001Okay, well, good evening, everyone. Welcome to the virtual school board meeting today on February 18th, 2021. I'm calling this meeting to order at 4.05 p.m. And I will do the roll call. Megan Alderson, present. Cindy Anderson, present. Ramey Gentry, here. Jacinta Green, here. Margaret Lorber. Here. Veronica Nolan. Here. Michelle Reif. Here. Christopher Suarez. Here. And Heather Thornton. Here. Okay, so we are all present at nine board members. We will now observe a moment of silence. Thank you, everyone. May I have a motion to adopt the agenda for today's meeting? Madam Chair, I move we adopt the agenda for today's meeting. Second. Okay. I have Ms. Lorber who seconds. I'm sorry. I have Ms. Gentry who seconds Ms. Lorber's motion. I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Yes. Ramey Gentry. Yes.
002Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reif. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Excellent. So the vote, we are adopting the agenda, 9-0. All right. So we are going to move on. Gosh, my dog is very loud today. I'm sorry, everybody. I hope you don't hear that. All right, so we're going to go ahead and move on to communications and addresses to the board. We have some public comment today. Just as a reminder, each speaker is given three minutes to address the board, and the clerk will be timing all speakers and will let you know when your time has expired. So if you are here in attendance and you have planned to be a public speaker, please raise your hand. And that will make it easy for us to find you.
003Okay. So our first public speaker is Mr. Kyle Martin, who's an ACPS parent. I do not see Mr. Martin there. So I actually... gave Ms. Baum permission to speak. Okay, so we're going to move on to Ms. Gina Baum, who's also an ACPS parent. Hello, I'm Gina Baum, and I serve on two city commissions, and I'm an ACPS parent. I'm here to address two matters today, and they're both related. It is that of desk spacing and reopening in the fall. I'm sure you all recall my multiple emails in response to the infamous Tucker classroom visual. I'm the person who with graph paper and a highlighter sent you visuals of an ACPS classroom versus other classrooms. And while I too appreciate safety measures and want numerous mitigations in place for in-person school, I am still at
004a loss to understand ACPS's spacing. The parents in the community are repeatedly being told ACPS will not negotiate on the six foot distancing rule. And yet why is ACPS not following the six foot distancing rule, but instead is implementing more than eight feet of spacing between each desk for a total of 65 square feet per desk. As a person who dislikes those people who distrust government and FOIA everything, I now find myself searching FOIA documents to find answers to the spacing issue questions that have yet to be addressed directly. Why does ACPS need more than eight feet of separation between desks? Why does ACPS need 65 square feet of space per desk? And why, according to FOIA documents, is ACPS taking an additional 35% of space out of each classroom? I've yet to locate that
005recommendation, not on the CDC site, not anywhere. And why is any questions regarding spacing always answered by ACPS as because there is furniture. The last time I checked ACPS is responsible for educating children, not furniture. It doesn't take a doctorate to understand removing furniture will allow for more desks. more spacing, and more importantly, more students and thus fewer families being turned away from hybrid learning. And why isn't the school board asking these questions? Which brings me to fall. It should be no surprise to you, and if it is, let this be fair warning. Most parents will want their kids returned to school full-time, five days a week, next fall. No excuses. And ignoring to plan for that eventuality is negligence. Opening schools five days a week is integral to getting the economy and our community
006back on track. And I expect you, like every other city government department, like every small business, and nearly every facet of our community, to have a plan in place to ensure you are doing your part to support our community and open schools fully next fall. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Baum. So I still do not see Mr. Martin. So we will move on from public comments. And just as a reminder, if you wish to submit written comments or sign up to speak at the next meeting, please sign up no later than noon the day prior to the meeting using the link that is available on the school board meeting page. All right. So our next item on the agenda is our reports from our student representatives. So we're going to hear from Lorraine Johnson and
007Ashley Sanchez-Viafarra. I'm not sure Lorraine is here, so I'm just going to start. So good afternoon, everyone. So today's report is just focused on the wonderful things that the Black Student Union has been doing this entire month. The leadership team and myself have been working very hard on planning and organizing events celebrating Black identity, thought, and culture. We have been hosting various events through Zoom, including a movie night featuring The Hate U Give. a two-day natural hair day forum for students, a Black-owned business day panel discussion, Black Love Day affirmations, which is very fun, being able to do that every hour through Instagram, and a celebration of Black art via Zoom, which is going on right now. And apart from that, I have been given the opportunity to work with Charles Houston and figure out
008ways to reach... better reach out to youth. And I'll be partnering with one of the, I believe, social media coordinators on ways that youth can be more involved within the wonderful recreation center and on ways that I can help out with that process. And apart from that, tomorrow, I will be on a discussion featuring the, a discussion featuring I'm sorry. It's going to be a discussion basically focusing on the movie Remember the Titans and the history behind Alexandria and how that is currently affecting us and where we are right now in this entire process. So that is going to be very fun for me. And I'm so glad and honored to have that opportunity. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ashley. All right. So we're going to move along in our agenda and I need
009a motion to adopt the consent calendar. Madam Chair, I move that we adopt the consent calendar for this meeting. Okay, so I have Ms. Green who is seconding Ms. Gentry's motion, so I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. And Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay, so the consent calendar is adopted at 9-0. Okay, so next up on our agenda, we are moving into old business, and that is to adopt the FY 2022 combined funds budget. So I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Hutchings and team. I just want to first start off by thanking our... Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Turner, and our finance team for all of the hard work that they
010have done, working collaboratively with all of our different departments, with our principals, and using the school board's budget priorities as our guide to get to where we are at this point. I wanted to turn things over to Mr. Turner to see if he had any final comments, thoughts, or acknowledgments that he would like to say. Thank you, Dr. Hutchins. And yes, I too would just like to thank all of those in my budget office for the hard work that they've put through this budget process. We continue to try to improve the process year over year, and we would not be able to get this budget done, publish the book without all of their hard work. This has definitely been a unique year, to say the least, but they have stuck through it. gone through the
011process of meeting with all of our stakeholders and then putting in the long hours to publish these documents and then work to get the things posted on ESB for all of our meetings so that myself and Dr. Hutchins can be prepared when meeting with the public. So big thanks to the team. Appreciate all of that work. Also appreciate the collaboration throughout ACPS with the school board and then all of the stakeholders as well. as we continue to try to make improvements to the budget process each year. We couldn't do that without there being cooperation and collaboration from going from the school board's priorities to building the budget based around those priorities with all of our stakeholders throughout ACPS. So them being on board with that train has definitely helped the process be able to move
012forward. So I appreciate everybody from SLT to the principals to the teachers and everybody throughout. ACPS for being on board with our continuous budget improvement process. And with that, I would just like to turn it over to the Vice Chair for the motion to adopt. All right. So, Madam Vice Chair, do you have a motion for us? I do indeed. Madam Chair, I move we approve the fiscal year 2022 combined funds budget as follows. The fiscal year 2022 operating budget in the amount of $294,936,803 for both revenues and expenditures as shown in attachment two, including the adjustments shown in the memo as discussed and supported by the school board during the February 10th, 2020 budget work session. This includes other financing sources and uses, as well as a $5,114,453 planned use of general fund balance.
013The operating budget includes 2,416.99 FTEs, which is a decrease of 0.3% from fiscal year 2021, and a total city appropriation request of $239,037,296, an increase of 2.1% over fiscal year 2021. The fiscal year 2022 grants and special projects budget in the amount of $17,142,622 for both revenues and expenditures as shown in attachment two. There was one adjustment recommended to the proposed budget presentation. One position was reclassified from title one instructional assistant to SPED to Title I Instructional Assistant II EL. This budget includes other financing sources and uses and a total of 98.75 FTEs, the same as fiscal year 2021. The fiscal year 2022 school nutrition services budget totals $11,194,167 for both revenues and expenditures as shown in attachment two. There are no adjustments recommended to the proposed budget presentation. This budget includes 120 FTEs, which
014represents a 4.2 decrease from fiscal year 2021. The superintendent is granted the authority to make the necessary minor changes to comply with the intent of the school board. Second. Okay, so I have Mr. Suarez who seconds Ms. Nolan's motion. So I am going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Margaret Lorber? Yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. The vote is 9-0 and congratulations. We have adopted the budget. Thank you, everyone. Awesome. So moving on to new business. Next, we are going to be presented with the MTSS and SEAL first semester analysis. So I'll turn it back to Dr. Hutchings. Yes, and before we begin, I want to just congratulate our new Executive Director of Communications, Ms. Kathy Memberg,
015who you all just approved to join us, and she happens to be on our Zoom this evening. So, Kathy, if you are there, which I see you now, if you want to just wave to everybody, maybe say a couple of words, because I know you are so excited about... on our team and now you're here, you're official. Yes, thank you so much, Dr. Hutchings, and thank you for this opportunity. I'm really honored to join ACPS. I think you've got a talented communications team and I'm thrilled to be working with them. So everybody's been terrific in helping me transition and I can't wait to get started. I know it's a busy time. Thank you so much, Kathy. And we are so excited about you being a part of the team. And I can't wait for you
016to get started. We've been waiting for you. And I'm so happy to have you on board. I think this is really getting our communications and our school and community relations team, you know, complete, which is a great thing. And I know it's a great feeling for Julie and Burgos. Yes, thank you so much. All right. We're going to transition into our MTSS. And before we start there, I have to take this moment just to say a couple of words. And I got to get off and get on my soapbox just for a minute, because I think it's important for us. And I want to put this on the record. I wish that the Washington Post and everybody was listening right now. But I think it's important for us to not compare this year to last
017year. I think it is so unrealistic for one and inappropriate for the media to compare our student achievement to last year. And what I mean by that is... specifically is the fact that last year, up until March 13th, our kids were in a school building every single day, going through what we used to believe was normal for us across this country. No one knew what coronavirus was. No one turned on their television to see the different death tolls and vaccinations and all these other things related to a global pandemic. So when you compare that to this year, where all students are and staff, and families are in a crisis. This is a traumatic experience. This global pandemic, it's trauma. And as educators, we are very aware of the impact that trauma has on all people.
018And it's very different for everyone. But everyone right now is experiencing that. So for our data to look identical to how it was in the past and for us to make a comparison about how things used to be to how things are today, it's just not appropriate whatsoever. So I wanted to make sure I started off. with that because I've been meeting with our staff through our quarterly chats and what I've been sharing with them is our responsibility this year is to look at our baseline data from this year for what the situation we're in currently and make sure that we are finding solutions and supports to address students needs now and these are social emotional and academic learning needs now. I also think it's important for us to understand, and I've heard our president,
019our new president, who I am excited about and I have a whole lot of respect for, right? President Biden is saying we want our schools open over the next 100 days. There's been this huge focus on K-8. What I want to add to President Biden's messaging is that we really need to make sure that we're not striving to go back to how things were. prior to this pandemic. We were not doing it right in this country in regards to public education. We were not serving our Black and Brown families well. We were not serving our Black and Brown students well at that particular time. So we need to get away from trying to get back to how it was. We need to start reinventing and rethinking what education and what teaching, learning, and leadership is
020going to look like tomorrow. We're now having a significant opportunity for us to address the needs of our students, whether they're social, emotional, or academic, in a very unique way. Whether it's virtual, whether it's in person, whether it's hybrid, you know, the sky is the limit at this point. And we really need to start thinking about how do we rethink education moving forward and not how do we go back to how things work? Because I don't know about you all, but... Because we didn't have it right before, why would we go back to something that was wrong? Let's try to get it right, this go-round, and use this opportunity to do that. So I wanted to preface our conversation today with that, because it is our responsibility now to start thinking through and putting action
021in place on how we address the social, emotional... in academic learning needs of our students moving forward. So I'm going to stop here and turn things over to Dr. Mozingo. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. It's nice to see everybody. So what we're going to do, I know that Clinton, Paige, and Others have put this really nice presentation together for you. So what I want to do at this time is ask Mr. Page to introduce the presentation. And then from there, I know that we have some principals that have some stories that they would like to share and tell in terms of what is actually occurring in their schools. Thanks so much, Dr. Mozingo and Dr. Hutchings, and lovely to be with you all this evening, members of the school board. So as Dr. Hutchings and
022Dr. Mozingo pointed to tonight, we're excited to talk a little bit about our MTSS, our social, emotional, and academic learning, and do so first through obviously framing around what some of those components are, then take a quick purview through our data and what those are telling us. as it relates to this school year and then hear from the schools in terms of the work and how this is all applied through MTSS. So to kick us off, I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Wood, who is going to get us started. Thank you, Clint. Thank you, Dr. Hutchins, Dr. Mozingo. Good evening, Chair Alderton, Vice Chair Nolan, all of our board members and those watching virtually. We appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit about our MTSS process and how we support students in
023ACPS. Next slide, please. Our essential question for today is how do schools support students' sealed progress through the MTSS lens from quarter one to quarter two? Next slide, please. Thank you. We want to start with just giving some background on our MTSS structure. The MTSS process provides an equitable approach to supporting all students and their needs. There are two sides of the MTSS pyramid. The academic side of the pyramid is where data informed early identification systems that help teachers decide which evidence based practices will best meet students needs. Based on the tiered levels, we provide all students with access to grade level content and educational best practices through our tier one supports. As students need additional interventions and supports, teachers and schools address their needs through the tier two or more intensive tier three level.
024The behavioral side of the pyramid mirrors the academic side with a focus on behavior and the social emotional needs of our students. Behavior supports are incorporated through the framework of PBIS, and social-emotional learning is supported through curriculum like RULER. Restorative practices are a vehicle through which we provide these supports and ensure equitable, emotionally safe learning environments for our students. While we support students' behavior and social-emotional learning, we must recognize the distinction between the two. The behaviors are the actions we see. Social-emotional needs are the underlining root cause of those behaviors. Overall, MTSS is a system and the structure. When we emphasize SEAL, we bring both sides of the pyramid together by focusing on the social, emotional, and academic learning of our students. We know that if students are not socially or emotionally available, they are
025less likely to engage in academic learning and growth. At this time, I'll pass it back to Clint, who is going to give you an overview of our semester data analysis. Thanks so much, Kenitra. So next slide, Susan. So as Dr. Hutchings mentioned in his open, we did an analysis in quarter one of some of the key indicators within that timeframe around chronic absenteeism as well as student grades, both at the elementary and secondary level. So we wanted to take a few minutes today just to walk through where we stand now at the end of the second quarter as it relates to those indicators. Just as a reminder, chronic absenteeism is defined as 10% or more. of days missed within a specific period. So as we break that out in quarters, that's, you know, if a
026student is missing. five or more days within a given quarter, that student would be flagged as chronically absent. So in the figure at the top here, you'll see quarter two and quarter one chronically, chronic absenteeism rates compared to each other. So we saw a slight increase moving from 17% to 19% from quarter one to quarter two. We continue to see asynchronous days really serving as a driver for our chronic absenteeism rates. at 40% in quarter two and 41% in quarter one. And then as we began to break chronic absenteeism out across our student groups, we continued to see disparities as we did in the quarter one data with our English learners, our Hispanic, as well as our special education student groups having the highest rates of chronic absenteeism. Next slide. As we delve into grades,
027this first slide is looking at our elementary grades analysis. And really what we saw in elementary grades overall is not much difference at all between first and second quarter. So there at the top, you'll see the distributions of ones, twos, threes, and fours given out in grades one through five, both in quarter one and quarter two. So you'll see a large amount of similarity there. And then also as we broke those out by our student groups in terms of grade distributions, we did continue to see disparities as we did in quarter one, specifically within special education, English learner, Hispanic, and black student groups receiving the greatest ratios of ones and twos. When we go to the secondary grade analysis, next slide. We also see a similar story as we did with elementary with high and
028middle school grade distributions remaining relatively stable between the first and second quarter. And you see in the first figure there, the high school grade distributions. And then in the second figure, middle school, we did note in middle school, you'll see that little gray at the end of the Q2. That's for incompletes. And so we did see a slight increase in incompletes for Q2. when compared to Q1 at 7% compared to the 1% at quarter one. I think kind of most importantly, we continue to see disparities across student groups with our English learners, special education, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged and black student groups receiving the greatest ratios of Ds, Fs and Is within student groups. And you can see that comparison in those figures there at the bottom. So that is a high level overview of our
029chronic absenteeism and grades comparing Q1 to Q2. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Sampson, who's going to go through some COVID-19 screener data for us. Hello, thank you, Mr. Page. So back in October of 2020, we had students in grades 3 through 12 complete the UCLA COVID-19 brief screener. And as a reminder, this is a screening tool. It's not a diagnostic instrument. So it really points the way to students where there might be concerns and really indicates that we need to follow up with some kids based upon that information. So we had about 69% of eligible students. take the screening tool. We did have a number of students who were opted out by their families, which were required to provide per Virginia code. And then we also had some challenges
030with attendance, you know, in that earlier part of the year with some students. So we ended up where we saw division-wide some elevated scores in two main categories of the screening tool. So one was really this avoidance of reminders where students were indicating that they were noticeably trying to avoid situations where they might think about or encounter things which would remind them of perhaps events that had been upsetting to them in the past. And then we also had heightened scores in the area of these arousal and reactivity symptoms where students were you know, finding themselves being a little bit more argumentative, having shorter fuses, potentially problems concentrating or problems sleeping. So when we broke down those numbers across the division, we really found that we lined up within the percentages for Tier 2 and Tier
0313 that Ms. Wood discussed in one of those earlier slides. About 3.5% of students were sort of at that intensive intervention stage, and then with about 13.4% of students in that more targeted Tier 2 intervention. So as a division, We took that information and we really tried to incorporate some evidence-based strategies around supporting students through trauma based upon those two elevated areas. So we really wanted to put those in, for instance, our tier one seal calendars that we've been providing to schools. And then we also... wanted to make sure that we were building up the capacity of our student support team members with two programs that are directly aligned to support to supporting students who've experienced trauma in both tier two and tier three. In addition, we had schools review their student level data to
032determine to do some of that follow up with those students who had high scores to check in and see, you know, with other information that they could provide does the student need these sort of tier two or tier three services, and then work to provide some interventions, whether it was individual counseling or small group supports to those students and families. Next slide please. So we wanted to take a moment here to revisit with you all our approach to social, emotional and academic learning that we shared with you in a presentation last year. So in ACPS, we really base our social, emotional, academic learning on the collaborative for academic, social and emotional learnings framework, which includes these CASEL competencies that you see. here, self-awareness, self-management, those areas in the center of the circle. And they really
033overlap both social, emotional, and academic areas. So you'll see that some are really more focused on the social connections and helping students foster those social connections and knowledge of self. And there are others that are supporting things like goal setting and self-efficacy. We are very mindful, though. There are concerns out in the community, the research community, about social emotional learning and making sure that it is really done through and thought through with a lens of equity and really a lens that is anti-racist. So we really are trying to balance, you know, teaching students the skills that they need to help regulate their emotions, but also really making sure that. That doesn't take away from changes or challenges that we see might be needed by the larger system or the institution of education, because we don't
034want social, emotional, academic learning to be yet another system that further oppresses children. So we really try to think about here, and it's great that we're all together in the same department, you know, it's critical that the SEAL implementation that we're working on is concurrent with equity and anti-racist trainings and discussions. So that people are understanding their own biases and the systemic impact of their decision making on the students that they're working with and on how they think about how students emotionally react to certain situations. So we teach these seal skills through explicit instruction. and teacher modeling in classroom settings. And they're really reinforced school-wide with all of the various programs that we do. We really want this to be something that isn't just a simple one-and-done in a class period and then leaves. We
035really think the leave seal is integrated into the fabric of what happens with instruction within schools. Next slide, please. So as Ms. Wood alluded to earlier, we talked about this with you last year, and we wanted to update you on where we are with the implementation of the RULER curriculum. So this RULER curriculum is from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and really focuses on teaching and understanding the language of feelings and emotions and understands how we as individuals, and whether that's a six-year-old or a 60-year-old, can work to move ourselves from one emotional state to another. another. Something that we're really proud of, you know, and we're really drawn to with the curriculum is that its focus is on adults first, with helping the adults learn this language and how they can manage and
036understand their own feelings and emotions to then turn it around, train the trainer and things like that with students. We then, you'll see that we started with three schools in the 2019-20 school year. We're working to add the additional five schools. in this school year. And then for us, because of both the components of really supporting adults and also children, we're looking to implement this division-wide then in all of our schools in the 2021-22 school year. And it involves really this train-the-trainer model. So school teams go to be trained and then they come around and are able to start to turn around and provide that training within their school communities. This year, we've also, through every school and their schedule, has SEAL time in their master schedules. And we've been providing schools with a SEAL
037calendar each month to support and enhance the resources that they may have on hand to be able to. provide lessons in the social, emotional, and academic areas, particularly targeted at times to the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism. So these are really collaborations between student services and equity, teaching, learning, and leadership, as well as school-based staff members. And we'll provide materials on anything from academics in terms of goal setting and career planning to resources that are really focused on PBIS, RP, and building relationships in students. And we've also, as I alluded to earlier, have started to include some resources that really align with some evidence-based strategies for trauma response based upon our UCLA brief screener data. And I will turn this over to Ms. Wood. Thank you, Mr. Sampson. And so I have the
038esteemed pleasure of introducing five of our fabulous principals. We wanted to take the opportunity for you to hear from a couple of them representing our elementary schools. We have Mr. C.B. Cruz, principal of Cora Kelly Elementary School for Math, Science, and Technology. Mr. Michael Rutowska. Principal of William Ramsey Elementary School. Representing our K through eight schools, Dr. John McCain, Transformational Head of School, Jefferson Houston, IB K through eight school. Representing our middle schools, we have Ms. Pierrette Peters, Principal of Francis C. Hammond Middle School and representing our high school and home of the Titans, Ms. Carmen Sanders, our campus administrator. Each school leader will give you a highlight of their MTSS process to provide you with a complete picture of how our schools use MTSS structure to meet the needs of our students' social, emotional,
039and academic learning needs. This time, we'll hear from Mrs. C.D. Cruz. Good evening, Alexandria City Public Schools community, Dr. Hutchings, and board members. I am the proud principal of Cora Kelly School for Math, Science, and Technology. And this evening, I'm here to share one of the systems. Oh, can we go to the next slide? Thank you. I was like, wait a second. Where's my slide? Sorry. I'm here to share one of the MTS systems that our school set in place a few years ago. I firmly believe that these systems have really aided our ability to help our students during this virtual plus learning model. I'm going to describe our Tier 1 Student Talk Problem Solving Meetings. The process for Student Talks meetings starts with a staff member referral submitted by teachers who have concerns related
040to academics, behavior, or attendance. Next, there is a grade-level meeting, which includes our instructional coach, that happens every two to four weeks. The team discusses the new referrals as well as previous referrals during this meeting. During the meeting, the team shares concerns, discusses strategies that are recommended, as well as next steps, including who is responsible for working with the student. Our amazing instructional coach, Ms. Loizel, that I have to give a big shout out to, documents this information in an elaborate Cora Kelly data spreadsheet. These student talk meetings give ownership of our students to our teachers. Our teacher teams feel empowered to use the strategies that they know and hold and have been trained on. At the next meeting, student progress is reviewed and discussed as well as next steps. The team then decides to
041continue to monitor the students during the student talk meetings or move on to the MTSS referral process. Other teammates on this call will discuss some of our MTSS referral processes. This is truly a Cougar staff team effort that involves many hardworking staff members, and I am extremely proud to be sharing this with you. I will now pass it on to the next person, which I believe is Mike Bratowska. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Good afternoon, board members, all ACPS teammates, and the Alexandria City community. I'm here to talk about the ongoing academic intervention cycles that are part of the ACPS MTSS system and do that through our work that we do at Ramsey related to that. We are especially proud of William Ramsey of our ability to effectively manage student academic data and also share
042in the responsibility that all of our students continue to grow as we work through this process. Each fall, after teachers develop those trusting relationships in the classroom and those routines where we know we can get effective, accurate assessment data, we begin our benchmark tests. And we use that data. Students K through five are taking division and school-based assessments and reading and math. And we use that data from things like MAP, PALS, Fontes-Fanel reading records, and the DreamBox initial placement assessment. We use these data, these data sets to... determine what uh where our students fall in terms of that MTSS pyramid that was shown earlier. At Ramsey, the pyramid is often more upside down than it is right side up. So we take that data and teachers compile it, similar to what Principal Cruz shared, into
043a centralized data system where everybody can see the data on all students ahead of meetings so that we come prepared to discuss it meaningfully. And after we compile that data, our grade level teams of teachers, and that includes classroom teachers, English learner teachers, special education teachers, special educators. and interventionists and coaches. They all come together and establish the criteria for tiering those students based on our initial assessment data. From there we discuss specific challenges or skill gaps that the students have to determine and assign the research-based intervention that aligns with their needs. And then we identify staff members who are going to deliver that in either small groups or in even some situations one-on-one. After we go through a cycle of intervention, we use a monitoring process to review and see what specific challenges students
044are still having, what growth. they have and we use that to determine whether or not we have to continue with a new intervention, with the same intervention, transition to a new intervention. Do we have to improve our fidelity at delivering it through monitoring that system? And then we will decide whether or not we're going to re-tier students. Sometimes we'll see students move forward in math and maybe backwards in reading or vice versa. we're constantly looking at that data to determine what the needs are. We also make sure that we're continuing to provide ongoing differentiated professional learning for teachers around those interventions so that we can make sure that we're growing in our fidelity to deliver them. At the end of an intervention cycle, we will... go through all that data, and then we will move
045forward and do another cycle. Typically, we'll get through three full cycles in a school year. And that will depend, the length of them will depend sometimes, of course, on holidays and breaks and just transitions in the year. But this cycle goes on and on. And we look at the data at the end of the year to determine if there's some special pieces we can put together for our summer programs or our... our reading academies that we sometimes do prior to the start of the school year. So that's the academic intervention cycles in the MTSS process at NA-CPS and how we apply them at Ramsey. Thank you. Good evening, Alexandria community, the board members, and Dr. Hutchins. I'm going to just discuss with you part of the MTSS process and how things are done at Jefferson
046Houston. we do what you call kid talk. And so we know that the greatest impact on student success happens at the teacher level. And so within our kid talk, and Ms. Cruz talked about student talk, and they're synonymous, we have a protocol called the Take 10 Protocol, the 10 representing 10 minutes. Although teachers are not limited to 10 minutes, we use the 10 minutes so that it will keep them focused and targeted. So I'm going to describe that process to you. Within the Take 10 protocol, what happens first is that the teacher brings a concern to the team. That concern could be academic. It could be social, emotional, emotional, or it can be an attendance issue. And that teacher will bring information to that meeting that supports that concern. And data is brought as well.
047The reason the teacher brings that data and shares that information is so that the team will understand the concern. At that point, the team then asks clarifying questions. They may ask questions such as, how often does the concern or the issue occur? Another question may be, how did the student respond when you implemented a strategy? Once that dialogue takes place, and after the teacher who brought the concern answers the question, the teacher explicitly states what it is that they want the student to do. And at this point, the team will give several strategies to address the social, emotional, academic, or even attendance concern. And at that point, the teacher who brought the concern would then choose one to three strategies that they will implement in the classroom. Once that is decided, they then choose a
048date where they're going to come back and revisit. The concern that was brought by the teacher, that's their way of assessing that, and they determine a date in which they'll come back, and the teacher will bring back to the group data and information that support the implementation of the strategies that were recommended. And when the team comes back together, that conversation happens all over again in reference to the concern so they can decide on next steps. And that's what we call the Take 10 protocol. Once again, it's 10 minutes and they go through that kind of quickly, but they're not limited to 10 minutes. And it's a way to keep them focused and targeted on the issue at hand. And I'll turn it over to my colleague, Ms. Peters. Thank you, Dr. McCain. My principal
049colleagues have shared with you the MTSS process that we use to support and progress monitor students through each tier. We have a similar process at Francis C. Hammond Middle School. This evening, I will share with you what occurs as students are supported through each tier in the academic and behavioral intervention process after ongoing data collection and kids talk conversations among teachers, school administrators, and school counselors. This Virtual Plus school year has afforded us with an opportunity to use our intervention process to support students virtually to address D's and F's as well as attendance. Eighth Block and SEAL Advisory was introduced this year through Virtual Plus. You will find in the visual displayed that Eighth Block is used to support students through tiers one, two, and three, providing different levels of support at each tier. During
050first quarter, 8th Block was used to support students, all students, academically and behaviorally. As we transitioned into our virtual school year, we initially used 8th Block to help students acclimate to Canvas and Zoom and to assist with virtually establishing and maintaining relationships with their teachers and classmates. As we transition further into first quarter and beyond, 8th Block and office hours have been used for academic support. As a Tier 1 intervention, teachers have been able to provide instructional support through reteaching and reassessment for all students. As a Tier 2 support, teachers have been able to use data to make instructional decisions to provide targeted small group support and instruction for students based on data. And as a Tier 3 support, teachers have been able to use data to make instructional decisions for individualized students. Behavioral interventions
051have also been used in our virtual learning environment as well. As a tier one intervention, as previously mentioned, SEAL advisory has been used as a mechanism to support all students in the development of healthy identities, the management of emotions, goal setting, responsible decision making, and the establishment of supportive relationships. Identified Tier 2 students have been able to receive support through targeted small group counseling and community circles. And finally, Tier 3 students have been able to receive individualized counseling support from our school counselors. Students transition through the tiers utilizing our school-based MTSS process and ongoing progress monitoring. And now Ms. Sanders from TC Williams High School will share the Tier 2 and Tier 3 process at the high school. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Peters. And good evening, board members, Dr. Hutchings and the Alexandria community.
052I will discuss the process from the tier three level, which is the school wide MTSS team. The high school MTSS team is comprised of the following members, the campus administrator, school psychologist, truancy outreach and attendance specialist. the family engagement specialists, who are both licensed clinical social workers, the school nurses, special education department chair, school counseling department chair, and the international academy social workers. A school-wide MTSS referral is not submitted for singular infractions that require an immediate response and or disciplinary action. The schoolwide MTSS team supports academy teams and teams when the interventions and supports at the Tier 2 level have been exhausted and more intensive services, interventions, and supports are needed. This also includes Tier 3 placement decisions like student referrals to the Individual Student Alternative Education Plan Program or ISAP through the ACPS Adult
053Learning Center, which supports students 16 years or older in receiving high school equivalency preparation in order to earn their GED. When an MTSS referral is presented by an academy team or team, the person or persons referring are asked to discuss the reason for the referral, the student's strengths, challenges, academic, behavioral, and or social-emotional data, along with outlining previously implemented interventions and supports. Then the school-wide MTSS team engages in discussion with the academy or team representatives, posing follow-up questions, and at times asking for additional data in order to provide appropriate recommendations of interventions and supports to be implemented and monitored for success. Data collection using multiple data points is important at all levels and is required prior to a student being referred. Student intervention plans are revised to implement the new recommendations and reviews happen after
054four to six week period. Academies and teams are asked to monitor a student's progress and report back to the school-wide MTSS team about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the strategies and or to determine the need to move forward to the child study process. I would like to note that the schoolwide MTSS team does not discuss students who receive special education services. Academy teams and teams are advised to address new concerns or the need for additional services and or accommodations for students with disabilities through an IEP meeting or the eligibility process. This process is truly a team approach. Thank you, and I will turn the presentation back over to Ms. Kenetra Wood. And it would help if I would come off of mute before I start talking. Never fails. Thank you to our wonderful principals. We
055appreciate you and the work that you are doing. To conclude, just a reminder that elementary and secondary schools use these systemic structures to support students' academic and behavioral, social, emotional needs along a tiered continuum. Schools collected analyzed data to make decisions using cohesive and consistent process designed to provide equitable access to needed supports. To strengthen our MTSS process, we recognize the need to continue ongoing professional learning, guidance, and support to our MCSS liaisons and school-based leaders. As we move to phase two of our MTSS work, we will be refining our process to ensure consistency and working to develop a division-wide progress monitoring system. On behalf of the collaborative effort, next slide, please, of the Department of Accountability and Research, the Department of Student Services and Equity, the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Leadership, and our
056fabulous school principals, we thank you for your time and would like to take this opportunity to answer questions that you may have for us. Thank you, Ms. Wood, as well as everyone else. Before we go into questions, Madam Chair, I just wanted to thank our principals and all of our presenters this evening. We have some amazing principals, as you all know, who are working tirelessly on behalf of our young people. You know I appreciate you all. I tell you that every opportunity I get and every moment I can have it on record, I want you all to know that you rock and we are so blessed and fortunate to have you with us. I also just want to say, that I think it is very important for us to begin to think about our grading
057practices. It's evident based on our data that, you know, because we use multiple data points from POWs to Fontas and Pinnell to running records. that we still have a grading practice issue in ACPS. And fortunately, we had already started our committee prior to the global pandemic. And then we kind of put it on hold because everybody, of course, was kind of their worlds were turned upside down. But we have reconvened our grading committee. And it is important for us to really. begin to look at how do we grade differently, not just during this global pandemic, but in general. You know, we have been talking about this across this country with like these assessments that we're using and all the norm, you know, assessments that we have. We need to be thinking through how can we
058assess our kids in different ways? How can students demonstrate mastery in different ways? And that requires a huge paradigm shift in our thinking. But now that we've gone through this global pandemic and everybody's thinking has been shifted and changed, not by choice, we now know that we can change our thinking. We can do things differently. It is okay. But I wanted to just preface our Q&A opportunities with that. So I'm turning things back over to you, Madam Chair. Thank you. And just such an amazing presentation. I'm definitely looking forward to the questions and the discussion here. So I'm going to start off with Ms. Gentry. Thank you so much, and thank you to the entire team that did this presentation, and obviously all the people that are behind the people that made this presentation. I
059just want to say that, you know, MTSS is something that it's an acronym that has, you know, been used for years, and I just want to say how... great it is to have presentations like this that really help our community and everyone see what that actually you know having some something actually walking through the walking through the process so people understand it's not just a buzzword it's not just you know a a a lingo term but there's uh quite a bit of work uh that goes into it um and it's actually that amount of work that i kind of have a question on you know one one thing that you know, this entire, the premise of this concept is based upon, you know, it's always, you know, I've been seeing this for years, it's this
060pyramid, right? And the pyramid is based on some certain assumptions about the percentages of people that will need these different levels of support. I when that pyramid was created, we didn't have a global pandemic and we didn't have students, you know, out of school for a year. So I really kind of I want to hear from this team. I'm I'm not sure. I'm not sure we're a pyramid shape anymore. I don't know what shape we are, or if we're still a pyramid, we might be, but the percentage numbers in there might be different. But that has real implications. The amount of staff time and work that goes into that is significant. If we have a significantly larger number of students, that are by any of the measurements or or or assessments that we're using should
061be in tier two i i want to make sure that we're holding to the promise of mtss and we are really giving them tier two and we're not just saying well it it doesn't conveniently fit in this you know five to fifteen percent um and i'm sure you guys don't want to either but i i just i would love to hear you all's uh you know everyone's thoughts on How do we really get all of that, you know, that happening in these extraordinary circumstances? Thank you so much for that. And you were actually, you're spot on. So I love that you can actually teach MTSS and talk about the simple fact that, you know, we have seen like a flip in a sense, like the pyramid is upside down in some cases during this pandemic
062because everybody is experiencing trauma and many students are in tier two and even tier three levels that are beyond what the research typically does during what we called a normal time. in our history. So I would love for some of our principals to be able to share some of that, you know, our response and some things that you all are doing with that. Can I jump in for one second? Dr. Hutchinson, for the principal speak. Ms. Gentry, I just want to say that I just earlier this week looked at a email from an organization where they literally flipped the pyramid and they talked about how, you know, no longer is it 80% at the tier one green level, but now it's 80% at the tier three level, which then turns into our tier one supports
063and interventions because we realize that everyone needs those supports. Hence, our seal calendar incorporating seal into our regularly scheduled programming during the day that we didn't necessarily have before we went into this global pandemic. So I wanted to say that you're spot on with that. And the researchers out there are saying the same things and putting information together to support us with that as well. Dr. Hutchings, do you want me to respond? Yes. Yes. Okay. I was talking. Yes. Okay, and I think Mike is going to go after me. So I just wanted to tell you, first of all, that I really appreciate what you're saying, because that is something that as educators, we are so concerned about, because we see it too. Like we see it flipped in our school, and it makes us
064nervous, and it makes us anxious. And it literally starts from kindergarten that some of our babies are coming in, and we are trying to catch them up with the pals and the interventions. That's also part of the reason why at Cora Kelly, we started this process with the student talk meetings for tier one, because we were so concerned that we were looking up and every single student was in the tier two, like the MTSS referral process. And then we were getting to like too many referrals for special education without doing everything that we could before, you know, what was in the hands of the teacher, what they can do. But I also want to say that the teachers are working extremely hard. And so. This is not something where I'm saying that we are able
065to figure it all out in a meeting, but we definitely talk through it. We look at it. We look at the progress. We come up with different ideas. We are blessed to have a variety of staff members that are willing to step in and target, help the students. We have intervention and enrichment, like the IE block that we utilize. And not only do we utilize it, but we perfect it because we put the students in where they need to go. according to what they need. And then the person is tracking what they're doing constantly. And they're either going to like, if they need an intervention for math, but then they do a better job in the math assessment, then they might go to reading, but it's constantly changing. And so then what's a little difficult
066this year is that we are not able to do extended days. And that was something that we use so much before because we don't have afterschool hours. And so that's the scary part of this data is that. we're doing everything that we possibly can, but it's still not enough. And we're worried, but we are working as hard as we can. And just thank you for acknowledging and knowing that it is a struggle, but that doesn't mean that we're not up for it. It just, it's constant. And I think as we go into our next principle, I think it's important to understand that was that's the purpose in us having and needing this summer extension and summer learning. Because we are going to have to there's not enough hours in a day one to catch everybody
067up to you have a larger number of students that we're now working with to provide those additional supports that are going to be needed and we're going to have to use very different measurements and take different actions to address this. And that summer learning approach is one of many examples, but that's just one example of how we're going to have to be able to extend some of these learning opportunities that we just didn't do previously. Who else wanted to speak? Was that Mike or did anyone else want to add in? And I know we're not going to be able to get to every principle today, but we'll take two and then we'll go to our next question. I'll just add that you've got to address skill gaps also to during the tier one block. So
068that's why when at the elementary level, when teachers are delivering that grade level instruction at the beginning of a content block and are modeling thinking and are modeling processes and strategies, once they transition to students working independently in those small groups, teachers are addressing skill gaps. that are prerequisites to kids really internalizing the new learning they're starting that day. So really you've got to be addressing that in tier one instructional time as well through small group instruction. The other piece to that is we also we might need to consider as a division How many minutes are we going to say are spent in tier one? You know, as he said, you know, we have time for intervention during the day. But. You know, it's actually, we got, we have two, we have two for many
069of our grade levels right now in the virtual, because even though we're not at school, we actually gain more time because we're not losing it in transition of going to school, going here, going there. So as we bring kids back, you know, it's going to, we're going to lose a little time too. But I would say this, I think ensuring that we have enough time for two intervention blocks. at the elementary level next year is going to be critical. And that's going to require us to really look at how long is recess? How long is lunch? How long do we expect to be in tier one reading, in tier one math, in science and social studies? So we really need to look realistically at how many minutes we have in the day and make sure
070we carve out that time because intervention is going to be even more important than ever. Thank you. I just got chills listening to you, by the way, Mr. Rutowska. So, wow. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to move on though to Mr. Suar. Oh, sorry. Ms. Lorber. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for the presentation. It really is kind of a thrill to get to hear our principals see you and hear you speak, and it's just a treat because we don't, it doesn't happen often enough. We don't spend enough time in the schools. My question actually relates to the very beginning of the presentation when we were looking at the data on the students who've had the largest the greatest losses. And I'm wondering, is there data on a correlation between access to internet and
071those students? Because I would just assume that the families who have more trouble accessing internet are the more low income, the higher risk kids who seem to fall in the categories that we've identified where there's the greatest loss and challenge. And not simply it's internet access. And then if there are multiple children living together. Even in that sense, there may be access to the house, but not enough equipment for all the children. So I just wonder if there's been any correlation between internet access and the kids who are not doing as well. That's my question. Greg, did you want me to take that? Okay. So excellent question, Board Member Lorber. And I think, as you alluded to in your question, This would be in the stat world what we would consider a multivariate. discussion in
072terms of there is no singular variable, right, that is going to point to the disparities that we see emerging in these data. So certainly internet access is a component, as you pointed to, living situation, certainly also a component, as well as a slew of other factors. And really, it comes down to the work that I know our schools are doing and kind of not to be cliche, but the conversation of the whole child and how do we attend to all of those different factors to best meet the need of the individual learner. Specifically as it relates to internet access, I know Dr. Hoover does have some statistics there around who does and who does not have access to internet in our city in terms of our learners and that those numbers are. relatively small and
073they have been working actively obviously as you all know throughout the pandemic to get those down to zero interrupted internet certainly plays a factor but I would say there are there are lots of causes to these disparities and it's the work of the SST team and others to unpack those and to best service each individual student. Thank you Mr. Page. Moving on to Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Alderton. And I just wanted to say, express my gratitude as well to the staff and to the principals for the great presentation and also just for the compilation of the data as well. You know, I think it really is great that we're being transparent about some of this data, which, you know, frankly, isn't. as rosy as we'd like it to be, right? There's a lot of
074disparities reflected in this data, a lot of very high rates of absenteeism reflected in this data, but the fact that we're willing to lay this bare, confront these issues head on and have this kind of conversation is great. And I'll put in my plug from the board perspective that, you know, as we strive to be... higher functioning board over time. Like these are the types of conversations I think we should always be having about student achievement, focusing the data, and these sorts of things. So I just commend the whole staff and the team for putting all this together because I think it fosters a really robust conversation. So my question really is about sort of how we're planning to sort of implement MTSS to take the theory, you know, into the practice and to show
075the concrete results. And to be clear, I'm a believer in MTSS and I'm excited for the potential and what we're going to do with it. You know, but one of the things I did observe in the data is that a lot of the results between quarter one and quarter two were somewhat flat. So for example, the attendance rates were pretty consistent between the two quarters, as were some of the grade distributions. There were some exceptions, but I felt like in general, they were fairly flat. And so to me, I see sort of an exciting opportunity in drilling down the data sort of another level and sort of showing we've seen these disparities, we've seen these results. Now let's look at where we're applying MTSS. How many students are tier one? How many are tier two?
076How many are tier three? And in quarter two, we had this many students in MTSS. And then here's how the attendance issues improved, or here's how the grade distributions improved. in those sorts of things. So I'm sort of wondering what is our sort of long-term thinking in terms of how we're going to drill down even further down in the data to sort of correlate these interventions with our progress so we can see where MTSS is going well, where some schools are performing really high in MTSS and some maybe need more support in MTSS, all those sorts of things, because it actually kind of goes back to Ms. Gentry's point. I think if we can sort of make the case to the community that MTSS is moving the needle on these attendance issues, on these grade
077issues, on all of these challenges we're trying to address in the system, perhaps then that's going to allow us to say to the city, to our constituents, to council, and so forth, hey. There's this inverted pyramid. We need a lot of resources. When we devote the resources to these interventions, we're seeing reduced grade disparities. We're seeing improved attendance and things like that. And so to the extent we feel resource constrained right now or at some point in the future, kind of thinking long term, I just see an exciting opportunity here. And so I'm really curious just sort of what we're thinking in terms of that. longer term trajectory. And it, cause it sounded like toward the end of the presentation, we're talking about the next steps and we're going to be, you know, implementing this
078further. So I'm really excited to kind of hear what your all's thoughts are about that and, and, and how we're going to leverage this to, to really show our progress. So, Mr. Suarez, thank you for that question. And one, let me just say this, and I think this is something that we gained from our quarterly chats. We really are going to need to reconsider our grading philosophy. And the reason why I say that is because when you look at our data at the school level, so for example, when our staff were sharing our map data and we were talking through our running records, as well as some of the other, you know, assessments that have been done throughout this year, we actually saw progress from first quarter to second quarter. Then when you look at
079the grading data, it's not reflected. Right. So there showed to me that there's a disconnect. And I was saying this, you know, with Dr. Mozingo and Dr. Sims and Dr. Wilkins and Dr. Crawford, because we were sitting on these quarterly chats. I was just saying that I'm just baffled by, OK, well, when I have these individual school chats and I'm looking at the school data. I'm seeing the progress with all of the measures that we're using to determine, to monitor our progress of our students, but then it's not showing up in the grades. Something's wrong. There's something going on with that. Now, I don't have the answer to what is going on, but I know something is not adding up. Also, when you dig deeper with the absenteeism data, and this was something that some
080of our principals pointed out during some of our quarterly chats for the second quarter was that, Some kids are there in the morning and then they're off in the afternoon. Right. So they may start off good. And then the afternoon part, they're not they're not there anymore. Right. And I just you know, that that's just other key points that we just have to think through. I mean, there's so many different scenarios. I mean, you got to think some of our kids are sitting on their surface or computer or laptop. And then their sibling is also sitting next to them doing the same thing. And then their mom or dad or guardian is, you know, on the other side of the room doing the same thing. There's so many distractions going on. Every household is so
081different that during this pandemic, we have to even look at our grading differently. Because I might be a student that has mastered everything you all told me. but that my teacher taught me, but I'm now in this environment at home that's not afforded me an opportunity to demonstrate it for you. the way you're asking me to through a quiz or tests. So we got to start looking at, you know, how we're assessing kids. And this is beyond, even beyond this pandemic, right? I think the pandemic to me is kind of like, this is going to catapult, you know, our efforts. But we knew that this was a problem before. I just feel like we are all so caught up in how things are and how they're supposed to be in education that we're not. you
082know, willing to take ourselves out of the, out of our comfort zone and think out of the box, right? Now we've all been forced to, so let's stay out of it. Let's not go back into the box. Let's stay out of the box and start thinking about like, how do we do, as you said, Mr. Suarez. to begin to disaggregate the data and dig deeper so we can really get to some of the root causes and come up with some clear solutions on how to address them, which is going to be varied. It's not going to be a one size fits all solution for any of this. moving forward. And in regards to your long-term question, you know, one thing that is going to be key for us to continue to see this kind of
083progress is we have to continuously monitor the progress of our students. We got to keep doing that. Something that can't end. We got is if we continue, because every group of kids bring different challenges, too. And some of the same kids, depending on their circumstances, are going to bring different challenges. Think of all of our high achievers from last spring that are now not because of the situation that we're in in this global pandemic. Right. So the same kid. different learning environment now, different crisis that they're dealing with. So now they're demonstrating their mastery in a very different way that's not aligned with how it was being demonstrated last year. So that continuous monitoring of our progress is definitely going to be key. I don't know if Mr. Page or if Dr. Mozingo, Dr. Sims,
084because I know we were having this conversation just recently, if you all wanted to add anything. Thank you. If I could, Madam Chair and Dr. Hutchins, one of the things I wanted to add, and Dr. Sims may want to add something too, it is really good to see that we finally have gotten to a point where there is this understanding of MTSS. That was one of our initial challenges, right? And then next get to the level of the, like where they are, this early implementation. And you can see some of the consistent strategies across each of these schools. Dr. Sims and I've talked about this and we've mentioned this before. One of our next steps, in addition to the grading practices, we really have to begin to evaluate the effectiveness of some of the strategies.
085Because Dr. Hutchins has talked about we need to narrow the strategies. And that is what has been missing in a number of implementations of MTSS. And now we're at a point, and he can talk more about this, but we are wanting to work with a particular institution that has an excellent model for how you evaluate the strategies used within the MTSS system. Once we can begin to see the effectiveness of those strategies. then those are the strategies we can continue to implement over time. So that's something we've talked about because that is our next step. And that's one of the things that we want to do next year. A strategy could be making sure that we stay to fidelity on some of the programs, that we actually stay to fidelity on some of the programs.
086Another strategy could be... how we consistently identify certain kids for certain programs based upon its original design. But that is our next step. I think we've got a good model now. All of our schools understand. We've got lots of training. Now we need to identify, it's like a clearinghouse, what works in our strategies. And that's what we want to continue to move forward. I don't know if Dr. Sims wanted to highlight anything about that next approach or not. Sure. Thank you so much for the question. I think when I heard Board Member Gentry mention this whole notion of the pyramid, actually MTSS, what it allows us to do is have better continuous improvement process. It's a process model, right, where we can be more focused on the interventions for students. But the reality is, as
087we focused in Alexandria, we realized that that pyramid has been inverted for certain groups of students for a long time. That's nothing new. And we, our whole focus has been how do we address the fact that there has been this persistent pattern of underperformance for certain students? And we've really taken a very bold look and approach to that with our strategic plan. Now what we need to do is figure out what are the high leverage interventions. Because historically, people have been using the same supports, but we still see the same problems in terms of underperformance of students of color. So even when you put it in a process model like MTSS, unless you figure out... how to shift those interventions, not only a different type of medicine, or not only more of the medicine, but
088which medicine is the best type of medicine to support students' improvement. That's what we have to figure out. That's our next step. So what Dr. Mozingo was alluding to is... I hope that we will use some support through a partnership with the Strategic Data Project out of Harvard University to bring a fellow to help us. Our next level of work with MTSS is to do that analytic work with our MTSS model to figure out what are our high leverage activities, where should we, where's the best return on our investment with interventions and begin to disaggregate our data in a way that says, this is what's moving the needle. for these groups of students so that we know where to make better investments and address the pyramid that's been inverted for groups of students. We talk
089about it in terms of our strategic plan, those disparities that we are trying to address. If we don't figure that out, the disparities just persist. So the inverted triangle has been there all the time. Our strategic plan helps us to take a laser-like focus. from an equity lens on what are the strategies that we'll need to address or else we will just continue this cycle of describing the problem or the students that have the disparities. So hopefully that will be the next level of work for us to do sort of deeper analytics around those high leverage strategies for students. Thank you. May I also add, I'm sorry, Dr. Hutchinson, may I also add that our strength lies in tier one and what we're doing at the tier one level. When we get to tier two
090and tier three, then we're saying that we have things that we need to do better with certain students and work that out. But really what we... you know, our first look is what's happening at tier one and how we are supporting students at that universal level so that we don't necessarily need to look at the next level of strategies moving forward. So that's an important piece of that longevity that you mentioned, Mr. Suarez. Thank you. I just wanted to say this is the reason why we needed to reorganize our teaching, learning and leadership. I just want to start screaming and run down the street because we didn't rehearse none of this part. Right. This we don't know what questions are going to be asked, but this validates that our team, you all know exactly what
091you're doing. You know exactly what you are doing. I am so. fired up and excited just sitting here listening to you all. You are just on. You are on. And thank you. That's all. I'm going to be quiet, Madam Chair. Yeah, it's a good thing I'm going to put myself at the end here because I'm going to go to Miss Nolan. Thank you, Chair Alderson. And I couldn't agree more. I think I'm sitting here just so incredibly humbled to be amongst all of you. I mean, every single person that presented tonight, you're just such a phenomenal leader. And we're so lucky to have your talents all the time, but especially during this time when the children just need us more than ever. So really, really appreciate everyone's hard work, those that are on the Zoom
092and not. My question is actually... Mr. Suarez, thanks so much. I think it sort of teed up mine as well. I have a two-parter all about academic interventions. I was wondering, I so appreciate what you said, Dr. Hutchings, and it's true that we have had an achievement gap. COVID only magnified that, and unfortunately, it's having that achievement gap grow even more. So I'm a huge, huge fan of MTSS. I believe in what everyone has said and has done. I'm curious, though. do we have a sense as of right now, what are the strategies in terms of academic gains and growth, especially for students who are already behind? I can imagine what you said, Dr. Hutchings, in terms of the grade, what MTS sometimes does is a phenomenal job with this framework of getting students ahead
093in terms of like where their needs are in terms of either trauma they've experienced or behavior as such. But in terms of like academic growth and like student being, for instance, two reading levels behind or two grade levels behind in math, like. Do we have a sense of right now that was already an issue, now the gap has widened, like what are going to be the academic strategies that we focus on? Like I really appreciated, for example, Principal Rutowska in terms of like what you shared that your needs are gonna be, like we're gonna have to have a difference in schedule. Like I'm just curious if we have a sense as of right now, like what other strategies in particular for academic growth? And then my second part in that is in terms especially with
094the attendance. You know, we noted that one of the board goals was the Hispanic graduation rate and as well as so many of our. students that come from economically challenged backgrounds and being mindful of that graduation rate, do we also have a concern or is there a needed additional support to focus on our graduation rate this year and the following year, given the impacts of COVID in particular? So again, I'm just curious, have we given any thought to what are the specific strategies in terms of academic growth that's going to be needed to implement? knowing that this was already a problem to begin with. And then secondly, I'm just curious to understand like what added supports are taking place to address the attendance and therefore the graduation rate and how that would be impacted. I
095think it would be great for one of our elementary principals to talk to the literacy component with some of the exact strategies that we're doing. And I think, I don't know, Hasebe, would you, Ms. Cruz, would you like to share what you all are doing? Yes, yes. I actually, thank you, Dr. Hutchings. I was thinking about that while you were asking that question. And thank you so much, Ms. Nolan, for everything you said. You know, it's an honor to be a principal in Alexandria. So I will tell you that we are really looking closely at the PALS interventions that are listed that the students need when they come in. But we're also looking at Orton-Gillingham and other things that deal with phonics. Phonics continues to be something that we are constantly targeting and working on.
096And they need it from the very beginning. So a lot of the IE groups that I was referring to earlier. We have gaps, right? We have some students that are coming to kindergarten reading at a second grade level. We have some that are coming in without preschool that don't know their letters yet. So we literally have to start with interventions and working with our students in small groups and differentiating from day one. Because, you know, I'm blessed. I love my, adore my school, but I have a combination when we would have open houses of parents that are coming in and are asking me. what are you going to do for my kiddo that's reading at a second grade level? And then I have other kiddos that I'm trying to catch up. We're catching them up
097the whole time, right, from day one. And so we are looking at everything. So like when we're, say, making letters in the sand, building things, and those are the things that we haven't been able to do the same way in the classroom during virtual. However, what we have done is we've had distributions where we've given the materials and as much as we can through planning and through things, not only the stuff the district has given, but I'm very proud of the work my teachers do and the coaches do because they come up with other things. They've come to make copies of different tracing things and item things so that the kids can learn. And they're constantly monitoring the progress and working as a team through student talks, through the MTSS process, looking at data. they
098know that it is an expectation through their PLP and their goals as teachers. They know that they need to put data in there. So they tell me, I have this many kids that don't recognize other letters in their sounds. My goal is to have this many by mid-year, and then we're going to have mid-year meetings, end of the year meetings. I'm constantly looking at their data, looking at their progress. still looking in their classrooms to see how they're working virtually, which is different, but we're monitoring progress constantly. So that's what we're doing right now. When we get back, we have so much more to do. So I know I just said a lot, but we know that we have so much that we're going to have to do. And I'm nervous about summer school only
099because I'm concerned about teacher burnout. And I just feel like I really have to say that. I understand we want to have summer learning, but I'm very concerned about how much the teachers are going to be willing to give us this summer. So I'm just going to go ahead and put that out there. I know we have, thank you, Ms. Cruz. Ms. Sanders, she can answer the second part of Ms. Nolan's question, which was around our Hispanic population, our focus is on our Hispanic graduation and kind of dropout prevention. So what are some of those efforts? Because I do know we have developed our Hispanic task force, Hispanic male task force at the high school. But if you can maybe elaborate on that. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. And thank you for your question, Vice Chair
100Nolan. To Dr. Hutchings' point, I think that it is very important that we think outside of the box when we're discussing students' needs, especially when we're talking about students with extenuating circumstances during this global pandemic and even beyond or prior to the global pandemic. And so when we... are discussing the Hispanic male graduation rate, there have been a few things that we have implemented that are truly outside of the box. And one of which is the pilot program, which we are calling APA, which is Alternative Pathways to Achievement Program. And the profile of a student there is a student who has not been able to attend school because they are currently working. They are 18 years or older. And we. have gotten a group of teachers together from the International Academy to develop curriculum and
101to support students through a virtual and in-person learning model in the evening hours. And so that program has just started a few weeks ago. Our students are seeing much success there and it is our hope that we can expand that to other students in the near future as we take a look at the program and assess where needed, assess, you know, improvements and things that might be needed there. The other things that we are thinking about is tackling the strong or continuing the strong partnership that we have with the Adult Learning Center, where we have our after-school credit recovery program for students, where students who might be credit deficient are able to take those after school credit recovery courses and earn a credit in a class that is needed towards graduation. We also have incorporated
102some credit recovery courses during our school day as we have been moving throughout the years and it is really taking hold in this virtual world as teachers have a little bit more space in regards to planning in their schedule. And so I hope I answered your question, but the idea is to really continue to think outside of the box and provide students with different programs that are needed to meet their needs. Thank you. That was amazing. That APA program sounds phenomenal. Really excited about the interventions that are taking place. And I mean, I think what's going to happen hopefully during this moment in time is it's forcing us to, you know, try some different things and hope that hopefully will continue on even post COVID. So thank you so much. Really great to hear from
103you. Dr. Hutchins, can I just add something here? Yes, go ahead. I just wanted to let you know, Mr. Nolan, that the team, the Hispanic Task Force team, actually during our quarterly chat, they gave us an update about progress in monitoring. So there's very active progress monitoring for that cohort of students that are scheduled to graduate so that they are looking to see which students are on track and which students do we need to... look at some interventions to address getting them on track in addition to the intervention that Ms. Sanders just mentioned. So that I was very encouraged during a quarterly chat to hear that as one of the points of progress that they reference so that we have increased knowledge of where our students are before we get to the graduation point to
104find out that fewer of our students graduated than expected. So I just wanted to let you know. And to add to that, thank you, Dr. Sims, for that. I would be remiss if I did not mention the fact that a good number of that tracking and progress monitoring is taking place through mentorship. Each administrator, there are teachers and staff at our buildings that are monitoring these students, building positive relationships with them, and making sure that they are meeting their academic requirements as well as supporting them socially, emotionally throughout this time of trying to achieve on-time graduation. So I did not want to leave that part out. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Ms. Green. Thank you, Madam Chair. And oh my goodness, this is just so wonderful. I'm just enjoying sitting here. just learning more about,
105it's just so refreshing. I'm not gonna run down the street like Dr. Hutchings because it's too cold outside, but I might take a jog around my house because this truly is wonderful. So thank you to all involved. And I look forward to just getting more updates and seeing the progress that our students make with this wonderful plan. And to echo Dr. Hutchings' sentiments, we do really have some of the best. the best principles in the business. So thank you for all that you do for our students, not just MTSS, but what you do on a daily basis for them. So thank you. My question, and this really excited me, was to see the division-wide monitoring system, a bullet up there on that, and that we may be researching that or... Not sure where we are
106with that, but that would truly be something that could take us to the next level if we could have all that information in one place, seeing what works better in one school versus the other, and just maybe honing in on that information. So can you talk to me a little bit about how we've done research on that and how fast we could get something like that up and running? Thank you. And Mr. Page, you can talk a little bit about some of the metrics that we're going to be using. I know that it's a presentation next month, Ms. Green, and we're going to be doing with the board in March. So the board is going to get a complete overview of some of those metrics, but you may want to elaborate on that. Yeah, I
107would be happy to. And I think this also goes back to members for us this question in terms of growth, right, and how we're monitoring growth, both in terms of the MTSS progression across tiers and impact and what's working. So as part of our strategic plan, we are going to be launching, as Dr. Hutchings alluded to, in the March 4th meeting, we'll be rolling out our equity dashboard, which we'll be reporting out on our mid-year progress. across our critical performance indicators, not our CPIs, but our KPIs, our key performance indicators. And really capturing in one visual field, right, how we are performing across those key performance indicators by student group. And again, as members pointed out, wanting to be open and transparent about that, right? That we have to have these discussions about where we're
108succeeding and then also where we know we need to double down and focus in on and how we go about doing that. And I think... Putting that in concert with the work that Dr. Sims is alluded to in terms of how we continue to progress as a learning organization. So not just how we present and digest data, but how we actually translate that data into new learning and into improved actions. So all more to come on March 4th, but really excited to present that information to the board as part of the new strategic plan. Thank you, Mr. Page. I have Ms. Anderson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, there's been a lot said already, but I really still want to echo some of what I've heard. You know, MTSS has been a buzzword to many of
109the years that I've been on the board, and this was the really first. totally comprehensive, totally understandable to me way of how it's actually going to work and move us forward. The other thing I wanted to mention, which was also partially talked about, was kind of the out-of-the-box thinking with the absenteeism that we shouldn't restrict ourselves to the hours that are normally considered school hours. And so I really appreciate the APA thing. And that's something that's really been talked about in one way or another for a really long time. But I think the pandemic has made it more pronounced because some kids have had to work more just to keep the... you know, everybody above water. But I do wonder if there's something that can be done even with younger children, because I could see,
110you know, if asynchronous days are the ones that show some issue, you know, my thought is like, for instance, in an English language family, it could be on the weekend that somebody would be available. Excuse me. who speaks English better, but they may be at work during the week. And so the care provider might not be able to help as much. So I'm not sure how that would work logistically, but I just wonder if we've thought about anything outside of the box for younger children as well, especially for that asynchronous day. I'll open that for Dr. Mozingo. This is in regards to the asynchronous day Mondays for elementary school students and some of the discussions that we've had in regards to like, how do we ensure that we're providing them with, you know, some additional
111opportunities. So thank you so much for asking that question. I think one of the things that in terms of additional opportunities, I think as we continue to, I was just thinking as you asked that question, I was thinking, okay, as we continue to work and plan some of the activities on SEAL Mondays, we really do need to think about some different types of activities for our younger students. I'm probably going to have to spend a little bit more time with our principals and kind of unpack what that might would look like. I know in terms of what we've got, I know working with Dr. Mann, we have. in an activity. We've talked about a way in which we could use our television channel to create some activities, some educational television activities for our younger children,
112even on those Mondays as another way to be able to engage our younger children on Mondays. We've also have another group that's working on some literacy book activities for some of our younger students to be able to engage them differently on the Monday. So that's something that we need to continue to develop and unpack for our younger kids. And Dr. Crawford, this might be- Yeah, I was going to ask you, that's right. I know that you and Mr. Sampson, that we've developed a SEAL- transition or seal Monday team. I don't know what the actual term that we call this committee, but you may want to use this opportunity to talk a little bit about that because I think that can address some of Ms. Anderson's question. Most of our seal Monday committee people are on
113this meeting right now with Dr. Sims and Mr. Samson and our lead principals who've been giving us. outstanding information. As I mentioned on Tuesday, one of the things that we're doing with the Seal Monday is getting a sense from the schools of what are in fact the academic and the social emotional learning needs. So to your point, Ms. Anderson, when we're able to look at that, Monday may be an opportunity for us to specifically target. program services supports based on the needs of what our K-5 learners are. I was also just making little notes to myself. I know that we also have other areas of outreach that perhaps we can look to enhance, whether that's our programs right now that we use with our partners. I wrote down Link Club because we know that FACE
114has such a wonderful partnership and some of the principals whose students attend those evening or after school classes are on here and we work really hard to make sure that we're providing resources and support so it is off school hours when we look at that but just brainstorming some of the ideas of what could we do for the younger group who may show and we're doing the quarterly chats right now so schools have such a phenomenal system, all of them that we've been in and identifying the areas of need where communication maybe hasn't been as strong as they would like to look at what are those specific needs and then how can we provide responsive services for that Monday being one option. As you said, I don't know, you know, we could look at what
115our weekend supports, etc. But I don't know if Dr. Sims or Mr. Sampson wants to add on to that with respect to the Seal Monday planning. Sure. I just think that we envision Seal Mondays as being a starting off point, you know, and to sort of see what we're able to do within. you know, the particular constraints that will be developed. And then if there's opportunities to expand, bring in more students, have multiple sessions during the day, I mean, all sorts of things that we might be able to explore. You know, I think there's opportunities there to involve more students as that program takes off. Yeah. Could I just clarify something? One thing that I had in mind was more like, what if the kids could do their asynchronous over the weekend with a person
116who was available over the weekend and get their work done? So this is without knowing the specifics of how it all works. And then, yes, all these other things on Monday to keep them busy. But I just worry about some people may have a person who can help them on the weekend, but the Monday thing, when it's so, so. you know, it's not synchronous with the person engaging them, that it might be easier. But I don't know if that's impossible. So that was kind of where I was going. And I'm not sure if I made that clear, but that was kind of where I was going. Thank you for clarifying that. I understand what you're saying. Now, you're basically trying to identify are there ways in which there could be more Saturday support or weekend
117support? for the younger students. That's what I think I understand your question. Well, even if it wasn't supported, I mean, I don't know, depending on the situation, maybe if they just had the stuff that they were supposed to do, if there was a parent and, you know, I know sometimes it has been a problem even connecting and if the person doesn't speak English, but it's my experience that maybe someone on the weekend would speak English, but the person who's, who's maybe doing childcare for, for a family. does not, and is maybe not as tech savvy, but so maybe the person who's working all week is actually a person who could help them. Anyway, that was just sort of an out of the box kind of thinking given some situations I'm aware of, but, you know,
118over time, not really currently. So that's all. That's all. But thank you. I'm very impressed with everything that's going on. Dr. Reed? Okay, well, thank you for the presentation. And of course, I echo my colleagues sentiments, but it's been a really great discussion. And it's also really terrific to see some of the principals who we haven't seen often since COVID hit. So it's really great to have your participation in the board meeting. So thank you. And I kind of had two questions, but the first one, Ms. Anderson really touched on, but, you know, I mean, looking at the... chronic absenteeism. I mean, it says that asynchronous days are still what's driving that. So, you know, one question I have is. it's my understanding that kids have to log out of Clever completely and log back
119in in order for their attendance to be counted. And I know that if I wasn't around to make sure my kids were doing that, that they would not be doing that. So I'm just really curious because nobody's, it's not like we're tracking how much time they're spending, you know, in Canvas on Mondays or whatever. So I'm just, I'm just wondering like, you know, I mean, because the attendance rate on the synchronous days is, you know, it's, I think it's typical to a regular school year, I believe. So there's definitely something going on with that. And I'm wondering if we can't. you know, drill down into that as well. But I'll just, if anybody wants to talk about that, you can, but I'll just move into my second question too, because I know that we've already
120been talking for a long time. And that was about the grading policy. And I'm really glad that you brought this up, Dr. Hutchings. about really looking at our grading policy. You know, in the elementary grades, we have the standard-based grading policy. And then in secondary, we go to the letter grades. And just anecdotally, I've observed that that transition from elementary to secondary can be a little challenging because they don't have the context of like, what does an A mean? What does a B mean? That kind of thing. You know, when we had a parent who came and spoke about this at a public comment last month about this, the fact that even though it's the letter grade system, we also use the 100 point scale. And although a 50 would be considered failing, when a
121student doesn't complete an assignment by a deadline or they get a, you know, an NHI, that would convert to a zero. which has like a disproportionate outsized impact on a student's grade. And this is something even prior to the pandemic that I know different school divisions were looking at and moving away from this policy, the zero-based kind of grading policy where they would designate 50 as the lowest grade that a student could be assigned. And our policy, we do that on a quarterly basis. So, you know, the lowest, if a student fails a quarter, they get the lowest they can get is a 50. And then that's averaged in to get their final grade. But we're not doing it within the quarter. But I know that some of our other neighboring jurisdictions are doing that.
122And I believe that Fairfax County went to this policy after the winter break as one of the responses to the challenges of the pandemic during this time. So not only that, but they also, I believe, reduced the number of minimum assignments within a semester. So if other neighboring jurisdictions are doing that and it's not something we're doing, then that. that can also be disproportionately, you know, negatively impacting our students from our school division in terms of their graduation rates, their college applications, scholarship applications, and things like that. So I was wondering if you could just speak about, you know, not only looking at the grading policy long-term, but are there plans for adjustments that we're going to be making, you know, before the end of the current school year to the grading policy? So I
123know that our grading committee, they are just about to reconvene. I know that Mr. Ballas and Ms. Abruzzese, they have just started having their discussions about their reconvening. So I don't want to jump, you know, comments into that at this point. But I do know we will be bringing something before the board, I'm sure, in the coming months. But I so I won't respond at this point because I just know that our committee is about to reconvene and to begin to have these discussions from our data. We now have two quarters of data to express. It's not just the first quarter data to say, hey, everybody's trying to transition into virtual plus. We now have we had a second quarter to respond to some of our first quarter results, and we're still seeing some of
124the same trends. So now we have. an issue that we need to work through and come up with a solution, not just for this global pandemic, but also beyond this particular time. Because grading policy and our current grading policy, it's a major concern. And it has been a concern for me since I arrived in 2018. I'm glad we're finally working through it and we're going to make something different of it. But it's about time. Thank you. So I think I am the last here. And I mean, you guys might think I'm crazy, but I was literally tearing up listening to this presentation in this discussion because this is the meat that drives success for kids, which I truly believe will drive success for the school division. And it is so just powerful to see it.
125all coming together. And the, you know, the fact for me, the fact that this is really only the beginning really speaks to, you know, our potential, I think, to be, you know, a model school division. You know, I say, you know, given the population of students that we serve, the diversity that we have, this place should be the model for the nation. And I think this kind of work, you know, is the key thing to get us there. So, you know, yeah, I was tearing up listening to this because, you know, I'm a firm believer in this is top quality professional educational work. So I'm really looking forward to seeing us continue to grow in this area. I want to start off with some key comments. I just wanted to like reaffirm things that I
126heard. I love Ms. Sanders' point when she said, you know, you come, if you're going to refer a kid, come with data. Right. Really having some firm something firm to bring to the table, because, you know, I've been a teacher and I know that sometimes you just have all these things in your head that you're thinking about. You know, a kid is having this issue and this issue and this issue, but it really needs to be articulated because that's when it becomes a fair process, I believe. So I loved hearing that from Ms. Sanders. I really want to thank you, Dr. Hutchings, for bringing up the issue around grading, because, you know, I, I, I am, I agree with you 100%. It is time to really start rethinking, you know, even with the purpose of
127grading, you know, what are we trying to achieve, trying to achieve when we are giving students grades, and it really needs to be more meaningful. And we really need to not put our students in a position of constantly experiencing failure. You know, one of the things that I always say is, you know, even as an adult, when I encounter a system, you know, that I feel like I perpetually fail at, what's going to motivate me to continue? And so for kids, I think that's, you know, even more important. And grading is a big part of that, in my opinion. The other thing that I wanted to highlight about all this is there's this huge discussion right now around recovery and almost, you know, in a sense, it's almost a panic that we're all in around
128recovery. You know, what are we going to do? How are we going to catch up? And I will say that, you know, This is the reason why MTSS is important. This is the reason why this structure needs to be in place. And those of us who have had the forethought to take this seriously will actually be in a better position for recovery because we already have a system that is about recovery. Right. That's what, you know, MTSS is about having a system in place that supports the needs of kids wherever they are. And so, you know, I think, you know, the difficult thing is we do feel the pressure of, you know, the triangle being upside down. But the wonderful thing is that we have a mechanism. We have a process. Let's use it. So
129I think those are my comments. I just have two questions, and one of them, Dr. Hutchinson, I think you kind of alluded to a little bit already, but I was really curious about, the first question is about assessment that has occurred throughout this time. I was really curious as to, you know, we did the map screening in the fall, and then we actually did the full battery. this in February. And I was curious as to, and even I'll put in like, you know, and always, especially in elementary school, we're doing running records, Fontes and Pinnell type data. did principals actually, you know, how did they feel about the, did they see progress? And, you know, how did they feel about the data that they saw across data points? And I think you alluded to, like,
130you know, we actually saw progress. And I think if that's the case, like, that's really important to put out there. So yeah, we did. And we were able to see that progress. And that's why there was a disconnect with the grading practices in regards to, you know, and the progress monitoring that we're doing within our schools. But yes, we were able to see the progress. And that's at all levels. We were seeing progress. I think that what we have to keep in mind with things like MAP and some of the other assessments, we don't have control of the testing environment. Kids are at home. We don't know what's happening around them or near them. And so it skews our data in some ways because, you know, we can't ensure that the one that the kid
131doesn't have somebody next to him talking to him about what the answers are or that, you know, it's too noisy and they're distracted and they can't get on task, but they do know everything that's on the test. But, you know, I think those are some of the challenges that this whole global pandemic is bringing. But yes, we're seeing progress across the board with our other data points. But that grading piece is what's flaring. Good. Yeah, because that was actually another part of that question for me is like how valid and reliable do we feel the data we had was. So thanks for sharing that. And then lastly, I really want to give a shout out to some of the work that's happening with the CEIS funding that's already started to occur. I had the opportunity
132to attend some of the presentations that are happening with the speakers. I mean, the one that I attended was just like, I mean, it really blew me out of the water in terms of this discussion about how we need to be thinking about race and racial disparities and the trauma of race as we are dealing with our academic growth and social emotional growth. And so my question really is, lean toward the kid talk, because I feel like. With the kid talk, maybe a component of that training, I don't know if it already is, maybe a component of that training should include how do we talk about students? Because if we're bringing biases to the table during kid talk, that can affect. you know, the, how the conversation is going and where it leads to. So
133I was just curious, had there been any thought to sort of merging some of the things that those speakers have been talking about in that series to, you know, the kid talk that occurs in MTSS to really start to acknowledge the racial gap and racial trauma and the impact that that has on teachers and how we perceive students. Big question, maybe, but that was my thought. I was going to say something. I wanted to talk a little bit about how our MTSS cross-departmental team is working with our schools to try to create cohesion and consistency from school to school so that we can bring about some of the equity that we know can be missing when you don't have a process by which you speak about students. Using data and sometimes... putting an asterisk next
134to data that we know might have, you know, different levels of reliability so that we can look at a whole picture of a student. So we're not using one single data point to say this child needs to go to this intervention or this child definitely doesn't need intervention, but actually reviewing the data and having triangulation of that data helps us to bring about the equity that we know has been missing for so long. Using map data also allows us to kind of see are there patterns or trends that go from the kind of standardized tests with grades, with other performance indicators, with anecdotal observations so that we can make decisions collaboratively, leveraging the collective expertise that we can use from our teaching staff. And so that's one of the reasons why we asked these teachers,
135these principals to come and talk because their processes have been so refined over time that when we move to a virtual setting, they were able to seamlessly pivot to expanding their processes to encompass students who were having difficulties during the pandemic. Sorry, Haseeb, I didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead. If anybody was going to cut me off, I am so happy it was you. I love you, Ms. Peterson. So I would just like to say that the equity work that we've been doing for years is really paying off. And we are seeing that work happen monthly. I have to commend ACPS on this, and this is the work of Dr. Hutchings, and I want to give him all the credit for that, considering this is my 16th year in ACPS, and I can
136clearly tell you that I am seeing the impact with the teachers now. And the reason why that is happening is because we are turning around what we are getting from Ms. Woods. and from Dr. Crawford, we are then turning, and anybody else I'm forgetting to add, we are then turning that information to our teachers. We are telling them, this is what we're working on. This is who we are as a school. This is who we serve. So then automatically, if you have a student talk meeting, when you're discussing a student's progress, if a teacher or team member, when you have a group of people, a group of colleagues, L teachers, special education teachers, everybody coming together. to discuss a student and concerns, you know that in that, and you've had training on how to talk
137about students, you automatically, you might have your principal drop in who's always here hustling and trying to figure out how I can help. You literally are not going to have anybody say anything. I mean, they might say it, but then there's a quick turnaround on what do we do as a school? Is that a student issue or is that something that you need to do differently? What do you need to do differently for that student to learn? What are you not scaffolding? What reality do you not have in the background to help that child? And it's not me saying my teachers are wonderful, but we have tremendously high expectations and blaming a student for something that they do not know or their background is not something that applies. So I just want to say I'm
138very passionate about that. So you hit a little nerve, Miss Alderton, but in a good way. But I know that it does take. It takes leadership. And we have gotten to that point now as a division. Thank you. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Well, that was a long discussion, but a good one. So I really appreciate all of you guys. I think I'm kind of speechless at this point, but thank you to all the principals. I mean, every single person who is here, this is what this is about. And I'm not sure I've ever been prouder, honestly, in all the moments that I've had to, you know, being a part of ACPS. So I really appreciate you. And I thank every single one of you. And Madam Chair, I just wanted to make sure
139we said thank you to Ms. Sherry James and Ms. Farrah Nichols-Peterson because they, behind the scenes, and granted they didn't do too much talking today, but behind the scenes, that is... where a lot of our MTS work and comes from that department. So they're kind of like our quiet leaders that you just don't get to see. And this is how this comes to fruition. So you all tonight got to see all of the hard work that you do with every one of our schools. It pays off because look, we got to see it tonight before the board. So I just wanted to make sure our quiet leaders got some knowledge. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Okay, so we have more to do. I don't know if there's any more to do tonight after this,
140but we do. So the next item on our agenda is the high school project and we're taking a look at the Ed specs that we will receive. We'll receive the full set of Ed specs in a board brief tomorrow. So, but with that said, I'll turn it back over to Dr. Hutchings and team. Thank you. So as we begin to talk about educational specifications for the high school project, I wanted to turn things over. I am going to turn things over to Erica Gulick, but I just wanted to start off by saying that today it really is about us. setting the stage and helping the board as well as our community understand what education specifications are and how we use them, how they're developed, how we get input so that when we are sharing this
141information out, people have that historical context. And that helps, I think, people to have better understanding. We believe that. So I'm going to turn things over to Miss Erica Gulick. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Tough act to follow, but we are very happy to be here tonight to talk to you all about the high school educational specifications. As part of this presentation, myself, Dr. Gerald Mann, and Perkins Eastman, our architect, will be presenting tonight. We have other members from the team. I'll ask if Azuka Bartlett can share the presentation. Okay, thanks, Azuka. We could go to essential questions. So tonight, as Dr. Hutchings mentioned, we want to talk to you about what is a site-specific educational specification, what is the document, what do we use it for. We want to talk about what has guided the
142development of this document, and you'll see that we have transitioned the name to a comprehensive program slash ed spec. And this is because our ed spec for the Minnie Howard site includes some of our community partners and uses, so it's just a little bit broader and more comprehensive than our standard ed spec. We want to talk about, Dr. Gerald Mann will talk about how specifically has the educational design team influenced this document. We'll then get into the less fun things, such as how does this align with the school board's proposed FY 2022 to FY 31 CIP budget. We'll talk about what specifically we're asking for you to approve on March 4th, and then what the engagement process is for feedback on this document and next steps with the concept. So if we go to the
143next slide. So this is the same slide that we presented during the co-location discussion. We just want to show that we have gotten through that first to-do list so we could check that off. And thank you for that decision on February 4th, which determined that we will not be including any affordable housing in the design for Minnie Howard. And that allows us to develop this comprehensive program and spec documents. We're presenting to you tonight as Ms. Chair Alderton mentioned, you will receive the full document tomorrow along with a brief. And we believe a work session was added as well for March 3rd to discuss this. And then we're hoping for a decision on March 4th. We then get into design concepts where we actually lay what's established in this ed spec that we're going to
144build out and we'll be presenting those options with a series of engagement of community and staff engagement and coming back to the school board on March 18th and the decision following spring break on April 8th on the design concept that will be moved forward for Minnie Howard. So what is a site-specific educational specification? It is a planning document that describes our goal outcomes for a school modernization or new construction. It tells us what, how, and how much to design and build. In particular, it marries what we want to teach and achieve inside a building with what are the spaces that we need then to do so. And so we've used the prototypical high school ed spec that was approved by the school board in January of 2017 and kind of expanded that and made it
145more specific to what exactly do we want to happen in this full connected high school network, specifically focusing on the needs for the new building at the Minnie Howard campus, as well as some adjustments that might be needed at the T.C. Williams King Street campus. We also throughout this document are promoting flexibility in all the spaces. So considerations influencing this document, and we want to be clear here that we're not starting from zero. We have a lot of things that were taken into account to go into this document, including those things I mentioned before, such as the previous prototypical ed spec, but also our strategic plan equity for all 2025 has guided the EDT as well as the development of this document. Certainly our enrollment projections, the educational programming information. that we have to date
146related to that and how it will function in the new building. The relationship between the campuses is really critical because we did, the school board did vote for a connected high school network. And so making sure we consider how the two campuses function together is critical. The construction costs and budget of course, influence what we have proposed in the ed spec. as well as co-located and community partners. We've received guidance from our EDT, our staff and our students on how the ed specs should be laid out and how the school will work. And it considers some of the city requirements as well. Still working very closely with all of the city agencies on this project. Go to the next slide. So this slide, we just want to reiterate the student enrollment projections that are driving
147the need for this project and kind of why we're here. And so our current projections are on the top in orange. You can see they've changed and maybe aren't as aggressive as our last year enrollment projections. This is largely due to some of those COVID-19 impacts. But you can see over time, we still get... to that 5,000 number. And particularly, we approached that pretty closely in the September 2025 school year, FY2026. And so this is critical. The timeline is critical. The project is critical. And so we keep moving forward. We can go to the next slide. I'll now actually turn it over to Dr. Gerald Mann, Executive Director of Instructional Support, to talk through some of the EDT role in the EdSpec. Thank you, Ms. Gulick, for the handoff. And Board Chair, hopefully we can
148be dessert to the main course that we had prior to this presentation. These board priorities may look familiar to the board. We paraphrased your guiding principles and priorities that you gave to Dr. Hutchins and the EDT. And so one of the things that we are definitely considering here is our support services. As we know, the pandemic is highlighted for SEAL supports, but also aligned to our strategic plan, equitable administration of programs. And then also how do we ensure flexibility as TEC will continue to grow, but also that we have the ability to provide special education services for all of our students throughout the connected network and also for our English learner students. And then. continued community engagement and you'll see in a slide or two how many different meetings we've had to fulfill this need.
149Next slide. And we've had over 48 meetings. We've had nine meetings since the EVT reconvened. Just to remind the board that once the pandemic hit last March, we let the EVT members focus on the change in teaching and all the things that demanded of them for their various jobs. And so we reconvened in the fall. And you'll see here that we've had general meetings. We've had meetings with leadership and specialists. We've also met with the executive director of specialized instruction and English learning services and our library media coordinator to talk about different spaces and what should we think about and consider as we continue to develop these draft ed specs. And then again, continue meetings with Mr. Ballas and his leadership team, but also with our city partners and about colocation. Again, thank you for
150that decision. But then you'll see here 12 meetings to talk about the real work that on our side of the shop, we don't deal with that much of a work site development requirements, green zone and transportation and stormwater management. Next slide. And so this connects back to the board priorities. Again, equity for all. We do not want to go down the path of baking in inequities in the design of a new building. And so we are constantly challenging not only Perkins Eastman, but ourselves. And how do we not continue? roadblocks that may reach us from being equity for all. How do we ensure flexibility? Because none of us know what the needs will be in 2030 for the TC Williams or whatever its name will be then. And then how do we also think about
151STEAM approach to teaching across the connected network? What does project-based learning mean? And then lastly, referring back to January, 2020, when we had our STEAM panel. How do we help our large high school feel small? And so something that we highlighted at the beginning with the EDT when they reconvened is we took them through a process. And I may have mentioned this in another update, all the different ideas that have been tried for small learning communities at TC Williams. And so Ms. Luttrell, a teacher on the EDT did extensive research. And so we're now at the point once we move past design. to really design for TC Williams and the connected network. What does it really mean to have a small learning community across all the campuses? So students understand that they're part of a
152large community, but they also have a sense that they're part of something smaller and someone knows who they are. Next slide. And so some of the recommendations that the EDT aligned with the board priorities and also their themes, how do we ensure equal distribution across the campuses that students have access to, whether they're in alternative ed, whether they're in satellite program, that everyone has an opportunity to experience something on the Minnie Howard campus. What are ways that we can think about scheduling differently? And also, different ideas of how students can be distributed through the building. You'll see in future presentations and also in the draft ed specs an idea of lunch and learn. And so rethinking how do we think of the cafeteria where everyone is housed and you have four lunch periods, but do
153we think how do we utilize the time during the day that we can have student clubs during lunch, we can have students meeting with teachers. And so as we think about our Hispanic male graduation rate. Students may not be able to stay after school because of work, but if we have the ability for you to meet with teachers or join a club and be involved in extracurricular activities during the day, that may also be a strategy that we can employ when the new building opens. And Mr. Ballas and his team are excited about that idea. And so those are some of the recommendations that we put forward to Perkins Eastman. And now at this time, I'll turn it over to Mr. O'Donnell from Perkins Eastman. Thank you, Dr. Mann. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for
154inviting us to have the conversation this evening. One of the things that we've done since we've started working with the team is really digging in and analyzing the use of your current space, your scheduling, the conditions of your existing space, and the qualities of the environment on both campuses. And of course, one of the... primary goals of the educational specifications is to define the numbers and types of space that we're planning for the new construction. But we're also thinking again about implications for King Street as well through the process. And what you see on the table here is both an assessment of some of the existing instructional spaces in broad categories that exist on both of the David Wiltshire- King street and many Howard campuses you see in the Center of the table a proposal
155for how that mix might change on both of the campuses and then on the right, you see the net change, you know, particularly focused on the mini Howard campus. David Wiltshire- So you'll see that, for example, within the. Numbers of instructional spaces that were planning on Minnie Howard campus, we're looking at a net change of 44 instructional spaces. And while the category is deemed classroom spaces, there's actually greater diversity within this type. So here we're talking, of course, about classroom space, but there's also resource classrooms, pull-out space for small groups and special education activities. There's a number of science labs, there's CTE space, there's art studios within there. So there's a diversity of new spaces coming into the mix and available to the program, again, to foster the 21st century learning environment that we understand
156we're trying to achieve across the Connected High School network. That said, you know, it's important to note that within this mix, it's not just these additional 44 spaces. We are reimagining all of the spaces on that campus. You know that building was not built for you know, certainly the high school program that is contemporary with what we're trying to achieve in education today. So all the spaces within there, even if they're being replaced they're being enhanced they're being right size they're being thought of being outfitted again YouTube. be configured for flexibility and adaptability and support of a contemporary curriculum here as well. So when you look at line items such as PE spaces, while the teaching stations might seem static, in many ways those spaces will be significantly enhanced and dramatically better than as resources
157for education as we move forward. Likewise, you also see on this table As was indicated before, we are also projecting space within the document for co-located partners. So you see the addition of the pool. That's been part of the conversation here as well. The Teen Wellness Center, again, while it doesn't look like a net. addition in any way. Again, a space that would be greatly enhanced to deliver quality support services to teens in that environment. And then also the addition of an early childhood space here as well. So a broad range of additional resources and better resources are what the document will report to you as we start to look forward towards defining the needs, space needs as we move into concept design. But the report does something else on the next slide that I'd
158like to share with you as well. In addition to projecting the numbers of spaces, the types of spaces, through the conversations with the EDT, with many of the stakeholders and leadership, and also looking back to the conversations that have gone on prior to our joining the team. What we've been trying to do is define what in the document we call design patterns. And a design pattern is a way of taking all these individual spaces and thinking about how we organize them into something that's more than the sum of the parts, you know, to create really powerful synergies and the learning ambiance and environment on a larger scale than simply providing additional space. So what you're looking at. at here is a diagram of just a portion of the campus. And again, we're going to show
159you a couple of diagrams right now, and they are all idealized. They're not architectural proposals. They're really about the relationships of space that we're aspiring to achieve as codified by those design principles. So one of them. This idea, as Dr. Mann was talking about, of creating an environment that scales in a graceful manner, fosters really strong relationships between teachers and students, between teachers and teachers, between students and students, between students and administrators in the environment, so that this large school, again, has an intimacy and an appropriate sense of scale for the students that they understand that they have a sense. It's a place and they belong and they're known to their faculty and their peers in this environment. So the first one that we'll share tonight is this idea of a learning community. And that's
160what this diagram is illustrating. So while there might be 1600 students being planned for on this campus, what we're starting to do is create a hierarchy of spaces of, you know, four learning communities comprising, you know, that larger 1600 student community. So this is a diagram starting to suggest a place within the campus for 400 students. in many ways. And this place itself actually scales down from the 400. And if you look on the left side of the diagram and the right side of the diagram, you see team one, team two, team three, team four. Those... pairs of teams actually start to then subdivide into perhaps groups of 200 and then a team of 100. So again, you know, we're thinking about a hierarchy of relationship building, you know, through an architecture, you know, to
161create, again, an appropriate learning ambience for the students here. The other things that The patterns that you'll see illustrated in this diagram, though, and there are probably six or so in here, are relationships between classrooms and extended learning space. So formal space, you know, being reinforced and bolstered with additional opportunities for learning and informal space that we call extended learning space. And I'll share. a diagram or two that will illustrate this, but also teacher collaborative space, you know, co-located with these instructional spaces. So again, we're building a professional community as strongly as we are within as a subset of the learning community. But one of the other patterns then that you'll see here too is in the center between, you know, what we call neighborhoods on the left and the right. And that's centered by
162this idea of the creative commons. The Creative Commons is one pattern of distributed dining, as it's expressed in the report. And that idea, again, going to what Dr. Mann just said, takes what's commonly built as one large central space, King Street's an example of this, and subdivides it and distributes it throughout the campus to create a space that serves for that maybe community lunch and learn block. But then during the course of the day becomes a sort of dynamic place that the arts, the sciences, the CTE program can all spill out into and activate and capture into the learning process here as well. So what I want to do on the next slide is just take a look at that central space and we'll then talk about the neighborhoods in a moment. So again, these
163are idealized diagrams. They're not the architectural proposals that you'll see in coming months. But what you see here is a series of studios and labs. And from the left side, it's a CTE lab. In the center, we have two science labs. On the right, we have an art studio. And they're organized around this creative commons, as we're calling it, which is really the reimagined dining space. And so that dining space, again, during the community lunch and learn becomes a great sort of social place at a smaller scale, a sort of collegiate ambiance for the students to socialize, to have lunch. to meet with teachers and meet with their friends and peers. But then during the other blocks throughout the day, as you can see gestures, you know, the studios and the labs can open up
164and spill out into that space. So, you know, projects can come out. You can imagine robots running around in that space. You can imagine groups presenting, you know, their work and their mastery of the subject matter within that environment, you know, bolstering the resources provided within the large. flexible labs that we're planning for across the sciences, CTE, the arts within this environment too. But you also note that on the right, there's a teacher collaborative workroom. Again, making sure that we've got appropriate workspace for teachers to come together, to have heads down time, to collaborate amongst themselves. But then also take a look at what's happening in that creative commons and passively supervise that space. And then on the left is also Another pattern that we would distribute administrators throughout the building. So this is the
165learning community's central administration and that there would be counseling present, distributed throughout the building again, maximizing opportunities for students to have access to not only teachers, but to student support and other administrators throughout the building and interact with them on a daily basis. On the next slide. You see an example of what one of the neighborhoods might look like, you know, again, the left or the right side of the diagram that I shared initially. And similar themes and patterns emerge here. about the relationship of extended learning space, that informal space that you see in the middle of the diagram, that classrooms might be able to activate and spill out and students working together can move out there and start to collaborate successfully, or pull out activities that teachers might have to interact with students could
166occur there as well. within the neighborhoods, we're also thinking about flexibility, of course. And so you see that there are some smaller spaces, there are some medium sized spaces, there's some larger spaces, there's even gestures of operable partitions or doors that would connect the classrooms. So again, we're trying to plan for maximum flexibility and delivery of the curriculum within the environment and give teachers options as they decide to, you know, almost on the fly, collaborate with adjacent teachers and provide different opportunities at different scales for different numbers of students. And again, at the back of the diagram, a teacher workroom integrated into the mix, you know, so again, easily accessible for teachers, students, and also to have this sort of nice flow of formal space into that extended learning space and the informal space and
167supervise in many ways what's going on in that environment as well. On the next slide, we have another example. And again, we're exploring a lot of opportunities and options to realize these design patterns and create this creative, inspiring mix of spaces to create this sort of interdisciplinary STEAM-oriented environments that we're exploring and looking to achieve. And this one suggests that maybe if we took... one neighborhood and we stacked it on top of another, there might be an opportunity to create an interesting, you know, relationship between those two neighborhoods through the center of the drawing where we have what we call a learning stair. So this is a stair that, of course, connects, you know, the level below to this level, but it also acts as an amphitheater. So again, creating another, you know, informal space
168that, you know, allows for host of different activities to occur formally and informally in this setting, again creating a dynamic array of opportunities within the classroom, outside of the classroom, maybe even between the neighborhoods for different breakout groups and different size groups and different learning activities to occur serendipitously or planned. And again, you know, teacher collaborative space, you know, built into each of the neighborhoods. So again, each teacher has appropriate workspace, you know, within the environment as well. Because what we're trying to do is also optimize the utilization of the classroom spaces as well. So again, making sure everybody has appropriate workspace as we achieve the optimal flexibility of the environment. Next slide, please. With that, I'm going to turn it back to Ms. Gulick to share more on the schedule for the project. Thank
169you, Mr. O'Donnell, for going through that. And again, as he mentioned, those are kind of just illustrative to get people's juices flowing, start thinking about what this building could lay out like. So this slide here, we want to show you just that we're on target for the September 2024 open, that this ed spec and then the next concepts are critical decisions for this timeline, and just show you that there's a lot happening. on the building side and certainly on the educational program side as well. I know our team has, the architect team has taken a lot of the educational design team's time and listening to them and making sure what we propose is meeting the needs and there's a lot more work to do to get us to this connected high school network in September
1702024. So if we can go to the next slide. So we want to talk, spend a minute here on the budget. So as part of this effort in development of the ed spec, Perkins Eastman has developed a preliminary cost model, which looks at, okay, with all the spaces that we have proposed in the ed spec, where does that put us financially? So on the conservative, meaning the expensive end of things. Right now the school board costs could be up to 174 million. That is the construction costs only. But now there's a lot of shared costs within there that that will go through. We want to note that based on the school board's proposed budget in the FY22 to 31 CIP, the total high school project budget ends up being about 194 million. what we would
171consider the construction budget, where we're looking at these spaces and that particularly that $174 million number is $150 million for what we have within our budget. And so, like I said, that's building in a lot of unknowns at this time. And so when we look at when we break those spaces out a little bit, the teaching and learning spaces, the spaces that are critical for us, for our capacity, but also for the student learning environment that we want to have is about $123 million of that number. What we're estimating right now based on the conservative cost model. Some of our common areas or shared community spaces such as some of those lunch and learn spaces that might be used by community such as our gymnasium spaces that we know get used a lot in off
172hours as well as our athletic fields and other shared spaces that would be used outside of school hours make up about 26.6 million dollars of that estimate. When we look at the pool, pools are very expensive. And so the pool is roughly about 14 and a half million. And then underground parking, we've learned a lot recently on Douglas MacArthur, what underground parking costs versus above ground garage parking versus above ground, just surface parking. And so with a full underground parking lot, that's almost $12 million of the budget. And so when we think about prioritizing, What we want to make sure we're able to afford for our future high school students We certainly of course the teaching and learning spaces are critical We do think some of those common areas and shared community spaces will also
173be critical and how can we work with the city? if some of these other things are needed for both of us such as the pool and the underground parking to be able to afford Or or maybe they become things in the project that we know are lower on our priority list For our city partner costs, some of those things that Mr. O'Donnell was speaking to before, these are not costs that will be carried by the school board, but just so you understand how much of it is on some of the city co-located spaces, that makes up to about $7 million, depending on where the amount of early childhood lands. So if we can go to the next. And so why we're asking for approval on this document, it gives us a really good, in January
1742017, doesn't feel that long ago to me, but it has been some time ago. And we want to make sure that where we're progressing with this project and what we intend to build is, in fact, the intent of the school board. It also includes proposed capacity. a list of spaces and organization of the building as well as budget requirements, which we know is within school board purview. And so we're asking for the vote on the document for March 4th. Please keep in mind there are still some questions that aren't answered that will be answered throughout the design process. In general, we want to make sure that we're capturing what the school board feels is a good approach to what we want to build at the Minnie Howard site and particularly how the connected high school
175network will work together. We could go to the next slide. And so we want to talk about all of the different engagement opportunities we have going on, both on this EdSpec document, but then over the next month or so on the concept as well, just to prepare everybody for the amount of times we will be reaching out and talking to them. So we did have an EDT meeting on February 10th. The EDT, as we said, has received the EdSpec. the draft aspect document been making some adjustments to that. We're having this meeting tonight. Tomorrow we will post a board brief with the full draft document. There is still time for some adjustments before it's voted on. So certainly we want to get that out to you all and to the public tomorrow. On Monday, thank
176you to Mr. Ballas, I'm not sure if he's on, but has helped us set up several staff and student sessions on Monday. So we'll be having three sessions for staff where we'll be presenting a brief overview of the EdSpec document and collecting some feedback from them. And we'll also have a session at two o'clock for students as well to join. And I think we have some confirmed student members who are going to join already. So we're looking forward to that and getting some more feedback. We'll also be developing some online surveys for those who can't attend or who don't want to give their comments there. On February 24th, we have another educational design team meeting where they will focus on feedback on the ed specs as well. But at the end of the next week,
177I think we're working on some school board discussions in two by twos to get some more of your questions so we can make sure we're prepared for that next work session if there are any adjustments you'd like to see. And then the next step, the next kind of phase, we move a little bit into the design. We've had to overlap these kind of by a week in order to make the timeline. doing some initial visioning survey with the community, asking the community, what are your hopes and dreams for the design of the Minnie Howard campus? What are some of your concerns? How are existing conditions there? Things like that to make sure Perkins Eastman is able to go into their concept development with as much knowledge as possible. As March 4th, as we said, we're
178hoping for approval on that ed spec. We plan to have a community kickoff the week of March 8th. And please note, as we get further into some of these March dates, they might change. The March 8th one, I think we're pretty solid on. If we have our superintendent's advisory team appointed by then, I think we're just waiting on a couple of members. They will have a kickoff meeting with them right before the community meeting as well, just to introduce the superintendent's advisory team. Well, we have a couple of more EDT meetings in March, as you can see. And then we have two more community and advisory team meetings for feedback on the concepts, and these will focus on the concepts. You'll notice that we don't bring the ed spec really to the community in that
179type of forum because it's primarily focused on the teaching and learning spaces. And it's really critical for us to engage our own staff and our own people that we have working in these buildings every day, as well as our students going to school in them every day. And so that is our plan. And we are looking forward to that on Monday. So I think that's all we have. We can go to the last slide, just to make sure I'm not forgetting something. Yes. And with that, Chair Alderton, Dr. Hutchings, turn it back over to you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Erica. And I have Ms. Gentry. Thank you all. I appreciate the opportunity to see this. I have to say that for me, in my time on the school board, one of the biggest learning
180curves I had was really understanding a design process and understanding the difference between ed specs and designs and things like that. So I really appreciate the effort to kind of differentiate between those. And I'm only prefacing that to say that my questions. if at any point you feel like my questions are heading more into design and less into ed specs, you should just tell me so. But with that said, you know, there were two things that I was interested in in hearing about the sort of descriptions. One was about learning communities and one was about the flexible spaces. So in talking about the learning communities and, you know, creating the smaller learning communities, in my in my time in ACPS as a parent, as a committee, you know, person on various committees, and then ultimately
181as a school board member, I've experienced different versions of learning communities and this idea of learning communities. There was actually some of the initial design and literally some of the the ways that the hallways and things are described in TC Williams were done with this idea of learning communities in mind. We also had versions of smaller learning communities in the middle school. And ultimately, there were some decisions that were made that were like, you know, those particular versions of learning communities are not actually working. Or maybe the building wasn't working or maybe the, so I think this might be a, maybe a question for somebody from the ED team to answer. I just, what's different or what have you learned maybe from some of those earlier iterations of the concept of learning communities that will
182be different? as you look ahead in thinking about learning communities and thinking about the ed specs for this space. And then the other thing that I wanted to ask, and maybe different people will answer this question. I'm conscious of the fact that we literally, our school board in our recent vote, kind of limiting the type of uses that could happen in this space and saying no to affordable housing. We talked about the need for flexibility. And so on the one hand, I'm glad to see that the idea of flexibility and flexible spaces and things like that is part of this. I'm also conscious of the fact that, you know, my mother, a former school teacher, came into the teaching age in the era of open space classrooms. We actually... had one of the primary reasons
183why Jefferson Houston ended up high on the list of schools to be redone sooner rather than later was because it was done under that model. So I just want to make sure that when we're talking about flexible, we're not sacrificing that there's also a need for people to have a meeting, a true room. sometimes for their for their particular work the particular work that that teacher and those students are doing um so i i i realize in some ways we've given you guys a challenge because we've certainly been talking about flexibility i just i'd like to hear about how you're balancing when you're thinking about these ad specs you're balancing the need of flexibility and not maybe over tipping to to to the degree that it's um now become the space that is less effective
184just as actual individual learning spaces for, you know, there might be a science classroom right next to a history classroom sometimes, and those may not mesh together. And so, thank you very much. So Dr. Mann, do you want to take the first question in regards to small learning communities? And then the second question, I think, and I'll start with that really quickly. I'll just start talking about it. And specifically is, Ms. Gentry, you were spot on. I was here when we tore down Jefferson Houston. And the main reason was because it was a community kind of like standard school, which was horrible with acoustics. It was just horrible. But I can't wait till we get to the design phase because, you know, designs are so much different now and flexibility is not about having open
185spaces where everybody can come together. It's that you could have an open space where everybody can come together. And then you can also have an individual classroom and then you can also have a office and then you can also have a small group learning. space. And there are now walls and things that are not the walls where you have to turn the key and I turn the key and it's, you know, crunches together. It's different types of now these design walls that are like unbelievable, where you can literally just change the whole room right every week if you wanted to. And it is so awesome and cool when we get to that design phase when you all see that. It is like truly, truly amazing because you're moving walls around, not just having this open
186space in regards to acoustics. But Dr. Maynard, if you can talk a little bit about the smaller learning communities concept, because I think that is important. Yes, Ms. Gentry, thank you for your question. Board member Alderton may remember this, but I'd like to again shout out Sarah Whalen and Pat Williamson. We brought the EDT back and we started with... small learning communities as you led with your question. We all knew, I mean, I've worked here since 2001 as a teacher at Minnie Howard, all the iterations of everything we've tried. And we had the group go back from even what we've tried at middle school, Minnie Howard, when it was a standalone school on King Street. And you're right, we pretty much tried everything and everything kind of fell by the wayside at pretty much every
187level. And so that's why we started that way to get the group to think about. small learning communities and a connected network, not just Minnie Howard, but across the entire connected network. What does that mean? As I mentioned during the presentation, we had a go-getter, a science teacher in the International Academy, Christian Luttrell, who really took on the research and led the EDT team. And we can provide this information to the board if you'd like to see the research that she conducted. And that there were essentially two forms of small learning communities. And we know many of them that are really successful. They're in small schools like high tech high and places like that, that they're usually not in these ginormous 5,000 plus student high schools. And so they will next once Perkins Eastman is
188done, as we continue to talk about the actual programming and transforming the experience, Ms. Williamson and Ms. Luttrell are going to and working with Mr. Bells and his team are going now back. to a working group within TC Williams to actually design a hybrid between what works in a small one and what works in a large small learning community. So we can then one get buy-in from the TC Williams staff. So it's not just the EDT is doing this. So we're still in the planning stages for what the small learning community will look like across all the campuses. But we were deliberate in helping the group understand what have we tried, what research is out there. And then also Ms. Lutrella's. worked with her Harvard professor who does research on this, who was willing to
189help us and give us some tidbits and ideas. And so we think we're well positioned. here to go back to the broader TC Williams community and people that will help inform and guide along with the leadership there on what this actually will look like. And so we piggybacking off of what Mr. Ballas did when he implemented Kagan and how do you get staff buy-in because we No, anecdotally, many of those across ACPS failed because we didn't get buy-in. It was, I'm going to tease him right now, but Dr. Hutchins said we're going to do teams and then we didn't do teams. So we're really trying to make sure that this is a ground up. And so taking the advice from the panel back in January 2020, DDT doing some research. And then as we said
190to the board, when the EDT and the high school project started, going back to a work team and that's going back to the broader TC community. So we get buy-in. So then when this... Hopefully, if everything goes as planned, small learning communities won't start in 2024. We'll have been building this slow buildup so when it does open, that everyone understands that we're prepared for this. What's the professional learning? What are the expectations across the board from administrators, central office, teachers, paraprofessionals, to make sure that this high school is very successful in the future? Thank you. I don't know if you wanted to elaborate on that. the space. I think I captured it, but you might want to. as our director of capital programs, planning and design. I know you know this better than I do.
191Thanks, sure. Yeah, sure. I can elaborate on flexibility. And I would say flexibility isn't just in, you can move a wall maybe here or there to expand the group, but it's flexibility in the size of the spaces. So you can have four or five in a space. You can have 40 in a space. It's flexibility in what we provide in those spaces. So maybe it's worth it for us to spend a little more money up front to make sure we have. water and a few more classrooms. So down the road, maybe they could be science rooms. And then also looking at, we know it's been a hot topic for the school board, but what if in the future we need to add on and designing so that maybe we would be able to do that
192through another capital project in the future. So Mr. O'Donnell, I don't know if you want to add on to that with some of your expertise on flexible spaces. Sure. I think you and Dr. Hutchings are right on the mark as far as flexibility. So when you look through the EdSpec, and even as you look through some of those diagrams, you'll see that there's a very purposeful attempt to create small spaces, medium-sized spaces, large spaces, maybe even spaces that can be extra large when they need to be. Your points about the open classroom environment and acoustics are something that's very near and dear to our heart. We actually have a research team dedicated to exactly that. And we're doing research in some of our environments and other school settings right now that will bring forward into
193this design because we know that if the acoustics don't work in a learning environment, environment, then virtually nothing works, right, if you can't hear. So, you know, that's a fundamental design factor for us to make sure that we achieve really great acoustics in the learning environment. Now, the other piece that we're doing, though, is, you know, I'm wearing a sport coat right now. I could have wore the sport coat that I wore when I got married, but it doesn't fit any longer, you know, especially after the pandemic. So we think about loose fit as a concept too. So small, medium, large, loose fit. These are how you get to a flexible environment so that every classroom's not sized down to be this very, very tight space for the exact number of students where we're giving
194you a little elbow room and then the labs, the classrooms, so that one, we know. section sizes change, curricula changes, new technology, new equipment comes into these spaces. So again, thinking about that concept of a loose fit as you look at the document is important. And then as Ms. Gulick was saying, also, Thinking that, you know, what if a classroom could be a maker space too, right? You know, thinking differently about the activities, you know, of a project-based learning curricula coming into these environments. So, you know, they're not just single use spaces that, as Ms. Gulick was saying, you could teach, you know, a science class, perhaps, you know, something that, you know. might have otherwise been conceived of as a conventional classroom or an engineering class or, you know, or what have you, you
195can do projects in them as just as well as you can in some of the lab spaces. So I think all those things come together to create a place that, you know, adapts, you know, to the curriculum over time very readily. Thank you very much. I have Ms. Anderson. Thank you, Chair Alderton. My question right now is around two different areas. One is the distributed dining, and the second is the early childhood spaces. I'm wondering, is this a plan of each floor that you presented, the concept? And do you really mean to have multiple dining spaces as we do in one of our elementary schools? And then for the early childhood, are we thinking... that it's going to be children of our students, of our teachers, or is it going to not be necessarily connected
196to people who are actually in one of the high school? Thinking about the grade level study, saying that it actually is best when... preschools are associated with the elementary schools where the kids will go, but that would be different if it's either teachers or the students of our students that were, or the children of our students. Sure. So thank you, Ms. Anderson. So I'll address your early childhood question first. So that was really a request of us by DCHS to add those classrooms. So it wasn't something we had originally been intending to do. Of course, we support early childhood, but it wasn't originally something we had been intending to include, knowing that it makes probably more sense to include them as part of an elementary school. But just given the early childhood deficit that currently
197exists, DCHS had requested five classrooms there. I would say that's still in discussions. about whether it would be five. I know from our side and Dr. Mann may be able to speak to this, but we have an early childhood program that partners with the high school students that's located at King Street and we intend to keep that at King Street. And so I think this is just one of those co-located spaces that will continue to be a conversation with the city. Dr. Mann, do you want to comment on that or does anybody else want to comment on that piece? No? Okay. So that's what I will say about the early childhood classrooms. And then as far as distributed dining, we do have that or the lunch and learn idea. We do have that at Jefferson
198Houston currently and how it functions is maybe. not always desirable. I think something here in the high school that we've tried to promote is just activating these different spaces, not having another large cafeteria as we do at King Street and being able to use this space a little bit differently. And it has been something we've talked about with the educational design team, as well as the school leadership and do think it's a good idea to move in this direction. I'll ask Dr. Mann or Mr. O'Donnell if you have anything to add on that. Sure, I can talk a little bit about the idea. It did, in some ways, derive from the idea of the community lunch and learn and also the idea to create spaces that have a very different ambiance in this building, perhaps,
199than a conventional high school model where you have this very large room. But a lot of our clients at this point in time, including Fairfax, they look at that. very large space and they realized that for a large portion of the day, they're not really getting much use out of all that space. So part of the idea as we start to think about interdisciplinarity and STEAM collaborations and bringing CTE, the sciences, the arts, the humanities together is to find that sort of public space that allows them to collaborate and be associated successfully around sort of the public plaza within the building. So that dining space becomes really active during the community lunch and learn space. But in this idea that we're working on, it again becomes that sort of space that pulls the steam programs
200together and gives them the excess or the overflow for the sort of energy inside those spaces to spill out, come together and start to foster those collaborations between the arts and the adjacent sciences and others. And also, frankly, for people walking through the building, these will be sort of the small hearts of the building, distributed hearts. So as you walk through, you'll see the excitement of the CTE spaces, the science spaces surrounding them as well. This is part of the aspiration. Now, whether they're on every floor, we'll work that out into concept design as we figure out how all the parts and pieces. realize these goals within the building as it's applied to the site. Great, thanks. Madam Chair, can I just follow up with something? Sure. I guess I'm just concerned because we know
201that the... I sort of like the idea. I understand where you're going, but we do know that the operational costs at Jefferson Houston to have distributed dining, it's an ongoing operational cost that's higher than not distributed. And also, I will just add that Minnie Howard currently has a space that's not large enough usually, but a large gathering space that is used more frequently probably than almost any other. auditorium. And I'm just wondering, you know, again, I understand that we don't use the big spaces sometimes, and maybe you're saying that these flex spaces can, can fill that need, but I just want to make sure that people can gather. Like, what do you do if you have a full school gathering? You know, I, so anyway, so I guess we'll see more, we'll hear more about
202that. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Dr. Reith. Okay, thank you for the presentation. And I, my question is kind of building a little bit off of what I've been hearing about flexible space but when we back in September of 2019 when we voted on the connected high school network. One of the concerns I had raised at that time was You know, I know there's been a lot of talk about how Minnie Howard, it was once an elementary school and then it became an administrative building and now it's part of the high school. And, you know, just thinking about this building long-term and, you know, in the Connected High School Network, we've also talked about how that is kind of an experimental concept a bit. So I'm just wondering about with the feedback from the
203EDT that you showed on slide 10. It was saying that one of the recommendations was to balance out the two campuses rather than repeat spaces. And I'm just wondering, I guess I'm just thinking like, how does that limit our ability, you know, if we should need to convert this to an independent school at some time in the future? I think another concern that parents were raising at the time when we were going through the process was You know, like that right now, if we just have the one, for example, auditorium at TC Williams, it's serving, you know, the capacity for that King Street campus is 2,900 students. Now, is that one auditorium going to be enough to accommodate, you know, you know, 5,000 students? So I'm just thinking about the flexibility in terms of the
204building. if it does need to convert to kind of an independent building at some point in the future. And then I was also wondering about the proposed capacity. It said we have to vote on the proposed capacity, which I understand to be 1600. And so I just continue to, I feel like a broken record, but I continue to worry about how we're gonna like grow into this space. Because when you look at the enrollment projections, one thing that both of the things have in common is everything keeps going up, up, up, up, up. The numbers are not going down. Like, how are we, like, what are we, you know, I'm just like still trying to figure out what are we thinking long-term. And I know there was something on there about alternate scheduling. And then
205just the last thing I wanted to mention was I know we're going to be approving these ed specs on the 4th of March, which is the day after our meeting with city council. And I'm just wondering if there was, if there were plans. Or if there's not, maybe there should be to add this topic to our joint meeting with them, particularly, you know, with some of the budget issues that you raised and the co-location and all that. I just feel like, you know, they like to, you know, hear about things as early on in the process as possible. So, you know, are we planning to include that in that conversation? And if not, can we add that to the agenda? Okay, so a few things. I think let's go in order. So the first thing
206you asked about was just flexibility and could this be an independent school? I would say in general, and Mr. O'Donnell, jump in if I'm incorrect, but I think the only spaces that we're not carrying over or not replicating in the new Minnie Howard building are the auditorium, as well as some of the really specific spaces. So we want to keep... potentially keep culinary arts at the King Street campus. Maybe that program grows, but at the King Street campus. Keep the mechanic and some of the other more specialty CTE spaces that have already been developed at King Street. If we don't think we need additional of them, not replicating them. But in general, I mean, this is a full school that provides for the full program. Maybe Mr. O'Donnell, you want to comment on that? I
207think if I could just jump in, I think the other thing was that gymnasium maybe and you talked about PE flexible spaces and I don't really know what that is. So maybe you'd want to touch on that. Sure. Yeah, I think Ms. Gulick is right on. And so, yes, we're having exactly the conversations, you know, internally that you're raising. What if? What was the future hold? We don't know. And could it? You know, could it become a separate school as necessary? Yes, we are discussing that and looking for ways that, you know, we have that flexibility built into the program. So, but that said, you know, some of the CT. spaces. We're focusing on one campus or the other where we think they're optimized. It optimizes the faculty. It optimizes some of the built-in infrastructure
208that's already there. Culinary is a good example of that. So we're trying to optimize and expand that program around its current location. And maybe we'll move medical sciences out to to Minnie Howard. These are kinds of exchanges of where do we optimize some of these very specific programs. But the rest of the building is designed to be as flexible as possible to allow for these alternative futures to play out. The auditorium, we are thinking that you've got a beautiful auditorium at King Street. It's big, it's fabulous, it's flexible. The other side of Auditoria usually though is that they are not the most highly utilized spaces within the high school inventory. So sharing that facility seems to make a lot of sense as we go just so we can optimize our resources. But within the gyms,
209we're going to have a competition gym. And then an auxiliary gym. The auxiliary gym will actually is modeled on the one at King Street, which we hear is very successful. And the competition gym will have bleachers of competition basketball court, and then it'll be subdivisible into smaller teaching stations during the course. And we're even exploring whether those two spaces could open into each other or not. So again, you've got the flexibility of saying, look, if I want to get. all 1600 kids into this space and we wanted to pre-function sports event or or some other large gathering, you can do it in that space and you can get all the kids in there successfully and coherently within that environment. The final point of this is that what we're trying to do with the site is
210really be efficient with the use of the site too. And there's been talk about maybe administrative space coming onto campus, but we're also thinking, if we have to put some more classrooms on this building or if we have to do a... a modest addition, we should allow for that in the future as well. So we're not occupying every square foot right off the bat in that we have the ability to grow the building if we need to add some component that's not there when we open. Okay, so hopefully that addressed some of the flexibility questions, but then moving forward to what you're voting on in particular, because it includes the proposed capacity. And so we are still targeting for this to be a 1600 student building. I will say that that's at its optimal schedule.
211So there's still even within that and a high school building, there's still even some flexibility to grow beyond that. In addition, we're still Amy Dalsimer, Aming to have the 400 students a part of the early college program and I know and Dr. Hutchings if you want to jump in, but I know Amy Dalsimer, Continuing potentially to expand our satellite campus and virtual learning as a part of our high school program. Amy Dalsimer, Alternate schedules have been mentioned, and I think that's something that educational design team as well as the school leadership needs more time and just looking at what what can alternate schedules do because a lot of high school capacity is based on what the schedule is and how it functions and how many periods a day our classroom's taught in and, you know,
212do you have different bell times for the Minnie Howard and the King Street campus and what does that allow you to do or how many kids does that get out of the hallway during those transition times? And so those are things that we are exploring because those will certainly provide us more flexibility and capacity. Dr. Hutchings, did you want to say anything or no? Okay. And then regarding whether or not this is a topic at the joint city council and school board meeting on March 3rd, I believe that's a combined budget discussion. I thought its primary focus was the combined funds. If we are talking about CIP, we can bring something, but I will leave that up to the leadership about what is to be discussed at that meeting. Thank you. Okay. I think, Dr.
213Reif, you were the last. And so if there are no more questions, I have just a couple of comments. And first of all, I actually was giggling when Dr. Mann brought up the discussions that we've had about the different types of... small learning communities over time because that was, you know, it was actually, it was brought up, it was a very interesting discussion and we all had some laughs talking about, you know, things that we, you know, had and, you know, things that fell apart. But a good part of that discussion that I thought was we actually took some time to pull out the good things, right? And try to combine like all the good things from the different. types of small learning communities that we have had. So I think that was very helpful.
214What I, just in this small presentation, and Dr. Mann, you're about to get your dessert that you asked for earlier. But what I really enjoyed in looking at this presentation is I felt like in the the different things that were presented thus far, I could actually see the discussions. that have occurred over time with the EDT come alive in those images. So, you know, things like the learning stairs, the common spaces, the lunch and learn spaces, the smaller learning communities. And it's not only in the discussions, like I actually was able to see, I had flashbacks of different site visits that we did. where afterwards we talked about the things that we found that were cool at other spaces that we visited. So I really appreciate like being able to see that. It's exciting to
215see that those discussions come together in like a tangible image and idea. So I just really appreciated that. And I could also see, you know, one of the hot topics that I've enjoyed in some of the discussions that I've been a part of is the interdisciplinary learning and creating an environment that makes that an environment and a schedule that makes that functional and easy to do. And I could actually see it in the design. So I thought that was exciting to see too. So I'm looking forward to getting the full document and, you know, moving forward through this process. So with that said, thank you, Mr. O'Donnell. Thank you, Erica. Thank you, Gerald. Looking forward to moving forward. All right, so the next item on our agenda, we do have our 2020 ACPS Athletic Hall
216of Fame nominations. And I think Ms. Green is gonna... lead us through this. Are you there, Ms. Green? I'm here, Chair Alderton. Thank you. And I would definitely have to disagree with both you and Dr. Mann. This is the dessert presentation of the night, not the high school project. It is our 2020. Athletic Hall of Fame inductees. And I must say, this is one of the things that I look forward to each year. The community looks forward to it. It's one of the best things that the school board has put together for our community. Athletics brings us together. And I tell you, we have passionate, passionate people in Alexandria that love our athletics and ACPS. So I am presenting the presentation for the Hall of Fame for our 2020 inductees, but truly the work is
217done by the committee. And I want to just shout out our committee and all of the work, the tireless work they put into this each and every year. This is our sixth installment of the ACPS Athletic Hall of Fame. And you would think... it would be a longer period of time. But yes, this is only the sixth year that we have done this. And many school systems have done it for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. So as you can imagine, we have so many deserving people for the Hall of Fame. And hopefully one day they will all be able to be a part of it. So just quickly, I would like to thank our committee members, Mr. Jim Clark. Our student member, who is brand new this year, Anika Elkema. A.K. Johnson is our chair.
218Mr. Michael Johnson. Camilla Lawson. Jim Lewis. John O'Connor. Tracy Robinson. Wayne Sanders. Danielle Thorne, who's our vice chair. Robert Trout. Mark Wiedemer. James Worden. our athletic director, James Parker, and our ACPS staff liaison, Mark Eisenhower, and Ms. Susan Nielsen, our schoolwork clerk, who keeps us all together and on track. So thank you so much to them. They really do a wonderful job in putting this together for us each year. As you can imagine, 2020 was pretty hard being able to get this work done, but we have a great slate of inductees that I would like to present to you now. First one being Ms. Catherine McAdoo. She's swimming, class of 2000, T.C. Williams High School. Ms. Roberta Elliott-Spate, track and field, T.C. Williams High School, class of 1984. Craig Harris. basketball, TC Williams High School,
219class of 1977. Cedric Matterson, track and field, TC Williams High School, class of 1984. Bob Kessler, basketball, George Washington High School, class of 1952. Mr. Linwood Robinson, football, George Washington High School, class of 1971. Mike Henson, basketball coach at T.C. Williams and George Washington High School, Francis Hammond High School as well, and class of 1959. In 1971, T.C. Williams High School football team, the storied... just the story team that took us to stardom, TC Williams High School to stardom with the Disney movie, Remember the Titans. So quite a great cross section of inductees this year. I'm very proud of what the committee has been able to put together. So congratulations to the inductees. We look forward to hopefully celebrating them when we open up the new Parker Grace Stadium. So that will be wonderful to
220have everyone there, including the 1971 team. Nominations for the 2021 group of inductees is open until March 31st. You can find that information on the school board website, the Athletic Hall of Fame. And I would like to say that in 2020, we started, we put together an ad hoc committee. We are looking at the process of how we select our inductees and the nominations. So we have an ad hoc committee where we are researching. Hall of Fame's across the country, different school systems to see how they do it. Always looking to better our system and make it as equitable as it can be. So potentially looking at just a group of female student athletes and post, I'm sorry, pre-1960 athletes, just trying to see how we can always get better at doing what we do.
221but they are, you know, the Athletic Hall of Fame is an amazing committee and I look forward to, you know, what the future holds with additional nominees and induction for 2021 and beyond. So thank you. Oh, and with that, I'll take questions. Are there any questions for Ms. Green? Ms. Gentry, did I see your hand? Really just as a thank you for the committee and Ms. Green, you know, there's a lot of work that goes into being on the school board but there's a real treat that goes on being on the school board and that's when you get to go to the induction ceremony which we will look forward to when it does happen again um and just getting to hear the stories of these people and and uh you know they it really is
222um for for for people that that maybe haven't had an opportunity to go um you know this really is about these are about extraordinary individuals that you know, took the lessons that they learned from athletics about perseverance and teamwork and leadership and really, you know, pivoted that into, you know, the rest of their lives, which, you know, is so it's always a really great moment. So we'll look forward to doing that again. And thank you so much to the whole committee for this. Thank you, Ms. Gentry. And I tell you, it is. extremely difficult because there are so many of those stories amongst ACPS student athletes. And, you know, year after year, we get hundreds and hundreds of additional nominations. So it becomes increasingly difficult because there are so many deserving past, you know, past,
223you know, athletes present and then, you know, future as well, because we have so much talent coming up through our school system now. So it, it. it increasingly gets difficult. And with this committee only being six years in, you know, it just, it's just very hard, very, very difficult. But we, you know, we make it happen and we'll look at ways, like I said, to always get better. Thank you, Ms. Green, and thank you for your work on that committee. All right. So last but not least, we are getting closer to wrapping up. So I will start with my chair's report. So. Just in case people need to continue to know what's happening with this, the second poll is open for voting on the top entries submitted by students in the public for new names
224for T.C. Williams High School and Matthew Maury Elementary School. So the links to those polls can be found on the website. And the polls are actually open until midnight on Friday. So that's tomorrow. So definitely get in and do that if you haven't and if you'd like to have some input. I actually also have a... A brief announcement slash comment that Cindy Hart, who is the chair of SEAC, wanted me to share with the board. So I'm going to read that to you now. The members of the Special Education Advisory Committee have had the opportunity to review the policy on managing student behaviors in emergency situations. Our membership requested only one minor change to the draft policy revision, which has been incorporated. We now support the policy as written. SEAC appreciates that this policy ensures
225that all school personnel and school resource officers receive initial evidence-based training, which includes skills related to positive behavior support, conflict prevention, and de-escalation, as well as use of effective alternatives to physical restraint and seclusion. So they just wanted to make sure that the board... heard that message and so I shared it with you all tonight. So thank you to everyone who put in the effort and work around developing that policy. And finally, it is Clerks Appreciation Week and we have tried so hard daily to show our appreciation to our clerks, you know, every day this week. And so if our clerks don't mind, it would turn their cameras on and just say hello to everyone here and to the public, if they're okay with that. Susan. Hello. Hi, Susan and Chanel. I should have my
226camera on, but hello. I should know. Okay. I just wanted to take an opportunity to publicly thank you for all that you do. I think this is another one of those positions where so much work goes on behind the scenes to make sure that when we step out as a board, We are doing so in proper order. We have everything that we need, the communication between the board and the staff and the staff and the board. The clerks are an amazing group of women who, you know, I'm sure we might get on your nerves at some times. Susan's like, no. I'm like, yeah, sure, Susan. But we just wanted you to know that we appreciate you. And the week is not over. There's still one more day left. So just thank you guys. And I
227think I'll stop there. And I'll move to the superintendent's report and then have the board. I think the board has some reports out too as well. So thank you, Madam Chair. And we love our board clerks. You all are amazing. So thank you all for all the hard work and the coordination that you do behind the scenes to make all this work. People probably would not believe half of the things that happen behind the scenes. But anyway, I do have a couple of updates. And, you know, this past Tuesday, we were able to share with the board and our community where we stood with our ability to return to school, our staffing numbers. And we are right now finalizing and diving into specifics in regards to our employee groups. You know, we saw the overall
228statistics on Tuesday was about 700 staff, but that's staff, you know. all together, not necessarily teachers or custodians or nurses and things of that nature. So we're finalizing those data points today. And we have a meeting first thing in the morning to discuss those final numbers. And one thing that I think is going to be important for us is as we are um trying to you know determine how many teachers and homerooms are going to be available or not it is critical for us just to keep in mind that for the teachers and homeroom teachers who are unable to return we are going to have to provide those classroom monitors for those particular situations and I mean, I'm happy to say that, you know, on Tuesday, we had like 25 monitors, right? Today's update, we
229have about 170 or 180, something like that. But we have about 80 that are confirmed. The others, the other like 90 to 100, we're still just waiting for like their background checks and things to come back. But they're confirmed to do this work. But we have to finalize all of the fingerprinting and things before I can officially say that they are on board. um with with us but that is good news that we are uh working diligently to get you know these classroom monitors in place i want to give a huge shout out to our human resources department because as you all know um when we're going through this pandemic and we're going through these you know herculean efforts Our staffing does not change. So we have the same departments, the same people, and then
230also the same jobs they just have to do on a day-to-day in addition to the new responsibilities that are coming about for this transition. So I just want to give a huge shout out because I know they are working like crazy to get all these things done. I'm hoping that, you know, we can get to the appropriate classroom monitors that we have in place or that we're going to need to have in place. And next week, I will be able to provide the board just with a clear update around what the classroom monitor piece looks like. I will have concerns, you know, if, you know, we don't, we're not able to get the appropriate classroom monitors to cover some of these classrooms because that will put us in a serious bind. when it comes to
231monitoring the students who have selected hybrid for homeroom teachers or classroom teachers that are unable to return it to our school buildings. I also know this may not be as big of an issue because some of our families have already stated that if the teacher's not coming back, then I'm not going to send my kid back. So if that happens, That might be a good thing for us in some cases, just because of the fact that we wouldn't have to then try to utilize a classroom monitor if, you know, families choose not to send their kids back because the teacher is not in person. But that is just kind of a potential, you know, barrier that can come our way that I know we can overcome. But I just want to, you know, kind of
232give you all, the board, as well as our community, the heads up. But I'll have those final numbers tomorrow. We're also next week going to be sharing out with our community. I just want to make sure that I cover all of my notes. We're also going to be sharing out next week with our community in regards to some of the health kind of precautions that we have put in place for all of our staff as well as our students. And these are our daily symptom checklists. This is something that families will have to complete on a daily basis. This is just one small step to ensuring that our families are doing their part. Sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you. Oh, sorry. That was mine. I don't know why, but that is a small thing that
233we're trying to do or a small step that we're going to have our families do to kind of help do their part in making sure that they're not sending their kids to school with a fever or with flu-like symptoms, that they are completing these questionnaires. Staff also will need to make sure that they are doing something very similar to that. We also are going to start providing a back to school special kind of addition of our ACPS Express. And this is specifically for our families who have selected hybrid, where it's giving them different tidbits along the way around our transition back. uh into our school buildings uh giving them some you know reminders about face coverings and potentially practicing some of the face coverings uh at home now before we get back uh into uh
234into our school buildings so that students aren't wearing their face mask for the first time uh when they come back come back into our school buildings uh and also just some other things in regards to student schedules uh and information about how you transition back from transportation with buses to encouraging our families who have selected hybrid to bring their kids to and from school. And we express this. on uh on tuesday that it's going to be a tremendous help uh for our families who are able to drive their kids to and from school that they actually do that um because right now the way our numbers look is we are able to accommodate you know the families who are currently eligible for transportation who've selected hybrid but it is going to require us to do
235double runs which does have an impact on the times kids get to school and the times the kids get home, which we'll be able to work through. But we're just hoping that families who can bring their kids to school and pick their kids up, that they opt to do that. just so that we can eliminate the double runs because that really is going to just be another barrier, but we will overcome the barrier, but it is a barrier in doing this. And our team is working hard to get it done. I have to say. shout out to our new director of transportation to take on this role one during a global pandemic with all of this is going on uh you know he is doing a mr merriman is doing a remarkable job uh and
236i'm so glad to have him here with us uh because he is a problem solver uh and he has the experience to know how uh to really pivot when needed and to bring in the innovation And then a final thing that I just wanted to share is, you know, as we're talking through, you know, our staff members, you know, this week they were required to submit their documentation. And these are staff members who were unable to return back into our school buildings. We did have some of our staff who were not able to get their documents turned into us on Tuesday. We are working with them. I think we had a little over 200 staff members that we're still working with to get that documentation in. working with them directly to ensure that we get
237that done. I'm sorry for just a second. So we're working with, I'm like, I don't think anybody knows I'm sitting right here doing a meeting, but I am. But we're working with our employees to just ensure that they have the appropriate documentation and things turned in so that we can. provide them with that waiver meaning that they will continue to remain in virtual status as we transition back into our school buildings. We are also trying to mitigate some of our staff who still have questions and concerns about coming back with our cleaning protocols and our PPE. We just had our roundtable or I conducted a roundtable with several of our staff meeting members this past Tuesday which I believe was really impactful and I think the Teacher Advisory Council, as well as our Education Association
238of Alexandria. They also said that they felt that it was a very helpful discussion because we were able to talk through some questions that they had about the transition. And we're continuing to have our community circles and provide our professional learning, you know, for for our staff throughout this process. But it is a huge task for us to be able to to transition back into our school buildings. But we know that it is possible. We know that we can do this. We know that we're better together than we are apart. But I think it is important for us to continue to be transparent around some of the challenges that come along with this. We still are getting some emails from our families about transitioning back. or transitioning from virtual to hybrid. And we are staying
239very true to this. We cannot allow for families to transition from or to change from virtual to hybrid at this time because there's so many steps that had to be taken with that data that just changing a couple has an impact. It's like a domino effect on transportation, on meal distribution, on classroom setup that is too impactful right now. um for us for us to really be able to accommodate that but we are going to revisit um how that it can potentially be possible um when we transition our students back uh in in march So I wanted to give you all kind of an update as to where we are. I'm going to share some more details with the board early next week because we are having our meeting tomorrow with principals to look at
240every single classroom and what that looks like. Just one final thing is that we are going to be sending schedules out to our families. So on Monday. is our target date to send out for our families who are scheduled to come back on March 2nd and March 9th, that those schedules will be going out. We are going to include on our student schedules whether the teacher is returning or not. We are not choosing to have a huge roster with is the person coming back or not of all of our staff. That is just not a good idea to do that at this point. But we are sharing with all of our families so that they are aware whether a teacher would be returning or not, because some families may choose not to send their kids
241into the hybrid option because the teacher is not going to be returning. So that concludes my update. I know it was a lot to share and I will have some more details for the board early next week. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Okay. Do we have any announcements from board members? Looking for hands. All right. Ms. Gentry. Hello. So I did just want to take a moment, since this is School Board Clerk Appreciation Week, and just add my own thanks to Ms. Hill and Ms. Nielsen. You know, I was trying to think about how could I describe, you know, the kind of work that they do to somebody else. And the closest analogy that I could come up with is, you know, when I was in school and even before I found another many, many multi-hour
242thing to divert my attention, which is school board. I did a lot of theater and in a lot of ways school board clerks are like stage managers. And stage managers, the job of the stage manager is so nobody knows. Nobody in the audience knows what had to happen in order for the actors or the singers or, you know, everything to happen and for you to see that performance. And for the light stalker, you know, no one knows. If the stage manager has done their job, you don't even know what it is that they did. Which is sort of the challenge of that kind of role. So just know, everyone, if this is an analogy that means something to you, that's what the school board clerks are. And I am so grateful to both of you.
243You know, I thought I appreciated you, and then I served my stint as a school board chair, and then I realized I didn't even comprehend how much you all do. So thank you so much. And just for everyone to know, like everyone, they had to pivot. under COVID had to orchestrate entire Zoom meetings with a whole other level of complexity and actually extra time and presence. They're now present at meetings that they never had to be present at before, but now they have to be present at four because of the Zoom facilitation. So thank you both so, so very, very, very much. Thank you, Ms. Gentry. Ms. Lorber. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chair Alderton. Yeah, now, Rami, you sort of said it all in some ways, but I just want to add my two
244cents. And I think it's very important to point out, I think they are working. It's hard to imagine that our clerks could have worked harder than they were already working before the pandemic. But now, Susan and Chanel, it's because of having to do all of these Zooms and all of the things that go on. It's just amazing. I don't know how you accomplish it all. But personally, I certainly am indebted to the many. I can't say how many times I will quickly write a note to one, to Chanel, to... Susan, could you please resend such and such? I can't get on e-board. My something isn't working. They're just sort of my saviors. It's the helpline, the save me line. So it makes being a board member doable because having that kind of a safety net.
245behind us. So thank you very, very much. I hope, I think also I want to thank Megan because she really did orchestrate some fun, fun gifts for you guys. And I hope you enjoy them. It's just looked like a lot of nice things. Oh, and I guess while I am acknowledging the wonderful work you've done, I want to say thank you also to Dr. Hutchings for all the nice things. It was school board appreciation week, and we were very appreciated. We've received a number of people singing to us and people, all the principals writing their appreciation. I mean, we were just flooded with appreciation and we do appreciate it. And thank you so very, very much. Thank you, Ms. Lorber. Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair Alderton, Chanel, Susan. Happy School Board Clerk Appreciation Week. You
246are loved. You are appreciated. Thank you for dealing with nine different people with nine different personalities, nine different ways of doing things, nine just wanting everything different. I mean, it's just you make it, you do it so effortlessly. You make it seem so easy. And we just appreciate you for that. Thank you for. taking my early morning calls, my late night calls, my calls where you have to pull over on the side of the road. So now thank you for it all. I really do appreciate it and don't know what we would do without you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Nolan. Yes, I just want to take a moment to echo and pile on. I'm just so sincerely grateful both to you, Chanel and Susan, for your hard work. And also a special thanks to
247Jennifer Abrazezi as well. Although not a board clerk any longer, director of policy, I know you support us equally. And we are so grateful to have the three of you. We couldn't ask for a better team to support us. And I also just want to add as well, like one of the challenges with a school board, particularly one that's voted on at the same time with nine members, since we don't have staggered. terms, is that there isn't a continuation of sometimes and it's not very much set up as an elected body to have succession planning. And so really, it's the it's the position of the board clerks and also Jennifer Abrazee's leadership in these three roles that allow for the consistency to take place without it cannot be overstated how serious that is and how
248much support they not only provide us as a team, but also for. just the governing body to operate in a professional manner, as well as there are so many rules in place when you're an elected body that we just wouldn't, and the knowledge you all have and being that continuous place of, you know, the institutional knowledge and the ways that things should operate can't be overstated as how much it not only supports us as a team, but also the division. So thank you so much for all you do. And we, you are appreciated. Thank you. Mr. Suarez. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chair Alderton. And I think my colleagues have pretty much said everything that I was going to say, but I just want to echo my gratitude to both Susan and Chanel for all
249the hard work you do. It's not an easy job and it's often a thankless job. You're behind the scenes. You're doing a lot of this work to make sure the trains are running on time. And I'd reiterate, too, that the COVID pivot has been. significant for you all to handle and manage. You know, and we haven't had cats popping up on our screen. We've had these meetings going really smoothly. You know, they've been recorded. We have to switch between open sessions and closed sessions. You have to send numerous links and all kinds of things to make sure all of that runs without a hitch. So, you know, I just want to make sure the public appreciates that there's a lot of work that goes behind the scenes generally for this role, but certainly during COVID,
250you've had to pivot. And I wish echo Ms. Green's point too about we understand you have to deal with nine different personalities mailing us materials, different sort of idiosyncrasies of how we want to manage and deal with things and you're always positive and smiling and happy to handle anything that comes your way. So we really appreciate that. So thank you so much. Thank you Mr. Suarez. Ms. Anderson. Okay, again, everybody has already said everything, but I guess I'll reiterate a couple of things. Yes, as a former chair, I mean, you can't do without the clerks. They help keep you together. And as Ms. Nolan said, they are the continuity. We've had so much turnover, not only on the board, but with staff turnover, it's really important. So the clerks and, as was mentioned, Jennifer. really
251gives the background that you need and keeps us crossing our T's and dotting our I's certainly. So thank you all. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Dr. Reeve? Thank you. I agree. It's all been said. Ditto to everything. I thought I would highlight the important role when we first come on the board. big transition for us. And, you know, you've been so welcoming and supportive and really helped us transition into this position. And we would not be, you know, as effective as a board if it wasn't for you all. And I really miss seeing you in person. I really miss our opportunities to socialize in the board meeting room and everything. And I look forward to doing that again really soon. So thanks for everything. And last but not least, Ms. Thornton. Well, to last but not
252least, I have to just say really quickly, you all, your attention to detail, your keen eye. You keep us moving. And I just want to give just two quick examples so people understand like it's more than just, you know, keeping us on agenda. Susan, thank you so much for personally hand delivering budget binders to us during inclement weather when there's ice on the ground and you have a new puppy in the back of your car. You know, little things like that really are appreciated. And I just wanted to personally thank you for that. That was awesome. Chanel, thank you again for your keen eye to detail to the point where you know exactly what type of snacks I like and you provide them in the board meeting rooms. I never knew that you knew you
253were watching me and knew what I like, what I like to drink, but you always make sure that you take care of us no matter how small, you know, the task at hand. So thank you so much to you both again for not only making sure that we are technically always on point. including Jennifer, whether it's those long policy sessions, when we're asking the most minute questions, you always have answers for us and you always make sure that you keep us again on task. So thank you so much. And we appreciate you. Thank you, everyone. So Ms. Nielsen and Ms. Hill, I hope you enjoyed that love song. It's all for you guys. All right. Thank you all very much. That's very nice. Thank you. We love it. You're welcome. All right. So with that,
254I need a motion to adjourn. Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn. Second. Okay. I have Ms. Green who seconded Ms. Gentry's motion. So I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson? Yes. Rami Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Like Heather. All right. The vote is 9-0 and we are adjourned at. uh 7 50 p.m so good night everyone and thank you thank you everyone