001All right, good evening, everyone. This is the virtual school board meeting for March 18th, 2021. I will call the meeting to order at this time, which is 5.02 p.m. I will start with the roll call. When I call your name, please indicate that you're present. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Rami Gentry, here. Jacinta Green, here. Margaret Lorber, here. Veronica Nolan, here. Michelle Reif. Here. Christopher Suarez. Here. And Heather Thornton. Here. Okay. Ms. Anderson, are you here? I am here, only I have to change my name because I see it says Dr. Hutchings, and I don't know how that happened. Okay. Ms. Anderson is present, so we are all here with nine board members. We will now observe a moment of silence. Thank you, everyone. May I have a motion to adopt the agenda? Madam Chair,
002I move that we adopt the agenda for the evening. Second. Okay, so I have Ms. Green who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. With that, I will call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. And Heather Thornton? Yes. Okay, so we have adopted the agenda with 9-0. All right, moving on to communications and addresses to the board. We actually have our public hearing on renaming of schools, and we have one public comment. We have public comment on renaming as well. We also have... an additional public comment. So we have, each speaker is going to be given three minutes to address the board. The clerk will be timing you and will announce when your time is expired. If
003you are already signed up to speak, if you can turn on the raised hand function, that will help us find you easily. So first with our public hearing on renaming schools, I should have Ms. Michelle Chapman. I'm here. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Thank you. Excellent. Good evening, everyone. I not only represent myself, but my sister, Toni Taylor, my brother, John Taylor, and my other brother, G. Stanley Taylor, all graduates of the only public high school in the city of Alexandria. I'm grateful to the school board. that the name changes will be enacted. I've had the pleasure of knowing Naomi Brooks for more than 25 years, and this honor is most deserving. It was not easy to go to school or to teach in school in her day, but she handled it
004with grace and dignity. I think parents... and friends alike will be pleased as the history of the name of the school will be taught and her name will be mentioned. I'm sad that Lois Huntley did not make the finalists list. She exemplified a parent who wanted better for her children. And isn't that what we all inspire to have for our kids? Hopefully there'll be some sort of naming of something to remind us that even though the job is hard and sometimes thankless, like most good jobs, it's worth it. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Ms. Chapman. Next, we have Ms. Christine Rogers, who's an ACPS parent. That's okay. Ms. Christine Rogers. I don't see her on the attendee side. Okay. Yeah. So I'm going to go ahead and move on to. Hello. Can
005you hear me? Hello. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen of the. Excuse me, of our public school board. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm Howard John Wesley, and I have the joy of serving as the pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church. And I come before you today as a proud pastor representing a very proud congregation because we can claim that Naomi Brooks was a member of our church. Within Alfred Street, Naomi was known as a loving wife who stood behind and besides her husband, General Leo Brooks, as he served the United States Army and put his life in danger twice with two tours in Vietnam. Naomi Brooks is a reminder that men like Leo Brooks may get the credit, but Naomi did all the work. The reality
006is that our servicemen and women are able to serve courageously because they have spouses who support and love and are faithful and take care of home while they're serving our nation. And that's exactly what Naomi did, raising three children, one who was an ex-sex-file attorney, and two sons who both became generals in the United States Army and served our country because of the model of their mother and their father. She was the proud grandmother of four and great-grandmother of six. And for 30 years, she sang in the choir of Alpha Street Baptist Church. We knew and loved her well. But outside of Alpha Street, she was so much more. She modeled a balanced life as a businesswoman, as a civic and social leader, as a faithful wife, and even as an educator, all rolled up
007into one. Her record on education speaks for itself, not only as an educator who served our city, but as a mother who was active and involved, as a student who was raised through the Alexandria public school system, as an athlete. Her resume is really the best and the brightest of Alexandria. On that resume is Parker Gray and Charles Houston and Cora Kelly. And I want you to think for a moment in the era in which she did all of that. An era where we all know that race and gender were obstacles to her success, but they were never excuses for her service to our city. There's no wonder she received the Dean's Cross from Episcopal Seminary, because they also recognized that this was a unique woman among us. She's an example to all of us
008and to women in particular. Just think for a moment that when young girls see that name, Naomi Brooks School, and they Google and ask about Naomi Brooks, they'll be given the example of a woman who used no excuse and was able to show that you can do it all in one. If you want to be a wife, you can do that. If you want to be a mother, you can do that. If you want to be an educator, you can do that. If you want to be a student athlete, you can do that. And none comes at the expense of any others. So on behalf of myself and our church, we are proud and are supportive of renaming the school after Naomi Brooks. And I'm grateful that prayerfully tonight you will do the same. Thank
009you. Thank you, Reverend Dr. Wesley. Next up, we have Charles Monterio, a community member. Mr. Monterio. Yeah, I don't see. Okay, so I don't see Mr. Monterio as an attendee. And then I'll go back and just check one more time. Ms. Christine Rogers, ACPS parent. Okay. All right. Well, thank you everyone for sharing your comments. And we're going to move on. We do have one board members. We do have one written public comment on renaming. So make sure that you take the time to review that. Moving on to public comments. We have Ms. Julie Forst, who's an ACPS parent. I don't see. Okay. All right. Being that we are not seeing Ms. Forst on the attendee side, board members just know that there is one additional written public comment received from a staff member. So
010take the time to check that out as well. All right, and for 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 and use the link on the school board meeting page to do so. Next, we'll have our reports from our student representatives. So let's see, are any of our student representatives here? I see Ms. Ashley Sanchez Villafara. Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead. I don't think Lorraine was able to make it today, but my report is just on last year, this past fall, I had the opportunity to attend an anti-racism seminar. planned and organized by the PTA, which was focused on, you know, resources, tools, and practices in addressing racism
011for educators and students, and I thought that was a very insightful seminar to be part of, and in collaboration with that, I was asked to join, participate in the Nova District Diversity, Inclusion, and Outreach Committee, so they're focusing on addressing efforts. with what they were talking about in the anti-racism seminar. So I'm very excited to be doing that. And it's going to be very interesting. And I hope to be able to bring what I've learned into my community and bring that to students as well and be able to further engage with them. Thank you. Thank you, Ashley. Oh, I hear Lorraine. Is that Lorraine? Yeah, I was here. Hi, Lorraine. today. Good evening everyone. Oh I just wanted to report on what some students were saying that went hybrid this week. A lot of the
012students that I talked to said that everything that even though it's not any type of normal school setting that they still appreciate how ACPS and the school board and everybody is organized. the school in a way where we have hand sanitizers everywhere and they have a procedure where they clean the desk off after and how safe they've been making it. And I've heard just really, really great things so far. So keep up the good work. Thank you, Lorraine. And I have to say, it was really exciting to see you guys in school this week and the past couple of weeks. So thank you for your comments. Moving on through the agenda, I need a motion to adopt this consent calendar. I move we adopt the consent calendar. Second. Okay, so I have Ms. Anderson who
013seconds Ms. Lorber's motion, so I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderson, yes. Cindy Anderson? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Thank you. So we have approved the consent calendar. Okay. So moving right through, let's start with some new business, which is the endorsement of the Children and Youth Master Plan. So I'm going to pass it over to Dr. Hutchings to pass to his team. Thank you, Madam Chair. And at this time, I'm going to ask for Mr. Clint Page to come forward, our Chief of Accountability. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchings. So as one of the ACPS staff on the Unified Planning team, I am thrilled to be joined today by our colleagues from the Department
014of Community and Human Services, Ms. Garvey, Dr. Hardy Chandler, and Ms. Eichert. I'm sorry, you all, it's hard not to say your first names. Last names. You know, we have really come together through the unified planning process and they're here this evening to present the board with a high level overview of the final draft of the children youth master plan. Concurrently, city council will be going through a similar update over a similar timeframe and for the board overview tonight. certainly take any questions and then the plan will be in the next formal board meeting to then move this to an action item for consideration for endorsement. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Hardy Chandler. Thank you. I am going to share my screen here. As Mr. Page said, I am
015Stacey Hardy Chandler and let me start the slideshow. I have the distinct honor of being the director of the Center for Children and Families within the Department of Community and Human Services, which happens to be the administrative home of the Children and Youth Master Plan. And while we sort of house it and coordinate it, it's a plan that truly belongs to the entire city, a citywide plan. And it's going to be very difficult for any resident of Alexandria. or for any of us who serve the city of Alexandria to not find a role. for ourselves embedded in that plan. You know, George Washington Carver said, without vision, there's no hope. And our vision, which is reflected in the plan, is that all Alexandria's children and youth thrive today and tomorrow. That's our hope for all
016of the children of Alexandria. And I think it's noteworthy that this vision has been the original vision since the plan was first designed in 2014. by the Children, Youth and Families Collaborative Commission. And that vision guides the direction of this version of the plan as well. There are a couple of innovations in the new plan, the 2025 plan. One is that it intentionally incorporates existing plans and acknowledges how those plans contribute to the lives of children and youth. It also complements other plans, as Mr. Page said, in the unified planning process. And it also has a very distinct and intentional attention to youth voice. Youth were very involved in the development of this plan throughout the process, which... at this point has taken about a year and a half. And then finally, those who designed
017the plan in the first place, the Children and Youth and Families Collaborative Commission remains its champion. And I want to acknowledge the CYFCC Chair, Kelly Organic, her executive committee, as well as every single member of CYFCC for their passion and their contributions to the development of the plan and ultimately where the plan is going to go through 2025. In addition to what Mr. Page said, I just want to note about the unified planning process a couple of things. First, there is commonality in three areas between the children and youth plan, as well as the ACPS plan and the health department's plan. And those three areas are being trauma-informed, taking trauma-informed approaches, using an equity lens and having that weave throughout. and focusing on developmental assets, those things that are protective factors that really do help
018children thrive and support their families. The second thing I want to say about the unified planning process is It mirrors real life. People don't come to human services without, you know, their needs being met on the health side. The children and youth that we deal with, we often have to partner, of course, with the schools. So this collaborative process really recognizes and reflects how children actually are in the world. So I think that is a true innovation of this process. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to our... Children and Youth Master Plan Coordinator, Chelsea Eichert. Thank you all. Thank you, Stacey. Hello, my name is Chelsea Eichert, and I coordinate the city's Children and Youth Master Plan. And I'll just be walking you all through briefly our planning process to develop
019this plan, which on the next slide, you'll see that it started. two years ago in March when we started gathering the information and the data to help inform this plan. And that took about seven months to really understand the needs of the community. And then we took that information and we invited the community members to also help analyze the information that we gathered. We coded the data and we put them into themed buckets. And then we took those same buckets and we continued to gather adults and young people every week from April to October to take that information and start building action plans. And all of those action plans build one master plan for children and youth. And once we had a draft ready, we brought that draft of the Youth Master Plan to various
020stakeholder groups for them to have the chance to review it and make any revisions and just make sure there weren't any major flaws in this plan, that there wasn't anything left out, that we were centering equity every opportunity we could, and that we got the community's blessing. And then our communications team in our Department of Community and Human Services designed the plan and made it look beautiful. And then now we're here in March 2021 asking for the school board's endorsement. And next week we'll take it to the city council for the same type of endorsement. And then we will hit the ground running with implementation over the next four years. And as we implement it, we'll be sure to evaluate it. This is just taking a closer look at what the first phase entailed, where
021we gathered that information. We engaged 644 youth in a listening tour. And then we engaged almost 1,500 people from over 50 stakeholder groups in an hour-long census building workshop. And we also wanted to balance out all of that qualitative data with some quantitative data by looking at population level data. And the end result for the community engagement was that we engaged over 2,100 community members, most of which were youth, to learn more about their concerns, their hopes and dreams that Alexandrians have for its young people. And this is now an illustration in a one page of what we call a strategy map for the entire Youth Master Plan. Dr. Hardy Chandler mentioned the 2025 version of this plan maintains the same vision as the 2014 version, that all children and youth thrive today and tomorrow.
022And that vision is upheld by three overarching goals. The first goal ensures that all children, youth, and families will be physically safe and healthy. Goal two ensures that all children will be academically successful and career ready. And goal three focuses on ensuring that all children, youth, and families have positive experiences. And the rest of this strategy map goes into further details about the objectives and the strategies themselves. And finally, at the bottom in green, that is how we are really supporting and reinforcing each of our strategies across all departments and nonprofits that serve children and youth through a coordinated and equitable. So we want to make sure that no matter what we're doing, we're centering equity, we are building our capacity, we're mobilizing funding, we're sharing data, and we're strengthening our collaboration across all sectors.
023And looking ahead to our next steps. And we really want to make sure that we are, we ensured accountability was built into this plan by connecting every strategy to an action plan. And those action plans are really what help guide our work and maintain our accountability. And we're using the results-based accountability framework to track our progress and measure our performance. And that... To its core, asks three main questions. It asks, how much are we doing? How well are we doing it? And at the end of the day, is anyone better off? Are we making a difference in the lives of young people? We intend that this plan will be fully implemented within five years of its endorsement. And throughout the implementation process, we intend to continue to meet as a unified planning group. to make
024sure that all of the strategies that we share are well coordinated. And just as a high level overview of those shared strategies that the Partnership for a Healthier Alexandria, the Health Department, Alexandria schools, and the Community and Human Services Department share, focus on making sure that young people are college and career ready. We're engaging students and families in support services. We're improving and increasing out-of-school learning, enhancing technical infrastructure, and making sure that anything that we are doing to help families, that we are doing it in a really well-coordinated and collaborative way. And that is the Youth Master Plan. a very brief overview and I just wanted to turn it over to see if anyone had any questions that we can address. Thank you. So any board members have questions? And let's see, I do see
025a question from Dr. Reif and Mr. Suarez. Thank you for the presentation. I just want to commend everyone who worked on this. It seems like it was a really involved process. You got a lot of feedback from a lot of different stakeholders. And I think it's really great. And I hope we can see all these goals through. I wanted to just, I had a question. I wanted to make a couple quick comments. One thing I wanted to share is I'm the school board liaison to the city's IT commission. And we have something that was previously called the Homework Gap Committee. And now it's going to be called, we're looking to develop a digital equity plan. And the goal is to, you know, before the pandemic, it was about making sure students had access to the
026internet at home so that they could do their homework. And so now, you know, we've done a lot. through the pandemic as a school division, but also just, I think, you know, looking at the whole community's access to the internet. And so I just wanted to put that in there because maybe there's some opportunity to collaborate there. Another thing was I was reading through the plan and I just wanted to point out, I noticed on page seven, it has ACPS's student enrollment by race and ethnicity. And it's, it's actually, the data's incorrect there. It's, for some reason the white population is overrepresented in the data, so I don't know what happened there, but I just wanted to flag that one for you. And then just kind of understand, I was curious to know who, if
027ACPS has a representative who's involved in the Unified Implementation Team, like who, and just kind of like what are your next steps in terms of like how will you be reporting out, you know, meeting some of the goals? So, thank you, Dr. Reif, for the edit on page seven. We'll certainly work with city staff in getting that addressed. And then in terms of the unified planning, one thing that I'm so excited about kind of goes to one of your points around the infrastructure, around technology within the city, is now that we're coming to a point of completion across all three plans. We've gone through the draft plans as well as ACPS's final plan and looked for those true areas of commonality so that we can prioritize that collaborative work together. An example of that in
028one of the five areas that we flagged as most significant to focus on is enhancing Alexandria's technical infrastructure and closing the digital divide. So that's just an example of the power of this work and truly meeting the needs, particularly off the back of the pandemic across not just one plan, but kind of having the collective come together. As it relates to reporting, that's kind of where we are now in the unified group. So we will certainly have more information to the board as well as other entities in terms of what that looks like. But the goal is going to be. you know, more of a snack goal from the unified committee, kind of giving, you know, the one to two page feel of the work that we're truly focused on and doing that on kind
029of an annual or semi-annual basis to make sure the community is aware of the work and the efforts. And then certainly having the more detailed analysis and reporting through things like for Alexandria City Public Schools, the equity dashboard, and for, you know, the Children's Master Plan, kind of their reporting process as well. If I could just add one quick follow-up comment too. We've talked a lot about how the pandemic is going to lead to lasting changes in our society. And I think the kind of like virtual meetings, there's a lot of talk about how that's going to increase access. And I certainly think there's the potential for that. But I happen to also have a conversation with someone who was involved in trying to A lot of the schools were having meetings to let parents
030know about the return to school planning and really trying to support immigrant families or families for whom English is a second language to get onto the Zoom. It was just a really challenging experience, it sounded like. And so as we do start to implement some of these changes, maybe that we think will help with access, I mean, I think we really need to think about how. it can be limiting, you know, as well, or how we can help build the skill set for folks so that they can really tap into these opportunities. Thank you, Dr. Reeve. Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had a question about the accountability piece. I'm very excited about the fact that this Children and Youth Master Plan is very much aligned, both in terms of the goals of
031the division, but also in terms of the timing of it for 2025. And so I was just curious, sort of, if Mr. Page, you can kind of elaborate a bit. obviously we have our sort of KPIs that we've set that we're prioritizing as a school board and school division. But it seems to me this sort of results-based accountability framework of this children and youth master plan is going to have its own sort of KPIs or the equivalent or whatever. And so I'm kind of curious if we're going to undertake some sort of process to kind of identify the metrics in that this plan that really sync up to our goals and in sort of you know so that we can really optimize for the strategic plan so just kind of curious what what you're thinking
032along those lines. Yeah, no, thank you so much for the question. I'm smiling because it's as though you were sitting in our most recent unified planning meeting, because that's exactly the work that we're doing right now is, again, kind of now that these plans are coming to a final state, going through, and so in, for instance, we've identified five areas of shared kind of focus across all plans. and then taking those five areas and further delineating the metrics that we'll use within the unified planning process to kind of define the success and what success looks like in each of those areas. So we'll kind of, we will retain our individual kind of reporting and accountability structures and improvement structures through, like I mentioned, the equity dashboard and everything we're doing around the ACPS strategic plan.
033And then we will also make sure that that's folded in seamlessly through the unified planning process into those five areas. So making sure that we have those areas and measures and expected outcomes delineated clearly for those as well, so that we're all kind of working from the same sheet. We have a shared understanding of what success is, and we're all working together to get there. Great. Thank you, Mr. Page. So seeing that there are no additional questions, this item is up for info today, and we will take action via endorsement in an upcoming meeting. So be on the lookout for that. Moving right along, we are moving on to the high school project design concepts. And so I'll turn it over to Dr. Hutchings and his team. Thank you, Madam Chair. And at this time,
034I want to turn things over to Ms. Gulick to introduce our team, as well as to talk about the design options for the Minnie Howard campus and our high school project. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings, and good evening, board members. It's nice to see you all back. I just want to say, before we get started, we've been talking about the high school project, I want to say, for three years, definitely for two and a half. And this is one of the really exciting milestones. So we just appreciate your continued support for this project. So let's jump right in and get started to talk about design concepts. I think there's some kind of echo. Are you all hearing an echo over there? Yes, it's not really in. The audio is not good. All right, I just got,
035is it still doing it? A little bit. Okay, maybe I'll ask a Zoom report that can maybe take over for me while I try and figure this out. I think, Erica, it does sound better than earlier, but I'll go ahead and get started with the essential questions. So we'll go over with what community feedback and input we have received today. What are the three proposed concepts? What parking options are available for each concept? How do they compare to each other? And what are the next steps? I can please, sorry, having technical difficulties. All right, our new term decisions, as you're all aware, we have gone through the co-location options back in January and February. We have received an vote from our school board on February 4th to not include affordable housing as one of our
036co-location options. We have moved on to the comprehensive program and educational specifications document. We've worked through this in February and March, and we received an approval on March 4th. And that document informed our current concept designs. We are informing you all today on the March 18th meeting, and we'll be anticipating it for an action on April 8th to choose one of the three concepts that presented to you. Design feedback process. We've been meeting with the community and the superintendent's advisory team meeting. We had advisory team meetings as well. We have also solicited multiple meetings with our focus group meetings with different staff members from ACPS, from our partner agencies, as well as we had an independent peer review panel. We have had one review and then we're anticipating another one next week. So we are
037soliciting feedback from multiple different groups, our communities. our advisory team and our own staff members as well. Community feedback, we have received from our initial survey 216 submissions, 207 in English and nine in Spanish. 77% of the participants were past, present and future parents, 11% community members, 4% neighbors, 4% ACPS students and 4% ACPS staff and city staff. We did have a, from our community meeting on March 8th, we had about 31 participants. We had another meeting. This week on Tuesday, the March 16th, we had also about close to 30 participants in that meeting as well. Here are some of the survey summaries. So first we've asked what is important to you in the redevelopment of Minnie Howard campus and the overarching kind of themes and goals were capacity for student enrollment growth, flexible and
038adaptive spaces. Question number two, if you were designing the redevelopment. Minnie Howard campus, what features of the site or building would you like to include? Innovative and tech ready, collaborative and hands on learning spaces were the top choices. Please prioritize the concepts, ideas you think are most important in design. Designing for education and community access came on top. And what are your biggest concerns, worries, if any, regarding the design of the redevelopment, many how our campus where traffic, noise and safety to not to our surprise. Okay, and with this, I'm going to turn it over to Sean. I'm sorry to Omar Calderon from Perkins Eastman to go over the three concepts. Thank you. Omar, you're on mute, I think. How about now? We can hear you. Excellent. So I was saying that what a privilege
039it is to be part of the design team that is charged with creating this new home and expanded home for your high school network. And we've had a great deal of feedback and sessions and discussions with the community and various stakeholders. And so what you're seeing here takes into account all of those things. and then creates a series of environments using the educational specifications that you approved in our last session. to support your students into the future. So we have three concepts to share with you and we have names for them because we felt that just calling them by number would not be appropriate and would presuppose that one is better than the other. And these three concepts can all adequately house the program. They have varying degrees of nuance as to how do they
040fit into the site. And so that's what we want to talk about today. So we have the hand scheme. which kind of reminds us of a hand that has a variety of fingers. We have the crescent scheme, which is a kind of a form, the kind of bent shape form that will face along the street, as you'll see in some of the illustrations. And then we have what we call the pinwheel scheme, which is a building design that uses the idea of pavilions, if you will, that are rotating, gravitating around a heart of the school. center. So with that, let's move on to the next page. So the first is the hand scheme. And so what we're seeing here is the massing of that idea. And what illustrates is a series of or a couple
041of academic neighborhoods, which you can see there in the foreground. And they are oriented with classrooms that are facing both north and south. And this is an important point and a point that's actually present in some of the other concepts as well. And that is that we're trying to maximize daylight harvesting for all the academic spaces. This is going to be an integral aspect of how we deal with sustainability and the high performance aspirations for the building. We can't really have a high-performance building if we don't correctly orient it towards the sun and take advantage of daylighting strategies. The massing you see to the top of the page on the massing diagram there, yes, thank you, is the athletic facilities that are facing towards the fields. And one of the innovative strategies we try to
042do here is stack. like uses with like uses. So in the case of this massing here, we stack the gymnasium over the pool. These are two spaces that require large spans, large structural spans. And so we stack them together so that we can do more with the site. So the more we stack and creatively put components together, one on top of the other, we have more site available to do more with. And we felt that placing the athletic facilities to that site facing the fields was a good idea, right? That we have the gymnasium and some of the supporting spaces, locker rooms and things like that facing that side of the site would be beneficial. Next. So here's the site plan idea associated with this massing. And so you'll first notice where the parking and
043the vehicular movement is located on the site. We made a concerted effort to separate cars, which is what the hand is illustrating there, where all of the cars would be parked. It's also the entrance to the school through that courtyard that's being created, providing a pedestrian safe environment for students to walk in. On the left-hand side of the plan, we have a dedicated loop for the buses. And that dedicated loop uses the existing curb gut that exists there today. And then they all line up along the west side, and then they exit out on the west part of the property. And this is an important... detail because at that point the buses can either make a right-hand turn or a left turn and so that's actually been reviewed by some of the transportation team members
044that they like that idea. They like that there's choice there that the bus can exercise. But most importantly, when you arrange the buses in that fashion, look what happens to the public open space in the fields. They have the potential to be completely connected to the school, creating a pedestrian-only environment between the school and the fields. And I think that's a kind of a positive trait of this particular concept. You would also remember that there's a lot of topography in the site. We can go maybe to the next slide. There's a lot of topography to the site, and so we're making use of that by nestling the building against the hillside so that you can potentially have entrances on two different levels. So from the east, you could enter on a lower level, and then
045from the west in the fields, you enter on the second floor of the building. And so that begins to suggest a really creative, really impactful interior space for the students that connects these two levels together. And then on the top is some examples of architecture that reminded us of the hand concept, buildings that are composed of parts so that you're not, at any given point, you're not reading a one large building, but you're really reading a series of buildings that happen to be connected together. Next. So these are some really abstract, massive views of that concept of the two entrances on the right-hand side, the two rings of academic wings with a courtyard in between, and then on the left-hand side, the entrance that would be facing the fields with a little bit of outdoor
046space as you lead into the entry, which is also another important thing we heard from the community as feedback, the importance of creating indoor-outdoor. connectivity between the school and its surroundings. You know, the ability to be able to see out and see green, see the fields and keep all of the aspects of the school visually connected. The second concept is a little bit different. In this concept, the crescent concept, we placed all of the academic classrooms to the south in one single bar. creating what we think of as its own architectural identity facing Braddock. The rest of the program, the athletic facilities and the like are to the north in the volume that the hand is pointing to, linked by what we call the heart of the school, the dining venues, the media center and
047things of that nature. But the library, is the volume there to the south of the page. And that is a kind of a bridge connecting the two academic wings from the south and to the north. So that creates a kind of a gateway, if you will. So as you're entering the school, you're entering the gateway beneath the library, but then entering a courtyard space still outside before you enter the school. And so this progression from outside to inside was the inspiring moment for this particular concept. Next. So here's the site plan associated with this idea. And so you can immediately see that there's a different parking strategy here. So as a result of this internal planning. the building became a little bit longer in the east-west direction. So you can see the dimension of it
048in the east-west grew to some degree, which begins to suggest less opportunity to create parking on the east. So in this concept, we moved all of the parking to the west side of the school in between the school and the fields. And we did that primarily for reasons of convenience, right? We want to be able to park near the school and gain immediate access into it. It does create some points of interest in terms of design of what happens with the buses and the cars at that intersection there where you enter. So it does require a little bit of a management of that flow. And that's one of the features of this concept. You would also see that there's also a reservation of area for future school expansion to future proof the operations of the
049school by creating what we think is an addition equal to about 40,000 square feet in that zone in four levels. I didn't speak about the programming of the public open space, but it will include a multi-use field, as is being illustrated in there, and associated facilities and a tennis multi-use court, of which there's two in that area there. And there would also be a network of paths connecting all of this and creating a loop, if you will, that could be measured for other kinds of recreation activities. Next. And then, like we've shown with the first one, some illustrative architecture, some of it our own work that uses this crescent idea as a form-given element for the school, a distinctive form-given element, but also the courtyard and the importance of creating indoor-outdoor spaces. On the lower
050right-hand side, you see a kind of courtyard that changes elevations, if you will, or topography, which mimics. the form of the site. So you can imagine a kind of outdoor tiered outdoor seating that can be a great place for students to exercise their social life. Next. And then these are some massive views of that concept and just illustrating the interest in creating a building on the ground floor that aspires to be very connected to its surroundings and so it is a bit porous in a way, visually at least, so that all of the great activities in the network of landscaping that is created can also be enjoyed from inside the building. Next. And then lastly, the pinwheel scheme, which is, we call it pinwheel because it reminded us of almost like pavilions that are rotating,
051gravitating around the center of the school, which we call the heart of the school. And so the volumes would be discrete. And so the idea of this whole thing would be to make those volumes, those various classroom wings readable as distinct elements that happen to be connected into a larger whole. Next. And so here's the site plan idea that results from this concept that the floor plan itself, it's more compact perhaps than some of the other floor plans in that it has perhaps less courtyard space. We see that there is one courtyard there to the west below the gym pool area that connects back to where we are in this concept place, the buses. So in here, the buses are in the center. And they are accessing that area there through that existing curb cut
052and have great proximity to the school from the west side. The car movements remain to the east in this one, and we try to create parking areas that are perhaps a little bit smaller in their dimension. So we split the parking in two to minimize its impact in front of the school. And we like the idea that it's more sort of on the side so that the school really presents itself as a proper civic building to Braddock Road. And then on the west side of the property, we see the disposition of all of the athletic and recreation fields and the network of paths that we're proposing to connect all of it, not only within itself, but also with the school as well. Next. And then some illustrative architecture that remind us of the kinds of
053forms that were being generated by this particular idea. And all of these are really kind of meant to be evocative and a place to start. They're not suggestive of the actual design or the actual look for the architecture, but they're really just places to begin to think about a potential materiality and the treatment of the volumes themselves. Next. And then lastly, some views of high level views of the massing. And I think, you know, as we flesh out the design, this will become more evocative. We'll have windows and materiality, and you'll be able to appreciate more how the treatment of the architecture begins to define the environment for the school. Next. So then lastly, all three schemes, we looked at the hands concept. the crescent concept and the pinwheel concept for your consideration. And I'm
054constantly reminded by my colleagues that I should also point out that any site plan idea can be matched with a building plan idea. So the site and the building is not exclusive to one another. They can actually, if we see aspects of one site plan idea that you would like to see in another concept. We can certainly do that. They can be applied in that manner. Next. And so now I'll hand it over to my colleague, Sean O'Donnell, who would walk us through this evaluation matrix. Thanks, Omar. So to facilitate evaluating each of these concepts, we put into the report the table that you see in front of you. report or the table here is organized really into two types of criteria. On the top you see that there are a number of the design
055patterns that were approved within the educational specifications at our prior meeting listed and then we've evaluated each of the concepts in its current state relative to each of those design patterns. And as you can see David Bradburn – You know, using our green yellow red criteria so green fully compliant yellow maybe a little less so and then read you know not compliant. David Bradburn – And a meaningful way with those patterns each of the concepts really is performing relatively well to the design patterns that we've established as goals to create the aspirational inspiring you know educational learning environment for the. the program that we would be delivering at Minnie Howard and across the connected network with the assistance of this site. The criteria below the design patterns touch on many of the things that Omar
056was just talking about. So, you know, first off, does the building accommodate all the program? And you can see that each of them successfully accommodates that program and, again, the educational specifications. But then digging into the outdoor space, you know, the opportunities for future expansion, flexibility, the ability for rooftop photovoltaic production, parking, and also other access for a roof. vehicular and pedestrian access. And here you can see that each of the options scores just a little bit differently than the other. And what I would suggest is that, you know, in many ways it's a similar issue that the Crescent scheme of all the three schemes actually has the largest building footprint. And going hand in hand with that, the largest roof area, that's actually driving some of the differentiation in the factors that you see
057here. So that larger footprint, for example, is restricting some of the site parking options that Omar was just speaking of relative to the others. But likewise, because it's a larger footprint, it has greater potential for Sean Wrenn, Norcal PTACC, Additional photo take capacity on the roof, so in many ways that's what's differentiating each on the table that you've seen in front of you today. Sean Wrenn, Norcal PTACC, And as we continue to explore the options will continue to update this table, but again we think it's a useful tool for evaluating each of the criteria with that i'll turn it over to azuka who will walk us through some of the budgetary factors associated with the concepts to date. Azuka Sharan, Thank you Sean. All right, so we put together preliminary budget analysis. Out of the
058total allocation for the high school project, $150 million has been projected towards the construction cost. As we prioritize the educational programs, the teaching and the learning spaces, the common areas, and the shared spaces such as gymnasium, they total up to $149.8 million. On the right hand side, we have some optional programs that we're still exploring, including aquatic pool, underground parking, and co-located partner uses such as Teen Wellness Center, early childhood programs, and other DCHS spaces. We're still working with the city. on the budget and the potential of these programs. And we're exploring different financing options for the aquatic pool program. Here's a high level cost comparison of the concepts. As Sean mentioned, the Crescent concept has a little bit more elaborate form and larger footprint and therefore it may potentially cost more than the other
059two concepts from the form and massing perspective. As far as number of stories, currently the hand and the pinwheel concepts, they have five story sections of the building and that again may drive the cost slightly higher than the crescent concept. We are still working through and fine-tuning these concepts, and some of these concepts may drop down to four as we fine-tune our programs. From efficiency perspective, as far as overall square footage and grossing ratio to the educational specifications programs, the pinwall comes in at the best, the hand at better, that's at second, and then the crescent is the third. Again, as Sean mentioned, the roof space for Crescent does provide more potential for the roof mounted solar panels. All three concepts will require some sort of surface mounted panels as our roof space is not
060enough to offset all of the energy requirements for the concepts. However, The Crescent does have a larger roof space, which will accommodate more roof mounted panels, which costs less than the surface mounted solar panels. Aquatic facility. Currently, it's not within ACPS budget. Again, we're exploring different programs and funding options for this program. We had a preliminary discussion on the net zero requirements. Currently, the PV. To achieve the net zero for the pool is approximately $1.2 million to offset the energy requirements for the HVAC and the dehumidification systems. Here's our calendar for the stakeholder engagement. We've had two community meetings on the concepts, as well as we had two meetings with the superintendent advisory team. We had great turnout. We had received multiple feedbacks. We have actually a comment form open right now until Sunday, soliciting
061comments. And we have another meeting scheduled on March 25th with the superintendent's advisory team and the community. We do have an EDT meeting coming up on March 24th. This meeting will be open to all TC Williams staff members and we'll be going over the three concepts and soliciting feedback. On April 8th, we're anticipating the vote on the concept and on April 12th, we'll be providing an update to the superintendent advisory team on the vote of the concepts. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Erica Gulick. Erica, are you still having issues? Hey, can you hear me? Sorry, I switched to the phone. You can hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Sorry about that. And thanks, Azuka, for taking it on. I'll turn it over to Dr. Hutchings and the chair
062for questions. And Madam Chair. All right. Thank you, everyone. That was a great presentation. And so I see a hand from Ms. Lorber. Actually, Chris's hand was up first. Mr. Suarez raised his hand first. Mr. Suarez? I think that was residual from before. Sorry. Oh, okay. The only reason I wanted to see, because my comment, I'm a little concerned, will not come across as, I don't know, quite as positive as it should. It's a wonderful presentation. I acknowledge all the work that goes into this, but I was on the advisory committee for the MacArthur build, the MacArthur build. And there seems to be a tendency now to put so much emphasis on beautiful architecture and appearance. find that a little off-putting. Many of the first drawings of MacArthur, they felt like they wouldn't fit in
063the neighborhood. And I'm having trouble picturing, and perhaps I'm taking too literally these samples of giving us an idea of what the different schools would look like. But I'm thinking about that neighborhood and thinking about T.C. Williams itself. I think I had imagined that we would do something. I mean, even T.C. Williams itself seems a bit huge, but at the same time, I think something that's a little more consonant with the neighborhood. I realize that's not a residential neighborhood as such, though right on the back of it, it is. Anyway, I'm just a little taken aback. That said, I guess I like the idea of the school that has four stories instead of five. I like the larger footprint allowing us for more solar panels on top. It's a concern about the parking. I understand
064that. And I don't know if it's a serious difference in availability of parking or not. But I guess, yeah, I don't know how to be constructive in this remark, other than to say that perhaps I'm reacting to some of the materials that are reflected. All of the examples of buildings in the styles that you've given us seem, they don't look like schools to me. That's all. Anyway, enough said. Thanks, Ms. Lorber. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead, Ms. Gulick. I was going to say, I know that you were going to chime in. I think it's important, Ms. Lorber, just to understand that this is really supposed to give the community just an understanding of the conceptual kind of like understanding. And then the graphics are to give people, because everybody, some people need some examples
065to kind of understand, you know, a drawing. And that's to give those visual learners an opportunity to see this is what it could look like or give you some ideas. And one thing that we wanted to ensure we were doing that's very different from the Douglas MacArthur project is giving multiple different iterations so that people aren't focused on just one. So that's why you see multiple for each one of the concepts. So you can't like say this is how it's going to look. It's giving you a lot of different ways that that concept could come to fruition. So really the point and what we hope the community can do is focus on the concept and that's the location of the building, the types of spaces that will be available, where the parking is located, where
066the fields are located. Are they joined together or is the parking in the center or is it on the far east or the far west? Those are the types of things that these renderings are meant to do for this component of the design phase. Ms. Goldick? Yeah, thanks, Dr. Hutchings. And just to clarify, what you're seeing, so like when you're seeing these 3D models on that side, that's just to show you the form. It's not any articulation of materials or anything that it will look like. It's just showing you the form. So it's possible, you know, the first one, the hand scheme really does have that civic presence and almost mimics the form of the King Street campus, I would say, if you were to look at the King Street campus from. you know, the
067bird's eye view. So none of these are showing materials at all. They are, as Dr. Hutchings said, really just about form. And what we try to, you know, any feedback from the school board is helpful. What we try to talk to the advisory team and the community about is, you know, what parts of them do you like? Because maybe there's some hybrid. We don't have to pick between these three, but maybe there's some hybrid. Maybe you like where the parking is in one and you like the form of another. And, you know, you're... Stating four stories might be preferable having space for the solar panels to be on the roof that's that's great feedback and things we can consider but. Just to reiterate that nothing here is showing you what the building will look like
068it's just showing you how where it would sit on the site how how the massing might be configured. That blue you see in these might be where windows are but that's not even necessarily where they'll end up being so just to. kind of give people for that clarification. I apologize. It's my literal, I'm so literal, you know, but anyway, no, no, no, it's a good, it's a good opportunity to explain it. So thank you for that. Okay, thank you for the presentation. And I mean, I guess I was also having a question a little bit about the process. I think when Douglas MacArthur came to us, it kind of got narrowed down to two and we received, you know, kind of like the community. The community was very involved. Obviously, it wasn't a pandemic, but,
069you know, they seem to kind of lean towards one of the two. So I was interested in just kind of hearing. you know, how this is going to come to us on the 8th and what additional information we'll be receiving. But I can just give some personal feedback on the concept that I'm seeing. And I did have a little bit of the reaction that Ms. Lorber did, just wanting to emphasize, because I know when the concept comes to us, that's the one time we're kind of voting as a board. And so I know, you know, the feedback I heard about MacArthur, too, was that There were a lot of really unique elements in the design, which are nice, but they're very costly and the community just really wants a solid, you know, good building for
070the educational purposes. But I liked the concept three, the pinwheel concept for a couple of reasons. One is that I like the fact that both of the academic classroom wings are kind of a long braddock road and the The gym is kind of to the back, but the gym can be accessed by both sides of the building, by both parking lots. And I also think having the parking lots on either side of the building will be useful as someone who's, you know, been to the Minnie Howard site both for to go to the school, to go to civic meetings, as well as taking my kids to games at the field. Like, I just think having the parking on either side would be really helpful. And it is nice on the other designs where the bus
071loop kind of comes across the front, but I think the added addition of the basketball courts would be, you know, I just think, and the walking path and everything would really make it a great enhancement for the community. I was curious to ask about, in addition to the question about how it will come back to us on the 8th, Is there co-located space like within this design or would that be like an addition to what we're seeing here? And I'm also curious where, and maybe this is like way down the road, but how, how does, where does public transit come in? Or I guess that maybe can be adjusted, but I'm thinking, is there like a dash stop around here? Or maybe if you could just talk a little bit about that and the movement
072between the two campuses. Do you want me to take that, Ms. Gulick? Yeah, why don't I start and then Omar? Okay, all right, great. So thank you, Dr. Reeve, for that feedback. So when it comes back to you on the 8th, we are anticipating we'll have more better developed budget information related to the budgets between the different concepts and seeing if there are any costs. What we showed you tonight is kind of our best evaluation, but not necessarily from the cost estimator. So that's one of the things you'll be receiving. We also, so Perkins Eastman is developing kind of based on feedback that we've received from the community, they will be developing revised concepts. So adjusting these slightly, there's a potential we may narrow it down to two and we may, you know, have a
073hybrid of some of the options or something to that just to make the discussion a little bit easier with the community and with you all on the ACE. And then just we'll be able to bring to you all of the feedback that we've received over these two weeks. Just to touch on co-located space and public transit. Currently in all of these concepts, we do include the pool as well as the some of the DCH, the Teen Wellness Center and some of the DCHS and early childhood are included in these three concepts. That's one of the things we noted on the stories was that if the, if it was in our discussions with the city, the early childhood program does get removed that these buildings, particularly the first and third concept could be reduced from five
074to four stories so that they are currently included. So hopefully these buildings will only get smaller. And then lastly, on public transit, this did come up in our advisory team meeting, as well as with the community. It's my understanding that DASH bus stop that our students would use is currently located, I believe, at North Early Street, kind of at the back, and students kind of walk from there. But again, we have a great partnership with DASH, as you all know, and we continue to work with them on the routes and supporting our students. But Omar, if you want to make additional concepts. I think you covered it all, but I would just say that in addition to the DASH service, we're interested in all forms of mobility and accessibility into the site. And so the
075pedestrian network is really of primary importance to us as students are going to be coming in and walking in and making sure that the design manages the vehicular movement around the school to make it as safe. as possible, as safe as we can make it for the students. Thank you. Next up we have Ms. Gentry. Thank you. So I thought it might just be helpful for my colleagues to hear a little bit. I'm fortunate enough to be the board liaison on the superintendent advisory committee. So I've been able to attend the community-wide meetings and I've also attended the advisory meetings. You know, I think you all will be gratified to know, clearly it's a great group of thoughtful people that are asking these, you know, asking questions about parking, asking questions about traffic. You know,
076these are people that, you know, are coming at it from all their different angles, you know, their knowledge of the community, whether they're neighbors or their knowledge being, you know, somehow involved with, you know, our families and things like that. And so they're really asking all those questions. And, you know, one thing I would say is that You know, there's, I think so far, you know, you're seeing that people, you know, there's no clear front runner in some ways that makes it harder, but in other ways it's nice because there's, you know, there's clearly people are seeing really good things about all three options. One thing that did come through very clearly, both in the community meeting, but also in the, you know, the advisory committee is that what's really coming, you know, kind of
077front of brain is people are very interested and kind of prioritizing when it comes to like making choices, these questions about... transportation, whether it's, you know, how the buses move, how the parking works, or how pedestrians work, you know, that that's kind of a top, you know, concern. And then the other thing is just, you know, in terms of all of the different kinds of, you know, things, how do I put it? It's not that aesthetics isn't important, you know, and they're very interested in, you know, you clearly see that the community was very excited about the natural light and, you know, we heard from the architects why that's important, but it was this idea about addressing. addressing our capacity needs and flexibility, both in terms of the building now and going forward. So I
078think those are things that I find helpful as I'm looking at these plans and I'm looking at, you know, where potential future building could go in these three different plans and what kind of. capacity or flexibility that that offers us. And I'm also just very interested in hearing how the conversation is continuing with the community in terms of the parking and the traffic and the walking. And Ms. Gulick answered the other question that I was going to ask. So I just be... you're saying that before April 8th, and I would hope it was before April 8th because I would want the community to react to this too. The slide that does some of the cost comparison, you'll be able to flesh that out a little bit more because ultimately a lot of times that... that
079does have to be in many instances one of the primary deciders if we're choosing between different ones. So I just was wanting to confirm that we'll be continuing to get more updated information on the cost comparison. And then also if, and also just if the team, you know, who also has been at those meetings, if there were any other observations, either A, if you feel like maybe there was some other points that I was missing or misinterpreting or just other observations that you got from the advisory and community meetings, I think it'd be great for the board to hear that. Thank you, Ms. Gentry. Ms. Anderson. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's amazing actually to sit here and see concepts at all that were actually moving toward building this building because I think the initial major
080project was back when my kids were in elementary and middle school. So it's amazing to be at this point. And I do, looking at all of them and the topography of the site, it really is good that we're moving it to the other side because it actually helps with the height, I think, in terms of moving it, both moving it away from the neighborhood, but also the natural topography going, you know, being downhill makes the height not be as, hopefully will not be as significant. I am concerned. about the parking, just given all the things that we've had. You know, we don't have a chink of pen to spill over here. And, you know, that's the thing that when we had increased, increased number of students, and that means an increased number of staff at
081the King Street building, that was the first thing to give was parking. And I know we've decided that we can't afford the underground parking, but I don't know. This is all surface parking, right? That we're talking about no parking deck even. And I'm wondering if a parking deck could be somehow justified because it could have a roof that had more, you know, PV on it. I don't know. Anyway, that's just my comments, but thank you. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Moving on to Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair Alderton. And I must say, it's good to be back in the school board meeting room today after a year. So glad to be back. My question is around. or in that same realm of fully utilizing all space with space within the new building because of our capacity
082needs and our growing capacity needs. And I was wondering, and I've heard one mention of this, but it's kind of breezed over. So I would love to hear if we're truly planning to utilize the roof space. And I heard mention of one of the buildings is more conducive to doing that, but would love to hear if we're planning to do any outdoor classrooms in the roof or utilizing it in any way. Parkin, Jason, you want to respond to that? Yes, be happy to. Yes, so the answer is yes to all of that. All of the concepts are envisioned to have affordable take panel arrays to... equalize the energy production of the building with what's being consumed throughout the year and aspire to be net zero energy on site. And that is significant. When you make
083that commitment, how do you get to that? So amplifying the roof is one. One idea, making the roof larger, that might actually even lead to some sort of architectural treatment where you have a building that, you know, creates perhaps overhangs to amplify that roof area because you're trying to get as many photovoltaic panels as you can. There are some places where the building massing. has the potential to drop down and create outdoor learning environments that are elevated where some of this technology can actually be evident and present and close by to provide the students a learning opportunity there as well. There's many of these high performance buildings, they have a lot of these bells and whistles, but nobody can see them because they're either in a basement somewhere or on the roof where they're inaccessible.
084And so the aspiration of the design here is to make some of that great technology poppable and touchable for the students. So there's an opportunity for creating a safe environment that's elevated in the building where this can happen. Also the ground plane, your reference about creating outdoor learning environments can extend to the ground plane in the surroundings. And so we are imagining the courtyard to play a role in that, but also in some of the concepts, in particular, the first one, the hand concept. There's an opportunity to create outdoor learning environments in between the fields and the building where they can be very readily accessible from the school. So thank you for the question. Thank you. Moving on to Ms. Nolan. Thank you so much, Chair Alderton. Apologies, I'm not sure which individual is the
085best person to address this question to, but I received some feedback from the community just asking about the use of the tennis courts and would it perhaps be a better use of field space to have a regulated field and a warm-up space. So I didn't know how to respond, so I was just curious what the thinking was behind that so I could respond to those questions as they come in. Thank you so much. Thank you. So I think going into this project, the assumption was that we would replace what is currently there. But I do think we did hear a few comments, including from our student advisory team members, about wanting to make sure we had full-size basketball courts. So we will continue to look at the programming of the outdoor areas for athletic or
086PE use or community use as we move forward in the design. Thank you, Ms. Gulick, and thanks for all your hard work and effort. Ms. Thornton? Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much to everyone involved in developing these concepts. I definitely noticed a lot of work involved, and I did just want to echo that, you know, we do need to learn lessons, I guess, from previous projects. And one of the key lessons that Dr. Reeve did point out is that, you know, utilizing community's feedback sooner rather than later is definitely something that we're always trying to do more of. And definitely, I think for us, it would be helpful to kind of know which way the community, based on the feedback that we've received thus far, which way the community is kind of
087leaning as far as the design concepts that have stood out the most. But with that said, I'm going to go ahead and do a little bit of comparison now because it'll help me in kind of decision making further down the road. But based on the three concepts, number one, I definitely like the aspect of keeping all aspects of the school like visually connected. So especially with like the fields and making sure that from all aspects of the building, you can kind of get a nice overview of the full site. So that is one thing I did appreciate. And of course, as Ms. Gentry noted, some of the key themes that everyone's concerned about is parking and overall traffic flow and pedestrian flow. And just based on the three concepts, my estimation seems to be like
088the Crescent scheme, for example, requires a bit of management between the cars and the buses. And to me, that definitely did not seem to be, you know, very beneficial. So I was just hoping to get further clarification from the design team specifically about which of these three concepts do you all think most maximizes parking on the site and which requires kind of the least amount of coordination, especially when thinking about the timing of the buses and what potential overlap there might be. And then secondly, if I can just throw in another question as well. I'm hoping to get further clarification on when the board will need to make a decision on those optional design concepts. So for example, it's looking like the pool is not going to be feasible for us, but will we need
089to make that sort of decision by that April 8th vote? Thank you. I apologize, Ms. Thornton. I had to get up to speak to someone. I did hear your second question regarding the pool. And so I'll address that one. And then if a member from the team can address your first question. I think we're working internally on the pool. Currently, the pool is not within the school board's budget, and so it is not something that we can afford. We're not anticipating we'll have any additional funds. And so the pool is not something that we can pursue for the school board at this time. However, we are looking internally and starting to have some conversations about what potential partnerships are out there and what... could we do to still potentially deliver the pool for the community
090and for ACPS through a P3, a public-private partnership kind of opportunity. So all of these concepts that you're seeing have the pool. I believe all of them are below the gymnasium. And so in the event that we decide at a later date to take the pool out, it just is a reconfiguration of moving potentially the gymnasium. to the first floor. And I think Perkins Eastman did a really good job of considering that when they developed all these concepts. But if I can ask other members of the team to answer on that question, maybe Omar and then the first question. Yeah, yeah, certainly. Thanks. Thanks, Erica. Yeah, and it was related to the management of buses versus cars related to how much parking is available and the flexibility there. And you're absolutely right. You've put your
091finger on, you know, one of the issues with the Crescent scheme and the way the parking is shown is that it requires a bit of management between buses and cars. And so the aspiration really, and it's evident in the other two concepts, is for a separation of buses and cars. Now, one thing, one important detail that is fair to point out now is that we're also designing those surfaces where the buses are parking, queuing up for picking up students and dropping off, to also be used as parking, temporary parking during the day. The buses are only there in the morning and in the afternoon. But in the middle of the day, we would like to stripe that surface in a way that it can be of use for the school and therefore providing a bit
092more flexibility for parking. So that's also available to us. And I hope that I've answered your question. If I didn't, please. And Omar, I think just to add to that, the other thing about the double parking is that it provides also parking for the department because we do need parking for the events and games and such. So the double striping for the bus slope provides that opportunity. I think that Ms. Thornton was asking which concept provides the most flexibility as far as parking. I think the pinwheel scheme. I choose that because it's the most sort of the compact scheme out of the three. So you're seeing more slightly more green space and slightly more opportunities for parking. Yeah. With the hand concept, the close second. Thank you. Okay. I have another question from the screen.
093Thank you, Chair Alterton. Ms. Gulick, I wanted to just talk a little bit more about the pools. And can you tell me if we've exhausted all talks and negotiations with the city in being able to partner with them on the school? And I just want to make note that our swim and dive teams have never had a regulation-sized pool. They have to go outside of our city. to have their meets. Right now they go to the St. James in Springfield. And we, you know, I think we should try and push as hard as we can to make this happen for our current students, for our future students. And I know everyone is very supportive of this, but I just would really like to know if we are pushing as hard as we can to find
094the resources to have a pool in the new Minnie Howard building. And when will we find out if we do secure a partnership? Dr. Hutchings, did you want to address any of that or do you? I'll start off with just addressing that. We are, and you can conclude, Ms. Gulick, but we are working directly with the city in regards to, you know, any type of co-location, specifically in regards to the pool. I know at this time, the city has not supported funding for the pool, but I know there are some other entities that we are trying to explore. And as early as this week, and I know we're having some meetings next week as well about this, to develop some type of P3 that is a public-private partnership. so that we can fund the actual
095pool, because we do believe that it could be an asset, not only for ACPS, but also something for the community as a whole. And that was one thing that we discussed even at the beginning of this high school project of how can we ensure that, you know, our schools are bringing our community into our facilities and that they're able to utilize it when it's not being utilized by our students to learn. And I think the pool is a really, it's, it could be one of many things that I think could bring our communities in. We hope to have some more kind of preliminary data in regards to this public-private partnership by the time we get to April 8th, just more so of like preliminary ideas, people we may have contacted and things of that nature.
096But I don't know, Ms. Gulick, if you want to add any additional comments in regards to that. Yeah, I think, you know, we've heard pretty clearly and agree that the pool is definitely a community need, as well as for our students and for our swim team. And so we are working towards it. I would maybe suggest for certainly for the April 8th meeting, but maybe if there is information available sooner that we can pursue that through a board brief. Ultimately, we anticipate it would probably have to be through some procurement action if we do go down the P3 route. So certainly the school board would likely be involved in that process. And as soon as we have more information, we'll certainly share. But we are pushing for it. We do know it's a need. A
097couple of things the team has done so far, we've come up with, I think, I want to say eight different iterations of the pool to include different amounts of lanes, different lengths of those lanes all within competition regulation size, as well as, you know, do we have a diving well that's integrated with the pool or separate? Do we have a training pool for some of our younger swimmers? Those kinds of things. So we're definitely looking at those options as well as we, the Perkins Eastman team, and we have not found another net zero energy pool facility in the U.S. And team, correct me if that is wrong, that is currently built. And so on one hand, that creates that financial challenge, roughly $1.2 million just for the solar. to be able to have the pool
098function as net zero. But on the other, it may create an opportunity for some investor or other partner or private entity who would want to have their name on that. So we'll certainly provide more information. And we agree, Ms. Green, that it is a significant need and we will continue to push and do everything we can to include it. Thank you. Okay, it looks like I have one last question from Dr. Reif, unless that's residual. No, I have a question. Thank you. But I did want to just, you know, second and thank Ms. Green for asking that question about the pool, because I really agree. It's not just for our secondary students, but we have, I think, a really maybe... Unknown secret in the city is that we have a program where we're teaching elementary
099students how to swim. And that's just such a great opportunity for kids. I mean, thinking about the children and youth master plan that we just heard. I mean, the fact that our school division has been able to do that through a partnership has been really fantastic. And it would be wonderful to have a space to be able to continue that. My comment was, since you had talked about, you know, just any suggestions or feedback about possibly integrating different designs or whatever. Ms. Anderson had brought up the issue of a parking deck. And I guess I wanted to just explore that a little further because if you look at the pinwheel design here, I mean, one option might be to move that kind of middle classroom block a little more forward and put the parking deck
100back there behind. behind it where you have the second parking area that was kind of hidden that you spoke about. So is that something that, would that be a significant addition of cost to do a parking deck or what are your thoughts on that idea? So I see that Omar is smiling and it is because if you look in, so our concept book I know is almost 200 pages, but the team did explore several different parking options, including I think the very option that you're proposing, having the parking deck in that back corner. So it is something we have looked into. I think we've, of course, parking, just for reference, a parking space at grade might be $5,000 a spot, a parking space in a deck might be $30,000 a spot, and a parking space
101in an underground garage might be $75,000 a spot. So those are kind of the cost differences we're dealing with. That being said, I think we certainly want to reduce as much at surface asphalt as we can. And a parking deck is definitely one of those options that might be affordable. We just wanted to set expectations. And so that's why we're showing a surface parking. But absolutely, Dr. Reif, we will continue to consider that. Mr. Suarez? Yeah, I'll keep this short. I just wanted to echo my colleagues on the pool. I really hope that we can get the regulation size pool for our kids in the city. And also just offer my personal support to staff and if there's anything the board can do to help with the P3 partnerships or send letters or push, you
102know, if we need that additional resource, you know, I certainly. on behalf of myself would want the board to push that. And then I just had a quick question because since you all mentioned the P3s, I saw a press release that about three days ago, individual, I think Julian Gonsalves. was brought over by the city to be like a city manager, assistant city manager on these P3s. So I'm just wondering, since he's new, have we talked to him about this yet and potentially used him as a resource to be able to make this happen? Yes, Mr. Suarez, we're already reaching out to him as soon as we saw that press release too. And we were like, perfect timing. Good, good. All right. Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you, ACPS team, for the presentation. Folks from
103Purpose Eastman, thank you for joining us. And we look forward to more info, hearing what the community has to say, and looking forward to April 8th. So with that said, the next item on our agenda is the Ad Hoc School Board Advisory Support Committee. This should be a quick item. It is an action item. So if I could have Ms. Nielsen put up the memo just for everyone to see. That's okay. Thank you. So basically, the school board has several advisory committees. that pretty much support our work. Our advisory committees have been created to facilitate the provision of community input, give suggestions to the school board, and give recommendations to the school board. And so we really want to put some effort into strengthening these partnerships. We are proposing to form an advisory committee. It
104is ad hoc. And the goals are pretty much to develop some processes and procedures for strengthening the school board relationship with our advisory committees. And also one of the very important goals that fit tightly with our strategic plan is to really. focus on how we can diversify membership in our committees. We really want our advisory committees to start to represent and look like the community of students that we serve and the families that we serve. So with that said, as the chair, I've recommended four board members, Ms. Jacinta Green, Ms. Lorber, Margaret Lorber, Dr. Michelle Reif, and Heather Thornton to serve as the members. the appointed members to this ad hoc committee. And so it does require action from the board to approve. Madam Chair, I move to approve the ad hoc school board advisory
105support committee. Second. Okay, so I have Mr. Suarez who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. Is there any discussion before I call for the vote? Okay. So I will call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Yes. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. And Christopher Suarez. Yes. Thank you. So the vote is 9-0. And I'm excited and ready to put. my fellow board members to work. So, and thank you all for agreeing to participate in this. I think it's very important. And I think we can, it can go a long way for us. So I really appreciate you guys volunteering to do this. All right. And moving on to old business now. We have an update on our hybrid phase reentry transition plan. Dr. Hutchings. And thank
106you, Madam Chair. Before we get started to our presentation today, I just want to tell our team, and I want to personally tell our team. I know that you all have been working so hard and I want to thank you because I have been able these past three weeks visit our schools, our classrooms, and I mean it has really been a very efficient and smooth process and I know sometimes unfortunately our staff they don't get to hear. the positive comments, right? They don't get to hear job well done or thank you for opening our schools or thank you for showing up. Thank you for coming during the pandemic when many people were still at home. All of our custodians have been in our building since March. Our cafeteria workers have been working since March outside
107and making sure that we have lunches for our families. And our finance people have been making sure people are getting paid, making sure that they got their tax information forms in January. I mean, the list goes on and on. Our principals who are tirelessly working, our teachers, our paraprofessionals, I mean, our nurses, the list. And I know I'm going to miss somebody, so I'm just going to say everybody that has contributed to this. And I just want them to know on the record that we truly appreciate everything that you have done. throughout this entire process. And we know we still have a lot of work to do. And I know that at times it can be overwhelming and it can feel as if everything, meaning the whole world, is on your shoulders. I think that...
108What we have to do, I know what I have to do as superintendent, and I'm hoping that the board can also keep this in mind, is that you can push the staff so far that they can no longer do anything. We have to be very careful in balancing the amount of work, the amount of stress, the amount of time and energy that everybody is being required to put forth at this moment. Everyone is in a global pandemic. We are not immune from it as ACPS employees. So we still have families that have been impacted. We still have children at home who need schooling. We still have spouses who might need our assistance and loved ones who may need our assistance. And we are still working 100% and harder than ever before at this particular time.
109And I just wanted to say personally to our staff. We see you. We hear you. We respect you. We appreciate you. We love you for everything that you are doing. And I seriously mean that. And I think sometimes things can get lost in the shuffle because sometimes the things that are posted and the things that do make the news are not always in favor of what we're actually doing behind closed doors. And it is my job to make sure that the truth is revealed. and that the kudos are given, especially when they're deserved. I'm not gonna give you a free kudo for nothing, but you deserve kudos for everything that you have done to make this possible for our students to get back this week. So just thank you for that. I'm gonna turn things
110over at this time to Dr. Mozingo to begin our presentation for this evening. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchins, and good evening, everyone, and we'll go right to the essential questions for this evening. Okay, here are the essential questions that frame this presentation. What is the current health guidance from the Centers for Disease and Control, the Virginia Department of Health, as well as the Alexandria Health Department? And you will hear shortly from Dr. Herring. What are some of the updates that we will provide tonight regarding the returning students, vaccination polls, recess logistics, and a little sneak preview of the summer? learning opportunities. And finally, we just want to highlight again for the board and the public some of the future planning efforts under Sprint 5 to ensure a smooth opening for next school year. And
111now we'll turn it over to Dr. Herring. Good evening, Dr. Mazingo. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Yes, we can. Thank you for having me here this evening. Dr. Stephen Herring, Director of Alexandria Health Department. This is the new updated metrics that the Centers for Disease Control has promulgated and that the Virginia Department of Health has adopted. And they've done a couple of things. One is on the left side is the combined core indicator. And this actually combines the two top things on the right side. And I'll talk about those first. And the first, and even before getting to that, if you'll look on the bottom left, you'll see that there's four different categories. There used to be five, and now there's four of the risk of transmission within a school setting. There's high,
112there's substantial, there's moderate, and then there's low. So the upper right, we can see that the number of new cases per 100,000 residents in the past seven days. And we had been in the very high category, high risk category, and now we're in substantial. And we're dropping. I can say that there has been a plateau and even an increase over the past few days. Only time tells how long it will be before we get to that moderate and low level. Look at the next metric on the right side, and we're actually at the low level when we look at the percent positivity over the past seven days. We're at 3.4%. I'm not going to spend a lot of time at the bottom right. The bottom right has to do, the first one has to do,
113how have we done over the past week compared to the prior week, and then the other two are hospital metrics. All of these are on the VDH website, and they're updated every Wednesday for a period of time through the previous Saturday. I have asked the Alexandria Office of Communications and Public Information to start including this on the e-news on a weekly basis. This is only updated each week, and they're looking into doing this. It's a little more complex than this. PowerPoint shows. But I just want to put that out there. I do want to talk about a couple of other things real quick. One, it's buried here in the text somewhere that another very important aspect are what are the mitigation strategies. And I've said this before, and I'll keep saying it as long as
114it's true. I agree with Dr. Hutchings when he says only give kudos when they're deserved, and that can give kudos to ACPS in their approach of the mitigation strategies. I've been out to one of the schools and they're really using the six foot distancing and they're using the masking, the consistent and correct use of masking and that's going to be very important. I do want to address the issue of six foot versus three foot. There are some organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics, for instance, that says three foot is good enough. The Centers for Disease Control, however, is saying six feet. And the reason the Alexandria Health Department is saying six feet, and it's congruent with what every other Northern Virginia health department, health district is advising their schools of maintaining the six feet,
115is because when we count Who is a close contact to a case? A case is when somebody is infected, they're called a case. We do a case investigation and we determine all the close contacts. Close contact is anybody that has spent 15 minutes and that's cumulative 15 minutes, not just 15 minutes at a given, you know, straight 15 minutes, cumulative 15 minutes within six feet. So we're using that definition of a close contact as our recommendation because that way when there's a case, not if there's a case, when there's a case in a school. And when people have maintained a six foot distance, that means we don't have to quarantine three, five, eight, 20 people because they've maintained the six foot distance. And that is the reason that we're recommending to schools to maintain that
116six foot of distance. We've come a long way on vaccinations. We have really focused on our child care providers, our pre-K 12 teachers. and will continue to do so. I believe we've had a lot of really good uptake with the schools with regards to vaccination, and that should make people feel more comfortable because one of the things I can say about all three vaccinations, this is like one of the most exciting things in public health, in science, in decades. I mean, we've known about this virus for about 13, 14 months, and we're already vaccinating people. And when you get fully vaccinated, it's virtually 100% sure that you will not die, that you will not need a hospital. That is absolutely amazing. And so I want to encourage everybody who is listening on this meeting to
117register, if you've not already registered, for a vaccination. Because I think we are months away of getting this under wraps. The one thing that we have of concern is what we call variants. Those are mutations of the virus. Variants and mutations are not unusual. It happens all the time for all viruses, but we have to watch it really closely because if we don't get the virus under control before new variants mutate or become evolved, they could actually not be impacted as much by the vaccinations as the current main coronavirus that's out there. So again, I want to say thanks to ACPS for their collaboration. Everybody needs to get vaccinated. Everybody needs to continue to do six-foot distancing and wearing masks until we have a large percent of the population that is vaccinated. So that's my
118report. Thank you. And as we go to the next slide, I know that you and others have seen this before, but it's such good news. It's good news. And it's again, it's purpose. We decided to purposely use the green color to illustrate something positive. And that is that as Dr. Hutchins indicated earlier, staff, community, families, students, teachers and others, we've actually transitioned in students on March the 2nd. March the 9th and this week, March the 16th. And as he indicated in visiting the schools, it's just been absolutely wonderful to see so many children back in classrooms and learning. So it's been really good. So again, this is our phase re-entry timeline and it does illustrate for you the groups of students whose families chose to return to hybrid. On the next slide, we have She's
119trying to, okay, stick in a little. Okay, so this slide, you've seen it before, but it's purposeful once again. Well, we have, I think we, all of us collectively have made a tremendous amount of progress. And what we want to continue to do is kind of build these red bricks, which illustrate the different types of work, the priorities, actions that have occurred since early March to lead us to reopening. particularly in the area of family communications, for example, or school simulations or sample schedules. But all of this information has been written in detail and defined in 1.0 all the way to 5.0. So we want to just keep building this out, not repeating, but we have made this information available to many audiences. In the middle, we just show you again tonight, we just highlight
120for you some of the topics that will be presented later during this presentation. And lastly, again, some of the efforts underway. There will be a more detailed presentation later on tonight, later on regarding the summer learning, more detailed updates in terms of the scope of work and the work that will be occurring with all of the SLT members to. plan our focus areas for next school year and we will bring forward a concept and a design for a virtual learning as some of our families are requesting that as an educational model for next school year. So the next slide is Dr. Wilkins. Thank you, Dr. Mozingo, and good evening, board members. I'm Dr. Wilkins, chief of staff, and I will brief the March vaccination poll, which takes place next week. And then I'll close with
121a brief summary of our return to work status and employment of classroom monitors. Beginning this past February, ACPS is providing our vaccination status to the Virginia Department of Education, or VDOE, on a monthly basis. And the vaccination poll is a data collection tool to track our vaccination completion and distribution for school divisions across the Commonwealth. The data informs statewide strategies and interventions, as well as supports the operational needs of local school divisions in regards to the vaccine and related logistics issues. The poll is expected to run through June 2021, pending vaccination completion rates of priority workers or groups, as well as the broad access to the vaccine for all of Virginia. And as Dr. Herring mentioned, getting access to vaccination is just another part of what school divisions are doing to create and maintain the
122most healthy and safe workplace possible in this pandemic situation. And the state wants to ensure that all educators, that includes teachers, bus drivers, custodians, sports coaches, administrators, classroom monitors, and everyone and anyone who works for our schools, that all of us are afforded the opportunity to protect ourselves with vaccination as we transition to in-person instruction at our schools. So it's March. And it's time to take our second poll. And therefore, on Monday, March 22nd, 2021, we will open the poll via an email message to all employees that will be sent out by Ms. Bergo's Office of Communications. And then Monday's notice will be complemented by the efforts of our school principals and district administrators to remind everyone to complete the poll and also to consider vaccination. The format for the vaccination poll is the same
123as in February. In that poll, we gave employees six choices to reply on. Choice number one, choose not to disclose, choose declining the vaccination, waiting for first appointment, receive the first dose and waiting for the second appointment, receive the scheduled second appointment, or completed the two-dose series. In February, 1,641 of our employees registered for vaccine appointments, so we are hopeful that those same individuals have now completed the vaccination series. That is, we are expecting at least 1,641 employees to report a completed vaccination status. next week. Given that access and distribution of vaccine has greatly improved in a month of March, particularly under the great work by the Alexandria Health Department and Dr. Henry's leadership, we really feel confident that we're going to see a great number of completed vaccinations for our staff. The vaccination poll
124requires 100% participation and the superintendent of schools has directed that every employee complete the poll so that we can submit the most accurate information possible to the VDOE. So at a minimum, every employee must at least answer whether or not they want to report their vaccination status. This choice is protected health information and the division will only tally the numerical results and report those numbers to the BDOE, but no individual information will be provided. Excuse me. Additionally, while we encourage everyone to consider the vaccination, vaccination is not mandatory for work and employees may opt not to take the vaccination. Yet again, all employees must answer the poll to give us the most accurate information possible. I would now like to transfer to talk about the return to work status that was also part of our
125February polling. So let me give you a summary of where we are today. So in February, we completed a return to work status poll and approximately 60% of our FTEs were able to return. 1,597 out of 2,648 or about 87% of our staff answered the form. We had requests from staff who were unable to return for a total of 291 for childcare needs and 507 for health reasons. Of those numbers, of the 264... child care reasons, that represents 91% were approved for virtual work status for child care needs, and 396 of the 507, or 78%, were approved for virtual work status for health-related reasons. That means that there is a total of approximately 660 staff who are remote for health reasons or child care needs for the month of March 2021. The criteria for child
126care can range from a closed facility, space-limited facility, to a child in a remote learning situation and the parent must be at home with the child. The criteria for health reasons is substantiated by a physician's diagnosis and signed statement. There is no list of specific medical conditions that would require a virtual work status. Rather, it is the physician's professional assessment of what is needed to care for the patient employee. HR may go through several exchanges with the employee's physician to ensure the need for remote work is accurately justified. This is a by-the-person interactive process, and the HR staff has stepped up for this additional workload. Next month, during April 2021, for those with health concerns, HR will ask each employee to recertify their health status. For those with child care needs, we will also assess
127the need for this support pending the projected March 31 expiration date for child care coverage under the federal legislative extension to the FFCRA. That's the Family First Corona Response Act. Given these steps, we expect to see the number of staff available to work on-site to increase steadily over the next weeks, pending any change in the pandemic health situation. But we are very hopeful that the vast majority of our staff will be available for on-site work in May. Now I'd like to talk a minute about classroom monitors. As of March 16th, we have 165 classroom monitors. 22 health annex monitors, and 21 temperature screeners. That's a grand total of 216 monitors for those three positions. Our focus is on the classroom monitors. We expect to hire approximately 30 additional classroom monitors next week with the goal
128to reach about 200 classroom monitors overall. We believe that that's the number that will be able to sustain the support to our schools. Please keep in mind that we will maintain a steady hiring process for classroom monitors because there will be some monitors who leave because they're temporary staff and they may find other work or stop working in our school for some other reasons. This concludes my briefing and I'll be followed by Dr. Hart. I believe Mr. Finnegan is going to join in. John? Or maybe it's not. Let's go to the next slide and I'll tell you who's next. Good evening. I want to introduce myself before I get started. My name is Kristen Donnelly and after 18 years teaching health and PE and ACPS at both the middle school and elementary level, I recently
129transitioned to the new role of health, physical education and family life education instructional specialist for ACPS. So I'm here tonight to provide an update on recess at the elementary level. I'll be speaking to three areas, safety logistics, activity logistics, and playground and playground equipment. So starting with safety logistics, schools have been provided guidance and have plans in place to ensure hand washing or sanitizing before and after recess, to ensure students continue to wear their masks. while outside at recess and to maintain the six foot distance during low intensity and the 10 foot of distance from others if the intensity increases. In terms of activity logistics, we have suggested that schools create zones for recess and they would consist of field space, blacktop space, potentially classrooms, the playground areas, and other spaces available within the uniqueness
130of each school. This is to allow for contract tracing and to keep students within their cohort. Then groups would then rotate through these zones likely on a weekly basis. Teachers and recess staff have also been provided a resource that has over 75 COVID-safe recess activities that they can use during recess to help guide them in safe, engaging play now that recess is more of a guided play atmosphere due to the COVID restrictions. All of these activities have limited equipment and should be able to be done within those zones. We know movement is extremely important. So in addition to recess, teachers have also been provided resources to get kids moving throughout their day, not just at recess time. And lastly, playground to playground equipment. Currently, the playground area can be used as a space to play,
131but the playground equipment is still being prohibited. Yet, as the warmer weather approaches, we're dedicated to getting our children back onto the playgrounds and using that equipment. The good news, we've met with the Alexandria Health Department and we're currently working with them to develop and design a plan for playground access that includes contract tracing and safety for all. Our focus had been on the return of our hybrid students, but now we're working with principals on the safety and logistics of incorporating that playground equipment and we will finalize our plans in the next couple of weeks. And then we will provide an update to our hybrid families after spring break. So that pretty much sums up what I have to share with you tonight. I appreciate your time and thank you for allowing me to share
132the current recess status and steps moving forward. Thank you, Ms. Dunley. Good evening, Board and Dr. Hutchings. I'm going to give the Board a bite. I think that's the correct terminology on Summer Learning Update. We'll be coming back with a much deeper dive on Summer Learning in our April 22nd Board meeting. And so we will be offering Summer Learning to our students pre-K through 12th grade in an opt-out fashion from July 6th through August 12th. We'll have our traditional four-week session, and then we'll have an additional two-week virtual session for invited students the first two weeks of August before teachers report on August 13th. This is a way that we can continue to boost our students and stop the summer slide, but also help students get ready for the upcoming school year. We're prioritizing, and
133thank you to the facilities team on how much space we actually have. So we're prioritizing. prioritizing pre-k through fifth grade students with seal needs identified by schools. We'll be working with our elementary schools before spring break to identify those students. Our English learners pre-k through 12th grade and also our students with disabilities pre-k through 12th grade. And we learned a lesson last year that our high school students in need of credit recovery that we're going to prioritize those students for in-person instruction. All other students will be taught virtually. We're going to continue to offer enrichment programs that we have been offering for many summers, and those will all be virtual. And we're also working on an option that we can offer college courses to students in high school, and those would be our current 10th
134graders and 11th graders for that option. And we're also working on a partnership with our community partners to allow our students in kindergarten through fifth grade to participate in summer learning, but then go directly into a summer camp or summer experience with our partners. So we're excited about that opportunity. Thank you to Kurt Huffman and his team for taking the lead on that. And then lastly, as we continue our planning for summer learning, we're going to utilize our... learning kit that we had last year. We're going to continue our enrichment options and we'll have some synchronous and also asynchronous options for our students and then we'll be using data to identify students for in-person. And then lastly, for preparing, we will be thinking and having our rising sixth grade students, second grade and secondary students
135focusing on the BOOST courses, if need be, in English and language arts, English language arts and mathematics. And then an important piece that we know, and we're thankful to Mr. Sampson and his team, that SEAL supports will be available to students, whether virtually or in person. And then lastly, we and Ms. Warner and her team are working on a plan that we have ESY in person for students and then also a closing the gap opportunity for our tier three special education students. And Ms. Nickerson and her team are working on how we can have co-teaching for students, for EL students at all levels, and then making sure, again, that we prioritize those students. And if the students identified... to be in person, we will be making a separate invitation to them besides the opt-out form
136for our families. And so at this time, I'll turn it back over to Dr. Mozingo. Thank you so much, Dr. Mann. And just want to highlight for you and the public, our sprint concept. You are aware that in our work with education elements, they helped us really lay out our goals and the various groups that we will continue to meet with and keep informed and obviously secure ideas and listen to. in addition to that updates to the to the board of education so we are right now moving in terms of accomplishing some of the goals under sprint four as well as sprint five i won't repeat those but it's just really important for us to be important to say that there will be presentations on these uh going forward again you just heard a little
137bit about the summer learning program that is being planned by a lot of individuals across various offices and departments, but there will be a plan later on presented to the board. As I said earlier, Dr. Hutchins has asked us to begin to, as senior leadership team members, to begin to scope out our work. for next school year. We're working with EdElements on that process and the template that we want to utilize and to be able to define the major work for the various offices and departments. In addition to that, we've started working just a tad bit with the designing a team that can help research, learn, and develop and present kind of a prototype for a virtual school. Dr. Hutchins will talk more about that. And lastly, there were two items that we learned from
138EdElements we want to continue. That's simulations in the fall and is also an extensive reopening checklist for our schools so that they can also stay on track. And the second area just shows you various groups and collaboratives that we'll continue to meet with. And at the bottom, we highlight again some of our meetings with the school board. And we'll turn the next slide over to Dr. Hutchings. And thank you. Thank you, team. And, you know, I know that Dr. Mann was able to go over the summer learning, kind of like the concept or conceptual analysis of what we're planning to do this summer. I think it's important for us to kind of provide a quick overview. of what our planning is for the fall. First and foremost, I just want to reiterate to what Dr.
139Mozingo just mentioned in regards to our five sprints. We shared these five sprints back in January when we returned back from December, from our winter break, and we were intentional about having our specific focus areas between now and June. We've always had in our sprint five, this is not something that was revised or updated. that we would begin doing our summer learning in March, April, and then begin doing our fall learning beginning in April and sharing out throughout that period of time. So I just wanted to make it clear that throughout this whole process, we have been extremely methodical and strategic with our work. It has gotten us this far. Hence, a wonderful return back into our school buildings. It was efficient. It was effective. It was smooth. and how we were able to do
140that. And that's because we were very, very intentional with our efforts and our steps along the way. With that being said, this fall, we're absolutely looking and planning to have five days a week for our students. We don't need a playbook to open our doors if there are no CDC guidelines. I need to make that very clear. That's not something that we need educational elements to assist us with because we've been opening doors five days a week with no CDC guidelines for many, many years, right? This was our first year doing something that was very different. But in addition to being prepared to just open our doors, five days a week with no CDC guidelines, we are also preparing to look at what does five days a week look like in regards to three foot
141distancing and six foot distancing, which does require additional planning and additional analysis and additional funding and additional space that will have to come to fruition to make that possible, which we are prepared to do, right? But what we have to work through are the logistics. and how all of that will work if there are CDC guidelines in the fall. Yes, we're hearing that the CDC is going to be posting three-foot distancing tomorrow, as early as tomorrow, right? We've heard that, and we follow the CDC. So people, I know you're sending emails. It's OK. But we follow the news every day, too. So we get the same information that the community has. I do think that it is important. for our community to understand that we are staying abreast of all of the newest data. We
142are making sure that we're planning so that we can pivot whenever information changes. That's something that we've been doing along the way. When our community transmissions, when that community transmission rate went down, we were able to pivot to start bringing kids back in March. Everything that we've done has been based on data. and based on information, not based on our assumptions and based on our wishes and our wants, right? We have been doing that throughout this time and we're not going to stop now. So we are following the science. We are following the data. We are prepared to pivot when needed. And we're planning to do that so it can be done efficiently and. and effectively. We also understand that some of our families are still going to want in the fall their children to
143be a part of some type of virtual experience. They still may not be comfortable or may not be able for their children to return back into an in-person learning setting. And we are preparing to develop or planning to develop our virtual curriculum, very different from the curriculum that we currently have in place, but a true virtual curriculum for students who may not return into our school buildings so that we can still provide a rigorous and engaging virtual learning experience for these particular students. So we want our families to understand that is our planning. That is what we're planning. planning to do. We're planning to come back to five days a week. We're looking at our CDC guidelines that hopefully will allow us to do that with no guidelines, right? But we're also working to plan
144for five days a week if we have three foot social distancing and if we have six feet social distancing. And a part of our Sprint 5 is to be bringing that to the board beginning in April, which we will be doing. So I just want that. you know, our community to know that that is our plans thus far. Finally, before we go into our video, I just want to say that I know many of our families are looking to have their students transition from virtual to hybrid. And they want it now, right? They're seeing kids come back. They're seeing our buses driving down the streets. And everybody's getting excited about coming back into our school buildings. We are working through our prioritization on what that's going to look like. We've always shared that we will
145be sharing that out with the community. In April, we wanted to first get our students in. They just got back this week. We want to take these next two weeks to figure out the logistics and how this is working operationally because we've never opened our school doors during a pandemic, right? So this is our first time doing this. We wanted to do our own analysis so we can begin to look at, well, what are some of the implications? for adding additional students and what are some of the kind of steps we're gonna need to take in order to do that. And that is why we're taking these next few weeks or two weeks to observe that. When we provide opportunities for families to return or to go from virtual to hybrid, we are going to
146use a prioritization method. And specifically, we are gonna have to look at students who are having social, emotional, and academic learning needs and significant social, emotional, and academic learning needs first. Those are the students that we're going to need to work with first in getting from a transition from a virtual to a hybrid or in-person. learning option. So that is going to be kind of our sequencing of what we are going to focus on. We're also going to be looking at students who have EL services, the students who have special education services, just to make sure that we are prioritizing. how students are being able to change those options for hybrid. And then we also have a capacity component too at this point. And some of the restrictions come to us at this particular time
147because we made the promise and I'm staying strong to it. And I think it was, I believe it was the best decision that we did make in keeping our students and our teachers together. You know, we wanted to make sure that we were not bringing another distraction or another layer to our students' learning experience by changing them to another classroom or changing them to another school or changing them to another teacher, all of those types of things. So we made that vow to keep our staff and our students together for the remainder of this year. And because of that, that does bring some additional restrictions and it makes things a little more complicated because we're making that vow. But next year, We won't have to be committed in that way because we'll be able to
148divide our groups up by virtual kids and by, you know, in-person students and not that hybrid type approach like we are currently doing with the concurrent teaching model. So that's just to give you a little bit of insight to next year. But in April, we're going to be able to provide some more details about our summer learning, as well as our progress that we're making in regards to our fall session. So I want to turn things over to Ms. Burgos, because I think it would be important for you to introduce the video that the communications team had worked on. And this is a part of, you know, our little exploration and visits and, you know, tours throughout the past couple of weeks. So, Ms. Burgos, if you can just introduce our video. Absolutely. Thank you,
149Dr. Hutchings. And I just want to say watching this video just brought back all the great memories over the past few weeks of visiting schools with you and with Ms. Alderton on Tuesday and many of our other team members and our principals just welcoming us into the buildings. But the best part was just seeing our students and talking with them and their smiles. You could see them even with the masks. And so I think this video really captures a lot of what we saw over the last couple weeks and most importantly how our principals really prepared our buildings to be ready and our facilities and operations team working so hard to have our buildings ready. And so I think you'll see a lot of that. I know we got a glimpse of that in the
150day in the life video but actually seeing our students in the building in our classrooms. and really enjoying. We saw a lot of movement breaks, all kinds of things. So you're going to get a great glimpse of that in this video. And I just really want to thank our team and many of the staff that helped put this together and just participate and have fun with it. So take it away, Sahar. I invite you to watch the video on your own. It was on a major delay, I guess, over Zoom, but it's a little faster than that. But thanks for indulging. Okay, Madam Chair, that concludes our presentation. All right. Thank you, everyone. So I'm going to questions. And the first person I had was Ms. Green. Chair, I'll just end my question. It was
151answered. Thank you. Okay, great. Ms. Gentry? Thank you. I've got three small questions. So if we could get an update on the Monday, the in-person support for students on Mondays. Question two, if the CDC, I get annoyed. I'm like, don't you guys think we have school board meetings? Like, could you plan your announcements a little bit better so that they happen like, you know, like after or something like that? So I'll be writing to, you know, I'll be writing to them about that. But that aside. I appreciate everything that you already said, Dr. Hutchings, about, you know, for the fall and stuff like that. My question is just in terms of managing expectations. If, for example, the CDC was to come out tomorrow and say, actually, three feet is fine and we're saying it's fine
152right now, how that may or may not impact your ability to bring back additional students in the spring? Question three, on slide nine, looking at the sprints, and I appreciate that obviously more work is going to be done, but the whole concept of sprints is this idea of breaking things down into smaller parts, and actually the way that all the sprints have been organized is they've been on these three-week increments. And so I look at... I look at sprint five and it just says March 29th through June 30th. And by my quick math, we actually, we would have actually five, six, seven, eight sprints between now, if we were going to maintain that three week thing, we would actually have eight sprints. And so I was just hoping. you know, by the next time we
153meet, will we kind of have that level of sort of mapping out of what the remaining sprints are going to be? So those are my three questions. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I mean, not Madam Chair, sorry. That's the old, old Madam Chair. Madam Chair Emeritus. That's right, Emeritus. That's right. Ms. Gentry, thank you for that question. That was funny. I think it's your seat. I think it's you. Yeah, I think it is. This is, it's weird. So to your first question, I'm going to ask for Mr. Sampson to talk to that because I know he's facilitating some of our SEAL supports for our SEAL Mondays. and he can speak to kind of where we are with our planning. Sure, thank you. And I do appreciate the question. It's something that
154we're working pretty actively on right now. So we wanted to provide schools and particularly school leaders with opportunities to have these couple of weeks here prior to spring break to be able to focus on, you know, the students coming back in and making sure that those routines. and procedures were in place before we then added another component to their weeks with the Seal Mondays. We are currently working with those principals right now to identify staff who would be able to provide interventions in person to students on Seal Mondays. And then schools have already identified an initial group of students that we could target for. these Mondays and we're asking them to look at them again. Now that we have students back in hybrid, can some of those students be receiving in-person services Tuesday through Friday
155if they're in school, allowing us to maybe focus some of our time on some of those students that have more high intensive needs on those Mondays to really give them that targeted and almost individualized support that they need. We are working across, it's not just a student services and equity. project, we're working in close collaboration with Teaching, Learning, and Leadership to make sure that we're really encompassing the academic and the social-emotional planning pieces as part of this with a real goal of starting this up after spring break sometime in April. And then the second question I was going to ask if Dr. Herring can maybe speak to some of that in regards to the six foot distancing and the CDC potentially coming out with three foot distancing. If you can talk to that first and
156then I'll speak to us how that has an impact on our planning or our availability. Sure. Thanks, Dr. Hutchings. You know, I want to remind people of a couple of things about public health and about science. And it's an iterative process. A year ago, we were telling people, don't wear a mask. And now I look even on the Zoom meeting and a lot of people I'm very happy to see are wearing masks because we learned different things. We learned, OK, wearing a mask reduces the transmission. And that's the nature of science itself. We learn things and we adapt from the things that we learn. The most recent update from the Centers for Disease Control was March 1st on their website about six foot distance. And at that time, they were still saying six foot distance
157is recommended for school settings. And yes, I do see the mainstream media saying, and Dr. Fauci saying, and a lot of people saying that even the director for the Centers for Disease Control was suggesting. But we wait to see what they are saying officially before we make recommendations, because they are looking at a lot of data from a lot of different places to the point. that they can generalize their recommendations. So I just want to remind people, and I know a lot of people think, well, you don't know what you're doing. Look, you changed and all that. And the reason that we make changes is because we have new information, more data that can be generalized to specific places. The same with playgrounds, the same with just about everything public health. So this is moving
158very fast still. And we will continue to look at the data, continue to look at the official recommendations, and we'll be working with our partners throughout the region and the state to collaborate with what our recommendations are. And when the Centers for Disease Control pivots, at that point, you know, if they pivot, that's when we would make our recommendations. And again, those are what we do is we make recommendations and we support. Even the organizations that don't follow our recommendations. It's like a clinical doctor who recommends somebody do something, whether it's exercise or stop a bad habit. If you don't exercise or don't stop the bad habit, you still see the doctor and they still support you. And we make recommendations based off of the best evidence that we have available to us. And to
159add on to what Dr. Herring has mentioned, we don't wait until that happens to then start planning. We started looking at three foot distancing potential a couple of weeks ago, and we're going to be prepared to determine, OK, well, what are the additional seats that are now available with three foot distancing in our classrooms? And then as next month, when we begin to look at. how we transition additional students back into our schools. And these are families that may want to go from virtual to hybrid. Going from six to three feet, it really only helps that transition. It helps that particular process. But we are going to still have to go through the logistics on how do we select the families that want to transition back. And because, you know, sometimes we could be in
160a situation where still not 100 percent of the kids can fit into a classroom with even with the three feet. That's not that's not possible. But we are going to be prepared to to to make that pivot. And next month is the time that we're going to be discussing how do we transition families from virtual to hybrid moving forward? The third question up, Ms. Gentry, can you repeat? Sprints and kind of fleshing out the remaining. So in regards to the sprints, so one is that education elements contract ends next month. So we put, that's why it looks so long for Sprint 5, because internally what we are planning to do is we know that March, April was the timeframe that we're working with for our summer. and our fall openings. What we do know, and
161we can provide a more detailed timeline for those two specific things. What we do know is that throughout June and even beyond, we are still going to be making revisions and updates. So we're not going to say it's done, it's May and we're over, right? Because every time we get new information, we do have to make adjustments to our plans. So that is something that we will continue to do. So that's why you see it extended beyond March, April. But our actual timeframe is March, April for developing our plans. And then beyond that is more refinements to our plans. and updates to our plan. So we can lay out more specific details for the two in particular, our summer learning timeline and also our fall planning timeline. That would be great. Thank you so much.
162Thank you. Miss Lauber. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chair Alderson. Ramey asked, I sort of had the question answered that I wanted to get answered, but I guess I want to review. Just so that I understand for sure. With regard to the three feet, assuming that something comes out on tomorrow, we are pursuing this. Families who call and write to us, we can say, this is something we're going to do as quickly as possible, given what it requires to do these things logistically. And that's what I heard you saying. And then. The other question, hang on, I just, oh no. The other thing I want to clarify, I really like what I saw about the summer program, that there's certain groups of students who will be receiving in-person school during the summer. And I
163noticed it seemed to be the children with the different categories of children with disabilities and EL students. I'm not, whoops. Can you hear me all? Yes, we can hear you, Ms. Lowepa. Well, now you're on mute. Every time something gets put on the screen, my computer loses the screen and I have to hit something to get it back. Anyway, yeah, let me see. English learners is under prioritizing. If you look under prioritizing. Right, right, right, right. So these are the students who, oh, all others will be taught virtually. So in other words, we can, because I've had a lot of questions about when is it going to be possible for. the children with special needs. I love this number of groups that are going to be receiving in-person instruction. Does that mean not just, does
164that mean actual in-person instruction? Do you know what I mean? It doesn't mean they'll be watching their teacher. They'll be in the school, but with earphones. This means they'll be in the school in a room with a teacher. Yes, Ms. Lorber, we're planning for in-person is what we all of us on this call experienced as kids. And the virtual, those teachers will be teaching fully virtual. We want to make sure that this summer experience is we're using the language reignite for our staff, but also how do we reignite for our students. So the curriculum team, along with EL and special education are planning. ways that we can help students focus on English, reading and math and social studies and science, but also movement with physical education and movement breaks, but really to make sure that
165it's engaging hands-on so students can get excited about being back in school for a summer. Okay. Thanks so much. I just, I guess I just wanted that clarified. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I'm going to go to Ms. Nolan. Thanks, Charles. I have two questions. Do you want me to ask them one after the other? Is that okay? Okay, thanks. Dr. Hutchings, I was wondering if we could just get an update about where are we with ACPS's position on playgrounds and recess, because I know that's a question from a lot of parents. So I was wondering if you could just take a moment to just share where are we with that thinking? Yes, and it's hard for me not to look over at you, Miss Nolan. I'm trying to look at the camera. Like,
166I'm like, I'm trying to look at the camera. That's so funny. I think that's funny. So, yes, I know we have Miss Donnelly on here, and she can provide an update specifically where we are with the playground as we wanted to take these next two weeks. to allow for our students to one, transition back into our schools, to do some of the recess and activity protocols that we have in place. And I think it's important for us to stress because many families were under the impression that kids would just be in their classrooms at their desk all day. But there are recess and activities that we have provided for all of our different schools. We're going to use these next two weeks to really get through the logistics of how our play equipment or access
167to our play equipment works because what we have to do is make sure that we have the setup in a way that if there is a positive that we're able to do contact tracing and not be in a situation where now we don't know who was on the playground or who was there and we can't do the appropriate contact tracing protocols but Ms. Donnelly you may want to be able to if I didn't you know clearly speak to to what i know the team discussed if you want to add to that and and i should add thanks so much dr because i appreciate the presentation i'd be curious to know like if we have a sense of when that might pivot so to use the overused. Yes, it's going to happen right after spring break.
168So we're using this time to get our plans finalized. But the goal is after spring break, we'll be able to implement all of our protocols for access to the actual playground equipment. But I just wanted to reiterate the kids are outside now, but we will be pivoting to using the actual playground equipment after spring break once our protocols are in place. But Ms. Donnelly is... Yeah, no, I feel like you covered it all. The biggest issue is just some of our school sites are shared. So we have ASA soccer that's doing school there. We have companion programs. We have rec programs. So we just need to make sure that the playground is scheduled and we know who's on it at what days and what times. So if there were an outbreak, we could do the
169contract tracing. So we're just working on the logistics. And thankfully, right now, the schools already have kind of recessed zones. So that will just be an additional zone that gets opened up that classes can rotate through. So again, we're just finalizing just the plans with the health department. And then it will be presented to the principals and we'll work with them to develop plans, hopefully in the next two weeks. I have Ms. Thornton. Oh, I'm sorry. We're going back to Ms. Nolan. apologies thank you so much ms donnelly really appreciate it and so thrilled to see you in this position um so my next question is actually about summer school um i have i was just concerned about with regards to summer school And maybe this is for Dr. Mann or for you, Dr. Hutchings.
170I'm not sure who wants to respond to this. But my biggest concern is, do we have any thought about we're having, if I read correctly, summer school would start and excuse me, August 12th, and then teachers would be back August 13th. So I'm just concerned about the breathing room or just the logistics and the time we would need for facilities, for infrastructure, for. for staff to get ready to go to then welcome and then hopefully it you know as you just stated we're hoping for a five-day opening and i know that's going to be a lot of work so my biggest concern with summer school is do we feel like we have enough space in between when summer school would end and when the fall semester would resume and like do we have concerns about
171how that impacts staff both from logistical standpoint and even just like an exhaustion and morale standpoint yes You know, I think that's the biggest thing, the exhaust, the exhaustion and the morale standpoint. And that is what we're having to juggle, because on one end, we say we want to make sure that our staff, you know, and their needs are being met and they have the appropriate breaks. And on the other end, we hear our students need their supports. We have learning loss. Dr. Hutchins, what are you going to do about it? Right. So catch 22. Right. I'm just stuck in the middle. But we're working through that and what we've had this conversation just recently. That's why I can speak to this. I want to turn things over to Dr. Mann. The two weeks, the
172additional two weeks are actually virtual summer learning. So there's the traditional four week session, which is in the month of July. And then the two weeks is a virtual. um actual two-week session so and that is to provide us with the adequate time that we need to um to turn over our facilities to do all of our um you know our deep cleaning because we will have students in those buildings um so that we can be prepared for the staff uh to return on that august uh the 13th date so um so thank you miss nolan for for bringing that question up because we did have that that specific discussion that's why it is a virtual two weeks in that virtual um two weeks It is targeted, so that's not for every student for those
173two weeks. This is for students who are still after our four-week session, just could use that additional boost before the school year begins. So it's just giving us like that little bit of extra that we know some of our kids will need prior to the 2021-2022 academic year beginning. Dr. Mann, you may want to talk to how we've set up the actual... the kind of like timeframes for staff so that, you know, we're trying to really keep in mind. the burnout because our team was talking about this burnout component a lot. Thank you so much, Dr. Hutchings. I appreciate that. And Dr. Mann, if you could address like the burnout as well as just like the logistics, like how do we feel from an infrastructure standpoint in terms of like the facilities need to be
174cleaned? You know, I'm sure there's going to be IT needs to address and things of that nature, but then also I'm curious about the capacity. Do we feel confident we'll have the capacity to serve everyone? So thank you, Dr. Hutchings. Appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, Ms. Nolan, for the question. We met, I think we had, three or four summer school meetings today alone with various groups. And so in our meeting with our budget team and HR, we talked about. ways that we can post the job so teachers can decide to teach two weeks. And that would, we have a seven week summer. And so we'll have the one week in between the end of school and then the start of summer school. So a teacher could decide to teach the entire six weeks if they
175choose to, but also posting it in two week increments. So you could teach two weeks and then have a month off or have the month off and then be virtual the last two weeks. So we're trying to build in flexibility there. consider it job sharing. We have been, and I say we, ACPS, between facilities and operations and my team have been meeting actually prior to winter break discussing capacity and space. And so we are figuring out a way to also work with our partners so they can have space to run their programs, but also that we have the seats available for our prioritized group. And right now, the numbers we are using are for six feet distance between students. And so if that changes, that would increase our capacity. We know what schools are closed
176for construction projects. And as Dr. Hutchins mentioned, we know that the last two weeks give our facilities and operations team time to come in and clean the buildings. And then we're also, we've met with technology. They're not collecting Chromebooks or the tablets from students. So anyone that's virtual, that option will still be there. And I must sing the praises of Dr. Hart and Anita Cordova and team as they also provide us with which spaces they'll be doing some tinkering on and we work well and communicating on this part of the building won't be able to be used because we're going to be doing something over here to give everyone the space that they need to continue to get our buildings ready. And then also we're going to essentially be running two programs this summer. We're
177going to be running the in-person and then the virtual. And so we're again asking teachers to only focus on one area. So if you want to be a virtual teacher like last summer and you want to teach from the beach, it's four days a week. So you will be done by one o'clock and then you can head on to the beach or wherever you may be, even if it's in the mountains, but trying to provide that flexibility. So even if you're doing summer school for a two week chunk, you'll actually only be working for eight days and you'll have those Fridays off. And so we're. When we roll out everything after we get back from spring break, we know, and Dr. Hutchins has heard, I think everyone on the team talk about this, the burnout
178and the break and the need for a vacation. So trying to be creative. And then we're also trying to think of ways that we can incentivize people to participate in summer school. So when we come back to the board in April, we'll have some of that fleshed out. If we can come up with any incentives. beyond our normal summer school pay to also get people to sign up for summer school or summer learning. I'm sorry. Reiterating that, I was going to say that we are doing a full update to the board in April on our summer learning that will have all the full logistics in regards to this. But one, I'm just glad that our team is already able to provide the high level kind of conceptual responses that are needed at this point. Thank
179you. Miss Thornton. Thank you, Chair Alderton. And I just wanted to have a quick comment on the vaccination poll going out to staff next week. And then generally, I had a comment about our collection of health metrics moving forward. And so firstly, in hearing Dr. Wilkins talk about the six questions that will be asked on the employee vaccination poll, they all seem to be geared towards the vaccinations that require two doses. And I just wanted to note that Alexandria did approve the Johnson & Johnson one-dose vaccine, I believe, early March. So I don't know if our teachers, that's accessible to them or not, but if it is, we might want to revise the poll to reflect that as well. And then secondly, I know that there has been discussion of us putting up a health
180dashboard on our website to kind of reflect the rates of transmission within individual schools and, of course, at a division level. So I was hoping to get an update on when we could expect to see that type of dashboard and what other information might be included on it, in addition to like what we're seeing from the BDH on their website. Thank you. So I can talk to the dashboard question initially. Are you speaking to a dashboard for positive cases within the school division? Is that what you're referring to or a dashboard for vaccines? So, I mean, it would be great. So if it includes vaccines, it would be great to see the overall transmission levels that we are currently looking at, like what was in the PowerPoint presentation today, and levels of transmission at the
181school level. So pretty much an all-encompassing dashboard regarding all of the data that we're collecting regarding COVID in our schools. Yes. So what our team is actually working on and finalizing now is a dashboard in regards to positive cases within the school division. We currently have in place our communications protocol. So we do. It's not that we have a positive and nobody knows. We now have a process where a positive occurs and people who are identified through the contact tracing protocol are communicated with about. the particular incident. The dashboard will allow for anyone to go and to look at what our statistics look like as a school division. And we're working in partnership with the Alexandria Health Department to finalize that. I know next week, I know that senior leadership team will be reviewing an
182actual draft of that dashboard next week. So we're hoping to have some more information about that really soon. The first part of your question that might be for Dr. Wilkins just to talk to, and this is about the vaccines and the fact that, and maybe Dr. Herring also may want to chime in on this, on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. And I know it's just one dose. And I think on our end, being that we are offering that, and Dr. Herring, you may want to talk to that. We just need to add that question on our... on our questionnaire to, you know, and I think we do have a question right now that says, have you been fully vaccinated? So I'm assuming that is what somebody would select. But Dr. Wilkins, you may want to
183talk to the first part of Ms. Thornton's question. Dr. Hutchings, that's correct. We would just simply make the edit Ms. Thornton to the poll and put in that question or statement that, you know, you've taken the one shot. Johnson vaccine and make that choice available for the staff. I can't speak to whether or not that's available. I'll have to ask that of Dr. Herring. Absolutely. And thanks for bringing this up. We also changed along with Virginia Department of Health and that we're reporting one of two things. Are you fully vaccinated or are you partially vaccinated? So that's the way the report is done on the daily e-news. And that's the way Virginia Department of Health reports it. All right. And to Ms. Anderson. Thank you, Chair Alderson. I have just a quick question about quarantining.
184I'm not getting this straight yet. If you have this, if you've been vaccinated and you're exposed, do you have to quarantine or not? Thanks. And I'll take that. If you've been fully vaccinated and it's been two weeks since you're fully vaccinated and you've had, you're considered a close contact, you've been within six feet for more than 15 minutes of a confirmed case and you do not have symptoms. then you do not need to quarantine. You are asked to watch for symptoms really closely for the subsequent 14 days after last exposure. And if you develop any symptoms, even mild symptoms, you're asked to immediately isolate, to advise your doctor to get an evaluation, and to get tested for COVID-19. Great, thanks. That was my question. Dr. Reif. Thank you for the presentation and just thanks to
185everyone for your hard work getting the kids back into the buildings and to all the staff out there. I know it's been a big lift, a big transition, but I'm really, I've been hearing a lot of positive feedback from the families whose kids have been returning. I wanted to ask a question. I have a couple short questions about the positive cases. I just want to make. I wanted to clarify as well. So my understanding is that when there's a positive case in the school, when someone tests positive, ACPS notifies the health department, which is in charge of the contact tracing. There's also a notice that goes out to the school community saying that there was a positive case in the school. Is there... I mean, you touched on this a little bit earlier about how
186important the six feet is because that is where you determine if someone is a close contact. So if, say, a student was in a classroom and tested positive, would anyone in the classroom have to quarantine? Or is that similar to what you just explained to Ms. Anderson, where they would just monitor for symptoms? Go ahead, Dr. Hutchings. I was going to turn things over to you. So go right here. I just didn't see you on. Sure. I was trying to unmute. It wasn't clicking. It depends. So, and what it depends on is whether or not we can ascertain if the six foot distancing was. accurately maintained. And that will be dependent on the school team that is helping to evaluate the, helping us to conduct the case investigation. So, you know, it's our hope that
187that single case would not be transmitted to others. And there could even be two cases in one. classroom that are not really associated with each other because they both got it from other places in the community, right? And so there could be situations where a classroom actually has two cases, but there are no close contacts. Those two cases contracted it outside the school setting. And there have been instances and stories told that when the schools are doing the right thing, the schools actually can be a safer place than many other environments because they actually have enforcers, if you will. You have adult enforcers around making sure people are maintaining the distance and wearing masks correctly. Great. Thank you for that. And I am looking forward to the dashboard. I know I've seen other divisions. I
188know that the The Virginia Health Department is reporting the cases of transmission within the school, but even just knowing the positive cases in the schools, I think is helpful information. So I'll look forward to the update on the dashboard. And Dr. Herring, thank you so much too for speaking to this issue of the three feet versus the six feet, which has been such a challenging issue. And I know it's been talked about a lot in the media. And, you know, even it's interesting because even the CDC has been much more firmer in their language around six feet than, for example, the Virginia Health Department. So it's really made it, I think, a challenging situation to really determine what is the right thing to do here. But I appreciate you speaking to that. And I'm glad
189that we have been planning for the possibility that that change could come. And I wanted to ask about, you talked, Dr. Hutchings, about we're going to be finding out after spring break about, you know, possibly bringing in more kids into the hybrid learning. And I just wanted to understand how families should expect to hear. Is it going to be someone from the school will contact them? Or if you could just touch on that a little bit so that, because I know we had an issue in December with folks who maybe didn't even fill out the form. They kind of missed the process and they were automatically put into the hybrid. And so just wanting to make sure that people are clear about what they need to be looking for, where this information is coming from.
190So there will be multiple communication channels to inform our families. I do just want to reiterate that back in December, I do want to make it clear that just because somebody didn't complete the form, we didn't automatically put them into virtual. We then contacted them by phone, by text, and by email. continued over a two-week period to try to get in contact with these families to find out, hey, why haven't you or why aren't you completing this document? So we didn't just automatically, I just wanted to make that clear because a lot of people said that that was the case, but we made an effort to try to get to those families who didn't complete it. We'll do the same thing with this. process. Specifically, as we're targeting some of our students who have significant
191social, emotional, and academic learning needs, our schools right now are putting together those lists already. And these are students who are not currently in the in-person learning option. So we're kind of developing those lists now so we can do a targeted effort for those particular students first. because that really will be the first group that we're going to want to transition back into our school buildings. We'll have some more specifics around the full process when we return from spring break. That information will be shared not only through our ACPS Insider and Express, also our school newsletters and a part of our update to the board. And we're going to be reaching out individually to our targeted groups from the school level. So I'll have some more information for you when we return from spring break.
192Thank you. And I just have one final question for Dr. Wilkins. And I appreciate the report you gave about the staff ability to return and on the monitors. You talked about having to ask staff to recertify around their health condition or child care situation. And I was wondering if... I'm wondering how that's being communicated out with staff because I think that I don't know if that's on everyone's radar. So if you could just talk a little bit about how staff is going to be informed about that. Sure. So when the staff was notified that they were approved for remote work in that communication, we did notify them that their status would be reviewed on a monthly basis. So they at least have that knowledge going into this. And so now the next step is once
193we get back from spring break is to send out a second communication to explain that we're going to now review that status. You know, as I mentioned. we are looking at the overall health situation. And I have to, again, commend Dr. Herring and his department because the recertification really is based upon the great work of him and his team in this regard. So for example, he mentioned that he's tracking the health indicators, right? So we will have information to share with these physicians about the status of our health condition here within the Alexandria community. We also will be able to update those physicians about the availability or access to the vaccines, both Pfizer and the Johnson vaccines, and that the numbers of staff who have completed the vaccination series is significantly more in March than
194it was in February. And then the third thing that we will be able to inform those physicians about is about our workplace conditions. Dr. Herring and his office, as you know, have reviewed and certified all of our safety and health procedures in our school buildings and facilities, right? And I'm fairly confident that we either meet or exceed many of the CDC guidelines, protocols, and practices, which means that our overall workplace is a very safe and healthy environment given the pandemic health situation. And so most staff should be able to return under those conditions. Once we get back from spring break, pending any changes in the health situation, we do think that we will be able to communicate to these physicians with more information and have them reassess the capacity or the health ability of our
195patient employees to return for on-site work. Thank you for that. And I just wouldn't put a plug in to maybe, I don't know if that could be something that could be put in the ACPS Insider just to let staff know that that's coming in case. I appreciate that suggestion and I'll work with Ms. Burgos to that end. Thank you. Mr. Suarez. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, so I had a similar question actually along the HR front while we're speaking with Dr. Wilkins. So I guess my understanding is that there are a lot of teachers, you know, who still have child care related issues to return to the classroom. And so one question I just had is, assuming that that remains an issue in the next survey, Are there additional steps we're able to sort
196of take to kind of be able to provide these teachers with more child care options? And I also know that there are the partnership programs that we have with Campania and some of the others. And I know we're working on. finding alternative spaces and venues for them in the event that we continue to expand in the school buildings because I know some of those companion programs and so forth are in the school buildings right now. So I guess my global question is just about what we're going to be doing about addressing the child care needs of our teachers, but then also addressing this child care issue that may happen with some of our partners once we do continue to bring more kids back into the school. So I'd be curious on those issues. I know
197Mr. Huffman on the call as well, who can chime in. I'll start by just mentioning the fact that, you know, as we have more students come back into our school buildings, more families need child care. And we already had limited space prior to students coming back. We really are trying to prioritize in regards to child care slots to families in Alexandria that are trying to get their kids and Alexandria City Public Schools, excuse me, who are trying to get their kids those services. Our family, excuse me, our staff members who live in the city of Alexandria, of course, they have access to these services, but it really is limited. And many of our families who are still having some of these child care needs do not live in the city of Alexandria. that's the unfortunate
198piece because, you know, it's kind of like we're trying to juggle the staff needs, but then also we have our family needs too who need to be back in school. And unfortunately, we can't just do it all. So we have been trying to work with our individual staff members and providing them with some of the resources that are in their cities, because many of our staff, you know, only a third live in the city of Alexandria. So that means two thirds live outside of our city that we are trying to provide them with insight and information pertaining to different programs that they have offered there. But Mr. Huffman, you may have some additional information you want to add to this. Oh, you did great, Dr. Hutchings. You're correct. We've given out resources for staff if
199they live in. a surrounding district, even into Maryland and D.C. We've given a list of resources for staff to reach and look through for child care options. We're also in the event that we may need to have more students are coming back in the building, and that means more of a challenge, like Dr. Hutchings has indicated, for our child care providers, our school day care providers. Dr. Hart and I are talking with Alexandria Academic Development Partners and also some faith-based organizations that may have space, external space that we could pursue, but those are in discussions. It takes a little while to keep talking about what could be available because, as you know, child care providers have different licensing that we have to follow. So all those are in discussion of potentially being. giving some options
200if we do have to ask for external sites outside of our building for child care. Remember, the expansion of child care is really hard for our providers. They're struggling too with staffing and also the social distancing. So as Dr. Hutchings indicated. It's very limited and that's unfortunate, but we're trying to fit every single child that needs it into the slots that are available. And we're so lucky, I tell you, in this community, we have partners that have really stepped up. As you mentioned, Campania, Boys and Girls Club, Alexandria Soccer, the Rec Center, YMCA, they've all stepped up to add slots. into our buildings and thanks to Dr. Hart's work with her team, they're currently in our buildings, still going. And it's a pretty amazing, but yes, we're always looking at what's next, what could potentially
201be next. Thank you. All right, we're going back to Ms. Green and then I'm going to throw myself in. Thank you, Chair Alderton. And my question is also about recess. And I was wondering, is it the CDC recommendation for six to 10 feet, or is that Alexandria Health Department? And also with the CDC guidelines changing tomorrow, will we drop that down for recess? No, Dr. Herring, are you still on the call? Yes, I'm still here. The recommendations for the playgrounds, we actually went to Virginia Department of Health and asked them directly. And they based their information off of CDC guidance and off of the existing executive orders so that you don't want to exceed the executive orders because they have certain requirements for the number of people gathering in outdoor spaces. So that's where that
202guidance came from. And your second question was about the CDC. I didn't remember that one. I'm sorry. I believe guidance on social distancing. I'm not sure all of what's coming out, but some of it is going down to three feet. Will that include the recess areas? If it does, will we change from the six to 10 feet recess? Yeah, you know. Sure. You know, what's interesting is that I can't really say right now. I've already have emailed Virginia Department of Health asking them that if the Centers for Disease Control is changing the recommendation for schools to go from six feet to three feet, does that also mean that we're going to be changing the definition of who a close contact is? Because we're all going to be in a real conundrum if the CDC on
203the one hand is saying three feet's enough. but within six feet is a close contact because then it's going to be, those are not congruent with what we've been doing thus far. So sometimes the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control comes out of different wings or different offices and they don't maintain, they're not congruent with each other. So we will be pushing both from Alexandria Health Department as well as Virginia Department of Health. to make sure that their recommendations are congruent across the board. Okay, that'd be very helpful. Thank you, Dr. Hinn. For us too. Absolutely. Thank you. All right, so I'm throwing myself in here last. My two questions are related to what Ms. Nolan brought up, which is about staff burnout. And one of them is actually related to compensation. So the
204first one is around the SEAL Mondays. Should it, because the, you know, interesting component about all of this is teacher planning and teacher days look really different. And so, you know, Should we continue to have these Mondays that are focused around planning and training? If a teacher or staff member volunteers or puts themselves forward to do additional duties on SEAL Mondays, have we thought about, you know, some type of, you know, compensation for that time that is taken away from? planning. So that's my first question. All right, Mr. Sampson, are you on? Sure, absolutely. Yes, we are looking at compensating staff members for planning. Now, we're compensating them for a loss of planning, and we've worked through that with human resources because they are getting their regular compensation for working on Mondays. But as in
205a traditional school year when we compensate teachers if we needed them to work through an extra planning period or something like that, we would be looking to do the same thing here. Dr. Wilkins can correct me if I've said anything out of place. You're correct. Thank you. Okay, great. And then the second question, with the current structure, I'm curious about how duty-free time is going for teachers, because I think there's definitely been some additional duties just because of, again, the setup. when we're implementing all these very different practices that require a lot of hands-on. And one of the things I was concerned about from the beginning was, you know, teachers having that consistent free, that lunchtime free, kid free, if they would like. So how have we sort of tackled minimizing just staff getting those
206normal breaks that they've, you know, been used to and needed throughout the day. So fortunately, we have our principals here. So we have our lead principals here with us today, as well as our high school principal, which is great, because they can give some insight to kind of what are the day-to-day between, you know, our teachers who are in-person, our teachers who are virtual, and kind of how are they juggling that, and what are some of the responsibilities and roles of them. So I don't know who wants to... Who wants to start off or kick off with that? But I see Rainy. Hi. It's actually, yes. Thank you so much. Hi, good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for having us. So we're very happy to have our teachers back in person. We love our
207kids. We're happy to have them back, but we're super happy to have our teachers back as well because we really miss that camaraderie that we have with them and that spirit of, you know, the relationship and the collaboration with them. And so the hybrid teachers are having a great day. They've been saying that they feel safe. They're very happy to be back with their children. And, you know, they are experiencing, however, a different day than the virtual teachers. So the hybrid teachers, when they arrive in the morning, they first of all check to ensure that they have all of their cleaning supplies and that their PPE is accessible, you know, for students who may come in and need additional PPE and also for the teachers. And then they, of course, welcome the students. We don't
208do hugs anymore, but we do. elbow bumps in the style of Dr. Hutchings. And we welcome the children in and we get them all set up with their technology. And, you know, and then they have breakfast. They wash their hands. They use hand sanitizer. They have breakfast. And then after breakfast, they wash their hands again. They use more hand sanitizer. And then the teachers clean their desk for them. And then we allow the desk to dry. And then we get them set up for the school day. And then the hybrid teacher starts to teach the children. both in the classroom and at home through their technology. And then when we start teaching them, the first thing we do in the morning is we have SEAL lessons for the kindergarten through second grade students. We have
20920 minutes of SEAL for the... third through eighth grade students speaking from the K through eight model. We have 30 minutes of the SEAL lesson. And then we record our lunch count and we take attendance and we start our school day. And then we go on to concurrent instruction. And that is, you know, our math, our reading, our social studies, our regular subjects, our small group instruction. And, you know, our schedules are still the same as they have been. So the virtual children have the same schedule as the children that are. in the classroom and it's a good day. So I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Pascal next and he's going to talk to you about the rest of what the day looks like in the elementary setting for hybrid learning. Thank you,
210Ms. Bynum. And as you just said, the schedule, of course, has remained the same. So I want to address the breaks and the lunchtime specifically. So hybrid teachers do retain supervisory responsibilities for the students in the room with them when... everyone closes down their screen and takes a stretch break or uses the restroom and possibly enjoys a snack. So of course teachers need to step away briefly as well. So schools are working to ensure opportunities for the hybrid teacher to have a moment to themselves. And we're doing that primarily by rotating coverage. for this in the form of having an available staff member go room to room several times during the day so that teachers can also enjoy a short break. And although we don't have the capacity to offer a break that matches the
211length of time for the students breaks, our teachers have certainly expressed appreciation to know that we're responding to their needs for a personal moment to themselves. And then of course, at the elementary schedule we have our lunchtime and schools are using a variety of formats for providing every teacher a 30-minute duty-free lunch within the context of our hour-long lunch and recess block. But the bottom line is that every teacher has a 30-minute duty-free lunch. So many schools are partnering classroom teachers with a colleague who does not have homework responsibilities to share supervision. of students for that hour. For example, I'll watch the students while you eat and then meet me outside at recess and I'll take my 30 minutes when you take over. And of course, there's no context for virtual teachers to supervise recess.
212So plans are evolving for teachers at home. to support the greater good by taking on additional responsibilities such as gathering resources for team use, writing lesson plans, creating slide decks, et cetera, during that recess time for the virtual teachers. So we're still in the early stages of hybrid learning, but grade level teams and departments are working through the ways to balance out these daily responsibilities. And it's been good in many instances to see the virtual teachers. taking the initiative to identify practical tasks they can assume in an effort to keep the concept of teamwork at the heart of our work as we shift into this next phase. So, and then of course, at the end of the day, with our daily dismissal procedures, by and large, hybrid classroom teachers are not being assigned traditional afterschool
213duties. such as monitoring hallways, supervising bus and parent pickup routines. So those tasks are being handled by licensed staff who do not have homework responsibilities. So it's a long but fulfilling day for all of our teachers, hybrid and virtual. They are all working very hard and we could not be more proud of them during this shift. So Ms. Peters is going to share from a secondary perspective. Thank you, Mr. Paschal, and good evening, everyone. Very similar to elementary, our secondary teachers in the morning have a lot of the same responsibilities as far as having kids come into the classroom, getting them ready for the day. In the morning, we do ask our virtual teachers to assist our hybrid teachers in ensuring that all of the students have completed their daily health screener checklist with the
214sheer numbers that's been part of our protocol to ensure that we have a healthy and safe environment. Our advisory teachers are also preparing the lunch forms to ensure that all students have ordered their lunch for the day and also virtual and hybrid teachers are implementing the advisory lesson. From speaking with our hybrid teachers, the concurrent instruction pretty much was summed up into four categories, professional learning, technology implementation, and student reaction. The teachers have commented that professional learning has been awesome and has really helped them acclimate to this new environment. I'm speaking specifically to Mr. Kapelsky, who has supported them, and also the Catlin Tucker that we've had. The technology from our technology services has been awesome. They really commented on how great it is and that it just made the implementation of hybrid learning a
215little bit easier. And then also the student reaction, being very proud to see their students, happy to see their kids. A lot of kids that they were saying weren't so engaged in virtual instruction, but then now that they're there in the building with them, if they need to access them, they're right there. And so they have commented on that. As far as lunch is concerned, Mr. Ballas, Mr. Mazur and I, we looked at our schedule and knew at secondary the sheer numbers that we have. couldn't accommodate 30 minutes. So we adjusted our lunch schedule to an hour prior to going into hybrid for virtual and hybrid teachers. And so all teachers do receive a 30 minute duty free lunch. And so they they have like a buddy system. So 30 for the first 30 minutes,
216we have teachers who are supporting students with lunch while the others are on lunch break. And then when the others come back, group that was supporting students then go on lunch break. And then finally, for dismissal, fortunately, our buses have been arriving on time. Transportation has been awesome. And so we have not had to hold teachers or ask them to remain with students. We've been dismissing on time. And so transportation has been great about that. And so now I'll turn it over to Mr. Vallon. Good evening, everyone. Much like at the middle school, our high school teachers start their days prepping rooms for the arrival of students. There are no official morning duties for staff, although we do have lots of staff volunteers who come down and help greet the kids in the morning and
217help to make sure that the screenings have been done. Our day begins with our Titan Rising block, where students get intervention and remediation from staff virtually, or they attend in-person classes. There's been no change to our bell schedule, whether teachers are virtual or hybrid. So after this, students are released to their first block class where the SEAL lesson is delivered and lunch numbers are prepared. During school day, both virtual and hybrid teachers teach four blocks each day, with one of those blocks being a planning period. That's for both virtual and hybrid teachers. Our bell schedule includes 20 minutes of transition time between classes to give students screen breaks and also time for our teachers to clean classrooms before their next class of students arrives at their door. These transitions are done by announcement and by
218hallway to control traffic flow. much like you heard already, the lunch block, 60 minutes long, hybrid teachers have a lunch buddy colleague in the classroom next door. Teachers have 30 minutes duty-free lunch and 30 minutes of student supervision while they eat. And what we did to keep it all fair, we've asked our virtual teachers to hold 30 minutes of office hours each day to support students in addition to their 30-minute duty-free lunch. And so for dismissal, our hybrid teachers hold students until the hallways called for dismissal but like miss peter said our buses have been there early and ready to go there are no dismissal duties for staff and even if buses weren't there on time we have alternate plans of supervision of those students while they wait that would not impact the hybrid teachers
219great thank you so much guys Okay. Wow. Madam Chair. Yes. One thing I was going to mention that during my tours over the past couple of weeks, I was able to talk to some of our staff members who were in the classroom. And I happened to be there when the students were in encores at our elementary schools. And I asked the question of, you know, because a lot of in-person teachers were kind of nervous about, all right, if my kids are in the classroom, how am I going to get some of my planning and things done? And the kids were actually engaged on their headsets. And the teacher was getting their stuff done. Because there is a teacher, of course, on the screen watching them as well for their encore classes. But it really did
220work out. So it's just us rethinking and reimagining what education looks like. And until you see it firsthand, you really don't know if that is possible. But it is. And I also just want to give just a quick. kind of like insight to some of our virtual teachers too, because I don't want people to think that because teachers are virtual, that their world is so easy. They're at home. Remember, people who are virtual are because they have a medical condition or they have child care issues. That means they're at home with their kids and trying to do school too. And we all know what that is like. So it is not like their job is so easy. being at home and not being in our schools. And it's not like they're not working. Our teachers
221are working extra hard, especially when you're virtual in your own house or wherever you are trying to engage students and you're not in a classroom setting. You don't have all your resources. You don't have the manipulatives and all the different angles that you can do like you can in a classroom. So I just want to make it clear that virtual teachers don't have it easy. And, you know, in-person teachers are having things so hard. We're all having challenges, no matter whether you're in-person or virtual. And I just want to make that very clear to all of our staff. Everybody's working hard. Nobody's getting a break. Thank you. And that's a good point, Dr. Hutchings. You know, it's like a different set of challenges for different each environment. You know, again, I would just reiterate a
222million thank yous to all the staff because who thought we would be here? I surely did not. So, but we're making it through and we're doing a good job, I think. So thank you, everybody. And with that said, it's time for my report. So the first thing would be. 1,000, 1 million, 100 million kudos for the reopening of schools. I had the opportunity to visit, was it 10 schools on Tuesday, Dr. Hutchings? It was a lot. It was a lot. It was a very busy day. It was so energizing to see the enthusiasm among the staff. I mean, all these smiling faces, the enthusiasm among the students. And one thing that I found very interesting was I would expect, especially for the younger ones, the kindergartners, they, when we went into classrooms, Those students look
223like they had been in the school environment all year long. Like they just didn't, it just seemed like. yeah, we're here. We've been doing this all along. And I found that very interesting because I don't know if anybody's ever done a first day of school with elementary school and how, especially with kindergarten, it's always this huge emotional process because it's just such a big change, especially if they haven't done, you know, preschool. But these kids, I mean, to me, it seemed like whatever we've been doing, It definitely seemed like they were ready to transition and they seemed to be doing it well. So that was something that I noticed that really stood out to me. And again, the kids are excited. You ask them, what's your favorite part about being here? Oh, I can't wait
224for lunch. I can't wait for recess. The same things as usual. So and so just. Again, kudos. It was a really good day. And I'm looking forward to seeing how we progress through all of this. And let's see. Secondly, I would like to mention, and this is for the community to know, although some board members and the superintendent are present, our meetings are still technically virtual. They're not open to the public at this time. Public comments will still be held virtually or through written public comments. And as usual, you can join the meeting via Zoom on the ACPS website. So that's where we are at this time. But it was, I feel excited about being back. I felt good to. to come in and do this today. So, you know, we feel it, you just
225feel this week feels like progress. So thank you, everyone. Yes. Yes, everyone. Thank you. And Susan, I mean, just, you know, we've talked through all these logistics, but you just handled it like a champ. So thank you. She said it was fun, everyone. Fun. Dr. Hutchings, do you have a report? So I won't rehash anything that you've already said. So I second everything that you said. I do want to take advantage, though, of this opportunity. I know that we have on our shirts today that we're on this anti-racist journey. And I think it's important for us to honor all of the victims of the senseless acts of violence that were perpetuated in the Atlanta metropolitan area. on March the 16th. You know, I think that as we are on this journey and striving to be
226anti-racist, we have to make sure that we are acknowledging when things are happening, whether it's in our community or other communities, and just be aware of, you know, what we're experiencing as a country. And I'm hoping that we will continue to aim to change that narrative. If we can get it right in K-12, In regards to being anti-racist, children grow up and go out into the world and they continue that legacy. If we can get it right in K-12, they leave us, go into the world, and they can continue that legacy. So this is why this anti-racist work. is so important. And why I appreciate the fact that our board is 100% behind this. This is what you all stand for, our staff as well, because it really is going to have a significant impact
227for many generations to come. It's beyond our terms and beyond our tenure, right? It will continue. So I just wanted to take that moment to acknowledge the victims from that senseless act of... um violence and to thank you all as a board for the anti-racist journey that we're on we're on this journey because the board said this is important for alexandra city public schools and unanimously you all said racial equity has to be the heart of our work so thank you all for that thank you dr hutchins um and do we have any announcements by board members Okay, with that said, Ms. Gentry, would you mind reading us into closed session? Certainly. 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
228of public funds where competition or bargaining is involved and where, if made public, would adversely affect the financial interests of the Board, specifically a contract related to the Douglas MacArthur Project. Second. Okay, so I have Ms. Gentry who, I'm sorry, Ms. Green, who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green? Yes. Margaret Lorber? Yes. Veronica Nolan? Yes. Michelle Reif? Yes. Christopher Suarez? Yes. And Heather Thornton? Yes. All right. So we will move into closed session. All right. Ms. Madam Gentry, Ms. Gentry, could you please certify the closed meeting? Certainly. Pursuant to Virginia Code 2.2-3712, I move that the board certify that to the best... Only public business matters identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened and are
229lawfully exempted by the Freedom of Information Act were heard, discussed, or considered by the board in the closed meeting held on March 18th, 2021. 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? Yes. Ramey Gentry? Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Pausing for technical difficulties. That was a yes again. Okay. We end it with Ms. Gentry. So Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Did I miss anyone? All right. May I have a motion to adjourn? Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn the meeting. Second. Okay. Mr. Suarez seconds Ms. Anderson's motion. I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Yes. Remy Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes.
230Margaret Lorber. Yes. Veronica Nolan. Yes. Michelle Reith. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. The vote is 9-0 and we are adjourned.