tonight we're going to talk about our Hispanic males and graduation. This is an area that I think is going to be a big part of our work session. And I think it's going to be a big part of our work session. And

022I think it's going to be a big part of our work session. And I think it's going to be a big part of our work session. And I think it's going to be a big part of our work session. I know each and every one of you is near and dear to your hearts. I do believe that we've had challenges in regards to our graduation for several years. And I love the fact that we are now being very intentional about resolving this, at least having a plan to resolve this matter as soon as possible. So I'm going to turn things over at this time to Dr. Mozingo to introduce our group, of educators who will be presenting this evening. Good afternoon, or good evening everyone again and we are just like he said delighted to

023have this team they have been working on this and I am going to turn it over as soon as I finish the essential questions to Mr. Ballas, but you can see that our focus tonight is what does it what did the data tell us about Hispanic male graduation rates, what structures or supports exist, and what structures and supports will be expanded to ensure high school completion and finally, how will ACPS support Hispanic males towards graduation and completion. So now I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Pete Ballas to start the presentation. Wonderful. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Dr. Mozingo. And good evening to you all. And the school board. Board members and all viewing, we're here to provide you with updates and actions we are taking on a topic

024of critical importance Hispanic male graduation rates and related efforts. We have had a team working on this presentation under the leadership and guidance of Dr. Terry Mozingo. So joining me this evening, you will hear from Dr. Bethany Nickerson, our Executive Director of English Learner Services. Dr. Anthony Sims, Executive Director of School Improvement, and Darrell Sampson, Executive Director of Student Support Teams. I would also like to thank some others who were involved in this presentation, including Mariah Runkle, Dr. Julie Crawford, Clinton Page, Jody Peters, and our middle school principals, Perrette Peters and Jesse Mazur. And so Dr. Mozingo has already taken us through the essential questions, but I think it's also vitally important for us to set the larger stage of the ACPS strategic plan 2025, equity for all. Under the ACPS strategic plan, 2025, equity

025for all. Under the ACPS strategic plan, 2025, equity for all. Under the ACPS strategic plan, 2025, equity for all. Your Student Accessibility and Support ACPS will ensure students have equitable access to and engagement with programs and supports that reduce barriers to learning. Where the measure we will look at is dropout rates by subgroups. And in addition, I'm excited to share with you our high school overarching goal for this year. By the end of 2020-2021 school year, we will increase levels of academic achievement in all subject areas for all students with an emphasis on Hispanic, ethnic, and visual English learners, and students with disability subgroups that will result in increased levels of on-time graduation rates and a reduction in the dropout rate. And now I will hand this over to Daryl for our next slide. Great.

026Thank you, Mr. Ballas. So before we launch into some of the data, I wanted to look at sort of the two main formulas and indicators that we'll be examining this evening. There are a number of formulas for graduation rates, and so these are the two we're going to talk about tonight. So the Virginia on-time graduation rate is a four-year rate that really includes those students who've earned a Virginia Board of Education diploma. So that's your Advanced Studies, your Standard, or your Applied Studies diploma. And we're really looking at trying to measure cohorts of students. So typically those are the students that start together in a ninth grade year and then move forward over four years. This formula does adjust, so it does allow for the those students who may be English learners or students with

027disabilities, who are provided more time to earn a diploma. Because of those special needs, so you do have an example up here so let's say that 75 students in a group or into the Virginia Board of Education diploma. And then in that cohort of students 125 of those students entered ninth grade together and then 25 of those students are students with disabilities or English learners. Who are allowed to move into the next cohort because of that extended time to graduation. So you can see that the formula would take those 75 students who'd earned that BPOE diploma. And to divide it basically by 100 because you take out those 25. English learners and students with disabilities and move them into the next year's cohort so you would have an on time graduation rate of about 75%.

028Next slide please. So the other formula you'll hear about in a few minutes, particularly from Dr Nickerson will be the Virginia dropout rate. So when we think about dropouts we're really thinking about those students. Who we sort of look at them in two groups we've got the students who are still enrolled with us and stay with us. And are in front of us. Over those four years, but then you have students that over those four years. Sort of we lose them in the building and some of them may say they're going somewhere else and we're trying to track them down a little bit or we may have students who do end up dropping out. And so, as a school teams you're really trying to figure out you're both trying to really support those kids that

029are with you there right in the moment and you're also trying to find and track down and encourage those students who may be left along the way. So you're really trying to figure out. To come back and complete some sort of certificate for their education. So the Virginia dropout rate is really based upon those so students who've either dropped out or we call and confirm they said they were going one place. And they never were picked up in that other place. So if you have 10 students that are dropouts in a cohort and five students that are unconfirmed and you have 100 students in that four year cohort you'd end up with a dropout rate of about 15%. And I'll turn this over to you. And I'll turn this over to Dr. Nickerson. Thank you,

030Mr. Sampson. Looking at the demographics of our Hispanic student population and starting with the column under the ACPS header. Across the school division 5760 of our students or 37% identify as Hispanic. Of this population of students 3032 are males representing 19% of the total student population. Of this population of students 3032 are males representing 19% of the total student population. Of this population of students 3032 are males representing 19% of the total student population. 37 bili 16 And 407 male students. In terms of percentages represented in each reporting category. And 411as students with disability as we move to the right to the second column of data, we see that the demographics at the high data we see that the demographics at the high school or closely three. and nine of those at the division level

031of P Yuan Dad with those of those at the division level in terms of percentages calibrated in each reporting category. Hispanic students, 195 of whom are males. 82 of the Hispanic male students, or 8% of the total class, are L, and 31 students of the class are students with a disability. The data on this table show us that our Hispanic students represent a significant percentage of our total school population, and that not all of our Hispanic students are L students. The 1,787 L students represent 59% of the total Hispanic male population, and 41% are not L. Next slide, please. When we look at the graduation data of our Hispanic male students over the past three years, we see that our dropout rate and graduation rate improved from 2018 to 2019, with the dropout rate declining

032from 24 to 17%, and the graduation rate increasing from 59% to 68%. Thank you. In 2020, however, the improvement did not continue. We experienced a significant increase in our dropout rate from 17% to 30%, and a decline in our graduation rate from 68% to 63%. On the right-hand side of the slide, we see that the dropout rate for Hispanic males is significantly higher than the rates for Black males and white males. We know there are a number of factors impacting our students' graduation rate in 2020, including the impact of COVID-19, the technology challenges that our students were experiencing, and the need to work and other personal struggles to support their families. Our student support teams, administrators, teachers, and technology services have worked very hard this year to reach out to our students and ensure that

033we address these barriers and that we meet their needs as best we can. Mr. Ballas will now talk more about this data. Thank you, Dr. Nickerson. In looking at these data, some obvious questions are probably popping into your head, so I'd like to offer some insight around these numbers. Going from 2018 to 2019, we saw improvements and numbers moving in the right direction. And then going from 2019 to 2020, we saw some movement again, but this time in the wrong direction. We immediately began some root cause analyses about these data. We looked at the data and we looked at the data and we looked at the data and we looked at the data and we looked at the data and we began digging into the profile of who was dropping out. One of the most

034significant factors we discovered impacting this number was our support structures and progress monitoring for students who were 17 years or older and those students who were referred to programs outside of TC but still within ACPS. We always come from a place where we want to keep the doors open for our students, for them to return and finish their credits or some sort of equivalency. We realized that one of our major challenges that we face is in the support for these students and the progress monitoring that needs to take place. These will be issues we'll be addressing later in the presentation. Next slide, please. So, what do we know about our Hispanic males who drop out? Two significant data points on this slide that I'd like to share with you. 70% of the Hispanic males that

035drop out enter ACPS at 16 years of age or older, and 69% of the Hispanic males who drop out are with ACPS for less than two years. We share these data not as a way to provide excuses. What these data will allow us to do is to help with future identification of students at risk and also develop specific and targeted interventions and supports for them. I will now turn this over to Dr. Simmons for the next slide, please. We wanted to share with the board an important, a really seminal report that's developed annually. And this report is developed by the the Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, and in partnership with a few other organizations. But the Building a Grad report highlights sort of the national trends as well as

036recommendations with a specific focus on the steps needed for school districts to really move toward 90% graduation rates. And we thought it was important to note that ACPS has actually engaged in a number of the recommendations that have been identified in the Building a Grad Nation report. Specifically, we've already begun work on looking at promoting policies that reduce damaging academic disparities, creating state-specific high school graduation plans, which are actually required in Virginia, focusing on continuing. We've continued monitoring of the impact of COVID-19 to address education gaps exposed by the pandemic, and finally, a focus on expanding the use of early warning signs, whirling systems. Next slide, please. When we think about areas of how we consider positively impacting high school persistence among students that are placed at risk, we clustered the supports in three categories.

037Academic supports. College and college. Career supports. And social-emotional supports. Some of the examples of the academic supports that we have in place and plan to expand are our International Academy Model expansion, multi-tiered system of supports, Kagan Collaborative Instructional Practices, and AVID Excel. When we think about some of the college and career supports that we have in place, they include AVID and Early Identification Program supports, career and technical education, courses and past-grad school, and career and early-administrative programs. These are some of the resources and pathways that you'll hear a little more about later. And then, in the social-emotional domain, scheduling flexibility for students who need to work, multi-tiered supports of supports, processes and supports, parent and community outreach, education by a face, and mentoring groups focused on positive push and relationship building. Next slide, please. Okay.

038Thank you, Dr. Simmons. Sure. I'd like to highlight some now some of our current efforts. that we started almost immediately after seeing our graduation and dropout data. First on this slide is a meeting that we had with Arlington Public Schools about their existing efforts on tracking graduation and supporting students. I'd like to thank Julia Burgos for establishing this connection for us with Arlington principal Barbara Thompson. We learned valuable information about their programming and the supports for students as well as their approaches to being vigilant and ensuring completion or completion equivalency. We also expanded our own graduation progress monitoring and planning efforts by including more stakeholders in our graduation task force. It's important to note that there are students in ACPS beyond the three campuses of the high school including Chance for Change, ISAEP, GED, Northern

039Virginia Juvenile Detention Center and Adult Education. We will be monitoring cohort lists and involving more people at the table to develop support plans for our students. Gone are the days of referring kids to other programs without proper planning and transitioning and progress monitoring. We've also adjusted some staffing within the high school to include a bilingual EL counselor at Minnie Howard to support our EL and Hispanic students with a specific focus on these populations and teams. Next slide please. We've also had some wonderful work being done to support our families as that's a crucial component for these students to be successful. Specifically the high school family engagement specialist Ana Bonilla has been collaborating with ACPS FACE Center to put on parent workshops and student workshops focused on succeeding in high school. The FACE Center continues its

040work with many of our partners that support our students and our families such as Casa Chirilagua. We've expanded our student mentoring groups with specific focuses on Hispanic males such as mentoring our student athletes, student group called Juntos, and our latest iteration of supporting seniors graduating called Positive Push. Even every administrator on my admin team has two students that we are all responsible for, two students each that we're all responsible for, and we are mentoring and helping to remove barriers for these students to experience success. The mentoring groups are extremely important because they are the most important resources for our students. They are the center they are centered on establishing relationships between students and caring adults and we continue looking into the data of students who drop out to establish true portraits of the dropout which

041in turn will help us again with identification and support systems. Back over to Dr. Simms for the next slide please. Another one of the action steps that is important to note is our work around the equity audit. And with the equity audit that is where we will critically examine policies and systemic practices that may inhibit or contradict implementing equitable practices to address eliminating disparities such as the Hispanic male graduation rate. So this again is one of the action steps that we're engaged in and it helps us to look at our systems and practices. Next slide please. Another really compelling action step is our work to develop an early warning indicator system. Nationally the early warning indicator system has emerged as a dynamic risk monitoring tool that incorporates student data to identify students who may be

042at risk for negative school outcomes. Specifically the early warning indicator system provides a system of identifying risk levels for students in terms of on time graduation as early as ninth grade. You may recall that in our strategic plan one of the key performance indicators is a percentage of nine percent of students who are in the early warning indicator system. So we have a high percentage of ninth grade students on target to graduate in high school in four years. But I'd also like to point out another aspect that's often overlooked with the early warning indicator systems and that is the downward extension of early warning indicator systems at the middle school and elementary late elementary school levels. We often talk about EWIS systems at the high school level but really this provides a data driven way

043for us to look at our MTSS project and how we're going to use this data to improve our learning development and our education in the future. So that's another one of the key points that we're going to look at as we're going to be looking at the EWIS systems. Next slide please. and align those processes to improve the risk trajectories for students as early as their transition to middle school. So we not only have the benefits of an early warning indicator system in the ninth grade, but we are able to look at our data and call through our data to look at risk trajectories for students even before they enter ninth grade. So we can move on to the next slide. So here, when we've gotten some feedback from some of our students that have

044left us, particularly through the International Academy over at T.C. Williams, a lot of the students will say that they have to prioritize work. They have to prioritize taking care of themselves or their families. And so one of the things that we really want to start to examine is how can we make the education that we're providing to them relevant to their immediate lives in the here and now? So one of those things is really working with our coordinator for current education, Dr. Trisha Jacobs, to look at creating clear career pathways for our students in programs like the International Academy that they can complete right alongside their high school credit bearing courses towards a diploma. So, for example, creating a construction and management pathway or construction and trades pathway where students are getting some real practical

045hands on experiences with potentially current employers within Alexandria City that could lead them to then while they're doing their high school courses to a job as soon as they've been able to complete. It's also really working to expand our opportunities for internships, externships and apprenticeships, as well as these work based learning opportunities for students to again get right in there with our partners in industry within Alexandria City to see that there are opportunities for work while they're in school or certainly at least once they've left school. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. So found that. For further particularly for our older newly arrived students who may be entering with fewer high school credits, or perhaps limited or interrupted formal education from their home countries, want to make sure that we not only

046worthy of providing them with that opportunity towards a full high school diploma. But at the same time, we're also can currently building skills with them to potentially earn high school quivncy or a GED if that is their choice. Now, we're not looking to predetermine students options or trajectories want to make sure that as they move through, particularly again, if they arrive and they're newly arrived as older English learners, that we are able to provide them with the skills that they need to at some point choose either pathway should they feel like they need to move forward from their time within high school. Next slide, please. And then finally, I think as Dr. Sims has alluded to, we want to make sure that we were really examining our K-12 vertical supports, particularly at these key years

047of transition. So those students who move from fifth grade to sixth grade and that huge transition from eighth grade to ninth grade, as well as that high school to post-secondary transition, are we doing everything that we can as well as ensuring that the information about these students and their plans transitions with them from school to school, level to level. Additionally, through our MTSS multi-tiered systems of support process, we want to make sure that every student who is a K-12 student who is a K-12 student who is a K-12 student is getting what they need socially, emotionally, and academically to be successful within our schools and that the results of those interventions, again, like the transition information, is moving with our students from teacher to teacher and school to school so that we're all on the

048same page and fully understand the holistic view of that student. Okay, so one of our most important action steps has to do with student voice. Currently, our International Academy has a process to interview students who stopped coming to school to dig into the reasons for their decisions to drop out or what would or could have been done to retain them and keep them on track for completion. From these interviews, we do find that we as a school system are competing with obligations that students have to fulfill some more basic needs, such as earning money for food and rent. We plan to expand this process beyond the International Academy and have exit interviews that will allow us to better understand the needs of students and hopefully ways that we can retain those students and help them

049complete high school. Next slide, please. Finally, one of the most exciting things that we are working on includes expansion of our online course access and also flexible scheduling. We'll be partnering with Dr. Nickerson's office and Dr. Isora Everson, to customize new courses for students in this population to have greater access and support in online learning. We will use Edgenuity course shells, and then ACPS teachers, both in the core area and EL, will customize courses to ensure EL accessibility. In addition, we're going to be, we will begin offering more flexible scheduling, specifically in the evenings. We've already surveyed teachers who are willing, and we do have a willing number of staff to flex their own schedules to hold some classes in the evening, some synchronous learning classes. It's important to note that online learning still has

050attendance requirements, so these teachers will be vital for helping students access content and also completing their credit-bearing courses successfully. We've already identified a group of 26 students who are celebrating their first year of school. We're also going to be looking at students who are 17 years of age or older who have stopped coming to school this year due to the need to work and make money. This approach will allow us to recapture these students in the evening. And it's also important to note that of these 26 students, 24 of them are Hispanic males, which is the entire focus of this presentation. This is a targeted support for this group that will have lasting impacts and can be expanded as we progress. And our closing slide please. This concludes our presentation. Thank you again for the

051opportunity to present on this important topic and to share with you some of the initiatives in progress as well as our next action steps to support this specific group of students. This is a serious issue in our city and throughout the nation, and we will not rest, we will not rest, and we will do whatever we have to do to help these students succeed. I will now hand it back over to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you Mr. Ballas and team. I would like to thank the Board of Trustees for their support and the support of the students. I'd like to open the floor for discussion in regards to this, this topic, as you just stated, Mr. Ballas, this is a very important topic that we really cannot afford to continue to not address head on because

052it is significantly impacting our community, especially with the fact that ACPS, we, our largest student population is our Hispanic population. And we really need to have metrics around this. So I'm glad that we are now, at a point, where this is an area of focus for the entire school division. And it's not classified as an EL issue. As you can see, all of our Hispanic students are not EL. And that we're making this a problem for our entire school division and making an intentional effort. So I won't speak any further on that. I do want to pass things on to Madam Chair to open the floor for discussion regarding our Hispanic males in ACU. Great. Thank you. Nice, great presentation. Thanks a lot. I have Ms. Alderton up first with the question. Yeah. So first

053off, I mean, I just want to say, wow, I think there was so much in here. It really showed that you guys really worked as a team to think through all the different parts that go into this. So kudos to you for, again, putting forth something that I don't think we've ever seen. I think it's so important that we have a team of people that are really focused on this particular work. So focused in the division before. My question is sort of a broad one. And I hate that it's broad because I feel like, you know, it was very clear, you know, we're using the MTSS process to do this work, which is great. What I'm trying to envision is sort of what, and I know on, it's like slide 11, where we talked about,

054you know, we got some input. So I just wanted to ask you a question. So I'm trying to envision sort of what, and I know on, it's like slide 11, where we talked about, you know, we got some input. And I think it was slide, let me see, slide 14, Also put some points. What does, I'm trying to wrap my head around what the progress monitoring looks like. Because I almost feel like I envision in a sense that we're, we, we need to have like a special, team or some special team members who are zoned in and focused on this particular process. So even, you know, if we're sitting at a student support team meeting, you know, there's certain key people who are going to be the, I don't want to say the carriers, but

055sort of the light on this work. Um, so I guess, again, that's like a really broad question, but I'm trying to imagine like, you know, what, what exactly does the progress monitoring look like? And are we envisioning like this sort of a special, um, group who is always going to be shining the light on this, um, at our schools? Ms. Alterton, I think that you really hit on a key point when you said there's this piece around, um, how, um, this presentation provided a focus, sort of a laser-like focus on something. And one of the things that we realized in coming together is that there are sort of an array of supports that are in place for students. And you also shed light on the fact that just by virtue of us coming together to

056focus on this issue of disparities, we realized there are some places where we want to shore up coherence in the way we're approaching this work. So that's where the, um, you ask about the monitoring, the early warning intervention, and the way we're approaching this work. And I think that's where the early warning indicator system helps us. Um, the early warning indicator system is a tool for us to look at who are the students that are in our highest risk category for not passing ninth grade, which puts them off track, if you will, to graduating. And how are we ensuring that we are addressing the supports that those students need, the social emotional supports, the academic, the career tech supports, and you're right. We need to ensure that our process has a focus on the students

057that are in the highest risk category for not passing ninth grade. And how are we ensuring that we have a team of and watching our borough staff. And that's how we are why we have to prioritize those supports by providing support for those of the MTSS work is around high school persistence. So then we're bringing coherence to the strategies that Mr. Ballas mentioned that are already in place to make sure that they're applied to the right students and look to see if there are places that we need to fill gaps with other strategies related to persistence for students. So I think the answer to the question that you said was broad is that it really points out to us in a very data-centric way, what do we know about those students that are falling behind

058that curve and how can we coalesce the supports that we have in place and look to see what we need to add to make sure that we are increasing persistence for all of those students in that target group. In addition to what Dr. Sims has said, I just wanted to state that, you know, Ms. Alderton, you mentioned having a spotlight or a flashlight. We really do have to have these check-ins and be intentional about that. We can't wait until we look at our students and we can't wait until we look at our students and we can't wait until we look at our students. And we see, oh, kids didn't graduate in four years to start coming up with a plan. You know, we should already know who could potentially be on that list four years

059in advance. You know, so the goal is that we are preventing that from happening. I mean, we do understand with this data, and this is why I really love the fact that our team has been able to really disaggregate the data in a very different way than we've done in the past because it's showing, specifically, even with our Hispanic students who are dropping out, that they're with us for two years for two years. So what that's telling us, when we get an influx of students who are 16, we need to instantly provide supports. We can't wait until two years later, you know, because then we've already lost them. So the moment they enroll, we need to begin to start our process in having the necessary supports so that they are not victims of dropping out,

060you know, out of our school division within the next couple of years. And I think this data is going to be so important for us to continue to be intentional about and to flash that spotlight on them throughout the process. And so if I could just add a quick follow-up to that, I think the next question would be, how does this sort of get conveyed to teachers as, you know, these are the things that we're, or characteristics or things that we need to look out for for this particular group? Who could be in this particular group of students? And I know Mr. Ballas, he'll be able to elaborate on this, but I think that us having an early warning system in place, that is going to look at all kids who are falling behind. And,

061you know, really what we should be doing, and this was something that I want to say, this actually started 10 years ago in ACPS. At that time, it was called the Virginia Early Warning System, also known as VIEWS. So when I was here as a director of, secondary, we were working through this. And Terry Barnett was actually the coordinator at that time of VIEWS at TC. And I think where we fell off is, we never allowed for that early warning system to come to fruition. We talked about the concept, but there was no opportunity and there was no set kind of like, you know, structure in place where, we evaluated all of our ninth graders who don't have credits to become a sophomore, all of our sophomores who don't have credits to become juniors, all

062of our juniors who don't have credits to become seniors, and then begin to work through, well, what is the individualized plan, not IEP, but individualized plan for this particular student that does not have all of their credits. And we also have to dig even further and get into other pathways for our students. You know, I mean, Ms. Nolan, she talked about this all the time with chance for change and alternative education. You know, I mean, this, it really goes hand in hand. It's, you know, it's not just the kids at chance for change. It's also our kids who are dropping out that we have to find some other ways for them to still obtain a high school diploma for whatever our future high school is gonna be named, to go out into the world to

063do whatever they choose. But if we just have one way for people to get a diploma, and it's either you come to TC, or you come to TC's main campus, I'm sorry, King Street campus, excuse me, Mr. Ballas, you told me don't say main campus ever again, but our King Street campus, or our Minnie Howard campus, or our satellite campus, like, or chance for change, like those can't be the only options. What are some other, you know, alternative and innovative ways for these students to be engaged and still be able to work? Because if we're seeing that they have to leave to work, well then let's find a, you know, a pathway that allows them to work and still get their credit, you know? So these are the creative things that we're gonna have to

064bring into place. And Dr. Hutchings, thank you. And I would probably just add Ms. Alderton that, you know, I was at TC also when Ms. Barnett and Dr. Hutchings were there too, and we were using views. But one of the things I would say is that we, we have really refined our MTSS approach at, at TC, and we have a tiering system. I don't know so much that, you know, when I was talking to Dr. Sims about this, I'm not sure how much of it is that we can identify the kids. I think we identify the students, especially the ones who are at risk. It's kind of what Dr. Hutchings was just alluding to. There have to be more options. So when I was talking about that evening schedule as well, it's almost a shame

065that it took us to go into a virtual, you know, a virtual classroom, you know, and then, you know, we're gonna have to do some things. There's an other thing that we're doing, we're doing a virtual learning world to finally make that, to start, come, come to life. But, you know, it is gonna be one of the benefits that, you know, come out of our current situation. So. And that's interesting because I remember years ago that, that the extended hours being discussed, you know, several superintendents ago, and then there was something, I'm glad you said that this was something before, because there was something very familiar about this. And so I think I've probably had heard it, you know, 10 years ago, you know, virus eight years ago. All right, next up we have Ms.

066Nolan. Yes, thank you so much for the presentation and thank you so much, Mr. Bellis for hanging in there with us throughout the meeting. So it's great to see in the beginning and the end. But anyhow, I just, again, want to echo what Ms. Alderson said about how impressive the data is. And it really just captures not only through numbers but also the anecdotal evidence of like what's happening. And I appreciated Dr. Hutchings, the reminder that this is exactly what I was going to talk about is that this is why I try to be a broken record about we need a school of the size of TC. We can't expect it to be a one size fits all. You know, we do always say that diversity is our strength but that's also means we need

067to meet students where they are and not expect like a one shape approach. And so again, I think one of the things I've been disappointed in sometimes when people think of alternative education is they think that's code for a subpar education and that's not at all what that is. Instead, it's really thinking about things such as the population that needs to work. Like how are we still allowing them to make their education? And the data does show that in particular for vulnerable populations that work is a necessity that if you work part-time while receiving an education you're actually more likely to graduate. And that's actually been a lot of research done for why community colleges have been so fantastic is their flexible scheduling. It allows people to further their education. I do want to note,

068so one of my past lives, one of my jobs was I ran a jobs program for high school students for 12 years and in fact brought the program to TC Williams. So I'm always happy to talk to folks offline about that. One of the things we want to keep in mind is that not only is about a student having a job but also a high paying job. I've had numerous encounters and conversations with students where you were giving them a real opportunity to work at like a hospital or a hotel or a bank that could have had really long career paths but they always would quit to work at CVS or another retail shop. Again, not dismissing any of those professions but they were dismissing opportunities to have a long-term career path because at the

069end of the day it came down to the hourly wage. And so it's not just about a paid job but one that's robust enough because we do shockingly have a number of students at TC Williams that are fully responsible for their own livelihood. And that does come down to rent and hygiene products and things of that nature. So it really does come down to the necessity for a lot of our students. So again, really appreciate the conversation, really appreciate the spotlight we're giving this very important topic. My question would be no surprise with us talking about the connected network in the high school, where are we at with the alternative program? Like I really appreciate that for the first time, we're talking about evening programs and things of that nature, but where are we in

070terms of that discussion and what's the timeline of presenting to the board serious options to take into considerations so that we can be prepared from a budget perspective? And I think that's a really important question to be able to support that. I guess that's for you, Dr. Hutchins. I was looking at Dr. Simms because I didn't know if he was frozen or if he wanted to say something. Oh, okay. I did want to say something, but she, Ms. Nolan went on to something else. So I will- No, I want to hear what you have to say though. Absolutely. I'm like, go ahead and say, because your mind was spinning. Yes. I just wanted to share that one of the things in some research that I did for this area, I was able to see that

071there were a lot of people who were able to enter career pathways. And I was just sort of echoing what in my mind, what you said, because one of the things about the Washington DC area is that nationally, we have one of the lowest rates of people being able to enter career pathways because of their undereducation. And specifically in this area, because there are so many people with advanced degrees, we have this high percentage of folks who don't have high school diplomas. And so we have a lot of people who are able to enter career pathways because of their undereducation. And so when you mentioned the entry points for career pathways, they are not able to access them because of problems with education. And so when you mentioned the importance of helping, I think it's

072a communication piece for us with our families that it's just incentivized persistence in school, not just for the sake of school, but because it allows people to earn a living wage and increase access to a career pathway. And so I think it's a really good way of encouraging students to remain in school because not only is it good for their education in general, but it helps them in this whole notion of being able to provide better for their families. And so that's why my mind was spinning, Dr. Hutchins. We don't often talk about the importance of education to earning a livable wage in a very high income area where most, we exceed any metropolitan areas in the country of people who are underprepared and need to work more, and I think it's a really important

073point to address and I think that it's a very important point to address for our local communities. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to support the inter-career pathways. So thanks so much for pointing it out. Thank you, Dr. Hutchins. And a lot of the work, Ms. Nolan, just in addition to what Dr. Simpson said is happening with our high school project and our industry advisory board because they are the perfect connection to us providing internships working with, as well as other organizations within the city of Alexandria. But now we just need to be a lot more intentional about all of these services that we receive. I mean, even when we go back to like our students who are participating in like these internships who are seniors. And when you go and

074you look at some of the seniors who get that opportunity, we're not really reaching out to the populations that typically wouldn't be on that list for an internship. Like how are kids ever going to get that exposure and to really know that this is a career path that I might be able to do? And I may not have to get a four-year degree to do it. I could get a certification to get this done without ever getting that experience. So we have to be a lot more intentional. But this high school project is really allowing us to do things that we just talked about in the past. Now we will have all of these multiple kind of pathways, and we will have a lot of opportunities for our students. And what we're doing for all

075students are going to also benefit our Hispanic male population. So the board will see a lot of these requests coming through. You know, our budget, not this year, but you will see it in the future in regards to some of the expansions. And the board will understand more of our strategy when we're providing updates from our EDT regarding our high school pathways. I remember last year at VSBA there was someone from the governor's workforce development, and she made the point that they had trouble. They could put someone who didn't have any training, who didn't have the right education into a sales job, but then they gave the very stark reality about how sales jobs are going to, or retail jobs are going to go away. You know, they're going to decrease substantially over the next

076decade. And so there's no way, you know, and they said it because somebody needs to put food on the table tomorrow, so they can't necessarily wait to be trained. And that's why they get sort of stuck in this cycle of not being able to get away from that. But those jobs, they say, are going to go to be far fewer very shortly. Madam Chair? Yes. Madam Chair, can I add just one thing? Yes. I want to add one more point to Ms. Nolan's question. And that is what I'm really surprised about is that when I was at TC, you know, when I graduated in 95, at that time we had a work study program for students in the 90s, where you went to school half a day and you went to work. And I'm talking

077people, friends of mine even today still work for the federal government, because some of them are working with the federal government. They've been working with them since they were 17. And they are now 20 plus years into the federal government jobs. And a couple of my friends that I know of, they don't even have, you know, four-year college degrees, and they are still working with these organizations. And that was because of the opportunities they had at TC, you know. And we just need to bring some of that kind of like those concepts back to realize that everybody may not go into work. I mean, I'm not saying that they can't go into work. I'm not saying that they can't go into a four-year institution right after high school. And that's okay. I don't believe that

078there's a problem, you know, with that. If you have a way to get a job that's going to bring you benefits and salaries that you need now that you can't wait four years to get or to have access to, you know, let's prepare them to have that pathway. And then maybe they may choose to go get a four year degree, and the company that they work for pays for it. They don't have to pay for it. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. So there are multiple ways for kids. I think we have to start, you know, just encouraging that and not believing that the college pathway is the only pathway. You know, it's one pathway,

079but it's not the only one. And every student may not go down, you know, that path. And we need to prepare them if they choose not to. Great. Totally agree. Dr. Reif is up next. Great. Well, thank you for the presentation. It's been a really good conversation. So, far. I wanted to ask a couple questions about the data. Can you pull up slide six so we can look at that? And while that's coming up, I mean, one of the things that I was trying to find is the dropout rate for Hispanic females, because I don't recall seeing that anywhere. I was looking back in the strategic planning workbook, and I couldn't find that data. So I didn't know what the graduation rate was for Hispanic females. That was one thing. But then also looking at

080the breakdown here, I think, like, you know, you made the point that, like, it's very variable. Like, the Hispanic male students, they're not all L students. This is the percentage of students with disability. But I was kind of curious about how the dropout rate broke down for the Hispanic male students. And I think that's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. But I also saw some questions about Hispanic males who are identified as L versus not or who are identified as having a student with disability or not. Because that's something I didn't see here. So I was just kind of curious about that. I didn't know if you could speak

081about that at all. Maybe I'll just pause there, and then I'll ask my next question, which is about another slide. So keep the slide up there. Can you talk about that at all? Like, do you notice the dropout rate? out rate is higher with any particular groups within the sub the sort of subgroups if you will i'm sorry i'm sorry sorry you can go ahead and respond i just wanted to to mention that we can get to the board a breakdown so that we're sharing kind of the breakdown of females and all and males um just because i think it will allow you to have some insight um to to that uh but dr nickerson please feel free to to respond thank you and i just wanted to add to that that we do know

082that uh 70 percent of our students um arrive to us at age 16 or older right and were with us for less than two years and so those are l students okay okay so yeah that was my um my next question was about that slide number eight um um so i just said just a um a thought about this um you know there's been a lot of emphasis on the work the work the need for students to work within this group and i was just curious with the less than two years too um if there's any correlation with like housing insecurity and how that kind of plays in and if you've um i don't know if given any thought to just how you can um partner with i don't know the office of housing or

083even i'm just curious too if any of these students are you know moving from division some of our neighboring divisions to us um and how we might be able to um address if that could be a part of the the factor as well um those are good um points that you raise and i think i'd defer to mr samson on the housing question or i think it's something that we would need to to dive into a little bit and see if we had any indications in the data as to if those students at any point were uh facing housing and security um we do know for some of these students particularly the teachers you know i have a question about as to like you know i don't know if we're getting the maximum attention of

084students um you know we know that we're pretty low in the Peruvian statistics around uh uh housing and security and so do we see any indications that you know of whether the students that are those are most likely to be part of the Multi-Level system or whether they're part of a larger scale system because there's a lot of activity and there's a lot of learning necessary and i think it's an interesting question and i'm curious to see what your thoughts are on that and um do you think that would be the best way to out of country after a couple of years. There's a number of factors that can impact our students' lives. I think one of the things that I think we alluded to in one of the other slides is really wanting to

085get in and look at the data a little bit more to continue to whittle away and figure out if there are some things or some commonalities we can find about these students to then develop some programmatic changes that might better to support them. So I really appreciate your thought about the housing because that's certainly something that we can look into. Great, thanks. Dr. Reif, low income African American and Latino students and then homeless students are those characteristics that are identified nationally as that group, those factors that contribute most prominently to students who are not graduating on time. Thank you. Ms. Thornton. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the conversation tonight as well. And I have just a few thoughts and then a final question. But in listening to kind of all that's involved and

086for this particular subgroup, I really do think that it takes a village approach here. And I'm really thinking about the level of involvement and outreach that needs to occur with families as much as possible. I did see on slide 12 that there was a mention that one of the initiatives was, let me find it back here, that we do have some programs like the FACE Center and that there are parent workshops mentioned. But I think especially when thinking about like the students that come in older at 16 or 17, you know, there's one thing when talking about our ninth graders and doing those early indicators and warning signs, but in thinking about the urgency that's required with those older students, I really do think that the family involvement will be critical for those to the

087extent, that it's possible. And it just made me think like taking a step back from a structural standpoint, I'm thinking about cultural barriers that may exist, language barriers. And I'm wondering like to what degree are we looking at like our staff, cause I know as part of our HR audit, one of the recommendations was to increase the number of like Hispanic teachers and staff that we're hiring. And I do think, you know, just human nature, it is easier sometimes on a cultural basis from a linguistic basis to kind of have a connection with people that are more aligned with kind of your background. And so I was just wondering like, to what extent are we able to do, like whether it's home visits with those older students or to what degree do we actually have

088one-on-one contact with their families? And are we looking at factors like which of our staff members are doing that or are able to do that outreach, especially when, if they are able to speak Spanish, or they have some sort of similar cultural background? Just if you can kind of talk to me about that whole staffing component and how we're looking at culture in addition to that, that would be helpful. Ms. Thornton, I think that one, that's a good question for us. One thing that I think will be important for us to be able to talk to is like when we're talking about our family and our community engagement department, one of our areas of focus from FACE, is our Amharic speaking families, our Spanish speaking families, our Arabic speaking families. And we've been very intentional

089about that. And I think that we've come a long way. It's a very new department. So we still got some room to grow, but we've come a long way in regards to ensuring we have parent liaisons and making sure that we have the right people to really touch the families. And the communities that in some cases have been marginalized, as well as we just haven't reached out to in the past for the various reasons that you just mentioned, cultural language barriers and things of that nature. I don't know if Mr. Huffman is on here because I don't, I don't, he probably isn't because we didn't have, this wasn't like a FACE or community partnerships presentation. And I asked for staff members to only be on if it's something that's going to. Yeah. You know, specifically

090relate to your department. So if he's not on here, can we get back to you with a more detailed response so we can provide you some insight to what some of the programs and initiatives that we do have in place that are separate from tonight's discussion that, but they will impact our Hispanic males, but it may not be an intentional focus on Hispanic males. So let me just get back to you on that if Kurt is not if Mr. Huffman is not on here. I don't think I see him. I don't think he's on tonight. Yeah, he, I think he was on the attendee side for a little while, but, but he's gone now. Okay. Well, I won't call him at 941, but I will be sure to, to, to get back with you on

091that. Ms. Thornton. Thank you. And if two of you can touch base, like on the HR side, I think that was one of the recommendations to increase the Hispanic teachers or something. So if you can let me know like where we are, like, you know, I'm not sure if you can get me on that. I'm not sure if you can get me on that. I'm not sure if you can get me on that. I can tell you about, so kind of where we are, we are going to be providing an update to the board though, in January, February for HR. But that was one of the areas of concern through our human resources audit was that we did not have a high percentage of employees who one spoke Spanish or who were from Hispanic background.

092And that was really our area. A focus. And we are putting intentional efforts to really increase the number of Hispanic staff members that we have in, in positions such as teaching and administration. You know, so that we are having people with a Hispanic background. At the table when we're making some of this decision-making, because as you stated earlier, it does require us having people who understand culturally. And where the, you know, these concerns are resonating, you know, and where the, you know, these concerns are resonating, you know, and where the, you know, these concerns are resonating, you know, and where the, you know, these concerns are resonating with them on a continuous basis. You will see change is similar to how you see change when you see a black person who might move into a

093particular role, they're going to bring their perspective to that table to, they're going to speak for others and, you know, make decisions on behalf of others, but they're also able to speak from their personal experience. So, Dr. Wilkins, I don't know if you have more insight. I know we will be providing an overview of our HR audit. I believe it's going to be January, February. February, we have not finalized our January, February board agenda items yet, but I know that that is when it was in the queue. Thank you. I'll just say that's correct, Dr. Hutchings. Thank you. And then if I can just share quickly, our international academy, our counselors in the international academy do speak Spanish and they do a lot, the teachers and the counselors, to relate to students culturally and linguistically

094as well. But there's still more work to be done. Ms. Lerber. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, this is a terrific discussion. And I just wanted to ask a question, add a couple points. In terms of the ninth grade and the idea of younger students or older, I'm pretty sure, and maybe Dr. Nickerson can clarify this for me, but I'm pretty sure that the students who come in at eight and nine and nine and nine and eight and nine and nine and 16 with education that's been sort of cut off, they actually are put in the ninth grade. So they are, when we're talking about ninth graders, we are talking about those 16-year-olds, I believe. Is that right or not? That's correct. That's right. If they don't have the English credits, they're placed into ninth grade.

095Right. So in other words, they are, that's why I wondered for a minute when we talked about in this presentation, putting special emphasis on supporting those ninth graders, we are talking about these older students who are coming in. And then I just wanted to mention that, you know, a number of other issues that are going on with them that, you know, many of you are probably aware of or not aware of is you've got the, well, in the last couple of years, in fact, fewer teens get to join their family per se. They often are coming and staying with a relative. And so I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. Because their parents were sent back or whatever. But I think you can't

096rule out the role of trauma in how they got here and how that affects their ability to adjust. And then when it does come to the issue of housing insecurity, many of the students who work are working to help pay rent. I mean, that's, there's no question about that. That they're absolutely essential for the survival of when they get, get here and get it. become part of a household, they work because they need to work. So I just wanted to add. Great, thanks. I think there was a survey done about that, actually, where we had information about even some of them, maybe a very few of them, are responsible for the majority or most of their family's income. Yeah, so that was pretty eye-opening. Ms. Gentry? Thank you. I believe it's slide six, if we

097could pull that one up. Thank you. So I wanted to make sure that I was reading this right. So what this, if someone can confirm for me, what this is saying, I'm looking at the bottom row, and it's saying that in all of ACPS at the moment, thank you, there are 3% of Hispanic males are identified as students with disabilities. So of that larger percentage of Hispanic males, 3% are identified, of all Hispanic males, 3% are identified as students with disabilities. Is that correct? It's actually... It's actually 3% out of the total 15,588 students. Yes, and it's the total out of each group, as Dr. Nickerson was speaking. So for example, when you look at ACPS, 3% of all ACPS students are Hispanic males. When you look at T.C. Williams, out of the entire T.C.

098Williams population, 3% of the T.C. Williams population are Hispanic students with special needs. And then when you narrow it down to just the class of 2021, that it remains consistent at that 3% out of the entire group of each. Okay, so it makes sense to me that it's consistent all the way through, right? You know, that it would be 3%, 3%, 3%. But my initial question is, and I want to be, the reason why I'm asking is because I think I might be comparing not just apples to apples, but apples to, I don't know, wagon wheels or something. But, I am familiar that roughly, typically, when you're talking about this, you know, typical student school division, the student with disability population is around the 10% range. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. So, so is it

099odd that it's 3% for Hispanic males? Well, this, this is a good question for Ms. Werner. But some of this that could contribute to this is that sometimes the language barrier with identification. Yeah. But I would like for Miss, I don't know if Miss Werner is still on the call either. But if she's not, I will give back to you. But I will tell you that a part of that is, and this is the same when, if you have, and not every Hispanic person is, you know, English as a second language learner. Right. So I want to make that very clear too. Right. But, Right. You can see that if there is a language barrier, that it's difficult to have identification in regards to specialized instruction, identification in regards to even what students have mastered

100or what they know coming into the school division because we're not assessing them in their language. So, you know, again, I just, you know, and I don't really need an answer tonight. I mean, I know what you guys are doing is you're really digging into all this data, but this is just one that I found interesting. And especially, you know, I think what we're seeing sometimes is that sometimes where there may be some over-identification, you know, in our previous meeting, we talked about over-identification of, you know, certain demographic groups for certain types of, you know, specialized instruction needs. Now, maybe there's one where they're not getting identified, right? And maybe. You know, there are some extra supports. So, that was just, I was just kind of curious about that one. But. I am here. So,

101what I'd like to be able to clarify and understand from your question, because I was actually helped with Mariah Runkle when we were looking at this data and calculating this. So, are you asking to differentiate? Between the percentage of students with disabilities that are Hispanic or the percentage of students with disabilities that are Hispanic and L? Because that's a two-part question. She's talking about students with disabilities in her initial question. Yes, that is what I was asking about. Mm-hmm. So, we, 3% of those individuals who are identified as Hispanic males out of that total group, for example. 3% of them are students with disabilities. Right. So, my question is, based on what I've heard, I mean, is it wrong for me to think that it wouldn't be more appropriate for 10% of all of the

102Hispanic males that are currently enrolled in ACPS for 10, roughly something closer to 10% are students with disabilities if what we know is, yes. Right. So, I'm really worried that I'm conflating math. But. The average, so, maybe I can track this. Because I do apologize because I was texting Ms. Burgos when you asked part of your question. So, that's why I'm trying to clarify. The population in Alexandria City Public School, the entire population of students with disabilities, constitutes about 11% of the population. Right. So, the question is, is 11% of every ethnic group, conversely, disabled? No. Right. Yes, so, no. So, you know, that it varies, it varies within that. So, I understand what you're asking. And I think that's probably something that we need to go back and do a little bit more calculations

103regarding. And run some numbers and let me come back and give you something a little bit more concrete about how some of that breaks out. But I do know that the day that we ran this, we ran it on a very specific way and talked through it a very specific way. So, I would have to go back and have a little bit more conversation both with Dr. Nickerson and Ms. Runkle. Would that help? Ms. Gentry. I just wanted to add. mentioned earlier, and I think this, hopefully this aligns with what Ms. Werner was just saying, you mentioned earlier that perhaps the representation is not the same. There's under and over-identification, and you are exactly correct. Nationally, what you find also is that Asian students tend to be underrepresented. So while it may be 11%, as

104Ms. Werner mentioned, it doesn't break out across all categories evenly. One of the higher areas of identification tends to be speech and language in large urban districts. And so when you add in the factor of language issues, often kids are under-identified because people look at students from diverse backgrounds as, oh, their language acquisition issues, not disability. So it does factor into the identification. So I think that's a good point. What Ms. Werner just said is it doesn't, that 11% doesn't span out across all categories of disability or all categories of race and ethnic background. And the point in the previous, in the presentation around over-identification explains that as well, right? You have districts where you have over-identification for other factors. So that there's, it sort of refutes that assumption that all identification is valid and

105reliable, but it typically, I believe, works out to about 10% in the district, in a urban district. Thank you. I am muted. Ms. Green? Yes, thank you, Chair Anderson. Just a really quick question here. Dr. Hutchings, is this a report that we'll be receiving once a year in the fall? I guess when numbers are, when we get numbers all squared away from graduation, or will we get updates on the program? This will always be a part of our workbook moving forward. Right now, we're doing the presentation for the areas of focus, but this metric will be a part of our workbook because this is also included in our strategic planning efforts. So board members and the community will see this on an annual basis. In the fall. Okay, thank you. Okay, I don't see any

106other hands raised. So I think we're very interesting, looking forward to how this, you know, the planning. The planning seems to be very detailed and so I'm looking forward to seeing how this works for our students. Anything else? Dr. Hutchings, anything else? I have nothing further other than thanking our team. I know we're late talking tonight, so I appreciate you all still being on at this time of the evening. But this is very important work for us. This is not going to be the end. This is just really the beginning of us having some really strategic efforts with how we're going to resolve, you know, our Hispanic graduation challenges. And I really do believe that as I can't remember which board member said this earlier, but it did take a lot of our departments working

107together. And that is really how it has to be for all of our efforts. If we work in isolation and in silos, we are not going to be able to really tackle some of the challenges that are before us. So removing those barriers in regards to how we collaborate is truly going to be, is truly going to be key. And I just appreciate for all of the past years, all of the different structures that have been set up even prior to my time being here, like FACE, you know, like our community partnerships, you know, like having a new high school principal. I mean, all of these things and decisions that were made over the past several years are now setting us up for success so that we can tackle these challenges. That's what we need

108to do. And I think that's what's really important is that we are able to really do this. And the board is the icing on the cake. And I think that's what's going to allow us, head on, in having a board to say, hey, make it happen. And we need to do this. That's the icing on the cake. That's going to allow us to have the ability to really do it. So thank you all for your hard work and dedication too. Yeah, I think it might have been Ms. Thornton who said it takes a village. I think so, but I might have gotten that wrong. Also, Mr. Ballas, thank you for the T-shirt. I forgot to thank you. No problem. Thank you everybody for wearing them tonight. I thought that looked cool. Thank you again to

109Ms. Thornton for wearing them tonight. for reminding me to tell it remind everybody else because I had it on my mind and then you said and I sent an email out that had lots of information I forgot to put that in it so uh anyway thank you I think we're done everyone until next time happy thanksgiving thanksgiving