January 21, 2021 High School Project Work Session Zoom Meeting

001Okay, so welcome to our work session, everyone, on this wonderful January 21st, 2021. And the topics on our agenda today are some updates on the high school project. And then afterwards, we'll be looking at revisions to A policies, B policies, C policies, and E. policies and regulations. So I'm turning it over to Dr. Hutchings and his team. So, yes. So this is the high school project like this. One of the most exciting discussions that we need to have. I mean, because this seems like this is this started when I got here and it's still going. It was part of my interview process and everything. And we're still in it, everybody. And we still got some time to go. But I think this is going to be a major milestone today because we're talking about the

002test fits and our team is going to be presenting to you all. some of the test fits in regards to our co-locations within the high school project. And I'm going to turn things over right now to Erica Gulick, who is our Director of Capital Improvement. Programs. Programs, planning, and design, Dr. Thank you. I keep getting that name mixed up. I just wanted to be simple. Like, can it just be capital improvement? Erica was like, no, I didn't want it to be CIP. I wanted to add those other components. Okay. Well, good evening, everybody. I'm going to turn this over to you, Ms. Gulick. Good evening, everybody. I kind of like having a different title every time. So we will get started with the high school project. Our update today, there's a lot going on with

003the project. So we don't want you to think that some of the awesome things that we usually update you on with the educational design team and the industry advisory boards aren't still going on. They are. But we really want to have a focused conversation tonight on some of the test fit work that Perkins Eastman and our design team has started to do for us, and particularly surrounding the topic of co-location. So we will jump right in if we can go to, thank you. So some of our essential questions and what we're going to go over today. What are some of the school board decisions that are required in the near term to stay on schedule? This will be important as Dr. Hutchings said, some of these key milestones that we have coming up in order

004for us to continue through the design process for this project in the schedule that we have planned. What are some of the major themes we've heard already regarding co-location from some of the community outreach we've done? What are some of the implications of these initial test fits? And I will say it now, I'll probably say it again, I'm sure Dawoud will say it, these are test fits for illustrative purposes. They are just to see what can fit. They're in no way representative of a design concept or design solution. or what we will ultimately build. But we do want to talk about some of the impacts of the different things we're trying to fit on this site and what does that mean. And then as we've heard from the school board and others, just trying to

005get a good understanding of the trade-offs and considerations related to the different co-location opportunities. So if we can go to the next slide. So here are the major decisions. We don't want anyone to be surprised, but this is kind of our steady monthly flow of decisions that we need over the next three months from the school board in order to continue to move through the design. The first being these co-location options. And so tonight we're going to talk about it in depth. We're hoping you give us a lot of questions for us to provide you more information at a subsequent meeting in order to have a decision on February 4th about what will be co-located. on the site and what should be included in this comprehensive program and site-specific ed spec and specifically the question

006about whether or not affordable housing should be considered in the design process. Moving forward, once we have that decision, Perkins Eastman, thankfully we have a great team on board and a large team who's been turning around deliverables very quickly. We will be developing that ed spec. So what are the spaces that will actually go in the building? What is the total square footage looking like? What will be the different athletic spaces and fields that will be included in the design? And then that will allow us to develop design concepts. If you recall on Douglas MacArthur, you were brought a design concept to vote on, I believe last year, about this time last year almost. And so that'll be a similar process bringing you all design concepts so that we can move your selected design concept

007through the DSUP process. We can go to the next slide. So planning assumptions and considerations, we've talked about a lot about this before and nothing here is new. But just reiterating that our school program is the number one priority for the redevelopment of the Minnie Howard campus. It will take precedent and space before other things. We are aiming for a no net loss of athletic fields. So the actual fields that we have there and also per the city's requirements, no. net loss of public open space, which we know the site has kind of split zoning. We'll talk a little bit about that later of public open space and a residential zoning. And because of that, any change we make, whether it has housing or not, will require a rezoning. And the city is working with

008us on what that will look like and what those changes would be to the zoning at that site. We are currently assuming underground parking, but as we've experienced on Douglas MacArthur and when we get when Doug Wood gets into the trade offs of some of these test fits, underground parking is expensive. And so that's something that we'll have to address and kind of compare whether or not that's something we definitely want to continue to keep for all the parking on the site. And then our goal really, and this is really developed through the past couple months, but even the past two years that we've been working on this project with the educational design team and other school administrators on how the connected high school network, what are those space deficits that we currently have between

009the Minnie Howard and TC Williams King Street campus, and how can we make sure that we prioritize those? in the new Minnie Howard. A lot of them are labs, CTE spaces, and then of course making sure we have ample room for our teachers as well as some of the other athletic and extracurricular spaces that we would want to have for our high school students. Go to the next slide. The enrollment projections. So important to know we do enrollment projections every year for 10 years. And so they do change. They tend to change. And particularly this year when we experienced certainly the pandemic caused this to be an outlier year. And we did try to modify for that. But do think there will be some impacts. And so particularly you can see in the orange. table

010at the top, which is our most up-to-date enrollment projections. We still hit that 5,000 number. It's a little bit further out, but you figure at around FY26, which would be school year 2025 to 2026, we're already at 4,900, close to that 5,000 number, which is what we've been trying to solve for. And then we just show you the previous enrollment projections, which are probably what you recall. from last year with us getting to that 5,000 number much earlier. So it does buy us a little time, but certainly still shows that there is a significant need. We can go to the next slide. This slide again is common that we've shared just giving you a list of the different colocation options that we are considering that we have as Perkins Eastman to include as part of

011this test fit. So those include administrative functions. So the potential for city or even ACPS offices at this site. a teen wellness center working with Dr. Herring and his team on what the expansion of the teen wellness center could look like. Also working with DCHS and our own ACPS team who works on early childhood learning as well as potential other spaces for either dedicated use or shared use. I apologize, my phone's ringing. And then next, we did look at the possibility of affordable housing. We'll get into the details of that a little bit further in this presentation. And then, of course, continuing our collocation with our PCA with the shared use of fields, the gymnasium, and potentially a pool. We can go to the next. Slide. So some major themes of community engagement. We've heard

012a lot already. You all have heard a lot already on what some of the community is saying in particular. And we just tried to pull them out into pretty concise bullet points here. But attached to this presentation are all of the written comments that we've received directly in the language that we received them in. a significant number of community members are generally against co-locating affordable housing or any housing on a school site for varied reasons, but there's a general feeling that the community is opposed to it. The community members who support affordable housing and understand that it is a significant need in the city still express concerns about whether or not it's appropriate to co-locate that on a school site. And then in general, all the other colocation opportunities that we're talking about, the community

013members seem to be fairly supportive of, including definitely asking for some of those rec spaces, as well as potentially the pool, and think those are appropriate colocation opportunities. Go to the next slide. So just to review the Minnie Howard site, just to reorient everybody because I know it's been a little bit, we have about 12 acres. As I mentioned before, the site is kind of split in half with zoning. So if you can see kind of the end of that parking lot where the fields start to begin, roughly there is where the public open space zone is on the right side of the site. And the residential zone you can build on is on the left side of the site. So we are still proposing to flip these from a time and cost efficiency and

014also really from a building and neighborhood context. makes the most sense to do and is pretty common practice. So that is still an assumption going into this. And as mentioned before, because this public open space will be switched, any change to the site will require rezoning. So we just don't want that to come up later and people to be surprised by that as well. You can go to the next slide. So some of the initial highlights of these test fits that we'll talk through. The initial analysis just confirms that everything can physically fit. That includes a school building for a minimum of 1,600 students. no net loss of those fields or the public open space and all co-located uses that are currently under consideration, including either affordable housing or the administrative uses. And that's really

015because of the square footage that's being posed for those. which for affordable housing ranges from about 60 to 85 units. That might be anywhere from 70 to 90,000 square feet. We are reviewing the budget because a lot of these things do impact pricing. So even though they may be physically able to be accommodated, we have to prioritize our funding and how we want to spend it. And we're continuing to work, as I mentioned before, through the educational programming and how the two campuses will actually operate. And the next slide. And then just briefly, I'll go over some of the trade-offs and considerations that Dawood will talk through more specifically as it relates to each test fit. But we wanted to just give you an overview of some of the things to kind of look for

016when we're looking through these. So the first kind of group of trade-offs we wanted to consider is financial. And so, as I mentioned before, parking is expensive. If you think of a surface lot as expensive, once you get structured or a parking garage, it gets more expensive. And then once you put it underground, it gets even more expensive. So surface parking will always be cheaper. It's just a trade-off of then it takes up land. So the less space we can take up with building, the more space we have to at least explore that option if it's something we want to do. We also co-locating any ACPS or city administrative functions would certainly, if there were four ACPS, increase our costs, which are not currently accounted for in our budget. But there is kind of the

017balancing act of, well, does this replace a lease that we currently have or maybe future needs that we haven't realized yet? There's also some security and operations considerations for integrating the affordable housing as part of the school building or even on the site. And then just reiterating that any co-located city or housing use will be funded through those agencies. ACPS is not responsible for paying for any of that. So we just don't want you to consider that in your assessment. As far as on the school programming, again, just considering the security, also that the potential for including affordable housing or office space, if it's kind of dedicated, could take away that use or that space for future school programming or even current if funds were available. And then we just listed here the effect of

018no colocation. We currently have colocation on the site, so we would anticipate continuing to have that. But we have existing MOUs established even for the Minnie Howard site. And so just wanting to make sure that we do consider some of those uses in this. And then again, like I said before, just the impact for future expansion. The square footage that we are including for affordable housing here could be about the same square footage for an additional 400 or 500 students in the future. So just something to consider there. So now I'm going to actually turn it over to Dawood Abdur-Rahman, who is the project director for the high school project. And he's going to go through more specifically, we have five different test fits. Just go through those and any specific trade-offs just to give

019you a better picture of what the site could look like. So Dawood, I will turn it over to you. I'm sorry. Thank you, Erica. Next slide, please. Okay, so I'm going to, good evening board, it's a pleasure to be before you again. I'm going to go through the test fits in a relatively high level manner. As Erica mentioned, we do see these are planning studies. These are not designed. The Perkins Eastman team has really come on board and is studying the site very aggressively. And we've had a lot of coordination with our city partners and the educational design team, as well as. the outreach with the community as well. We're looking at how can we fit various elements that we're exploring on this site. I wanted to orient you, I just want to draw your

020attention to the, and Madiha can you point to that kind of yellow block at the lower right hand corner just to orient you on the site. As Erica mentioned, we are flipping the location of the fields and the building. We mentioned this before as a part of our development strategy. And that corner there is closest to the Bradley Shopping Center is the furthest east on the site. In this scheme, the Percocet team has looked at the possibility of developing enough school massing, which is kind of the orange shaded block of massing there on the site for school and other kind of interior co-located uses like teen wellness centers and other uses, and then look to put affordable housing or city affordable uses towards the far east end there. All the test fits that we're going

021to go through all have a common theme of that we were able physically. to place all the collocated uses that we're considering up to this date on the site. We were able to do that physically. There's no net loss of fields able to support at least 1600 students and able to support at least the minimum that was viable from an affordable housing perspective. On this particular test fit, we are considering underground parking. So we would have the cost of that underground parking, which Eric sort of mentioned generally that there's a generally. a $5 million difference in cost between underground parking and service and structure parking. There would be a trade-off generally of the security and operations associated with adults co-located on this particular site. Let me just go to the next slide to kind of

022go through the various things. We could actually in that test fit I'm thinking of this as mashing. collocate affordable housing or administrative spaces. And one of the things that we have talked about is that the trade-off there is that for affordable housing, it's a no cost increase to the project. But if we put city administrative spaces on the site, there will be an initial one-time cost, but we could have additional costs. We could have cost savings in the future if we develop the project that way. Once again, we can co-locate all the uses of the very trade-offs for underground parking. We have to think about security and operations associated with affordable housing and adults on the same site with the school. And we do have some short and long-term trade-off costs for massing as it

023relates to administrative spaces and city programs. And I did want to mention that. The Office of Housing has kind of confirmed that there's an overarching strategy for co-locating affordable housing on-site. They're not relying solely on school sites to meet their strategy. There would be an impact. Fortunately, we don't have a test fit that does this. There would be an impact on school programs if we couldn't co-locate some of the other programs from teen wellness and Department of Community and Human Services and park and rec on-site. Next slide, please. So it's test fit number two, and you're going to start seeing a theme here is that there's still underground parking, so we have that cost. But what we've done is the massing that was further to the east, close to the Bradley Shopping Center, has now,

024we're testing it, what does that look like in the center of the site? So once again, we can maintain the no net loss of fields. We can support a minimum of 1,600 students. We could support a massing that could represent either housing or administrative spaces somewhere else on the site. And it does change how we think about circulation access, but we always have an overarching concern about what impacts on programs and costs related to security operations and keeping separation between adults and children on all these studies. So once again, we're starting to move the massing, keeping the building generally where it is. And in all of these studies, we do accommodate, if you look at the dotted line, where it says future expansion by the school building. there be a possibility of a future expansion.

025I will say that anywhere we put generally, I'll say generally, anywhere we place masking for housing or city administrative services could impact future expansion of school programs because we're encumbering that land. We do believe if we use city administrative or school administrative spaces for that masking. we could design it so that it could more easily be converted to school spaces in the future. So it's not the same impact, but we did note it could just be fair in our analysis. And so that we gave the school board all the information to make an informed decision. Next slide. So this slide just kind of goes through what I went through. There's implications for underground parking. There's an initial cost for administrative spaces for city functions, but we could save money if we vacated some leases. There's

026general concerns about operating and security costs. Anytime we put... Time to read. Oh, sorry. Oh. Anytime we encumber land with a massing that could be... housing or administrative spaces, it does impede or limit our ability for future expansion in the future. And as you heard, Erica mentioned earlier that the, we still do get to that 5,000 student number. It's a little bit later in this projection, but we have seen that number fluctuate. So we've heard loud and clear that a future expansion is a consideration we want to make sure that we keep foremost in our analysis. Next slide. So test fit number three, once again, this is going to be a little repetitive, but we satisfy all the co-location ideas. We're able to maintain all the fields with no net loss. And actually, there's some

027opportunity to improve by providing regulation fields and providing some other uses as it relates to open space and athletic fields. We do have expansion. That's where you see dotted lines there for possible future expansion. And in this scheme. The design team has tested moving the master as far to the west as possible away from the school. But we, once again, it's still co-located on the site. We do want to consider circulation, separation, access, security concerns. We believe there was some cost information. Our security and operations people are exploring ACPS policies related to that if a scheme like this is accepted. And these are kind of the trade-offs. Once again, we can accommodate it, but we have things that we have to consider. Next slide, please. And then this slide just summarizes just what I mentioned.

028That also had underground parking, security issues, some of the immediate short-term costs for administrative spaces, no immediate costs for housing, but it does encumber land for future expansion. So this is kind of a theme for these schemes. I'm sorry. Next slide, please. So this is test fit number 4A. Now you're beginning to see a shift. If you look at that bright yellow massing that's really embedded now in what would be the school. building. This is where the design team began to ask the question, what happens if we really try to become more aggressive and really integrate either administrative spaces or affordable housing so that actually it's attached to the building? Once again, what that does, it does sort of free up some of the land possibly that could be used for expansion, but it does

029raise questions about proximity to the students, operations costs. There's still underground parking in this scheme, but it's another way of looking at the various ways of accommodating the program on-site, trade-offs and considerations for this project. And there is, as you saw, possibilities for future expansion in this approach as well. Next slide, please. And so this is a summary of what I just mentioned in terms of the various moving around or the various massing and how we could approach it. Next slide. And then this is the final test of right now that really is probably the most, I guess, dramatic. If we really try to take what could be used for affordable housing or administrative spaces, try to really mitigate impacts on land use and put it literally on top of the school. What does that

030look like? It is feasible. It does. We we've been working with planning and zoning and we understand there'll be flexibility on height. You can do it. It does raise questions about security, operations, access, shared parking, all those various issues. Parking would still be. parking is above grade. We just happen to put above grade on this particular test fit. So we could save those funds. We might mitigate some of the future expansion concerns with affordable housing administrative spaces. But once again, we have operations and security concerns that we'd have to work through. And as we've heard, we've heard concerns about those possible co-locations from stakeholders in the community. I did want to mention that one thing that we'll probably talk about when we come back, and these are real time. The design team is working very

031hard on this project, and even Dr. Hutchings from our briefing this morning, we've heard that as we try to achieve net zero, which is there's no compromise on net zero on this particular project, it's not clear, and we really think it'll be very difficult to get all the photovoltaic on top of roofs, and we may have to use some photovoltaic. on the actual site. So that actually take, that could possibly take up other land that really would be to support the school program for to meet our net zero requirement that we would think twice about using it for another use. So this alternative is possible, but it might actually result in exacerbating some additional land use that I think as the team begins to study this, we'll be more clear about this in our, by

032the time we get to our decision meeting. So. Those are the kind of the high level summaries. These aren't designed, they're tests. We can accommodate it. This is a summary of what I just kind of went through. And I'll just kind of go through the next slide. Because I think you pick up the theme. We try to listen to you. And I'll turn this back to Erica to try to get feedback from you all about what will help you make your decisions. Erica? Thanks, Dawud. So just next steps. Tonight, we're hoping we have a good conversation with you all about what information you need to be able to make this decision. Again, specifically, we're making the decision on whether or not we're co-locating affordable housing. If there is, if... It is that we are going

033to move that direction. Any concerns or things you want us to address with it either being a separate building or as part of it. And then certainly allowing us to continue to explore the other co-location opportunities we're looking at. Wanted to let you know that we are having a community engagement event on Monday, January 20. Is that Monday? Yes, Monday, sorry, Monday, January. We have one January 26th too. So Monday, January 25th to discuss the co-location specifically with the community. We will again gather all of their comments for you all to have. And on February 4th, we are asking for a decision on this co-location piece. And that is all we have. So if we can go to the final slide. Yes, that is it. Thank you. And I just want to thank you, Ms.

034Gulick, and thank you, Mr. Abdur. for all of your hard work with this. And I do know your title now. It is the Director of Capital Programs Planning and Design. So I will always get it right in the school. I want to make sure I have our staff titles right. It's just like not knowing a student's name in class. So I want to hold myself accountable to get it right. So I apologize for getting it wrong early today. But I do want to shift into some Q&A. I do think it's important for us to have some discussions around these co-locations. In particular, we really need to delve into the conversation around affordable housing. And some considerations that we also looked at were city and office spaces, city and schools office spaces as well. But I'm

035hoping that we can really get. some information and feedback specifically about that because I know that is a very hot topic in our community and I really do know that this is something we've been kind of grappling with for a little while now. So I want to turn things back over to you, Madam Chair, so we can answer any questions that you want me to have. Okay, we're going to start with Ms. Gentry. Thank you so much. This was a great presentation. I wanted to just, I had another two-parter. The first is really a clarification, and I do thank you very much for that next step slides. I thought that was helpful, but I think it's really important for us to make it very, very clear. I think I understand the purpose of the test

036fits and showing those different things, but I just want to really reiterate to ourselves and to the community that the vote on February 4th is not a vote for one of these test fits. The test fits was really just to kind of help people understand and just understand it and just prove that spacing was available. I just I think that's my understanding, but I'd love to get the confirmation on that. That's completely correct. They're not options. They're not any of those things. You will just be voting on what will be included. And so to further clarify this co-location question, would the vote just say there will be location or would the vote be us naming the type of co-location that would be there? So we'll be working on specific language. We are, our aim is

037to have a vote on whether or not there will be co-location of affordable housing specifically. Understood. Okay. So there's sort of, it's sort of two buckets. There's co-location, affordable housing, and then other types of co-location, if I'm understanding that correctly. Correct. And those could be more in the form of guidance. Some of those things will ultimately be prioritized as we go through the budgeting. We continue to work with some of the city agencies. But it won't be like you have to decide, yes, DCHS things, no, Alexandria Health Department. That's not what we're looking for. We're just looking for whether or not you would like the co-location of affordable housing in the design. And then if there are any other... um any other direction regarding co-location that the school board wants to give us of course

038we would welcome that that's great so i would just say in terms of what i need i think you know to the degree that the language for the motions can be you know kind of generated and shared you know with sufficient time prior just so everyone not just the board members but the community really understands what we're voting for and maybe more specifically what we're not voting on on february 4th you know, what is in scope and not, I think that will be really, I think that will be really helpful. I'll just, I'll just use, since I've got the floor, I'll just go ahead and make my comment now and then I can take myself out. One of the guiding principles that I have tried to use in my time as the school board is

039I don't want to be, I don't want 20 years from now, a school board member to be shaking their head thinking, man why did the school why did those school board members do that back in year whatever And I would say when I, you know, as long as I've been a part of the school board, we have had nothing but urgency, really urgency bordered on crisis about capacity. So I just cannot imagine a scenario in which I can get behind a decision that would actually take away capacity on our considering you know how how how limited we are um on the flip side um I can't, you know, I don't necessarily, I don't have a crystal ball and I don't know exactly what we'll need 20 years in the future, which is why I do

040like whenever I can to try to make decisions that can be, you know, to whatever degree they can sort of future-proof and be flexible. And so I would just say that, you know, and I appreciate the slides and all of the things that were laid out about the, you know, some of the pros and cons. I find myself. very very persuaded about the value of building something that can be used for administrative purposes now but with a thought towards administrative purposes that could potentially be transformed into student purposes at a later date if needed but certainly we have a need for administrative needs now we are currently leasing quite expensive space for our central office It's expensive, and yet it doesn't even provide, you know, kind of some of the things that we need in

041terms of parking or some other things. It seems very strange for me for us not to take this opportunity to be. setting ourselves up so we are no longer having to leave central office space. You know, I feel like that would be a much more responsible thing to do. So thanks again for the clarifications about, you know, what we'll be voting on. And I just wanted to go ahead and throw my two cents in there while I was on the mic. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gentry. I'm moving on to Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Alderton. So thank you for the presentation. Very thorough and really appreciate the insights. So a comment. First off, I really do appreciate the point on the slide about the academic program driving the decision here. I think we can't

042lose sight of that when we're talking about these issues. With that said, I'm concerned that proceed for this very reason. I'm a little concerned that procedurally we're kind of putting the cart before the horse here. I don't understand why we're making the decision about co-location before we've had a discussion about. the academic program. And I guess just a couple comments and question on that. You know, I didn't hear in the presentation sort of what the case is, you know, from the perspective of the academic program of why one of these co-location options might be better than the other. Now, I could speculate and my comments, I think, would dovetail largely with Ms. Gentry, which she just said, which is that I can see a case for the administration argument having administrative offices. One is, you

043know, and I'd like to have this information, what is the net present value? What's the calculation of the rent savings that we'd get if we moved administrative offices on this site? Because that is a lot of money we, I think, waste right now in central office to have to pay rent on that. And if we can create efficiencies, that would seem to be something useful. I also know that in the central office building right now, we have things like the satellite. We have ELL counseling. We have things that are... academic. So if that's on the Minnie Howard campus, that can create academic synergies that are valuable, that would be aligned with the academic program. So I can see an argument for doing something like that on the site. With regard to the affordable housing, I

044haven't heard the case, you know, in terms of the academic program for why that should be done or is appropriate in terms of our academic space. And I also share the concern of Ms. Gentry about our space being very limited. And I want, the land is so limited in this city and I want to make sure that every conversation in this city, frankly, you know, goes both directions too. When the city's talking about its land, what are the school needs that are being considered on those sites? And sometimes I don't know if that's always, you know, put to the top, right? So, so... I think it will be really important for me, you know, as we consider this decision to really understand what is the academic programmatic case for each co-location, the academic synergies, the

045financial implications. All of those sorts of things. And then with regard to the affordable housing, we've had some questions in the community as to whether this is even legal in the state of Virginia. I'm a lawyer, so the law is something that concerns me, obviously, and I'm sure concerns the whole board. So I would like to make sure that that is a legal option before we'd even consider it. So I hope that... you know, in advance of the next meeting, we could just have a little more clarity on what maybe, Dr. Hutchings, your position is from an academic standpoint on these different co-location options and how we can make sure we maximize that synergy. Thank you for that, Mr. Suarez. I wrote down for follow-up items, kind of understanding the academic synergies of each co-location

046opportunity that we're exploring, the legal opinion on affordable housing on school sites, and potentially a position or stance from Dr. Hutchins. And I was going to say, really what we are trying to get to is whether affordable housing is a direction that we want to go. in regards to this particular project. That is where we're trying to get to. And this conversation is something that we haven't really solidified. We need to know, are we going to pursue affordable housing at the Minnie Howard campus or not? And I think that in regards to like the educational, you know, planning, and we're still in the process of working through the educational planning. We're going to have, you know, once we finalize some of our educational planning components, we're now going to be dealing with, which we already

047know, the square footage. that we're dealing with. We know how many students we're trying to work with. We're working with the King Street campus and the Satellite campus and the Northern Virginia campus. I mean, there are all these factors that are in place in regards to the educational component. What we really need to get to is, does the board want affordable housing at Minnie Howard campus of T.C. Williams or whatever the new name will be, formal T.C. Williams? or not, because that is a huge factor with the design phase. That is what is preventing us from moving forward, because that will take us in a very different direction if affordable housing is going to be a part of this planning moving forward. And that's the key thing that we just need to know. Yeah, no,

048and if I can just, that's helpful, Dr. Hutchings, and if I could just briefly respond to that, I guess that goes back to I can't answer that question if I don't know how, in sort of the staff's opinion, in your opinion, how this is potentially aligned with the academic program. Like I said, I could speculate. You know, I think there are arguments as to why, you know, having teachers who are closer to their students in terms of being able to provide support, you know, and things like that, being living in the community, things like that have great educational value. I could see certain arguments, you know, on both sides of why it would be advantageous to potentially have teachers on school grounds. Maybe the argument shifts if it's not teachers. So, so like, I think

049voting on this in such a sort of generic way without understanding how it lines up with the educational vision is difficult for me. And so the more information I can get on that, I think the better informed I'd be to make the decision. That's all. I think that it would be, I don't know if it would be advantageous of us looking through what educational program will align to affordable housing on this. And this is why I say that. I'm not really sure any educational program is going to say affordable housing or all schools would have affordable housing on them. So I think we would be trying to reinvent something that doesn't exist by saying education drives having this affordable housing on this campus. I think that I don't see us coming to the board with

050research that states that. I think that you do bring up some other good points, though, that I hope could help. to the decision making is, you know, how could this affordable housing impact our educational programming? How could this affordable housing potentially impact our growth? You know, because affordable housing, for example, I don't know how flexible affordable housing really could be if we needed to use that space. 20 years from now as school space, how do you move people out of 60 to 80 units that have been living there for 10 years, right? How does that, how would that work? I don't even know how, I mean, I know we could potentially do it. But how would that work? You know, what would that look like? And I think these are some of the questions that

051could help, I hope, the board determine if it's even something just because something's feasible. Because now we, you know, a part of our test fit was to determine if these co-locations are feasible. So now we know it's feasible, but because it's feasible doesn't necessarily mean. okay, well now this is the best thing for us, you know, to do just because it is now feasible. So I think Mr. Suarez, you bring up some good points about, does it tie to educational, the educational programming? And I can definitively tell you affordable housing doesn't. And I don't know what educational program affordable housing would say or warrant, you know, us putting that. right next to a school, or that would be in best practice and everybody would be going in that direction. And that's not the case. I

052don't know if that helps, Mr. Suarez, with your... No, no, that's very helpful. And I think when I say educational, you know, alignment or whatever, I'm thinking both in terms of the micro level programming that's on the school site, but also in terms of the longer term program for the school division writ large. So I think you can kind of zoom out and ask that question, or you can zoom more inward. So that's very helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Suarez. You know, I'll throw myself in here, just because you know, in thinking about your emphasis on the actual educational program, you know, I would have to echo what Dr. Hutchings is saying, you know, as someone who's been participating with the educational design teams, the focus has really been on how to, you know,

053create smaller learning communities. That's been like the biggest focus on how to create, you know, smaller learning communities and a design that makes kids feel as though they belong, even in a school with a large number of students. Thinking about, you know, discussions have been about interdisciplinary learning and, you know, project-based learning. So, you know, at this moment, I don't think. I could say that the design, educational design discussions have lent themselves toward a need to add affordable housing. And with that, I think, you know, my biggest concern is that affordable housing doesn't give the flexibility that we need. You know, I think of Dr. Hutchings' point about If you have, you know, 80 units where people are living, if we needed, you know, if we needed to use, if we needed that space in

054the future for something else, we could not easily make a shift. And that really concerns me. Flexibility, you know, we've been talking about the need for flexibility as a part of. the educational design since the inception of the EDT. And so as we're thinking about the spaces, every single space on this project needs to be flexible. And I think unfortunately, affordable housing does not lend itself to the flexibility that we need. And I think my last point would just be something that we haven't talked about yet, but And maybe it's not important and maybe I shouldn't say it here, but I will say, you know, I like the point, sharing the points about parking. If we could avoid any surprises with underground parking, I think that could come with underground parking in terms of cost.

055You know, I think that's something to think about as we move forward. That's not a decision we're making next week, but it was presented today. And I think, you know, it's also something for us to think about. I just sort of turned in there because you were talking about educational design and that's how I'm seeing the focus on education as it relates to this project. I just don't see the fit myself. Next, I have Ms. Lorber. Thank you so much, Charlton. Thank you for the presentation. I did want to, I love the very first slide, the one that lays out, here's what we have to accomplish. Boom, boom, boom. It's blue. There's arrows. It's simple. And I wish all the PowerPoint. The metrics that we use, the diagrams that we use for decisions were as

056simple as that one. It's very straightforward. I want to thank Ms. Gentry because I think she stated fairly clearly my own feelings. After years and years of studying the growth of our school system and the degree to which it's been neglected, I think I also can't get behind the idea of using what could be limited space for affordable housing. on our campuses. However, I did want to ask a question. I see that Ms. McLevain is here with us today. My sense about the affordable housing as it's placed there is it would be sort of out on its own. And to me, I think if a community wants to have affordable housing, it should be an integrated housing with other housing, not sort of off there across the street all by itself. next to a school

057site. So aside from the fact that I don't believe we can spare the space, that it was made clear in the PowerPoints that by dedicating some of the space to affordable housing, we are giving up potentially other space that can be used for educational purposes. That said, One of the things I noticed if we were to use it for city offices, some of our city offices actually have programs that our families and children can use. For example, the city offices for the extension, 4-H extension program, take up a large space over at the, I'm blanking on the name of the large. rec center where we were thinking about possibly placing swing space. But in any case, there are city offices that end up, in fact, being things that we could use. So that's, I wouldn't

058be necessarily opposed to a city office. In fact, I think that some of our, some of the suggested co-location offices that provide services to our kids and families, I'd be in favor of. But I am very much against the idea of using this. lot of land for affordable housing but I'd be very interested in hearing Ms. McElvain's response to or your views on isolated affordable housing like that, as opposed to integrating affordable housing units into other areas where we have so many buildings right now in the city that are not using, they're empty. And it seems to me I would like to see affordable housing integrated into the city in a better way. So I don't see this as even an appropriate site for affordable housing from the viewpoint of developing affordable housing. Thank you.

059I appreciate the question and the opportunity to respond. I think when the city did its joint study several years ago, there was a collective sense that we needed to be smarter about all city spaces, all school spaces. And, you know, in terms of being stewards of the public good, we have affordable housing as one of the city's greatest needs. And I know. the school system is familiar with it because you're serving many of the families and students who would benefit from it. And you know, who are in a situation in our city where they're spending far too much on housing and foregoing other things because we don't have enough supply. And so we have lots of neighborhoods where housing and schools are very close by. They may not be what we're doing here, co-located, but

060I think we're looking only at designs where we could address through good design, you know, the security concerns and other concerns we've seen. This is something, for example, the city already has lots of experience doing, whether through nonprofit or private partners or... the building at the station at Potomac Yard. So I think one of the things we were looking at in terms of first equity was how do we potentially look at spaces where there are neighborhoods of opportunity where this would add housing for people who need it and are already here and already students. How do we simply look at how to best use the land that we control and is there a way we can add affordable housing that respects all the uses the school might need, but also serves a community need. So

061I don't, I understand your point that there are other places maybe affordable housing can go, but I think this is one over which collectively, we have a great deal of control and land is always our biggest challenge, both its cost and its availability. And so I think that's what got us started down this road, looking at it. We felt there was a lot of synergy with both your equity goals and the fact that 57% of the students qualify for free and reduced meals. So we know there are families in the system. We know there are teachers who would benefit from housing affordability. And we've always been very proud of the fact that our... city has been a leader in terms of coming up with innovative solutions. So I would respectfully say we've sort of gone

062through this exercise to make sure that we didn't, I think, you know, 20 years from now, will we say, gosh, we missed an opportunity there where we might have added it. It's, you know, it's obviously a decision that our city's elected leaders, you and city council. will be making. But I think we wanted to make sure we didn't rule anything out prematurely. We looked to see what could be done. We wanted to be creative. And we knew many people in our community, including students, would benefit if we were able to identify an area where it would be complementary to all of our missions. So, but I also understand your discussion about in the same way that land is limited for school, for housing purposes, it's also limited for school purposes. Can I, may I just

063respond to the answer to my question? Can I just pursue that a little further? Yeah, no, my only question is, and maybe I'm confused, but remember years ago, Jane Jacobs wrote that amazing book about. integrated housing throughout the city. And I feel that this isn't really a solution to put all those affordable apartments in one place is isolating, is separating people off. And this building, I mean, we obviously, of the four diagrams given to us, we're certainly not going to go with having the affordable housing plumped down in the middle of the school system. So the only one that would be even... possible physically would be the one where it's on its own. And even if it were in the middle, I mean, the idea for me, affordable housing, it would be make more sense

064to have units spread throughout the city in with buildings so that people who need affordable are living right next door to people who don't necessarily need affordable. And we have a much more integrated situation. So while I agree with you that many of our families could use affordable housing, I don't want segregated affordable housing. I'd like integrated affordable housing. I'm sorry for interrupting. What you mentioned is what we would consider a best practice. And when there's a sufficient number of units to do that, I think we're looking at things that would potentially, there are funding sources available that are very efficient and a great deal of the cost can be leveraged. But I would say the gold standard is mixed income. affordable housing. And we have that at the Nexus. We're going to have that

065at the Heritage at Old Town. So it's something when there's enough land, we do look for opportunities to do this. But we also think we're not far from a best practice, especially in a neighborhood where there isn't much affordable housing, to do a building that is affordable housing. And I think most people, I know when I've done windshield tours with people, In terms of how the housing looks, it fits in seamlessly with everything around it. So I understand what you're saying in terms of would we be creating a community that's only affordable housing. But I think when we are doing that in a neighborhood of opportunity, we're acting appropriately because there's plenty of other market rate housing around and we gain from that. I just want to clarify, I don't want to have misconstrued my

066statement as saying that I would be in any way in favor of affordable housing on the land that we have set aside for the high school. But I just wanted to ask that question because I just want to explain why I think it would be inappropriate to have the affordable housing right there. But anyway, enough said. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I have Ms. Anderson, Ms. Green, and then Ms. Nolan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I want to thank Ms. Gentry for really laying out the decisions and clarifying the decisions that we need to make. So some of my questions about co-location, I will send by email because they're not ones that have to be at the decision point. It's not next week. So I also appreciate, you know, Ms. Gentry saying about things that

06720 years from now that we might think about because. as many of you know, and Miss Green knows about the things I find in my attic, you know, there are lots of those decisions that were 50, 60 years ago that I regret periodically, and I had nothing to do with them. You know, we are now at a point where we have almost the same number of students that we had at the peak when I was in elementary school. Yet we have so many fewer pieces, parcels of land. I mean, we don't have the whole Parker Gray High School land. We don't have the Nova land. We don't have the elementary school off of Duke Street. And we also don't have the elementary school in Old Town. And I'm sure there are more, but I don't

068know all of them. And then I see of things that almost happened where sometime in the 70s, it was said, oh, we don't need GW and Hammond. They were going to give Hammond to Nova as well because their buildings weren't all done. And they suggested that they build townhouses on GW. So those are the kinds of things that come up periodically over the decades. So while I appreciate that, I think during the same time period, things that happen to our housing stock that create a huge problem there, I think that we don't have the resources in terms of land to accommodate and help with this. So whereas I am all for creativity and I'm all for working closely with the city and our existing land, we just simply need to We're struggling to have enough

069space to accommodate our very own students. And we want to be creative in the spaces that we can offer them because things are different in terms of the types of spaces as well, which in many cases requires more space. And in some cases, maybe less in terms of teachers, you know, offices and things like that. I am interested in getting rid of that lease that we have. So I would say that that is something I'd be interested in, but I worry that we may need it too soon. So it may not even be worth it. And the conversion, so I'd like a little bit more information about that. And also the one that's most appealing to me in some ways is building the building higher. And you mentioned the photovoltaic, and I'm wondering if building

070it higher, because of course that gives you less. surface area for square footage, how that would impact it because I don't want to lose ground. You know, so I don't want to lose space on the ground because we have to put photovoltaic on the ground instead of because we built it higher. So those are kind of the only questions that I will that I'll give you today. But I but I cannot support putting affordable housing because we just need the space. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Ms. Green. Chair Alderton, and this has been a wonderful discussion. I'm so glad to hear that the majority of us are on the same page about affordable housing on school grounds. It's our job to educate and keep our students safe. It is not safe to have

071housing on school grounds. And, you know, I just, for the life of me, I still don't understand how we got to this point. And I think others are still very confused about this. But I'm glad that we are here and we can talk about it and we can take this vote on February 4th to put this to bed. And, you know, I just hope. you know, with the limited land that we have for our schools that we will keep every bit of it so that we can continue to grow our schools for the capacity that we need for future students. So with that being said, I just wanted to put my thoughts in there. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Green. Ms. Nolan. Thank you so much, Cheryl. Just appreciate the opportunity to ask a question.

072I was just wanting to, first off, thanks so much to the staff. I know this is a really monumental task and so really appreciate everyone as well as the city. We have a lot of talented folks on the city end that are supporting us with this work. So appreciate their support as well. My question is, I'm just curious as to what work at this point with the conversation that's being had and the decisions that need to be made, have we consulted with the education design team? I know I've mentioned in the past, but I'm just such a huge fan. I think we've just gathered such a phenomenal group of TC teachers that are on the ground and can really inform us as to like what are their needs that they see in terms of students

073and education needs for the building. So I was just curious, number one, like at this point, what's the outreach been to the education design team and do they have any feedback that would be great for the board to know? Thank you for the question. So can I clarify, are you speaking to, have you spoken with the educational design team directly about the co-location of affordable housing or just in general? Just, I apologize. Just in general, I was just concerned. And the answer might be no, but it would just be great that, I know that's one of the decision points that we're interested in as a board. At some point, if it hasn't happened up to this point, I would just love to know the education design team's feedback as just a data point for us

074to consider. I'm not discussing the affordable housing at all. I'm just talking in general. Just in general. Just in general. Do they see the pool or do they see, you know, something else? Or, you know, I'm just in general, I just would be curious about their feedback at some point. But no, I don't mean specifically with the affordable housing piece. I'm sorry. I've moved on from that. Sorry. So I'll have, can we provide an update on that? Because I want to make sure we give you the accurate information. I know Dr. Mann, he's not on this Zoom. He's our liaison for the educational design team and I want him to be able to give a clear understanding so that I don't miss something. But I do know that we did reignite our educational design team.

075I just want to be able to have him talk through what they're discussing and what type of input they have received. So can we get back to you on that? Absolutely. Thanks so much, Dr. Hutchings. Appreciate it. And while you talk to him, you can always share with him one of my favorite topics that I'll definitely be asking about is the alternative programming options. Yes, exactly. So thanks. We call that the Veronica Nolan question. Exactly. I'm totally comfortable with that. So thanks so much, Dr. Hutchings. Appreciate it. All right. Dr. Reed. Okay, well thank you for the presentation and thank you for the good discussion. I just wanted to, I have a couple comments, but I wanted to point out that it looks like this meeting was not listed on the school board meetings page.

076It's in the electronic school board, but it's not on the school board meetings page. And given how much interest there is in this topic, I just wanted to flag that. I think that. was probably an oversight, but particularly when it's an issue that's this high profile in our community, we just really want to make sure we get that listed on the school board meetings page. One of the concerns that I've had about our connected high school network from the start is our projected enrollment growth. And I just, I keep wanting to emphasize this point that you know, the capacity at King Street is supposed to be for 2,900 students and this new building we're building for 1,600 students. That totals 4,500 students and when you look at those projections that you showed us, you know,

077this building is not going to open until FY24 and the projected enrollment at that time is 4,768. So that's already at, it's already exceeding capacity when the building opens. And, you know, I know that there's talk about how education is changing and that, you know, students be able to be able to do more virtual learning in the future, but. I don't think that it should be something that students are required to do because we don't have capacity for them in our building. So, you know, I'm of the opinion that, like, if we can build out more space for students, you know, we should really look at doing that now. And it kind of ties into another comment I wanted to share about the landmark project. You know, I'm really, like many people in the city,

078I'm really excited about the landmark. redevelopment. I'm really excited that the hospital is going to stay in our community and it's going to expand and be improved. It was disappointing to learn about that project when the press release went out and also to find out that there wasn't going to be a school on the site since that is something that we've talked about for some time. And I've been going to some of the meetings that have been happening around that project. And I just have to say, like, one of the things that was commented at a meeting that happened this week of the advisory committee was that ACPS is still examining their enrollment projections. And there was a comment made by an advisory committee member that we should really hurry up and figure out what

079our enrollment projections are going to be. And I just want to, you know, remind everyone in the community and everyone here that. at our November work session with Council, we had a presentation about our CIP budget, which showed our projected enrollment growth. And the slides said, even with the proposed 10-year CIP investment, which is a lot of money, we are expected to be 2,000 seats short in five years. And it also said that we're trying to maximize capacity on the project that we're working on, our existing projects that we're like renovating, but we're still not meeting the need. So, you know, I'm just. With all the development around Landmark, you know, now there's talk about the Green Hill site, there's talk about the Potomac Yard site, but, you know, speaking for myself, like, I'm not

080convinced we're going to ever get any more land for ACPS. And when we went through this project, this high school project process, we had a broker that looked at land that we could purchase, and we were told that there was no land available for us to purchase. I, my real question is like, what is our strategy to address the 2000 seat shortage that we're going to have in five years because that is still not clear to me. That's one of my questions and then I do agree, you know, with what my colleagues have been saying that I'm not clear, you know, what is the criteria we're using to make the decision about co location. You know, I know that the joint facility master plan process is underway, and I think their draft report should be

081coming out soon. So if there's any insight from that, I would be interested in understanding what it is about the total needs of the city. But I'm just not clear about the criteria we're using. And I know there was a slide that showed, you know, oh, here's where things community members supported fields. you know, a teen wellness center or child daycare, well, are we just, is it just like whatever people feel like they want or how, what is the criteria so that we're really making, you know, a decision that's going to have the most impact? And then, and then one piece of information that I do think would be interesting around this conversation though with housing is to understand how many ACPS staff members are existing, are accessing existing affordable housing in the city. Because

082we know that only a third of our staff members do live in the city. So like how many of them would even be eligible, you know, or would even be interested. So I think that, I mean, I do think that is a question that we, you know, we've talked about how important it is and the value that comes from our staff members being able to live in the city. And so I think that, you know, that is one answer that I think. one piece of information that would be helpful to inform this conversation too. But if you want to speak to like our plans for addressing our 2000 seat shortage that we're going to have in five years, I'm really interested in what we're doing for that. So I'll have Erica elaborate a little more

083on the projection side of things, but we are having In April, we will be meeting with the board to share our acquisition planning to talk about some of the potential land acquisition opportunities throughout the city of Alexandria. We've conducted this in the past, but we have to keep in mind this was a year and a half ago when we were looking at what land was available prior to a global pandemic and businesses and things that now are either moving out of the city of Alexandria are no longer going to be here in the future. So there's... potentially a lot more opportunities for us. And the city manager even stressed that during our joint session. So we're going to be looking forward to seeing all these potential land acquisition opportunities that are out there. So we

084will be sharing an update with the board in April. It also will give us an opportunity to talk about the Potomac Yard space and to talk about some of the other areas that we explored. during our high school project, kind of like exploration component, but that is scheduled to come to the board in April. Ms. Gulick, if you can talk a little bit about some of our strategy behind the total enrollment projections. Thanks, Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Dr. Reeve, for the question. So the 2,000 seat shortage that you're talking about is kind of the total enrollment, I think K-12 in the 10 year compared to the total capacity that we have available. And if you kind of follow that line, it's not unlike where we are now. It's just that we have, you know, we're

085adding schools in and the enrollment grows and so we kind of continue that way. It's not to say that we won't have space for those 2,000 kids. It's just to say that they'll be in classrooms smaller than is appropriate. So I know the way it's conveyed is a little bit confusing. That being said, our capital budget is already the largest that it's been. We're replacing several elementary schools and adding capacity to them. But a lot of it's a balance of, okay, well, do you build a new school at Potomac Yard or do you invest money in your failing school and add what capacity you can there? And we don't have... endless funds to be able to do all these projects at once. So I think you make a great point. Previously, sorry, that's my dog

086getting up and shaking. If you heard that, sorry about that. Previously, we, you know, when we previously, the school board proposed a CIP that addressed our, all of our capital needs in the 10 year. And it wasn't something that was feasible for the, all of our capacity needs in the 10 year. And it wasn't something that was feasible for. the council and for the city to support. So I think that land acquisition conversation that we're going to have in the spring will help shed some light on the opportunities that we do have. But I think we have to think about these things and what are our priorities. Do we need to replace MacArthur and add capacity to that school or should we be focused on a whole new school because all of these things. cost

087money, even if we do get designated land. I hope, I know that doesn't answer where the 2000 seats are going to come from, but just to look at it from that kind of lens. Thank you, Ms. Gulick. I have Ms. Gentry, and I think we'll wrap it up. with Ms. Dentry. Thank you so much, Chair Alderton. I put myself back in because I realized that there was another sort of cautionary statement that I wanted to make, which was, and I just, I want to, I really appreciate, I think, I really... I value all of the really great comments that literally every single one of my fellow board members made. I think those were all great questions and some really good points. So thank you to everybody for that. The last thing I just wanted to

088mention is, as has been explained in these slides, there is no version of this in which we are not doing rezoning. And rezoning involves a legal process. We who live in the city of Alexandria know how sometimes that legal process can go. And if members of the community are. not in favor of said process, the potential legal remedies that they might try to put in place in order to stop the process, which is their right, of course, and we can't dictate that. But that absolutely could have an impact on our timeline. which is already happening later than we would like, right? We are already in working, we're already behind in terms of meeting our capacity needs and we're behind in terms of catch up. You know, so it's, I know sometimes, you know, as elected

089officials, we have to make. difficult decisions or unpopular decisions um and and sometimes you you you do need to do that but uh this is an instance where um as i mentioned all of my my colleagues have uh uh you know provided the you know our our mission focuses on education and the education of the kids and and and and our need to be able to provide the capacity for that and then on top of that the potential um for some real backlash in the community that could really potentially significantly delay a project that really cannot be delayed any longer without some significant repercussions to our students. So just wanted to put in that last point and thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Gentry. And I would just end by saying and emphasizing flexibility,

090flexibility, flexibility is so key. for this project and any future projects. So we have to always keep that top of mind for sure. So thank you everyone. And it is now time for our favorite part of the meeting, policies. Hi, Ms. Abruzzese. Good evening, good evening everyone, good evening. It's great to see you board. We have, as is our new practice, we have 10 policies and regulations tonight that are up for revision. Tonight and next week, I'll go ahead and just preview for you. Tonight and next week are a bit of a mixed bag on policies. We are doing a bit of cleanup. from policies that perhaps went to the board for information but due to the shutdown did not return to the board for approval or perhaps a question had been asked or a

091delay had been requested or for various reasons associated with the shutdown and then how full our agendas were moving forward. These are largely some stragglers that needed to come back. So we have some policies from a few different policy areas tonight. And as I said, that will be the case next week as well. And then we can proceed forward. So we are going to start this evening with policy AC, which is non-discrimination. This was last revised by the board in December, 2019. This comes to you this evening to reflect. The amendment of Virginia Code 2.2-3900, which is otherwise known as the Virginia Human Rights Act, and also enactment of 22.1-295.2, which has to do with employment discrimination. For our purposes... The impact on this policy is that the categories of characteristics that are protected by

092law as far as discrimination goes have been expanded, and for our policy that they will now include childbirth or related medical conditions and status as a veteran. Our next policy is AD. This, we have no proposed revisions for, but as you see at the bottom there, it has not been reviewed or revised since 2013. This falls outside our requirement to review this policy every five years. So this is coming to you for that reason. It was discussed at the November 14th, 2019 work session, but at that time it was requested to delay the approval until after the new strategic plan was approved so that we could kind of sync this policy to come up for review each time after we have a new strategic plan so that they would be aligned. Okay, our third policy

093is AE. school division goals and objectives. Again, this has no changes since we all discussed it in November 2019. This was the second policy that was, there was a request put in to delay approving it until after the strategic plan was adopted so that it would be aligned. And again, this comes because it has hit the five-year review cycle. Our fourth policy is BBA, school board powers and duties. The revision tonight, if we scroll down a little bit on this one, is to reflect amendment of Virginia Code 22.1-79. Now, what this has done, if we scroll down a little further, please, there we go at the bottom of the page. The update here, and you will see this appear later on in policy CBA, the same statutory amendment is impacting both policies. So currently there

094is a requirement for the superintendent to review and identify and report critical shortages of teachers and administrative personnel by subject matter to the state superintendent and to VRS, the Virginia Retirement System. This particular section of the code was amended to also include identifying critical shortages of school bus drivers in that annual reporting as well. Okay, next we have BBFA, Conflict of Interests and Disclosure of Economic Interests. There is one very minor change to this policy. It is on page 12, but it is a timely change. This has to do with the annual disclosure statement submitted by school board members regarding any potential conflicts of interest and disclosing their economic interests. The change is that the clerk of the board is now required, if the clerk releases any disclosure forms, to now redact any school board

095members' private email address prior to that release, in addition to redacting the board members' residential address. any personal telephone number and the signature. So this has been expanded this past year by the General Assembly to add a personal email address to the list of items that are redacted prior to release. And this is timely and I'll just give a general reminder to the board right now, these disclosure forms are due by February 1st. Our next policy is BCF, Advisory Committees to the School Board, and we scroll down slightly. This also has a minor change, but it's an important clarification. This policy and the accompanying regulation, and Susan, it's fine if you want to either pull up the policy or the regulation, they have the same change. But we were trying to clarify that while our

096standing advisory committees to the school board have a maximum of 17 voting members, this does not apply to ad hoc committees. or other committees that are created under policy BCE, that this cap on the number of voting members applies to our standing advisory committees. So if we have something like a redistricting review committee again or another committee that is essentially an ad hoc committee called for a specific purpose and for a limited period of time, it is not subject to this limitation. And in our current policy and regulation, that was unclear. Next policy is BDD, electronic participation in meetings from remote locations. The only change in this policy is in this first sentence. It is to reflect the Acts of Assembly this past year, Chapter 1283, Section 4-0.01. You are more familiar with this new

097provision as the budget amendments of 2020, the governor's budget amendments. And the reason that this is important to add to our policy is because this was the authorization that allows electronic participation in meetings during. states of emergency as this board is meeting right now. This provision in the law, the budget amendments and citing that such things might happen as we are in the first sentence here is what allows this board meeting to go beyond the scope of merely discussing the actual emergency itself. So, as we know, this obviously was very unexpected, this pandemic, and in case something like this happens again, we want to have this provision in here that provides the authority for the board to meet electronically in such situations. The next policy is CBA, qualifications and duties for the superintendent. The revision

098in this policy is on page two. It reflects amendment of 22.1-70.3 this is the change that I mentioned earlier that expands the requirement for now the superintendent to also identify and report annually any critical shortages of school bus drivers. Next we have CF school building administration This policy does not have proposed changes other than updating its references, but it has been five years since this policy was reviewed, and so it needs to come before the board. And finally, tonight we have policy EBCD and its accompanying regulation, EBCDR. We can look at either one. They both have the same change. This is emergency school closures, delayed opening, and early dismissal regulations. We have made two minor changes, but we think they will have an impact, and that is we are changing the title to simplify it.

099In this very unusual year that we have had, it has been quite important for staff members to be aware of who is and who is not considered essential personnel, and staff have had a difficult time locating this policy because of the long and complex title, and that is not readily apparent that this type that this policy addressed essential personnel and who needs to report in which situation so we are trying to address that by changing the title make it easier for staff to find and identify and while we were doing that we have updated the titles in section 7 to reflect the reorganization of the department of facilities and operations so that we are up to date on our titles and so everything is is accurate Those are the policies for this evening. I'm happy

100to take any questions. Okay. So do we have any questions? We got Dr. Reif first. Thank you. Thanks for that, Ms. Abruzzese. I was wondering if the state is planning to do something to recruit bus drivers since they are asking for that information now. Do you have any insight into that? Yes. I do not. Perhaps Dr. Hutchings does. Not the state. You know, I wish they would, but that's not the case because everybody's struggling to try to get bus drivers. But we are definitely continuing to have our promotional kind of like outreach and that type of thing to recruit as well as retain our bus drivers. But I have not heard anything in regards to like a state kind of like recruitment effort, which really is needed. Okay, I have Miss Gentry and then Mr.

101Suarez. Thank you so much. My question was on BDD, the one about the electronic participation in meetings. And I just wanted to know, and it just occurred to me, you know, there has been some communication among elected officials for lobbying for making some changes related to participation in meetings that's like in front of the assembly right now. And so Mr. Aberzazy, I just wanted to know, do you anticipate that there might need to be further edits to this policy if in fact those are passed? Well, hopefully, the language, as you see in this first sentence, is broad enough that it would not require a change in the near term. And I think that's why it was drafted this way. However, if that occurs, of course, we will bring the policy back to you. There are

102certain policies, as you're well aware, especially, for instance, that conflicts of interest and disclosure of economic interest policy. which you just recently saw last year because there are certain policies that the General Assembly tends to return to year after year and tweak repeatedly. So this may come back to you, but hopefully I would say the language, hopefully it has been drafted broadly enough that it may not require a return. That's great. Thank you. And then I just on the last policy and you don't need to bring it up. This is just a question for me. I appreciated your point about the clarity about essential personnel. Would a would a person now be able to go to that place on the on the website where the policies is and type in essential personnel and boom, it

103would it would come up like fairly easily. Once the revision is approved by the board, yes, absolutely. And I appreciate the question because this is a great way to kind of plug our policy page. There is a search box on our policy page where you can type in any keyword. If that keyword is located within the body of a policy or within the title itself, then it should pull any policy up for you that has that keyword in it or in the title. It should pull up for you. Yes. And it does, just for everyone listening, it does work surprisingly well. I remember when I was a little doubtful that I thought, I'll just get a zillion written. It works pretty well. I was just going to say the same thing. It really works. Thank

104you so much, Ms. Aberzazy. Thanks, Chair Alderton. Yeah, and I was going to, thanks to Rami for, or Ms. Gentry for mentioning the change in the policy that's before the General Assembly on the meeting attendance, because I was going to ask the same question about that. And I'm glad that the policy will now be flexible enough to account for that, but we obviously may need to revisit it depending on what the legislation says. My other question was actually about the policy relating to the educational sort of philosophy of the division that we have to revisit every five years. And just, I don't know if that can be put up, but just sort of reading the language there, I did want to ask the board and staff if we did want to perhaps change some of

105the language in that policy. And as I read it, you know, in education, we talk a lot about sort of the difference between like equality and equity. And the way the policy is written now, it sort of says like ACPS is going to provide equal opportunity for every student. You know, but I wonder if. You know, we want to word it more about the educational vision that we've adopted in the strategic plan around racial equity is the heart of everything we do, because, you know, when we talk about equality versus equity in education, equity always is a stronger word and it always has more meaning to it. And I think we want to convey that we're we're really about achieving educational equity. And that doesn't necessarily mean, you know, equality of access for all kids.

106It may mean we're doing more. for kids who might need more supports to achieve the same outcome at the end of the day. So it was just sort of a question for Dr. Hutchings, staff and the board, if this is something, and I don't know if we're going to finish this today, but is this policy where we're going to want to tweak the language? I certainly think I'd want to maybe look at this more closely to make sure it's aligned better with the strategic plan. Mr. Suarez, thank you so much for that question because that gives me an opportunity to mention our equity audit of our school board policies. You've raised a great point. I've brought it to you today so that we can come back into compliance since it has been well over five

107years to review this policy. But for members of the public who are not aware, we are undergoing an equity audit of all of our policies and this policy and a few of our other foundational policies as well as some of our policies that directly relate to students. are included in the first batch of policies that are going to be reviewed by our partners and consultants. And so the board, of course, could propose revisions to this right now, but I believe that our partner, IDRA South, will be proposing extensive revisions to some of these foundational policies. So it may be better to look at them as a group when they bring their recommendations back. But I, of course, defer to the board. Yeah, that sounds good to me. And I obviously understand we're just trying to

108make sure we're in compliance for purposes of today. But if this is included in the batch of those policies, then that sounds good to me. That's a great point, Mr. Suarez. Thank you. And so, Jennifer, it is included in that batch of policies? Yes. Yes, it is. Good. All right. Ms. Thornton. Thank you, Madam Chair. And as always, thank you, Ms. Abbruzzese. You're always very thorough and keep us on our toes. I had two quick questions about. policy CBA and BBA, which are both related due to the same statutory change. And that's pertaining to the requirement for the school board that at least annually we identify critical shortages of teachers and administrative personnel and bus drivers. So the first question being, in policy CBA, there's a little line that says for the superintendent in D5.

109upon request of the school board, the superintendent will survey the school division and it describes those duties. I was wondering if it would... be helpful. Like, do we even need that line upon request of the school board? Because this is something the superintendent, you know, should be doing annually anyways. And I'm hoping that the school board shouldn't have to request it each time. So I was just wondering, do we need that line? And then number two, and this might be more for Dr. Hutchings. Dr. Hutchings, like what do you, under what circumstances do you envision that the board would see this report? would it be as part of like the budget process in which we're talking about the compensation studies or whatever? Because I'm wondering if that would even be helpful to also include like

110as part of the combined funds budget process, the superintendent will provide this report. So do you think we need to be that specific? Thank you so much for the question. I'll take the first one and I'll give the second half to Dr. Hutchings. It's funny you mentioned this because in reviewing these again today, I was looking at that sentence. And I think the intention is that the requirement is, and you see in the second half of the sentence there, at least annually. But I think the intention was that above and beyond that, if the board requests. these numbers more than annually, well, then it's written into policy that the board can do so. But at the same time, to your point, I think by writing at least annually, you could achieve the same result. So,

111you know, we can tweak that language, absolutely. But I think the point was it is definitely annually and more frequently if the board so desires. And the second half of the question, Dr. Hutchings, I don't know if you would like to take that. Yeah, and this is a part of the work that we already do through our HR department. We do have to submit to the state an annual kind of update in regards to like critical shortages and where we stand in regards to our staffing and vacancies and openings and things of that nature. So this all, and this is around the time now, because I know I just approved it. I don't know if it's around this time now because of COVID. Or if this is generally when it's done, and Dr. Wilkins, you

112might be able to help me in regards to that. I'm just familiar with it this second because I just approved it this week. But that is a document that we do have to submit. But I foresee this being something that the board wouldn't have to ask. It should be a part of us providing an annual update in regards to the staffing component. But Dr. Wilkins, is there something you want to add there? I think I would only add that we concur that it would be better to just make it part of the HR annual update, if you will. The other aspect of this is that the state also tracks. critical shortages so that they can open up or provide a waiver, if you will, for retirees to occupy those positions during critical shortages. So it's

113really a process that we look at regularly. And again, if the board can provide us some flexibility there to just provide an annual update, we would appreciate it. And Ms. Thornton, I'm happy to massage the language before it comes back to the board to really make it clear that the requirement is annually and it would only be upon request if it is more frequently than that. That would be great. Thank you. Okay. Well, it is 731, team. High five, everybody. We are done for the evening. And look forward to seeing you next, unless there are any other questions. I just wanted to make one quick comment before we go. And that is next week is our principal appreciation week. And I think it's important for you all to know that we have a lot of

114wonderful things in store for our principals to show our gratitude for all that they have done and endorsed these past few months. So just to let you all know, as well as our community, if there's anything, if you just want to shoot an email or send a card to our principals, I know it will be greatly appreciated. for them to hear from our board members, as well as from our community members. But we're going to be doing a full kind of effort next week. So you'll hear some more things about some opportunities for you all to get involved with a couple of things. Awesome. Well, thank you, everybody. Please have a wonderful, restful evening, and we will see you next time we meet.