February 16, 2021 Enhanced Continuity of Learning Zoom Meeting Work Session

001All right, so good evening, everyone, and welcome to our work session this evening. Hope everybody is doing all right. So we have one topic in our work session this evening, and that is our phase reentry update. So there's not much more to say other than that, and I will turn it over to Dr. Hutchins. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. And as you all know, we still are appreciating our school board. So you all still get showered with love and with all of our gratitude and appreciation. And today, after our work session, Veronica Tellez is going to be sending you all a link. to all of the wonderful comments that our principals, directors, and the superintendent and senior leaders have had to say about the school board. Because we couldn't just, I didn't want to bombard

002everybody with emails because you all get enough of them every day. So we did this kind of Google Doc that allowed people to go in and speak on behalf of their departments or their schools. just to share, you know, why we appreciate you all so much. So that is our gift for today to show our gratitude. So it is still a school board appreciation month in the month of February. And we are so fortunate to have each and every one of you as our school board members. So thank you for your service. We appreciate it. So I want to get right into our presentation for today. I know that we have a couple of updates that we wanted to share with our board, because as you all can imagine, it is so much going on

003with this transition and just with everything else, just in general, as we're all just trying to get ready to welcome back some of our students back into our school buildings. And, you know, I have to tell you that and we're going to share some preliminary data with you all today. But we do have, you know, some more of our staff who are able to get back into our school buildings, which is a good thing. We're seeing some of these preliminary numbers now coming out. Our principals right now are going through each of their classroom data to see what that is going to look like in regards to our classroom monitors. And I hope to be sharing some more information with the board. this Thursday during my superintendent's update. So sharing out information, not necessarily a

004PowerPoint presentation that we're planning to do on Thursday. But a part of this work in order to have this transition, it requires us to have a really good team. And I just have to say that every single one of our senior leaders and our principals and our directors, they have been working hand in hand over the past several weeks, just trying to make sure that we're thinking through all of the different possibilities, because it seems that, you know, every decision we make. there's also an implication that comes along with it and it never goes away. So no matter what we do, there is always a problem. I mean, there's nothing that's going to solve everything. And I just hope that the board, as well as our community, can understand that there is no perfect solution

005to this situation. There is no decision that we can make to make everyone happy. And there is no decision that we can make to get every single person back into our school buildings, because right now we have CDC guidelines that we have to follow. And, you know, I want to say this in a way, and I want to just, you know, preface my comments by saying I'm not trying to discourage anybody from wanting to come back to school or anything like that with the comments that I'm about to say. What I want to just say is that we have to accept that opening our school buildings is not going to solve all of our issues. Opening our school buildings is not going to take us back to how things were prior to March 13th. Because

006we're opening our school buildings with masks on. We're opening our school buildings with social distancing. We're opening our school buildings with guidelines on where people can sit, where people can stand, how you eat in the school. Can you go to the bathroom? When can you go to the bathroom? I mean, there are so many restrictions. that go along with this and to make sure that we have the appropriate health and safety mitigations in place. So we're not doing this just to make it just because we want to do it or to make lives difficult, right? We're trying to follow these health and safety mitigations and we are going to have to accept this is not going to solve all of our issues. We're going to have to also accept that we're going to have a

007shift in what groups will now have issues and problems. Because some people who have problems with virtual, and now we're going to have a group of people who have problems with hybrid. So we're going to have to understand there's going to be a shift of what the new problems are going to come. And I'm already beginning to hear, you know, in our community as well as in this region, now people want to go to five days and two days is not enough. And that's going to be the next wave that's going to come in. Right. So this is going to be a long term kind of issue, you know, for all of us. But we are going to, you know. We're going to work through everything that we possibly can, and we're going to do

008everything that's feasible, and we will continue to be strategic and methodical in our approach as we transition. So I wanted to open with that, and then I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Mozingo, who will begin our presentation and going through our objectives for today, and then we're going to hear our community health metrics. Dr. Mozinga. Yes, good evening everyone. Thank you, Dr. Hutchins and Madam Chair. I'll go to the next slide. Okay, what I'd like to just quickly highlight for you, for the community, the audience that's viewing, here are three essential questions to guide our presentation tonight. As the superintendent has already mentioned, we will provide an update in terms of the current health guidance. Our work is still being guided by the Center for Disease and Control, the Virginia Department of Health,

009as well as the Alexandria Health Department. And we want to continue to convey that each time we present or share out. Next, as he indicated, we will provide you an update in terms of the groups that efforts are working towards bringing in March the 2nd, 2021 through March the 16th. And finally, we have a few updates, some of the strategic efforts that are underway to reopen our schools here in Alexandria. At this time, I'll turn it over to Dr. Herring, the director of the Alexandria Health Department. Good evening, Dr. Herring. Health Director Alexandra, thanks for having me here. These metrics we've looked at before and going forward, I think we're actually going to see a different set of metrics or at least the way these are presented. Once again, on the left side, the upper

010part is the risk of transmission within a school setting. And it's really the risk of transmission in any setting. The CDC for this has ranked these from lowest to highest risk. And then the core indicators are two of the indicators. on the bottom left. And the first is the total number of new cases per 100,000 over the past 14 days. And as you can see, this is 317. This is one and a half times what it takes to actually be in the highest risk category. The other is the percent positivity. That's 6 point, I think it's 9%. And that is in the yellow range, which is a moderate risk. Both of these categories, these indicators that we've seen drop. On the right side is the secondary indicators. We've also seen these drop, the percent of

011new cases per 100,000 over the past seven days compared to the prior seven days. And that's an encouraging thing. One of the things that we watch a lot at the health department is the percent of hospital beds that are occupied, the percent that are occupied by COVID patients. We're seeing improvement in both of those because, you know, if you're really sick and you need a... You need a hospital bed or you need an ICU bed, you want to have it available. And that has had some market improvement. I want to get back to the core indicators on the left side. And that is the ability of the school to implement the five key mitigation strategies. And Dr. Hutchings has mentioned a couple of those. The correct and consistent use of masks, the social distancing, the

012hand sanitization, the respiratory etiquette. as well as collaboration with the health department. Our recommendation is that from what I've seen with ACPS is doing, what they're projecting to do, that would be a green category if we were doing that. I have recommended, and I know it's not popular, we work with any school or any school system that is under our domain, regardless of the choices that are made. We have recommended that... sports be delayed, any sports where athletes are within 10 feet of each other are delayed until we have better control of this pandemic. Again, whatever way a school system or schools go, we continue to work with people. But I just know from other experiences here in Alexandria and elsewhere that where we see cases and where we see outbreaks are when people are

013not following the mitigation strategies. And there's no way you can follow the mitigation strategies in Russell, for instance. And so I'm just putting that out there, that my recommendation is no athletics at this point, but do whatever clubs and things that one can do and maintain the mitigation strategies. So that's it for me. One thing, before we go to the next slide, Dr. Herring, can you talk to, today I was on a call with the superintendent, the state superintendent, and he shared with us that the CDC has made some revisions to reopening and some of the guidelines. And one of the specific areas that I wanted to ask you about, I don't know if you already have read about this or are aware of this. But they had talked about the CDC changing it from

014five levels to four levels and then focusing on the seven day per 100,000 versus the 14 day per 100,000. Have you heard that? Yes, and I'm sorry my camera keeps going in and out. I have heard that and have looked at the CDC guidance. So there's going to be, again, a different look at this. And I know Virginia Department of Health, Dr. Hutchings, I've reached out to them to say, when are we going to get the new guidance? When is Virginia Department of Health going to adopt this and provide more specific guidance for Virginia? And I know they're reaching out to DOE, the Department of Education, to work hand-in-hand with them like they have. you know, back in July and again in November, more recently in January. So I'm anticipating that that, I'm hoping that

015comes within the next week so that it's useful for the decision-making locally here in Alexandria. Thank you. I think that that was an important component. Another piece that I think is important in regards to athletics is we've been having discussions with our athletic director around families whose children are still wanting to participate in athletics, that there just be some form of disclaimer that families do sign. Because I really do believe that when we have the athletic, I'm sorry, the Alexandria Health Department saying. You should not participate in sports. But then you have families say, I want to participate in sports. And then you have the Virginia High School League saying, I'm going to offer the sports. Well, if you all want to take the risk to do that, then that's your prerogative. But I want

016us to be excluded from any liability in regards to that. And that's giving families that choice that everybody wants to have so desperately. So that's one thing that we have been discussing, just making sure that, you know, if we're going to offer some of these athletic programs that families, you know, they are signing that they are aware. that our Alexandria Health Department has not recommended that and that they're choosing to continue to do that particular sport. That's a little different than when we're doing school, right? Because in school, we are able to follow 100% of our health and safety mitigation. So there's no need for us to... write a disclaimer because we're already following that and we're getting some kind of, you know, negative attention about following those, but we're going to stay true to

017keeping our six foot distancing in place. You know, I'm not understanding, which we'll be talking about later on today, how school divisions are actually able to get more than 10 kids on a bus because when you're following the CDC, God, when you're following six foot distancing, you can't get more than 10 kids on a bus. So I don't know how that is possible. We've tried every way to do it. You can't. So unless you don't follow, you know, that six foot distancing rule. So we are we're going to be able to, you know, be able every week to say we're following these health mitigations. We're not going to try to cut corners and to make exceptions. If any exception is made, then somebody is going to be taking that that that chance. Right. That's not

018something that we're going to just say it's open and free for all. We're going to keep going. Yes, and this is, we just wanted to restate again our commitment to ensuring that we support these groups of students. Many of you are aware that early on the decision was made to identify students with the greatest needs to provide to also meet the needs of our youngest learners as well as our students with disabilities and English learners. And what we show here again is that The work that is occurring, the planning, the many efforts that are underway is to continue to support groups of students returning as indicated on this slide with a group on Tuesday, March the 2nd, another one on Tuesday, March the 9th, and Tuesday, March the 16th. You'll begin to hear more information

019around efforts underway to support the safe return of these groups of students. But just wanted to... highlight that again for the public. And again, this is still continued upon certain factors as we've outlined on several occasions. Now I'll turn it over to Dr. Wilkins. Hi, thank you, Dr. Mozingo. Good afternoon, board members. Dr. Wilkins, chief of staff. I have two slides. I'll first cover our staff return to work. data and vaccination data and then also talk about classroom monitors. So on this slide, you'll see the statistics that have come in from this form. And I won't read it deliberately, but left side shows our return to work status. On the right column shows our vaccination status. What's interesting to note in the return to work status is approximately 60% of our FTE are able to

020return. These numbers are approximate because some of these numbers do include other substitute staff and some other workers that aren't necessarily full-time FTE. But approximately 60% of FTEs are able to return to the in-site or in-school work plan. And then, of course, we have some who are unable to return due to health. concerns or child care concerns, and you can see the numbers there. Again, each person who cannot return will be contacted individually by Human Resources and go through an interactive process to produce some documentation to validate their status. And then once that's completed, the person or the employee will receive a letter of approval from HR to remain on work status pending some change in their particular condition. On the right side column is our vaccination status. And I'll read these here because there's

021a little bit of shorthand here. But we had six choices in that selection. So when we say no disclosure, that means that the person did not or the employee did not want to participate in the survey. Approximately 141. The next line is it's not taking the vaccination. We have 264 who are waiting for their first appointment. 779 who had had their first dosage and they are waiting for their second appointment. Approximately 598 have their first dose taken and they have an appointment for their second shot, but they have not yet taken that. And then a grand total of 36 who have completed the entire series or two shots or two doses, if you will. And you can see the totals that are there. Again, the difference in the numbers, it depends on the participation of

022our employees and HR will work through those numbers in the days ahead. Again, these are contacted by individuals, so it will take some time to get through these numbers and they'll be refined as we go along. But that's how we're looking right now with respect to our work status, as well as our vaccination status. Next slide, please. So where are we at on classroom monitors? I want to remind the board that we're using two approaches to recruiting these people. First of all is our temp staffing agency. And that group will hire classroom monitors and our hallway screeners. And then within our HR office, we will hire the health annex monitors and special needs monitors. Our hiring goal next week is to hit about 100 classroom monitors. about 20 health annex monitors and 20 special needs

023monitors. So this week is our count. Hopefully get these folks through the process and the final check of the process at the background check process. So again, we hope to have these numbers achieved by next week. But again, it all depends on that background check process. But people are moving through on the selection process. Once we get them through the selection process, the following week, we want to make sure that these monitors get trained because we can't put anyone into the schools unless they've been trained. And there's two components to this. So there's a day one, day two approach. Day one would be a school tour and day two would be a central office orientation. The big thing about the school tour is that this has to take place on site. The monitor must be

024escorted through the school, oriented to the school, and go through a series of required training. So for example, emergency drills must be done so that that monitor is able to function in a safe and satisfactory way with the students in the building. Separate from the classroom monitor training, I do want to emphasize that our special needs monitors and our health antics monitors will receive specialized training from those departments. So those folks will be trained separately from the larger groups so that they have that required training for their particular location. That concludes my briefing on the classroom monitors and our work status. I'll transition to Dr. Hart who will talk about our transportation update. Thank you so much, Dr. Wilkins, and good evening, board and viewing public. I'm going to give a very quick update on

025our transportation piece and where we are. As stated last week, based on our number of students that are eligible for transportation, we do continue to have a challenge regarding routing our hybrid students within one run. And essentially, if our capacity constraint is not lessened, then we will have to complete our runs using the double run model. which does mean that in turn, there will be students that are arriving to school after the first bell, as well as students arriving home later than normal. To provide some additional context to that capacity constraint piece, I know Dr. Hutchings mentioned earlier regarding the number of students that could fit on a bus. I'll give an example of a 77 passenger bus. At this point, in order for us to maintain the six foot of social distancing, we are

026averaging eight students per bus. So you can see how that. how that drops, excuse me, from 77 passengers to eight passengers. We did in an effort to make sure that we could try to reach out to all of our families that are eligible for transportation in this hybrid model, we did send out a transportation choice form. That form closed on Friday. We did have roughly 1,800 non-respondents, which means that those non-respondents have to be opted into transportation because, of course, we want to make sure that we are not opting out that many individuals from transportation, which means that there's a high likelihood of having to do a double run, a model strategy in order to transport all of our hybrid students. Again, we do continue to ask for our parents' support in transporting students to

027school, encouraging students to walk if age appropriate, and of course, within the walk zone parameters, utilizing DASH as an option. And then also having students drive to school if they are of age and license. I want to quickly turn it over to our Director of Pupil Transportation and Fleet Management, Scott Merriman, to give some additional information regarding eligibility criteria for transportation. Thank you, Dr. Hart. Good afternoon, board members. To expand on the conversation of what is a student that's eligible for transportation. We took the hybrid model that was returned on those students that are coming back into the classrooms and every one of those students that would have been provided transportation in previous years was included in the transportation choice form. So out of those 1,800 students that we have not received their response on,

028we have included them in our route planning. But that put all of those students... that were equal or afforded the transportation from years past right back into the same opportunities that we provide as a school district. Additionally, you know, with the eight foot, eight students on a bus for six foot distancing. We are planning to also identify each one of those students so that we will have a medication protocol in place. So I hope this helps explain the walk zones were not impacted. There was no recommendation to change a walk zone district wide, nor should there have been. But this will impact us when it comes to our bell schedules should the load or the capacity of those students is not lessened. And I'll return this back to Dr. Hart. Thank you so much, Mr.

029Merriman. And I believe now I'm turning it over to Dr. Mozingo. I think it's me. So thank you, Dr. Hart. And good evening, members of the board. I'll take a moment to highlight several areas of our Reignite Mondays as we move through our reopening. First is last Monday, where our school leaders met with their staff members to hear concerns and really listen to any feedback that they had. They gathered questions that the principal submitted the same day to communications and to central office. We were able to take those questions, respond, and provide responses to most of the questions, part one, if you will, 16 pages, last Friday as a part of the ACPS Insider. Additionally, we have a staff support circle where we've brought in a guest facilitator, excuse me, for three staff supports. She

030is a trained restorative practices facilitator. Her name is Dr. Sarah Fetterman. She's an assistant professor at the University of Baltimore. She had her first circle last Monday where we had about 20 people. So it was a pretty intense day last week. We had hoped for higher numbers and I'm happy to say that today we did see some higher numbers. We were closer to 50 with staff members who came into the support circle just to talk and we thought it was important to have a safe space, if you will, with a third party. Maybe there was something that you wanted to discuss that you weren't comfortable sharing at a staff meeting. So I thank Ms. Wood and Mr. Baldwin and Ms. James who were at the center of bringing in our guest facilitator. We have one

031other opportunity for Dr. Fetterman next Monday, February 22nd. We will be pushing up the information again. Any staff members who either haven't participated or have participated and would like to do another one are able to join next Monday. They're after school. So again, we appreciate the team's work in bringing in our guest facilitator. Last thing to highlight is Let's Talk Tuesday, which Dr. Hutchings, and it sounds like many of you also participated in or listened in this afternoon. Dr. Hutchings had three representatives from EAA as well as TAC who served as... questions and provide him an opportunity to respond to any of the areas that came up during that panel discussion. We are excited to continue these different areas of outreach. We had about 575 people this afternoon, I believe. So very exciting, looking for

032ways to really reach out and hear from our staff in ways, hopefully safe environments where they can ask whatever questions and concerns that they have and we can provide up-to-date, reliable information on our reopening. So with that, I am going to turn it back to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you very much. Okay, I'm going to turn things over to Madam Chair to open the floor for questions. Okay, thank you everyone for that presentation. And so the floor is now open for questions from the school board. All right, I have Ms. Anderson and then Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Alderton. I just want to, I saw the, that we are encouraging students to drive if they can. I just want to make sure that we've taken care of, in that case, the Chinquapin Circle and not being

033able to, not having to have a permit to park there because there's not much, I mean, or are we going to let everybody park in the garage? I mean, I just want to make sure, I imagine if everybody, we'd have more space now. I just wanted to understand about that. I'm sorry, I will jump in unless Dr. Hutchings, I wasn't sure if you were getting ready to say, okay. So thank you so much, Ms. Anderson. We are working on what our general parking plan would be since we are encouraging students to drive, that includes the permit process. I apologize, I do not have Erica Gulick on the call who normally handles that piece for us, but I do know that that is under discussion to make sure, we're trying to lessen any red tape and

034make sure that we are providing the spaces needed for our students. who do drive to school to park in those spaces. Thank you. Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Madam Chair. I had two questions. One was relating to the transportation as well. It sounded like there were over 1,000, maybe 1,600 or so, I think was the number, families who haven't responded to the form yet. And obviously, the fact that we might have to have some kids coming in late with the double runs, that does make me a little nervous. Obviously there's some learning loss with that, that would, you know, and logistical issues that would arise from that. So I'm just sort of wondering, what are we doing to sort of follow up with those families to try to reduce those numbers and sort of going to

035Ms. Anderson's point about encouraging students to drive? Are we... putting out messaging, sort of encouraging families to the extent they're able to, to use their own private transportation to drop off students and things like that. Because obviously the more we can get that number down, the better. So that was my first question. And I don't know if Madam Chair wants me to loop back to the back for my other one. So, but I'll stop there for now. Okay, so thank you so much, Mr. Suarez. So yes, I can share that it's been a collective effort in terms of communication and reaching out to our non-respondent families, and it continues to be. That effort includes our communications department, our helpline, our transportation department. The principals have also agreed to help reach out to those families that

036are non-respondents to just ask them to confirm their need for transportation or if they are planning to bring their students to school. So that effort continues. We do agree. It is in our best interest to try to minimize the impact of double runs where possible. And our best way to do that is to really get those non-respondents to confirm what their transportation needs are. So we are definitely reaching out through multiple departments and multiple avenues to reach these families. I think it is important to mention that we did have about, was it a little over 700? I'm trying to think of the number of families who decided they were. 750. 750 families that actually noted that they would use their own transportation to transport their students. I believe it was 400 on the primary level

037and 350 on the secondary level. Thank you. Mr. Suarez, would you like to ask your second question? Yeah, it was just a brief question relating to slide five on the return to school and vaccination data. I was just doing kind of back of the envelope calculations and it looks like about 1,600 staff were able to return and it looks like about 1,600 or so also. either have gotten both doses of the vaccine or on track to at least go through the vaccination process. So I was just curious if we have, is that pretty much a one-to-one correspondence, I guess is my question, or are there some instances where teachers are getting the vaccines but still indicating they can't go because of health reasons or other reasons? I just wanted to kind of get a sense

038of that. Yes, so we haven't done that analysis yet. So I mean, it's a good inference that you're making, but we haven't done the actual analysis to show the full data. What we are currently doing right now is looking at each individual member and then also including, you know, where they stand with their vaccinations and we can do more of, you know, to provide more statistics. in regards to that, but we have not done that actual analysis at this point, not yet. But it is one of the things that we are going to do with our data. We were just first trying to determine how many classroom monitors we're going to need and disaggregating this data by teachers and classrooms first to give us a better idea of, okay, well, how does this impact the

039number of classroom monitors we're going to need since they're not coming in in rows of... hundreds and hundreds. So we're really trying to figure out how do we, you know, if we're going to need to, what are going to be our alternative plans if those numbers are still high like they were a few weeks ago, how we're going to be able to mitigate that. Thank you. Ms. Nolan. Thank you, Chair Alderson. And thank you so much to everyone. I mean, just it's such a daunting task, obviously, right now and a Herculean effort to get students back into the school. So if there's one thing we can be positive about, it's the tremendous team that's been assembled to really focus on this. So thank you, everyone, for your presentation and all the hard work behind the

040scenes. Dr. Hutchings, I'm actually going to give a tribute to my colleague, Mr. Suarez. I'm going to learn from you, Mr. Suarez, as a lawyer and actually ask one question when really there's like four points to it. So forgive me. But, you know, I've learned from you. I've learned from the best. So this is meant to be a tribute to you. So, Dr. Hutchings, putting my teacher hat on. I'm thinking, I'm channeling myself as a former teacher. If you don't mind walking me through four different situations that I imagine are top of mind as a teacher. Number one, I'm trying to figure out if I'm going back into my classroom, what assurances am I getting in terms of like the HVAC and the understanding that my classroom is a safe space? So that's one question.

041The second is, is that what kind of specific, if you could talk to what kind of allotment of time am I being given to prep to go back into my classroom, set it up, get the professional development I'm going to need and how to do that. And then my third question is, have we given thought to once I'm in the classroom. with concurrent teaching. So I'm having some of my students obviously attending virtually and some in person. Have we given any thought to any barriers with the mask and how is that going to work in terms of like all the PPE that I'm going to need as a teacher? And then the fourth and final question, I'll repeat all of these, I've gotten them written down, is that I noticed that one of the barriers

042for some teachers returning is childcare. Is that something that we've given any thought to in terms of... you know, any support or people could provide or in that effort. So again, it's HVAC in the classroom, making sure I'm walking back into a safe space. Number two, what kind of prep am I getting ahead of time to ensure that I'm prepared to not only my classroom, but then the PD that's needed to concurrent teaching. And then once I'm in the classroom, any barriers or thoughts we have about the mask? And then the fourth is, is there any support we can provide with child care in an effort to get more teachers into the classroom? So I'm going to ask for Dr. Hart to assist with the first question in regards to the HVAC. And we get

043to see Taylor today. If you can talk, but if you can't, let me know and we'll come back to you. So I'll move on if you can. I can talk. I'm just distracting with snacks right now. So I'm sorry. We have all been there, Dr. Hart. In regards to the first question with HVAC, we actually just updated and shared an HVAC FAQ to our webpage. That particular FAQ does speak to, in a level of specificity, what we have done with our HVAC systems to include a site-specific listing of all of the repairs and updates that have been made. and welcome all the repairs and updates that have been made since last year. So I do think that that information would be extremely helpful for our staff and community to look at. So that way they

044can be up to date on everything that we've done from the HVAC and ventilation standpoint. Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Hart, so much again. Your staff has done just such a phenomenal job. I mean, I know none of us wanted this to happen, but the opportunity that you and your team took to get the buildings ready and all of your hard work, we just all, we're very grateful and very lucky to have you in your role. So thank you. Thank you. And I was going to ask for Dr. Mozingo to help with question number two in regards to the preparation time that teachers will have. I know we've been having discussions about our Reignite Mondays and those types of things. providing staff opportunities to get prepared for students return? Yes, I will help answer

045that question. A couple of responses. One is that we know that, for example, on March the 2nd, that's the first date, right? So we know that in order for that group of teachers to be prepared, we need to work out a schedule for those teachers to return. prior to that week. So we are working with operations and with our principals to identify days and times for teachers to come into the building to get prepared for their classes. We have already had some teachers in the buildings to kind of get prepared. We've had a schedule before when they've worked, when they've been collecting materials, but we'll do that again in terms of helping teachers get prepared. prior to. I think the other way I want to respond to your question is after we get started, we

046also are going to make sure that we dedicate Mondays. Mondays will be time. that teachers will have about five hours of dedicated planning for preparation and planning for Tuesday through Friday. So one is, yes, there will be a commitment working with our schools. We'll have to organize all of that for teachers to enter prior to, to be able to set up their classrooms, to be able to make sure that they are actually prepared for the students that are scheduled on those three dates. Yeah, and one thing I do want to add just to this really quickly, Ms. Nolan, is that the desk and things have already been set up. In regards to setup are already done. A teacher will be coming into the classroom to get acclimated to like some people do like certain things

047on their walls. trying to get reestablished with some of their materials because they haven't been in school for a year in the classroom. So they happen to get reestablished to actually having their materials and manipulatives and things of that nature in the classroom that they can actually work with. So I just wanted to make it clear. Typically, start the year, teachers are moving desk, moving tables. Our thank you to all of our custodial staff and our maintenance group. because that was done for all of our teachers in all of our classrooms already. So they will not be coming having to move boxes. They may have to go through some of their boxes though, because there are certain materials that they may want out of that. And that takes time, especially if you are a teacher

048who's seasoned and have a lot of stuff, right? You're going to have to go through more than others. And we want to make sure they have some of that time to prep. Got it. And thank you so much. And Dr. Mazinga, if you don't mind me asking two follow-up questions to what you shared. Number one is, how much time will the teachers get in advance notice to know what time they have to prep and all of that? And then the second question is, I know Mondays, if I'm not mistaken, I believe a previous meeting shared with us that Mondays have been spent with a lot of meetings and things that informing teachers and professional development information they need to get through the week. Are we going to be more mindful then once we're returning to

049the school about... It sounds like Mondays, your goal is to have that be more secured for the planning that's needed to prepare. So are we going to be mindful of that in terms of scheduling teacher time on Mondays? Yes, I'll do the latter and then come to your form. Or how about that? So that's okay for you. But yes, we just had even another discussion today with the principals about really protecting that Monday. They all understand that that is priority. They need to have that time. And so they're going to protect Mondays for planning time for teachers because, right, so we made a commitment to that. The other is you ask how soon, as soon as possible. That means that we really need to start a schedule prior to the week of March the 2nd

050for teachers to be able to access their classrooms. So we will be working with principals and facilities to make sure that we can get that schedule as soon as possible for our teachers. I wanted to also, if I could, Dr. Hutchins, I can speak to the question around concurrent instruction if you would like me to do that. Yes, please. So I got a great email today from Dr. Dr. Gerald Mann. It was great because it was about concurrent instruction. He just so every Monday, I know that Corey has been providing some training on this concept of concurrent instruction, what it is in Alexandria, what it should look like. And actually just this I think it was this past last week we had about a drill. Correct me if I'm incorrect. About 200. teachers that attended

051the professional learning. So there is a real commitment, Ms. Nolan and others, to provide as much training to this notion of concurrent instruction. We also have a weekly newsletter that goes out that provides a lot of updates around what concurrent instruction is, what it isn't. But I thought I would maybe ask Dr. Mann to just help just kind of so you could have a real sense of what is occurring. to build the skill set of our teachers and to reduce some of their concerns around concurrent instruction. Thank you, Dr. Zingle. And thank you, Ms. Nolan. For the question, yes, Dr. Dr. He's not a doctor. Mr. Kapelsky has been working tirelessly on curating. resources for teachers on a Canvas page that has been up and running for a couple of weeks now. And we're continuing

052to build out modules for our staff. And we're actually working with educational elements on some more resources that we hope to have up later this week. And then also we're continuing to, as Dr. Mazzinico indicated, in the pursuit of excellence, giving teachers tips and ideas. We're also reaching out to other school systems and having conversations with them in ways that we can continue to support our teachers. And then lastly, on March 5th, we're also having Katlyn Tucker come in and do a session for elementary and for secondary on concurrent and blended instruction. And so this is a moving target, as we all know, because we haven't done it yet. But we're continuing to build resources. And the one thing that, as you've heard Dr. Hutchings mention over all of these updates and all of the

053team, flexibility. So giving the teachers the ability to have some synchronous sessions. And so Mr. Kropelsky will be holding synchronous sessions again on the 22nd, but also that these are recorded. So if you want to plan at 9 p.m. you can or if you're up at 4am like I am with my youngest daughter, you can also do it then. And so trying to make sure that people have the time when they need to, when they're available to really dig in and learn at their own time and pace. And the third question, and as we're going into the third question, Ms. Nolan, I do want to point out that we are trying to work with those teachers for March 2nd, where students are returning March 2nd first. So these are teachers in K-5 for EL and

054special ed. We're trying to make sure we get to that group first in regards to getting into their classrooms. But so we're not having it. It's an open door where everybody comes all at one time. We're trying to stagger it so that, you know, you have at least. two opportunities prior to your time where students are returning to be able to get into your classrooms, meaning like two Mondays prior to. But we're going to have a schedule that's going on. I know we're still working through all those logistics. You had a question about child care, but what was before the child care question? I was just curious. I know with the masks, have we given thought to how is it going to be teaching with masks if I'm in the classroom? half my students are

055virtually joining and then I'm in person. I have students who English is not their first language. Like, I'm just curious about how, I'm just, you know, how are we going to do that with like masks and the PPE and things of that nature? And some, you know, Believe it or not, some staff, they do wear masks now because they're in certain environments where they have to. But what we are encouraging people to do, and we're going to start promoting this, and we probably should with our families as well, is having your kids wear, the kids who have signed to Come Back to Hybrid, to have them start wearing their mask while they're talking at home because that will give them... them some practice prior to and just some experience so that your first time wearing

056the mask all day is not your first day coming back. And this is something that, you know, we really do need to make sure that we're reiterating to our families as well as to our staff prior to coming back because it does require some practice to get used to it. You know, I mean, it's very different. I had to wear my mask the whole day when I was doing our tours for those two days. the whole entire day for like eight hours. It was difficult doing that because I just wasn't accustomed to having that on my face. My nose was running and everything else, right? So I had to learn this is what happens because I haven't worn my mask all day before. But these are some experiences that we need to, and thanks for

057bringing that point up. to our staff as well as our families, because we do have some opportunities now to practice before wearing the mask. Like we can do that in a way to see like, how do I project my voice? Because you are going to be speaking even when our teachers are in person, you know, they still are gonna be speaking and it's gonna be captured through the mic of, you know, our, you know, technology. We're virtual. So we're going to have to really project our voices and make sure that we're practicing how to do that. So the question in regards to child care, I'm going to ask for Mr. Huffman to share just some of the challenges that we know our staff are having in regards to child care. And what are some of

058the things that we're doing to try to support them? Hi, good evening, everybody. Thanks, Dr. Hutchings. As we all know, we've had this amazing program with our partners for child care going from the beginning of the school year, which resulted in about 260 children having free child care through an identified process with Tidal. one, and then also several hundred additional students that are through partners in a fee-based or sliding scale or scholarship type of program through these partners. We knew that when students came back or coming back into a hybrid model that we would have to kind of look at what space could be allocated to keep these programs rolling. And so thanks to the amazing work of our facilities and operations department. And our team, we've really looked at how with this data we're

059getting about staff coming back, where can we fit students for child care in a hybrid model? And it looks pretty good. We're still working on a couple little challenges, but it looks good. So that was our first step. We had to make sure we could keep these programs rolling. And it looks really good to keep them rolling, which is very promising for us in terms of child care for those students that are currently getting them. Then we needed to look at, okay, if we have staff who need childcare in Alexandria, what do we do for them? What are some supports we could give them? And so we've been asking our current partners, do you have slots that may be available to add a couple students here and there with your programs? So we've got that

060kind of request out there to answer some questions from them as they kind of look at now that they know they can probably continue their programs. But also, we thought it was really important to give staff resources to look and find what's best for them for child care. And so we've done two things. One is on our website for child care, we have a listing of Alexandria sites that have child care. And I'm going to give you a little update in just a second about that one. And then the second thing we've done is I've created a kind of a spreadsheet. of resources for all neighboring districts because we know staff don't always live in Alexandria, of course. So Falls Church in Arlington, I put resources for child care so that they could go out

061there, search, see what's available for them, find the right fit for them, and potentially sign up for child care that they need in those districts through these different providers. There's an additional update I found out today that the Alexandria Emergency Child Care Coalition put out a survey to all potential partners in Alexandria and asked them, hey, can you give me all your information? Can you give me your contact? Can you give me where you are, your phone numbers, everything? And she expects to have that list completed by, she said, by the end of the week, which is great. And then she's going to give that list to me. And I'm going to post it for our staff to see that whole list of potential providers for them. So I'm hoping that's a good start for

062kind of support for them in terms of finding child care that may work. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Huffman. Okay, thank you. Ms. Thornton? Thank you, Chair Alderton. And thank you so much again to the team for just all your hard work and your dedication. I'm looking forward to this next month and seeing, you know, how we do. I'm sure we'll do great with going back to schools. But I am curious. I heard Dr. Mozingo and Dr. Mann talk a bit about concurrent teaching. And with this push, you know, with the new CDC guidelines coming down. There is a push, of course, for us all to return back into school as much as possible. But as we all know, there is still a large demographic among our students and our families that are just not comfortable

063returning to schools right now and likely for the foreseeable future. And there are some clear patterns in the demographics as far as which families are choosing to opt into the hybrid and those that are not. And so I'm wondering, you know, how are we thinking about, you know, as we're thinking about allocating time and resources to returning back to school, you know, I think it's still very important for us to maintain our virtual learning and making sure that we do everything that we can to bolster that as well. And so I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about. what additional virtual supports will still be available or might be new as we still do work towards returning back in person. And in particular, I'm curious to hear any updates you might have on

064the SEAL Support Mondays and how we can proactively mitigate some potential extensions and like achievement gaps or opportunity gaps as a result of this virtual versus hybrid approach that we're taking. Mr. Thornton, I appreciate that you are asking this question because really I think people are forgetting that. All families don't want to come back into our school buildings at this time. And that's not going to go away at the end of this year. It's going to go in well into next year, and it could be for several years to come. And we are going to have to be able to still provide, whether it's virtual educational services or support services virtually for many years to come. And we don't want that to cease. I also love that you brought up the I think very important

065fact that some of our families who have opted to return back into our schools are not our most vulnerable. Right. I'm going to repeat that some of our families who have opted to return back into our schools are not our most vulnerable, which means that even our most vulnerable students are still in. a situation that they're not getting everything that, you know, they might need at this particular time. And not in a way that could be conducive for them because it's still in a virtual world, but their families are going to be opting. And many of this, many of these students are students with special needs, are black and brown families, are underrepresented and marginalized families within our community. And we are going to have to do what we're talking about right now is how

066do we establish what we're going to be calling our recovery kind of like plan we're going to have to recover from all this right and we already knew prior to this pandemic we had a huge achievement gap and a huge opportunity gap in ACPS right we knew it was prevalent it was real and it's been that way since the beginning of time unfortunately right And it is becoming more pervasive now with this global pandemic. And if, you know, some of our families who really do not feel comfortable for many different reasons with sending their children back into our schools, that we are going to still have to serve them. And they have a right to, you know, to be served even beyond this global pandemic. But I would like for Dr. Crawford, because I don't

067have all the answers for you for that. I can't solve that problem yet, Ms. Thornton, but we are working through that one. But I would like for Dr. Crawford to talk about the SEAL Mondays and provide kind of just some insight to where we are with that. Thank you. And thank you for the question. We are here's a brief update on our seal support Mondays, we have been working with schools, given them information on the criteria that we're looking for initially, for the population of students really looking at students who are currently receiving tier three level of whether it's academic or social emotional learning support. that there are documented areas of needs. The schools have been meeting with their teams and are going to provide us back names so we get a sense of what

068the numbers look like. We'll also be able to tell from those lists are we are they recommending primarily students who have will stay virtual. or hybrid as we move in because as you just captured, we didn't want to limit the list to be just students who had said they were going to come back in hybrid. If you have these needs, it doesn't matter whether you're virtual or hybrid. So we're collecting the names from the schools. They were actually being turned in today. We're continuing and looking for ways to beef up outside of SEAL Support Mondays, just SEAL supports in general. And so one thing that our department in collaboration with schools and TLL has done is provide a seal calendar for staff members and I will say that something that as we've done our quarterly

069chats, our listening tours, as Dr. Hutchings calls them, they reference the SST members have talked about how they've taken the seal calendar and then tailored it and enhanced it to their specific student population. So we're continuing to really make that a great tool for our teachers and our SST. And then the last thing I'll just highlight is that we've been doing work on evidence-based programs that are specific to supported trauma. and hoping to get that information, I would say within the next week or so, so we know how we can support our students who are remaining virtual, as well as those that we'll see in person. And then of course the board asked this question a few weeks ago, but we're also looking at the funding that we have and potentially working with contractors to

070provide supplemental services if that is needed. And we know the level of need is going to be great. for our students and we want to meet everyone where they are and work down that road to recovery as Dr. Hutchings just said. Thank you. Ms. Green. Madam Chair and thank you everyone for the presentation. This just gets more fun by the day. I look forward to our successful reopening for all the work that's gone into it. So thank you. My question is also around bus transportation. And I'm hearing through the grapevine that some parents with multiple children are only getting one email. So I think the email goes out or supposed to go out to each child, but some families are only getting one email with one child's name in it. So I'm sure that, you

071know, it's a bigger problem than just what I'm hearing. So I want to know how accurate do we feel our data is? And if. if a survey is not sent in for a particular child, how is that communication going out? Is it by family? Is it by child? Just how accurate do we feel this information is? And then secondly, if people do not respond to the survey at all and their children are showing up to take the bus, they will be able to ride the bus. We'll just have to wait for that. second, I guess the doubling up or how will that work as well? So, Ms. Green, I'm not sure if Dr. Hoover or if Mariah Runkle is on today's call to take the first piece about the data accuracy. We are working in

072conjunction with IT on the distribution of that particular form. So, Dr. Hoover, I'm not sure if you wanted to speak to that. Yeah, sure. So, if the children are connected, you should have been in the survey allowed to answer the question for both of your kids. So, I would really need to... have a specific example of who that did not work for because I we did test it out and I know from my own home experience that worked for us so if there are certain examples that happen for kids or for families we would really like to know the specific example so we can research that because the way the system works is if a parent is connected to multiple kids in the system they should have been able to respond in that one survey

073in that one email to all of their kids' needs. So if you could send me any information, that would be really helpful. Okay, that's what I thought. But they were saying that they then got an email saying that they didn't hear about the second child. So she couldn't go back in and do it again. But I'll send you that information. That'd be really helpful. It will follow up. Thank you. Okay. And I do know there are some cases where people have two children and one child is hybrid and one child is virtual. And, you know, we sent the transportation to only families who selected hybrid. So there could be a situation where you may have two or more children, more than one child in your household. But if you selected hybrid for one and not

074for the other, only the one with hybrid is going to receive. uh that the transportation document because they only went out or this information only went out um to our families who selected hybrid back in december um to return and i do know there were some cases where some families they made different options and selected different choices for their kids uh but i know dr hoover if we got that information we can follow up And just to follow up, Madam Chair, and just so I have some ease, you know, my mind is at ease, kids that show up for the bus, all of them will be able to ride that bus to school, correct? Yes, so Ms. Green, I can definitely address that second piece. For those families that are right now non-respondents, we are

075moving forward with including them in our routing process, which is leading to the double routes, because we want to make sure in those cases we are able to accommodate children that show up that maybe for whatever reason their families were unable to respond. So yes, we are planning to be able to transport them. With that said, we are still asking for families, if possible, to help lessen that constraint when it comes to our capacity piece. Great. Thank you. Dr. Reif. Great. Thank you for the presentation and everybody for your hard work. I echo my colleagues on that. And I did want to just give a shout out to Dr. Hart and your team for the HVAC facts that were posted on the website. I thought they were really good and people even can link to

076site specific. HVAC work that's been done in each school. So I think that will be really helpful for folks to take a look at. I also have two questions. The first one, I see Dr. Herring is still on the Zoom and maybe this is a little bit directed to him. I know that there's been a lot of talk in the news about the different, the variant strains of COVID and the possibility that they may increase the... um spread the community spread in the coming you know weeks and months and i i like i'm sure many people are hoping that the vaccine rollout is going to mitigate against some of that but i just i didn't know if you wanted to speak to that dr herring like how you all are tracing that and i'm assuming

077that it's just you know we're still doing we're still using the same core indicators you know to determine uh you know whether the schools will be open you know be in the hybrid or have to pivot back. But if you could just talk a little bit about the variance and how your department is dealing with that. And then I know, you know, with the CDC guidelines that just came out on Friday, you know, there's been a lot of talk about the kind of surveillance testing. And I didn't know if there were any plans in Alexandria to do that. I know we've talked about in the past, but since that is in the guidelines, I didn't know if you had any additional feedback on that. And if, And then just in terms of sharing out the

078COVID data as we pivot into the hybrid model, if there are cases, how that information's gonna be shared out, would there be a dashboard of some sort on our website or is it just gonna be like a letter that would go out to families at the school just so people understand what the expectation is for that? I'm not sure Dr. Herring is still on. I mean, he's on, but I'm not sure he's at his desk. I had double muted my phone, and I apologize. Thanks for those questions. Thanks for letting me know I'm talking to air. And now I'm talking to you all again. We're very concerned about the variants, and we're watching it very closely. The one from the UK, B.1.1.7, has been shown to have an increase in transmissibility. In other words, instead

079of one person getting... one other person sick, they might get, or I should use different numbers, instead of one person performing a certain behavior and getting five people sick, that same situation might actually cause anywhere from eight to 11 people to get sick. So it's much more transmissible. There have been limited studies, but the studies do show that in certain age groups in the sixth decade of life, it actually has a pretty marked increase in the percentage of people needing hospitalization. So, when I said before, I'm actually very pleased to see the number of hospital beds and the number of hospital beds that are occupied by COVID actually being freed up. I'm actually keeping that in mind because increased number of cases alone increases the number of hospitalizations, but increase the number of cases with...

080some evidence that it actually causes more severe disease also requires more hospitalizations. We have been approached by the Centers for Disease Control, when I say we, we're talking about Northern Virginia, with a proposal to do surveillance. And the counterproposal by the health directors is that we're already collecting a lot of specimens. Let's increase the amount of surveillance that is done at the laboratory level to look for these variants. There is certain protocols that the state public health lab, that the Fairfax public health lab does, and I believe they already test maybe 10% of all the samples that come through to check for the variants. We have the variants here in Virginia. It's present in, I think it's over 30 different states, and it's estimated that by March, which is only a couple weeks away, by

081March, it will be the predominant variant here in Virginia. So we're watching it very closely, and we do know. that the mitigation strategies help to protect against it. And again, it's the distancing, it's the consistent and correct use of the mask, it's the hand hygiene will protect against the new variant. The vaccine at this point, it is understood to also, the two vaccines that we have, also understood to protect against the variant. I liken this to, you know, when we talk about a dog, there's lots of different types of dogs. There's golden retrievers and there's beagles and there's mutts and all that. And so they look a little bit different, but we all recognize what a dog looks like. And right now, there's not been such a mutation that the immune system stimulated by the

082vaccine will not recognize COVID-19. It could get to the point where there could be mutations such that the dog no longer looks like a dog. And that's why we in public health are saying even after you get the vaccine, you still need to practice these mitigation strategies. It's not a get out of jail free card or a should they get out of mask free card. So we'll be practicing these things for some time. It will be, quite frankly, months away with Dr. Hutchings said before that, you know, there's going to be people choosing not to come back. next school year. And that could be because we're still dealing with some level of transmission in the community. Only time will tell. And I think part of the reason that we've seen a drop in the number

083of cases recently is number one, we're outside the range of people traveling and gathering at the holidays. And number two, that there has been improvement in the behaviors that help to reduce the transmission. So I know you had asked a couple of different questions. I'm not sure if I answered everything that you had asked. Yeah, I think so. I was also asking just if, you know, I feel like this is a good time to, and this is probably for Dr. Hutchings and the team, but to just talk about how we're going to be notifying people about if there are positive cases within the school, because I think as people are, you know, preparing to come back in the buildings, that question is going to be one that people will be having. And I'll actually start

084with that, Dr. Hutchings, if it's okay. One of the things that we did is we developed a handbook for ACPS last July, and they've looked over it. They've reviewed it. They've given us edits. We've gone back and forth with it. We've done town halls, if you will, for the staff. And, in fact, Dr. Crawford and I have been communicating today about some issues, but there is things in place that we have. you know again those five things that it talks about and the fifth one is collaboration with the health department um dr crawford dr hutchings everybody has been really good about uh working with us and communicating with us as to how we will work together and communicate to staff and communicate to families okay I'm sorry. My apologies. I just wanted to add in

085that as a part of that piece for reopening is the required tabletop training with the health department. And so all schools. have school COVID teams with their leadership, with their nurse, other members who could respond in case there was any question. And so thank you to the health department who had their full team on Friday afternoon with us and all of our school COVID team leaders participated in that training so that we're able to utilize the handbook that's been put together and our policies and procedures. Thank you. Thank you for the response. And we're really fortunate to have this partnership with you, Dr. Herring. So thank you so much. And that was my first question about the variants. The second thing I wanted to ask was, and it kind of builds a little bit on

086what Ms. Thornton was asking about, but we have heard, of course, from families who had selected in December that they wanted to stay virtual, and now they're interested in pivoting to this hybrid model. I know that our planning is all based on the numbers that we acquired in December. And I remember having this conversation about how this model could not, the hybrid model could not accommodate, we could not accommodate everyone coming back two days a week. Remember, it was the one day a week was what was feasible. So I'm just, my question is just kind of what you're thinking in terms of you know, looking at, you know, if there's additional capacity and, you know, what happens when more families want, what happens if we get to a place where more, we make the pivot

087and we have some extra space and we invite some people in, but more people want to pivot into the hybrid model. How are we going to sort of be doing that in an equitable way or thinking about, you know, to Ms. Thornton's question. you know, how do we do that in a way that's targeting the students who may benefit the most from having those spaces? So I think this is, you know, this is definitely a really tough question, but. And I know you're just probably focused on getting the kids back in March, but what are you thinking about for how to handle this challenging situation? And we're having some of those discussions now, but we are right now, we're dedicated to trying to get through March 16th. But we are having discussions around, I mean,

088we're going to see an expansion of more. families wanting to opt in and then what do we do in regards to the building capacity you know to to resolve that um and especially when we start looking into the summer and the fall um and the major barrier that you know a complication not necessarily a barrier but one of the major complications is um as long as the cdc requirements are out there this is going to be a challenge for us until they are no longer around in regards to six foot distancing and, you know, not having transitions and minimalizing all these things. I mean, that is really what gives us the major complication. And as long as those CDC requirements are in existence. We are going to continue to have this challenge, but I don't

089have an answer for you, Dr. Reif, at this moment in regards to like, what does it look like as we get to, you know, 80% of our families wanting to come back. We're working through it, though. We are having those discussions to try to figure out what does that look like in our buildings and what impact is that going to have on, you know, potentially some of our community partners who use things like our recs and our gyms and our auditoriums and, you know, things of that nature. So those are some discussions that, yes, we are having, but I do not have, you know, a response on a solution at this time. We will in April. April-May timeframe, I think, is when our next sprint, our sprint for the fall, I know, is in May.

090But April, we should be talking about the summer. March, April, we're going to talk about the summer. Thank you. We're going back to Ms. Nolan. Thank you, Chair Alderson. So, Dr. Hutchings, I can't even front with these two questions that they're even related. So, just forgive me and thanks for your graciousness. So, I'm going to squeeze them in, though. My one question is, do you mind just sharing with us, like, what is the plan for like recess, playground time, gym? I know that that's going to be top of mind for a lot of families and parents in terms of like, what's the plan for that? And then my second question is, I think for Dr. Wilkins is that, do you mind just sharing with us, I wrote down in my notes, so forgive me if

091I have it wrong, that 60% of our FTEs are planning to return. But I'm curious, do we have a sense of what the breakdown is of that? Like, do we have a sense of? you know, is it homeroom teachers coming back? Is it more, you know, elementary versus high school? Like, I'm just curious, is like, does it, does it end up being equal across the schools? Like, do we feel like all of the schools are going to open up with the same level of opportunity? Or is there, is there a shift in the data? So I was just curious, again, about number one, if you don't mind sharing with us, what are the thoughts around, you know, playground time and recess time, particularly given what Dr. Herring said earlier? And then also just the 60%,

092I'm wondering if we could get that broken down a little bit further as to like, what does that entail? And do we have any concerns about all of the schools opening up to equally in terms of their supports and needs? So I know right now we're finalizing some of our disaggregated data and principals are working through that. So we'll have some more information for you all later this week for board members, specifically about each school. Today, what we share was more so the overview of the whole school division. But what we're working through now is the impact on homeroom, classroom, encore, supports. you know, administration, front office, you know, we're working through all of that. That just, it's just taken us a little more time to get that finalized, but we will have some more

093details in regards to that data later this week, Ms. Nolan. In regards to your first question, I know we have our principals on, so I think it would be helpful because we just were talking about the physical activity and encore and recess recently. So I don't know if Ms. Peters or Ms. Bynum, if you all want to speak to that, because I know that was our discussion with principals or Mr. Paschal over the past couple of weeks. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. I'll defer to Mr. Paschal for elementary recess. Sure. Well, it's critical that we provide some outside options for students during recess. Different buildings, playground areas, parameters are different across the division. But we have agreed that will be critical to get kids out and get them moving. So as we transition, it's clear that

094we will be probably relying at first on practicing some things like social distancing as we walk outside. walking on, taking walking field trips around the building, around the community. And then I know today we heard from Kristen Donnelly, the PE and FLE coordinator, about some exciting plans for some activities that will lend themselves to socially distanced. play, free play activities. So we have a lot to learn about what that's going to look like. Some of us of a certain age think of recess as tag and playing on play equipment. And it's going to be a little bit different. I'll certainly speak for myself. We are going to lean into some. time-honored traditions that we have. So for example, in the spring, we always do a walking activity with our students and they earn little feet

095for every lap that they walk. And of course, that's a Tucker specific example, but it's a good example of having some activities that naturally will appeal to students because that's what they're used to. So every school is looking at their available space. How can they maximize the use of that space as a safe place for kids to free? How much of that can be free play? And how much of it needs to be a structured activity to ensure their health and safety? I hope that helps. And I do know that as we're finalizing some of the recess, that as Mr. Paschal said, recess is going to look very differently because of the disinfection of equipment that has to occur. And as you can imagine, if we go back to how recess used to be, you

096never have time to disinfect, which would be a very serious issue, I know, for many parents whose kids are in school as well as for staff. And it just wouldn't be following the health and safety. mitigation protocols. So there are some restrictions in regards to the playground component. Of course, I know people are doing whatever they want to do right now at playgrounds because as I'm jogging, I see different things, you know, at our playgrounds right now. We do have our signs up trying to tell people to be, you know. mindful of that. But during a school day, we are going to have to make sure that we're following those health and safety mitigations, such as six foot distancing, such as the cleaning cycles. And that does not afford us to have the same kind

097of recess and free for all play that we had prior to March 13th. Thank you. Oh, sorry. I apologize, Chair Alderton. And I know that we've given thanks and kudos to so many folks today that is well-deserved. But if I can just take a second, just a special, special thanks to Principal Peters and Pascal for being on. And the principals, I just think, are just doing such a phenomenal job. And it's always been a difficult job. But I just think during this time, especially with all the logistics and things they're having to work out and their team on the ground. So I just wanted to say special thanks to the principals. particularly Mr. Pascal and Ms. Peters and I know Dr. Bynum and you know Mr. Ballas who are doing a lot more also to

098support like their colleagues so just really appreciate it. Thank you Ms. Norton we'll pass those news along thank you. Please do I mean it's been phenomenal the principals have done an incredible job in addition obviously everyone else. Thank you Ms. Norton you have your hand up. Yes, thank you. Just, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge Dr. Herring's recommendation at the beginning of the presentation regarding athletics. You know, it definitely was concerning to me in light of the conversation about the new variants that he's, you know, recommending that we should delay athletics in light of everything. But with that said, you know, should we continue as we, I believe we began yesterday with tryouts and whatnot. Dr. Hutchings, are you aware of what other school divisions are doing regarding this liability or disclaimer, this

099waiver that you're recommending? Yeah, that's the question for now. And I'm glad that he brought it up too, and I'm glad we're making it very public because... You know, I'm concerned about the athletic component too, but I also know that our athletic families, they want to go out there and play those sports so bad, right? So I think that in this particular case with the waiver, and I'll share the waiver that families have signed with the board. I don't know if Mr. Parker's on. I wanted to try to see if he was available for this session. I can't look through all of these. I don't know. Is he on, Susan? Okay, so he's not on. But one thing that we are doing as an addendum. to the waiver that families already signed. So the waiver

100that they signed initially, just to give you a gist of what it entailed, was that they're making the choice to have their students participate in the athletics. And it also references the fact that, you know, students being in an athletic setting and some of the sports that they are engaged in, that they could potentially be exposed to COVID. And they're signing off to say, I mean, that. they're okay with that, right? So that is what the initial waiver is. What we want to add as an addendum to the waivers that families have already signed is that the Alexandria Health Department is not in support of this. of the athletics at this particular time. So we just want to make sure that they're aware of that, but that they're choosing to still participate in lieu of

101that. And that is giving them that option. These are extracurricular. This is not something that's a primary responsibility of the school division. but that gives them a choice. And the reason why we're doing this choice at this particular time, which I really find a problem, I found a problem with it the first time, and I still find a problem with it. The Virginia High School League needs to make a decision and they need to give us some guidance because what other school divisions are doing is that they're saying, well, the Virginia High School League is saying we can do this. And I find it completely ridiculous and crazy. Right. Because then it puts me in the bind as superintendent saying, oh, now what they're saying, what a Virginia high school league said is safe. So

102parents send us all the emails. And I'm just like, well, look, if you want to send your child out there on the field, send them out there. Right. And that's what you want to do. But I wish that the Virginia High School League would make a decision. I do know that with the new guidelines that are coming out, and I believe, according to the state superintendent, I think we should hear something within the next week. He didn't give a day, but he just said in the next week we should get some guidance. One of the things that was included from the CDC was that there really should be, in their new guidelines, there really should be a focus on academics. and athletics and extracurriculars, right? I don't know how the VDH is going to interpret

103that or if that's going to change what in the Virginia Department of Education is saying it too. My question to Dr. James Lane today was, and I got off the call before it was answered, so maybe he answered, I don't know, Dr. Lane. So if you answered it, thank you. I'll find out from somebody, one of my colleagues. My question was, if the Virginia Department of Education is stating academics first and now the CDC is stating academics first, why don't you tell the Virginia High School League to stop pressing on athletics if that is the case? Like you all need to say like, hey, we're not going to promote that or Virginia High School League. We need to focus on academics first to stop pushing the seasons and the fall and the spring now and

104all those types of things. If you know if it's really not being pressured by the CDC. So we'll see where that goes. But, you know, I'll know over the next week. But I think for now, for our comfort, which we already did the waiver initially with, you know, doing the athletics. So parents already signed a waiver of their children could be exposed to. COVID and that type of thing. We want to add an addendum about the the the the Alexandria Health Department not supporting the sports as well. Miss Lorber. Margaret, you're on mute here. Yeah, she's trying to unmute. Susan, are you able to unmute her? Is that good? Yeah. Okay. Good grief. This one did. Yeah, I have a problem with this whole the business of a waiver for exposing yourself. I listened in

105today on the webinar that Dr. Hutchings had with a group of staff, representative of all the staff. And there's so much concern among staff about exposure to COVID. And if we, if... We are permitting families to sign a waiver that says, okay, my child can be exposed. We're opening up the school system to more infection. I mean, it seems to me that's a pretty irresponsible approach. I'm not criticizing Dr. Hutchings. I'm not, this isn't aimed at you or anybody in particular. It's aimed at the, theoretically, it doesn't make any sense to me that Because it's not the parent's response. I mean, yes, thank you. You can sign a waiver and let your child be exposed. But if their child is coming into the school and going to participate in hybrid, then they don't have that

106right to sign that waiver. That's my personal view. It just seems... It's ludicrous. And I don't know how many people read the article this weekend, the op-ed by, I think her name is Dr. Wen. She was the former Baltimore commissioner of health. Right now she's in the administration doing something related to COVID. And a very thoughtful op-ed piece about even stating that she felt even the most recent CDC guidelines. are reflecting a lot of pressure from public to get kids back into school and are ignoring, in fact, some of the, you know, the reality about the community spread and school spread are, it's, it's, We're getting into semantics here that, you know, it seems to me we have to do everything we can to make sure that children are not being exposed. Those who want

107to participate in hybrid must not take risks. And so I really object that I'd be interested in what others think. I'd be interested in what you think, Dr. Hutchins. You know, I think that it's... This is an area that many of our families have just been pressuring and pushing to have and not to say that, hey, we're giving into the pressure, but it's to say that, you know, they have some good points. Many of our recs and programs, they're all in play right now. So kids are participating in soccer. They're participating in volleyball. They're participating in basketball and they're using our facilities to do it. So it's very difficult to say, but. You know, we're, you know, for something that it's optional, you know, athletics is an optional thing. It's not something everybody does. It's

108not something everybody's required to do. That it's a little different than the academic component where we are required to provide you with an educational experience. And, you know. This is an optional piece. So that's the only perspective that I have in regards to that. I feel like the athletic thing is not every student. It's not something we're man to do. I just want to respond. I just want to say, I think, you know, having listened today and heard the concern of teachers, I can, I feel it justifies their concern to some degree, the extent to which. Children are going to continue to be exposed if they do participate in organized sports. I can understand as a teacher being concerned about that. Thank you. So I am mindful of the time. So Mr. Suarez, I'm going

109to have you ask your question or comment. And then I actually just have two questions that I'd like to ask afterward. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'll be brief. I'm just making this point in light of what Ms. Lorber just said. It seems to me that it would be helpful to know, and I don't know if we have this data already, but maybe we can get it at some point. if there is a correspondence between the students who are participating in athletics and those who are going back to hybrid, is that necessarily a one-to-one correspondence or are there students who are remaining virtual who are going, you know, doing the athletics? You know, that would be something that would be worth knowing. And then the other piece is, does the waiver have teeth? In the

110event there is some sort of risk or spread that's triggered from the athletics where such that you know families understand that may mean you're might lose certain privileges regarding the hybrid or other instructional type of opportunities I don't know if there's any teeth to it like that but I mean I think the point and the concern is well taken we're balancing a lot of things here and so just knowing that information might be helpful. Yeah, those are both good points, Mr. Suarez. And let me look into that with the team and get back to you on a response with that. Thank you. Great. Thank you. So I just have two questions. The first is going back to Ms. Nolan's point about concurrent teaching and the mask wearing. And I really just ask this question because

111like having been a teacher, anybody who's been a teacher, even in a classroom, there is a level of performance, right? It's like you're always on stage and you exert a lot of effort. in just like talking and giving directions and prompting. And so Dr. Hoover might kill me for asking this question, but have we thought about, do we have, can we consider making sure that teachers who are in person have headsets? to make it just a little easier to projecting for those students who are virtual and not having to necessarily always be close to their equipment and they can roam a little easier because there's still gonna be students in the classroom as well. So. Great question. And so we have really only recently been able to get in classrooms last week and this week

112and next week. And we're really making sure we've got the directions right. And we've been testing that out. So the web camera that we purchased has a really good microphone. But we are also wondering, we might need to buy microphones, headsets with microphones. And so we're just exploring that. It may be a real need. But again, it's one of those. difficult things we've, you know, expected out and now it's here and now we're out there in different schools and different classrooms and we're experiencing different things. And we have a lot of different models of laptops too. So it's a bit tricky. So we are definitely exploring that and we know that that might be a necessity. So great question. And the answer is yes, we're looking at it and we will do our best to

113provide our teachers with whatever they need. And we're very well invested in that, as you know. Thank you. And just to add to that, you may have said this before, what about document cameras? Does everybody, will everybody in the classroom have access to document cameras? They do. It's a standard infrastructure of a classroom. Good. All right. And then my last question is actually just trying to clarify about the child care. And in particularly, you know, those families, or sorry, not those families, but those staff members who have child care concerns, you know, for example, maybe I live in Fairfax County and, you know, I signed up in October for my kid to be virtual for the rest of the year. And so as a staff member, I'm in a similar situation where, you know, my

114fourth grader can't go hybrid. So, and I know that Kurt, you know, said that, you know, we were offering. just sort of some support and guidance. But I guess the sort of blunt question for me is, if a staff member provides that documentation that, you know, this is the decision that I made, I can't send my fourth grader to school. And also, I'm, you know, accessing childcare is going to be a strain. Are we allowing those individuals to stay virtual. So that they would just provide documentation. That is a that is a child care concern. I mean, that is a legitimate child care concern. That's not just for people who live in Fairfax, but also you have an ACPF because it's only two days a week, even if they are in our program. Their kids

115will be in person for two days a week and their other two days they won't be. So I do think that these are all. some of the challenges that come along with this whole hybrid approach. And I think that, you know, I just know it's not going to solve all of our problems. It also brings problems to the table, unfortunately. And we're going to have to work through it, which we will. We will work through it. But there will be situations for some of our staff with child care needs that are due to their kids being in a hybrid program or their kids being in a virtual program that brings challenges for them to be able to be in school every single day this week. And I know I've even heard, you know, some some

116families and just some people in general say, well. This is a part of, you know, parenting. And I just have to speak as a parent. It's not. My wife and I never planned to how we're going to work out two days, three days a week. Somebody to be home with our child. Like, it's never been a conversation that we were planning to work out. You know, now we're going to work it out. Right. But even within my own house, which I don't like to talk about my personal life ever again with this community. But even in my own house, we're having to figure out how to make this work, you know, because for only two days a week, it's going to be an option. And the child care services from the community partners is not

117unlimited. So there are some limitations to that at some point, too. So we can't just bank on, well, if you just put your child or enroll your child in a community program, then they'll be fine. A lot of people are going to be trying to do the same thing. And those spaces are going to be limited over time. So it's a great point, Madam Chair, that you bring up in regards to that. But those are some of our staff members who are unable. And that's the documentation that they've submitted that their child is still virtual or that their child is hybrid. And some of them happen to be in ACPS as well with the same challenge. So it's not just a matter of our staff who live outside of our city. So I say this

118to say, I hope that our community will just have some grace in regards to that, because it is a very complicated situation that even a household with means cannot fix overnight. It takes time and organizing and figuring out, you know, how you're going to make things work, especially if you have situations where children have never been in any child care situation before. That you're having to now do something like that that you've never done in the past. And it's a pandemic. So that brings even more kind of anxiety. So, you know, I just I just understand many of our staff members and how. They are having challenges and some don't have, you know, two parents in the household. They're single parents trying to make this work, which is another layer that comes into play. So.

119Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for that. Because, you know, I think that pretty much is my concern is just wanting to make sure like, you know, there's nothing. more stressful, I think, honestly, as a parent in worrying about child care. And when you add sort of a layer of now I have to figure out, you know, child care that I've never had to do before and in this hybrid situation and just all those complexities, I would rather have staff who feel like they can just continue to work and not be disrupted, you know. mentally and emotionally by, you know, figuring out childcare during a pandemic. So that's why I brought that up. So thank you. All right. So that's all I have. There don't seem to be any other questions. And again, as always, if you

120have some, you know where to send them. And with that, we can say good night. That's great. Thank you all. You all will receive your message, if you haven't already, with the link to see all of the wonderful comments that we had to say about our school board. One thing I can honestly say that our staff continuously tell me is how proud they are to work in Alexandria City Public Schools. And you all have to know that you're a part of that reason, and we appreciate it. Because you do... You go above and beyond the call of duty. You seriously do. People don't get to see what you have to read behind closed doors, the meetings that you have to commit to, and the time you have to take away from your family on behalf

121of our children and our staff in ACPS. So I just want to, I get to see it firsthand. So I want to personally tell you all, thank you for your hard work, your dedication. the support that you continue not only to give me but to give our staff, as well as the grace that you continue to give our staff. And in spite of all of this global pandemic, you all are still relentless about equity and caring about our kids, right? So I just appreciate you all and enjoy your evening. Good night, everyone. Thursday. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. See you later.