January 12, 2021 School Board Retreat

001tell you to do that now it's cool all right so thank you everyone and welcome to our january 12th uh school board retreat um good to see everybody here this evening um and we have a few items on the agenda tonight um our wonderful facilitator miss laurie promwell is here um so unless there's anything else to do or say i'm just going to hand it over to laurie So glad to be with you guys tonight. We have a lot of good stuff to talk about. And Megan and Veronica and Greg and I had the opportunity to discuss the topics that we wanted to bring up tonight. We felt it was very appropriate that our staff and administration and community members, some of the community members had gone through a community circle protocol to address some

002of the concerns that happened near you guys. And not only that, but just in general, some of the... the overall concerns or closure that might need to take place in some of the conversations with our students and staff. So we thought it would be appropriate for us to model after what we have asked them to do. And Greg has one of his team here tonight to take us through this exercise. So I'll just turn it over to Greg to let you guys run with it with this part of the agenda. And I'm glad we have two Gregs on the call tonight, Mr. Baldwin. I'm going to turn things over to Greg Baldwin, though. As you all know, he is going to facilitate our community circle this evening. And I'm really looking forward to it. I

003said, you know, when Greg Baldwin is facilitating community circle, sometimes because he is a pastor minister, it feels like we may be going to church a little bit every once in a while. But sometimes we can use a little church and not putting church and state together. Everybody, I'm not trying to put church on you all out there. I'm just saying. I want to turn things over to Mr. Baldwin so he can take us through. This is a community circle that last week after. the insurrection that occurred at the Capitol last Wednesday. On Thursday, we had these community circles with staff, with leaders, with students throughout ACPS. And they found that it was a really good opportunity to talk through some things that they have just not been able to digest and understand and comprehend.

004And just to, in some cases, just to vent or listen. So we felt that this would be a good opportunity for board members. to have some discussion as well. So I'm going to turn things over to Mr. Baldwin so he can take us through the process and give us a little bit of insight as to what we learned from our staff throughout this process too, Mr. Baldwin, because I know that you facilitated a number of these sessions last week. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchins, for your kind introduction and to the school board chair, Ms. Alterton, to Ms. Cromwell, to all of you. I'm truly grateful to be here. Again, my name is Greg Baldwin, and I will serve as your facilitator. So I'm going to start by sharing screen. I want to make sure

005everyone actually sees the presentation. And then we'll go ahead and we'll move right into the work for the evening. All right. Does everyone see the presentation? Give me a thumbs up. That'll let me know. All right. Okay. So let's go ahead and get started. So our topic really is, are you okay? And so for this evening, We're coming together just to talk. And as Dr. Hutchins has shared, we have done this with central office staff as well as several schools. And this is just an opportunity to process the recent national events and crisis. And we will use restorative practices to assist in this goal. Restorative practices inspired by indigenous traditions cultivate a culture of trust in a shared virtual space that will build relationships, encourage dialogue, teach empathy and understanding, and repair harm. So the

006restorative practices virtual circle format is an excellent way. to do what we're getting ready to do right now. And that's just the whole space for us to process our feelings. And as in physical circles, we will create a circle order and share that. And so when it's your turn to speak, you will simply just speak your truth. However, it's okay not to speak. You can just hold space and listen. I want to take now a moment to discuss the guidelines. The first guideline is simply this, speak from your heart, share your truth. And as a part of this virtual space, this virtual community, as you speak from your heart and share your truth, we will listen from the heart. Let go of stories that may make it hard to listen to someone else's truth. And

007don't be concerned about being politically correct. Trust you will know what to say. We're going to share the air to ensure everyone has an opportunity to engage in the discussion. And then, as always, we want to engage in what we call protecting the circle. So everything that we discuss in the circle. We're asking that it stays in the circle. Now, I will give you an example. Let's say, for instance, Ms. Cromwell shared something that was touching, that really moved me, and I wanted to share it with someone else. Before I did that, I would get her permission first. So the idea here is that we want to just create a space where it is built on trust. Okay. We will use the following sequence. And I want to just cover this real quickly because I

008want to make sure that we have enough time to really engage in discussing. And so we're going to start with a check-in. And then after the check-in, we're going to move to the connection activity. And then after the connection activity, we're going to move into our closing. So let's get started. Let's check in. So this is what we're going to ask that you do. I want you just to take a moment right now. Take a moment and I want you to just look at this list of emotions. I want you to look at the list of emotions that we have here for you. I want you to look at the list of emotions for about 30 seconds. I want you to do that. I want to give you time. I want to give you time

009to look at this list of emotions. Want to make sure that we give you time to do that. All right. So I know you perhaps may need a little more time, but let me just ask that you do this now. We're just going to check in. So we want you to choose one word from the list of emotions slide that describes how you feel right now in this moment. One word that describes how you feel right now in this moment. And then we want you to enter the word in the chat. Now, if you don't find a word that describes how you feel, I'm going to do the same thing I do with our young people. You can make up a word. You can create a word that best describes how you feel right now.

010And we're going to give you about 60 seconds to do that. Can I ask a question? Can I ask a question? Uh-huh. Because this circle is about our dealing with what happened in the Capitol. So I'm assuming that we're working on that issue and that you want our emotions. We assume this might have been the day after that happened. That's my question. Because I have very different emotional feelings. My actual feeling right now is not what I felt the day when that happened. You want an emotional reaction to what happened. No, I just want to know how you feel right now, this moment. Because this is just our check-in. Just how you feel right now in this moment. Even if it's not connected in any way to what happened. Exactly right. Yes, yes. This is

011just checking in right now just to find out how you feel at this moment. Great question. I don't see how to do the chat on here. That was going to be my question. I think we don't have chat. Don't. Okay. Yeah, we're not allowed to chat during board meeting. Oh, no. They'll just have to say it. Well, that's okay because I have. prepare just in case, you know, we have something that happens. So I have the list of the board members here and I'll just, we'll make our circle right now. And so when I call your name, you just share your one word and then the next person will go. So Dr. Hutchins. I think I'm feeling a number of things right now. The biggest thing is tired and I didn't see it. Thank you

012for sharing. And please forgive me for just using your last names instead of your full name and onographic. Green? Did you say green? Yes. Okay. Hi, Mr. Baldwin. I don't see a... Hello. I don't see a word up there, so I'll just say that I'm okay. Thank you so much. Rick? All right. Hello, everyone. I'll say I'm all right. Okay. Sir, I'm going through District A and then I'm going to District B. I think he was Chris. Yes, Chris. I'd say I feel okay, but I feel a bit edgy about the situation in the country right now. Thank you for sharing. Anderson? Yes, well like like Chris I feel edgy because I don't know where we're going from here Thank You Laura Samber Thank you for sharing Nolan Apologies, mr. Baldwin. Just trying to find

013my mute button I will go with sluggish which is the closest on the list I can come to okay hard to come back from a break Given everything going on. Yeah. Thank you for sharing all the I'm going to go with determined. Feeling very determined today. Thank you for sharing. Gentry? Frustrated. Very frustrated. Thank you so much for sharing. Thornton? This is probably not going to make much sense, but I'm both determined and gloomy today. Okay. Thank you for sharing. I want to make sure that I did not miss any board members. If I miss any board members, please forgive me at this time. We want to also offer you the opportunity to share. Okay. All right, let's continue. So now is the connection. It's our time now to just talk. So this is the

014time now that we're going to use to talk about the recent national events and crisis. It's a time for you to share. how you feel. And you, again, can talk about anything. Again, we reference you back to our guidelines. As you're sharing, we want you to speak from your heart. That is what we ask that you do is speak from your heart. And so since we don't have chat, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the list of school board members that are on the website. District A, then District B, then District C, all right? And then we will have our conversation in that fashion. And then after we finish with our conversation, we're going to move to the close. Now, I do want to say this as we begin to have

015our conversation. You know, right before the connection, we did that check-in. And the purpose for the check-in really was just kind of just like a temperature check, just to find out where you are. We use it with our students and our social, emotional, academic learning work, because we want to make sure that we know where they are. And if, for instance, we find that they are struggling. are there, they're depressed, that provides us with another opportunity to provide them with additional support through support by a social worker or by a school psychologist or counselor. So that's why the check-in is so important for us. And so now we're going to move into this connection. And so starting us off, we're going to ask Dr. Hutchins as we now have our connection conversation. Sorry, I was

016taking a bite to eat at the same time. You were asking me what to connect. Yes, Dr. Hutchins, at this point now, we're just talking about how we feel about the recent natural events and crisis. So just speak your heart, share what is on your heart. And then after you share, we're then going to pass the virtual talking piece to Ms. Green. Okay, so I'll share kind of still what I was feeling last week. And that is... not necessarily surprised by what's happening. I really think it's more of this is who we are as America. I keep hearing people say consistently that this isn't America, and it is. This is exactly what America is. And if we don't do something about it, it is going to continue to be the way that it is. And

017I just feel that as an African American in America, many times I feel as if America makes it seem as if I shouldn't feel a certain kind of way about injustices and that, you know, people of color are sometimes characterized as being sensitive or looking too deep in situations and, oh, it can't be that way. And I think it's just a, it's a rude awakening for people to see this is how it always is for people of color. We're always, I feel, treated unjustly and in situations like what happened last week. And I'm surprised that it got that far. And when you look at Black Lives, the Black Lives Matter movement, and you look at that situation last week. Just saying the word Black Lives Matter causes problems, even in the city of Alexandria. If

018a parent says it, if a teacher says it, if somebody has it in their background, it causes issues. But people were able to have an insurrection in the Capitol and to sit in Nancy Pelosi's chair and take pictures. So I can't even get into the Capitol when I tried to visit. So I'm just surprised at all that happened. But that's what I'm feeling. Thank you so much for speaking your truth. We now pass the virtual talking piece to Jacinta. Thank you, Mr. Baldwin. Thank you for your words, Dr. Hutchings. You know, we have a country that's very divided. It's always been that way. This is nothing new. It's just become more real, I think, in the past four years. And life has a way of bringing out the best and the worst in people. And

019we're seeing the worst. And we really need to see people step up to be their best. And, you know, it's just it's difficult right now because it's very heartbreaking because we live in such a wonderful country with, you know, such great opportunities for everyone. And, you know, it's sad that, you know. Our leadership at the top has led us to where we are, but there's hope. You know, I've started this countdown, you know, tomorrow is seven days a week. So let's hope that things will get better from there. But, you know, it's kind of like real melancholy. I don't think people really, really know what they're feeling right now. It's very confusing to us all. to look at, you know, the Capitol, you know, they could have taken it down, you know, they, they had

020every opportunity to take it down and, and, you know, then where we will be, where will we be? And, um, it's scary. Um, and, you know, we have our children watching this and, you know, that is what upsets me the most, but yeah. So I, I, I want to have hope, you know, in, in like in this next week that things will begin to change. Thank you so much for sharing your truth. We now pass the virtual talking piece to Michelle. All right. Well, I guess I would agree with what Dr. Hutchings was saying about, you know, this being who we are. There was a really good piece by Ibram Kendi in The Atlantic where he said that, you know, denial is the heartbeat of America. which it was just a really powerful piece. And

021I do think that, you know, that's true. We have, you know, we've had these divisions and they've been around for a long time. And it was also surprising to see what happened. Very upsetting. I... You know, I guess one of the things I, you know, worry about is the role of, you know, social media and the media in this age. And, you know, I think one thing that, you know, may be different about this moment is just the level of false information that people are believing to be the truth. And just how we're getting to these places where, you know, people cannot. um, dialogue with one another anymore. And, you know, just thinking about how do we solve a problem that's this, you know, that, that is this significant in our country and, you know,

022having children who are going to grow up. I mean, I think about, you know, what the world is going to be like for them because they, um, you know, the, the book, um, There's a well-known book. I'm sure you're all familiar with it. Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? But that book came out a couple of years back. It was a 20 year anniversary version. And she talked about how much had changed in 20 years because she was talking about how this was. after the last presidential election. And she was talking about how kids, you know, growing up today, they grew up as young people with Obama as president, and then moving into this period we're in right now, which is just so unsettling. And, you know, how their trajectory

023of, you know, the national events that have been happening during their lifetime, you know, has really gone. you know, in a very negative direction and just thinking about, you know, how this is going to impact the generations that are coming up right now. And it's, you know, I mean, I worry certainly for the future. And I'm just also thinking, you know, about how we can, you know, overcome some of these challenges and get to a better place as a country. So I think, you know, I agree. Like, I think the emotions are so raw right now. And just, I just feel like the days are very up and down. You know, some days I'm more optimistic and determined and feeling good. And other days are just kind of really low and hard and challenging. Thank

024you so much for sharing your truth. We're now going to pass the virtual talking piece to Christopher. And after Christopher, we'll pass the virtual talking piece to Cindy. Okay, thanks. Yeah, and so sort of piggybacking a lot off of what Dr. Hutchings was saying, you know, these events really just expose the sort of, you know, really racist underbelly of America that's been below the surface, you know, for a long time in this country. And for me, it's about sort of the study of contrast. Dr. Hutchings mentioned, you know, the difference between how our society reacts to someone posting Black Lives Matter versus this riot. I think about, you know, the Black Lives Matter protests in Lafayette Square and how those were responded to. versus how this was responded to. I also think about things like

025Colin Kaepernick taking a knee, you know, to stand on principle and how that was responded to in this country, as opposed to this. You know, I'm thinking about the fact that the Capitol hasn't been breached in a way like this since the War of 1812. And so if this doesn't persuade at least most rational thinking people in this country, you know, that white privilege exists in this nation. I don't know what will. And so. I hope that, you know, trying to be an optimist, I hope that, you know, this can really foster a conversation once the transition is complete and there's efforts to sort of heal the country that, you know, hey, white privilege is a real thing in this country. We need to confront that head on. And I think about how that relates

026to our work because, you know, white privilege does impact. you know, the whole school division in ACPS, whether it's through our actions as a board, whether it's through staff actions, whether it's through parental actions. And that's not casting negativity on anyone. It's just accepting the reality of the society, unconscious bias and so forth that we have in our country. So that's what I'm really thinking about now, just sort of how front and center. you know, displaced white privilege. You know, you're hearing about how people were just so cavalier walking out with the podium of Nancy Pelosi, thinking that they weren't going to get any trouble. And, you know, one of the guy who had the horns, who went to jail, asking for organic food in his jail cell. I mean, all of these kind of

027things just is underscore how privileged white people are in this country. And if we can't confront that now, when are we going to confront it? Thank you for sharing your truth. We'll now pass the virtual talking piece to Cindy, and then after Cindy, we'll pass it to Martha. Yeah, I think in watching it the other day, you know, I had anger and outrage. I mean, like, wanting to yell at the television, but also a disappointment. the low level of shock in the way because, you know, that they could get rid of, get away with it. But yeah, I've gone into those buildings. I'm getting into the Ronald Reagan building for an after hours thing. You have to have, you know, you have to have your license. There's no way that those flagpoles and all those

028other things would be allowed in. So it's, but I do think that. You know, we've always been racist. And I think it was subtle. It was, you know, in my lifetime, I think there was a period of upheaval, maybe in the 60s and 70s. But then by 80, I think that things got really subtle. And that's how they stayed until sort of really Obama and Trump kind of opposite. They kind of brought everything to the. to the forefront. And I agree with Michelle that social media, that is my, one of my biggest concerns going forward is that allows people to find each other who would not have found each other. And it makes the disinformation and misinformation hard to control in our free society. So I am very worried about that. I have to see

029that my kids who grew up both before and after they don't. really, they don't trust social media and they don't use it as much, but I do worry about people who grew up with it the entire time because they don't really know the difference. You know, they don't know something, how it made them feel to suddenly have social media when they didn't have it before. So that's, that's my. Thank you so much for sharing your truth. We'll now pass the virtual talking piece to Margaret and after Margaret, we'll pass the virtual talking piece to Veronica. Okay, thank you. Well, my truth is funny. I said somber, somber and depressed, both about what happened at the White House, but also what's been happening to me for the past week because of some things I said in

030our last meeting that I probably should not have said and that were... taken by the public, by some of the public in a way they weren't intended. And yet it sort of reflects to me it's, and social media plays it, it's about the divisiveness of us not being able to dialogue and talk and agree to disagree. And I mean, obviously that's the thing that's making it so hard for this country. And it makes it hard for our school division. But I was just amazed at the level of venom that I received in some of the emails when Yeah, I had no idea that when I spoke out to say what I believed in this meeting that people were going to, you know, that it would be misinterpreted to the degree that it was. But I

031understand it and I see how my words may have done that. But I want to piggyback on what Michelle and Cynthia are saying because I think. the social media aspects. First of all, everything gets put on social media. So whatever you have said gets amplified and misinterpreted 50 different ways. And then the other piece being in terms of the national scope, one of the things that really I was baffled by as I watched on the television, some of the people walking, the protesters, if you want to call them, that were outside of the Capitol, that were just on the grounds, they looked like normal people at a march. And I had this feeling that some of these folks totally believe that the elections were, you know, they've completely bought this hook, line, and sinker. They're

032not willing to be, or they haven't even. heard and seen from the officials in the states who said, look, we've done this three times. So people are believing things that aren't true. And yet they don't feel, I mean, obviously the folks who broke the barrier and were violent inside the Capitol, they know they're doing something wrong. But the people who are there just to voice their concern because they're standing up for free elections. And it just worried me thinking about that people might really think that that's what they're doing. And again, it reminds you of all the things that have happened historically. Nazi Germany, you know, how many Germans just weren't aware really what was going on. They thought, you know, it's just. And of course, social media is just making it worse and worse

033and worse. So on the other hand, I do like to be hopeful, hopeful, just like Jacinta. I feel like we do have to look forward. We have Biden coming in. He is filling his cabinet with incredibly, with older experienced people who really can hit the ground running and don't have to learn how to do government. He's up against a lot, but Obama, when he got in, the racism practically cut him down. I mean, the actual, I think Obama's biggest problem was the Senate wouldn't, you know, the racist in the government wouldn't allow him to govern. And so Biden won't have that problem. And so I'm going to try to be optimistic and assume we're going to move ahead. You know, the CIA, the FBI, they're all going to be searching out these militias and, you

034know, we're just going to grab this thing. And in terms of my own feelings vis-a-vis this, what happened to me last week, I guess I'll take this opportunity to just apologize to my, I feel one of the things I'm feeling is depressed and embarrassed, partly for my colleagues, because in a way I feel like some of the letters that came to me made it sound like they thought I rep, well, that's what our school board thinks. You know, I've sort of, some of the people thought that I just was a representative of a school board that doesn't want to get kids back into school, that et cetera, et cetera. So I'm feeling perplexed today and upset, but I am an optimist, so. Thank you so much for sharing your heart. I will now go to

035pass the virtual talking piece to Veronica. And after hearing from Veronica, we'll pass the virtual talk and piece to Megan. Thank you, Greg. Well, first I want to give a virtual hug to Margaret. So if anything, yes, it's one of these things that if any of us have learned the hard way, you kind of don't know what you don't know in terms of like, you can't fathom what it's like to be in this position until you're actually in it. And so the number of things that can be, we all say that can be taken out of context or misunderstood or, you know, social media, obviously escalating that. So I just want to say, Margaret, that. I do appreciate you and I know that your heart is so committed to the kids and the families of

036ACPS, you know, through not only your professional but your personal life. And so, so anyways, and that I would never question no matter what you say. So just want to start off my truth with a virtual hug to Margaret and just say, I'm honored to serve with you, especially because of your sincerity and your commitment to young people. Just start with that. As far as like my truth, I mean, obviously, like everyone has said, like I was absolutely horrified. You know, like many of you, I'm sure, like I heard about the violence that was beginning and we turned on the TV in our household, even though we were all at home and working. But like the TV was on for 12 hours. It was just one of those things that you just couldn't peel or

037tear your eyes away from. And it was just. the horror of seeing that this was the United States of America was on level with what I experienced during 9-11 and seeing the Twin Towers come down. While I appreciate and completely agree with Greg that the racism wasn't a shock, obviously, in fact, I'll... I don't know if I could be as bold as to say that one thing I do appreciate about our current leadership is that no one can say that they don't see it, even if you choose not to. It's a choice not to. But before the same amount of racism existed, it was just more polite. So on the one hand, I appreciate the fact that you can't hide from it now and claim that it doesn't exist and that we're post-racial or whatever

038the nonsense phrasing that people used when Obama came into office. Like that is the only positive I'll say as to what we've all experienced is that you can no longer hide and say you don't see it. So again, the circumstances that happened at the Capitol and seeing elected officials on the floor, like, you know, frightened for their lives was a startling situation. I wish I could say, though, I was shocked that that was the scary part is how not shocked. I mean, you're shocked. It's shocking to witness and see it firsthand. But given the verbiage of our current leadership and also the complacency, I think that's, you know, of other. folks allowing that verbiage to take place and escalate to that level. I mean, we had a president of the United States incite a riot

039on using social media as a tool. So I wish I could say that the actions were shocking. Instead, it was sort of almost a fitting ending to this, the legacy of this president, given that this is exactly how I have viewed. this individual and his presidency in terms of like his language and the results of that language. That said, similar actually to what Margaret said, I do think that, you know, the way to heal as a nation is to not. allow or have acceptance for people's viewpoints, but definitely I think the visceral language, and we can even say as school board members, I can safely say that having been on the school board for five years, the visceral language that people are using when emailing and talking to us is like nothing I've ever witnessed.

040In fact, one of the things I used to always joke about is that in Alexandria, even when someone's upset, there's still this decorum and politeness to it, which I always appreciated, especially someone being from Jersey and New York. So I at least appreciated the politeness of when people disagreed with you. But that, unfortunately, a lot of that has subsided. I know a lot of people feel like they're at the end of their rope. But I do think while we can disagree with each other, similar to what Margaret said, I do think there's something to be said about listening. wanting the best for people and even agreeing to disagree at the end of a conversation can allow for some healthy dialogue. And I will share a personal anecdote that one of the, honestly, the best conversations

041I've ever had during the George Floyd uprising and protests was that I had an individual who I engaged with a lot of conversation, who shared with me a certain individual that they had voted for a presidency, which was... the opposite of the person I voted for. And let's just say that one of the best conversations I had during the George Floyd protest was that individual had called me up and said, I hear you now. Like there were so many times you talked to me and as a white man, I didn't always understand where you were coming from, but you know, you cannot not see what just happened to George Floyd. And I just want you to know that I'm listening and I'm hearing you and I'm thinking about all the conversations that you and I

042have engaged in. And that really meant a lot to me in terms of that, you know, as a white man, he was acknowledging that he didn't always see the racism that I was insisting existed and was pointing out. But through that dialogue that I was, we were willing to engage in with each other, you know, he is now one of like the biggest champions of Black Lives Matter that I've met. And he's doing a total adjustment of how he's spending his money, how he's engaging in the workplace. And so I'm not saying that. that's a, it's going to happen every time or that, you know, it's a solution, but it was a lesson learned for me that a conversation that I first didn't really want to have and engage in, I forced myself to, and

043there were some, I felt movement as a result. And so I think there's some power in that. And that's something I'm keeping in mind and trying to, even though people are, I feel attacking us at times and, and at the edge of their rope, I think there's something to be said about really engaging and listening, even if at the end of that conversation. There's a, we're going to have to agree to disagree. So sorry, I know that was a lot, but that's sort of like some of my thoughts and where I'm thinking with regards to this conversation. So thank you for the opportunity to share them with you all. I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate we can come together this way. Thank you so much for sharing your truth. At this time, we're going to

044pass the virtual talk and peace to Megan. And after Megan, we'll pass it to Raymond. All right. So it's almost harder to speak, you know, when you, after so many others have gone before you, because there's so much to process. I'd have to say that my reaction was one that was similar to Cindy's. And I think Veronica said the same, which was, I was more disappointed that I wasn't surprised. that it has, you know, gotten to the point where that is something that I actually expected to happen is very disappointing. What frustrated me and what still frustrates me the most is that, you know, I keep asking myself the question, how did we not, or how did some people not understand that this was going to be the result? You know, as a history person,

045you know, there's so many examples that we know throughout history that this was a formula for what happened on Wednesday. And it just blows my mind, I think, trying to think, how did people just not know? that this is where we're headed. You know, some of my responses to, you know, some, some of the legislators who are now coming out and saying, oh, now this is enough, right? It's why is it, why is this enough? You know, when there were so many things happening prior that made it obvious to me that, that this was problematic. The whole, I've been thinking a lot about trickle down behavior. You know, when you are, you know, when you are in a position where people are looking at you, it is immensely important what you say. And the trickle

046down effect that that has can literally, you know, make something or can literally destroy something. So that's, you know, another thing to think about. So many things to think about. I also have always constantly been thinking about the last four years is that every single one of us needs to be conscious of the ways in which we may play a role in this. How to agree to disagree. How to have civil conversations, you know, civil discourse. Dr. Hutchings brought that up, you know, in our last retreat. And to me, this was one of those examples, like, this is why we need to talk about civility. Because, you know, without it, we divide ourselves. So, you know, it's just been a lot to process and, you know, a lot of disappointment. haven't really felt anger, just

047more like, you know, more of this, like, come on, like, are we for real? Like, is this, you know, when are we going to get out of this cycle? Because it is, it's just like the same cycle over and over again. And at what point do people just, you know, get so tired that they, I don't know, what, what do we do? What will happen if we all just get tired and give up? Right. So, It's a lot. I'm rambling, but that's where I am right now. Thank you so much for sharing your truth. We'll now pass the virtual talking piece to Ramin. After Ramin, we'll pass it to you. Thanks. It's been literally impossible for me to not pretty much think about this 24-7. Because if I'm not thinking about being a school board

048and an elected official and thinking about the responsibilities of being an elected official, I'm doing my day job at the Holocaust Museum, which is blocks away from the Capitol building, and we go there every year for the Day's Remembrance Ceremony. And I'm here to tell you, we're having some pretty tough conversations with our leadership now about what we're doing or not doing in helping engage in this kind of conversation. So I just want you to know emotionally, it's very hard for me because I just, it's just right here. like every second of the day. But to go back to us, you know, I just want to, you know, say, you know, I've said this before, I'm so grateful to be on this board and to be with you all. I am thinking that just down

049the road right now, there are elected officials that are having to try to govern. with other elected officials and those elected officials, some of those elected officials, even after there were literally in a life and death situation, those elected officials are saying, are continuing to say a lie, a lie. And it's a lie that is killing people. And We're way beyond, oh, I think we should do, you know, on this particular policy, it should be choice A or choice B. This lie, this is something else. And, you know, I had to kind of ruefully chuckle, you know, Mr. Baldwin, you know, I'm a big fan of community circles and I've gotten to be in a couple of community circles with Mr. Baldwin. But I'm looking at that first thing and it says that everyone should

050get to speak their truth. And I'm like, you know what? Sometimes I can't imagine trying to be in a community circle with some of those people right now. I mean, at what point do we say, and I want to be really clear, I'm not talking about maybe somebody at home that's a Trump supporter that's angry right now. Maybe some of them, but I get what some of you have said earlier. I mean, those people have been lied to by people that they understood that they could that that were they were supposed to trust. And I just I'm I'm just really reminded of of I'm you know, I I consider our work important, but I'm glad we're not having to do this particular thing right now. But I just I am grateful. This is a safe

051space. And I'm grateful that I work with all of you because we can have differences, but I know that we will be truthful with each other and that we really are, we can put, you know, we always will put kids first and everything else. I just want to also say I've heard a lot of concern about social media. I would say that, again, I think it's important and it sounds like it's finally, finally happening. You know. The concept of where you stop the line on the First Amendment is not a new concept. It's why they have the famous, you can't cry fire in a theater. I'm glad that people are finally starting to recognize that there's some lines on that. Every time there's a new technology or a new way of communicating, it takes a

052little while to catch up, and I'm glad that's happening. Social media can be dangerous. It can also be amazing. We know. about the people that are there because there are a million sleuths all over the country right now, some of whom have been tracking white supremacy groups, have been tracking anti-Semitic groups, have been tracking racist groups that are helping provide information on these people. These are dedicated volunteers that are doing this kind of stuff, this political activism for good. So it can be a good thing. But what I would say maybe for us to think about We talk a lot about, we've talked about K-2 literacy, we've talked about graduation rates and things like that. I want to challenge us all to think about the concept of critical thinking, because that's what this is. We

053need to teach children how to move through this very complicated world with all this information being thrown at them from all of these different sources. And we have to give them the tools to be able, the critical thinking skills to understand what is true and what is a lie so that they can then make decisions. And this isn't about a... We have to teach them one political doctrine or another. This is about critical thinking. And that shouldn't be controversial. And it shouldn't rile people up. But there might be some people that will be riled up and will suggest that we are being woke or we are being partisan or something like that. And I would just encourage us all to stay firm and true and know that this is what we must do for our

054children and for our country. Thank you so much for sharing your truth. And as we prepare to slowly close our circle. We now want to pass the virtual topic to Heather. Thank you, Mr. Baldwin. And thank you, team. This is really a good space to be in. And I appreciate everyone's honesty. I've been really trying to process in my own head how I'm feeling right now. And I think a lot of you have kind of articulated that for me. So just thank you for that. I definitely was reminded many moons ago, let's say, I worked in the Capitol for a senator. And as part of my duties, I would give tours of the Capitol. And there's a room in the Capitol where they have preserved some of the original furniture and pieces that were burned

055in 1812. And people are always like shocked by the fact that the Capitol literally burned down by the British back in the day and was rebuilt into the beautiful thing that it is now. And in addition to not being sadly shocked by what happened, I was just very, very sad because the Capitol is just such a beacon, not just to Americans, but around the world. And, you know, I also worked as a diplomat. And I just remember, like, you know, one of our main duties was talking about democracy and human rights and how much we value freedom of speech and respect for differences in other people. And I remember that I got asked a lot of times by people in some of the most repressed countries in the world, do you feel safe in your

056own country as a Black woman? Because of what they were saying, they felt the need to ask me that question. And literally four years ago, almost to the date, I had to resign because I realized that I felt like a hypocrite because honestly, I didn't. A lot of my family members didn't. And how dare I go to other places and tell them, you know, what we should, what they should be doing. And so I just, honestly, I was, I remembered that time and remember the feelings that made me want to come back home and work. here at home to fix our own problems before telling other people to fix theirs. And that's honestly one of the reasons why I'm here on this school board and why I'm back home in Northern Virginia. But, you know,

057I just really was, I really hope that people understand how much America represented to the world, the leadership that we represent to the world. And I think more than anything, that is really what's going to take a lot of time to rebuild. And At the same time, I'm reminded of that quote that Dr. Hutchings talked about in our civility conversation, where this racism is not new, but it's been simmering under the surface for a long time. And now it's definitely come to a head. And some could even say it's popped. So, you know, now we don't have to sit and argue about the merits of white privilege or does systemic racism exist. We all can agree now that it exists. And now, as Rami said, it's time for us to put our critical thinking hats

058on and talk about what we're going to do about it. And so that's why I say I feel gloomy and determined because it's very clear something needs to change. And before that was even up for argument. Nothing needs to change. We don't, you know, now we know something needs to change. We might have different ideas about what that change should be, but at least now we can all be somewhat in the same sphere of thinking. And I just, I hate to say, but a lot of these videos that have been coming out afterwards of people that have been getting arrested that are now on no-fly list. There's one video of a guy who says, as he's being tackled by police, you're treating me like a Black person. with a lot of expletives thrown in there.

059And that to me just said so much, you know, you're treating me like a black person for throwing me on the ground and brutalizing me. That says a lot. And I think the fact that that is on video, people have all seen the same thing. As the days go on, we hear more and more about how horrible that day really was. Police officers were getting beat by Blue Lives Matter flags. Like this country doesn't make a lot of sense. It really doesn't. But it's almost like, you know, sometimes you have to air the family's dirty laundry in order to start fixing things. And I hope that's the point that we're at right now. And I think as leaders in our community, you know, you all have all said this, and I completely agree. Teaching people

060how to have conversations in which there is disagreement is so, so important. And it's a skill that many adults just simply don't have today. And we're in the information age, but everybody gets to pick their own information. Whereas 50 years ago, for the most part, everybody read the same newspaper, got the same set of facts. They might disagree and interpret them differently, but for the most part, people understood facts and what truth was. Not anymore. We all can pick our own facts and pick our own echo chambers. And so I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Even with social media, sure, it can be quite dangerous. But I think if people can learn how to... explain their beliefs and their views based on their evidence. That is something that I think will be so

061valuable for our students and for our community at large. Because we're never all going to agree. And as long as your beliefs don't infringe on my rights as a human being, I want you to believe them and that's perfectly fine. But when they get to the state that they did last week, that's when we definitely need to reevaluate as a society. And so I'm determined to do that as a board. I hope we can model that behavior. definitely with our civility conversations that we're having right now. But it's an important step and change is never easy. Thank you so much, Ms. Thornton, for sharing your truth. So at this time, family, I want to share with you just our closing slide. And we do this with our staff. And I want to say to our

062superintendent and this board, this is probably one of the best kept secrets at Alexandria City Public Schools. And I share my own personal story that I, my almost 30 years. in my service and education to the families of Alexandria, I've had situations and challenges where I've actually accessed the benefits of this program. And so I say to you the same thing I share with our other colleagues, you know, don't suffer in silence. You know, despite current circumstances, we're all connected. Continue to reach out. to your support systems, stay in communication with each other. And when you need help, ask. And so again, lastly, we just want to provide you with this information, the Employee Assistance Program that offers excellent support services available to the staff of Alexander City Public Schools. And the contact information is

063listed here. And last but not least, on behalf of the city of Alexandria and the families you serve, I want to thank you all for being bold, for being courageous, for engaging in an anti-racist journey. And I have been a part of Alexandria City Public Schools all of my life. And I say this with all sincerity, but for this is the bravest board that I've ever had the opportunity to serve. And to Dr. Hutchins, your leadership, sir, your grit, your determination, I truly appreciate. So again, I thank you all for this opportunity to serve you tonight. I know you have other business at hand, and so I will bid you adieu. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Greg. Mr. Baldwin. Thank you. Thank you. Well, that was amazing. So part of

064the amazing thing for me is that a month ago during our retreat, when we brought up civility. It brought up some confusion. It brought up definitions. It brought up some, you know, different opinions. And we all got to talk about that. And just between that period of time and now, it seems like it's become so relevant, right? And so whether we're talking about what happened to Margaret or whether we're talking about what happened a few miles away from you guys, or whether you're talking about, you know, differences of opinion and leadership. all sorts of things really can have this layer of civility attached to them. And I think it might be really appropriate to maybe circle back and close the whole civility tie in to what we just went through as a board. You know,

065I mean, we want to be the best team that we can possibly be. We won't always agree. That is a given. And that's actually healthy. You know, but are there ways we can treat each other differently or better? or discuss ways that we can actually interact with each other that might help us be better in our decision making? Is there anything that anybody would like to bring up about either the civility conversation that we initiated a month ago or anything specific about the way we treat each other as a board? You're muted, Margaret. Okay. I'd be happy to start just because I still, I want to take a little bit of blame, even though I know it's the wrong word, but in this particular instance, I think my words were chosen and expressed in a

066way that, this relates to civility and our ability as a board to promote, to... help the community be less divisive. And I feel like I did the opposite that I sort of fed into by being somewhat overdramatic. I mean, I mean, it sounds like, you know, do you give it, you can choose between life or education. It sounded that way to people. I didn't think I was saying that. But the point is I should have used better words. And so I just want to say, I don't think I'm off the hook. I think I am partly to blame for. reaction from people who you know, we're already extremely stressed. With regard to each other, the only thing I would ask, it'd be nice if we were able to communicate more, you know, just call each

067other more often. And none of us have that much time, I guess, is part of the problem. But I love it when I end up, you know, Michelle gives me a call. When I end up talking to somebody, I really enjoy it. And we, you know, we're all really, really busy. And so I don't know how we can generate that, but that would be my. thought if there's some way that we can keep a little bit better touch with one another um oh cindy has her hand up sorry i wasn't sure if we're doing that or not that was good go ahead i i couldn't um be sure well i was just thinking about that i have started thinking again about the stability thing and part of it is you know of all the of

068all the things where that I saw that people were directing things for Margaret's example, you know, one person really did kind of like what I feel like that my kids were taught in preschool. Like, this is the way what you said made me feel, you know, like, you know, there was one person who kind of did it that way. And that I think is a, is a healthier way and also a way of communicating with each other, you know, the public and the school board that actually can, can. is more likely to to have a better outcome you know for the people who are happy who are who are not happy um you know i i think that's something if the public could really understand that because i've seen on facebook you know the things

069where you know and not just about us, but city council, just any elected person or any person in a position of power. I mean, Greg too, they don't seem to understand he's not elected, you know, even, you know, I can say whatever I want to them. And, but I'm thinking, but the point is, what are you trying to accomplish? Like if you're trying to move things forward and you're not happy about it. That's not the way. I mean, I feel like I automatically just want to shut down when people, I almost don't want to give them what they want, even if I agree with them. I mean, it's just like, because I, because I don't want to reward. It's like maybe the mother in me that comes out. I don't want to reward that kind

070of behavior with, with, with what. they're asking for, you know, that that's just not the kind of behavior because it just feeds it. So, so I do think that I've thought about the civility thing. I'm like, well, maybe civility is, is something we need to talk about. Maybe it's not a bad word. Maybe it does describe, I totally was on board with all the discussion last month about it, not, you know, being kind of, kind of odd and maybe people would misinterpret, but I think that the events in the last, you know, week have changed that some, maybe. Megan, what are your thoughts? Sorry. Are you on mute? Yeah, I was. Sorry. You know, I think, like I said earlier, the thing that continues to resonate for me is when you are in a position

071of quote unquote power, the impact of how you operate, the things that you say, how you interact with each other, really has a, it has a trickle down effect. I think the challenge for our board is when we do disagree about stuff, making sure that we're always doing it in a way that doesn't, you know, communicate to the community in some way that they can be divisive. I think that's just like our constant challenge because I think like Veronica said, like over the past four years, you can see that divisiveness has become a culture among everybody. Like, even if you're, you know, on the same sort of side of the aisle, there's just like this, this visceral, you know, it's not my way, it's the highway kind of thing that, you know, people are almost,

072I feel like. again, it's a trickle down because of behavior that we've seen at the top, people just feel like it's okay to, to divide and conquer and, you know, to get their way. Um, so I just think like, you know, just highlighted to me, like how much of a challenge it is to even, um, show how you show disagreement, um, when you are in the position, even like ours. Um, So I just think that's going to be like, you know, one of the things that we have to always keep in mind as we do the things that we do. In terms of the civility conversation, I mean, the reality is, you know. I, you know, when communication is this feedback loop, right. So, you know, even, you know, can I, can I give the

073virtual hugs to Margaret too, because, um, you know, I know Margaret's heart. I know, you know, Margaret saying what she said, didn't even like, um, you know, come across in any kind of way to me because I know who Margaret is. Um, and I think, you know, part of it may have been, you know, people perceived it as harsh, but I think part of it is too. It's like a culture of just, you know, it's like an attack culture we're in, I feel like. And it's become even more so over the past four years. So we got to figure out, you know, in a way it's tough because I feel like we're in probably one of the most difficult positions, which is how do we bring our community? a little bit more together. And it's,

074we're the models, like we're it, they're looking at us, you know, they're going to look at us to, to either combine or divide. I think that's where we are. So. Can I ask you a question? I wanted to ask a follow-up question. Can you, Megan, can you talk about what, like, disagreeing, what it would look like in an ideal scenario versus what it wouldn't look like? Could you just, I'd like to better understand your perspective on that, if you could talk more about that. Yeah, you know, I don't, I don't think I'm 100% sure what the ideal scenario is. I do think, you know, part of it is, you know, let's say the media. For example, like we've had so many instances, even just this week where the media has like reached out to us.

075Right. And we've all had to, you know, take that common, you know, we've all had to make a decision in that moment of how we were going to respond. Like, were we going to stick to our, you know, protocol, which we've all agreed upon? Or were we going to like respond as individuals to things like we're constantly going to have to make those decisions. And that's the like careful line that we walk. So, you know, that's just one example, I think, of how we can either like we have the power, right? We literally have the power to. bring us all together or, you know, divide, allow the divide and conquer because, you know, everybody brought up social media as an issue and the media is using social media, you know. The clip about Margaret literally

076came off of a social media page. The media used that. So it even made me think about, oh gosh, now every time I react or do something on social media, I have to think about how the media might use that to present the entire board, right? Even if it is just my opinion, right? It's such a fine line that we walk. that I think can be challenging if we're not always group-minded. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, I think that is what's hard about it because we, you know, I think we definitely have a united mission together and, you know, but we're also individuals. And so how do you, you know, find that balance when you're interfacing with the community? Because... they also want to know what do you

077think, you know, so what do you think, you know, so it's, so it's, you know, just finding that balance, I guess, you know, one thing I'll just contribute to this conversation about civility that I've been thinking about, you know, and it kind of builds on some of the comments that folks shared earlier, but I think, you know, for me as a school board member, like I, you know, I don't always agree maybe with issue, you know, concerns that people bring before us, but I try to be empathetic, you know what I mean? I try to understand where people are coming from. I try to hear them. And I found when I was like reading the materials about civility, I'll share with you all, but there was a link in them to this, or there was

078a reference to this. National Institute for Civil Discourse and they had this guidelines or best practices for like how to have civil discourse and and and you know it was it was about like trying to listen for understanding and try to have empathy and you know it's interesting because I don't know if you all recall this but sometime maybe a year or so ago when we were having an update on some of the equity work. And I was asking Cheryl Robinson and, you know, about since she had been doing the work for a long time, like how she had seen it change over time. And one of the things that she said was that it's really moved to this place of like trying to build more empathy between people. And that kind of goes to

079like the story Veronica was sharing about. you know, I think when we put up these walls too, when we don't talk to people, which, you know, we all do that sometimes, of course, and, you know, but just trying to continue to keep those, try to keep the walls down and keep dialoguing, I think that's, you know, that's how we're civil. I think, I think that's, to me, that's, you know, what. that's a way to be civil. It's just to try to keep dialoguing. And I think it's really hard, like when you think about the national climate and everything, because, you know, it feels like, you know, some people you just feel like, what can I possibly have to say to you? Or how can I possibly dialogue with you when you have these particular views

080that I, you know, just find so problematic. But I think that dialogue is how you do have that is how we draw people in and how we change how people you know can change too um so i don't know for what it's worth that's those are that's what's on my mind and if you don't mind i just want to quickly respond to the dialogue because you know i think you're absolutely right the challenge we have is that people um recognizing when people are reaching out to us to dialogue sometimes um what their intentions are. I think that's, you know, I've started to discover that it's a super fine line that, that we walk in, in like trying to process like, oh, this person wants to have a conversation with me about X. And knowing when

081to say like, you know what, that's actually not my place to have that conversation with you because we have this person on staff who knows everything about that. Maybe you should talk to them first, you know, you know, because I. Because in that manner, sometimes I have to think about, I could also say something sometimes that will put staff in a bad position. So it's always like this wacky line of trying to figure out and always thinking about even when we break down those walls, because we don't want to have walls with our community members, absolutely. but we just got to protect each other and our staff too. Veronica. Yeah, if I could just quickly, I'm so thankful that I can follow that comment, Megan, because one thing that I'm always mindful of as a

082school board member, just aligned with this conversation is number one, like, are we staying in our lane? And that when we're asked something by the community, is it something that is a better? a question better answered by staff and are we are we are we being asked information for either information or opinions or thoughts about something that's not within our lane and so that's I'm just aligning with what you just said Megan but the other thing that I think about all the time that I worry about as a school board member in terms of like when the community is asking for information is just making ensuring that we're transparent and accessible to all. Like I'm constantly thinking about how one third of our student population, their parents do not speak English. And we have a

083low, for some of our population, a low literacy rate or low connectivity to technology. And so not everyone has access to email and things of that nature to even contact a school board member. So I just am always thinking about how do I ensure that anything either I'm saying or is public and transparent, but also accessible. So for example, Just recently, you know, I was asked to, you know, provide written comments to a PTA and instead I asked, I said, my response was, I'm just really concerned that one PTA is getting one set of information. And instead, I would much rather that with the plans, for example, for the opening of the school system, that we are ensuring that. maybe PTAC can survey our PTAs and find out what questions do all of our PTAs

084have because I'm sure if one school has a question another school doesn't and I also want to make sure I'm aligned with what's being presented on the website and that I'm not saying anything different than we're communicating as a school board so I refer the website to be the data point and the clearinghouse of where everyone, regardless of what language you speak, can go to in our division to find out about a school opening plan. And that it's not, you know, people coming up to me as a school board member and feeling like they are given different information or additional information. than what's being provided publicly. So I hope that makes sense. It sounded clearer in my head than when it came out loud. But like, I guess what I'm trying to say is that

085I just want to make sure as school board members that we're not feeling that if someone turns to us and does ask us their opinion or does ask for information, that they feel that they, that's the only way to get information is if you know a school board member or if you're contact a school board member. Instead, I want the website, the newsletter. you know, even like public meetings to be where everyone can go and everyone has equal access regardless of your, you know, internet access, your age, your income level, your language spoken. And so for so long in many communities, including Alexandria, people felt like they needed to really hear the inside scoop from a school board member versus coming to the public information that's being provided, especially as something as complicated as the

086moment in time we're in. I would hate for people to feel like they just have to have access to us in order to know. And that's, again, Greg, just put my little plug in because I know you always hook me up with like, that's again why I'm obsessed with the customer relationship management system is that I just think it's one of the best ways for equitable communication system that not only allows all of us to access information, but equally, I also, on the flip side, really admire the community of Alexandria and really appreciate just how informative our community is and I appreciate the different lenses and the expertise. I mean we had an epidemiologist on our reopening transition committee, like how many communities can say like they have so many experts that just are committed

087to ACPS. flip side with the customer management system is I also want to make sure we're capturing feedback from our knowledgeable community that we're then utilizing to give kids a phenomenal education. So it goes both ways, but I just want to make sure we're always being transparent and accessible when we do have these conversations with our constituents. So thank you for the opportunity to share that feedback. Remi, then Chris. Thank you. You know, I think a lot of what we're talking about is applicable across a lot of different things, you know, I mean, you know, we've had other challenging issues or moments or votes and that kind of thing. You know, and we had, you know, the same sort of phenomenons about certain really active parts of the community and how do we negotiate that

088kind of communication versus overall communication and how do we you know, each have our own independence as an individual person, but then act as a board. But I actually wanted to talk about, there's something that I do think is kind of unique about this. And I think it's, I think it is a combination of the pandemic, but also just the heightened rhetoric right now, which I have found I'm getting increasingly disturbed about as each meeting goes on. I have a perception that there is a group in the community that feels that the most effective way for them to get their point across is to tell the most dramatic version of a student in mental health crisis. I find this deeply troubling. This is an individual student's personal information. And this is now out for everyone

089to see. To Michelle's point, I'm empathetic. And I will just tell you all, they will never know how empathetic I am. Hear me, board members, when I say... I have a very keen understanding of the mental health crisis that is happening with our youth right now. Okay. So, but getting on the mic or calling up the paper or writing a letter is not. We should not be, we need to find a way to not encourage this. We need to find a way to help people understand. I am, I know that our staff, all of us are committed to social emotional well-being. We will help these people. We can't give them back five days a week right now. We just can't. But that doesn't mean that we, I know our staff will do everything they can.

090to get that family in crisis the help that we need. But it feels a little weird to tie this to the civility thing, but I feel like there's, this is not a question about redistricting. This is not a question about, you know, how much, you know, where the borderline is going to be on MacArthur or something like that. We're talking about individual students in crisis. And we've got to help the community find, I don't know if we wrap this in the civility or something else, we've got to help them find a way to communicate this better. Because this, I really don't want this to keep happening. I really don't want another meeting of people doing this. So I just kind of wanted to throw that out. Yeah. Chris? Yeah, so. couple thoughts um so i

091think a lot of it goes back to what's happening nationally where it has become acceptable to sort of perpetuate narratives that are just wrong right so with respect to the board the narrative that's being put out there is a narrative of It's a conspiracy. The board just wants to delay and never open schools for the rest of the school year. And Dr. Hutchings is leading that conspiracy. And that's the goal. But that's not the goal. Right. Dr. Hutchings has laid out a very clear plan. Some disagree with the metrics of the plan. Some disagree with the parameters of the plan in the community. But. Vaccines are going into the arms of teachers right as we speak. If the community spread goes down, Dr. Hutchings will make an assessment on a Monday and say we're going

092to start to reopen. That's been clearly communicated. But because there's a narrative that, oh, we're just never going to reopen, people are seizing on that and then going to these extremes. Chris, can you hear us? Thank you, froze. But he froze. And you have to get effective at as the board is identifying what are these sort of, you know, conspiracy theories, you know, that are out there. And how can we very state very clearly on the record that that's not. what is going on here at all and correct the record, you know, and do it in a very authoritative way. I think we just did a nice job of that with the affordable housing letter that Megan just sent back, right? You know, this is another conspiracy theory that the board is trying to, you

093know, promote affordable housing on its school campuses. And I thought the letter quite succinctly just said that is not under consideration. There's no issue on the table on that, regardless of whether it might have been alluded to in a PowerPoint or something like that. Right. But I think this is a time where everyone is trying to, you know, think through, you know, because of fear, because of anxiety in the country. You know, people are doing this kind of stuff in ways that you haven't traditionally maybe seen. So that's my first point. And my second point is, I think just in terms of modeling civility, I think it's just important that we try to hew to the facts as much as we can in debating any issue. It's okay to have a disagreement. It's okay to

094have different points of view. But back to Ms. Gentry's point about what are we modeling for the students, right? As a former high school debater, I'm a big believer in that as like, you know, something that helps kids, you know, because they can see evidence from different sides and sort of put it together and understand that, oh, well, maybe there's one point of view that's this way and one point of view that's that way. Our kids need to be able to do that now. So this goes down to the education as well. But the more we can model that, the better. And I think we did a, I've said this before, I think we did a nice job of that with the SRO vote in discussion. You know, there's data on the table. Some thought

095there was enough data. Some thought there wasn't enough data. Some thought the national narrative was more relevant. Some thought that, you know, the national narrative was less relevant, you know, but. It was discussed in the open air and a decision was made, you know, and I think people respected that decision, you know, and so similar with the high school project. So, you know, how can we model that fact based debate and reiterate the importance of that in our meetings, you know, I think is a really important thing, but also kind of catching these conspiracy rumblings and making sure we, you know. quash them proactively as a board with one voice is important too. Agreed. So I'll go with Margaret and then Greg. I just wanted to make a little comment apropos the mental health issue.

096I just wanted to say we, in fact, it's amazing. We have one parent that I knew from before got in touch with me to say she was very worried about a family who's was just a single mom who's kind of losing it. But did I know what you could do? So, you know, I made a few phone calls and the schools, you know, I asked if she'd already contacted her school and she hadn't. So I said to do that. But in the meantime, we between the school and the city, she got help. I don't know if everybody knows there's this van. There's a mobile van that goes around. in for mental health emergencies and they will do an evaluation on the spot practically. There's a phone number to call and you call it and they

097go evaluate and then if you then they get you services, no cost, etc. So we really have things pretty accessible for folks in crisis. I just wanted to lay that out there. Greg? Yes, I was just going to, I mean, Margaret, she just actually covered what I was going to say, that we have a lot of social emotional supports for our students. And I think what is so, I think disheartening sometimes for me to hear families say, you know, share with us some of the challenges that their children are facing. It's disheartening when, you know, we learn that information from a board meeting. When we follow up, the teacher's unaware, the teacher doesn't see those types of symptoms during the Zooms. First time we've ever heard anything like that. And I just think that if

098your child is at the point where they're talking about suicidal thoughts and things like that, it shouldn't be first heard at an opening remarks, because we are here to serve our kids. And that's what makes me feel concerned. that we have to find out some of those things, you know, from a board meeting. I also think it's important too that when we hear from our staff, and I think it's important, I think, Michelle, you mentioned this earlier in regards to having empathy for any person who speaks before the board, regardless of whether we agree or not, we need to try to find a sense of understanding. I think that is very important. And on the other hand, I also want to, I also believe that it's important for us, to not use that one narrative

099to then do our reaction. Because there are so many families, when I speak to our principals, who have a very different story from the stories you all hear. at the dais. You know, and I just recently, I was talking to Ms. Bynum, and she was saying how the Patrick Henry families, they're praising the board and saying, thank you all for caring about us enough that you're not forcing the superintendent to make everybody come back, or for us to lose our teachers that we really do love, and that you're caring about the staff, and that you're trying to make reasonable decisions. You know, it's not that Our decision making is we don't want people to return is that we don't want people to return until we are at a healthy and safe level for the return.

100And we're using all of the guidelines that have been shared from the Virginia Department of Health and from the CDC. And we work hand in hand with the Alexandria Health Department. And just once again, I mean, think of the fact once again, and this is happening. time and time again from March until now. Once again, Alexandria is at the forefront for even the vaccine. I mean, we're the first school division to issue the vaccine. I mean, that's why the governor was here. I didn't know the governor. I didn't know we were the first people. I got that call out of the blue. I was busy all day. I didn't even know it confirmed until six o'clock last night that, okay, yeah, the governor's coming because we're the first school division to issue to educate. I

101had no clue, you know, that that was the case. That's once again, we are at the forefront and we have stayed the course from the beginning. You look at every article about this pandemic and about school divisions, and you'll see a couple of negative articles out there, you know, around us. Majority of the negative articles are coming from our very own people trying to change the narrative. And some of the stuff is not even true. It's not even factual information. Unfortunately, that is out there. And I think that we don't want to lose how methodical. and strategic we have been from the beginning. And the difference between you all and all of these other boards in the Northern Virginia region. is that you all are being rational. You all are asking for data. You all

102are making sure that we're aligning our guidelines with the Virginia Department of Health and you're asking the questions about those types of alignment. And you're allowing us to be methodical with our approach versus reacting to the community and the politics. This is why you're different. And I think if we keep staying that course moving forward, we will see that Alexandria City Public Schools will keep leading the way in this area. And people are going to follow our lead. It's not, people don't notice it yet. I don't think they know, you know, people who are really mentioned probably notice it, but they're not, we're not going to be like known about how we went through this process until years from now, unfortunately. But I just commend. this board and our staff for staying the course and

103trying our best not to fall into the politics that come along with, you know, the politics that come along with all this. Any other thoughts before we continue? Actually, I actually just wanted to say that I really appreciate what Chris said. I think that's going to be very helpful to me. as I think about chairing, which is making sure we're identifying the conspiracy theories and having very succinct, quick, unified responses. I really take that to heart, and I think that's an excellent idea. So thanks, Chris. One thing, too, that... I know that we've discussed previously, but I think it's going to come to fruition sooner than later. Once the communication team is complete at ACPS, we want to engage in some training to the board on how to deal with perhaps media. Not all of

104you, and you've talked about it, not all of you. you know, may be on your toes about how to respond to media when they contact you, even if you are saying, you know, our spokesman is the chair of the board and you need to contact them or our communications department, whatever you may feel comfortable with. You know, as we learned from, you know, Margaret's situation, it may not always be even a media. conversation that you're having. It may be taken out of context or distorted. I think that's what we're seeing with Zoom. I think that's what we're seeing with people that are very concerned about their situation. And this is a national problem of schools reopening. And it's all over the map. And so I don't want you guys to feel like you're an island

105in that, you know, the criticisms that you're receiving. are directed at you. It could be the baggage that they're carrying and the situation that the pandemic has put them in. And we're going to feel a need. A lot of you, I know, feel the strong need to be a fixer when somebody contacts you to, you know. to, to respond to a problem that they're having. Um, and that's a real slippery slope for you to be in being empathetic, validating their concerns. All of those things are real. That's, that's a given. We want to respect and be civil, um, to people, even when it's out of control, like some of the things that are happening right now, but you know, promising and fixing and things like that can get you in a really difficult situation. So

106I just caution you, you know, when you're dealing with some of these issues. And as you, as you guys know, I mean, They lump all of you together into one category, which is school board. And you, you know, you all have nine different opinions and you're taking all the information that you can from your administration and your superintendent, and they don't know what it's like to be in your shoes. So, you know, I'm empathetic to you guys really, because I know that this is a really tough time and it's a really tough time to make. decisions that we know have adverse effects on some of our families and students. But, you know, this isn't just in Alexandria, so not to diminish it, but it is not an easily solvable problem. It just is not. Lori,

107just very quickly, if I may, going off of Chris and Megan's comments about Megan's statement regarding the affordable housing, I agree that that was like a really great way to kind of shut down any conspiracy theories associated with that. And I was wondering, you know, how appropriate it would be to issue a statement like that actually like to the media, because similarly to what Veronica was saying before, my concern is that if we only email it to those two associations who happen to email the board. There are many other people who might share this, you know, I hate to call it conspiracy theory, but misinformation about this topic. And I know like we typically like to let our communications just issue press releases once the board makes a major vote or something major happens. But

108I really think it would behoove the board for when these types of incidents happen because they've happened quite a few times already. And we talked a lot about being proactive and identifying potential trigger points. You know, I think it really would be helpful to have the chair or even if it comes from communications to put out official statements to correct misinformation. Let us get ahead of these things instead of just kind of talking to people behind the scenes. But I don't know what people think about that. Well, I'll tell you that being, you know, dealing with education has a political spin on it, no matter what the issue is. And so if you can be strategic and putting out information well in advance of any kind of vote or any kind of movement on a

109specific issue that you know might be divisive in the community or bring attention to a certain group of people, getting ahead of it with information helps calm people down. And I know that, you know, when When a group of people form together about an opinion and they're very vocal about it, calming the rest of the community down is really a huge strategy so that you aren't catering necessarily to the loudest voice, you know, because some people don't feel comfortable. screaming from the rooftop about their opinion. And so it is kind of a balance, but I strongly recommend that, you know, particularly when the team that Greg, you know, is putting together with the communications piece, that we really think about strategically trying to communicate things well in advance when they're coming down the pike to

110protect not only you, but our community as well. Greg, what do you think about that? I think we have to be careful that that's kind of not like how we react every time we have a situation. So I think maybe tying things to, for example, like the CIP discussion or think like, I think we should tie it to something. So it's not just a reaction to an association. Because sometimes some of our emails that we do receive, and I'm not talking specifically about this one, but sometimes it can be a little sensational. And we don't want people to think that that is the way to get a press release from us, you know, because then it will just start a pattern that we didn't intend to start. So, I mean, I think that if we

111can have discussion, and I'm just only referring to the email that just recently went to the associations, and that's why I've mentioned the CIP. If we can tie it to something that the board is already working on and getting those points out, I think that to me could be helpful. Rami? i i take your point greg i mean i i know that if memory serves from the conversation that we had when we had the joint meeting with the city there was They had sort of a deadline by the end of January on some kind of key pieces of information. So I would argue in this particular instance, maybe it's kind of tying to that. I definitely think it should not be every single email. But I do think, and I think this is one where,

112you know, this is what I've said the whole time I've been on the board. You know, I... I love reading about education. That's, you know, I like to try to geek out on that, but I defer to the educational experts. You know, that's not, but the one thing that I think the board is sort of the expert on is we have a sense of sort of the pulse of what's kind of flowing through the community. And so I think we can be a good barometer. And the leadership, our board leadership can work with the superintendent as a barometer on, eh, I think this might be one of those ones where let's strategize about the way we can connect it to something or something else or, you know, something like that. I mean, for this particular

113one, theoretically, we might not vote on this. There might not be a reason for us to vote, have a vote remotely tied to this particular issue for months. And that, if we don't say anything, It can just spin and spin and spin. So, so I think, I think this is one of these where I think we've, we've seen a tool that we can use in our tool belt, you know, the letter from the chair and I would just encourage board leadership, I would encourage us as board members if our barometer is kind of, we can kind of take that to board leadership and say, hmm, maybe, maybe this is worth thinking about and then board leadership can work with the superintendent and again, not every single time. I agree. If nothing else, if we're putting

114out a press release every day, then everyone stops looking at them. They're meaningless. Cindy? Yeah, I think about this one and what happened with this one is, you know, it came in before the break and then we sent it to John and then we didn't hear back and the city was talking to him about it. And so I think the other side of that is that you could maybe, you could encourage people to be, more people to be engaged in a way that we don't need them to be at this point. Because I think in this particular situation, we do not have all the answers. And actually, we'll see how this works, but I think it's not going to be seen as conforming necessarily to some of the presentations that people have been. in attendance,

115including ones that maybe city staff have given. So I think this is a very, it's not clear to me and I'm a board member. So it's where this particular one is going. So I think the other side of it is we may put it on the radar of people that didn't have it on. And I think the less said, which is what the advice was, the better. I think if we do a press release, that will probably invite more questions about what it is that we're doing. Just my opinion. Okay, I'm going to jump back in and say, we're getting a little in the weeds on this one because it's kind of particular, but I would almost argue that, I think, I'm just going to speak for myself, I'm a little frustrated at how hard

116it is to get information on this particular topic. And I think we're being honest about what we know. And if we're explaining where we are and that, oh, this is kind of on the city side, am I going to be super upset if the city starts getting a lot of heat about people not being happy about the way this is happening? I'm not sure I am. So, sorry. All right. I'm sorry, because if they're saying different things, Cindy, I think if they're saying different things in their meetings than what they're telling us, yikes. So it sounds to me like I think there's valid points all around here. So obviously we table it here, but we can think about one, gauging that temperature. and two, determining the sort of strategically appropriate point to think about a

117press release because I appreciate what Heather said and I also feel a little bit of what Cindy said, like being a little bit in the middle of it. So let's... Let's put that on the list. Yeah, I think we definitely, you know, have brought up some things to think about and to talk about. And, you know, I mean, we can always refer back to this if we need to, because it's recorded. So we can always take the time to look at it again if we need to refresh ourselves, just like anybody can take a look at this, you know, so. I would like to spend the remainder of the time, if possible, talking about our board assessment and dissecting that a little bit, getting your input and feedback. I don't know if you guys have

118taken the time to take a look at the PowerPoint, but let me share my screen. So what I did, and we may not need to go through all of this. Sorry, I thought it was at the beginning. What I would like to do is just overall talk to you about the results, and then we can talk about specific strategies that we want to be able to take. So overall, what we did is we did the exact same assessment tool survey as we did a year ago in January. And it probably would not have been my first choice if we were. not in a pandemic and we could actually meet and discuss the instrument to a little bit more in depth because you guys didn't really have a whole lot of buy-in necessarily to the first

119one because you were, you know, maybe not necessarily familiar with how, what that was going to look like. But regardless, I think that it gave us a lot of good information. I've spent quite a bit of time looking at it. So for the most part, there were 38 questions. 14 of them showed much improved, meaning a lot more of you said that you exceeded expectations. There were about eight questions that showed that there was improvement, but not drastic improvement. There were 13 that were about the same. And then there were three or four that actually kind of took a little bit of a decline in what you thought was high expectation. And so overall, good grief. Overall, the comparison between 2021 and 2020 is the... 2021 is in the blue and 2020 is in the

120yellow. So you see that the different levels percentage-wise of what this looks like. We obviously want the blue to go up on exceeds or meets and to go down on partially or does not. There's very few does not. So that's a good thing. I do have every one of the 38 questions listed. And I'm going to go through them pretty quickly so we can get to kind of the meat of what we're talking about. But that the school board collaborates with the superintendent. Looks like we did much better on this one than we did a year ago. That collaborates with the superintendent to develop long range plan for the school division. And y'all stop me at any time. I know you're a little small squares over here now, but y'all stop me at any time

121that you. have a question or just yell at me either way. So, um, strives for continuous improvement. Um, nobody really felt that we've hit the home run on this one, um, that we don't periodically review, revise if necessary, the vision and mission of the school system. Um, it looks like that we actually are pretty good on the meets part. Um, but we still have, um, you know, a little bit of ways to go to keep moving it over towards the, the exceeds criteria. The school board. Yes. I just want to say a question. Frequently throughout this questionnaire, for me, COVID interfered with, I almost never said exceeds criteria, just because I feel like in almost every aspect, at least for as many of these, the existence of COVID since March really put a damper on

122the ability to do a lot of these things. So I think things might have happened differently had it not been for COVID. In some ways, it feels funny to... You know, that's just how I feel about it. I feel like it's a little hard to fairly critique. You know, Greg's been busy with COVID, and they haven't been able to do as many things that we would have done collaboratively in terms of monitoring, in terms of key measures, et cetera, et cetera. I think that's totally valid. I mean, you know, we've had to learn how to do everything all over again in the way that we operate. And it's not as easy to have those clearly defined assessments or activities, you know. Yeah, I was going to just add up what I think is kind of

123amazing is the fact that in spite of this pandemic, we have been able to adopt the strategic plan and to also begin to develop ways to monitor our progress. You know, when you think back at adding, which just came from our first board retreat back in August, and wanting to make sure that we add the areas of focus into our school board meetings and having discussions about them, and then having this mid-year evaluation is going to happen in February. or March, I can't remember which month, and then the annual progress, I think that we now have set up a process. for the board, which is our first year having that process. But now it's set up. Now we actually have, you know, a roadmap to use to help us on our way. And in spite

124of the pandemic, we are still staying true to that and just making sure that from the school's perspective and the school division's perspective, that maybe the focus might be not what it would have been if we weren't in the global pandemic, but it's still related to achievement and social, emotional and Hispanic students. And, you know, all of those priorities that the board set, set, set forth. And I think that that is. a big deal for us that we were still able to kind of move in that direction in spite of this pandemic. Yeah, I told Greg that I thought that the comparison between the two that we were going to go way down for your point, Margaret, that, you know, that I just felt like it was really hard to compare apples to apples and

125it was going to go way down. And I was really pleasantly surprised that it didn't, you know, so I think that I think that's really good news, quite frankly. I have a question. I apologize if you already explained this, but it looks like nine people did it in 2020 and 10 people did the survey in 2021. I was just wondering. Greg? Going in this time. Okay, got it. Also responded when it came to the assessment of all of that, Greg, I hope you don't mind, but I took your numbers out just because it was going to skew the numbers. When it came to the assessment of the overall, it's nine to nine just because I wanted it to be apples to apples, but I invited him to participate this time and I'd like him to

126be able to participate or any superintendent. you know, to create this team of 10 so that we have, and it is anonymous, but he did put things in his comments that that made me know who it was. And the interesting thing is I'm looking through this. So I'm glad you shared that my numbers aren't in there because I'm aligned with the group. So I'm happy to see that I'm aligned with you all. I mean, that's a lot. I mean, honestly. The ones that you'll see from the individual questions, but then the overall assessment, you know, that you saw at the beginning, and then my interpretation of how we did per section, those numbers are where I took it out. So these individual ones, Michelle, you'll see that it'll be 10 compared. So the school board

127leadership and superintendent conduct a new school board member orientation every three years. We did do it last time. We'll do it again. I think we learned a lot from what we really need to be doing, and that's kind of roll our sleeves up and explain, particularly if we have any new school board members come on, that we're going to have to really explain to them what their role is. You know, that's something that as we move closer to the election cycle, I'm going to recommend that we really beef up that whole orientation to candidates, even not just school board members, and not just throw it out there, but really try and bring people into understanding what that role is prior to them becoming elected. The school board hires and annually evaluates the performance of the

128superintendent using an evaluation instrument. At least we're meeting the criteria a lot higher. And I think that's because we worked so hard as the committee to our task force to make that instrument something that we could use. We're still not probably where we want to be because exceeds is still, you know, about the same as it was last year. The school board focuses on strategic leadership and policymaking. I'm not really sure exactly, and maybe you guys can like me on this one, but there's only two questions about policymaking. And I think that, I don't know if it's because of COVID or what, but it didn't get as high. as I thought maybe it would have. We did move some over to the exceeds category. And I think that's because Jennifer's on board in creating this

129process and the review of what's going on. But I would have thought that one would have scored higher if you guys have any comments on that one. I think this was really impacted by COVID. I mean, we had some time, we lost some time. So probably. I don't know what other people thought about it, but I think it's definitely impacted. Not to mention that we also had to do more work because some things had to be changed. And then there were the laws. There was a lot of policy stuff that is always happening. But I think COVID had a definite impact on what we were hoping to do at certain times. But Jennifer's great. So without her, we'd be lost. Absolutely. The school board members respect decisions of the full board and support the decision

130of the majority publicly. This is kind of where we're at on this one right here. Oh, good. I moved you guys down and I can see the whole screen. So here's where we are. Some thought, I think just as much, one went over to exceeds and one went down to does not meet the criteria. So kind of a little of both on that one. The school board models a culture of high expectations throughout the division. Moving closer over to at least meeting that criteria. The school board monitors student achievement results against expectations. Again, not a whole lot of improvement here, but we did at least move the needle a tad bit. The school board gives direction to the superintendent through majority decisions of the full board. and individual board member have no authority to take

131action on behalf of the school board. Again, a little bit of improvement, not drastic. School board members hold themselves accountable by assuring that all actions are consistent with laws and board policy. The school board annually reaffirms the code of ethics. I don't even know how you can go against that. You read it. I don't know if you absorb it, but at least you read it. The school board conducts an annual review of its performance, pretty much the same as last year, a little bit better moving in that direction. School board members participate in ongoing professional development. Again, a little bit of movement positively. School board conducts timely policy review, amendment, and adoption. So anybody want to comment on this one? Same kind of thing, maybe, perhaps. The school board invites public and staff input and

132requests the superintendent's recommendation on all proposed changes. A little bit better, not a whole lot of... change. The school board adheres to the principle that the public's business should be conducted in public view by observing and following the letter in spirit of Information Act and that using closed meetings to only deal with certain closed meetings topics allowed by law. So we've made some improvement. All of these are very minor improvements, which is good. Go for me. Laurie, real quick, just to go back to that one. I just wanted to say, it's funny how you do it. And you're like, what did I put? But I do remember this one. And I remember what I didn't, I agreed that we met it, but I added the comment. And I'm only saying this because I think it

133goes with some of what we were talking about earlier that I think, I think. I think I wholeheartedly agree that we meet this criteria. I would go so far as to say, I think it might be helpful for us to, you know, in the spirit of further, you know, sort of transparency, I don't think members of the public understand just how adamantly we stick to this. there aren't secret backroom meetings that are happening out of their view. And I just I think I found myself thinking, I wonder if there are ways we can help people understand this because I I'm I'm proud to be on a board that I that that I I feel that I that we do. You know, I think I'll take this very seriously. So any other comments? The school board

134meeting agenda reflects the goals, policies, and appropriate governance role of the school board and is followed by school board members. Small improvement. And I thought that would have scored higher, actually, because of the new focus moment. But it is what it is. School board discussions are effective and result in clear decisions. So not as much. In fact, decision making scored kind of low on overall on the survey. The school board welcomes diverse viewpoints during deliberations and respects dissent, which strengthens decision making. So not a lot of room or change there. School board members respect the confidentiality of executive session. Still. not 100% where we need to be on that. I hope that we all know that that's critically important. School board members identify issues of concern and circulate proposed motions and amendments before meetings. And

135still somebody is concerned that that's not happening. Maybe the same person as last time. But from my point of view on the outside, I do see that this has actually been better. maybe not everything, but things that are going to be controversial or whatnot to hammer out some of those verbiage issues in advance. School board members all receive the same information from the division on matters of school board business. Not a lot of change here. The school board adopts operating and capital budgets that support the board's identified goals. So some pretty big improvement here. The school board exercises stewardship of resources by monitoring the use of resources to ensure that operating and capital funds are spent wisely. Again, some pretty good movement here. The school board monitors a facilities plan that meets health and safety

136regulations. This was a nice slide, I think, to see that you guys are making some progress here. I know this has been a really difficult one to deal with. So hats off to you, Greg, on that one. The school board supports competitive compensation in order to recruit highly effective educators. It's kind of funny because just as many people that went higher went lower. So it's kind of like there's maybe a balance or something that was accomplished with the numbers, but some feel we went down and some feel we went up on that particular. Can I? Yeah. Go ahead, Remy. I respect everyone. I mean the whole the beauty of this is that everyone does it individually. I would love to hear from people. I mean we know what's in the operating budget. If people feel

137like sharing, I'd like to hear about the does not meet the criteria. The slide is not right because there's more than 10 people answering the question according to this, I believe. So I think there's an error in the slide. You know, Michelle, I think you might be onto something. Yeah, let me look at it. I've got all the data here. There was one other slide that was like that too, that I was like trying to figure out. And also it goes, see how it goes like four and a half a little bit and three and a half a little bit. It's kind of weird. Oh, it's people wanting to do decimals again. Margaret. I'm terrible on these kinds of questions anyway. I can't, just don't have the brain for this kind of work. Did you

138write 3.5? No, no, I, I, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I just, I don't know. I have a hard time with these. I mean, I can say I did have a little, I probably was the, did not meet criteria on this one. Or, oh, go ahead. For the competitive compensation. Let me just clarify. So there were seven meets, two partially meets, and one does not meet. So the does not meet isn't as high as what you're seeing there. Lori, I'd like to say something on the facility slide, if I may, if you could go back one. Or I don't know which one it was. There it is. You said, I'm happy with the improvements here, but I also want to make note for everyone that the buildings have been closed since March. So I

139think this would be very different if the buildings have been open. It still may be good and we still may have improvement, but I would like to see come next year once the buildings are open, how we improve on this one. Megan, I think you wanted to say something about this slide. Was it? Oh, yeah. No, for me, this one was tough because I think in my mind, it's more of like the wish that we could do better. I think, you know, we've done the compensation studies and we had to do those because we got so far behind in certain areas. So. I think this is one of those things that if we could somehow catch up on sooner rather than later, like I do think, you know, what we can, what we are able

140to pay people and how we're able to compete will give us the highest quality access to the highest quality personnel. So that was why I was a little, I was a little down on that one. Not that we're not working on it, but I do think it is a bigger issue than people might fully understand. Yeah, I also felt a little because I didn't want it to be. I didn't want it to seem like we thought that we were doing all that we should be doing because it's kind of like our hands are a bit tied. So we're doing maybe as much as we can, but we do, I think we need to make sure that we're doing always as much as we can, but we really are limited in ways that I wish we

141weren't. So I kind of feel that way about this one too. The school board actively promote the belief in the success of all students. Lori, I want to add, can I add something? Go ahead, Greg, sure. I was going to add something about the facilities and the compensation slide. One thing I think is important for us in regards to the facility slide is This has been a very unprecedented time, but it's also been a gift of time for us in regards to facilities because I just got to visit all the schools these past couple of days. And a lot of the work that we probably would not have been able to do to try to get us on the right path that we're all striving for, not having students in our buildings over the past

14210 months has allowed us and afforded us opportunities to get a lot of these projects done. at a faster pace, which is a really good thing for us. And even in spite of the pandemic, we are still able to get, you know, our Douglas MacArthur project moving forward, our high school project moving forward. And I just want to make sure, and I'm pointing that out, even though we're not in school, that there is still, I think it's more work happening. while the kids aren't in school because our months during the year are more like our summer months right now because nobody's in many of our buildings. But I wanted to point that out. And then in regards to compensation, you know, I think when we think of us having to put a freeze on our

143salaries, I mean, that was a big deal, not being able to compensate our staff. However, we are making that commitment to continue to do our employee compensation studies from a third party, which I think is key for us making sure that we're monitoring and having the data to determine if we need to have increases and how that works in regards to market rate adjustments. But I just wanted to point out that I'm hoping that as we discuss compensation this week at our work session. that we're able to start talking through how we can continue on this path to every year trying to make sure we're giving some kind of step or one-time payment and just making a commitment to that moving forward so that we can stay competitive. I think that's going to be key.

144School board outreach and community engagement activities accommodate cultural differences and values in communication. Very small change in this one. School board members approach decision-making from multiple perspectives, asking questions about the impact on diverse cultures. So a little bit of movement here, not probably where we want to be. The school board represents and serves the interest of the citizens. and demonstrates cooperation and relationships with the community. We're getting into the community section now. The school board ensures response respectfully and in a timely manner. School board members may facilitate constituents navigation of the system without guaranteeing any particular resolution. You can see that we had a little bit of increase in meets. School board regularly reports regularly to the community on student achievement, operational goals, initiatives to improve achievement. Not much movement, pretty much the same there.

145School board establishes effective communication with parents, students, staff, and community as a whole. Went down on this one a little bit. The school board advocates with the residents of the city. about the needs of ACPS and the children it serves to local, state, and federal elected and appointed officials. A little bit of change there for the better. School board respects the value and importance of employees and employee organizations and reasonably involves them in decision-making. Y'all scream if you have any thoughts. The school board keeps the community informed about the financial needs of the division. A little bit of improvement. So this is what I took into consideration is my assessment is not based on science. Okay. So I took every section and I looked at what went up, what went drastically up, what went down,

146what looked like it was a repetitive kind of a theme in each of these sections. Because they don't have the same number of questions and they're not weighted and that kind of thing, it's hard to make it more scientific. But my assessment was that your highest area of improvement was in your vision and your focus. And I think that's probably directly related to the strategic plan process that you went to, if I had to guess. Your second highest area in my assessment is your resources. And if I had to guess, it's maybe because you have changed the process for the way the budget is developed and how those resources are allocated that either you're much more aware of it or you like the process or maybe both. Decision-making was third. I'd like to see this

147one improve. leadership, calling it leadership, which is the section that I think was the next, probably less improved, tied with the governance of that. So leadership and governance, I think could use a little bit of help. There's a section in there I just called values. It had to do with taking into consideration some cultural aspects of things that didn't seem to score very high. And then policy, again, I think that's just maybe a COVID situation. I don't think I would recommend to you guys to spend a lot of time on that, even though it didn't score that high. I just think that you've got a process in place and maybe the reason it didn't score is because what you guys had said earlier. And this one, I do think we need to have some discussion

148about, but the questions about the community did go down. I think some of the community questions, we probably ought to just flesh out as if we think we need to focus on it further. And it may be that we're facing this whole pandemic and communication to the community is difficult. It may be that you took this assessment when everything was hitting the fan. I mean, who knows? But I do think that in my assessment, that of all of those survey sections was probably what I would consider to be needs most improvement. So that's where we are at. What are your thoughts? I think about the community. I'm sorry, somebody else. I think the community thing is impacted by COVID too, in terms of even our knowing, I think just our knowing how our communications are

149being received in the community, because we pretty much have this very vocal group. And I think we're doing a lot of communicating, but we're not necessarily in the... you know, going to meetings in public where we're getting feedback or seeing that people are getting the other communications. That's not to say that they're not. And I think for that too, you know, our customer management system thing that we want to have, I think that will, that will help. I think depends on what you're thinking about in that category. I mean, I would like it to be a lot more of. of coming through that system and having it be not individual people responding to certain people so that, you know, we become like solving the problems again. I think, I don't know that we're beyond that.

150And part of me may never get beyond that until we get a customer response system. I don't know what people are thinking on that one. How are we raising our hands? Raise hands or just going like this? Well, what I would say is I've appreciated that Jacinta two times now in meetings has made a point that I think is really interesting with regard to communication. It's the need, you know, she's there at, is it the ARHA building? Whatever it is, she's working with these families and she doesn't have a one-sheeter. And I know, I mean, on my old organizing days back in the 70s, you know, The one cheater was so effective. And I think, you know, that's something we could do more of the sort of the real bait, because I think there is

151a sense that two thirds of our folks know what's going on, but there's that third that doesn't. And basically it's the third that doesn't have good internet or they don't speak English or whatever. They're working all the time. They don't, you know, can't keep up. So to be really convinced that these folks are all some more use of basic, basic fact sheets to post them on the walls, you know, just to get out to a certain group of the public that's maybe not getting our messages. So thank you, Jacinta. I've been wanting to tell you that for a while. Margaret, I'll keep saying it too. So I kind of have two thoughts that I'm thinking. One is I think it would be beneficial. I don't know if we could like do like a super quick

152poll. I don't know if that's easy enough to do, Lori. I know that on regular Zoom you can poll. I don't know about this. Oh, that's right. We're on this Zoom. We could do it by hands. Yeah, I don't know, because I'd like to, I would like to know, see if we could pick like, you know, two or three that we all would consider to be a top priority to focus on. And then the second thing is, given that some of the slides may be, I don't know, at some point, if we could either get the data that you have, Lori. because some of the slides had, you know, more than 10. So we can make sure like we have an accurate summary of the outcomes. But I think, you know, we may be able

153to just based on the discussion that we've had here, some way if people want to think about like some kind of a poll or way for us to prioritize like our top two things that we think we should focus on as a board. I think the poll application is active. Lori, can you pull up the poll? I can't. Okay, I can type it in or let me see. Well, we can just do by show of hands, I think. Okay. Yeah, so I mean, you don't even have to hit your little hand thing. Just raise your hand. So like, let's go from the bottom up. So we're going to pick two each. Okay. And I'm going to name them. And then in fact, let me just go to that slide. We're going to pick two each.

154So you raise your hand and then that'll help us to know kind of where our priorities lie. So we have visioning, resources, decision-making, leadership. um governance values and that's kind of cultural um responsiveness and decision making or awareness policies and community so let's start with um visioning and i'm gonna get rid of this slide again just so i can see your hands are you good with that you guys pick your two no uh hold on i'm confused a little bit because or three well they're um Well, they're really broad categories. So I don't, by goals, I'm not really sure what you mean. Well, I think focus areas, and then we can look at when I send you guys the survey data, even we can just do some brainstorming now and we can refine what, what

155some of those areas, I will tell you the. the ones in the community that got the lowest score. One was the school board represents and serves the interest of the citizens of the city of Alexandria and demonstrates respect and cooperation in their relationships with the community. The school board ensures ACPS responds respectfully and in a timely manner to issues raised by members of the community. School board members may facilitate constituents navigation of a system without guaranteeing any particular resolution. Those two probably scored the lowest in that particular category. And those are all under community? Yeah. I'm thinking this is what we'll do, Michelle, and it's a very, very complicated process, right? We're just going to... try and narrow down to some of these areas that maybe don't need the attention of our board. So if

156we can kind of feel like based on just that quick review of the answers that you guys gave and knowing perhaps some of the questions that you felt that you didn't score high, that you feel like we as a board can develop strategies to be so that when we take this assessment again next year, we're going to see much. greater improvement because we've addressed some of those areas that need help. Does that make sense? Yes. So you're going to go through each of these and we're going to vote on two. Two is fine. I just, I want to just, well, I guess I feel like people can be having all different kinds of thoughts in their mind and maybe, you know. I don't know, just interpreting this differently, but I just want to emphasize what

157you said about the values. One is about really trying to meet the needs of or communicate better with underrepresented families. That's what I heard. And so, yeah, there's two questions. One of them was school board outreach and community engagement activities accommodate cultural differences and values in communication. And then the second one, school board members approach decision-making from multiple perspectives, asking questions about the impact on diverse culture. I feel like I definitely probably dinged that for being in COVID and we're really missing some of our outreach kinds of things for some of the harder to reach people. Or I don't know exactly what we're doing, you know, because we don't see it. We see it even less than we see it normally. You know, I feel like we're not allowed to go to any meetings where

158parents are so that we could observe it. I felt like. Well, and I think that's a valid point. And I've told you guys this before, but there's a lot of data that supports that nonverbal communication is more powerful than verbal communication. So when you're in a pandemic and you can't see, you just see like attendees, perhaps you don't really see, you know, the people that are speaking to you, you know, it does take away some of that communication piece that may be reflected. and some of this and and may not even maybe maybe there is time that needs to be spent or a focus by the board on how to communicate better during covid because i'm not so sure it's ever going to go back to the way that it was exactly so holding our

159breath may not be the best strategy um you know for that kind of communication piece but you know this really is is for you guys to decide so megan are you good with two or you want to do three i think we should do two i'm always um less is more kind of person so I think it would be helpful to do two because even within two sections you know there's a lot to dig out okay so let's just start at the top with resources all those that want to spend time on resources raise your hand all right we've got one all those that want to spend time on vision Decision making. All right, I've got one. Leadership. Governance. I've got one. I've got Heather, Cindy. Am I missing anybody? All right, that's two. Values.

160I got two. Policy. Oh, wait, wait, I'm going back. Values. I don't know whose hand that is. I can't see your face. Is that you, Margaret? Okay. Margaret. Megan. Michelle, that's three. Policy, I got one. I got two. I got Chris, Jacinta. Community, three, four, five, six, seven. I got all of you on that one. Okay, so we got a winner. And the second one was values with three. Does anybody want to speak on behalf of anything other than those two? Okay. So I know you don't have the questions in front of you, so I can read them to you, or we can just have some brainstorming about what that might mean to you as a board, as a team, for either values, cultural values, or dealing with the community. Either one of those that

161you have any comments or thoughts about that specifically refer to you. Chris, are you raising your hand to that? Or are you raising your hand to the community thing? And the phrase of 2020 is going to continue to 2021. You're on mute. I said that was vestigial. Sorry. Okay. All right. Any thoughts on either one of those? I just want to make certain that communication is a part of that. That was correct. That's what you said, correct? Community is really does revolve around communication. That's correct. A lot of that. And it's how we're engaging the community, how we're talking to the community, the information we're disseminating to the community. That was a fairly large section of the survey. Thank you. I was curious about that as well. You know, we had the communications audit and

162we've been talking about also having this customer service program for some time, which I'm curious to know kind of the status of that. And then we also have, you know, our communications director recently is moving to a different. So what I feel like, I mean, I think we did this, you know, in the past with our board operating procedures, but I feel like it might warrant another discussion in the future about, you know, like what is the optimal way we would be communicating with the community? Just kind of, you know, the more we can get on the same page about that, because I, you know, I heard the point that was made earlier about. say at a PTA meeting, you know, speaking or sharing out talking points and how, like trying to do that in

163a more organized fashion through something like a PTA council. Like, I feel like if some of those other sort of optimal communication procedures were in place, then it wouldn't, you know, there wouldn't be this issue of, you know, folks in the community coming to us maybe as much or whatever, or feeling like we you know, need to share that information because people are confused. So I guess, you know, my sense is like, I feel like the, you know, we, I think the website is great and it looks good and there's so much information up there, but. For me, what's been still missing is this a little bit more like strategic approach, you know, and some of the things we talked about tonight, like how do you get ahead of issues in the community or how

164do you kind of put something out in a definitive way or stop kind of, you know, false information that starts to circulate. Those are the kinds of more strategic things that. I think would be really important. So, you know, even if we, I think to the extent that we can kind of collectively agree on what that would look like. So we're kind of like on the same page about that. And I think we have an opportunity and that we're going to be hiring this new communications director as well. That's actually a good point, Michelle, because one of the things that came up and I think it was Lori, you had said this was, well, I, I kind of, what you're saying, Michelle, I think of two bullet points. I think one, in the spirit of

165supporting Veronica, is getting that customer relations management system, like, you know, as... quickly as possible, as successfully as possible, getting that in. And two, Lori made a good point one time about, I think you're right, we have an opportunity right now with hiring someone and hiring someone who's politically savvy. I think could go like a super duper long way. So I see that as like an action that we could support. And then my other thought, so those are two concrete things. And then my other thought is that just a board training on communication might be helpful, helping us to know. when to say stuff, when not to say stuff. And when we do say it, what we say could make us more unified. Megan, can I add crisis communicator to politically savvy, please? Yeah. Thank

166you. Greg? Oh my God, Jacinta, she makes me laugh. It's because I can hear you still talking in my head. I know what else you said after that. You're just not saying it on here. But one thing I do think is important for us to remember is that when we did the communications audit, there was a communications plan that was put into, that was developed. We have not initiated that because we put it on hold once COVID started. I want to say about June is when we put that on hold because we had COVID and then we had the identity project. So that was put. on hold for a moment. But one thing that Julia and I spoke about, as we learned that our executive director was going to be going to a different school

167division, was that this was our opportunity to now fulfill, you know, the plan that we laid out, because it was a multi-year plan and it had, you know, like the website and it had the customer relations, you know, management system. I mean, so all of these things are already laid out. We just didn't have the means to execute. But now we're ready. And this is a big opportunity for us. We've already restructured some of the communications department. And a lot of that was put on hold in regards to the communications department, just because of the circumstances. When Julia just came on board and she walked into the pandemic, she didn't really have time to go over her 90-day plan and all those types of things. So just know that that is in the works. sooner

168than later. And I don't want you all to think we have to develop something because something, what it was already developed, it's just a matter of us executing now that plan. And this is a good opportunity for us to have it done right. Sorry. What other thing that comes to mind for me in this category that I grapple with, you know, I don't know if this it'd be like a part of the board's equity training is that recognition of recognizing who your loudest voices are and navigating being responsive, but also while also being sure that you're prioritizing the least vocal. Because I see that as an equity issue that is very significant in this division. It has been for a long time. And I wonder if it's helpful for us to have some kind of

169like session or training on how to just stay focused on that as a part of our thinking when we are responding to the community. That's on my mind a lot. I don't know if that makes sense to anybody else. Megan, could you repeat that again? I was sort of spaced out and I didn't hear the... So I was saying, I wonder if it's helpful as a part of the board's equity training to have a session or discussion that guides us on some strategies about navigating how we can respond to the most vocal components of our community while navigating and realizing, keeping at the forefront the notion that they're not necessarily the majority of the students that we serve. And so how do we ride that road in an equitable manner so that we don't continue

170to perpetuate the inequity that is affecting our most vulnerable groups of kids and their families. And I think that's a challenge, you know, that you may. You may be able to put some strategies around. I'm not sure you'll ever be able to check the box completely, but I think there's definitely room for improvement. I mean, I laugh and I say this in the most loving way to you guys, but you guys have more flare-ups and crisis in your community about issues than... Most clients I've dealt with, I will give you that. You definitely get the gold star on that, which is not something I know you're aspiring to. I told you we were special when we hired you, Lori. And I will say this just in the most- You were like, uh-huh, yeah. Loving, loving

171way. A lot of, not a lot. Some of it has been self-inflicted. I am going to say that. So being able to avoid that would be the goal, right? But, you know, I do think that, I think that you could probably never communicate enough. The hard part is when you communicate just information because people don't absorb information. It's when you can really be tangible about a situation that exudes that empathy or the valid points of view. That's kind of the hard communication to happen because when groups or people are upset about something, they're not always looking for you to tell them why they shouldn't be upset. You know, they're looking for reasons to support their position. And, you know, being able to keep that in mind, even though it may be a very emotional issue,

172we are running a very large corporation. And it affects everybody in our community. So having that balance and that hat is sometimes a difficult one to handle. And I do think that not only some media communication. training would be helpful, but it might even... at least give you permission at times when you know somebody disagrees with your position or the board's position. It might give you permission to be able to have a conversation with them that is not volatile or ending in a really bad way. Because conflict resolution is not something that comes naturally. It's something that you learn. And so I think that's a really a good opportunity also during that media communication training that I hope will take place. We haven't really decided yet when or what that looks like. I think it

173depends on when the new person is hired to be part of that and then put together perhaps a recommendation for the board in that area. So we've talked about communication and some of the tools that I think we have in place. During COVID, I will tell you there's a lot of school systems that are really looking to be much more. virtual, much more customer service through being able to go to your website, being able to find information, being able to find contact people to help with situations. So I do think that you're probably headed in the right direction. You know, everybody's coming up for air a little bit now that all this has happened. And so, you know, we're seeing that we've got to adjust to the new norm and what that might look like,

174even though it may change every day right now. Would anybody like to dig a little bit deeper into this notion of the section I'm calling values that deals with cultural awareness and decision making and those types of things? Would anybody like to speak to some of the things that come to mind that we want to be able to, you know, kind of put meat on the bone later on about some of the strategies? So now that I'm thinking about it, I think the last thing I said actually fits neatly into that category. It does. Yeah. Yeah, I mean how to give a voice to those that are not speaking is really what you're you're trying to to make sure you're taking into consideration Yeah Any other thoughts on any of this? I know y'all are

175starting to glaze over. I see your eyes starting to glaze even on Zoom. Well, random thought I had, and I don't have a clear answer to this, but I know way back, I think this was like in our first year, we talked about like the board's role as like liaisons to schools and how should we be giving information out at PTA meetings. And like listening to Veronica earlier, where she's being asked to essentially like give a report about our reopening plan at a PTA meeting. Whereas I'll be very honest for some of the schools that I'm a liaison to, it's hard enough just to find out like, is there a PTA meeting going to happen? And if so, like when, you know, so I literally have to chase people down to just figure out that

176basic question. And sometimes I do think while we always want to be accessible, sometimes I think we might be too accessible to certain groups. And, you know, I think we discussed this idea before where maybe we don't need to go to every PTA meeting, maybe one PTA meeting a month, or somehow we need to moderate that interaction because I think that's where a lot of those loud voices like get their advocacy from and where they organize and where they get little tidbits of information that they use to spread like wildfire, whether it's correct or not. So I think that might be one area where we could figure out, like, do we need to work more with PTAC and with, you know, the PTA president to get information from them rather than sitting in a PTA

177meeting? I don't know if that's an answer, but I think that is an area that we definitely could look at. I think that's an answer, Heather. I'll be honest, 100%. I think we, you know, there. And it's not to negate, like, it's not like we don't want people to have access to us, but I think there is a such thing as too much access that gets used, not necessarily for the greater good. I'm just going to throw it out there. I noticed Cindy, she's working with PTAC. We started this and I think Megan, you can continue on with this because this just recently started with us trying to provide the time at PTAC to go over questions. So for example, for the past three months, I know I've answered questions for about at least an

178hour every session to PTAC members, any question they ask, right? And I think that... if we can find a way to have when we're answering questions like that for PTAC to disseminate that information to all of their PTAs and having kind of like an update from PTAC with hey we got an update from the superintendent we got an update from the board chair these are the Q&A that came out of that because they are recorded you know but everybody of course is not going to go I think we just started recording though right Cindy yeah yes I think they I believe they were going to ask about whether they wouldn't record them. Yeah. So, I mean, that's going to be a new thing, but I mean, I think that could be, so then it's consistent

179with the messaging and some of the groundwork is being done because they do have a secretary, they do up the PTAC and, you know, they have different people taking notes. And so I think this is a way for them to take on their responsibilities. to assist with making sure everybody's informed. And I will say that historically, I mean, I was PTA president of every school my kids attended, and we did not have a board member there at every meeting. We just didn't. It's something that happened. It's not the norm. It's something that happened, I think, in the board before the board I came on. I think that expectation, I don't know what other people had between. me and that, I don't know, but I did not. In fact, I don't even think that they were

180always at PTAC, actually. The superintendent was always at PTAC, but the superintendent was always the star of the show in terms of hearing the report, not the school board member, because that's where people came to hear was the superintendent give the update on whatever was going on. I mean, you guys, when you're talking about virtual stuff, it may not be that big of a deal, but I think that we've talked about this before and maybe, maybe, you know, now is a good time to bring it back up because the, there was a feeling at one time that it would be not worth the conversation to stop. attending PTA meetings because it would cause, it would just cause problems. And I think that, you know, it's again, that training moment that we have for our community

181to understand what the role of the board is. Truthfully, I'm not so sure that, you know, we've come a very, very long way, but I still think we have a very, very long way to go to helping the board. I mean, helping the community really understand the role of a school board. I think, Remy, go ahead. I would just add, I mean, I think, you know, I'm not sure that members of the community understand, I mean, the non-PTA various committees and representations that have been kind of, I mean, like that, and that's work that really, you know, if we don't go to that. we just don't go to that. I mean, then we really don't get that, you know, that kind of window of information into that particular group or that, you know, particular thing.

182Whereas there's still plenty of ways to maintain overall contact with the PTA throughout the year. So I'm also just, you know, raising my hand and saying I'm in agreement that this is worth pursuing. Okay. Yeah, it'll help us be able to focus, you know, on the other thing on a lot of the other important things too. Well, and especially if we get back into in person kind of meetings. You guys already have so much to do, you know, I mean, it's just. Being able to utilize your time most effectively for you as school board members, I think is, it should be your goal and you can reach your constituency without going to a PTA meeting is my personal opinion. You know, and I think it just sets you up for people starting to bombard you

183with questions that you may not feel comfortable being in that, that scenario. So, you know, just, just food for thought. Heather, did you have your hand up or somebody did I miss? All right. Closing thoughts, anybody? You guys are a great board. You know that, right? You know that. You're a fantastic board. Your work is instrumental and it is so hard in general. And you just throw the icing of COVID on top of your cake. And, you know, it's very difficult and I get it. And you don't hear it enough. And I say this every time we close one of these retreats, that you're making a huge difference and you are so appreciated, even if people don't tell you. The only time people are going to come to you is when they're upset. but you

184need to know that you are such a value in your community and your service is above and beyond. I think Veronica has her hand up. Yeah, you asked for comments. I just wanted to thank you, Lori. I mean, I think in large part, a lot of our growth is in thanks to you and the work that we put into these sessions. So just really always appreciate you and all your guidance, but also I appreciate your words because it really is incredible. Like we're like a school board together during COVID. Like that's... I mean, none of us like even dreamed this was even remotely possible when we all ran. And so even seeing some of the growth in our self-evaluation, like we rarely get these moments to really reflect and think, and we're so busy. I

185mean, the second COVID hit, right? We've been, we're met every single Friday at 12 o'clock and like, I mean, we've been together for hours. So again, I just really appreciate that moment of reflection, Lori, because we rarely get it as a board that this is pretty incredible what we're all doing. And I'm just honored to serve with each of you. So thanks so much. And thank you, Greg, for your leadership during this time. It's a time to celebrate, guys. It really is. I mean, you're incredible. And you know that my phone is always available for you to call and say, I hate this. I can't believe this is happening. And I'm going to be right there to listen. So at any time you need to do that. And I know that many, especially superintendents, you

186know, their spouses get really sick and tired of hearing about what's going on. So, you know, I want you guys to know that. that keep up the good work and celebrate even the small victories because our kids are counting on you, right? They're counting on you. So keep up the good work. All right. Thank you, Lori. Sleep well, guys. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Lori. Good night. Have a good night. I think Greg wanted to say something. I was going to say something really quick before you all hang up. I just wanted to tell all of you, I wanted to reiterate what Lori and Veronica said. And I think it was important for you to hear, even from Greg Baldwin, for him to mention that this is a board that he's never seen kind of like this.

187type of board ever. And he is through and through Alexandria from kindergarten all the way through his entire educational career. I agree with that too. You know, like I truly believe that you are everything you said you were when you went and you ran. I told you I watched all of your campaigns and you're staying true to that. And that right there to me is, it means, it means a lot. And I know that my colleagues, my superintendent colleagues do not have the same kind of relationships with their board members. And not to say that we don't have issues and areas to grow, right? We all do. We're going to always have areas to grow. I don't think none of us are ever going to be perfect. But what we have developed as a team.

188it is making a difference for the 16,000 students and the 3,000 staff members that we have. And that is something that even if today was all of our last days, right, we have accomplished a lot. And I just want to thank you all for that because I just know it wouldn't have been possible without the board. Our team cannot do this without you. So we need you just as much as you need us. It's a mutual thing, right? We, and I tell our team that consistently, that all of the decisions that we make, we can't make without the board support. So just thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I genuinely mean it, that you all are going above and beyond. And I wish that everybody would come back to serve another term.

189And we can keep the same team, you know, because I just feel ACPS has not had the consistency and has not had what we have right here. This is magical. And I mean, I know everybody's having their own thoughts about what they need to do next, but I just strongly ask you all, this is my own personal plea. I'm going to use this opportunity to do it while everybody feels good. My personal plea is that at least consider serving another term if you have not, if you were thinking not to, because this is something that we're not going to be able to get again. Not to say that we can't have another great board. I think that, you know, the future, we're not end all be all, but for us to have three more years.

190of doing, or really four more, if everybody does a second term, four more years of doing what we are doing now, that 2025 plan could be a reality. Like it could come to fruition. It could really happen. It's not going to be that thing that everybody talked about in that slogan that we had in ACPS. So just strongly consider, if you're not thinking about running again, to just run again, because I know I need you. And I know our staff needs you. And I know our students, they need you. And I'll tell you individually when I talk to you again, every time, every month that we have our one-on-one. So you won't, this won't be the last time you hear it out of my mouth. I need you. And so does our kids. So I'll

191end on that note, Lori. And thank you for everything you do too, Lori, because we have connected and we have a relationship as well. And I appreciate you. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Good job, guys. You go take care. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye.