March 04, 2021 School Board Zoom Meeting

001Okay, I'm going to go ahead and get us started. So good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this virtual school board meeting for March 4th, 2021. And I'm calling this meeting to order at 4.04 p.m. And I will start by calling the roll. And when I call your name, please indicate that you're present. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. So we are all, well, we're at five here, four not present. All right. We will start with a moment of silence. okay thank you everyone um may i have a motion to adopt the agenda man i'm sure i move we adopt the agenda i can't okay so i have miss green who seconds miss lorber's motion um

002i also need a motion to amend the agenda madam chair i move to add the agenda item school year 2020 2021 academic calendar revision for parent-teacher conferences date change for T.C. Williams High School, Francis C. Hammond Middle School, and George Washington Middle School to new business? Second. Okay, I have Mr. Suarez who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. And so I'm going to call for the vote to amend the agenda. Megan Alderton, yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Cindy Anderson. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Michelle Reed. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay, so the vote is 7-2. Not present. Okay, thank you. So now I need a motion to... I need to call for the vote. I'm sorry. So that we can adopt the amended agenda. Please indicate your vote when I call

003your name. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay, Susan, so we have seven. Yes to not present. All right, moving forward to communications and addresses to the board. Just a reminder that each speaker is given three minutes to address the board and the clerk will be timing you and announce when your time has expired. If you're already signed up to speak, it really helps if you can turn on the raise hand function so that we can find you easily. Our first public speaker is Miss Janice Porter, and she's a community member. I do not see Miss Porter. Okay. But I do see Miss Turner, who is present. Okay. So we'll go to Miss Emily Turner,

004who's an ACPS parent. Thank you, Chair Alderton. My oldest child is a first grader currently, and my second oldest will be starting kindergarten in the fall. I am very happy and excited to see the children returning to our neighborhood school this week. A big thank you to all the faculty, staff, and administrators who have worked so hard for this week. And a special thank you to those four small children who I saw riding the bus up to George Mason this morning and to their parents. It is not easy to be among the first to return. My comments today are around the current hybrid model. It is clear that the transmission of disease will be greatly reduced within the school when we have only six children in the classroom with eight feet of distance between desks,

005no sharing of any objects, and only allowing children to walk in the socially distanced line during recess. No one is debating that disease transmission within the school will be near zero with such measures. My question is, how much is disease transmission reduced in the community by implementing such measures in schools? To my knowledge, there is no evidence showing that communities with hybrid schooling have consistently less disease transmission than communities that have full-time in-person schooling. In the absence of clear, real-world evidence that hybrid schooling reduces community transmission, schools must reopen five days a week. This is because there is clear real-world evidence that long-term school closures cause long-term harm to children. The community health benefits of the school closures must outweigh the costs. Another question, how long are we planning to operate on the hybrid model?

006Is this an interim measure designed to reassure frightened parents and teachers that ACPS can operate safely? Are we operating under this model until a majority of adults in Alexandria are vaccinated? Or is two days a week in person for a select few children the brave new world of public education in Alexandria City? We need to know, is your intent to return to five days a week in-person instruction next year, if not sooner? All of us need to make plans for our families. President Biden recently stated that there should be enough vaccine for every adult at the end of May. This is wonderful news. Widespread distribution of the vaccine in the early summer will give ACPS plenty of time to achieve a full return to school in the fall. These vaccines are miracles of modern medicine

007and will protect the entire community. Again, I thank the teachers, administrators, staff, parents, and the children who are making this week's in-person learning happen. Thank you, Chair Alderton. This concludes my remarks. Thank you very much, Ms. Turner. And so I will go ahead. I think we have Ms. Winters who might be Ms. Porter. So hold on just one moment. Okay. Ms. Winters, can you unmute your speaker? Yes. Are you Ms. Porter? No, I am not. I'm the sister of Naomi Brooks. Oh, sorry about that. I'm a visitor. Okay, we're looking for someone with the same first name. So my apologies. Do we see Miss Talbot? I do not see either of them. Okay. All right. So just a reminder to the board, there are no written public comments that were submitted for today. And a

008reminder to the community, if you wish to submit written comments or sign up to speak at the next school board meeting, please sign up no later than noon the day prior to the meeting using the link that is available on our school board page. Next up on the agenda, we have our reports from our student representatives. So we have a report from Lorraine Johnson. I did see Lorraine here. And do we have Ashley Sanchez-Viafarra here today? Okay, well, let's start with Lorraine. Ms. Johnson. Hello. Good evening, everybody. This is my first school board meeting back from dealing with some back-to-back family issues, and it's really good to see everybody. When preparing for today's meeting, I kept thinking about, I believe last time, like, Mia wrote a song about turning 18 during COVID. And it dawned

009on me that now it's March. And in the normal world, seniors would be starting their, like, senior experiences. And we would be having our last Titan pep rally and planning for prom and graduation. But obviously, things are different now. And we have to be more creative with. than these traditional events. And in saying that, I just wanted to give the senior leadership team. get them recognized for trying to make the seniors feel very special this year and that we are working really hard to make this year rememberable, but in a positive way since COVID can't take all of the, take everything away from us. So we just have to think safely and think outside the box. And I hope that we plan something soon. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. And I will just double check. Is

010Ashley here? Yeah, I'm right here. Hi, Ashley. Hi. So good afternoon, everyone, and also happy Women's History Month. My report is really short. I've just been focusing on really engaging with the middle school reps. Just really want to establish a connection with them because I think it's very important that they understand that their voices are being heard. So I've just been setting up meetings with them throughout the past month, making sure that they have the support of both our A&I throughout the process and just making sure that within each of their respective middle schools that they have someone older that can give them the mentorship that they need. So that's it. Okay, thank you. And so thank you to both of our student reps and we look forward to the next time we see your

011lovely faces. Dr. Rogers, do you have your hand up? I see your hand. Yes, I did. I did. I just raised it because while we were on the student reps, is it possible for Mr. Ballas to give an update about one of our student school board representatives? Well, she is here, so absolutely. So Mr. Ballas, if you want to talk a little bit about one of our board representatives. Great. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Yeah, we are also proud to announce that our Ashley Sanchez Villafara has earned the Harry F. Byrd Jr. Leadership Award. This award was started in 1995, and each award winner receives $15,000 toward their post-secondary endeavors. It has been almost 20 years since a Titan has been recognized with this prestigious award in our congressional district. And I cannot think of anyone

012more deserving than Ashley. This award is the latest in Ashley's recognition of her hard work, dedication, and leadership. Ashley will be given her award in a ceremony on April 14th in Richmond. This award recognizes academic excellence and leadership in our youth and will help continue cultivating her as a leader. Ashley, it's been an honor to work with you over the past few years to watch you grow as a citizen and a student and to put your passions of racial equity and justice into action. You make the whole of Alexandria City so proud of you. Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Ballas. Thank you, Mr. Ballas. We also have about both of our student reps, both of them have been nominated for the 40 Under 40. award through the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce. So that is a huge,

013huge honor. I think this is probably going to be their first applications from student representatives, but we felt that the simple fact that you all have paved the way and led our efforts on what we're going to be talking about tonight with the Identity Project and dismantling racial inequities in the city of Alexandria. I think is a huge accomplishment for seniors to do that. So we hope that your nomination will be selected and that you all win because you need to be the first two kids or not kids, young ladies under this 40 under 40 award. So congratulations to you all on your nomination. Absolutely. Thank you so much, guys. I feel like Mr. Ballas, we need to do, is it sparklers that you do on Zoom? I think I learned. I think that's actually

014Dr. Page, isn't it? Oh, is it? Is that Dr. Page? Well, ladies, you get sparklers. So awesome. This is the stuff we live for. So congratulations to the both of you. All right. So moving along in our agenda, we need a motion to adopt the consent calendar for this evening. Madam Chair, I move we approve the consent calendar. Second. Okay. So I have Ms. Green who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. And so I'm going to go ahead and call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. So Susan, we have approved the consent calendar eight present one absent. Okay. And so we can now move on to old business and we're going to

015start off. With the exciting news of the evening, we get the superintendent's recommendations for the renaming of Matthew Morey Elementary and T.C. Williams High School. Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Madam Chair. And we are really, really excited that we finally got to this moment. Like, I mean, look how long it's been since we first got our petition over the summer and all of the work that we have been doing. And I just, I sincerely do want to thank both of our student representatives for their hard work and efforts throughout this process. You know, one thing that we said at the beginning of the Identity Project was that we were going to get out of the way and allow our young people to lead. And this is a prime example of how awesome and how wonderful this

016process could be when you let the next generation kind of lead the efforts. So I'm really looking forward to sharing some information with you. I have a co-facilitator this morning, sorry, this afternoon, Ms. Julia Burgos, our chief of school and community relations. We're going to do this joint presentation for you all today. So I want to start off with the identity project and really what the goal of this whole project was all about. Yes, we wanted our students to lead, of course, but this was about renaming Thomas Chambers Williams High School and Matthew Mori Elementary School and making sure that we kept our ACPS values as well as the community support at the forefront throughout this entire process. You can go to the next slide. I want us to revisit, you know, when we talk

017about what our mission and our vision, you know, in Alexandria City Public Schools is, and it's all about us empowering all of our students. That's really our mission. We want to empower them to thrive in this diverse and, as we all have experienced throughout this whole global pandemic, ever-changing world. We want them to be able to leave ACPS prepared to do what they choose, whether it is going to college, whether it's going into the workforce, whether it's going into the military. And we hope it's just not going into your parents' basement, right? We want you to do something after school. But we really want to make sure that they are equipped and that they have the foundational skills to be able to accomplish whatever they choose. So thank you for the setting the stage, Dr.

018Hutchings. I think, you know, it's exciting. I remember on day three of me starting my position at ACPS, this process began with the board's petition and meeting Mr. Bowles for the first time and working through this process with him. I can't believe we're actually here at this point. So I really want to thank the school board for the report and trusting the team to really put this team, this process together and for Dr. Hutchings for entrusting us with that as well. So as you can see, after the board vote on November 23rd, there were many, many milestones before that. We've accomplished some other important milestones after that. I think one of the things just to echo what Dr. Hutchings shared earlier that. We really wanted to make sure that we incorporated student voices into this

019process. And so we created the student essay poster campaign to propose name options. And we were excited. We received 119 submissions for TC Williams and 51 submissions for Matthew Mori. So our students really took the opportunity over winter break to create those posters and essay campaigns to give the community an opportunity to learn more about the people that they felt should be in consideration for name changes. And then we also allow the opportunity for the community to also submit names for consideration. So we received thousands and thousands of names to consider and we really had a hard time sifting through that. I really want to thank Susan Nielsen, our board clerk, who had to sift through that, and Marissa Gay on my team. They both worked really hard to kind of sift through all that

020to make sure that we had a great community poll and for the names that rose to the top. So we commit. finished that process. We had the community poll from February 5th to the 19th and I'll share a little bit later some of the results of that. And now we're here tonight where we're going to hear the superintendent's recommendations from the top three names that rose to the top throughout the community poll. So we can go to the next slide. So I think it's important to note that, as I mentioned earlier, you know, we had this public community engagement process that was really robust. We spent a lot of time making sure that we... educated the community and then worked very closely with the school board clerk and the superintendent to really whittle down the

021names and come up with the next poll that we ran in February. And we had almost 15,000 entries from students, families, alumni, staff, and community members across the globe, actually. We had lots of people that were interested in this. And it was a lot of supercenta top names that we had support from in the polls. But most importantly, that they met. the ACPS school board policies and were deemed suitable for naming a school. There was careful consideration that went into public opinion, suitability to the campus and student population in our community. Next slide. I think one of the other interesting components about this campaign was that we had a tremendous media interest. We had national outlets that covered these name changes. So we had 89 earned media stories on this, which is incredible. And of

022course, social media posts on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. And then we had nine Express Insider editions that had some... interesting information about the about the identity project but what was really interesting too was that we took time to reach out to the community in separate several ways especially many of our interested parties with this name, changed with civic groups and other community groups that really wanted to be involved and had participated in our readings and other processes and served on many of the early educational sessions. So in addition to the media outreach, we also did some of that hand-holding and email and made sure that people participated, which is what really resulted in that 15,000 entries. Next slide. So when we conducted the second poll and we submitted these nine names, which rose to

023the top from the submissions that were received in January. So we provided these nine names for each school. We originally had six planned, but there was so much interest that we actually provided more names so that people could really have a nice depth and breadth of names to choose from. And many of the submissions were really interesting. So we wanted to make sure that we gave. some good name, a good number of names for people to choose from. So these were the nine for each school that were in the last poll that we ran in February. Next slide. And then one of the things that we wanted to look at in... putting this presentation together and you'll see Dr. Hutchings will sort of share this a little bit later, but we wanted to see the

024submissions, how they actually related to our strategic plan goals. One of the things that we talked about early in this process was that the rationale for even changing the names of schools while it was symbolic and it was one of our first steps to really putting our stake in the ground about equity for all, right? ACPS equity for all in our strategic plan. We wanted to show the alignment with these particular individuals or the names that were being submitted, how they actually aligned with our strategic triangle. So you'll see that a little bit later, but this is just sort of a reminder of what we'll be looking at. Next slide. And so from the almost 15,000 entries, we had 8,602 entries to rename TC Williams High School. And you'll see that there was a real

025good mix of the types of people that participated in this process. We even had over 10% of our employees that were interested in renaming the schools. But in this particular poll, which is a little bit different, I'll show you later, we had a split. So we had 34% of community members and... 22% of alumni, almost a little over 22% of current ACPS students. So we had a lot of nice student participation. And then, of course, parents. And that resulted in Alexandra High School rising to the top with 34.2% of the community choosing that name first. And, of course, Titan Community High School received some recognition. And then Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And, again, we'll show a little bit more about the rationale for those schools. And then we had a lot of other good entries as

026well. So I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Hutchings. Thank you, Ms. Burgos. And, you know, I have to tell you that it was very difficult seeing all nine names and then knowing that I have to make a recommendation to the board on what name do we believe is best for each of the schools. And one thing that I wanted to stay true to in regards to my recommendation was, one, allowing our students to really guide this process and for them to have or to carry the most weight with the recommendation that I was going to make. We also wanted to make sure that we were providing insight to the board as well as to the community around what our students are saying about this process. And this right here captures it all. Aliyah

027Royster, who was a sophomore, which I mean, her words are so profound as just a sophomore at T.C. Williams. She said that it's better to be informed. Being a bit uncomfortable may not be what people want, but I think it's necessary in order to move forward as a community. And this is something that we talk about quite often. We say you have to know your history or you will repeat it. And a part of this identity project was us sharing our history with our community. So when it was time to change the names of T.C. Williams and also Matthew Morey, that our community and our staff and our students, that they had an understanding as to why this name needed to be changed. Because, you know, before when we were polling people asking them who

028T.C. Williams was, you know, only a few people actually knew he was a segregationist. It was, you know, a shock to many of our community members as well as our students once we revealed, you know, who he was and what he stood for. So I want to go into the top three. the top three names that we had, and you can go to the next slide, that were presented. And I'm going to share some rationale behind, you know, why the community felt that these names or these names should replace T.C. Williams. And as Ms. Burgos mentioned earlier, we really wanted to look at what is the systemic alignment with the recommended name? How is it students? What is the student accessibility and support like? How does this align with the strategic resource allocation? And also,

029what are the students saying about it? Because that was key for us. And the Alexandria High School, which was recommended by a student specifically, and many students voted for this name. A lot of this came about because we are the only high school in the city of Alexandria. And I know you all are aware of this, but January 23rd. our city council unanimously adopted a resolution and they acknowledge that there's racial inequity in the past as well as in the present in the city of Alexandria and how we're going to make a commitment to adopt practices and policies that promote racial and social equity. That is so aligned with our vision and our mission of who we are as a school division. I mean, this is like the perfect timing in regards to us rebranding

030our city, rebranding our schools. And this was some of the reasons why Alexandria High School really resonated with a lot of our community members, as well as our staff and our students. are one of the most diverse high schools, not only just in the Northern Virginia region, but really across the country. And having a city that's now saying we embrace all, we want, we're identifying one and admitting to the fact that we have inequities, but we want to tackle them. We want to make sure that we are a place for all children, regardless of their particular circumstance. That brand of Alexandria really resonated with a lot. of our families as well as our community members. And then all of the collaboration and the connections that we have with the city, you know, having a school

031named after the city automatically connects it to the city of Alexandria. You know, and that was another reason why this came about for many of our community and staff and students. We also had another, and we can go to the next slide, recommendation that came out of our community polling and the Titan Community High School. And that was to try to keep the whole brand of TC. Everyone knows TC, TC Titans, right? A lot of people didn't know TC stood for Thomas Chambliss Williams until we began to educate our community. And a student said, hey, why not call it? Titan community, right? Let's just keep the TC and rebrand what it stands for, which I thought was a very clever, clever idea of one of our students. And a lot of that systemic, when you

032talk about the systemic alignment, you know, Titans, we're warriors, right? We are, we rise to the top. We're resilient. We're able to overcome adversity, right? I mean, that's just what a Titan, Titan always wins. And that's a part of the brand. You know, I think that our students, as well as our community members, they felt that when you talk about a Titan community, that is who we are. We're known as Remember the Titans. So why not just be that Titan community? And this truly aligns with the long history that we always have of our alma mater, TC Titans, and my alma mater as well, TC Titans. You know, once a Titan, always a Titan is how we roll. So this was another reason why the whole Titan community or TC community was really pushed as

033a recommendation from our students as well as our community. You can go to the next slide. And then the final or the other, because we were showcasing the top three right now, was our Ruth Bader Ginsburg High School as a name. And I mean, need I say more about Ruth Bader Ginsburg? I mean, this woman is a former Supreme Court justice, powerful, powerful woman. And a lot of people didn't know that. She actually wrote for the court in the United States versus Virginia. This was a 1996 case that struck down the state's exclusion of women at the Virginia Military Institute. So she is all about, you know, I am woman, hear me roar. You know, when Beyonce wrote her song, Who Runs the World, Girls, she's talking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I mean, hands down.

034And I think that our community and our students understand that. um as well you know she's known as rbg if you get initials you you made it you make it big when you get initials um so i was really excited to see our students understanding you know our Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her importance to the history, not only of Virginia, but how that also it identifies to who we are as a school division and accepting all and wanting to make sure that we're empowering women in Alexandria City Public Schools. And, you know, we are definitely models of that. When you go look at our facilities and operation teams and you look at our chiefs, we got and you look at our school board. Women are rocking it in Alexandria. You all are

035doing a phenomenal job. I think that's why things are so much better now because you're running things. But I think that this is a true sentiment to the fact that, you know, women and women in Alexandria that we do appreciate, we value, we uplift them. And I believe that is why this made it to the top three. So we're going to move on to the next section. And this is as we're transitioning into Matthew Morey, because I am going to go through the recommendation at the end. I want to share a quote, and this was by one of our third graders at Matthew Morey. You know, we had a sophomore for the high school, but a third grader says, sometimes our history is good, sometimes it's not so good. But it's just the world we

036live in. But if you don't know your history, you don't know if something ever happened before. Right. And that is so true. It is so if you don't know your history, how do you know whatever happened? How can you make connections to some of the challenges that we're even experiencing today when it comes to some of, you know, our educational challenges that we're trying to work through right now in our strategic plan? It is history repeating itself. And once you know the history, you can begin to see where it generated from and how it even became a problem in our school division or in our city by knowing that history. So Ms. Burgos, I know you're going to go through the actual percentages, and I'm going to get back into the top three for the

037elementary. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. And if I could have the next slide, please. So as I mentioned before, this is interesting to see that in this particular poll, we had over 60% of our community members that were really interested in renaming Matthew Mori as opposed to the 34% in the TC slide. So I think that's something to note. But of course, we had a cross section of other participants throughout the community. Even some of our younger students, I know we encouraged them to make sure that they voted and gave their voice for many of them that participated in our readings and we had our Matthew Mori Forum. So you'll see some of that represented here. But you'll see that Naomi Brooks was very popular. She got 30.4%. for 6% of the vote. And then following

038that was Rosemont. And then of course, Jean Reed was also a very important member of our community as well. So you'll see that reflected here. We had a lot of other great names to choose from. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg made it onto this list as well. But I think that wasn't as popular as it was for the high school. So we had a great participation here. You'll see that we had 6,345 entries from people to rename this school. We go to the next slide, please. So I'm going to go through each of the top three for Matthew Morey. Naomi Brooks Elementary School was one of the recommendations. And as you saw in the statistics, it was one of our top recommendations from the community. And I don't know if you all knew anything about Miss

039Brooks, but you talk about the epitome of the Alexandrian. This right here is the epitome of an Alexandrian. I mean, she is Black excellence for the city of Alexandria. I mean, she was one of the first in her family to go to college and to leave to go to college and come back to her hometown where she was born and raised. And she comes from a history of Black excellence in the city of Alexandria. But to come back and to give back to her own community. She was a beloved teacher at Charles Houston Elementary School, at Cora Kelly Elementary School. She went through and matriculated through all of our Alexandria City Public Schools. In schools that no longer exist, like Parker Gray High School, of course, but she also attended Lyle's Crouch. And her roots

040are just so strong within our community. And I think, you know, our students said it well. I nominate Naomi Brooks because she exemplifies the courage, humility, and strength it takes to be an educator. Teachers are the real heroes. And I mean, I don't know about you, but things like that, when kids are saying it about their teachers. It really touches my heart because it lets me know that as educators, we're making a difference. And sometimes you don't even realize the difference you're making in children's lives until they grow up and realize how much you deposited in them and made them believe in themselves. So Naomi Brooks Elementary School. Another one of our top three, go to the next slide, is Rosemont Park Elementary School. And as you all know, Rosemont is one of our areas

041and it's one of our areas that actually feeds into Matthew Mori. This was really about students had talked about this as well because they understand that the Rosemont community, which is a historic community, and several of our board members, I think, live in Rosemont. So are a couple of them live in Rosemont. And this, everybody knows about, Alexandria, everybody knows Rosemont. Rosemont was like the place. And I know Del Rey's gonna say, no, Del Rey's the place. Rosemont was the place to live, folks. And they have a very solid, you know, reputation. So many people, you know, have grown up to be actors, astronauts, comedians who lived in Rosemont, congressmen who lived in Rosemont. I think that was a part of that brand that they truly understand that the Rosemont community, it breeds some really

042good folks and sends them out into the world. And I think that's why that made it into our top three lists. And the third from Matthew Mori. was our Jean Reed. You can go to the next slide. Jean Reed Elementary School. And, you know, a community member said that Reed was once described as a tornado with the force to knock out the old and useless while creating a new path for the new and purposeful. I mean, you talk about like. A phenomenal woman. This woman right here, and I never knew Jean Reed, but as I was reading about her, I was like, this woman is amazing. You know, she had worked with students who were having difficulty reading, and she was very generous with just all of her time and her energy and devoted, just

043a devoted educator. She was also honored as an Alexandria and Washington Post, Agnes Meyer, Outstanding Teacher. She had the honor and privilege of working at Lee and Charles Barrett and Stonewall Jackson and Patrick Hembree and Mount Vernon and Cora Kelly. I mean, so she was just a phenomenal reading teacher and reading specialist. And as you all know, reading is fundamental. And she was the exemplar to making that a priority for our community. So what an honor to have Jean Reed nominated as one of our potential names for our elementary school. So we can go to the next slide, I think. I'm sorry, my presentation is stuck. Oh, there we go. I will go to my nomination. It was like, I was waiting for the drum roll back. So let me explain how I got to

044my recommendation. I have to first and foremost say that. The names that I had didn't make it to the list. The names that my personal names that I had did not make it to the list, everybody. I was a little disappointed, but I was more around to tell everybody the names I wanted on there. And I'm never going to tell you now what they are. But what I really wanted to do was make sure that I stayed true to how we started this journey. And we started this journey by saying, I, as superintendent, am going to get out of the way and allow our young people to lead. and that I'm going to allow our community to guide and to educate and to help us select what the appropriate name needed to be for our

045two schools. So that's exactly what I did. With my recommendations, I took the community votes and the highest percentages is what I'm recommending to put forth. And, you know, I think that with... T.C. Williams naming it Alexandria High School. Not only was it, you know, the most popular name out of the community poll. I don't know if you all know this, but our high school used to be Alexandria High School. So the first high school in Alexandria was Alexandria High School in 1901 to 1903. And then it got changed to the George Washington High School. I learned all this stuff just from getting all this history. I mean, I learned so much from this process as well. And I'm an Alexandrian. I never knew that we had an Alexandria high school. So you think about

046it coming full circle with the city of Alexandria saying what we stand for. And I mean, that was bold with the city council. Actually, that resolution was pretty bold to say we have inequities and that we're going to overcome them. that this is now rebranding what Alexandria is and what our future is going to be. So I just felt it was fitting, you know, to change the name back to what it was originally when we had one high school in the city of Alexandria in 1901. For Matthew Morey, my recommendation is also the most popular vote from the community, which is Naomi Brooks Elementary School. And as I read more about Naomi Brooks and I heard about her story, I even heard about her through my church, Alfred Street Baptist Church, because she was a

047member and her husband is still a member at the church. And I think he's a deacon at the church. It was just phenomenal to have someone of her caliber who truly values young people and believes in education and has committed her entire life to the city of Alexandria. I mean, she was born and raised and came back and spent her life here in our city. I think this is a huge honor. to be able to name a school after someone who's aligned with what we believe in regards to our core values. And during these times as we're talking about making sure that we promote Black excellence, I thought it was fitting to name Matthew Maury after Naomi Brooks, as well as the community. So these are my recommendations that I have made to the school

048board on behalf of our community. and first and foremost, our students. And that concludes our presentation. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchings. That was a great presentation. And so I will just check in with the board to see if anybody has any questions, comments. And I do see Miss Nolan. Thank you so much, Chair Alderton. I actually have one question, and then I just was, I did want to say some remarks about one of our finalists who is just, I feel like I know her and she's so beloved in my community. I just wanted to say a few things, but if you don't mind, my first question is, I'm just curious, what was the thinking behind Alexandria versus Alexandria City High School? Like, do we have any concerns about that being confused? It's a great

049question. It came up, it came up a few times about Alexandria versus Alexandria City. And what we're hearing from a lot of Alexandrians, you know, we always say there is no, we're like second to none. Alexandria. It's Alexandria, right? But then we have a lot of people talk about Alexandria City because there's sometimes confusion between the Fairfax side of Alexandria and the city of Alexandria. So I think we've heard arguments for both. The recommendation that came through was Alexandria High School, though. There was more internal discussions around, should we add city to that or should we not? But the recommendation that came from the city was Alexandria High School. I think it could go either way. Okay. Thank you. Looking forward to the discussion. If you don't mind, I would love to, with your permission,

050Dr. Hutchings and Chair Alderton, I would like to say a few remarks about Jean Reed, if I may, given that I do live in Rosemont. I'm one of the Rosemont School Board members. I feel like I know her. I've heard her name over the years. And I just she sounds like an incredible person as well as I have many neighbors who have really been excited to see her as a finalist and have weighed in and I've gone on, you know, been hunted down on walks, community walks, and just say, I just really want you to know who this person was. So if you don't mind, I would just like to take a moment to just share with the school board and the community just what an incredible person she was, as well as how honored

051we are that she was a finalist. That said, I am very excited for the recommendation of Dr. Hutchings, as it seems like another incredible woman. So I think we're just very honored to live in a community where incredible people have been that we want to honor. But if you don't mind, I just wanted to share a few things about... about Jean. And I have some written down from emails I've received. So she was for 33 years worked at ACPS at six different elementary schools. And she really did inspire a love of reading. You know, one person wrote to me, it was a retired ACPS employee said she was a teacher's teacher, both formally and informally. And she always inspired and mentored on the student teachers and new teachers and taking them under their wing. And

052she also had three children that went through more. GW and TC Williams and her two grandchildren are currently ACPS students. Her husband also taught in ACPS as well so it was a real ACPS family through and through. Other folks used to say, said to me and you know you can imagine on the board I loved this one that you couldn't contain her spirit and that she had an infectionist laugh and just sounded like someone who people really enjoyed. working with as the word beloved was used in countless emails to describe her, whether it was beloved colleague, beloved teacher, beloved mentor. So I just thought that. It was really just an incredible person. I just think it speaks so highly to Alexandria that she was one of the finalists. And so I just wanted to thank

053those that participated and just, again, say what a phenomenal community we live in that folks like this are to be honored and remembered given their long standing history at ACPS. And I love the fact, and I say this as a Mori mom, that two of the finalists that were women that devoted their career to Alexandria. And so I think we, like I've always said, when you meet the best of the best in Alexandria, they- are the best of the best. And so the fact that we were able to honor two of our best of the best who've been with us and devoted their lives to Alexandria and ACPS, I just wanted to say thank you. And I really appreciate that and was excited to see that. Thank you, Ms. Nolan. Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair

054Alderton. And thank you, Dr. Hutchings, for so eloquently going through the presentation. And thanks to all. who played a part in us getting to this point in the renaming of our schools. And I just wanted to say a few words about Ms. Brooks, Ms. Naomi, as I called her. You know, she was the... As Dr. Hutchins said, the epitome of courage and all good things. But she was also full of grace and beauty and love. And everyone truly loved her. She was one of the first people who took me in when I came to Alexandria in 2002, when I joined Alpha Street Baptist Church. And because as my mama says, when you move to a new place, the first thing you find is a good church. And just wonderful people in my church. And she

055stood out to me. So like every Sunday when I would go to church after meeting her, I would look for her. Church gets really crowded when the service is over. She would be one of the person I would see where she was sitting or she was in the choir. I would find her after church because she, after talking to her, was the type of person that made your heart glad and you wanted to talk to her when you saw her. She has an amazing family. This, she will, she of course passed away a few months ago and she's missed and will be continued to be missed by her family, by her church family and the community. And this is just a fitting homage to a remarkable woman. And I just, I was just so very

056excited when I saw her name come to the top of the list and truly, truly an honor for her and her family. So thank you. Oh, one more thing. Sorry, Charleston. I did want to recognize that her husband, Diggin Leo, is on the call and her son, General Vincent Brooks, her brother, Mr. Lewis, her sister, Miss Winters, and her daughter, Markeeta Brooks. And if I missed any of the family members, charge it to my head and not to my heart. Love you all. Thank you, Ms. Green. That was awesome. And I don't see any other hands. So I'll just comment that this has been, I think, such a very well done process. It was robust. I feel like it was very meaningful for the community. I feel like as a school board member, it was

057really meaningful for me. And I think it was just really meaningful for our kids, like seeing the quotes that the kids. you know, came up with here and there thinking about it just made this even more powerful. So I really appreciate everyone for, you know, taking the time to do this, developing this process and just making sure that when we got to this point, it felt right. And I can say it feels, you know, it feels right. This is right. So thank you everybody for this. All right. So, and I'll just share a tidbit of information for the public and for the board. Just a reminder that we'll have a public hearing on March 18th. And so we will vote for approval of the recommendations on April 8th. All right. Exciting guys, yay! All right,

058good. All right, so moving on our agenda, the next item that we have is an item up for action and that is our high school project. We have to approve our site-specific educational specifications. So I'll turn it over to Dr. Hutchings who will turn it over again to his team. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I also just want to thank Ms. Burgos and the communications team. I mean, they have done a remarkable job with the identity project. Thank you all so much. I just recall when we got the petition initially, Ms. Burgos was like, look, we have to brand this. We have to have a theme. We have to have concepts. We got to have a schedule. We got, you know, it was on and on. And you said we had to be

059methodical and strategic. And I am so grateful that you pushed that. because that was the right process for us to get to this point in a meaningful way. So thank you, Ms. Burgos and our team. I would just say thank you for entrusting us with the process. And it was actually fun. And even in the midst of the pandemic, but it gave us something else to focus on, to focus on our equity efforts. So thank you. That's right. Job well done. So as we transition into our educational specifications, the time is here. I feel like we've been talking about ed specs folks for a couple of weeks now. Yesterday we did have our work session, which we were able to provide the board with some of the revisions that we made based on the feedback

060we received, not only from board members, but from our educational design team, our staff, as well as our students and our community. We're hoping that today we are able to get those educational specifications approved so we can continue through the design process. Before I turn things over to Ms. Gulick, I do want to give a huge thank you and shout out to somebody who I know is special to all of us, Mr. Dawood. Rahman, Abdul Rahman, sorry, Abdul Rahman. I wanted to acknowledge him today because he has been, as you all know, Dawood's been working with us for almost three years. And he has been, you know, like a behind the scenes force in regards to our high school project work. And we know that this is his last week with us. And I wanted

061to make sure that as you were going, back into retirement or whatever you're choosing to do next, that you just knew what a special person you are and what an impact you had on this entire project. And you talk about a legacy, a part of your legacy is going to live on in the school division. And I'm just grateful that one, our paths got to cross and that we've been able to work collaboratively. throughout this process. And we have been able to build a bond, you know, from the beginning, me and Dawu for sure, even set aside from our professional work. So I just appreciate, really appreciate you. And I don't know if you want to make some remarks before we go into the thing, but I just wanted to make sure I publicly got

062to say thank you for all that you do on behalf of Alexandria City Public Schools. And you can go and watch this over and over again. It's better than a card because now you have it on videotape. And it's a public record that people can see 50 years from now if they choose, because it will forever be a public record. But hats off, a round of applause to Dawoud Abdul-Rahman. Well, I think I'll keep it brief. I'll just say thank you for acknowledging my effort. As I told Dr. Hutchings, the division worked so hard that it made me want to work even harder. So I had to try to bring my A-plus game to this equation. And I really appreciate the response that I received, not just in the division and all the various parts

063of the division, but also the city partners. what I tell them, told them every day is that they made me look good. So I really appreciate it. It's an honor and a pleasure. And thank you. Thank you for acknowledging the work that I did. Thank you. Thank you. And now I'm going to turn things over to Ms. Gulick, our Director of Capital Programs, Planning and Design. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. I just want to pile on for Dawoud that he's really set the stage for this project. He's only been with us for two years, although he's certainly done three years worth of work. And I've learned a lot from him and certainly know that we will stay in touch. And just thank you for setting this project on the right path as we move into design.

064Certainly set the standard and we all have big shoes to fill. So thanks, Dawoud. So with that tonight we're asking you to approve the comprehensive space and site program slash ed spec for the high school project now for Alexandria High School or to be determined, but we wanted to we don't have a presentation for you tonight, but we did post the final document for you. all we posted two iterations one with the changes highlighted the changes that we discussed yesterday and one clean version of that we're happy to take any comments or questions from you all and if not chair holderton feel free to move to a vote okay so i'm just going to double check make sure do i have any questions from the board do i have any comments from the board Okay,

065with that said, I do need a motion. So may I have a motion to approve the site-specific educational specifications? Madam Chair, I move that the school board approve the comprehensive program educational specifications for the high school project. Second. Okay, so I have Ms. Lorber who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. I am going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reif. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Thank you. Okay, Ms. Nielsen, the vote is eight present, eight yes, one absent. Excellent. So exciting. We are moving along with our high school project. I think that gets an applause. And I'm going to pile on for Dawoud actually too, just to say, Dawoud, you are that quiet but powerful force. just so

066gentle, but so knowledgeable. You made an impression on me from the beginning. So I just want to say thank you. And it is kind of sad to know that you won't be around, but. Will you hang around a little bit? Well, I will say that I won't be totally gone. I really am committed to the division. I've been working with, as you know, I've been working with Dr. Jacobs very closely on the CTE and establishing the advisory board and the CTE advisory committee. So I will be, I've agreed to be the lead mentor. We're establishing an ACE mentor chapter in the division. So that's an organization that introduces architecture, construction, engineering careers to high school students. So this is in parallel with Dr. Jacobs' effort to establish a construction and construction management pathway. So I'll

067still, you'll totally finish with me and you'll see me every now and then probably. Dr. Reif might see me at some of the CT advisory committee meetings. So I'm still kind of committed to the division, even though I'm just moving to a different phase and Dr. Hutchings and I have to do a 10K run at some point. Well, that's good news. That's great news. Thanks again. Thank you. All right, so we can move on in our agenda. And next up on the agenda is our hybrid reopening 5.0 update. So as we transition, thank you, Madam Chair. And as we transition into our 5.0 update, I also, I forgot to acknowledge Mr. Ballas and Mr. Powell, because the principals, you all have been doing such a phenomenal job throughout this process for the renaming. So I

068apologize that I did not mention you all earlier. So, yes, I wanted to transition into our update because, wow, what a week. That's all I can say. I feel like, you know, I've already had two weeks, but it's only been four days. But I am just so proud of our staff. I mean, you talk about people who are resilient, who are innovative, who are hardworking, who are dedicated, you know, who go above and beyond the call of duty. It would not have been possible for us to open our doors to our K-5 students who are receiving special needs or special education services and EL services this week if it were not for our staff. They have just worked. I can't even tell you from the beginning. This wasn't something that was able to just happen

069overnight. And I think it's important for our community just to understand, you know, how hard they are working. And they're in a pandemic, too. This crisis, it is impacting everybody's life. So when we do things like High School Project and Douglas MacArthur Project and renaming and opening our schools, people are doing this work and still in a crisis. So they're doing this in spite of. the pandemic and that is huge. We've never worked this hard before. None of us have ever worked this hard before through a storm, but we are making it through this storm, folks, and we have our raincoats and our umbrellas and everything else we need to make it through. So I just wanted to start off by thanking them for that. And I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Mozingo.

070who is the queen of teaching, learning, and leadership. And, you know, Dr. Mazingo is also one of those quiet, powerful people who are behind the scenes. You talk about somebody who does not stop working. Dr. Mazingo, I'm always like, Dr. Mazingo, you can stop. Just take a break because I can't take no more emails. I ain't doing nothing else over the weekend, right? But Dr. Mazingo, she works so hard with our... with our team and you just so graceful, knowledgeable, and patient with everybody. So I wanted to just give you a warm welcome and turn things over to you. But thank you, Dr. Mzingo for all you do. And thank you so much, Dr. Hutchins. If you could go back to the first slide, I want to make one comment. Good evening, Madam Chair, Vice

071Chair, and members of the board. At the top of this presentation, we just want to make this great announcement. The hybrid reopening 5.0 plan is attached, and we just want the public to be aware of that. And as Dr. Hutchins mentioned, the 5.0 plan is the collective work of a lot of people. It is the collective and collaborative work of a lot of people. So I just want everybody to be aware of that. And the basis of this presentation tonight is built from 5.0. good news, we have also submitted it to the Virginia Department of Ed. So just want to say kudos and thank you to everyone that has been a part of developing a 5.0. So as we move into the next slide, our essential questions, again, we want to focus on what is

072the current health guidance from the Centers for Disease and Control, the Virginia Department of Health, as well as the Alexandria Health Department. And we will again hear from Dr. Herring. We really thank him for all of his efforts. In addition, we want to highlight for you the foundational priorities for reopening the school buildings. And some of these are areas that we have already mentioned, so we won't go in detail with those tonight, but we want to at least highlight the foundational priorities that have been essential, as Dr. Hutchins mentioned, for reopening. We want to also identify for you tonight, there will be some staff members presenting new supports for transitioning into school buildings. And finally, just to highlight some of the future pre-planning efforts that are underway for the upcoming school year. Now I'd like

073to turn it over to Dr. Herring. Good evening. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you. Hi, Dr. Stephen Herron, Director of Alexandria Health Department. Thanks for having me here. I really appreciate it. This looks a little bit different because it is different. The left upper box talks about the K-12 school metrics and gives some background about this. The Centers for Disease Control has changed the metrics in a number of different manners. One is that they've changed the indicator levels. There used to be five. And they change them to the four that you see at the bottom left from high, substantial, moderate, and low. And those are the different risk categories. And somebody either from the school board or the thought partners previously asked, can't we see these things over time? Can't we

074see the trends? And thankfully, now we can. I know it's been a couple months since that was requested, but you can see. that when we look at the overall current CDC indicators in the bottom left The community, when we consider everything, the burden, the trend, the extent of transmission, we're at a high level of risk for transmission within a school setting. Now, that comes from what is on the right panel, and there are core indicators and secondary indicators. The core indicators, the first one is the number of new cases per 100,000. over the prior seven days. And you can see that that has been trending remarkably down and soon, hopefully, knock on wood, but will be in the substantial and not the high category. And the second one is the percent of PCR tests that

075have been positive in the last five days. And you can see remarkably that that is actually down in the low risk category. The other indicators at the bottom right, the first one compares one week, the previous seven days to the seven days before that. So it's kind of a week over week comparison. We're seeing good news there. And the other two have to do with hospital capacity. You're seeing good news there. One of the things that is not on here, and I make note of this every time because it's really important, in all the text on the left upper box, At the bottom part, there's a paragraph that starts that states a school division's capacity to successfully implement. And I can say if if this was on a meter that Alexandria City Public Schools have

076been doing remarkably well, they're very responsive. They reach out to us with questions. When I have a question or concern, they gather everybody that needs to be. Together, they've been working with our epidemiologist, our school team, and in fact, I believe that we have a town hall for parents that's planned sometime in the week of March 22nd. That's under development, so that way parents understand already a lot of things about the distancing, the face masking, but to give them more information about when there's a case in school, what does that mean, what is a case investigation, what to look for. because it's going to be when there's cases in school but not if. And that doesn't mean doomsday because from what I'm seeing everything the school is doing there should be a low risk of

077transmission within the school setting within the classrooms. So that's my presentation and I appreciate again being able to be here and appreciate the collaboration with ACPS. Just to add to this, as we're going through the presentation, we are going to be providing the community with a new overview of our decision matrix, because this does have an impact on our decision matrix. We shared a couple of weeks ago that the VDH was working through what they were going to take from the revised CDC guidelines. So this is what's coming from some of that information. So just know that we're going to be sharing out with the community what the decision matrix kind of looks like. But as Dr. Herring stated, our health and safety mitigations at the school level are solid. I mean, all health and

078safety mitigations that have been recommended are being done in regards to the VDH recommendations in ACPS. And we are really at a good place in regards to mitigating any health or safety concerns. So we should have a low risk within our school buildings. So I know that you have seen this slide before, and we are just delighted with this slide now because we purposely chose the mint green color to represent that the students that were scheduled and families who chose hybrid returned this week. So it's something to really celebrate. And that is why that color is green is because approximately a thousand and more students did transition. into our elementary schools this week. We have had some families, however, that have decided to remain virtual and they do have that option. But it's just, and

079then later on tonight, you'll see a video that will give you some examples of what it looks like when students return. But we're just glad to announce what is in green tonight. And you can also see March tonight. We are getting ready for next week. as well as March 16th. So kudos to the staff, the community, the families, and our teachers. But really good transition back into school this week. Now, the next slide, we like this slide in many ways, and I want to tell you a little bit about the slide. On the left side, what we wanted to do, and Dr. Hutchins has asked us, we want to stop repeating over and over again what we've shared. But we wanted to share with you tonight, just in the bricks here, to represent the foundation

080for reopening. What we've identified in each of the red bricks is examples of presentations or initiatives or systems that we've reported out on before, such as concurrent instruction, PPE equipment, school schedules, as well as a reopening checklist for principals. But all of the items where it says a solid foundation are the essential work that has occurred. to get the schools to the point as to where they are. It's important to also remember that this work has been done in collaboration with a lot of additional, a lot of other individuals. The middle section of this slide is what you're going to hear about later this afternoon. Those are some new areas that have been modified. to provide more support for reopening family communication, school simulations, the temperature scanners, which are really fun. We got to try

081those out this week. They're really kind of unique. The meals, as well as transportation and an update on classroom monitors. The far right side of this slide, we just want to highlight there will be more information forthcoming, but there will be a cross-functional team beginning to, which is our second year of summer learning, that will look a little different this year, but we will bring that information back to the board in the future. As well as Dr. Hutchins has asked all of us, particularly all of those that are members of the senior leadership team and their staffs, to launch a process where we begin to develop a scope of work. for next school year. And finally, we know that we have some families that will choose and have an interest in virtual learning. So we

082will form a cross-functional team that'll begin to plan that concept and obviously bring and share that information with the public and the community. And the team will be as all the other teams have been cross-functional. At the bottom, we just wanted to, looking back, Those are other plans that have been presented and are on our website. So the looking back, the red blocks serve as the foundation to where we are now and will continue to support our efforts. So we'll move to the next slide with our first presenter tonight, and that's Mariah Runkle. Good evening, everyone. So, excuse me, I'm providing an update on the communications that are going to families. I've sort of geared them as essential communications because they contain the information about what days students will be returning on, what their return

083date is, and then also bus transportation. So, over the past few weeks, we have, I'm happy to say, as Dr. Mozingo has also highlighted, that... We have sent out all of the return information from a centralized location. We've sent out all the return information to the families who are returning in hybrid. The final ones were sent out this past Tuesday. And the two central communications coming out next, tomorrow, will be the work that our transportation team. It's a lot of work that they have really put in, working very hard to get all the bus routes put together and everything. So that information will be sent out tomorrow to families. That will include information for families that are returning on the night. And then next week, approximately the same time, next Friday, we will send out

084bus information for those returning on March 16th. So and as always, it's in collaboration with all of the different groups that are required to make what seems like a few five fields that go into an email is the work of an entire division. So I am grateful to everybody who supports our ability to do this. Thank you, Mariah. So this slide really talks about the simulations that we had across the schools and really want to thank the schools that worked with us to do the day in the life video, which I'll show you in a second. We're going to show you a preview of our high school day in the life video that will actually go into Express Insider tomorrow, as well as the middle school day in the life video. But first, I just

085want to talk a little bit about what the simulation. The purpose of the simulation was really to give the schools an opportunity to walk through every part of the day to make sure that we were checking all of the boxes. We heard from our principals this week that that was a really great process and one that we're going to replicate when the new school year begins. That was something that we should continue to do. They felt really prepared. They felt that they had an opportunity to really see what the day was going to be like to ensure that nothing fell through the cracks. And so I want to thank. our principals for going to those simulations. I know it was a lot of work to put together. And I know some of the senior leadership

086team members also participated in those simulations to help think through some of the problems and issues that may come up and also to resolve things on the spot. So the next slide will show you those simulations, but I want to give you an opportunity to see our high school day in the life videos. So if we can play that video, please. We're going to start with the A-side first floor followed by the A-side second floor. Thank you for that. And I could not finish my little presentation without saying thank you to the staff at John Adams and the Early Childhood Center and GW and TC for letting us take over and bring in the students who were phenomenal actors and actresses. And so they really helped to make this video come to life. And I'm

087sure you've seen the elementary school one. So tomorrow you'll see the middle school one. But I really wanted to thank those teams for helping us put these together. And so next slide, please. And this is just a snapshot of the dates that the schools actually conducted their simulations to prepare for the first couple of days of school. And that's it for me. Thank you, Ms. Burgos. And so our principals and school leadership teams have planned for a successful hybrid reopening through the use of the principal's checklist and this simulation home-based document. And so what you are viewing is the home-based document, which is the key location that all principals have linked their simulation document. And so you've had an opportunity to view the awesome high school video, and you'll notice highlighted in blue. are the

088other schools that had an opportunity to create videos as well, which would include the Early Childhood Center, John Adams, George Washington, which are representative examples. So the home-based document and the simulation process, as shared, has quickly become one of our key operating procedures for principals and their school-based teams. The simulation process itself took about two to three hours with key stakeholders to include school administrators, central office staff. who collaborated and problem solved on each aspect of the day. And so the simulations allowed school-based teams to assume the persona of your grade level that we serve in. And we were able to answer operational questions, implement associated steps of each aspect, and also kind of brainstorm through what-if scenarios. And so overall, the simulation process itself allowed school leadership teams to adequately plan and prepare for

089a safe hybrid reopening. And the simulation process has quickly become our school and district form of communication, which can give parents and the community a glimpse into our hybrid day. Thank you. So just wanting to cover tonight some of our additional health and safety measures that we've implemented for reopening school. You saw in the previous video that there was a daily symptoms checker that all staff and students are asked to complete prior to entering the facility for the day. You also got a chance to see our scanners in action and those scanners are required. Anyone that's entering the facility is required to have their temperature taken through those scanners. That process is approximately four to seven seconds. And we instituted this process because we understood that it would help improve efficiency and also remove the

090barrier of having too many people gathered in one place trying to get their temperature screened if we kept it to a manual process. Next slide, please. In regards to meals and transportation, again, another huge effort, but the team pulled it off. And how do we do that? So with meal service, we are providing a grab-and-go model for breakfast. And students, as you saw in the video, they grab their breakfast and they head to their classrooms to eat. Lunch is served in the classrooms. And our food distribution continues at our already established sites. Our transportation started again this week, and so we had 62 buses primed and ready to help transport students for the beginning of school on March 2nd. We will be completing two reassessments of our transportation planning. The first will come the week

091of April 5th, and really the goal of this reassessment is to ensure that we have an opportunity to what we call right-size our routes based off of the number of students that actually return to hybrid. Next slide, please. We've also done major work in regards to our HVAC and ventilation systems. Some of these items include our continuation of our regular quarterly preventative maintenance on our systems. We have adjusted and continue to adjust outside air intake within our systems. We have upgraded our filtration to MERV 13 filters. We have identified and completed necessary repairs on our systems where needed, and that is highlighted by school in our already existing HVAC FAQ. We have provided HEPA air purifiers for our clinics, our health annexes, and some select rooms within our buildings based on specialized circumstances. We also

092have the opportunity, and this was shared a few weeks ago, to install some UV technology at one of our schools, and that is Lyles Crouch Elementary. As we were in the midst of a planned HVAC project at that school, we installed 17 new rooftop units there. And as part of that process, we did have an opportunity to install this technology. And this is something that we will continue to assess and possibly plan to include in all of our future HVAC projects as well. And with that vein, we do continue on with our CIP projects to include any pre-planned HVAC replacements and projects that were already established in the budget. And before we move on to the next slide, I really, really, really just want to publicly acknowledge all of the hard work of the facilities

093and operations department. We pulled it off. It was a Herculean effort, but I would be remiss if I did not. acknowledge all the hard work of the six offices within the team and all of the staff. So thank you so much. Hi, Dr. Wilkins here, Chief of Staff. I'll cover the monitor count today. As you know, we're using two recruiting approaches to bring on our classroom monitors. We have a temporary staffing agency that exclusively handles the classroom monitors, and then the ACPS HR office is recruiting for our health annex monitors and our temperature screeners. The numbers that you see below that are 120 classroom monitors, 24 health annex monitors, 22 temperature screeners, and we also have 14 specialized instructional contract staff serving our special needs students. So our personnel staffing support is on target and

094it will increase in the days ahead. Thank you. And thank you all for all of that. I'm going to pass things back to Madam Chair to open the floor for questions. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings and team. And so I will see if we have any questions from board members. Nolan. Thank you, Chair Alderton. Really appreciate it. And thank you so much, Dr. Hutchings, to you and your team. I know we say it every meeting, but it needs to be said every meeting. This is just such a Herculean task. And we know how much hard work is going into it and how staff at all levels are really working hard to make this happen. So we just really sincerely appreciate it. I had a question about, do you mind speaking to, I know there's been just

095a little bit of buzz about like the... windows and what are we doing about windows? So just for the sake of the community, do you mind sharing about what is ACPS's stance about windows? And the only reason I say that is because I just know that's generated a lot of questions. So I think now would be a good opportunity to share where we stand with that. And then the other question I had about childcare with staff, I know that continues to be a barrier of why staff can come in. And so if you could also just share what, is there any troubleshooting behind the scenes that's going on with that? I would love to know. Sure. So we're going to start with the first question in regards to our policy about our windows during the

096pandemic. And Dr. Hart, if you can just provide our stance and some of the purpose behind that. Absolutely. So thank you so much for the question, Ms. Nolan. As of right now, ACPS does have the stance of recommending not opening windows. And I know for some that is just, well, why are you doing that? We have had an opportunity to explain our HVAC fact, but I do want to make sure that I'm laying it out for the public. As you all know, we have some facilities that have, unfortunately, prior histories with indoor air quality concerns. The team has worked very hard over the past few years to try to help remedy some of those. concerns to really make sure that our buildings are in the best shape for our building staff and students and other

097occupants. And so based off of our internal and external expertise regarding opening windows, we have some a few considerations. The first is that opening windows actually brings in outdoor pollutants and the it pauses your system to now have to work overtime to help filter that outdoor air. I know that there have been some recommendations, well, can't you just put a box fan in your room to help, you know, circulate that outside air? But that actually ends up mimicking the exact same design that your HVAC system has in place and how it's intended to work. So opening windows and installing fans is really just mimicking the operation of your HVAC system. The second point to it is that we want to make sure that we are maintaining our relative humidity levels. That is a huge component

098of making sure that you do not create an environment that is favorable for mold. And as you all know, you know, that is something that you never want to have to contend with on a large scale within a building because it is a bear to really try to remedy that. The next consideration is really temperature control and occupant comfort. And I know that may seem small in the scheme of things, but... But we have to understand that we have varied facilities that have been constructed during different time frames. Some of that construction, say for instance, you have a building that is cinderblock. We all know that those type of buildings either hold heat or they hold in the cold air. It becomes very difficult to then regulate temperature if you have an influx of outdoor

099air. We are also making sure we are keeping in the consideration of there may be some students that may not have seasonally appropriate clothing. And that is something we want to make sure that we are not putting these students in an environment to where they are either too warm or too cold. Because again, we want to really rely on our HVAC system, excuse me, to do that work and to make sure that our temperatures are maintained throughout our buildings. And so We really are looking at the total and holistic approach to indoor air quality and ventilation. We've put a lot of work into our systems regarding making sure that they're repaired and working in the way that they're intended to do, including upgrading our filters to enhance our filtration. We have provided air purifiers in

100those spaces where we felt. they are most needed, the higher risk areas such as your clinics and your health annexes. And then also for good measure, we did consult with the Alexandria Health Department after the updated guidance was released. And the Alexandria Health Department, after we have shared with them all of our current mitigation strategies, as well as the fact, as Dr. Herring alluded to earlier, that we are continuing to adhere to those top mitigation strategies of correctness. face mask usage and social distancing, they did not object to our position on opening windows. We are not an anomaly in this. There are actually other few divisions in neighboring counties that have the same position. I am so sorry. I'm really trying to push through this, but you know, just all of that to say. I

101love it. I love, I love the baby in the background. So you're fine. And we've all of us moms have been there, so don't worry about it. All of that to say that our team really does review the guidance, really does review. So sorry. I don't know if John Finnegan or Mark can jump in to just close this out for me, please. I apologize. John, you're on mute. Mr. Finnegan, you're on mute. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. So just to finish this off, we have listened to the concerns. We have looked at CDC guidance. We've looked at ASHRAE guidance, which is the American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning. And we have made adjustments to the system. And I just want to make sure everyone understands that our

102spaces, our building, they do bring in outside air. We just filter it before we bring it in. And basically what we're trying to do is turn over the air more because of the concerns of the pandemic. So we have made adjustments and we are taking in all of those things into consideration. Any questions? Yes, do you mind if I ask a follow-up? No. Mr. Finnegan? Yeah. So do we, I know there's a bunch of concerns from teachers, especially about walking into a classroom and feeling assurance that, you know, the ventilation is and the air flow is properly, you know, being taken care of and that they're in a safe space, bottom line. Do we have a sense of... How are we measuring that? And also, do we know like how, for example, air is being

103replaced and the frequency of that? I know that's something that Arlington recently came out and was concerned about. So I just don't know if you could highlight that. And again, this is just coming from a place of like, how are we assuring teachers that they're walking into a safe environment and that we've done all the protocols we need to in terms of air circulation and HVAC and all of that? Sure. And let me just say that all of our buildings, as Dr. Hart mentioned, they're all different. They're different ages. There's different systems. And so basically, a lot of them you've got. devices that work for a certain part of a building. So you've probably heard us talk a lot about rooftop units. These rooftop units, there will be, for example, one or two just for

104the auditorium. There will be one that will supply just for three or four classrooms. So all of that is monitored through a building automation system. And all of that is calculated through engineering. It's constantly monitored by our building and custodial services staff. We look at cubic feet per minute, et cetera. And the air is turned over so many times per day. And as mentioned, we are increasing that just so it turns over a little bit more. There's more fresh air in there, et cetera. And I know Mr. Mark Carlson, our assistant director of building and custodial services is on as well. And Mark, I would ask if there's anything that you would like to add to that. So let me get going here. So we're going to operate the HVAC systems three hours extra during

105the course of the day. We'll run it two hours later in the evening and one hour, we'll start at one hour earlier in the morning. So it'll essentially run till about midnight and then we'll start it up again around 4 a.m. So that's going to give an additional number of air changes in the buildings. And I think the bottom line here, I know we're going to, I know we need to move on, but I think it's important for the community. I thank Ms. Nolan for asking this for the community, as well as for the staff to know that one, we are not going to put our staff and our students in an environment that is unhealthy or unsafe. We've spent this time right now, not opening our buildings when we felt the community health metrics

106were not at a safe place for us to open our doors. And we're not going to now all of a sudden just throw health and safety out of the window. are making sure that you know throughout this time we are adjusting based on the information that we that we receive whether it's from the CDC or the Virginia Department of Health or Alexandria Health Department and fortunately we have a very consistent and strong collaborative relationship with our Alexandria Health Department where we're inquiring with them about different strategies that we are implementing within our decision making. I'm sorry, now the people are mowing their... This is what happens when we're in a pandemic, everybody, with Zooms. So I'm going to stop there, Ms. Dola. Dr. Hutchings, if you don't mind, I just wanted to close out now

107that my child has decided to calm down. I just wanted to be able to close out and say that one thing that the team and I are going to reinstitute. We had started it right before the pandemic and we had to put it to the side so we could focus on reopening is our quarterly chats with the principals and working through the principals to present. at various PTA meetings. One thing that we did find successful, I'll give a quick example, was at George Washington Middle School. We were able to have a few, maybe two or three presentations prior to the pandemic of just all of the items we had been working on and would continue to work on to help improve IAQ there and just other building concerns. So that is something that we're going

108to reinstitute and really make sure that our community has a level of confidence in everything that we are doing. And we think that that would be a great step forward in ensuring that. So I just wanted to add that as we closed out on this topic. Thank you. Moving on, I'm going to go to Dr. Reith. Well, thank you so much for the presentation and for all the hard work, everyone, for getting us where we are this week. It's a big accomplishment for sure. And I just want to thank you, you know, Dr. Hart, for your leadership and really, you know, the community has been asking a lot of questions about ventilation and certainly with the new updated guidance that the CDC. released on Friday. And I'll say one thing I've definitely learned going through

109this pandemic as a school board member is there really are not all these one size fits all solutions. I think that the public often wants that. And it's just I've just learned, you know. for this process, that it's not always like that. So I do appreciate you talking us through the process and answering the questions. And I did go back and just kind of look, I just wanted to also, you know, mention that looking at the HVAC investments we've had in our CIP last year was over $5 million. It looks like it totaled. And then in this coming year, it's $6 million. So I know that we have been really trying to catch up, but. Of course, we've had schools that have had the indoor air quality issues. And I think particularly for families that

110are at those schools, there's even like a heightened awareness about this issue. And I was wondering if maybe someone, Mr. Finnegan, or someone could just, particularly speaking to the Mount Vernon Community School, I know there was some questions about the HVAC system with the issues that they've had in the past and what was repaired. I don't know if you can just speak a little bit about how the systems are working at Mount Vernon. And then just kind of related to this issue, there have also been a lot of families asking about eating outdoors for lunchtime. And if you could just clarify, is that up to the principal to determine that? Or how's that being handled? And then the playground equipment is another thing that we're hearing a lot about because people say that, you know,

111the surface transmission is very unlikely. And so do we really need to keep the kids off the playground equipment? And I think there's been some... consulting with the health department about that. But if you could just speak to those things. So Mount Vernon, eating outdoors and the playground equipment. So I'll start off with the, before we go into Mount Vernon update, I'm going to start off with the playground and eating outside, because I do think that it's important for our community to understand that the same kind of like. processes, procedures that you have at home don't apply at school, especially when we're providing food at school. You have to have certain environments for kids to be able to eat outside. There's certain guidelines that you have to meet. Can they wash their hands? Can they

112have a space to sit and eat properly without having their food contaminated with dirt or grass or trash or floor or whatever, right? So there are guidelines that we do have to follow. We can't just have a picnic anymore. That's not how school works. to because there are a lot of guidelines and when something happens guess who gets sued the school division so we have to follow those guidelines and we can't just say hey everybody we're going to go outside and eat today it is an orchestrated action that has to occur and right now we are just not in a place where we have outdoor dining facilities that can accommodate our students particularly like a whole classroom or a group of students at a particular period of time Another thing that we're working through is

113our recess because there are some new guidelines and we have a meeting scheduled for next week to finalize some things. So tonight we're not going to be sharing any of that information, but next week we will be sharing some more information in regards to our recess and our recess policies and what refinements have been made to that. But we're in the process of making some updates to it based on some of our new data. So we'll be releasing that next week. I'll turn things over to Mr. Finnegan to talk about Mount Vernon. I think it is important for us though to consider particularly the schools that we've gotten emails from and for the most part it's been Charles Barron and Mount Vernon as put the emails that I have received. I think that it may

114be a good idea for us to have an update or some type of meeting with those schools because I think that you know some of these concerns are isolated they're not division-wide. And it can be confusing when you're talking about even Charles Barrett and Mount Vernon. They have two different systems. They have two different remedies and different ways of addressing their HVAC systems. So I think it would behoove us to have some sessions with those particular schools, because I know that's where many of our emails have been coming from to help their families at those schools understand. all of the measures that we've taken and mitigations that we put in place. But Mr. Finnegan, you may want to talk a little bit about Mount Vernon. Okay, thank you, Dr. Hutchings. So I will go through

115a handful of things and I will be fairly brief because what we would like to do now that we're back to where we usually are at the end of summer, where we're opening schools back up, we would like to highlight things. So I'd like to do something comprehensive and show everything that we've done at some of these schools. So I'll just touch upon a few of the highlights. A couple of years ago, Mount Vernon did have... various indoor air quality issues that were really based upon a couple of factors. We had a roof system there that was beyond its functionality. We had some HVAC systems that needed to be replaced. So we had a window system that was outdated as well. And then that is a two pipe system that the insulation on the chilled

116water pipe is 40 or so years old that it was compromised. It was leaking. It was not doing the insulating job that it was intended to. However, one problem was that there was asbestos mastic on that. So what we have had to do over at Mount Vernon is take a very comprehensive approach to all of these things in light of getting indoor air quality back up. So we've had various projects over there over the last couple of years. We have gone throughout the entire building now and replaced all of the insulation. So for example, we would have one room that had mold on a ceiling tile. Once we got up in the plenum, the area above the ceiling tile, below the slab, we realized that that was from a dripping insulation chilled water pipe. that

117was an easy fix. You change the insulation. However, with the asbestos, it becomes a bigger project. So as mentioned, we've replaced all of that insulation. So we've removed all of the asbestos. Every time we did that, we had to seal up the room, get rid of the insulation, come back in and re-insulate with more modern insulation material. We have also been taking out the window systems. in re-caulking around the openings, putting in end dams, making sure that they are pitched to the outside, etc. That has been a problem as well, water intrusion through those old window systems. And then as I mentioned, there's a new roof on every section of that building. That building is really three or four buildings into one with all of the additions. There are 24 different roof sections, including awnings,

118etc. Everything has a new roof on it. So we are good for another number of years, 15 to 20 years. So all of those things were kind of contributing to it. We also had some leaks inside the auditorium and we had an outdated HVAC system that wasn't properly getting air in there. It was drawing in very moist air that was just kind of contributing to the problem. And we had a mold outbreak in there because of the high moisture levels. We have actually replaced both of those HVAC. supply rooftop units. So we've been very comprehensive going around the building dealing with those various things, but on their own they each contributed to different problems with either water intrusion or leaky pipes, etc. So those are a handful of the things that we've done throughout the

119building. And as you might see if you go by Mount Vernon now, we are currently working on the soffit on the underside of the building where you drive through to get to the back courtyard. And then the back courtyard, we have had an engineer designing a new courtyard so that we can properly catch the water from the downspouts that just spill into that courtyard. In fact, our study does the entire site to make sure that all of our stormwater management gets into the city system as opposed to just dropping it on the grounds and creating saturated soil, etc. So we've done quite a few things at Mount Vernon. Just really quickly, thank you. Thank you so much for that, Mr. Finnegan. And I do look forward to hearing more about, you know, the work in

120the other schools. And I'm glad to see that we're doing the targeted, the filters and the health annexes. And I'm just going to say as a parent, I mean, I do feel some assurance that, you know, we have been consulting with Alexandria Health Department on this. And I know that. If I've heard one thing from Dr. Herring, it's like focus on those primary mitigation strategies, you know, which is the social distancing, the masking and the washing of hands. So thank you for that update. And Dr. Hutchings, if I may add, you were spot on with meeting with those particular communities. We have already discussed with Principal Rural setting up a meeting for next week where the team and I can present an update to the Mount Vernon community and we will work with Principal Brody

121to do the same thing for Charles Barrett. Thank you, Dr. Hart. Thank you, Mr. Finnegan. And also just to our community, we're always going to make sure that we're taking the appropriate measures to ensure health and safety is a top priority for us. And I do understand that there have been concerns in the past. One thing that we have to keep in mind, our facilities and operations team in regards to the leadership has changed. in regards to even systems and processes have changed and it is going to take time for our community to you know kind of to rebuild that trust and understanding of what we're doing within our school buildings but it is a new day um we are about making sure that we are having our um our precautions being taken, our preventative

122measures that are in place, and also regularly checking our systems. I mean, that is something that is a part of just how we operate. We don't have to have a reminder. We don't have to be told to do that. That is a part of our system because we want to make sure that we are ensuring we have a health and safety environment, not only for our students, but also for our staff who are in there every day. Thank you, everyone. Good conversation and good questions. I have Ms. Lorber. Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate this discussion of the air quality because we have received so much mail. And I, too, was very pleased to see that we are already using some of the HEPA filters in certain, in nurses' offices, health annexes, and

123in certain high-risk areas. I have sort of a dumb question. How do you, we have so many questions about classroom-based air quality. And I want to know, how do you measure classroom air quality? Because it would, it seems to me, I am getting a sense that we would be open to putting in additional HEPA filters in classrooms if we believe there was a need. But what I want to know is, I hear us talking a lot about the systems level monitoring and figuring out if our HVAC systems are working well, but how do we monitor at the classroom level? How does that work? And so is it possible then at the classroom level to realize that some of the rooms just aren't getting the full benefit of the big system and therefore might need a

124HEPA filter? Can someone? So absolutely. I think there's probably going to be two-part answer to that. So in terms of the filtration, one thing that we want to continue to stress is that we have upgraded our system filters to MERV 13. These particular filters are specifically designed to help with a higher content, well, a higher ability to catch viral particles in the air. So that's one thing. So epifilter is definitely a type of filter that is popular, but MERV has really I feel like kind of taken over the scene since COVID. So we actually have opted to do the MERV in our systems and HEPA filters as an additional measure in those high risk areas. But we also have a building automation system. And I'm going to ask Mr. Carlson to speak to just how

125our building automation systems work in monitoring our HVAC, indoor, outdoor air intake, those sort of things. So Mr. Carlson. So these systems measure They measure temperature, humidity, static pressure in the ductwork. There's different fan speeds. There's variable speed fans that speed up and slow down depending on what the damper actuators are. It's a fairly complicated system. There's a lot of formulas of airflow that go into these things. Depending on the outside air temperature, that'll make a difference on how far the actual dampers open and close. It's just a lot of sensors and data that make these systems work. Can I just, what I don't understand still is. One of the long emails we received from someone who seems to have been working years in this field, it indicated that many times your larger systems aren't

126going to be as effective at the classroom level. And I'm still trying to sort that out. You know, if I understand that you're talking about systemically throughout the school and I understand that, but these schools are so large and we know there are rooms that that are. Are you saying to me, perhaps that, in fact, the what these systems do is. keep monitoring air quality room for room. I think that's the thing that I keep hearing from the public, that they're concerned that classroom for classroom, specifically because we don't open windows. And I know the CDC said, look, if you can't open windows. No problem. You know, there are other things you can do. One of them being filled locally localized air filter in a classroom versus a large system. So I guess I'm still

127trying to sort out the need, not HEPA versus MERV, but the need for a localized air purifier system versus the large systemic system. John, do you want to respond to that? Yes. So as I mentioned, like I'll take Lyles College, for example, there are 17 rooftop units on that school. So you take a rooftop unit and it's only serving three or four rooms. So it's a little bit more localized than you think. It's not one system pumping air throughout the school. So we'll take one rooftop unit and we can get the data for that, showing what the cubic feet per minute is into that space. We can adjust for how much outside air as a percentage we are bringing through. And again, we are bringing in outside air into... all of our buildings. That's like

128opening a window except we're bringing it in through the ducts and we're bringing it in through a filtration system. So I want the public to be aware that we are bringing in outside air. We're just filtering it, which is different than just opening up the window. But we can, and Mr. Carlson analyzes those things, and he can change the dampers, which is basically a mover to open and close a little bit, allowing more air to come in to speed up the cubic feet per minute or to increase the percentage of outside air. And that's why Mr. Carlson mentioned that we are going to be running. these systems longer in the day so we turn the air over more often, meaning that the air in that section of the building, those three or four rooms, that

129air is completely turned over so many times per day. And all of this engineering data on our building automation system tells us exactly what that is doing and we can adjust for humidity and all of those things. So we do have it more localized than it might appear. Is that typical school for school? So that's not just Lyle's Crouch where a rooftop serves four classrooms, but typically it's not that large an area that's affected by each HVAC system? Correct. And as mentioned, we've got a handful of different types of systems. So you've got some systems that has a cassette unit in the ceiling that only serves that room. So our bigger units are only a few rooms. And I mean, if you go on the roof of T.C. Williams, for instance, there's probably 40 air

130handlers up there that serve different sections of the building. It's not like you have one large air handler that serves the entire building. It's all sectioned off. But the other thing, I mean, there's CO sensors. And it's just a very complicated system, like I said. And, you know, it'll speed the fans up and slow the fans down, depending on where the dampers are open in the building. If one room is satisfied, it's going to close its dampers up. Okay, because the temperature is satisfied. And that's going to slow the fan speed down. It's just, it's all engineered. Thank you all. Thank you all. Thank you so much. Thank you. Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair Alderton. And thank you, everyone. I'm still very excited. about getting the kids back in school. Just happy to be in

131this place. Really am. Each and every day, we get closer and closer. My question is around high school. And the video team did a wonderful job on the video presentation that we saw. But I think that's a little, that's what we expect in the real world that our high school, for our high schoolers to do. High schoolers love, you know, being close to one another. They love joking around with one another. They're most likely not going to keep their masks on. And I seriously doubt if they're going to walk six feet from one another. Can I just get some logistics on, you know, the day-to-day for our high schoolers? I know it's not going to be as crowded because not all of the students are coming back, but it still will be quite a few

132kids in the schools. So how are we handling that in the halls? I mean, just like just more logistics on what happens. And if someone does contract COVID, what happens at that point? So we can turn things over to Mr. Bowles to talk a little bit about that. I want to start off by just saying that it's only about 30% of our students who are returning back at the high school. And that's on, and then it's two days per week. So it's not all 30% in the school at the same time. So the school really is not going to be crowded. It's not going to look anything like it looks today. And I think it is important too, for us to always ensure. that we have routines that are established because students do over time

133with anything that we do and even adults because we all are now adapting to zoom and figuring out how to make this work right whoever thought we could do this that we're going to have to keep keeping that routine in place for our students. Many of our students, believe it or not, they don't want to be spreaders because they have family members at home as well. So they're thinking about their grandma, they're thinking about their parents. It's bigger, it's beyond just them. And the high school students are actually a lot more particular than our elementary students because they understand the ramifications. that come out of this, that comes out of this. And being at home all this time, it proves that they are not in control. So they have been shaken, I really believe. But

134Mr. Ballas, you may want to talk about some of the systems that are in place to get these routines so that we don't have what Ms. Green is referencing. Sure, absolutely. Thank you for the question. We have at the high school, as Dr. Hutchings said and has said time and time again, is that things are definitely going to look a whole lot different, and especially in terms of numbers. I'll just give you a couple of examples. For the arrival to school, as students are arriving, we have different central locations for them to go. wait to go to their classrooms where they'll be socially distanced. We have passing times where our classes will transition several times a day. That's going to be done by hallway, by announcement where kids will be leaving rooms. There will be

135students lined up to wait outside their next room and that's going to take place over a 20-minute period because there's going to be no change from our virtual schedule to now. And where we have things like the cleaning that's happening in between the classes, the lunch that's going to be delivered to classrooms and the protocols we have for that. We've announced this. We've gone over this and reviewed this with all of our staff. We held our hybrid learning open house last night. And I'm going to continue to be sending out some newsletters in smaller chunks around a lot of the different parts of the school day. Board Member Green, I don't know if you want to follow up with anything that I may not have addressed, but I do promise you that I will. I

136wanted to ask for Dr. Crawford to talk about what happens if somebody's positive, because that was another component that I think is important that Ms. Green asked. Yeah, and that's good. That's good, Mr. Ballas. Thank you. Thank you. Obviously, this is a big question for everyone. What is the situation if we have either a child who becomes symptomatic at school? So if you'll indulge me, I'll tell you very briefly about that process, or if we receive notification that a student or a staff member received a positive test. We updated for the community the health guidelines that went out last week. Those had been vetted through the health department. We have a couple visuals in there as well, including using the CDC flow chart for assessing symptoms in students at school. So just to talk through

137a hypothetical, if we had a child who was in a classroom and either expressed that they didn't feel well, the teacher didn't seem like they seemed themself or thought. thought that they were not acting like themselves and may not be feeling well, they would go to the health annex, which as Dr. Wilkins said earlier, is staffed by a monitor for us. They'd be assessed by a school nurse and the parent would be contacted. If this was a child who did not have any pre-existing type documented condition that would explain the symptoms, the child would be sent home. Parent or guardian would be asked to pick them up. And we have very specific return to school guidance that we are giving to families if a child is being sent home from the health annex room that

138says what you need to provide. This is your anticipated return date. So if we assume that it's COVID, here's your return date. This is what we would need either in the form of a test or a doctor's note or clearance by the school nurse. So if you don't go to get tested or can't get to the doctor, here are the other. safeguards that we have to make sure that students aren't being kept out any longer than we need to. Also, providing the testing information to all of those families when they leave school so they know what is available and where they can get free testing. But let's say that one of those students, if Julie was sent to the health annex discharged because I had a fever and a stomach ache and my test was

139positive. Hopefully our families will notify us directly, but also given that we are now working with children who live in Alexandria, the health department would reach out to us to notify us in any case to let us know that we had a positive test result. In the classroom, we have decided that we would do a two-day pause, if you will. So as soon as we receive notification, we would pause our learning and revert to virtual. So we would close the classroom for two days. The purpose that it's closed for two days is it gives that 24-hour window of having no one in there before we ask our custodial staff to go in and clean thoroughly and disinfect. Also during those two days, we will be able to work with the health department to determine if

140there is additional contact tracing that needs to take place. if there are close contacts and if anyone if the risk is bigger than just one staff member or one student do we need to close the classroom longer for those two days if we do have a situation where no it seems isolated there are no close contacts we're confident we get the guidance from the health department then we would look at reopening but the two days does allow us to make that assessment work with the principals everyone is aware that We need the seating charts, we need the bus numbers, we need parent contact information at the ready for all of our classrooms so we can contact trace immediately. We had strong hesitation honestly about having an immediate 14-day closure, knowing that that could result in

141students being out longer than necessary. If that contact tracing took place and there were not close contacts, then we were particularly at the secondary level where you would have multiple classrooms impacted, we would have large numbers of students out longer than necessary. So with the guidance from the health department, we decided, and of course the superintendent, on a two-day switch back to virtual learning, assess the situation, and hopefully be back on that third day, but if not, close for a little longer. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just two questions. One is just, and I know a lot of the students are in self-contained SPED who have come back, but I'm just curious, I know maybe with some of the ELL students and other students have

142returned, I'm curious if we've started to do any of that. concurrent teaching and just kind of wanted to get a report on how that's going, how logistics are working, just thinking, kind of projecting out in terms of us being proactive on the equity issues of some students being at home, some students being in the classroom. So I just kind of love to hear how that's going, how we're feeling about that and what we're doing, especially once we get to the 4,000 students in a couple of weeks, you know, in terms of the technology and how are the teachers feeling about that, how. You know, how is that going with the students and how are we making sure that everyone is getting access to the full educational experience to the extent possible. And Dr. Mazzinco, I

143don't know, do we have our elementary principals on here today? I see a secondary. Yes, we have. Mr. Paschal. Mr. Paschal, that's correct. So Mr. Paschal, you can go ahead and provide some insight to the concurrent teaching. Absolutely, happy to do so. So we have had a very successful first couple of days overall. I would say collaboration was the big winner this week as we, at every juncture, there was an opportunity for. building teams, to reach out to central office to say thank you. Everybody's hard work and working together really paid off in a big way, especially with the technology. I will absolutely say, I think Dr. Hutchings was in a room at Tucker where the teacher was very quickly able to pick up the camera and show the other kids at home who was

144all in the room today, including Dr. Hutchings as a special guest. Teachers have pretty quickly been able to transform the pages and pages and pages of what we ask them to know, the routines and procedures that we ask them to do into, and I like that you used the word, Mr. Suarez, how are teachers feeling? It was visceral the first couple of days, just at the end of the day, the relaxing of the shoulders, the big, deep breath. that it's working, that we're getting positive feedback from students. You know, at the elementary level, a little girl this morning got off the bus. I guarantee you she is not that excited on her birthday. She said, I am so excited. She saw her teacher. She screamed out, Ms. Anderson, from a distance. And it went on

145from there. Of course, we're working on things that we need to get better. We're going to make every day better. And so we each have our agenda and our marching orders. But, you know, I can say certainly from the elementary principals, we met with Dr. Hutchings and then we met again with our own little team. And each and every one of us shared that exhilaration, just being back in the building and just a great positive step. Thank you, Mr. Pascoe. And also, I think having some of our staff in the buildings now without the students is also helpful, too, because they're now in their classrooms teaching from their classrooms to kids virtually. And that same structure and that same kind of teaching approach will happen when some of the students are in place, too. So

146giving them that practice, wearing a mask and being at their desk has been extremely helpful. Thank you, everyone. Dr. Reif, you have another question? Yes, I do. Thank you. And thanks for that question, Mr. Suarez. I think that was really important. And I, you know, I do feel like this, just this transition back in is such a big, a big adjustment for everyone. But, you know, I'm just really glad that we're. in this place and we're like walking through it together. My question is kind of related to the concurrent teaching. It's really more about the monitors and I appreciate Dr. Wilkins, you gave us the update on how many monitors have been hired and my understanding is they're working on like a week-to-week contract because we're hoping maybe over time some more of our teachers

147will be able to come back and I was curious to hear Well, basically, like if you have enough monitors or if you're still trying to hire monitors and how that's going, are we are we able to find the personnel that we need? And then I am curious how many students, if you if you if you all know, have opted to stay virtual because they have a monitor in the classroom. And then my other last thing related to that is just I'd love to get an update to on specialized instruction, because I know. We had heard from, I've heard from a couple of families who, you know, they had a child who was receiving specialized instruction and needed a lot of support to do that virtually at home. And when the option was to come back,

148but, you know, the teacher wasn't able to be there. And so it was going to be specialized instruction virtually, you know, with the monitor. I think that some parents were really unhappy about that. So I was just wondering if we could get an update about how the specialized instruction has been going in this format as well. So I know Ms. Werner is on the call. She might be able to provide an update to that, but also our principals. I think, you know, Mr. Paschal, he can also provide just some insight from the school perspective at the school level. Good evening, Dr. Reif. One of the things that I would like to specifically distinguish for the board and for those that are listening is that the monitors that are being hired by Dr. Wilkins are different

149than the monitors that have been hired by the Office of Specialized Instruction. In those classrooms where we do not have a full complement of staff returning, we have at least one ACPS staff member, either a paraprofessional or a teacher in all of those classrooms. We particularly hired certain highly qualified staff to come in and support those classrooms. So when you saw the slide from Dr. Wilkins, where it said we had 14. RBT's, Registered Behavior Technicians, or LPNCNA's that can help students with those activities of daily living that need special medical procedures or toileting or feeding or things of that nature. So we have a very, very highly trained complement of individuals who are present in our classrooms for students with disabilities. As you know, at this point, we have returned students in our citywide classrooms

150and we have returned students in our self-contained reading and math. Those students who get their reading and math instruction solely from special ed. What I want to reiterate is the classroom teacher, regardless of whether they're located physically in the classroom. or they are coming in from virtual, is the instructor responsible for the instruction of those students? They are continuing that responsibility. They are directing the staff. They are ensuring that the instruction being provided to students is what we want it to be. I will say that in some schools, in many of our schools, the concurrent teaching model employed is that the teacher, regardless of where he or she is sitting, is still doing that instruction virtually. So if students are in the classroom, the teacher is working through the Zoom or whatever platform they're using

151and working with the students in front of them and with the students at home. And when that situation occurs, we have the special education staff members are coming in virtually and supporting the students as well. We do have some students who have an additional aid or monitor, RBT tech, I don't like to use the word monitor, but aid with them in the classroom to help support their access to that instruction. Because of the still the COVID restrictions, because the fact that especially at the elementary school, we're keeping cohorts very close. We're not having people come in and out of classrooms for all the contact tracing reasons that Dr. Crawford explained. Some students are still receiving their instruction. Their special ed teacher may still be. coming into them virtually. When we move into the secondary level,

152now in the citywide classrooms, the teachers are face to face with the students and they are bringing in the students at home virtually. But we do have these citywide teachers are engaging with the students and doing activities in our station rotation model that we use. They're working with those students directly, but that's a different. kind of academic construct than students who access the general ed program. When we come into the secondary program, those students change classes and those teachers are assigned to students for an entire block. So those students will receive their instruction from their direct special ed teacher. If that special ed teacher is not in the classroom, then there will be someone who supervises where they are for that class period and they will then go about the rest of their academic day.

153We've had an incredible three days. What I want to tell you is we have got kids back in school and short of one minor incident on the bus where a child took off their clothes, one of our little preschoolers that Hasibi shared with us, we've had a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful opening. And it's been virtually flawless. And I'm just, there's been an incredible amount of work that's gone into it. And I want to recognize Dr. Stone on my team for all the work that she did to get the specialized staff on board. And Mr. Paschal, we're not going to have comments because I know we need the time, but we got, we have one more item that's going to take some time. So for the gift of time, I think Ms. Werner, she covered. Thank you.

154Mr. Suarez, are you? I did have just one more question. And obviously, if you can't provide the full answer today, Dr. Hutchings, totally understand. But I was just wondering if you can kind of give a preview of what you're going to provide in terms of the updated community reopening matrix and whether that's going to account for both the hybrid and full return sort of model. And I'm particularly curious about. the planning in light of this legislation that was passed by the General Assembly, which may force schools to return the five-day in person. I know Northam hasn't signed it yet. I'm not even sure if the law is constitutional, under state constitution, but I am concerned that there might be pressure to move to five-day instruction. And my understanding is the law does not even allow

155for community health metrics to be considered in the process of deciding whether or not to reopen. So I'm just kind of wondering what your thought is in terms of the matrix you're planning now and what you are all discussing in terms of this law if Governor Northam decides to sign it. So we'll be sharing an update with the revised matrix with the board. We're still working on that now with the VDH just released their new stuff this week. So this is all new for us that we're still trying to make some revisions with in regards to the governor and the Virginia Department of Education. I mean, I really can't tell you what I think right now, but what I personally think. But I'll tell you this. what's preventing us from being able to have five

156days a week and have everybody back into our schools are the CDC guidelines that we have to follow. It has nothing to do with we don't want kids back in our buildings. And I think that people need to stop forgetting that we're in a pandemic and that we have CDC guidelines that everybody's telling us to follow that we get all these emails about. But then, oh, but don't follow it if it deals with the kids. Just send everybody back and go back into the school. Governor Northam, I hope that you are listening because if we have CDC guidelines, I don't know how that is actually going to come to fruition. So we need to start having that conversation. And if those CDC guidelines are in place and we're expected to bring students back five days

157a week, we need to have funding that is going to help us pay for the building capacity and the staffing that will come along with that. Right now, we are not able to accommodate just, you know, a little over 40% of our students. coming back into our buildings with all of our staff. That's why we have classroom monitors in our facilities. When we continue to increase, that is going to require additional staff. When we begin to have more students back in our buildings, that's going to require more building space, which costs money. It goes back to when the infamous conversation we had back in August when I said we may have to have kids in other buildings and everybody got in an uproar. Oh my God, what do you mean my kid can't go back

158to my school? Well, guess what? If we go back, till everybody goes back to school, that's the conversation we're going to have to have. Everybody's not going to be able to fit in that building if we have CDC guidelines. Unfortunately, our state right now is not thinking about all school divisions. They're going to their whole one size fits all. That does not work, especially when we had capacity issues before the pandemic. There are many school divisions who just are already overcrowded. So now you add this additional layer, it just makes it almost impossible. So I want our kids to be back, don't get me wrong, as soon as we possibly can. But then I also want to make sure that we're following the health and safety protocols and not being pressured by the politics that's

159coming out of this. Because I don't know about you, but our kids are worth more than the politics and worth more than another election. And I don't think the governor Northam is going for reelection. So do what's right. Yeah, and I appreciate your comments about the unfunded mandate aspect of it because it certainly is. And that's not being discussed. And the fact that there's discussion about moving the date back, you know, from July 1, which is the current date, and people pushing that is, you know, not fair, especially when there's not the funding that's going to come with that. But hopefully we can get to a good place on this. And I just want to make sure we're planning for that possibility. if that law is operative and you know and of course then there's

160the question about the fall reopening as well. That's right. Planning for that and I know we want to make sure we're on top of that as well. So yeah and that's our sprint five so we're working on summer this month later after March 16th and then in April, May we're working on fall so we are we do have all these in the works but we're trying to you know take it one step at a time but Hopefully we won't have CDC guidelines and we'll have to worry about all these things in the fall. It'll be easy. Thank you. Thank you for that. Bringing that up, Mr. Suarez. I think that's a whole, you know, 45 minutes of discussion in itself, because I think that hit all of us a little bit by surprise or maybe

161a whole lot by surprise. Since we have to move on, I'll leave it there. And as always, if you have questions for the staff, definitely send them to Dr. Hutchings. And so the next up on the agenda is our favorite person who we like to celebrate. We're going to hear from Clint Page. Yay! And I'll turn it over to Dr. Hutchings to introduce. Dr. Page. That's right. Soon to be Dr. Page. He has to defend that dissertation first. And people with doctors, we don't play that. You can't get called until you defend. But I do want to say that this right now is, I have to tell you that I called Clint. a couple of weeks ago reading this document and going through all this information. And I was like, Clint, I'm about to cry.

162He was like, what, what happened? And I was like, I'm reading about the KPI reporting. And it is so aligned with everything that we, you know, said during our strategic planning process. I mean, our strategic planning committee, they were adamant about having appropriate KPIs, being able to monitor. our students and making sure that there are things that we have control over, like to get out of that whole SOL thing. If SOLs, look at the state we're in right now, right, with the SOLs, that would have been horrible if that was the only resource we used to determine the progress. But then the equity piece, and this is what today I hope you all get out of everything that we talk about. And it's a lot of good information that our team is going to be

163sharing with you. This equity component is definitely a national exemplar. So hats off to our accountability team, Hanover Research that's also been working with us throughout this process, because we are about to really show how you can make equity matter and how you can use it to make informed decisions as a school division and how even the lay person can monitor. how we're making progress and monitor our disparities. So I'm not going to take any more thunder from the team. I'm going to turn things over to Mr. Page so that you can introduce your team and also go into our presentation today. Thanks so much, Dr. Hutchings, and good evening, members of the board and viewing public. We are absolutely thrilled to be here with you all this evening. And as Dr. Hutchings alluded to,

164it is very much a team effort. So I'm joined here tonight by Dr. Eby from the accountability team. And also due to some unforeseen circumstances, I am going to be standing in. for Dr. Jennifer Whitson for her segment of this presentation. So, and if you all know anything about Jennifer, she is a perfectionist. So I'm going to do my best, but in full transparency, I probably haven't been this nervous. for a board presentation in years because I know Jennifer is watching because she is so committed to this work. And so we are thrilled. And also other members of the team, Angie Green and Tina Constantine have done just amazing work in moving us forward. And as Dr. Hutchings said, not just replicating, but really innovating and thinking outside of the box in terms of what's

165going to fit the needs of Alexandria City in our unique community. So some essential questions and what we are going to talk about tonight. So first, how are we going to go about monitoring and reporting progress throughout the life of our equity for all strategic plan? In that reporting and monitoring tonight, we will have our first experience. of taking a look at our newly created equity dashboard and where we are seeing disproportionality within our formative KPIs, and then also keeping an eye on moving forward. What are we seeing in terms of our overall timeline, in terms of the implementation of all the different strategies within the strategic plan over the five-year life of the plan, as well as what are some of the immediate next steps we'll be taking this spring and summer to continue

166to move the plan forward. So with that said, I always want to bring us back to this slide. It is near and dear to my heart. So certainly having the strategic plan be the umbrella for all the work that we do as an organization, certainly informing, as the board knows, the fiscal year budget priority conversation, which then cascades into the school year focus areas for the coming year. is directly into the superintendent evaluation, which then directly informs the creation of our department and school improvement plans. And then most importantly, what we're talking about tonight is looking at some of the formative outcomes and how that can begin to inform our work under the strategic plan. So just a quick look at where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. So this fall, the

167board received an update in terms of how we're going to go about monitoring and reporting out on the strategic plan. A little later in the fall, towards the winter, you received a board brief on the Q1 quarterly chats. Right now, we have our nice little map, orange landing space there, where we are doing the mid-year formative KPIs, then in May. The board will receive another board brief updating on school and department improvement plans. And then we will wrap out the year in June doing an end of year KPI update again through the equity dashboard. So just to recenter the board, this is a slide that was shared back in that October presentation. around the map of our proposed measurement plan. And really the strategic planning committee was very deliberate in narrowing our focus to a

168few select KPIs down from, I believe the 135 some odd KPIs that we had in our previous strategic plan to really show the overall student outcomes that would define success within ACPS. As a part of that narrowing, you'll notice on this slide, you have the box around kind of our KPIs. And you'll see some indicators beneath that box that are still very critical and absolutely monitored, such as dropout data, suspension data, but aren't quite to the tier of KPI, at least from the strategic plan committee formation of that. So we are going to focus tonight on the KPIs while also knowing that these other indicators are absolutely monitored and that we do go through an annual revision process. So we may see some adjustments in future years to make sure our KPIs are still giving

169us everything we hope and desire in terms of serving as that dipstick indicator. We are now at a place where we can breathe life into these KPIs and share where the division is at the end of quarter two. And this is the first time we will be reporting formatively on our KPIs, making a purposeful movement upstream. so that as a division we can have real discussions about affecting rather than merely assessing change. With equity and specifically racial equity at the heart of the plan, we know we need to monitor each KPI relative to our student groups of interest. And as Dr. Hutchings alluded to through our partnership with Hanover, it has allowed us to provide a succinct way of viewing our data for student groups using a representation index. And so what is a representation

170index? And on this slide, we see an example of what a representation index looks like. And so what we are looking at here. is just an example of what will be contained on the equity dashboard. And what we can see is that in this scale, which is common across all the KPIs, 1.0 equals equitable representation. So that means if, just as an example, if white students are 28% of the overall student body, and we're looking at the tag demographics, that we see 28% of white students representing the tag student body. right, so then the overall is 28% across all students being white, and within the TAG demographics we're seeing the same 28%, right, equal. where so that's represented as having no color. So where we're seeing less color, we're seeing more equal representation. Where we're

171seeing our saturated colors within the index is where we're seeing more inequity. So where you're starting to see those hues of deeper orange or darker green, those are representing either under or overrepresented bodies within the index. And just as an example, sticking to the tag example, that bottom row there where you do see more of the colors is actually our tag indicator. And so you can see the deepest color there is 2.2. And the reason that's 2.2 is because our white students are 28% of the student body, yet represents 60% of our tag identified students. So they're over two times more represented within TAG than they are on the student body. So that's where you get that 2.2, just as an example. So let's dive in. So first we are going to take a look

172at our formative KPIs around academic outcomes. This includes things like our fall PALS readiness benchmark, our winter MAP results, as well as our ninth graders on track to graduate based on first semester grades. So as we dive into these results, we begin to notice that as we read these results, vertically, we see patterns of inequities. So those kind of more orangish tones that are consistent for our Hispanic. Our current L students are economically disadvantaged students across KPIs. So where you're seeing kind of those columns of orange going up and down, that's what I'm talking about there. When we get into some of the other groups represented, we see some inconsistent patterns across outcomes. So for instance, when we look at our Black African American group, a greater proportion of Black students entered kindergarten ready. this

173year relative to all students in the division. However, as we go down the KPIs, we see disproportionately fewer black students meeting the math KPI and fewer ninth graders are on track to graduate. And it is important to be, to keep in mind that these aren't cohort analysis. We're not tracking students over time. So it's not the same kindergarten students, right? Then not being on track to graduate in ninth grade. There we also see disproportionately fewer current L students met the academic KPIs while a greater proportion of former L's met the academic KPIs relative to the division as a whole. So really focusing in there on current compared to former. And then also within our students with disabilities, we saw disproportionately met the MAP KPIs while the while a proportionate share were on track to graduate.

174So with that, we will transition over to our KPIs on attendance and program access. So this is things like looking at chronic absenteeism, which for the purpose of this dashboard is referred to as over 90% attendance. We looked at disability evaluation within the first semester and who was being referred. We also looked at tag identification, as well as our enrollment at the secondary level and our advanced coursework, so honors, AP, or dual enrollment course. So of all the KPIs, including those on the previous slide, we see attendance outcomes displayed the fewest in equities, generally ranging kind of between that. plus or minus 0.1 off of that 1.0 middle ground. Program access data, on the other hand, do show the largest inequities across student groups. So those last two rows in particular, you start to again

175see those deeper hues of orange and green representing under and over representation, both in the TAG as well as in the secondary honors enrollment. So with that, we can put these together. And on the next slide, we will see kind of this is what the overall dashboard will look like. So giving folks kind of that holistic picture, snapshot at a glance look in terms of all of the KPIs across all of the groups, where are we seeing this use of color, where are we seeing the disproportionality, and where do we need to go next in terms of having some conversations around unearthing the root causes, right? Because these KPIs, remember, are kind of intended as dipstick kind of engine checks. So where are we seeing the problems? And then that can have our staff, as

176well as our stakeholders, really engage in that next level of analysis meant to unearth the why to begin to problem solve and correct course both this year and in future years. So with that, So while equity is our focus, our strategic plan also emphasizes educational excellence. We don't want to bring students down to the lowest common denominator. Our plan calls on us to empower students and staff to attain excellence. And this definition comes directly, what you're seeing on your screen, out of our plan and leads us to the next display of our KPI outcomes. which you can see here. So this graphic looks very similar to the one we just had on. The only difference being that instead of seeing the 1.0 numbers, we're now seeing percent. And really the importance here is to be

177able to show not just the disproportionality, but what are the actual outcomes that we're talking about. So just as an example, on the first slide, we saw grade nine on track. Generally, you're not seeing deep hues there, so your eye doesn't jump to that. But on this slide, you can see that as a district, we had 67% of our secondary students meeting the on-track metric after the end of the first semester. And so that then lends to the conversation of is 67% where we aspire to be as an organization? And I would venture a guess that it is not. And so how do we begin to raise the bar right across all groups? in this particular indicator. So that's just an example of why it's also important to take a look at the dashboard in

178this vein as well. So with that, tomorrow we hope to launch the dashboard publicly on the ACPS website, which we're so excited about. So the members of the public will have access to exactly what we shared here tonight. They also will have access to additional information. So what you can see here in the kind of the toggle on the left-hand side is, you know, once we have future years, they'll be able to change. Over years, they'll also be able to look at mid-year versus end of year, and then they'll also be able to look at specific grade level bands. So if I'm interested in these results just at the elementary level, I can toggle just to elementary. If I'm interested just at the middle school level, I can do that as well. Also, and I

179think very importantly, both our school and division leaders will have access to these results internally. by school so they can begin to make sense of the impacts that their school results are having and can use that information to adjust their school improvement plans as well as their department improvement plans to best meet the needs within their specific context. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Eby who is going to talk a little bit about implementation and timelines. Right. Thank you, Clint. Yes, I'm Amber Eby, and I cannot speak on this without also acknowledging my colleague, Tina Constantine, who works with me on the implementation of our strategic plan. It's been an exciting several months as we've begun to map out how this plan will be implemented over the next five years

180and putting the strategies into action. Of our five objectives for implementing the plan, today I'm sharing the most about the last one, accountability and leadership empowerment. That is, who is leading the implementation of the individual goals and strategies. So here's a quick refresher of the structure of the strategic plan. Within the plan, there are five goals. Within each goal, there are multiple strategies for achieving the goal. And within each strategy, there are highlighted actions that will help us carry out the strategy. Now for accountability and leadership of these, you'll see in the yellow arrows that each goal has a chief serving as goal leader. Then for each strategy, up to three leaders from multiple departments were identified to lead the work within that strategy, which ensures we're working collaboratively across departments. We're calling these leaders

181strategy managers. Goal leaders and strategy managers worked together to develop timelines for each strategy using these three stages as a guide. plan and prepare, initiate and refine, and sustain and scale. We aren't just doing the strategies and checking off the box to say we're done. We're trying to use that initiate and refine stage to ensure that we start small, leverage learning along the way, to eventually bring the strategies to full scale and sustainment across the system. And even then, we're not finished. We must continuously monitor whether these strategies are working. because our context will continue to change. And whether that's differences and how the strategy works from school to school or over time, maybe a strategy that works now won't be effective as the years go on. And that's why we emphasize starting small, learning

182as we go, scaling up, and continuing to monitor our work. And that's what we've tried to capture in these three stages. So with each strategy now having a timeline based on those three stages, we can use this graphic to see overall where the implementation process is over the course of the five-year plan. And you'll see the progression here horizontally from light blue to dark blue as strategies move from the planning phase to initiate and refine phase and finally to sustain and scale. And you'll also see white on some of these strategies, which indicates strategies that we haven't even started planning. By the school year 22-23, all the strategies will be in either the initiate and refine or sustain and scale stages. By the final year of the plan, all strategies will be in the sustain

183and scale stage. We emphasized through this process that we should not implement everything at once. This is not a race to see how fast we can finish the plan. Instead, we take a strategic and aligned approach across the five years. By being purposeful in these earlier phases and embedding interdepartmental collaboration in the structure of strategy leadership, we will provide the best support to our teams and schools across the division. And we've always emphasized that the strategic plan should be a living and breathing and evolving document. Every year we will facilitate a revision process, and we're getting started with our first one right now. As you can imagine, as we started to get into the finer details of how to implement the strategies, our strategy managers and goal leaders started to see where things might need

184to be tweaked. Our annual revision process supports the idea that we should not stick to strategies that are not working or no longer relevant for our context. There's no better example of this than the fact that most of this plan was developed pre-COVID. And while our goals, vision, mission, and values are still the same, some of the finer details might need rethinking. But how should we go about making modifications to the plan? Just as multiple stakeholders, as shown in the left part of this diagram, We're part of the development of the plan. The same is also true for revisions. We are creating a diverse committee known as SPARC, the Strategic Plan Annual Review Committee, including students, parents, and staff who will work collaboratively with goal leaders and strategy managers to plan these revisions. And here

185are our immediate next steps. In March and April, we'll be going through our first annual revision process with the goal of submitting any strategic plan revisions to the board in May. On the measurement and reporting side of things, we will have our climate survey for students, staff, and families in May, and you can expect the first end-of-year KPI dashboard in June. And to wrap up, we are honored to be part of this work, and we hope that comes across in our presentation. We appreciate your support and can take any questions that you have. Thank you so much for that presentation. I mean, I'm just going to say wow to start. And let's see if I have any hands from any of my colleagues. So I'm going to start with Ms. Thornton. Thank you, Chair Alderton.

186And wow, thank you so much to everyone involved in this presentation. This school board, for people who don't know, has been talking about our desire to have more of a focus on data-driven decision-making, focused on student outcomes, pretty much since we've come together as a board. And I really do feel like this is just such a wonderful new leaf that we're turning in this division by having such a clear and transparent dashboard that we're going to be presenting to the community to really see how we are doing on our goals. I love the focus on accountability that has been put into this presentation, particularly in the last few slides that we just saw. And if possible, can we please pull up slide 18? Just had a quick question on the annual revision process. Perfect. Thank

187you. So I love the fact that we are going to start convening the strategic plan annual review committee. I agree that I think the intention was for this strategic plan to always be a living document, especially in light of, you know, any changes that might come up, such as COVID, which has completely just altered the state of education right now. But I did just want clarity on exactly which aspects of the plan could be altered. under these possible revisions. So if I'm looking just at this slide, for example, it looks like the purview of the Strategic Plan Committee would be the KPIs, those formative KPIs, the goals and measures and the strategies. But if we're moving forward with this dashboard, I imagine we want to maintain some of those key formative KPIs that we've set

188up so that we're not constantly moving the goalposts or having... such a wide variety of KPIs that after a certain amount of time, it could be confusing. So could you just please clarify for me, like what will be under the purview of this committee for things that could be changed in the strategic plan? Yeah, absolutely. So it's an excellent question, an excellent point. And our intent is absolutely to set off-go guardrails, right, in terms of roles and responsibilities and what we're talking about in terms of potential changes. So I think our overall messaging to the SPARC is that we want to make changes that are absolutely necessary. And ultimately, however, we want to make sure we are having consistency year to year within the life of the strategic plan, to your point. So certainly thinking

189about KPIs, making sure that there aren't any tweaks there. We would not be seeing wholesale changes of those by any means, but do we need to add a KPI? Do we need to maybe take one off? Do we need to rethink about how one is potentially measured? And then likewise within goals, you know, we're not going to be adding a whole new goal to the strategic plan, but might we be adjusting a specific strategy within a goal or a specific measurement that's within a goal. Those are more the levels of conversation that we'll be having both with the SPARC as well as with internal staff. Mr. Page, some of the examples you may want to share is kind of like if right now the state that we're in with our absenteeism and our grade distribution,

190and I think absenteeism is a prime example because we're in COVID and we're virtual, you know, if we tried to compare this year's absenteeism to last year's absenteeism and to next year's, like those measurements would be so off because of the circumstances that we might have to make some adjustments to either the target. or that particular data but I'm just giving that as an example to what may happen in the future so you're not necessarily losing or revising the goal per se but there may be some adjustments that have to be made for the state that we're in in that particular year and we just don't know what the future might hold at this point. Thank you. Ms. Gentry. Thank you. So I guess for reference, maybe slide 12. And yes, can't wait to just

191like spend an evening at home just like pouring through this. It's going to be so much fun. Yes, if you're the kind of person that likes to do this, then he should be on the school. Right, exactly. Thank you, Dr. Eby. Right, right. Woo! I did have one sort of, and so my questions aren't really going to be about the, you know, the data tonight. That's obviously going to be for later things. I did have one question about this in terms of, you know, it's making sure that people can all see it and read it. And it's something that I just in other in other pursuits have become more aware of lately. And it's the issue and it's related to color blindness and people's ability to read graphic information and with certain kinds of color

192combinations can sometimes be challenging. And actually, in particular, sometimes red-green combinations can be challenging. Fortunately, these days, there are some great tools that you can use that can give you... good palettes to choose from and stuff like that. And I want to apologize if you guys have already thought of it. Like I said, you might be ahead of me on this. This is just something I've become more aware of recently. But I just want to make sure that if we might need to make an adjustment on that, just to ensure as many people as possible can view this. So thank you for that. I'm looking forward to, again, looking forward to looking at this more. And thank you so much to the whole team. No, thank you, Ms. Gentry, for pointing that out. And that's

193something we will absolutely take back to Hanover in terms of what we can do with that. Thank you, Ms. Nolan. Thank you so much, Chair Alderson. Again, I'm just, I have to say, this is just one of my absolute favorite moments as a school board member, to be completely honest, like after five years, I mean, this is just absolutely outstanding work. I could not be more excited and just for the division and what this is going to do for young people. And just, as always, you know, I've always tried to be a part of the Clint Page fan club, you know, so hopefully I can still be a card carrying member after you become like, you know. too big for your britches after revealing this presentation. In which case you could let, by the way,

194Jennifer at home know that you did an outstanding job and you definitely did right by her. And I've always appreciated her leadership as well in the division and all the hard work. And Ms. Ebby, thank you so much for being here today and just outstanding team effort, as I know. So my two questions, if you don't mind, Ms. Page, is number one, so. I just think this is a phenomenal framework, right? And so how are we as a division going to get professionally developed so that it's like comes to life and it's really utilized that we're like course correcting with the data that that principals are embracing it, that they feel like this becomes just super easy to use and accessible and intuitive. So that I'm just curious about how are we going to make

195this work come to life through the division? And then secondly, and I will say this is a biased question is this is a. totally something I'm hoping to see happen, but I loved seeing how part of this work is going to be the climate surveys, both from the school community and within the schools, as I think that's so incredibly important to ensure that we're collecting feedback all the time. And so not just looking at data, but also like what's the climate and culture of our organizations that were retaining top talent. So do you mind, sorry to squeeze in two questions, but just number one, I'm trying to understand how is this work going to come to life and be breathed in so that we're utilizing it to the best of its ability. And secondly, if

196you don't mind just sharing a little bit more about what's your vision for the climate surveys, both for the school communities as an external stakeholder and also internally, which I think is equally important. Sure. And you can always... make me blush, remember Nolan? Turning me red. I'm such a fan. The first question around, really, the question boils down to how do we continue to move forward our organizational culture as it relates to data use and learning? And I think one, I think this does represent a leap forward for us. in terms of kind of some of those just-in-time data elements and also data elements that are easily accessible and digestible. And knowing that it's not just enough to kind of foist out something, but you also have to support individuals and their understanding and the

197utilization of that. So I think we'll continue to... roll through existing structures such as the quarterly chats that we have with schools as well as some potential individual or group professional learnings with our school leaders to begin with. And then once they get used to kind of this dashboard, right, this does begin to allow for other dashboard-like efforts to take root. And so, you know, certainly this is very much viewed as a starting point, but not an endpoint. So thinking about how we continue to expand our utilization of dashboard and other visualization techniques. to get leaders and staff digestible data that are timely in meeting them and their needs for learning and adapting as they go through their improvement efforts. The second part of your question. I wanted to add to your first question. I

198just wanted to add something to that because I do think it's important to point out the fact that there is collaboration that's happening with accountability in our professional learning department as well, as well as with our our new director, executive director of school improvement. So I was like, what department is that? Executive director, Dr. Sims, the executive director of school improvement. I'm bringing that up because we're at a place now that we can use, you know, a data warehouse or a database. to kind of drive some of our decision making because we spent the time to develop those school improvement planning structures three years ago. Our staff, they're now going to be able, they're asking for this now. You know, now if we would have given them this three years ago, they'd be like. Oh

199my God, I can't do this. This is too much. What are you asking me to do? But we've been utilizing this time over the past three years, really building capacity about school improvement. Just to remind our board members who were not here initially when I arrived in January, I mean, July of 2018, only... our schools that were having academic issues had a school improvement plan at that time. And we shifted in the fall of 2018 that all schools had school improvement plans and all schools developed a school improvement planning team. And we had to build capacity with them over the past two and a half years. And I think that this is going to complement their work. They're saying, okay, well, where can I go to see the disaggregation? of the data? Where can I

200go to see the disparities that we already know are within our data? Where can I go and see the achievement gap issues that we know are already within our data? So this is kind of like taking us now to that next level, which is like it's perfect timing for it. And I'm glad that it all worked out this way with the strategic planning process as well, because our strategic planning committee. advocated for all of the components that are in this now progress monitoring tool. They said that we needed to be able to have real life data. that we were able to have it accessible. And I remember Dr. Reif was always talking about how our former, she was like, I was on there. I just couldn't figure it out. I don't know how it works.

201I can't find information. I was like, oh yeah, Dr. Reif, I had the same problem, right? But that was just our norm. But how can we make it user-friendly and accessible? So with all of that feedback, this is what the team has been able. I just wanted to make that key connection to the school improvement planning process and the capacity that's been built and how we're going to now utilize what they just shared with you all. This is now how our school improvement planning teams are going to function. You know, this is that same kind of structure. We've given them now an exemplar or kind of like a guiding principle of how we now function at the school level when we're looking at our data. And not to be a spoiler, but just a precursor

202to the data you all will be viewing in your budget priority work session in August, right? be aligned directly to that, you know, so it goes back to that slide around alignment and really making sure we have that systemic alignment throughout the levels of our organization. So we're all talking the same language. We're all pulling the rope in the same direction. The second question member Nolan asked was around the climate survey and kind of the vision there. So I think we are absolutely thrilled. to be implementing a climate survey annually at this point within our new strategic plan. And I know in the past we've had a few different surveys. We've had the TEL survey, which was kind of just for instructional staff and was every two years. Then we had like this other survey

203that was for the strategic plan that was every year, but staff kind of and kind of didn't participate. So now we're going to pull all of that into alignment. We are going to have one survey that will go out to all of our stakeholder groups, including staff and not just instructional staff. That was another limitation to the TEL work, but to all staff, as well as to our students and to our families looking at our critical areas of climate. to directly inform our strategic plan. And certainly we will be taking some of those kind of more stock climate measures and variables from the literature and research and embedding those. But we also know this needs to be an ACPS specific survey effort. So ensuring that we're also asking questions just as an example, directly aligned

204to our core values, right? So if we have a core value of welcoming, how much are our stakeholders feeling that? If we have a core value of equity focused, how much are folks feeling that, right? So making sure that we're both looking at the research and how we're thinking about climate, but then also the ACPS specific lens. And then we will be folding in those results and those discourse kind of likewise into kind of a similar vein of the KPI discussion in terms of how we are leveraging learning from those results and how those get folded also. into our improvement planning processes around schools and departments and board budget priorities, etc. So it will absolutely be critical and folded into that discussion. I love it. You totally made my day. This is amazing. Absolutely amazing.

205Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Reed. Thank you for the presentation. And that was a great question, you know, how to get the real buy-in and the utilization of the strategic plan at the school level and the teaching, the teachers and everything. And my question is kind of along those lines too. It's, well, one is practical, like where is the dashboard going to live? I'm assuming on the accountability website, but I don't know. And just... you know, thinking about how it's going to be shared out with the community, because I think that, you know, the public, I think the public needs to hear this. I mean, I think there are people who want to hear this, but I also feel like. you know, beyond just facilities. I mean, this is like what we really

206need to be talking with in our community. And the more that we can, you know, all collectively get on the same page of these goals, I think that, you know, we'll be able to make progress. So just a practical question about where it's going to live and how it's going to be shared out and maybe even thinking about, you know, doing some kind of community workshops to like bring the community in with this information. That was my first question. I have one other question, but maybe you want to touch on that first. Sure. So I think, sorry, Member Reif, I blanked on the first part of your question. The second part was how are we, where is it living on the website? So that will be on the, so on the website, we have a

207ACPS 2025. landing page for the strategic plan. So it will be within that page. So you'll click a link and then you'll, it'll take you to the ACPS page that has just the dashboard on it. So it'll be within the ACPS 2025 page. As much as I like to think everyone travels to the accountability page on a daily basis, they may not. So that's where that will be housed. And then I think it's a great point too, in terms of how do we strategically have these conversations with the community that we know we need to be having and that's going to continue to be ongoing work both in collaboration with Ms. Burgos and her team and also you know the FACE and we've been, Julia has been a fantastic partner in the strategic plan implementation.

208We have a whole plan with goals for both the current year and out years so that absolutely is a part of that and something that you will be seeing more of as we go forward in the coming months and years. And I do think it is going to be a little bit of baby steps to begin with, right? Because we do need people to be grounded in like what the strategic plan is before we start hitting them over the head with like dashboards and numbers. So I think we will strategically, you know, push. the core vision and goals and the overall kind of where we plan to land, continuing that to push first with the broader community, and then quickly follow that and even embed within that kind of the critical why around the data,

209because the data do speak to the why. It needs to be our vision and why we do have an equity for all strategic plan. So I think we can do a little bit of, you know, an and there. But absolutely. I think it would be. Go ahead, Dr. Hutchings. I just wanted to add to what Mr. Page was saying and just to make the connection to when we're establishing at the beginning of the year, like our areas of focus for the year that drives our budget priorities and it helps us with the superintendent's evaluation. And it also leads to the school improvement planning at the school level as well as staff evaluations. Now that we have this database, it is going to drive, that's where the data is going to come from to get us

210to where our areas of focus need to be, you know, for the upcoming year. So now that this is a new tool. This is being introduced, which this is all meant to be this year. Our goal was to establish this in our baseline year. And next year, when we're meeting in August, we're going to be pulling our data from this. And our data discussion in August with the board, when we're trying to identify what are our areas of focus, when we're recommending where we feel like we need to focus at. That data is going to come from this. So we have to make sure that when we're sharing this out with our community, we're giving the full alignment of. this is where we store our data. This is how we analyze our data. This is

211how we do something about the data. We're also bringing back our measuring what matters. We did not have a measuring what matters this year, right? Because we were so consumed in trying to determine, are we going back to school? Are we doing virtual? We were launching our virtual plus at that particular time. So we chose to put a pass on that. And we also wanted to wait to get our metrics and KPIs in place because moving forward, with our measuring what matters, this data is going to drive what is included in there. Now, it's in addition to this, because remember we say measuring what matters is not just these particular data points. We're going to include some other things in our measuring what matters document, but that is something that will be a part of

212our routine and not just happening. periodically that is going to be you know we're shifting to have like specific times when our community receives data and information and how we drive that and that's going to always be at the beginning of the year Thank you. I just have one other question, but one suggestion is on the front page of the ACPS website in the top right corner, there's like a little thing that says equity for all. And I think it'd be great if like that could just link to that page. So it would be like super easy to find. That's just one suggestion, but can somebody pull up slide five, please? And this is kind of like, Ms. Nolan kind of touched on this, but about the surveys. This is the page. Thank you. Slide

213five. Keep going back, back. It's the one with, yeah, there you go. Right there, back, back one more. I mean, come the other way. Sorry. Yeah, one thing I've been wondering about the survey, and apologies if I missed this, but is it, are we doing, like I see that there's three different colors of surveys here. So are we, is it one survey? Is it multiple surveys? That's something that I've been trying to understand. And just kind of the timeline for that, it sounds like, you know, it's maybe going to be something that's internally developed. Would you be working with a consultant on that? Or can you just talk a little bit more about that? Yep. So the colors there are just representing the different stakeholder groups for whom we will be surveying. But it is

214intended to be one umbrella climate survey. Certainly items may look slightly different given the audience, right? So, you know, we may ask staff a little differently, a certain question versus how we're asking that to students versus how we're asking that to families. But they will have aligned. kind of you know measurement buckets or variables across the surveys so that we can make those meaningful comparisons. I will also say it's important to point out that the climate survey is not our only division level survey. So for example you know equity audit work and other survey efforts do continue to fold into this as well. But yes this is intended from a climate survey perspective to be you know, one effort going out to three discrete kind of stakeholder groups. And then I believe, was there a

215second part to that question? Do you envision it as like an annual survey and would you work with a consultant or is this something that would be internal? Yep, so we'll be partnering with Hanover Research on the design, administration, and analysis of the climate survey. So that's who we'll be working with as a external partner in developing the work akin to what we did with the equity dashboard, which you all viewed. this evening and they really have a lot of expertise around in particular climate surveys so we're thrilled to be able to kind of pull from them and then again like I talked about making it fit the specific Alexandria context. Right now we are thinking of it as an annual survey. And so we will kind of move forward with that for this year.

216And then certainly, as we are with all things, we'll be making sure that in future years, we're doing all we can to meet the needs. I just wanted to make the connection to what you said, Mr. Page, just so for the community as well as for the board. A part of this year was a part of my evaluation this year is to make sure that we are developing a climate survey. And that is what drove, you know, our work with Hanover. We initially were going to start last year. The pandemic happened and we, you know. purposefully moved it to this year. And a part of the directive we got from the superintendent's evaluation committee was that we needed to have one climate survey that may cover multiple areas, but not having multiple surveys because people

217can get surveyed out and you're not going to get really good material because I just filled that out a month ago, you know, whatever. And we also you know, had the guidance in regards to having. consistency in having an annual survey, because then we are able to really gauge, you know, what things look like over a period of time. Whereas before we were kind of doing our climate surveys every other year, and sometimes the tool was changing. So it was like comparing apples to oranges, and then it's two years have gone by. So the data really is not as helpful as we intended it. intended for it to be. So I wanted to make the connection that a part of this climate survey and having one kind of like one document or one survey that

218may have multiple components, that was the guidance that came out of our strategic, sorry, our superintendent's evaluation committee. And it's a part of my evaluation for this year to develop that. Mr. Suarez. I had just a really short, a small question about the dashboard colors, but I have some children in the background making noise, so I'm going to withdraw the question for now. Okay, and you can feel free to obviously send that question along. Okay, so looks like that is the End of that. Really good information. I'm very excited. And I think my comment would be what I'm most, I mean, there's a lot of exciting things here, but I think what is most exciting is the alignment. that I think I know I've always sort of been craving and really wanting to see. I

219think, you know, there is definitely okay to have some differences across schools, but I think it is hugely beneficial to see that there are just some things that we're saying we are doing together as an organization. It was really telling to me in the meeting, it was actually the division transition team meeting this week, the excitement that came from the administrators around the opening of school and the excitement was around the fact that they really felt like they had worked together to achieve this one goal. And so I envision this tool having that same impact because even though we're all in our different buildings, we are working together as a division to achieve these goals. So this is really, I think, powerful and I think it's going to go a long way. So I really

220appreciate the work behind this. I'm excited to see everything that comes out of it. So with that said, yes, I think this deserves an applause for sure. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Page. Thank you, Amber. Thank you, just the whole team. All right. So we have a couple of action items that we need to get through on the agenda. So the first one, we have an easement agreement between ACPS and Virginia Electric doing business as Dominion Energy. And so if you want to... just share that information so we can take action. Go ahead, Dr. Hutchings. Yeah, so I'll, you know, turn things over to Mr. Turner, our chief financial officer in regards to our easement for Dominion. Okay. Thanks, Dr. Hutchings and good evening school board members. Tonight before you for info and action is the

221deed of easement to install the charging stations for the electric buses. As you are aware, we are one of 16 school divisions to be a part of the Dominion pilot program for electric buses. ACPS is receiving five buses needing charging stations. As a part of policy, any construction on ACPS property requires school board approval. So with your approval, we will take a small step in getting a greener fleet. And with that, if there's any questions, the team is here to respond. Oh, I'm sorry. Do we have any questions? Dr. Reif, I see you're here. Thank you. I was just curious. It said that the total length was 140 feet. And that seems like about 28 feet per bus. That just seemed really big to me. But I was just wondering if you could talk a

222little bit about, is it like each bus has its own separate? And then is like Dominion storing energy on that charging station or is it on the bus? No, Mr. Merriman, he is here, our director of transportation, and he'll be able, this is his love and his expertise, transportation. Mr. Merriman. Thank you, Dr. Hutchins. Good evening, board members. It's exciting times for transportation to bring an alternative transportation source to the district. The easement is the availability of tying the charging stations to the power grid. We have actually six charging stations for our five buses coming. Dominion has proceeded with giving us the sixth one in anticipation of growth potential. The easement allows us to tie into the power grid. The buses will store the energy once they're fully charged. And then at times during the

223season for the agreement, they will pull and buy back that energy. Part of that agreement on the buyback piece is they are paying for 100% of the infrastructure. So the cost to our district is $0.00. Thank you. Thank you. So if there are no other questions, I will need a motion to approve the easement between ACPS and... Dominion Energy, Virginia. Madam Chair, I move that we approve the easement between ACPS and Dominion Energy. Do I have a second? Okay, Ms. Lorber seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. So I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reed. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. So the vote is eight with one absent. All right. Moving right along. We have

224one more action item on the agenda. And this is regarding the 2021 academic calendar revision for parent-teacher conferences for TC, Hammond, and GW middle. So you can turn it over to... Dr. Hutchings, or you want me to turn it over to Dr. Mozingo? Yep, I'm actually going to turn it over to Ms. Peters to kind of talk us through the actual, and we have Ms. Peters, we have Mr. Mazur, and also Mr. Ballas, who are joining us in regards to the middle school request. But I know Ms. Peters, she is leading our secondary, one of our leads for our secondary principals. So I'm going to turn things over to Ms. Peters. Thank you. Thank you. So actually, Mr. Ballas is going to introduce our reasoning for meeting with you again, and then I will close

225out with our recommendation. So Mr. Ballas. Thank you, Ms. Peters. First, I'd like to thank Dr. Mozingo for all of the work that she's done with us on these efforts to enhance and maximize both time and instruction for parent-teacher conferences. As a bit of background and reminders, we were here a few months ago to move our conference dates from the beginning of February to March. This was done due to the fact that the conferences fell on a time when we switched semesters. We appreciate your support and look forward to your continued support this evening. Since our last time here, Since our last time here to change the conferences to March, we did not have the great news that we have now, that at this time we would be reentering schools in person in our different

226campuses. Therefore, where our conferences now currently sit in March poses a few challenges to the return to in-person learning. Dr. Mozingo has worked with secondary principals as we developed several options on how to deal with this situation. Ultimately, after discussing the pros and cons of many different ideas, we're confident that the proposal before you today aligns. with maximizing instructional time as well as parent-teacher conference time. I'll now turn it back over to my colleague, Perrette Peters, to take you through the details of our proposal highlighting the aforementioned benefits. Thank you, Mr. Ballas. And as Pete shared, through lots of collaboration and brainstorming with Dr. Mozingo and Mr. Mazur and Mr. Ballas, we would like to propose the movement of the secondary parent-teacher conferences to April 5th. On the current approved calendar, April 5th is a

227professional learning day. There's no school for students on this day having no impact on the hybrid schedule. Conferences will be held virtually. We are also proposing that the current approved parent conference day is currently scheduled for March 11th and 12th for the high school and 18th and 19th for the middle schools now become full school days rather than early release days to fully maximize our hybrid reopening. As Mr. Ballas previously shared, we definitely want to have continuity in our hybrid reopening and are proposing April 5th as a professional learning, excuse me, April 5th as our parent conference day to recognize and maximize the importance of parent conferences. And so I will turn it back over to Dr. Mozingo for any final comments. Thank you. You've done a great job. We just want to reassure the

228board and the community that there will still be a commitment to meeting the needs of students. Schools will still hold their office hours. They'll still have conferences with students and they will still monitor their progress. But as they have indicated, we do believe that this will allow us four full instructional days with this change, proposed change. Thank you. I'll turn it back over to Dr. Hutchins. Madam Chair. Okay, Ms. Gentry. Thank you all for this. You know, I think there's certainly a lot of logic in this plan, and I think this makes total sense. It definitely does, you know, the first change made a difference, and now it's really a difference. I mean, it almost, it feels to me like it's almost sort of reimagining. what a parent-teacher conference moment is. I mean, when you

229think about it being positioned where it is in the calendar. And Dr. Mozingo, I know you just sort of briefly touched on this, you know, that there are still the things like the office hours and things like that. But I do think that, you know, sometimes it, for whatever reason, it's not until that moment maybe where there's that, official parent-teacher conference moments sometimes when there is sometimes that wake-up moment for the family that maybe, you know, there's an issue with the student. So I guess I just want to give you all an opportunity to reiterate and elaborate on how the teachers are proactively reaching out to families, not waiting for a parent-teacher conference moment, you know, if needed. And then kind of, you know, in light of it being later in the year, if it's

230not one of those things and it's just going to be the parent-teacher conference moment, you know, kind of, I am, I'm sort of interested in thinking about what are you guys thinking about in terms of... you know, the kinds of maybe shifts in conversations or approach for the conferences. Thank you. Dr. Mozingo, if it's okay if I go first. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. So I definitely would like to reiterate that through our MTSS process, we have an ongoing protocol of how we're constantly reaching out to parents. We're having kids talk weekly. Our teachers are constantly using their office hours and as in our eighth block for the middle school to make sure that we're collaborating and speaking with parents and not waiting for parent conference day. I think the advantage of the parent conference

231day is that we do have an opportunity to see a larger number of parents in one given time. But definitely, it's not the first time that we've reached out to them or called them to meet with them about their child's progress. Yes, I would just reiterate that for the high school. We don't wait till these two points in the year to contact home. And also in this virtual plus year, we definitely have been making use of Mondays as time where many parent meetings or parent contacts take place. So this is not just a kind of the two touch points only in the year. That's great. Thank you both. I also think that once we launch the SEAL Mondays, I think that it's going to make a difference for a number of students. And as we

232also talked about, when the calendar committee begins to plan for next year, we really need to, as you, Ms. Gentry, just emphasized, we really need to reimagine parent conferences and what they would look like throughout the entire school year. Because even on those days, it's almost impossible. to get every parent through conference. So we really wanna have a larger discussion later on about what this, how do you reimagine parent conferences and parent contacts and keeping parents and students informed to ensure greater success? That's great. I look forward to hearing more about that. Thank you all. Ms. Nolan. Thanks so much. This is great information. And thank you, Chair Alderton. Mr. Ballas and Ms. Peters, always good to see you. Thank you so much for all of your incredibly hard work and your leadership during this

233time. So I know that no school leader would ever even begin to imagine having to run a school. We thought that job was hard before, but boy, have you shown that COVID is school leadership is a whole new ball. So thank you so much for all you're doing. Just wanted to ask a clarifying question. Like, is there any concern? I know that we've talked at a previous school board meeting. And I believe I asked you the question, Dr. Mozingo, about trying to keep Monday sacred for teachers. I know that we've received a lot of feedback that, you know, teachers are concerned about making sure that they have the time for planning, time for all the work that's going into it. There's a lot of meetings that have been scheduled for Monday. So I'm just curious

234about, is there any concern about... you know, any, you know, any concern, but I guess I should say from teachers about Mondays. And then also I know during COVID times, we're trying to emphasize flexibility. So I just didn't know if like, has there been any thinking about, is there ways to make parent-teacher conferences flexible? Although maybe that's what was just referred to in Ms. Gentry's comment earlier that we're just not waiting for the two days. So just again, trying to understand from a teacher's lens that might be upset about Mondays being taken away for other things they've been using. I just want to know if there's any concerns about that. So I can respond in a couple of ways. Number one, I know that the schools, the school leaders are actually supporting maintaining Mondays as

235professional learning days. So we've made many efforts in that area to really try to maintain Mondays as professional learning days. In addition to the second question that you asked, I think that once we meet with the calendar committee, that we will have some new ideas and new ways. to foster different conferences and contacts with parents throughout the school year. Again, I do think the possible, I think the Seal Mondays will afford a number of opportunities to particularly work with students who are having some difficulties and challenges. We also work, Dr. Hutchins asked us to work as an SLT and for us to identify meetings that we could move for later in the year. So we've made a conscious effort, even at the central office. to move and reduce and even eliminate some meetings that are

236not essential to give our teachers more planning time. I don't know if the two principals would like to highlight any comments in that area, Perrette or Pete, about Mondays and planning. I just want to reiterate that it was a problem before with the teachers were complaining about at the beginning of February. However, we took away all of those meetings and the five hours of planning that all staff receive. And also we are revising, we have revised, excuse me, the teacher. kind of like expectations for the transition back to, which is also helping staff to know that that time is sacred. But we do have to keep in mind that we have more than five hours out of the day on Monday. That's part of the contract time. So, you know, five hours are set aside

237for planning because they're not able to get their consistent planning each day during the week. But we do have 90 minutes that we're able to provide professional learning opportunities, meetings. um you know check-ins because they do need to have that too so we don't want to eliminate meetings because uh teachers do need that for collaboration and their planning purposes Thank you, Dr. Reeve. Oh, sorry. I'm so sorry. Do you mind if I just ask Dr. Hutchings a follow-up question? Go ahead. Okay. I apologize. Thank you, Chair Aldrin. Dr. Hutchings, so just so I'm clear, is Mondays being set for both professional development and CO? And forgive me if this is a Dr. Mozingo question. I'm just curious about... What are the Mondays moving forward? Are we packing too much in? Do we feel okay about

238that? So Mondays are scheduled for all. They can be sealed. It can be professional learning because we can't do it on Tuesday through Friday. So Mondays, and that came from our staff when we were developing our virtual plus, that we wanted to have those Mondays that were sacred so that they can be asynchronous days for students and it will afford opportunities to do professional learning, to do meetings, to do great. level sessions to do departmental meetings as well as to do their um their regular lesson planning um so those dates are designated for that now uh five hours of that time is designated for planning um so you know we we can't have five hours of professional learning um on those particular days uh and uh because we do have to provide our staffing with

239their lesson planning time. But what we have to do throughout this whole process, and even as we go into next year. We need to start thinking about how do we reimagine what schooling and also what lesson planning and what all those things look like, too, because as we were transitioning back in school, everybody was thinking about, you know, I have bus duty and bus duty looks different than it looked before March. You know, there are other duties now that might come about that we didn't have, you know, back in March or prior to March 13th and things of that nature. So things are going to be evolving as we move through. Mondays are designated for multiple things from meetings to planning to professional learning. But five hours of that Monday is designated for planning for

240our staff because they are not able to get those planning times during Tuesday through Friday. Thank you. And thank you again, Mr. Ballas and Ms. Peters. Really appreciate all you're doing. Dr. Reif. Thank you. The rationale makes a lot of sense to me to move it. And I apologize if I missed this, but are you concerned at all that it's like the Monday after spring break? Because I know that's like a hard, that's, I'm just thinking from a scheduling standpoint too, like that seems like that's going to be tough. And I'm just wondering too, if the teachers you've talked to them and people are on board with this. So Mr. Ballas and I have had, and Mr. Mazur and Dr. Mozingo have had lots of conversations about that. And going back to the point about

241not waiting until the parent conference day to have parent conferences, if there were by chance a reason why a teacher could not have a conference on that day, we would work with the teacher to hold the conferences prior to April 5th. And Mr. Ballas, if there was anything else you wanted to add, you most certainly can. No, we've had a lot of discussion and that's also kind of our standard practice during any parent conference. If there's a conflict, you know, we allow the teacher the flexibility to alert their parents of their absence for whatever reason and that they will, you know, reach out and offer them other times and dates. And as they indicated, we spent a lot of time, we're smiling about this, but we did looking at the pros and cons of every

242idea that they proposed. And this ended up being, of all of the proposals, the best one going forward, considering that we need to really rethink and reimagine parent contacts and student supports going forward. Okay, thank you. So being that there are no more questions, we do need to take action on this item. So I do need a motion to approve the 2020-21 academic calendar revisions for parent-teacher conferences for T.C. Williams, George Washington Middle School, and Francis C. Hammond Middle School. So moved, Madam Chair. Second. Okay, so I have Ms. Gentry who second Ms. Green's motion. I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson, absent. Ramey Gentry, yes. Jacinta Green, yes. Margaret Lorber, yes. Veronica Nolan, yes. Michelle Reeve, yes. Christopher Suarez had to leave the meeting. Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. So

243the vote is seven. Yes to absent. All right. Is everybody hearing my seven-year-old crying in the background? I mean, why? I don't know. It's better than my kid's trombone lesson. I don't even want to know. Thank you. I need another trombone installment. We need to start having more school board meetings Thursday morning, ACPS music class. Come to the Nolan household to hear my fifth grader at Maury with his trombone lesson. He's amazing. Oh my goodness. All right. Well, improvement. Yeah. Thank you guys for that. And so we can finally move on to reports. My chair report. I don't really have much. I will say I will let everyone know there's public hearing, which I already did on March 18th about renaming Matthew Morey and about renaming TC Williams. Sign up public if you would like

244to speak at the public hearing by Wednesday, March 17th at noon. And we will also accept written comments on the topic and the sign up link is on the school board page. Let's see. Dr. Hutchings, you have a report? Well, I'm all reported out. I just want to remind the board that tomorrow is, and just the community in general, because a lot of people may not know, it's a National Employee Appreciation Day tomorrow. And there's been a huge push, especially since everybody's now in this global pandemic, that so many responsibilities and roles have changed. People have additional stressors to their lives during this time. So anybody you know, just say thank you for working. If you have a job, just say thank you. And if you don't have a job, say thank you because you're

245still managing your own personal life. But we will be acknowledging our staff tomorrow. There is an appreciation video that I'll just be acknowledging our staff tomorrow in our ACPS Insider. Great. Thank you. Do I have any board members with announcements? Okay, well, don't get all excited because you're about to go into a closed meeting. So with that said, Vice Chair Nolan, can you read us into closed? I'm sorry, I didn't give you my normal heads up. No problem. No, no, no. I want, I want, I'm purposely trying to have a dramatic pause so that you can really feel like you're all gonna. be eager for this closed session so miss gentry nolan i actually have it if you want me to read it you know miss gentry if you could lend your melodious voice to

246the getting us on the closed session i would greatly appreciate that thank you so much i hand the baton to you uh madam chair i move that the board convene a closed meeting pursuant to virginia code 2.2-3711a6 for discussion or consideration of the investment of public funds where competition or bargaining is involved and where if made public would adversely affect the financial interest of the board specifically a contract related to the douglas macarthur project second Okay, I have Ms. Lorber who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. So I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson is absent. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Michelle Reeve? Yes. Christopher Suarez is absent. And Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay, Susan. So we have seven yes, two absent. All right. See you

247on the other side. You have an email with the link in case you aren't aware. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Okay. Hello, everyone. Pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3712, I move that the Board certify that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened and are lawfully exempted by the Freedom of Information Act were heard, discussed, or considered by the Board in the closed meeting held on March 4, 2021. Second. I have Ms. Lorber who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. So I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton. Yes. Cindy Anderson. Absent. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. So I have seven yes. And

248two absent. Madam Chair, I move to adjourn. Second. Okay, I have Ms. Lorber who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. So I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson is absent. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez is absent. And Heather Thornton. Yes. All right. So we are adjourned. Good night. Good night, everyone. I have everything. Thank you very much. Okay. Good night, guys. Thank you so much.