April 22, 2021 School Board Zoom Meeting

001All right, we're going to go ahead and move forward and we'll deal with technicalities as we go. Thank you for your patience, everyone. Moving along in our agenda, I will need a motion to adopt the agenda. Madam Chair, I move that we adopt the agenda for April 22nd. Second. Okay, I have Ms. Green who seconds Ms. Gentry's motion. We also... We'll need a motion to amend the agenda. We need to drop the recognition of ACPS principal of the year and teacher of the year and support staff member of the year from the communications and addresses to the board. And just for board members and for the public to understand, we are not dropping this completely. We will do this recognition on May 6th. This is simply because we do not want to make announcements before

002the Washington Post actually makes the announcement. So can I get a motion to remove that item from the agenda? Madam Chair, I move to drop the agenda item, recognition of ACPS Principal of the Year, Teacher of the Year, and Support Staff Member of the Year from communication addresses of the board. Second. Okay, I have Ms. Green who seconded Ms. Gentry's motion. So I'm going to call for the vote to amend the agenda. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Yes. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber is absent. Veronica Nolan is absent. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay, so we've amended the agenda with seven present to absent. I now need a vote to adopt the agenda as amended. So I will call for the vote to adopt the

003amended agenda. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson, yes. Ramey Gentry, yes. Jacinta Green, yes. Margaret Lorber, absent. Veronica Nolan, absent. Michelle Reif, yes. Christopher Suarez, yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. So we have adopted the agenda, the vote of seven present, two absent. Thank you. Moving along with communications and addresses to the board, we will now have public comments. Just a reminder that each speaker is given three minutes to address the board. The clerk will be timing you and announce when your time is expired. If you're already signed up to speak, please turn on the raised hand function on Zoom so that we can find you easily. Our first speaker is Ms. Erica Melman, who's a parent. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

004I joined both of the Q&A webinars this week. I enjoyed the interactive format, but my questions weren't read aloud. I'm sharing some of them now. Number one, ACPS shared that capacity at three feet distancing will be ready on April 27th. Since the size of classrooms is the same fixed variable that ACPS used to determine that all students wouldn't fit at six feet distancing, why doesn't ACPS already know capacity at three feet? There are programs that architects and space planners use to model and scale space. Why doesn't ACPS have this information yet? Two, with the three-foot distancing, ACPS said it is focusing on allowing a larger number of students to pivot from virtual to hybrid this year, rather than a fewer number of students. to pivot to four days in-person instruction, with the exception of the

005200 students enrolled in the citywide programs. If ACPS is just determining capacity at three feet and hasn't surveyed families to ask how many want four days a week in person, how does ACPS know that they can't accommodate the number of families that want four days a week in person at the three feet distancing? Three, Dr. Hutchings stated that ACPS isn't focusing on four days in person this year because families will still need child care on Mondays and virtual plus partners still need space to operate and lots of parents have figured out child care so changes would be disruptive. The partners programming exists to address a lack of in-person school days. If there were more in-person school days, the need for virtual plus partners diminishes. And I can tell you that I, along with many others,

006never figured out childcare. Any number of additional in-person days would be a godsend. Can you clarify how the need for childcare on Mondays and partner spacing needs works against expanding to four days a week in person? Four. ACPS guaranteed five days a week in person for the fall. If five days a week in the fall is possible, I'm assuming that four days a week in person is possible in the fall since four is less than five. So it would be less complicated. So if four days a week is possible in the fall, why isn't four days a week possible now? What will be different in the fall that can't be changed now or could not have been planned for given that the city council has said that money is no object to fully reopen schools?

007I would love to get an answer to any of these questions during this board meeting tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Ms. Shantia Smith, who's a parent. Okay, we do not see Ms. Smiths. We're moving on to Ms. Candy Sparrow. Okay, Mr. Kyle Martin. Very good, Hattie. Yes. Okay, thanks for the opportunity to speak. So let me start off with a quote. To whom much is given, much is expected. And as we enter the fourth quarter, I'd kind of like to look back on the last couple of quarters we've worked on and take an assessment of how we've done. So to start off, let's look at ACPS funding by the national average. So ACPS, according to its website, spends $18,000 per pupil. The national average, $12,000. So ACPS funded an additional 30%.

008Now let's look at results. Of the 132 districts in Virginia, 96 of them have an option for five-day in-person. ACPS is in the bottom 25% in being one of the only school districts in Virginia to not offer five days a week. So how would we grade? In addition, let's look at community spread. According to the New York Times, Virginia and Alexandria City has had one of the lowest rates of COVID infection, COVID deaths, and hospitalizations. So here we have a school district that is funded well above the national average, that is in an area with low COVID spread, yet is still in the bottom 25% of offering services to students. How do we create that? And so I return to that quote to who much is given, much is expected. ACPS, you are well funded.

009You're in a great you're in a great place as far as community spread. Yet we are not giving our students what I need or what they need. Apologies. So I can only give ACPS a failing grade with respect to where we stand right now. So I concur with the comments of the first speaker that we must be more aggressive with our return to five day in person and that there's real questions and questions that could have been foreseen that were simply not. And unfortunately, that's a failure of leadership and a failure of management. So I implore ACPS to move forward aggressively and return greater levels of education to our students because much is given to ACPS. Some specifics. I agree with the first caller in that we should and can return more students to five

010days a week in person. We should absolutely capitalize on Monday, even if we can't get everyone in all five days, using that as an alternate day of instruction. In addition, we should expand the school year and try to recap those days of instructions that were lost to Mondays, that were lost to all of the days off and canceled school. In addition, ACPS must expand summer school to five days a week and make it available to all interested parties. It's currently qualified as what capacity can bear, and I implore ACPS to find a way to yes on immediately five days a week on an extended school timeline. and greater opportunities in the summer. Because right now we are failing and much has been given to ACPS. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so just as a note,

011we've received written public comments on in-person instruction and fifth grade graduation, which are posted to the agenda under public comments. And these comments came from Ms. Allison Becker, who's a parent, and Yuan Yuan, who's a parent. If you wish to submit written comments or sign up to speak at the next school board meeting, sign up no later than noon, the day prior to the meeting, using the link on the school board meeting webpage. Okay, so we will now move on and have reports from our student representatives. If they're here, it's hard for me to see. No, I don't see any of our student representatives today. Okay, oh, okay. Well, then they're busy. And that's okay. All right, moving along. We need to adopt the consent calendar. So I need a motion to adopt the consent

012calendar, please. Madam Chair, I move that we adopt the consent calendar. Second. Okay, I have Dr. Reif who seconds Ms. Anderson's motion. So I'm going to call for the vote. Megan Alderton, yes. Cindy Anderson. Yes. Ramey Gentry. Yes. Jacinta Green. Yes. Margaret Lorber. Absent. Veronica Nolan is absent. Michelle Reif. Yes. Christopher Suarez. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay. So the consent calendar has been adopted with seven present and two absent. All right, so we are moving along on the agenda. We're going to start with old business, which is our hybrid reopening 5.0 spring, summer, fall learning and air quality update. And so I will turn that over to Dr. Hutchings. And thank you, Madam Chair. And at this time, I'm going to start us off and kick us off really quickly. Today, we have a lot

013of information that we want to share with not only the board, but also the community in regards to our current hybrid learning, our planning for the summer, as well as our planning for the fall. And we want to provide a more in-depth update on our air quality. So I'm going to turn things over at this time to... Dr. Mozingo so we can get started with our presentation. So Dr. Mozingo. Yes. Good afternoon, Dr. Hutchins, Madam Chair, Vice Chair. It's good to see everyone this afternoon. So we'll get started. I want to just highlight quickly the essential questions, which are on slide two. I think she's trying to pull up the presentation for us. Let's see. It's just coming up. Okay, here we go. We're getting started. Okay, thank you so much, Sahar. So here are

014our essential questions. Again, we will get an update from Dr. Anne Gaddy, who is the acting director of the Alexandria Health Department. She will introduce her team later on during this presentation. to provide a health indicators update. But again, our work is still guided by those essential organizations. In addition to that, as Dr. Hutchins has already indicated before you, you have, we've listed for you some of the updates that will be a focus area tonight. And just for the public, I'd like to quickly just highlight those, the three feet social distancing, good news in terms of playground recess guidelines, Samuel Tucker calendar proposal. The summer learning for all plan. We'll hear from a number of employees who support different aspects of the summer learning for all. In addition to the work to return to work

015status and classroom monitors. And then we'll end with an extensive update from Dr. Hart and her staff regarding fall space planning, as he said, ventilation and indoor air quality update. So now we go to the next slide and we thank you. Dr. Getty for joining us tonight. Well, thank you very much for having me. I guess I'll just take a moment to introduce myself and the team before we go through these indicators. I know you're used to seeing Dr. Herring here. So my name is Anne Gatti and I'm actually trained originally as a pediatrician. And so all things child and adolescent related are very dear to my heart. And so I'm excited to learn more about. the school system here and get involved with what you're doing. I spent about 11 years in Baltimore working

016in pediatric ERs, doing a lot of urgent care work, and then decided I wanted to get into public health and preventive medicine and actually went to the same program that Dr. Herring did, which is kind of how I ended up here. He would host residents for three months at a time. So I came and did a three-month rotation with him and he convinced me to stay. So I became the deputy director here and that'll be going on two years as of July. And in that role, both pre-COVID and during COVID, I've been doing a lot to support our internal operations here at the health department. And now that Dr. Herring has stepped down, I'm stepping into a lot more of the public-facing and community-facing roles. So I'm excited to be with you all here tonight.

017And I'd also like to, we really do work in teams here at the health department. So I want to make sure to introduce the rest of the team. So we have Debbie Bowers with us. She is our nurse manager. And she has, Debbie, how long have you been here at the health department? 24 years. 24 years. So she has seen everything and is a very valuable resource. Debbie, I don't know if you want to say anything additional. Oh, I apologize. I don't have a camera on my computer. You can't see how good my hair looks today. Anyway, no, I'm just either Dr. Gaddy or I will probably be coming to the board, one of the leadership team that will be available to you. Yep. Thanks. And then we have two of our epidemiologists here. So

018Lena Zimmerman, who is out of us, the newest addition to our team, but has really stepped in seamlessly to help with leading our school team and helping to put together advice and metrics. And really try to support in whatever way we can. So, Lena, I don't know if you want to go ahead and say hi. Hello, everyone. I'm glad to be part of AHD's COVID-19 school response team. And then we have Christina Chaminard, who is our epidemiology supervisor. And she is our most senior epidemiologist here and really is a subject matter expert on everything from contact tracing to various infectious diseases and how to apply CDC guidelines. And in fact, she worked at the CDC before coming to work with us and specialized in virology and of all things actually specialized in coronaviruses. And so

019we are very lucky to have her as quite a subject matter expert during this pandemic. So Christina, if you want to say hello and Christine is going to present the indicators. Hello everyone. It's nice to be here at the school board meeting. So I just thank you for the opportunity to share this week's public health indicators for K through 12 schools. And for those that are new, we're looking at the number of new cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days. And this is so we can compare between different regions in the state or across the country. And we also look at the percent of molecular tests that are positive. out of the total number of molecular tests that are performed. So in this week, the number of total cases in the past seven

020days is about 117 cases per 100,000 people. And you can see that this is in the red for our indicators this week. We have noticed that since spring break and travel and holiday related gatherings, our case counts have trended upward since the last school board meeting. But this week we have noticed a decrease in cases, so that's really good. Our percent of molecular tests that have tested positive in the past seven days is just below 5% at 4.8%. So this is trending in the right direction. Our secondary indicators include the change in new cases per 100,000 population, the percent of hospital beds occupied, and the percent of hospital beds with COVID-19 cases. So our hospital measures are looking really good, and we have seen a decrease in cases compared to the recent uptick due to

021spring break travel. Our overall combined indicator score indicates that the spread in our community has been high. Please note that the CDC guidance is to really use that worst indicator when the indicators do not align. So if you notice our percent positivity is in the blue kind of lower range, but our case counts are in that high range. But we have good news. We have seen a decrease in cases and those over 65 years old. So we hope that as more of our population gets vaccinated, we will see our numbers go down. And now vaccination is open to all Virginians 16 and up. So hopefully some students and more members of our community can be vaccinated. Thank you. My name is Pierrette Peters and I'm the principal of Francis C. Hammond Middle School. And I

022thank you for the opportunity to review our timeline and process currently being implemented for phase three entry and our updated timeline and process for reentry of new hybrid students at three feet social distancing. This week, elementary principals welcomed a new group of cohort A students on Tuesday and cohort B students today. Secondary principals have completed our process for phase reentry and look forward to welcoming new hybrid students next week. As a review of our process and timeline, we have developed a two-step process that included first confirming the intent of families who have selected hybrid but have not attended school buildings to date. Principals then work with their school leadership teams and registrars to determine which homerooms, teams, and content teachers have the capacity for accepting additional hybrid students. Schools have been using a hybrid prioritization

023matrix to internally identify students for hybrid instruction. The hybrid prioritization matrix was developed as an extension to the prioritization matrix previously developed when we first began discussions regarding phase re-entry. School support teams have internally prioritized students based upon the following criteria. And as a review, criteria one was special populations to include special education, English learners, 504 students, and students experiencing homelessness. Our SEAL students, which stands for social and emotional and academic learning, our virtual students who were referred for SEAL support Mondays. Students who have currently been experiencing academic difficulty, grades of D or F, or if you're referencing elementary, it would be students who have been earning a one on their progress reports and report cards. Multi-tiered systems of support, MTSS, students who are being monitored through our MTSS system. Five is technology, meaning students

024who have had difficulty accessing technology. Six, students and family choice, so students who now want to access hybrid instruction. And then seven would be our new students enrolled as of January 2021. During this timeline, most schools were able to accommodate students who fell within categories one through four who were interested in hybrid instruction. And so again, as a review of the timeline, elementary principals have welcomed new hybrid students on Tuesday and today. And then for secondary students, we will welcome our cohort A students on April 27th and cohort B students on April 29th. And again, that was with prioritization for. priorities one through four. Now the focus of our work is preparing for another phase three entry at three feet social distancing. We are planning for the phase reentry of students. When planning for the

025phase reentry of students, there is collaboration among multiple departments to support school leadership teams. The departments involved in the facilitation of our next phase reentry includes the facilities and operations department, custodial staff, Food and Nutrition Services, Human Resources, School Leadership Teams, and our Department of Specialized Instruction. I will share with you how each department individually supports reentry and the timeline for the completion of their assigned tasks. Our facilities department has been focusing on bus transportation and custodial staff. Bus transportation transitioned to three feet social distancing as of April 20th. It is important to note that while they have transitioned to three feet social distancing on buses, there are additional responsibilities that our transportation department is responsible for in preparation for scheduling new hybrid students. Our transportation department is working with each school leader and each

026school leadership team individually to prepare accurate bus routes. Because this bus preparation is occurring for the entire school division, this process typically takes five to 10 days. School principals and leadership teams have also been working with our facilities and operations department and custodial staff to readjust classroom spaces to three feet social distancing, and this will be completed by April 26th. And then our facilities department will then provide an update to schools on space and capacity at three feet social distancing by April 27. The next department that has been collaborating for three feet social distancing is our food and nutrition services department, which have been collaborating with our school leadership team. Our cafeteria managers and principals will be confirming food and nutrition services by April 30th. Accuracy in this count of students ensures that our hybrid

027students who are coming back for their phase three entry have, our cafeteria managers have accurately prepared for the increase in our additional students. Our human resources department has also been working very closely with each individual principal on staffing and return to work. They have been working with school leadership teams to confirm any staff members approved for FMLA and other forms of leave or absence. They have also been confirming staff whose temporary remote status for child care needs expires on May 3rd. Those staff will be available for on-site work as of May 3rd unless approved for FMLA or other leave. In addition to the collaboration with various division-wide departments, our school leadership teams still have the responsibility of ensuring that everything is prepared for our school buildings. And planning and collaboration has been taking place with

028families to support the hybrid reentry of additional students. School principals will continue contacting additional parents and students based upon our hybrid prioritization matrix. And while most schools have contacted families that have been internally identified that fall within priority one through four, school teams will now be prioritizing groups five through seven. And so as a review, again, groups five through seven are our technology students, our student and family choice, and then our new students. And then finally, our Department of Specialized Instruction has been supporting reentry with a focus on students in our citywide program. The citywide program for students with specialized needs will expand to four days of in-person learning. In preparation for this expansion, Dr. Stone and a team of instructional specialists have been holding individual meetings with school teams and citywide teachers to assess

029space and capacity, collaborate on contacting families, and ensuring that all instructional resources are available to support our school staff and students. A collaboration of all of these departments have driven our next timeline. So as of April 20th, for our elementary pre-K through five schools, they will confirm all returning teachers for hybrid instruction. Our next timeline for elementary will be April 23rd. They will identify and confirm new hybrid students based upon the prioritization matrix with priorities five through seven being the priority for this next phase re-entry. All information should be updated in PowerSchool for elementary by April 26th, along with communication of a list for transportation. And on April 30th, our families will receive communication regarding their bus route and schedule. for the next phase reentry. And so the dates for our next phase reentry at

030Reef Beach Social Distancing for elementary pre-K through five, May 4th for cohort A, and then May 6th for cohort B. For our secondary students and secondary principals, by April 27th, we will confirm teachers returning for hybrid instruction. By April 30th, we will identify and confirm new hybrid students based upon the prioritization matrix, again with priorities five through seven. being the priority for this next phase reentry. By May 3rd, we will update PowerSchool information for new hybrid students and communicate our list to transportation. By May 7th, parents and families will receive communication regarding bus routes and schedules. And then our phase reentry for secondary will be May 11th for cohort A and May 13th for cohort B. Thank you. And now we will have Ms. Donnelly who will share some awesome news about our spring transition

031and recess and playground equipment. Thank you, Mrs. Peters. Good afternoon. I'm Kristen Donley, and I'm the Health, Physical Education, and Family Life Education Instructional Specialist for ACPS. Thank you for having me again tonight. I'm here to provide an exciting update on recess at the elementary level. So I'm going to be speaking about the logistics regarding the playground equipment and other recess equipment. So ACPS has been able to work with the Alexander Health Department to revise our recess guidelines to ensure safety for all, now to include playground equipment based on the newest CDC guidelines. So principals were provided a guidance document regarding recess logistics when we transitioned to hybrid, and we now have been able to update it to reflect the following changes. Starting with the playground equipment, we've been able to update the guidance document

032to include the addition of the playground equipment so it is now open and the following guidelines will be implemented. So we need to have continued strict hand washing and sanitizing before and after recess. A recess zone schedule, which includes the playground area now, must be followed for contract tracing measures. So this schedule will include a breakdown of days, times, student groupings that will be on the playground equipment at that time, just in case we have an outbreak. Students must maintain a six foot distance from others while playing just due to that increased exhalation. We cannot have three feet and it must be at least a minimum of six feet. A sanitation plan for cleaning the equipment daily is also in place at all locations. And others outside of ACPS are prohibited from using the playgrounds

033during school hours. That has always been, but we will make sure that that is enforced. As for other recess equipment, so across the board, strict hand washing and sanitizing before and after recess is always followed. But students now in different zones besides the playground equipment can be utilizing other recess equipment. The recommended recess equipment items, though, need to be used individually or in pairs and can be then things that can be cleaned effectively without like breakdown of the material. So we've suggested that teachers allocate separate bins of recess equipment for each student grouping cohort or class, which can be cleaned between each recess period daily. We also are discouraging children from bringing equipment from home for recess and students must still maintain at least that minimum of six feet of distance from others while playing

034with this equipment, again, due to that increased exhalation. So this does make typical recess games like soccer, football, basketball tough. But students can still pass and work on skills while maintaining that safe distance and play with other equipment such as jump ropes or hula hoops, which are typical recess equipment. Teachers and recess staff are still encouraged to use the resource that was provided to them that has over 75 COVID-safe recess activities that are safe, engaging, and then meet those restricted guidelines of social distancing. Lastly, principals have been updated on all of these recent additions, and if they have not already, they will be informing families of this in this coming week in their newsletters. I appreciate your time this afternoon and thank you for allowing me to share the new exciting recess edition. I'm going

035to turn this over now to Principal Paschal at Samuel Tucker. Thank you, Kristen. Good evening, Madam Chair, Vice Chair, members of the school board. I am here tonight to present a proposal to amend Tucker's modified calendar next year. The path to this proposal started with parent and staff stakeholder meetings to address concerns regarding the lingering effects of the pandemic, as well as the trickle-down impact on the modified calendar during this unique transition year in which all ACPS schools will be starting a few weeks earlier than normal. After a thorough analysis of the pros and cons, of either remaining one more year on the traditional calendar or sticking with the already approved July 26 start date, despite clear obstacles, this amended calendar surfaced as a proposal that was most aligned with our goal of maximizing learning

036options for families. Some have referred to this as the compromise calendar because it best meets the needs of a community evenly split between wanting a longer break at the end of a challenging year and those who are eager to afford themselves every opportunity for additional learning because of the challenges experienced this year. A key consideration in this regard is the fact that even in pre-COVID times, Tucker families choose summer learning in large numbers, even with our early start date. This plan provides Tucker students and staff to fully participate in summer learning for all, if they so choose. Regarding our programmatic status, I want to thank Ms. Gentry for her faithful presence at Tucker PTA meetings and her recent comments assuring the community of the board's ongoing support for the modified calendar. The proposal secures the

037opportunity this coming year to leverage intersession to address the disrupted learning of many of our students. It represents a bridge back to normalcy for our community. Moving to the visual of the calendar, please note that other than a shift to one-week intersessions, the proposed amendment keeps all other elements of the calendar parallel to what parents have come to expect in terms of conferences, teacher workdays, etc. Again, we have an August 9 start date. two one-week intersessions, one in the fall, one in the spring, and of course we end with everyone else on June 11th. We will be bringing this proposal to you for a vote at your next meeting on May 6th. We appreciate your support. And now I will turn it back over to you, Dr. Mann. Thank you, Mr. Paschal. Good evening, Board

038and Dr. Hutchings. Glad to bring another update to the board and the public about Summer Learning for All. This time around, I brought some friends with me, and that's Ms. Warner, Bethany Nickerson, Daryl Sampson, and Alicia Kincaid, who is our Summer Learning for All coordinator. And so this summer, as we've highlighted several times, it will have a traditional summer program for four weeks, July 6th through the 30th. And that is summer learning for all. We're offering 20 programs this summer that are run by ACPS and they're listed here. And then we're for the first time, we're going to have an additional two week option for selected students that will be virtual. And this will give us time to get our buildings ready as we have teachers returning August 13th. And then you'll see here, we

039still have some of our traditional program in our Summer Language Academy between Mount Vernon and John Adams. We have our music camp, which is wildly successful, our theater camp. We're continuing with our AP boot camp for all of our students for first time students taking AP course, but also AP calculus, which we began last year. We're continuing our boost courses for families who may opt for, I don't want to participate in. summer learning, but I would like for my student to get a glimpse as to what's coming ahead for the fall. We're right now thinking and retooling our ideas around kindergarten prep with our elementary principals, our comprehensive Middle schools are working on middle school prep for our rising sixth graders. And then again, we are offering the opportunity for our students and many of

040our programs to have summer bridge opportunities to get ready for their summer learning. Summer learning, the traditional program will be four days a week, Monday through Thursday. And then the first week in July, because we're starting on Tuesday, it will be Tuesday through Friday. We're trying to, again, give our staff the ability to continue to work with our students. So we will, again, have four days a week, high school. We're continuing to work on our schedule to figure out ways that we can have our families and students maximize the summer learning time. And then lastly. We are incentivizing our staff. We are posting jobs this month where we'll be offering faculty the ability to apply in two-week increments. And so again, we realize that we have an abbreviated summer, but we also know that learning

041loss is real. And so we are excited about this opportunity because we believe students need an opportunity for excitement. much of our summer learning is focused around problem-based project-based learning and give these students the ability to get their hands whether virtual or in person and one part I did forget to mention is that we are prioritizing our students for in-person we want to maximize as many students as we can get in person and so we will have in-person credit recovery at the high school level we will have ESY in person and also this one will go in greater detail around special education offerings and then lastly. The virtual option will be for any student who is not prioritized to come into the building and so as miss Peters went. Over a couple of slides ago

042the schools have been prioritizing and reprioritizing students and so thank you to the principles who completed. The summer learning prioritization list and so at this time I will turn it over to miss Warner to talk about our special ed. Thank you, Dr. Mann. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Hutchings. Thank you so much for the opportunity to review the special education summer programming. We are going to take a three-tiered approach to providing services to students with disabilities as part of the summer learning program. Our first tier will be for those students who access the general education program. We will provide special education teachers to support students with disabilities to make sure that they can access that curriculum. Those students will be Again, following the priority matrix, they will be virtual or in-person,

043depending on how their general education program is prioritized. Secondly, we are having our tier, we're doing this on a three-tier basis, if I didn't say that at the beginning. So that was tier one. Tier two is going to be specialized reading and math interventions for those students who need additional support in their reading and math skills. We are going to provide those, programs in person when space constraints and other factors are in our favor. If we are not able to provide some of those services in person, we will be providing them virtually. Thirdly, we are going to provide our traditional ESY program, as many of our families who have participated in ESY are familiar with. That program will be face-to-face. We will be meeting at the elementary level at John at Jefferson Houston and we

044will be meeting at the secondary level at T.C. Williams. Families will be receiving contact information from their student's case manager. If they haven't received it already, they will get it in the next day or so. We have been working diligently to collect data and to review student progress and make recommendations for the tier of services that students might require. For those students who are being recommended for ESY services, we will be having IEP meetings to address the need for those services. Again, thank you for the opportunity, and I am turning this over to Ms. Nickerson. Thank you, Ms. Warner. ELL students are integrated into all of our summer learning programs, so our focus is on collaboration this summer. As all the summer lesson guides are being developed, they're being designed with ELs in mind. The

045guides are integrating EL best practices. They're including leveled texts that are culturally relevant and ensuring that all four language domains are utilized. In addition to the planning, EL teachers will also collaborate with general education teachers in direct instruction and in supporting small group instruction. And L-specific professional learning will also be incorporated into the teacher training. Next, we have Daryl Sampson. Thank you, Dr. Nickerson. So we know that for our students, social emotional needs are going to continue to be a priority going into our summer learning. So we are developing a program a little bit similar to what we did last year, where our K through 12 students, both in person and virtual, will be able to access social, emotional and academic learning supports. So at a tier one level, we're really trying to help maintain

046the CO lessons that students have been provided during this academic school year. So we're building time into the schedules for our students where they'll be able to receive that daily dose of social, emotional, academic learning. Then our student support team is made up of our school counselors, school nurses, school psychologists, and school social workers. We'll also be on-site and virtual to be able to provide some of those more targeted skill development strategies that students may need socially, emotionally, and behaviorally to support them in a Tier 2 and Tier 3 manner. So these supports will range from academic counseling to social emotional counseling. We'll have college and career supports as we did last summer. And then also we'll have folks that will be able to support the general health and wellness of our students. We'll also,

047again, look to provide opportunities where students can access special topics or go to focus groups or seminars to get some additional. information that might be helpful to them. It was a really big success that we had last summer. And I'll turn this over to Dr. Alicia Kincaid. Thank you, Mr. Sampson. Good evening, Dr. Hutchins and the school board members. Thank you again for giving me this opportunity to discuss the summer learning milestones. The summer school leadership team began planning with facilities and human resource departments since December. We met to think about initial seat capacity, building usage, and staffing needs. By the end of April, the Summer Learning Participation Survey will be sent to families, and the overview of the Summer Learning for All program will be posted on the ACPS website. We will communicate to

048families who are identified for in-person learning. In May, we will continue to meet with the curriculum specialist to draft the schedule and professional development plan for the summer school staff, which will be on June 28th and June 29th. In June, we will be refining the master schedules and host school simulations similar to when we reopen for hybrid learning. We are excited to launch the Summer Learning for All program on July 6th. Next, we will have Dr. Wilkins. He will share the process for return to workplace. Thank you again. Thank you, and good afternoon, board members, and I will cover our return to the workplace. First of all, as you recall, as a division, our instructional staff was on a temporary remote status pending the reopening of the school buildings. And during these past months, we

049surveyed our staff to inform of any health conditions or child care needs that would impact their availability for in-school instruction. Part of the review included following federal legislation that supported employee leave to deal with COVID-related conditions. In particular, we noted that federal legislation that mandated paid leave for workers with child care would expire on March 31, 2021. We also informed staff with child care needs or health care needs that we would review their status at least monthly as we monitored the pandemic health situation. Overall, beginning in March 2021, we determined that health conditions had improved to a level where we could safely reopen schools. And as Ms. Peters described earlier, we used a phased reentry plan to help ease our teachers' return to the classroom while scaling up school operations for our students. We would

050transition the workforce from this temporary remote status to general availability for on-site instruction, depending on the instructional plan of the particular school, student attendance, and social distancing requirements under this phased reentry approach. Understanding that any transition can be challenging, we wanted to be sure to support our staff with child care needs. This means that we wanted to inform our staff that we would allow a grace period to arrange child care before listing them as available for in-school work. We formally announced this grace period from April 9th through May 3rd, 2021. That's about a month for our employee parents and guardians to find and arrange child care. In addition, we also provided childcare resources via our Office of Community Partnerships and Engagement under Mr. Kurt Huffman, who has developed a number of Alexandria childcare provider options,

051as well as some neighboring area options, which are posted on his webpage. Additionally, we arranged to have our ACPS employee assistance program provider provide child care search resources so that employees may call EAP to locate alternative child care options in their particular residential area. Again, we understand that funding child care takes time, and we wanted to be sure to give our teacher parents time to arrange child care as best possible. What the slide shows is the transition process from temporary remote status to on-site availability starting May 3, 2021 for those with child care needs and those with health conditions that may limit their availability for in-school instruction. Under the Child Q review process, we notified our employees of this particular change on April 9th with the superintendent's webinar, then informed staff to be available starting

052May 3rd, 2021, or apply for Family Medical Leave Act options to care for their child. We also published this recorded webinar in FAQ. And we are currently in the process of managing the applications for FMLA or other absences per routine HR policy. In regards to the health review process, we monitor those employee status each month. And then we may contact the health provider or have the employee contact the health provider to verify the status of whether or not the employee may return on site or be placed on a leap of absence. I want to be clear on this, that we don't ask about the condition of the employee, only whether or not the employee is available to work on site or not. And of course, if there's additional medical review, then we work through that

053process with the employee. That's our process to transition our employees back to the workplace. This concludes my part of the briefing, and I will be followed by Dr. Hart. Thank you, Dr. Wilkins, and good evening, board members. I'd like to provide an update on fall space considerations and planning. We are currently utilizing a few assumptions to assess our needs. We are using the FY22 enrollment projection of 16,097 students. We are assuming that three feet of social distancing would still be applicable in the fall to include the noted caveat of six feet for adults. And in the case we need to lease space, we are also including a lease assumption of $20 to $30 per square foot. In addition, we are using an assumption of $50 to $100 per square foot for basic retrofitting of any

054lease space. Next slide, please. Our team is using multiple strategies to address potential space deficits for fall. These include using all available spaces in our schools, partnering with the city on any available city-owned space, the possibility of installing mobile classrooms at select sites, leasing space, and exploring opportunities for non-traditional spaces such as churches, etc. Next slide, please. This slide provides a quick overview of task and timeline. To begin, we are currently working on reconfiguration of our spaces to three feet. This will allow us to better understand our final capacity numbers with updated guidance and to refine our need our needed space estimations. We have also submitted our formal request to the city for their assistance in this process. That request was submitted on April 12th and we have had an opportunity to convene with a

055small group of ACPS and city representatives this past Monday to begin our joint discussions on logistics for our request. We will provide updates on this process at future board meetings. We are also looking into the feasibility of installing mobile classrooms at select sites. Ultimately, this will be based on available land space as well as compliance with zoning regulations. It is important to share that mobile classroom manufacturing and delivery is tracking months out and is currently at an October 2021 ETA. The team and I continue to investigate options for leased space as well, and to date, we do have a few viable opportunities. Lastly, I continue to partner with Curt Huffman on exploring other non-traditional partnership opportunities, such as using space within churches to help mitigate our space needs. Next slide, please. Now I will transition

056from fall space considerations to tonight's update on ventilation and indoor air quality. I apologize in advance for the length of my comments, but I want to ensure that the details are presented with full context. The next few slides will address the following questions. What CDC and ASHRAE guidance has ACPS implemented? What metrics can be monitored via the building automation system? Who is responsible for indoor air quality management? How can stakeholders share concerns regarding IAQ? How has this information been communicated? And what supplemental actions and next steps are being taken regarding ventilation and IAQ? Next slide, please. I'll begin with how our team has implemented CDC guidance within our facilities. The CDC ventilation guidance is presented in five categories with a total of 15 recommendations. We have assessed all 15 recommendations and have applied 12 of

057those recommendations, or 80%, across division facilities. To date, eight recommendations have been fully implemented, which are highlighted on this slide. These include ensuring our systems have been and continue to be serviced. bringing in outdoor air, increasing airflow during occupied hours when possible, running systems for two hours prior to and after occupied hours, improving the level of filtration, inspecting and maintaining exhaust systems in restaurants and kitchens, and opening windows on transportation vehicles when safe to do so. Next slide. The pink highlighted box, which speaks to the HEPA air purification system recommendation, has been implemented in high-risk areas such as clinics and health annex spaces at all schools. We are in the process of moving toward a more robust implementation of this recommendation, and I'll share more about that a bit later. The next three recommendations have

058been implemented on a targeted basis. The use of UV germicidal iridation. We had an opportunity to install this technology in the new HVAC units at Lyle's Crouch Traditional Academy. While the CIP project was planned prior to the onset of the pandemic, we had a chance to update the design features of this system prior to installation. We are using this as a pilot to better understand if this is a technology that should become a design standard for future HVAC replacements. If safe to do so, open windows and doors. We encourage interior doors to remain open throughout the school day. This helps with air circulation and is a practice that has not been discouraged or prohibited. As we've shared previously, we do not encourage the opening of windows as it brings in unfiltered air, can exacerbate allergies

059or other respiratory issues, makes temperature and humidity control difficult, and can ultimately tax the HVAC systems of a facility. Consider having outdoor activities, classes, or lunches outdoors when circumstances allow. As shared earlier tonight, our students have the opportunity to enjoy outdoor recess, use of playground equipment, and mass breaks throughout the school day. Leadership is still discussing the opportunity for outdoor lunches, and we will provide an update as those discussions are finalized. The final three recommendations on this slide were reviewed but not implemented. Use of child safe fans to increase effectiveness of opening windows. Given that we are not opening windows, this recommendation would not be applicable. Disabled demand controlled ventilation controls. As our team assessed this recommendation, we noted that it is not favored to implement this guidance for our systems. Our systems are designed

060to adjust quickly based on changes to atmospheric conditions, and we can manipulate parameters within the system without needing to fully disable functionality. For spaces controlled by thermostats, set the system from auto to on. Setting from auto to on does not allow the opportunity to quickly adjust system operation based on temperature and or humidity changes. This can create a favorable environment for excessively cold or warm temperatures, excess humidity, etc. Next slide, please. In addition to CDC recommendations, our team has also looked to ASHRAE or the American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers for recommendations and guidance regarding ventilation and HVAC. The CDC has also referenced ASHRAE in their guidance documents. Next slide, please. There are two specific documents that ASHRAE has published regarding best practices during the age of COVID-19 that I'd like to

061speak to. In the first document, Guidance for the Reopening of Schools, there are four strategies specific to improving ventilation that are noted. ACPS has fully implemented three of these recommendations as shown on the chart, with one recommendation implemented on a targeted basis. The second document core recommendations for reducing airborne infectious aerosol exposure speaks to five core categories of recommendations, most of which is redundant of the CDC guidance we've implemented. In this guidance document, it is important to note that the first measure listed to reduce airborne infectious aerosol exposure is to follow the public health mitigation measures, such as the use of face coverings, social distancing, and the appropriate use of personal protective equipment. These are all measures that ACPS has implemented within all of our facilities. Next slide, please. In previous presentations, we have shared

062how we are using our building automation systems to regularly monitor performance of our HVAC units. We use two BAS systems, Siemens and WebControl Automated Logic. This screenshot, which is of a rooftop unit number four at Patrick Henry, shows the different metrics that are monitored through this BAS module, such as the status of exhaust and supply fans, temperature, cubic feet per... Excuse me, cubic feet per minute or CFM, which is the most common metric used to measure airflow relative humidity and percentage of damper opening, which speaks to the ability to regulate and redirect airflow, to name a few. Our systems are designed with the capacity to exchange air between four to six times an hour. Air exchange rate is calculated by using CFM measurements, multiplying by 60 and then dividing that total by the cubic feet

063of the room. System design efficacy is addressed during HVAC inspections and regularly by our maintenance team members. Our quarterly preventative maintenance program, which is completed by our HVAC contractor, is a quality control process to help ensure system functionality does not substantially change between annual inspections. Our next steps will be to explore the opportunity of working with an external firm to complete targeted air exchange measurements at all facilities as an extra verification measure. In addition, many of our systems were designed with CO2 monitoring and response features. For those that were not designed with CO2 features, we are working towards having an external firm take CO2 measurements where we do not have the capabilities through our BAS systems. A deliverable we will provide is a matrix that shows which schools have automated CO2 monitoring versus manual, as

064well as the findings from the external study when completed. As with any monitoring effort, whether CO2, air exchange, or other metrics, it is important to note that it is a snapshot in time. While there is value in these metrics, it is important to understand all of the components that contribute to indoor air quality in addition to ventilation. Next slide, please. So now I am transitioning into indoor air quality. Indoor air quality consists of many factors and indicators, all of which contribute to either acceptable or unacceptable IAQ within a facility. We assess IAQ conditions within our facilities by reviewing work order submissions for items related to temperature, obnoxious odors, humidity, visible mold, etc. We receive information from building leadership that there has been a noted change in sick days for students and staff at a facility,

065and we also leverage our BAS systems, which was shown on the previous slide, to provide real-time information on system functionality. Additionally, we regularly confer with our external environmental consultant and employ their services when their expertise is needed. IAQ assessment is a continuous process, and conditions, excuse me, as conditions are always subject to change. Overall accountability for IAQ is within the Office of Safety and Security Services as this office oversees our environmental safety programs. However, four offices within the Department of Facilities and Operations contribute to positive outcomes in relation to indoor air quality. Those offices include safety and security services, capital programs, planning and design, maintenance and custodial services, and educational facilities. Essentially, the heart of our IAQ program lies in the intersectional activities between all four offices. I'd also like to reiterate that there are

066definitely ways for our stakeholders and building occupants to share any concerns that they may have. In fact, it is encouraged. We receive information from stakeholders through the submission of work orders, emails to the team, or direct conversations. In addition, our team receives feedback during our facility visits and we also participate in community meetings which allows us an opportunity to receive feedback in those forums. Next slide please. Now I'd like to focus on next steps. While I have shared the many actions that we have completed to improve ventilation and IAQ throughout all of our facilities, we feel it is important to supplement our actions as guidance continues to be updated. To that end, we will move forward with installation of portable HEPA air purifiers in all classrooms and common spaces. This action will come at an

067estimated cost of $631,000 for 1,500 units. and this does not include the cost of replacement filters which will be a recurring cost. We felt it was important to include this item as an immediate next step given the transition of three feet of social distancing. Installation is scheduled to begin next week. We are also in the process of reviewing and updating our IAQ management plan with our external environmental consultant using their expertise, industry best practices, and the lessons learned to date from the pandemic to strengthen our program where needed. A deliverable we will provide is to share the updated IAQ management plan with the board and the community once it is completed. We are also continuing with the implementation of comprehensive facility condition assessments for all schools, which are scheduled to commence this summer. These assessments

068will provide an understanding of any additional building system replacement or repair needs related to IAQ or otherwise. The FCA process will ultimately allow us the ability to design replacements with all of the desired components rather than modifying at a later date. Using data from our FCAs will also provide the opportunity to more accurately budget for facility updates through the CIP budget process. Ultimately, leveraging the information from our FCAs will lead to improved efficiencies as well as long-term cost savings. A deliverable we will provide is sharing the full FCA assessment by school once the process is complete. Lastly, we will employ a more streamlined approach to our communication efforts. Our main goal is to better utilize our webpages to post information such as HVAC maintenance summaries by facility and continuing to post environmental testing data such

069as water quality and IAQ test results. We will also share work order data, excuse me, work order trend data by facility as it is important to understand this performance metric. To date, we have shared our ventilation, IAQ, and facility improvement information in the following ways. Through our CIP quarterly updates, since school closure, we have posted three quarterly reports and have presented those to the school board as well. These reports are shared to provide more in-depth information on CIP project status by facility. Most notably, these reports will provide updates on major HVAC replacements and repairs. roof replacements and repairs, and building envelope updates. We provided a summer project update in June 2020. We provided a facilities and operation return to school guidance document. It was published in November of 2020 and it was updated in February

070of this year. We provided our HVAC FAQ which was published in January of this year. We presented specifically on ventilation at two recent school board meetings, one on December 17th of 2020, and then again, excuse me, on March 4th, 2021. And we've also answered many questions in various FAQs that were shared by the communications department. Next slide, please. I'd like to clarify that ventilation is a component of indoor air quality, but it is not the total sum of IAQ. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, shares that IAQ is a comprehensive approach which includes all of the items that are noted on this slide. The dates shown indicate the years in which ACPS began a concerted effort to address, implement, or mitigate the respective component. To this end, the team and I have intentionally shared updates

071on total building system repairs and replacements and not simply ventilation updates. Our hope was to provide context of all the updates made to our facilities prior to and during the pandemic, all of which contribute to overall IAQ improvement. It was and continues to be important to view IAQ through a comprehensive lens. For example, you can have a fully functional HVAC system and still have IAQ deficiencies if other building system components, such as your roof, your plumbing, or your building envelope are compromised. your cleaning processes are inadequate, or pest management approaches are antiquated. There is not a regulator, excuse me, there is not a regulated approach to IAQ. An entity has to consider each facility individually and implement components to improve IAQ for that specific site. In closing, the Department of Facilities and Operations has continued

072to keep occupant safety at the forefront of our pandemic operations. We have provided face coverings and necessary PPE to all staff and students. We have updated our cleaning approaches. We have ensured room configuration meets social distancing guidelines. We have installed temperature screening technology at all schools. And we have focused on improvements to ventilation and our HVAC systems. We have all been working through a continually changing landscape, which comes with its own set of challenges. However, we have been able to pivot and implement a considerable number of recommendations and best practices within the past year. Since FY20, we've spent roughly $8.6 million on HVAC improvements and maintenance alone. This total includes the completion of planned CIP projects, annual and preventative maintenance, system repairs, upgraded filter purchases, etc. As we move forward, we remain committed to the

073important work of improving and maintaining our facilities. I'd like to publicly commend the team members of Facilities and Operations for their continued hard work and dedication during these unprecedented times. With that, I turn it over to Dr. Hectons. And thank you, Dr. Hart. And thank you all. I have to say thank you to our entire team. As you all know, this is an effort that requires collaboration, a lot of time, tireless hours, and a lot of hard work and dedication. And I know that none of this is possible without our team. I just have to say, once again, I try to do this every time I'm at the dais, every time we have a Zoom meeting, every time I'm in your presence. Thank you so much for your hard work. I know that sometimes we

074get some negative emails or phone calls or posts or whatever, but you all have to know that you are working as hard as you possibly can and you are doing a phenomenal job and we appreciate it every single day. I also just want to reiterate some of the points as we go into transitioning to our questions. And first and foremost, I just want to reiterate the point of currently we are transitioning to three feet beginning next week. And this is so that we can accommodate more students into our classrooms. The goal in us having the two days per week each day is because we really want to be able to provide our families and as many families as we possibly can the option of having some form of in-person prior to the end of this

075year. We are getting through seven different layers because we're trying to do that prioritization. And right now, many of our schools, we're only at one, I'm sorry, we're only at the fourth level. at many of our schools and we have seven that we need to get through. So we want to be able to extend that offer and that option. to as many families as we possibly can. And that is why we're sticking to the two days per week. We are transitioning to four days per week. And I know that Ms. Werner, she mentioned this during her presentation for our citywide program. And that is important for us to make sure that we're transitioning to four days per week for that particular group. In regards to our summer, it is so important that students do not

076feel punished and staff do not feel punished this summer. We have to keep in mind, people have been working harder than ever before. I'm still trying to figure out how we're going to recruit staff to even be in here, you know, this summer. And I know our staff are dedicated. We're going to have some monetary incentive staff because we need you. Thankfully to our federal government for giving us this additional funding so we can do monetary incentives for people doing in-person this summer. And I know we're going to be able to meet our mark, but I want you all to understand that we're asking people to give up a summer. And I know our staff are going to do it because you all care about our young people. I know you're going to do this.

077That's why we wanted to make it four days per week from nine to one o'clock so that you can still feel as if you're getting some form of a break, not just staff, but also our students. They have been through a lot over the past year, too. And we really want our families to commit. to having their kids do this program. It's not mandatory, but it is strongly encouraged for every single one of our students to participate. Summer will be in person and virtual, not hybrid. So families will have the choice of doing in person or virtual. this summer. And the traditional four weeks is from July 6th through July the 30th. And students who are still experiencing some challenges, we're going to extend a virtual support from August 2nd through August 12th. And that

078is so important for students who just, we need to make sure when they start off in the fall that they start off on the right note and prepared for success. In regards to the fall, the points that are so pertinent. We are going to have five days per week this fall, everyone. Five days per week of in-person learning for our families who are choosing to be in-person. Families who choose to be in-person will receive instruction from a teacher in-person. We also are going to offer an option for virtual. Some families may choose to be virtual in the fall, and we want to offer that option of virtual, and that students who are in the virtual option or virtual academy, they will be taught by a virtual teacher. So we are not doing hybrid in the

079fall. Five days in person, five days a week of virtual. Those are the two options that we're going to have moving forward. I also just want to touch on our air quality. And I think that Dr. Hart and her team, you all have to know. I mean, Dr. Hart, you have stepped into this role as the executive director of facilities and operations at a very significant time. I mean, you talk about challenges, our facilities and operations, that's the huge pivot. We had to pivot with our teaching, learning, and leadership team, but we had a huge pivot with facilities and operations. You have done this flawlessly, graciously. expertly. And I just want to commend you and your team because we have been working towards what you shared today over the past several months. This is not

080something that can happen overnight. It's not something that you created two weeks or from the last board meeting or this board meeting. This has been a work in progress since August, since August, and it is now coming to fruition and your hard work and your team's hard work has literally paid. off. So thank you for the explanation and the deep dive into what our air quality systems are all about and how you have to look at the full package. And I'm thankful that you all are just not focused on just ventilation, right? If we just get one part of the problem and we think it's solved, there is a full system that has to be in place in order for us to make sure that we're providing that healthy, safe environment for all students. So

081I'm going to stop there. I just, you know, I always get excited at the end when I hear everybody speaking. But I want to turn things over to the board because I know they probably have questions for us. So, Madam Chair. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for such a great presentation. And I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues for questions. And I see that I have my first question from Dr. Reif. Right. Well, thank you so much for that presentation to everyone on the team. It was really thorough and it was great information. So thank you so much. And I'd like to start with just the ventilation presentation. And I want to second what Dr. Hutchings was saying. Dr. Hart, we're really fortunate to have you as our Executive Director of Facilities and

082Operations as a... ACPS parent for going on about 10 years now. Facilities has been a huge challenge in our school division for a long time. And so, you know, I have definitely seen the progress that we've been making. And I think under your leadership, it's really taking it to another level. So I want to thank you for that. And I appreciate all the steps too that ACPS has taken to increase the ventilation infiltration in our buildings. And it was really great. the chart that was laid out of all the different things that we have been doing. And just for the community too, I want to acknowledge that the science, you know, it has been evolving throughout this whole pandemic and the recommendations, you know, continue to change. They continue to be updated. And so we've

083been working hard to try to keep up with those. recommendations. And I appreciate also you talking about just working, you know, just trying to continue to improve our communications with the community. That's so important. And I did want to just mention too, for any parents or anybody who may be looking for information on our website, a lot of our documents are housed in what's called the electronic school board. It's a software program that you can access on the school board website, but The link, the URL recently changed, and so there are a number of links such as on the facility's website or other places that just haven't been able to be updated yet. But if you are looking for a document and you see the date listed, you can always go to the electronic school

084board on the school board. meetings website and you can look for you can try to find the document that way and there is a search engine on there. So I just wanted to kind of mention that. The question I just wanted to ask Dr. Hart, when you were going through the presentation, which again, thank you for just going through everything. If you could just speak a little bit about the air changes per hour. I know one of the issues that we have is we have, you know, several buildings and they all have different systems. And if I understood correctly, I just want to make sure I understood correctly that. The building automation system, it does target the four to six air changes per hour in the classrooms. For some of the systems and for those

085that don't, we're going to do the, we're going to have an outside consultant do the CO2 monitoring in the classrooms. Can you just maybe walk through that a little bit? Absolutely. So for clarity of what we were sharing is that our systems are designed, not necessarily the BAS system, because that is an automation control that is added to help you literally automate your systems to be able to monitor them remotely. But system design, when we are designing HVAC replacements and repairs, there are air exchanges, one of the things that you would design for your systems. So our systems are designed for four to six air changes per hour. What the BAS systems help us do is look at the measurements such as CFM, which is the cubic feet per minute. There is a manual calculation

086that you can do to make sure that, hey, okay, is this actually, you know, meeting those particular standards? And for areas that you may have some questions about, we just feel like as a good practice, just to continue to ensure that verification process, we can always bring in an external contractor to do. just what we spoke to targeted, you know, assessments of our buildings that would just help, I think, with the additional verification of it. We have annual HVAC inspections. We have quarterly HVAC inspections. We have the ability to monitor our systems regularly. So it's one of those things where you can take, you know, verify air exchange through manual calculations, which I just mentioned. or you can hire an outside entity to come in and essentially they would do the same thing for you.

087It would just not take your labor force to do that. So that is what we are considering just in the case that, you know, there are certain schools, because we do know we have aged facilities, not necessarily systems, but facilities. And if that will add that added sense of comfort for those particular facilities, we don't have an issue with moving forward with an external contractor just to come and verify that, yes. systems are operating as they're designed to. Yes, the measures that are put in place are, you know, making sure that the air exchanges are, you know, as designed, so on and so forth. Thank you for that. And if I could ask one other follow-up question, I believe the CDC guidelines that were updated on ventilation also talked about the plexiglass dividers not being

088necessary. I was curious if we're looking to take those down or remove them. And then do you or Dr. Hutchings have a sense on the timeline for outdoor lunches? So I'll answer the first question, Dr. Reif. I can say that that is currently under discussion in terms of removal of the physical barriers. Myself and Dr. Crawford are trying to get some additional information as to why CDC. removed that as one of the guidances. And we're saying that because literally the guidance is fairly vague, not to be critical, but it is fairly vague. It just says to remove them, but it doesn't necessarily speak to why you should remove them or why they no longer feel they are an added measure of protection. The one thing that I will say is that we would not recommend

089removing any physical barriers prior to the installation of the HEPA air purifiers that we just spoke to. So as we are making a decision in terms of if we will take those down in the timeline to do so, we would not do so before the installation of those additional HEPA air purifiers. Dr. Hutchings, I'm not sure if you would like to speak to the lunch piece or if you would like me to. Yes. Hello. Sorry, I used the wrong mic. I apologize. I got it. I get confused, everybody. Which mic do I use? I was just saying this earlier. And now look at me. So to answer that question, I thought it would be nice for one of our principal leads, because they have been meeting over the past week to go over each of

090the school's plans, because every school is different in regards to how they're going to meet the lunch need. You all know that, you know, three feet is for class time, but you do have to remain six feet when you're eating lunch. And that required us to put together our lunch schedule. So if Mr. Paschal. or I know Ms. Bynum, she may be on here as well. You may want to speak to the elementary schedule because it's really more so for elementary, but our secondary, they have a plan as well, but it was a little easier at the secondary than it was at our elementary schools. Thank you, Dr. Hutchings. I'll be glad to address that. And you hit the nail on the head. Every school is dealing with a different set of variables. Put concisely,

091we all are either trying to manipulate time or space. And so access to outdoor lunch is probably a part of every principal's plan, but because of inclement weather and the possibility for such, it can't be the cornerstone of a plan. So some of us are looking at expanding the lunch options. We're looking at, for example, can half of my students eat in the classroom while the other half go outside for recess and then we switch? That requires a little bit more staffing in order to provide coverage for that. But we are consulting, we're working together, and we are very soon ready to present to our publics and our communities what our plans are for providing a safe lunch in the three-foot world. Absolutely. I wasn't sure Ms. Bynum wanted to share. But for secondary, sort

092of similar to elementary, we are using every available space that we have in the building. Because our kids are a little bit older, we can take them in, for example, at Hammond, the courtyard. We do have classrooms that are not being occupied because the teachers are still virtual. So for classes where students can space out their desk to six feet social distancing inside the classroom, we will. But for others, half of the class would leave and go to another classroom space so that they can spread out a little bit more so that we can achieve the six foot social distancing within the classroom. So we'll be using empty classrooms, courtyard and just every available space that we have. to allow students to have that six feet social distancing. Okay, thank you. Next up, I have

093Ms. Gentry. Thank you. And again, a huge thanks to the staff. You know, it's all the work that's being done and then all the work to, you know, prepare the presentations to help explain all the work that's being done. So really, huge, huge thanks to everyone. You know, one of the things that I've really appreciated about this, you know, and I think we saw one example of this in the discussion, the really thorough discussion about the indoor air quality is that, you know, ACPS, like everyone else, there's this huge amount of data and recommendations and sources, and everyone is taking that information, taking what's specific about their school division and their needs and coming up with the best thing. And I think one thing that sometimes makes that a little bit challenging is that if

094someone in the community is looking at something, they might hear about one school division doing a certain thing. And then they wonder why ACPS isn't doing that exact same thing in the exact same way. And I really think presentations like this just really help show, you know, that... the, the, the commitment to the safety and the commitment to the students is there. And it's just, you know, that, that we may, you know, you, you know, that as, as, as you're listening to our presentations know that we might do something, you know, a slightly different way, but, but, but, but the commitment is, is clear. And so kind of building off of that, you know, there's been obviously a, you know, and I can certainly understand why a lot of interest in, you know you know

095bringing back you know, for, bringing back, you know, students to four days a week rather than two days a week. And again, I do think one thing that, you know, I think is important is for people to understand, you know, again, if you're trying to do some kind of straight head-to-head comparison between ACPS and some other school divisions, that actually the circumstances are different. And so for clarification, I'm actually going to run through. sort of three things that I think are true, and I'm going to invite the staff to, you know, correct me or elaborate. So in terms of why a school division might be able to go to four days a week for their students, it seems to me that the conditions that would allow them to do that would be one of the

096following. Condition one would be that that school division had decided to forego the three feet distancing. Technically. you know, the recommendations that have come out, they are recommendations and they are guidelines, they are not hard rules, you know, so we have decided that we think it's very important to follow the CDC guidelines for the safety of our students. But, you know, so people would need to understand that, you know, if you hear of a school division doing that, it's very possible that that might be a choice that they made. Another way that a school division might be able to do for would be that they were serving fewer kids. That might be because they're literally a smaller school division. One of the things that's sort of interesting about the Commonwealth of Virginia is we in

097the Northern Virginia area. are hugely very, very heavily populated and some of the other areas in Virginia, you have actually school divisions that are, their school populations are dwindling. So they actually have I want to say excess space in their buildings, but they definitely have more space in their school buildings that might have allowed them to, you know, to expand. You know, so, you know, the same kind of constraints, we, as we often like to remind everyone, we are bursting at the seams at ACPS than we were even before. So that would be another reason why. or possibly that you're choosing to provide fewer students number of days. You might just decide we're just going to take this one subset and give them the four days and everybody else is going to need to stay

098virtual. And then I would think that the final possible way that some school division might be able to do that is that you might be bringing students back to a building. But you wouldn't be bringing them necessarily back to the school teacher that has, and the classmates that have been with them for the last three quarters, because, again, because of space requirements and classroom spacing, there's literally no way to put that in so that you would have put the idea of bringing them into a building and prioritize that above the continuity of a teacher. So, so I just. And that's kind of what I was thinking through my head about, you know, those are all the kinds of different reasons and just sort of as understandings of why those circumstances are not really either viable

099or conscious decisions that ACPS has, you know, has elected to take. But I just kind of wanted to lay that out and I wanted to invite Dr. Hutchings and if you thought any other staff to respond. And Ms. Gentry, you're actually spot on. in regards to that. I know that Dr. Mozingo, as well as our principal leads, these are the conversations that were happening during our transition team meetings. For the community out there, every Wednesday, we have our transition team meetings. We break out into sections where we discuss, in a sense, what are the implications to decisions that we're making? I also just want to point out that we have region four meetings. with all of the region four that consists of every school division in this region as well as in the Shenandoah Valley.

100So we have that monthly and we are a part of that as well. So we actually talk to one another around how are you able to do it and how we're not. So we're very clear on how other people can make it possible and we have to make that decision based on our guidance. on what we think is going to be best for Alexandria City Public Schools. Dr. Mozingo, I don't know if you want to add on to anything that Ms. Gentry has said or any of our principal leads, because I know firsthand you've had these discussions that I feel Ms. Gentry was sitting in the meetings with us to have. Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. And I was making notes while you were describing those four conditions. And just today, I had a discussion with

101a few people. And the first one that you mentioned was, if a division decides to go four days, how could that happen? And it would be, I mean, you articulated it would be that you would forego three feet. the three feet requirement. We have talked with other systems because we wanted to be sure that we understood how some of those other divisions were accomplishing that expectation. So you have actually articulated it. The other concern, and we've talked about this, so we could have said in the prioritization, we only want to serve a certain group. And it would have been less kids, right? But what the prioritization does, it allows you to identify kids who meet those various conditions and therefore you can serve more children. So I just thought this is, you're exactly spot on.

102And you're just exactly spot on, but particularly that one. And I think we've made the commitment to try to lean on the side of safety. safety and safety. And so I just wanted to, I don't know if any of the principals would like to highlight or emphasize or stress any more comments in that area, but you've actually articulated all of the conditions that we have identified that mitigate against that particular decision. And I see the principles nodding their heads because it really is verbatim to what we have been talking about. So thank you, Ms. Jackson, for articulating that. Okay, I have Ms. Green. Thank you, Chair Alderson. Thank you, everyone, for the presentation. Dr. Hart, I had to turn off my camera and start bowing to you. It was so thorough and so appreciated. So

103thank you so very much. But as we talk about air quality in our buildings so thoroughly, could you talk a little bit about what measures we're putting into place for our school buses and transportation as we move forward with putting more students on the buses? That's a great question, Ms. Green. So I will say that what we are definitely doing is making sure that we are social distancing. You know, we have just recently increased our social distancing on our buses. We were doing one student per every third row, unless they were siblings, meaning living in the same household, we can seat them on the same seat. We are now doing one student per row, but it's more of in a zigzag fashion. So you'll have one student that will be closer to the window. On

104the next row, they would be closer to the aisle, which, you know, is what. helps increase that additional distance that would be needed between those students now that we're going to three feet. We also make sure that all of our students and our bus drivers and monitors are wearing face coverings during the duration of the ride. That still remains standard, whether it's six feet or three feet, or hopefully when we get back to just a normal ridership, you know, we are doing that. We also, and I believe I shared this in the presentation as well, opening windows for the buses. And I know people will say, well, why would you open on the buses and not in the buildings? Well, for a few different reasons. Typically, buses are not going to have the same level

105of sophisticated ventilation systems that you have in a facility. So in those cases, it would be the best practice to make sure you are bringing in outdoor air through open windows. So that is something that is encouraged. Of course, we would ask, you know, our drivers and monitors to make sure that they are, you know, keeping stock of if it's too warm or if it's too cold or if it's raining as such, you know, should we have windows open because we know that that can create. other discomfort for the student riders on the bus. So I can share that those are the safety measures that we are taking on our buses as well as regular cleaning of our buses. Again, that's been in place since we started back on this journey. And in the case

106that there is ever a positive case on the bus, we actually take that bus out of service. We do a deep cleaning on it. It rests for 24 hours before it can be used again. So those are some of the practices that were already in place at six feet. We will continue those at three feet again, but the additional encouragement of opening windows as many as necessary to bring in any additional outdoor air on our transportation vehicles. Thank you. Ms. Thornton. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much to the entire team. This was a really thorough and helpful presentation today. Again, Dr. Hart, I'm also going to sing your praises. This was very, very helpful to hear because we're not all technical people that understand the nuances of HVACs and the ventilation systems.

107So to hear you break it down that way, for me personally, was very helpful. And I think one of the key takeaways for me was this distinction between, you know, air monitoring. and then specific smaller assessments of things like ventilation systems. They are not the same. They are components of each other, but they are distinct. And I think, you know, this was mentioned before, but we hear so much from, you know, emails and from constituents that they see specific types of reports coming from other jurisdictions. And again, they wonder, like, why aren't we doing the same thing? And I think, you know. a really important kind of indicator or area of understanding that I think is important is when people want specific metrics that measure classroom-based air quality, what type of metrics should they expect

108to see? Because again, we understand there's general systems that measure air quality school-wide, but when you look at the classroom level, what are the most helpful indicators that could be shared with the public that they can look for? And then number two, I'll just add in both questions and let you all go at it. distinct from the air quality. Regarding space, I'm very happy to hear that we are in ongoing discussions with the city about our space needs. And I really think that the lack of space that we have right now answers a lot of the questions that we heard, for instance, in our public comments today, where, you know, why can't we go to four days in person now for everybody who wants it? You know, we were already overcrowded before the pandemic. And

109when you put three feet in between all of our students and six feet between our students and our teachers, space is even more limited. So can you please talk a little bit about what you envision as the timeline for when we might have a better understanding of what space we are able to get through our conversations with the city? Thank you. You're welcome. Oh, great questions, Ms. Thornton. So I will address the first one regarding, you know, different metrics specific for classroom indoor air quality assessments. And I'm taking a pause because I literally had a very in-depth conversation again with our environmental consultant this week. And they share essentially what we've shared tonight, that it is a combination of things. You can measure CO2, which of course is a great indicator, but that's also depending

110on the number of bodies that are in the space. So, you know, you'll have a CO2 indicator when your room is really full, but once, you know, you do a transition or if you change the use of that space, that CO2 measurement now needs to be relative to the load of who's actually using that particular space. You have your CFM, which I mentioned, you know, through the BAS systems, which, you know, indicate, you know, your airflow, you know, is your systems actually, you know, pushing that air through the system the way that it should be. You have measures such as, and I'm sorry, I'm just trying to recall everything. that I know the team and I have been over the past few weeks. And John Finnegan or Anita, please feel free to jump in if

111I've missed something. So we talked about CO2, we're talking about CFM. We mentioned, you know, just your filtration. So I know that we've shared before, but I want to reiterate that we have improved all of our filters to MERV 13. There are MERV standards, which specifically speak to the level of particulates that are captured in each filter. So I know that that... That's been a big push. Well, do you have MERV 13? Yes, we actually have those in all of our systems across the division. That was really one of the first things that we implemented. And I really want to give kudos to the team because I feel like we were ahead of the curve of a lot of the guidance that started to then say that this is something that you should have in

112your classrooms. The addition of... you know, HEPA air purification really does then bump your air purification from 13 to level 17. And that is why we are moving forward with that specifically now that we're moving to, you know, three feet guidance, because again, these conditions change just based off of so many different variables. it's really hard to say, well, these are the hard exact measurements because you take that at 10 a.m. and then something changes between 10 and 12. And now that metric has changed and that what you should be focused on has now changed. So I always hate to not be able to give a definitive answer, but I really have learned through all of this deep dive that it is really almost, I don't want to say impossible, but it is very difficult

113to say. If you check all of these boxes, this is how you know your classroom is good to go. This is how you know your space is good to go. It's really just not only checking those boxes, but the continuation of doing all of those things, changing your filters regularly, making sure that, okay, as more people are coming into this space, let me check what the CO2 is saying in the systems, you know, that have that feature, that monitoring response feature, or let me now go out to the site and check this with instrumentation to see. okay, making sure that our systems are working, are filtering that air, are adjusting based off of load and are also adjusting based off of outdoor air conditions as we are bringing in that air and mixing that air

114as well. It's very complicated, even for those that are in the industry, just really understanding everything that goes into it is, it's really something special. I'll end with that. in regards to our space conversations with the city. The one thing that I did quite honestly promise to the city as we are working through this is that we want to make sure that as we are providing updates that we are doing so with... We are doing so with language that we have all agreed upon. And I'm saying that because I know that we are continuing to respect both elected bodies. We don't want to necessarily get ahead of them being able to discuss our conversations with their counsel, as we are discussing right now with the board. But what I will say is that both sides

115are dedicated to getting this. getting our requests solidified and all the logistics worked out as soon as possible. So we are taking those steps. Both sides have action items. We are meeting now weekly every Monday to make sure that we are getting through these action items in order to accelerate the ability to say, yes, we can have these spaces or if these spaces aren't available, what are the other options? We all know that essentially we have to be in place. We have to make sure that spaces are identified. Honestly, I'm going to probably stay towards the end of June, early July, the very latest, because then our team would need to make sure that we have time to, you know, outfit spaces, set spaces up, of course, communicate what spaces were agreed upon to our

116team. So then that way a staff can be notified, those who would ever be teaching from those spaces or instructing from those spaces. So I will definitely say that a conversation Monday was very collaborative. I know the city is. colleagues that we're working with across the aisle are very committed to making sure that they can help support us in this matter. And so we're looking forward to those continued conversations and updates to both of our respective boards and those items. Thank you so much. Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I echo my gratitude to the staff. Very thorough presentation. Really appreciate all the updates and all the hard work that's been going into making all this possible for ventilation and all these other issues and planning for the transition back to school and everything.

117So thank you so much for all that. And Dr. Hart, I echo very thorough. So really appreciate it. So my questions are sort of in two buckets. One is in the ventilation area. And again, I do think this was very thorough. I really appreciate the, you know, some of the updates in terms of all the things we have done. I really also appreciate the nod to getting HEPA filters and making that purchase. I think that's going to be very helpful. And I guess my question was this. I think... You know, Dr. Hart, I think you've been moving us on a trajectory. You know, when I came on the board, you know, this was these IAQ issues were a problem before COVID, right? Like, you know, we had smell of gas at GW all the time.

118We had mold at Mount Vernon. We had all these different. recurring sort of IEQ related issues. And as you said, it's not just the air quality ventilation, it's all kinds of other, you know, it's not just ventilation, it's all these other factors, as you alluded to. And so I really liked what I heard when you said that you're working with this environmental consultant, and you're, you know, doing some planning around, you know, the maintenance of this going forward. And so I'm just sort of thinking about like, you know, Instead of being in this sort of historically reactive posture, you know, that we've been in as a division, how do we get to the point where we're in a really awesome proactive posture? And so actually, I think my comment slash question on this sort of

119piggybacks nicely off of Ms. Thornton's comments because, you know, I'm concerned about the indicators too. And frankly, I feel like as a board institutionally, like we need to continue to be better educated than this and more savvy. on these sorts of issues. And so I guess what I'm envisioning and I'm kind of wondering if you're, if this is something maybe you're working toward in this planning process is really, you know, figuring out what are these, you know, key performance indicators for IEQ, you know, at the classroom level, at the building level, and at the division level, you know, so that maybe we have a system in place to like you know, just as we get reports in the CIP and what you've done every quarter, you know, we have some sort of system to say,

120okay, here's how we're doing IAQ wise in the division. And here's, you know, here's how we can, let's look at that proactively and figure out what we're doing to like address these things. So we have, you know, cause I'm thinking not only COVID, I'm thinking like. after COVID, you know, and not having smell of gas at GW anymore and these sorts of things. So that's my first question is sort of any reflections you might have on that. Maybe I'll stop there and then I can go to my second question after. Okay. So yes, we are absolutely working towards, I think to your point, not only are What's considered reactive? I can definitely admit that to some cases, IAQ response, but you asked specifically about what are some key performance indicators, not just specific to classroom,

121but really to the entire facility, I'm assuming. In speaking with our consultant and just, again, me doing some due diligence research, some of the things that they say you can... you know, easily look towards, which we already have the capability to do, is look at your work order performance metric trend. That is really a great key indicator to see, okay, for example, how many work orders did you get last year when it came to HVAC, whether it was, you know, the system isn't working, it's too hot, it's too cold, it's excessively, you know, humid in this space, so on and so forth. Has that declined? Look at your work orders for obnoxious odors. You mentioned the gas piece. After we actually identified what was causing that and we replaced that last year as well. Once

122that is identified, do you continue to get repeated work orders about the same thing, the same type of smell in the same area? So that's why really looking at your work orders as a trend and keeping that trend is very important so you can start seeing the ebbs and flows in the performance of the building. Another piece in speaking with the environmental consultant is the continuing notification if there is a spike, and I'm going to say during traditional times because we're in COVID, if there is a spike in illness in a building. So whether you have a number of students that are now calling out or you have a number of teachers and staff members that are calling out sick all at the same time. Is that truly, you know, is it something related to

123the building? Is it something maybe that is related to community spread of flu, cold, whatever it could be? What is creating this particular atmosphere at this particular school? So that is another indicator. Thirdly, they just said a proactive measure, which again is something we're already doing, is making sure that your systems are regularly maintained. I think historically... I'm not going to sugarcoat anything. We probably did not do the best job with that. Deferred maintenance was a critical issue. We have come a long way. We're still not completely out of the woods, but we are focused on using our FCAs really as the process to help us better understand and best understand. We're not doing targeted. We need to know the entirety of our facilities. What is working well? What is wrong? What should we budget

124for? And how soon do we need to replace these items? I really think those three things that we're already doing now are great proactive measures to make sure that we are continuing on the cycle of IAQ improvement, not just at the classroom level, but really at a building level for all of our schools. Thanks, Dr. Hart. That's super helpful. And, you know, I think the more and obviously whatever is most useful for your team, but I think from just public transparency, you know, there's a lot of anxiety around these issues. You know, I think the more we can show the data, you know, at this building level, school level and division level, you know, and use some of these exact data. points you're talking about, I think that would allow us not only to be

125transparent, but also would allow us to really use the data effectively to, you know, continue on this proactive path. So I'm really excited about that. And, you know, excited about some of the steps we're moving, you know, and I, I do still, I do still have some questions, you know, but I'm not an IQ expert about like, you know, why we're not opening windows completely. I, you know, I, I know there's conflicting views on that, but, you know, I want to make sure that we're you know, making data informed decisions and that we're doing that as strongly as possible. So thank you for that. My other question is sort of shifting over to the reopening sort of transition of students. And let me say, you know, just that at Threshold, I'm very excited about the

126general trajectory of the planning and really excited about, you know, the fact that we're, you know, working to get. you know, five days in the fall. Obviously that's required by state law, but we're, you know, really getting the ducks in a row, figuring out the buildings, figuring out, you know, how we can resolve a lot of the constraints. So that's super exciting. I'm also excited about four days of summer learning opportunity for kids and think that that's great as well. And sort of as we're moving on that path, you know, I'm thinking about some of the earlier comments, obviously. I'm also in the camp, we want to maximize safety. You know, that's why we're sticking to three feet. We're not saying, okay, just, you know, open sesame, you know, no distancing. I think that would

127be a reckless decision to do something like that. At the same time, though, I do also want to maximize educational opportunity. And so I just had kind of questions about the phase in and just, you know, I'm curious how hard we can sort of push the envelope in terms of getting kids back into the classroom. So as I understand it now, you know, we're going to get. um you know as many kids into the classroom as possible for the two days in a um and two days in b um which totally which makes sense to me i think it's it's fair to give everyone a chance to have that opportunity so i totally agree and and and support support that decision um i i guess where i'm i'm sort of uh curious as to the

128staff's thinking and sort of what is possible is is sort of you know, on this effort to maybe get some kids four days of instruction. You know, we're obviously, we've said that we're going to give the citywide students four days instruction, and as a special ed advocate and someone who is very concerned about the welfare of special ed students, I think that that's great. But I really, you know, candidly, really like a lot the prioritization matrix that you all have put together. And I'm just sort of thinking about, you know, scenarios where, you know, we we say everyone can come into the, you know, everyone, you know, is being offered a slot for hybrid. And, you know, some families maybe don't avail themselves of that. And we do have, given the number of teachers that

129are available, given the number amount of spaces available, we do have some space. And so in that scenario, I'm sort of wondering, you know, if we were to give everyone in the city wide, a chance to do a four days in person, can we continue to go down the prioritization matrix, you know, to the L students and to the students who are getting D's and F's, you know, because if those students can be in the classroom with their teacher, potentially, obviously, I know some are still virtual, but if they can be in their class with their teacher, potentially four days instead of the two, and everyone has been given an opportunity to bring their kid in person, we can, you know, use the prioritization matrix to guide some kids getting four days through the end

130of the school year. I'm wondering if that's something we've considered. And I'm just wondering, you know, to what extent we can aspire to do that. And I realize there's not much time left in the year and so forth. But, you know, obviously, the more we can do, the better. So I'm kind of thinking about that and curious what your thoughts are on that. Mr. Suarez, where it goes back to similar to the conversation that we had with Ms. Gentry and our staff, just about some of the implications of going to the four days. I hear your point in regards to, you know, as we go through our prioritization matrix and as we're doing that right now, we're still looking at bringing in that next wave of students through mid-May. So then we add another extension.

131We're getting closer to June for the end of the school year, which we're now preparing for the summer to do four days per week. And then we're going to be preparing for the fall to do five days per week. So for us, due to these implications and trying to maintain, one, some sense of normalcy for some of our students, two, trying to ensure that we give all of our families these options to come in into our buildings and making it through each one of those levels. It is just not practical to do that at this particular time. We focused on the citywide program specifically because we're talking about a smaller number of students. You can get into some significant challenges when you get into, okay, let's just look at every classroom. You have a classroom

132next door that does four days a week in the classroom. right next to them that can't do the four days a week. And then there's like, oh, we're at the same school. We're in the same grade. They get to go four days. We only get to go two. It just spirals into another situation. And the commitments that we made to keeping our students with their teachers throughout this year, trying to keep them with some consistency and also trying to provide our families with as many options to be in person as possible. This is what. works for now. I don't know if anyone from our team wants to add in into that, but I think that what we've done is, I mean, we really did focus on those specific areas that we talked about when Ms.

133Gentry made her comments earlier. Yeah, no, and just to be clear, I totally hear all the constraints, and I want to be respectful of that. I'm just thinking more from a sequential timing standpoint. If we know by date X, here's how many families want to go back, and we have data on here's the number of spaces we have open, or space that we have available, and here's the number of teachers we have back. I wonder if in the same way, you know, we've sort of planned for the city wide, we can use the prioritization matrix to push the envelope further. I mean, it seems to me that we could potentially try to do that, but I realize it's really constrained and really difficult too. So I want to be respectful to staff. you know, I'm

134just wondering if there's a way to think about that a little bit. But, but I appreciate you. I appreciate the response. I understand that there are constraints. I get it. Dr. Reif. Thank you for the conversation. And I wanted to ask a couple questions about fall planning, but just kind of on the issue that some families have asked about the four days. I just wanted to make a couple of comments about that as well. I think it's important to remember that. you know, we really prioritize in the division trying to keep students with their current teachers. And so it's challenging because when we look at how many students we can bring back, it's not easy to just put a number on it. It's every, you know, the capacity is determined by each classroom because each

135classroom has different numbers of students who opted in the December, you know, intent form, whether they were going to come back and they have different numbers of students who may fit into those prioritization categories. So. We're really having to work through it at a classroom by classroom level, which is why the administrators at each school are reaching out to families. And I also thought I would just mention, you know, in talking with some families about going to three feet of distancing, I find that people. bring different kind of assumptions to the conversation. And some people think, well, wouldn't just normal distancing between students be three feet? And that is just, that's not been the case in our schools. Some of our schools are at, you know, or exceeding in some places upwards of 140% capacity,

136our schools are full. So that's definitely a factor. And also one of the public comments this evening asked. Don't you know, you know, at three feet, because isn't there just a formula you can use? And we did use a formula with six feet and then we actually test fit everything and it turned out to be a different number. So that is why the staff is going through each individual classroom and seeing, you know, how many students we can bring back at the three feet. So I, I totally understand Mr. Suarez's point. And I do, I, I, I. I would also like to see us push in that direction, realizing, however, that we're very close to the end of the school year as well. But my question, what I wanted to also say is that with

137the, I think it's important to prioritize giving every family that wants to come back in the hybrid option for two days that opportunity, because when we did the family choice form or family intent form in December, many families felt that, you know, that that form was not binding and that they would be able to change their decision at a later time. So I really think it's very important that we get through all of those families and we will not know the capacity. that we could go to four days until we work through all of those families. So it's just a very, it's kind of a logistical puzzle here that we're working through. But my questions were about the fall planning. This is for Dr. Hutchings, I believe. The first one is, I know that there's

138a fall intent survey or something of that sort coming out in May. And I'm very, very... concerned about how that process is going to go because I think there are many families who are going to feel very conflicted about what to select and is it binding and this kind of thing. And so basically my question is, is the board going to have an opportunity to weigh in on what that survey or form for families is going to look like? Because I understand it's coming out in May. And so I just, I want us to make sure we have a really robust conversation and get that information. to families that they're going to need to be able to make that choice and really understand the implications of their choice. And then my next question is about

139staffing. So I'm very encouraged by the work that we're doing to acquire additional space for the fall. And I hope that I hope almost all of our families are going to choose to come back in person because I believe that that is the best instructional model for students to be in person with an in-person live teacher and not learning over Zoom. But if we are going to continue to be at three feet, we're essentially going to be reducing all of our class sizes. We're going to be having more classes and smaller class sizes, which is great because that's something that people have been advocating for for years. And I think, you know, I'm feeling feeling confident that we're going to find the space to do that. What I'm very concerned about is the staffing capacity,

140because that means we're going to have to hire additional teachers. And I think other school divisions are also going to be looking to hire additional teachers. So I was wondering if you could talk about some of the steps that you're taking now to figure out this issue of the staffing for the fall. And thank you, Dr. Reed, for that question. And this goes back to attempting to be proactive versus reactive, right? If we wait until the summer or until August to ask our families what choice they want to do, we're going to be reactive because school is going to start in a couple of weeks and we won't have staff and we may not have space to accommodate. So we have to really strongly encourage our families to inform us of what option, whether they're

141going to be virtual 100%. or in person 100% in the fall. It is not at this point binding because we just got some new guidance from the BDOE and we're working through how often we have to ask our families on their option, right? But there are implications to this and this is why we are really trying to be proactive. It has to do with our staffing component. We need to know how many families, if they are choosing to be virtual or in person, how many of those families and how many students we're discussing so we can begin to do. all of our staff and that requires a full three to four months to hire someone. It's not something that you just do. You hired and you work tomorrow. You go through an interview process. We

142have to find the right fit. We have to ensure licensure. We have to do training. There has to be onboarding and it is a process. And if we wait beyond that May timeframe, we are going to then be reactive. I can guarantee that. So we're trying to get ahead of it. as much as possible. There are also implications in regards to the number of families who want to be in person, because if we are still at some form of social distancing in the fall, which I hope we are not, I really do, that would be the best gift. on earth if we have no social distancing in the fall. However, we have to prepare for social distancing too, because I don't want us to once again be reactive in the fall and say, hey, we

143didn't prepare for that, everybody. I'm sorry, we can't open school, right? So in order for us to be proactive. We're going to need to know how many families are anticipating being in person because there are some implications in regards to spacing if there are still social distancing guidelines. And we're going to have to be able to remedy all of those. We can't wait any longer, especially if we're adding, you know, any type of trailers to our schools or repurposing spaces in our buildings because There are people either in those buildings or there's construction that has to be done to make those spaces. And we need the time to be able to do that. We're still pushing it now, just like every other school division. We are contacting some of our companies about having these, I

144like to call them educational cottages, but everybody loves to call them trailers, right? Trailers. But everyone's trying to get trailers right now. So unfortunately, the trailers list, we're on a waiting list to get them because everybody's doing the same thing all over the country at the same time, which is a huge issue. And to your point, Dr. Reif, even with our staffing component, we are going to be competing with other areas. Now, I can say that right now, we are getting a lot of interest in Alexandria City Public Schools. That is a good thing. people want to come work for us. They're saying, I can't work right now, but I'll work for you next year. So come on next year, please come on to us. I know they can't, they're not leaving their school divisions

145at this particular point, but it's great that now people are wanting to come and work in our school division. And I think a lot of that is because we really are trying to be reasonable and we are showing some compassion for our staff. We are also getting staff members back into our schools, which is awesome too. You know, by May 3rd, we're going to have even more staff in our buildings. And next year, we are expecting staff to be back. You know, that is an expectation so that there isn't a staffing issue for our current staff that we have within our building. So I hope that that gave you some insight, Dr. Reif, but it will not be. binding for the decisions. But we really want people to think and, you know, to really be

146intentional about their efforts because it is helping us with our planning. And if we don't get this done now, we will be reactive when it's time to go back to school. And we're trying to avoid that. Thank you for that, Dr. Hutchings. And I just want to just put a plug in one more time. If whenever, whatever is drafted, that's going to go out to families. If the board could just take a look at that beforehand, I think it would be helpful. Yes, we will be more than happy to give the board an update on that information. Okay. Thank you. So I think I'm the last one. And I'll just, I want to start with a comment actually. And that is. I really do want to acknowledge that the staff have been in a constant

147state of planning for over a year now. And I don't know how to sort of describe that, but, you know, I hope everybody understands the impact and the depth and the struggle with that because School is still happening, right? School has not been closed. School has been different, but the system has still been operating to provide the instruction and the services to kids on top of these constant layers of different planning for different things under uncertain circumstances. And I just wanted to... you know, publicly acknowledge that because I'm always, you know, I think of all, we've always been worried about sort of the state of education prior to the pandemic. And this pandemic has really exposed a lot of just what the struggle is and a lot of, you know, how it's so important for

148us to value education in this country, in our communities, because this work is so complex and so complicated. And people don't do this for the accolades. They don't do it for the money. They do it because it's the labor of love. And so I just wanted to say, you know, to the staff, you know, I fully acknowledge you know, how difficult and challenging of a year that this has been for you all. And you have made so many changes from March until now. And you're going to continue to be making more and more changes through the summer. And you are more than appreciated. And just know that, you know, I think we understand. So I wanted to say that. publicly. I have questions about Seal Mondays. And really, I just want to know, I think

149this is just an opportunity to clarify for the public, because I think it's one of those things that's been said, but not really sort of fleshed out in, you know, a good thing to just share. So the first thing is, have they already commenced this year? And if we could explain the selection process and locations where kids are being served. So, you know, are kids being served, you know, at their homeschools? How is that? I just want to sort of create a picture for the public of what the Seal Mondays are, how the kids are selected and where they've been receiving those supports. I know we have Mr. Sampson here, so he can reply to that. Thank you, Mr. Sampson. Absolutely. So I'll go through each of your questions. So have they begun? No, but

150they start on Monday, April 26th, will be our first SEAL Monday. And we have been, today has just been getting all the things ready. And I know that the schools have also been trying to get things ready. to have that particular group of students back. In terms of the selection criteria, so we've been pretty targeted with this group of students. And so schools were asked to look at students who they already knew about. So they're using their multi-tiered systems of support process. And they're really looking at that very top tip of the pyramid up there, that group of those students with intensive needs. And then we ask them to think about, so which of those students that you already know about have social, emotional or academic challenges that are not receiving services virtually and progressing

151with them or might benefit from some additional in-person time? So that was really the place that they started. Now, what we've seen over the last couple of months is that as we've been able to transition more and more students back into schools, they are then able to provide those supports to these students when they're back on either that Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, Friday grouping. And so as we're bringing more and more students back. even with the three feet of social distancing, what we're finding out even today is that some schools are able to bring more of these students back and provide those services, you know, on the Tuesday, Wednesday, or the Thursday, Friday. So it's really a small group of students that are coming in for these really targeted academic or social emotional interventions on

152Mondays. So these students are being provided these services at their schools. We have a few schools who have been able to work through all of their students getting these services on Tuesday through Friday, but almost every school within the division is going to be having some level of programming for a group of students. Again, it could be a small group of students who meet these criteria on Mondays beginning on April 26th. Okay, thank you. All right, so I don't see any more questions. So thank you again, everyone. And as we have been doing, we will continue to. to track. And I think Dr. Hutchins, you had a comment to make. I just wanted to make a quick comment. And specifically, I just wanted to say thank you, Madam Chair, for your comments, because the team

153has really been working extremely hard. And I've been getting text messages since you made your comments with people crying and saying, thank you so much for acknowledging that, because really, everybody has been working as hard as they possibly can, more than you can imagine. Our job is to come out here and to make things look easy. That's what real leaders do. We show up and we say, we're going to get this work done. But people have no idea what happens behind the scenes and that many of our staff, they are dealing with some significant challenges with loss and child care issues and personal health conditions and mental health challenges and still having to do this work for other people. This is a selfless job, and this is why we went into education. So I just

154wanted to thank you for saying that publicly. I also just want to say this to Dr. Hart, and I've said this privately to you many times, but I feel with this, the way our America is right now, I just feel like I have to say this publicly. You are in a white male dominated world in facilities and operations. You are a Black woman. You are doing a remarkable job. You deserve and are, you have the privilege and the right to be sitting at the table, period, period. And people will challenge you for what you look like and what you bring to this table. But I'm here to tell you, as I say it every single day that we talk, because we talk almost every single day, you are the ultimate professional. You are a great

155leader. You are a great woman. You are a great mother. And you are doing a phenomenal job. And people will challenge you probably for the rest of your life until we change this narrative in this world, unfortunately, as a Black woman in America. But you hold your head up like you have been doing and keep doing exactly what you did today. And that is being the ultimate professional and utilizing your expertise, our team and our consultants to guide our work, period. I want that on the record so you can go back and listen to this every time you have a moment. Every time you have a moment. Anybody else out there? Because that is my job. My job is not only to support. our students and our families. I am the CEO and superintendent of

156Alexandria City Public Schools. I have staff that I have to serve too. That's a part of my job. I signed up for it. I signed up for it. And I do it to the best of my ability every single day. So I am showing and leading by example that we have to make sure when we know that odds are against folks and people are back to a wall when it's undeserving. that we step in and we say, oh, no, not today. You're going to learn. So thank you, Dr. Hart. And thank you, Madam Chair, for giving our staff those commendations. We appreciate it. Absolutely. And I have to add that Dr. Hart does it with a baby in tow, literally, sometimes on her lap. Okay. So I'm just adding to the accolades there. Thank you

157all. With that said, we are moving on in our agenda. We have a human resources audit update. Thank you, Madam Chair. We're going to move into our human resources update. At this time, I want to turn things over to our Chief of Staff, Dr. Wilkins, to introduce our team and to begin our presentation. Okay, thank you, Dr. Hutchings and good evening board members. I'll just provide a brief introduction of how we're going to make our presentation and then get to Q&A with you. First of all, we're going to have each director introduce themselves and they will cover their respective areas. In addition to our three HR directors joining us this evening is Mr. John Porter, who is our search consultant on our senior leader searches. And then I will run through the slides and quickly

158sum up the key areas for corrective action. So let me go ahead and turn it over to Ms. Hardiman, who's going to cover her area within recruitment and retention. Ms. Hardiman. Thank you, Dr. Wilkins and good evening board. My name is Sandra Hardiman, the director of recruitment and retention. I've been in this role just over a year and I've served in ACPS since 2010. If you recall, I was previously director of employee relations. I have an MS in management and received my SPHR, which is Senior Professional and Human Resources designation in March. I'm very excited about that to add to my SHRM CP. And I'm going to outline three areas for you. The transfer fair, teacher licensure, and classroom monitors. First, the transfer fair. The recruitment team has finalized the plan for a virtual transfer

159fair on May the 3rd. This is for... ensuring that all of our licensed staff have placements for next year based on our school enrollments and budget. This fair is among the eight other virtual job fairs that we have participated in this school year with an emphasis on diversity recruitment and specialized instruction. Second, the teacher licensure process. Teacher licensing and renewals are so critical to maintaining a qualified workforce. It is tied to the professional development that's being offered and VDOE requirements. We average 300 license renewals each year. Previously, this was a paper-intensive process. However, we are really happy that we were able to bring the teacher licensing renewal process online. The online processing has streamlined teacher submissions, principal approvals, and HR tracking by our licensing specialists. And she has been able to offer, for the first

160time this year, monthly informational sessions to provide licensing assistance. And finally, I will cover the classroom monitors. We are managing approximately 300 monitors at work in our schools. The breakout is 253 classroom monitors, 23 health annex monitors, and 22 temperature screeners. They have been well received and a major contributor to getting our kids back in the classroom. I want to personally thank our monitors for all of their efforts. We expect to maintain this number of monitors through the last day of school to onboard the monitors so quickly in such a short time frame. It really took a lot of teamwork. There are some major efficiencies that we were able to put in place to enhance our background check process by implementing self-scheduling fingerprinting services. The recruitment team provided weekly orientation training and daily management included

161our retired teacher and administrators as project liaisons. And they were able to help us ensure and continue to. seamless communication with schools, our contractors, and HR personnel. We will assess the number of monitors needed for the August reopening of schools, and that's going to be contingent on our health metrics, teacher availability, expanded classroom locations due to leased space, or use of mobile classrooms and other factors that you heard this evening. Thank you so much, and I'll now turn it over to Timothy Carson. Thank you, Sandra. Good evening, members of the board. I am Timothy Michael Carson, also known as T. Michael, and I'm the Director of Employee Engagement and Relations. To provide you with a little background, I joined the ACPS family in July of 2020, and I'm excited to be closing out my first

162year with ACPS. Before joining ACPS, I served in several senior and advisor roles in HR within primary and secondary education. higher education, and a number of organizations within the private sector. I hold a bachelor's degree in communications and a master's degree in human resources management. I also maintain two professional certifications as a human resources professional, as well as certifications as a mediator and equal employment opportunity investigator. Tonight, from the Office of Employee Engagement and Relations, I will be briefing you on annual training, personnel records management, and performance management initiatives. I will close with an update on the return to work status for personal health reasons. Starting with annual training, this year we expanded our required divisional annual training beyond just harassment in the workplace training. Additional divisional training included blood-borne pathogen training, which had previously

163only been required for employees dealing with students. Another training added was child abuse awareness and prevention for K-12 employees. This also doubled as our Title IX training requirement for the year. And finally, the Virginia Department of Education mandated seclusion and restraint training was required for all employees to complete. All training is to be completed by April 30th of this year. Presently, I am working with the chief of staff regarding the acquisition of a more robust training platform that will assist with onboarding initiatives, professional development, and compliance training. Moving to records management, the HR audit recommended that all personnel files be digitalized. Due to the pandemic, this initiative was delayed. As staff return in person to the work site, we are now in the process of recruiting casual workers to begin the auditing and digitalization of

164personnel records. This will allow us to have one central repository, reduce our carbon presence, and allow us to better safeguard our employees' information. The casual workers will also audit all electronic records to ensure that they comply with federal and state regulations. I am anticipating this task to be completed within four to six months. Many thanks to the NETs, I will discuss our performance management initiatives. More specifically, I would discuss performance evaluations. In this school year, all employees were required to complete goal setting and to receive a mid-year evaluation. In previous years, both were only required of licensed staff. This year also saw the rollout of the revised and updated evaluation system for teachers. This was done in collaboration with teaching, learning, and leadership. Many thanks to the lead principals for bringing me up to date

165so quickly. And as a note, final evaluations for all staff are due June 11, 2021. Now, finally, I will discuss the returning of employees into the workplace. As you referenced earlier, you know that a great deal of effort has been placed on the transitioning of our staff back into the workplace to support our students. My office was responsible for managing the process for those that requested a temporary remote status based on their health needs in relation to the pandemic. Individuals that were approved for this temporary status undergo monthly reviews. Dr. Wilkins outlined the full process earlier in his presentation. This concludes my briefing from the Office of Employee Engagement and Relations, and now to my colleague, Cheryl. Thank you very much, and good evening, members of the board, Dr. Hutchings. I am Cheryl Waldron. I

166am the Director of Compensation and Benefits. I joined ACPS in October of 2020. I come from a depth of background in private sector industry where I've worked in a wide variety of human resources roles from HR generalist function to the very specialized compensation and benefits, which really are, if I had to admit, probably my favorite parts. If it can be more complex in human resources, that is an area that I like to live in. I do hold a bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in human resources from American University. And I maintain the human resources, the SPHR, the senior professional in human resources certification and the certified employee benefits designation. I am responsible for running the Office of Compensation and Benefits for ACPS. And in my review with you this evening, I'll be

167covering also three topics. The first is to touch base on the compensation study, the phase two, which we reported out in January of 2020. 2021, excuse me. The second topic is on our supplemental retirement plan and an investment advisor request for proposal that we have in process. And finally, I will take a moment to review the return to work from temporary remote work status for our employees who have had childcare needs. And so to start in terms of the compensation study, as you know, we reported out with Heather Kasemi, our consultant with Siegel Consulting, on our second phase of our compensation study. The compensation study is very important to ACPS because it is from the recommendation of the HR audit that ACPS establish a schedule for conducting compensation studies, salary surveys, for different classifications of

168positions on a regularly scheduled basis. So the most recent study that we completed in July focused on 22 support staff. that were, I should say, support staff positions from facilities, our school nutrition services, general administration, human resources, information technology, and also included for school administration positions, our assistant principals at the elementary school, middle school, high school, and our campus administrator position. The findings of this compensation study did indicate that across the job categories, we do lag in terms of base pay. There were, of the 26 job categories, there are 12 that were identified as most significantly impacted. And the recommendation for actions coming out of that review for the short-term actions were to focus on modifying the salary ranges for the assistant principals and the select staff positions that were most impacted, found to be

169most impacted in the compensation study. And then also to look at modifying the pay grade assignments for select staff positions that are furthest behind. So to that end, we are working through implementing a market rate adjustment for those 12 positions that are most under market that would align to market over a gradual step progression. And I also will be working with each department leader for those positions where individual staff members have fallen furthest. and need to be addressed either on a pay grade adjustment or a job evaluation to review their classification. And that would be recommendations that would be made internally within our regular planning process effective for July 1. So moving over to my second topic, which is the supplemental retirement plan, request for proposal for an investment advisor. The ACPS Supplemental Retirement Plan

170covers our benefits-eligible employees who work 20 hours or more per week. There are approximately 2,500 employees who are currently enrolled in the Supplemental Retirement Plan. In working with the Investment Advisory Board, who is the committee appointed by the school board, to administer and manage the Supplemental Retirement Plan. We have undertaken a request for proposal for our investment advisory and consulting services. The purpose for undertaking that request for proposal is really that it's time. It's a timely action. The current firm has been in place providing these services for over 10 years. And the request for proposal affords ACPS the opportunity to really review what are current market trends, what are current market services, and benchmark and look at an opportunity where we can potentially improve. what those services are provided for the Supplemental Retirement Plan and

171in support of the Investment Advisory Committee. We are completing the proposal review process at this point in time and we will be coming back with a report out on the findings from our proposal review. I do want to personally thank Judy McConville, she is our retired teacher representative on the Investment Advisory Board, and also Don Lucas, who is our current active teacher representative. They have been intrinsically involved in our request for proposal process and represent an important voice to us in the management of the Supplemental Retirement Plan. Okay, and then moving on to my topic number three on the child care, the return to work process for our staff who have been working on a temporary remote status due to their child care reasons. Also, as reviewed earlier by Dr. Wilkins, the child care provisions

172that existed for leave options under the family first coronavirus. Protection Act, FICRA, did expire in terms of mandating the leave March 31st. We had implemented that criteria, as Dr. Wilkins shared earlier, as our way of being able to review and consider employees' requests to continue to work in a remote environment after our return to the school in March. We have communicated with the employees of the return to work based on the expiration of those provisions. and taken that three-stage approach, including the webinar to inform the employees on April 9th. We've followed that up with a set of frequently asked questions, FAQs, that have been communicated out to our impacted staff members and made available on the ACPS website. And myself, along with my team within the Office of Compensation and Benefits, have been engaged speaking

173with our staff members, offering them support and guidance in terms of what our child care, where may they go to look for child care opportunities, making sure that as we're speaking with the staff working through the issue of... returning to work, that they also know that the EAP, the Employee Assistance Program, has a robust child care provider search service. And then if the staff are interested in considering a leave of absence, whether they're eligible for a family medical leave under FMLA or another ACPS leave of absence program, we're working to ensure that they understand the parameters of that and the process to apply. Of course, we're not to the May 3rd return to work date yet. But I will share at this point in time that the actual number of leave requests submitted have been

174very limited. And that will conclude my comments for today. I appreciate your time with me. And I will turn it over to John Porter. Good evening, everyone. I have been so pleased to have continued my involvement with ACPS and our wonderful community. For the past year, I have served as search consultant for principal and executive director positions, along with Betty Hobbs, who has also assisted with a search for an executive director. I'd like to provide you a brief update of searches this year, where we are, where we've been, and what to expect. Since the beginning of 2021, searches have been or are currently being conducted for three elementary principal vacancies and four executive director positions. Polk Elementary School, we have just completed that. You approved a candidate this evening. And with that board approval, she

175will become the next principal at James K. Polk Elementary. At Maury Naomi Brooks Elementary School, we have two finalists. They've been selected. They've completed their meet and greet session interviews with staff and with parents and community members. They will be meeting individually for interviews with the superintendent next week with the selected candidate to be brought before the board at the May 6th meeting. We just posted the John Adams principal vacancy. The process is just beginning. We'll be planning, hopefully, to bring that to the board in early or mid-June. I believe it's your last meeting in June. The first event that is coming up is this coming week where we do a focus group to determine what the staff and what parents and community members are seeking in their next principal. We recently filled the educational,

176excuse me, the executive director for school leadership position. Betty Hobbs conducted that search. You approved that candidate this evening and that will become officially noticed tomorrow. More recently, we completed the executive director search for facilities and operations. You've heard from Dr. Alicia Hart tonight and heard the wonderful comments from Dr. Hutchings about her. She was selected and has been working in this position for a number of months now. Recently, we also completed the search for Executive Director for Communications. That search was completed with Kathy Minberg being approved and currently on board and serving in that position. And lastly, we're continuing our search for the Executive Director for Human Resources with hopes of completing this in May. That concludes my brief report. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Porter.

177Board members, I'll now cover our HR audit slides. So if we could bring that up, Susan. Thank you. And before I go to the next slide, board members, the The experts that you just heard from represent really the new HR. Over the past year or so, we have rebuilt human resources, right? If you recall last March, 2020, right? We had the retirement of Jim Loomis. And then later on, we had the retirement of Ms. Tuhan Nguyen. So we lost two key experts with a lot of years of expertise. We had to recruit for those positions. And you heard from Mr. Carson and Ms. Waldron who have replaced them. In addition, Ms. Sandra Hardiman changed from her position in employee relations and took on recruitment and retention. And she's just been a real standout for the

178office as a expert and also as a person of office continuity to help onboard. our new directors, as well as our new staff. There's a number of staff who are new. In fact, roughly 50% of HR has turned over in the last year or 18 months. So we have a new office and we are rolling ahead and appreciate all the good and great work that our staff does. So to the HR audit. Next slide, please. We continue to make progress here. We have approximately 70% of the recommendations are completed. So we're working on seven. And I'll quickly go through those seven findings. Next slide. The color code here shows what's completed is in green and what's still in progress is it's kind of this light yellow color. So if you look at recommendation number six,

179You'll notice that that is in progress. And there's been a major shift in our time and attendance software over the past six months. And that is to switch from what was known as TimeClock Plus to the new software called ExecuTime. And it's been a great project that's gone on well. We have made that transition and we are currently in, if you may, the punch list process where we are continuing to just address routine problems that come up as you transfer to a new software program. And we have been meeting weekly over the past year to bring this new system on board. It's been a great process and at the end of this briefing, I'd like our CFO to make a comment for the good and great work that his team has been doing. Item number

180seven, or recommendation number seven, you'll see is about the personnel files and records management. Mr. Carson has already described that. Next slide, please. With respect to recommendation number 14, Mr. Carson will be working on the onboarding program. We talked about that over a year ago, but due to the COVID situation, that of course has been delayed, but we got it and we'll be working on that. 21 refers to, again, records management, which we will be working. Next slide, please. All green there. Next slide, please. With respect to recommendation number eight, that's back to execute time again, and we'll be talking about that a little bit more in just a second. Item nine has to do with the retention and with respect to gathering information under the exit survey process. We want to know about our

181person's experiences as they depart the organization, so we'll be working on that. But also, we want to have some intermediate checks. while folks are employed in ACPS. So those are called pulse surveys, if you will, or state surveys, where we query staff just to get an understanding of how they are experiencing the workplace while they're here. Next slide, please. All green there. Next slide, please. All green there. Next slide, please. All green there. Next slide. And our last recommendation is number 25. This has to do with the timesheet. And this, again, goes back to our time and attendance system, again, and the switch from time clock plus to execute time. So I'm going to pause there. That concludes the review of the HR audit. If I could have Dominic Turner, our chief financial officer, make

182a comment about execute time, and then we will take your questions in the end. Questions, Dominic? Yes, thanks, Dr. Wilkins. Can everybody hear me fine? I appreciate the time to be able to speak a few words on behalf of the team. This has been a truly a team effort. It was an interdepartmental team of tech services under Dr. Hoover, HR under Dr. Wilkins, and then FSD. Really big thanks to the small work team of Daniel Fugar, Gary, Mariah, Mandeep, and Sandra for really being in the weeds on this and getting the transition going. Like any transition from one system to another, it has not been without its challenges, but we are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were when we were using TCP and having to export data from one system and import it

183into our financial system to get people paid. And it comes with the added benefit of no longer having to queue people up in lines to punch a clock. which in a pandemic is great because we shouldn't be congregating around a punch clock anymore anyway. So, you know, we're leaps and bounds ahead. We still have a few bugs to iron out in the system, but it is definitely moving us in the right direction with our time and attendance tracking and ensuring that it's integrated with our financial system. So thank you to everybody on that project team. the larger group that meets every Friday, as well as the smaller group that meets multiple times a week. And then again, you know, appreciate Daniel and Gary for putting together the training videos and meeting with people one-on-one and

184in small groups to train them up on how to use this new system. Thanks, Dr. Wilkins, for letting me have a few minutes to speak. I appreciate that, Dominic. So to summarize, school board, you've heard from your HR experts. You've also heard a little bit from Mr. Turner. I can see how HR works collaboratively with finances and other departments to make things happen and overall take care of our people so that we retain the best and the brightest here within ACPS. Board members, Dr. Hutchings, that concludes our briefing. I'll pause here for questions from the board. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that presentation. And do we have any questions from the board? I have Ms. Gentry. Well, first, thank you all so much for this presentation. I really appreciated that we not only

185got the information, but we got to actually see some of the team members, albeit only through screen at this point. Maybe someday we'll all be in the same building at the same time. But really great to have all of you. I also just want to say. you know, and thinking ahead, I'm so pleased with this department audit process that was started a few years ago. And I really do, you know, want to, you know, thinking ahead for the school board, I really do think this is such a powerful tool and it gives the school board a way to help identify areas. And then it really, it empowers the staff to then, you know, really dive into it. As I've seen in all of these different, when we've had the opportunities to get these audit updates

186and really watch, you know, what the team can do. And I think. You know, I'm so glad that this process was starting earlier, you know, even before the pandemic hit, because, wow, if ever there was a year you really needed a strong HR presence, this would certainly have been the year. So I just wanted to say, you know, that was great. And it was. you know, I'm amazed at how many things are green and so pleased in spite of all of the pandemic stuff. And that really just kind of leads me to think, you know, when I look at, when I look at slide six, and I think about like how complicated, you know, some of these. you know, these processes are, you know, the entire approval process and that that really would be a

187cross-functional team that would have lots of steps. And, you know, when I look at the, you know, the concept of the exit survey and that you guys are really building on this and this idea that, well, don't just do an exit survey, but post surveys and stay surveys. And I think that's great. And I just, you know, we, I think it would be great for the team to think about you know, with this sort of new understanding and new circumstances to, you know, make a recommendation about a revised target completion dates that really, you know, was realistic and something that we could all, you know, look forward to seeing. You know, again, just thank you for all the tremendous work. Dr. Rees. Yeah, I will just also say thank you to Dr. Wilkins and everyone

188on the team for your presentation, and also to Mr. Turner and the Financial Services Department for the work that you all collaborated on. I wanted to give one general piece of feedback on the layout of the status for the different recommendations that were made. It would be... It would be great. I know you all did go through some of the different things you've been doing, but it would be great for some of the items to maybe see a little bit more data on the outcomes. Like I'm thinking about there was the recommendation number five about expanding the use of customer satisfaction surveys. when people are interfacing with the HR department. It's good to know that that's happening. It would be great to be able to get a little bit more data, like how frequently do

189people fill those out? What's the kind of feedback that you're getting? Another thing on here was implementing strategies to more effectively recruit, hire, and retain Hispanic teachers. And I would love to know if the outcomes are changing. I'm really glad that we've put some different strategies in place, but just... wanting to see if those strategies are actually working. So that was just kind of one piece of feedback. And I was going to ask about the HR director. So I'm really glad that Mr. Porter said that the target date for hiring is May, because it seems that we've not had an HR director for quite some time. I'm very anxious to see that position filled. And then there was also a reference on the status update to the HR department improvement plan. And I was wondering

190if that's available somewhere. I know that the budget book that we got earlier in the year, it said that the department improvement plans were being worked on. And I didn't know if they were going to be put on the department websites or come out later in the year. So if you could just give us an update on that, that would be great. And Dr. Wilkins, before you respond, I just wanted to just add to what Dr. Reif has said, or just respond to what Dr. Reif said, but respond. Specifically, you know, you talked about the department improvement plans, and that is where our action items and our metrics show up for our different departments. And that is an area that we are specifically working on this year, what we wanted to be able to do.

191And this is why I love the fact that we do have these audits like this that provide recommendations, because then we can, as a team, go back and say, this is how we're going to address these particular recommendations and implement them. And then this is how we're going to measure whether it is getting the results that we're expecting. So that comes through. our department improvement planning. All of our departments this year have now been able to have more robust plans, but then we're also in this pandemic, right? So we're trying to not put too much into kind of the additional pressures that many of our departments have had. And I'm going to just speak to HR right now. You all, HR, we have been through a whirlwind with the retirements we had over the summer

192and the extreme kind of like change that had to occur with how do we manage staff who are going to be remote, who are going to be in person, how are we going to contact folks about who can come back, who can't. And then we also had to manage, you know, the documentation. Not making excuses to anybody out there. I'm just giving facts as to there have been some. additional priorities that were not a part of our planning whatsoever for many departments, but especially for HR this year. And we're still trying to fill our executive director position over the past year. So that's just an additional kind of layer. But I wanted to start off with that, Dr. Wilkins, and then turn things over to you. Okay, thank you, Dr. Hutchings. So to answer a

193couple of the questions, Ms. Reid, with respect to the search for the HR director, it has been a challenge to find an HR director. The quality of applicants is very, very challenging to find candidates who can rise to the level of expertise that we want. We've been through several reviews of this position and as Mr. Porter mentioned, we're still in it as we speak, but we hope we can conclude this by the end of the school year. With that said, I think everyone can appreciate that the demands on an HR director are very, very challenging at this time. number one. And then number two, due to COVID, there's not a lot of movement around positions that you might otherwise see. So the pool of candidates is very, very tiny. that we're looking at, but we're

194going to continue to keep that search open. And again, we want to find the person who best fits the role for ACPS. With that said, what we have shown, I think over the past year or so, is the usefulness of having an executive recruiter of someone of John Porter's caliber. Last year, John completed four searches. This year, he's up to six or seven. And as we take a look at building the capacity of human resources, I think that John has shown that the use of a recruiter is absolutely essential to ensure that we get the high quality candidates that we mentioned. We have some senior positions, and if we want the best people, we've got to have a great recruiter out there to try to find the best candidate for ACPS. In regards to some

195of the data within the audit report, we certainly can provide that later on and build it in as part of the review. But we are on it. And so, for example, if you take a look at customer service, we all within HR, we have a query at our. on our emails that says, how satisfied are you? Reply here like that. And we get some feedback in that manner. But it has been different given the COVID situation. So as things return more or less back to normal or we get more settled into this position as we return to this hybrid learning program, I expect that we'll be able to have a better measurement of how we're doing. But the COVID situation really has impacted human resources and it's just different. to get measurements in a context

196that makes a difference as far as assessing where you are and how you're doing. With that said, we are very sensitive to making sure that we listen to our customers. As I mentioned on several briefings, right? We have very, very empathetic understandings and conversations, you know, with our staff, right? Teachers and everyone. to ensure that we are doing the best we can to take care of them and making sure that they're having a good work experience. So we will continue on that route and keep the board informed. I'll stop there. And I think there's a question from Ms. Anderson. Yep, Ms. Anderson, you're next. Thank you. I have a question about the exit pulse and stay surveys or interviews. Are we doing those internally or will those be contracted out to someone else? Because there's

197always a great deal of anxiety for staff, I think, around those. Yeah, thank you, Ms. Anderson. We currently have the exit survey. That is in process. We do have a vendor and our staff gets a, if you will, an anonymous email that asks them to complete the form and we get that feedback. So that exit survey process is going. I think it can be made to be more robust. And that's the charge of Mr. Carson's office over the next year is to take a look at that system. and make sure that it's getting us a good measurement from each and every employee who departs the organization. Of course, it's optional, but we would like every employee to take a minute and tell us about their experience within ACPS. So just to follow up, so is

198that also for the state and Pulse ones as well, or is that the same contractor? No, it's not. The state surveys and the Pulse surveys are an initiative that we want to... We want to begin, and if we need a vendor to do that, we will do so. There's a number of different means that you can do that. Of course, you could do it in person with focus groups. You could do, if you will, a sampling of the workplace, particularly in different departments to get an assessment of how the workers are experiencing their their work here in ACPS, but it's also, I think, a good part of the onboarding process. We don't just want to have people sign on board and then not talk to them three months later or six months later or a

199year later. We want to talk to our employees throughout their tenure here in ACPS, and we are still in the concept stage, if you will. of figuring out how to do that. It's never been done in ACPS in a very regular way, but we hope that we can set up something where we can get some continuous feedback about the employee experience, particularly about how the employee is relating to their direct manager, right? And to do it in a way though, that's friendly and safe and that's helpful to that manager employee relationship. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Green. Thank you, Chair Alderton. Thank you, Dr. Wilkins and HR team. Dr. Wilkins, just a point of clarification around the executive director of HR position. Mr. Porter said it would be filled by May, and you said June.

200So I was just wondering, are... Are you thinking we're not going to have it done by May? And that's why you said June by the end of the school year. I too, like Dr. Reeve, I'm anxious for that position to be filled. So I just want clarification on is it May or is it June? Yeah, I'll comment first and then maybe let John comment also. I use June because I'm very. hesitant to say there's a firm date to hire this position after going through several, several iterations of this. And I want to make sure that we take our time and find the right candidate. I think that we may need some more time to do that. because as I look at the candidate pool now for this particular position, and I know that John is

201working on looking at the applicants in more specific terms, but it just may be that we need a few more weeks to look at the applicant pool and make sure that we advertise and market and perhaps even target quality applicants. Again, back to the role of Mr. Porter. with his as an asset, right? We can have John take a real good look at what qualities that we want in a candidate and actually look for those high performers that are out there and have a different conversation with them about applying to ACPS as opposed to that person who's searching for a new position because for whatever reason they want to move here to do. to the ACPS area or otherwise. So I'm looking to work with John perhaps on a targeted recruitment basis to see if

202we can find the right candidate. John, would you like to make any other comment? Yeah, just a little bit of follow up. I'm trying to be as positive as we can and hoping to get this accomplished in May. I think we do have the flexibility of moving it a little bit later. We want to make sure we get good quality candidates. COVID has been a major factor. People are not wanting to relocate as much as they may have in the past. And I think Steve and I are due for some conversation about. some possible other outreach where there might be some value and interest in recruiting some candidates. So we're shooting for May. That may mean it's more into June, particularly for your approval and or for your review. I was just going to add

203on to that because I do think that it's important, just as both of you have said, that we can't settle, right? And it's not that we can't find good candidates. We have good candidates out there. We're focused on trying to, one, increase our Latino population of staff. We need somebody who is going to be bilingual. We need people who are going to understand. I mean, there are certain characteristics that we're just looking for. They're strongly encouraged. It's not like that's all we can work with. but it's strongly encouraged. And we're asking for this in a field that right now is kind of limited because people don't want to go into HR because it's one of the most challenging fields. Similar to like, people don't want to become superintendents right now. You know what I'm saying?

204Like, it's going to be a hit when this is all over. Everybody's going to want to be a superintendent. There's probably going to be a lot of spots available. But people aren't signing up to be a superintendent today. They don't want to do it. You know, so I just think that we have to not settle. And I've been adamant with the team that it's not that we don't have good candidates because we really do. We have some good candidates, but are they the right fit to get us what we need in regards to these recommendations that we set forth? So we're not in this routine of hiring somebody else in a couple of years. Like we really need some continuity. And, you know, kind of like that unicorn we were looking for when we tried

205to find our executive director of school leadership, it took a year and a half, but now we got somebody who meets every item on our job description. So sometimes, you know, it does pay off to try to find that right fit that's aligned with what we have in a job description and not just somebody who can do the job. And if I could add, Superintendent Hutchinson, I agree. And you want the right person for the position. And as the superintendent said, you want someone that's going to be with you and stay with you and provide you all that you are looking for. We don't want to rush it and we don't want to settle. We want to make sure we get the proper person for the position. Mr. Suarez. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. And

206I wasn't going to ask a question, but this has been a really interesting discussion and an important one, because obviously, HR is a huge need in the division. So I just was curious, from Dr. Hutchings and Mr. Porter, I know, Dr. Hutchings, earlier, you were talking about financial incentives for bringing in uh you know retaining teachers bringing teachers for the summer things like that um is this an area where you know we we could use those types of incentives um you know to get this sort of unicorn candidate or you know um are it seems like mr porter you might have alluded to other forms of outreach i don't i don't know what you were meaning by that but i guess is there a way we can marshal additional resources um you know, as appropriate

207to really make sure we get this unicorn person by the year. Because I'm just thinking about like the opportunity cost, you know, of not having this person for more months if we don't get that person. And so is there any way the board can be supportive of these efforts to the extent, you know, you guys need to do need more resources or support to make this happen? So, yes, there are some additional outreach that we that we are doing with working with some of our local organizations and national organizations that are housed outside of D.C. and getting these jobs posted on their websites. For example, ALAS is one of the organizations and this is our Latino Association that is out there. It's right here in D.C. that we are trying to just have additional outreach

208that we just haven't done before. You know, before we've all done the tradition. traditional ed week, you know, local papers, the SHRM, you know, their website, that's our HR kind of organization that's housed right here in Alexandria. But we really are trying to expand our reach a little bit. We're also open to looking at someone who may not have had school experience. You know, they may be coming from the private sector. That is okay. We're talking about human resources. And it's not that we don't. We don't want somebody to have some kind of connection to the schools. But what we are trying to do in many departments is we're taking the organization to a level that we have not attained before. So we're going to have to go out and find, you know, unique individuals

209who may have a unique pathway and experiences to come into this role and be successful and to meet the standards and the expectations that we've set. You all know, I mean, I know as a superintendent because I work, you know, here with the school board. High expectations. We're not mediocre in ACPS. So I know my expectations are high from the board. And that goes down, trickles down into our departments too, that they're very high expectations in order for us to get to where we're trying to go. And that gives you some insight to some of the things that we are doing. And if you know anybody out there, Mr. Suarez, please tell them to apply to ACPS. to our website. And if anybody out there knows, please send them our way because I know Mr.

210Porter, he is constantly looking at resumes and, you know, looking at the alignment with the job description that we have placed. Yeah, no, and I appreciate the creativity and, you know, obviously that's great that you all are doing that. It seems like we, you know, we may need to like offer some like, you know, signing bonus or some sort of, you know, or cold call people. And like you said, look, think outside the box. I'm glad you guys are taking some of those approaches because it's such a super important need in the division, as you all know. If I may, Mr. Suarez, just to follow up on that comment, that's exactly the point of Mr. Porter's position that I'm glad that you have recognized, which is that recruiting is a specialty. It's just not something

211that you pop in and out. And I can tell you that Mr. Porter and our relationship has just blossomed over this past year as he has become really an expert recruiter. With that said, someone who is in the role builds the networks, builds the contacts, builds the relationships that help organizations find the candidates that they need on a consistent basis. The use of John Porter as a consultant is new for us. And again, his performance has played out. It's been proven that we do need... someone who's dedicated to recruiting, right, to get us to high quality candidates, you know, for these roles. So thank you for recognizing that. We very much appreciate the support that's there. Yeah, and thank you for all your hard work to bring all these folks in, Mr. Porter and Dr.

212Wilkins, you as well. Really appreciate it. All right, thank you. I don't see any more hands, so I just had some comments. One was to thank Mr. Porter, I mean, for just sort of shifting gears and just being another awesome portion of the wheel of ACPS. So definitely appreciate you coming on to do that work. And for someone who's not here, Betty Hobbs, I mean, she continues to support the interview process, you know, fielding candidates. And she is the mom. I'm telling you, there isn't much, I guess there are no slouches that are going to get through Betty. I just, you know, if ever you sit in on an interview panel with Betty, she is just another great resource that I'm glad that we're using for HR purposes. I appreciate the work and I appreciate

213the progress. We know this has been an Achilles heel for our division and it is changing. I can actually say from several interview panels that I've been a part of, not only is the recruitment robust, the quality of candidates is just getting better and better and harder and harder. to select because we really seem to be, you know, picking up some great people with a lot of skills. So whatever we're doing in that area, I think we should definitely continue. It just sort of relates to my comments earlier about, you know, there's recruitment and there's retention too. Like we don't just want, we don't want just anybody in these positions. We want the best of the best. And so it's, it's worth investing in that work. It's worth investing time. You know, I can echo

214what Dr. Hutchings said about, you know, some of these ED executive director positions and how long it took, but, you know, when the unicorn shows up, it's worth it. So just, you know, let's keep it moving. keep getting all these good candidates and good people in these positions. I think it'll definitely get us to the next level. So with that said, we're moving on. Next on our agenda, we do have, well, okay, so we have to, we have new business. I mean, we have to bring Dr. Mozingo and Mr. Pascal back to formally provide info on the calendar. for Samuel Tucker. So I know it won't be long, but. No, and I'm happy to do that. Thank you, Chair Alderton. And thank you for allowing me to preview in the context of the earlier presentation,

215because that's an important piece here, that this really is in the context of optimizing learning options for all students, in particular, to be able to have the Tucker families be able. to participate fully in summer learning this year, as well as be ready to be available for the first day of learning if we can amend our calendar by two weeks. I won't go over all of the comments. I will just note. that really this is driven by what I think are some of the key core values in our strategic plan in terms of being equity focused and results driven. We really value the intersession framework as a tool for helping to address learning loss and we hope to maximize it this year in particular. This calendar does really match with what a traditional Tucker calendar

216would be. Under normal circumstances, we have about a six-week summer for students. Without this, that would have been cut by two weeks to four weeks. So again, this seems to provide the option for us, the opportunity for us to ensure that our students have the options. Our families have more options, whether it be for a longer break or for that additional boost of summer learning. We've had multiple opportunities to engage with stakeholders from PTA meetings to parent forums dedicated to this loan topic. We spent some time not just brainstorming in staff meetings, but digging deeper and doing a weighted pro-con list so we could identify which of the variables really do matter most to us. And finally, we did a formal survey through a Google form so that all stakeholders had the opportunity to have

217their voice heard. So it is our recommendation. that the school board entertain, that the school board approve the amended calendar for Samuel Tucker for next school year 2021-22. And we do believe that the impact will be a greater learning on the part of students, greater academic results, and a reduction in opportunity gap as well as academic gaps for our most treasured. I think we value the most our students. Thank you. And tonight, this is an item for information. The goal is to bring this back as a formal request to the board to approve as a part of the calendar on May the 6th. All right. Thank you. Do I have any questions from the board? All right. Pretty straightforward. So we will see this later. Okay. Cool. All right. So next up, we have our

218FY 2021 CIP budget reserve update for quarter three. Thank you, Madam. All right. Jeez, it's late, everybody. I just wanted to make sure you all were up. So thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to turn things over to Mr. Finnegan at this time to go over our FY 2021 CIP budget reserve. And this is our update for quarter three. Mr. Finnegan. Good evening, Madam Chair and board. For quarter three. Our CEIP reserve account is at $235,759. That amount remains unchanged from the last quarterly report. Attachments that when- Did we lose them? Dr. Hutchings, but I can definitely finish up. Mr. Finnegan was just stating that the CIP reserve account balance is $235,759. This has remained unchanged from the last quarterly report that we did on the same item. And we have shared our two normal

219attachments that we always share, which just shows how this particular account has been funded over the past few years since its creation. Okay, thank you. Do I have any questions from the board? All right. So we've got our update and we're moving right along. So it's back to me. Report from the chair. I actually had a thought. I wanted to add something to my HR comments because I was mentioned about recruitment. But I also, in regard to retention, I wanted to say the other thing is you know, not only making sure we value and take care of our employees that we have, but also we've got a lot of awesome talent within ACPS. And so just always keeping in mind as well, making sure that we're growing our own, you know. as people move through

220different positions throughout the division. So I forgot that point, but I wanted to make sure I made that known because we've got great people who are growing and ready to do great things. So with that said, am I supposed to say this? I can't remember or Dr. Hutchings. Well, we have gifts on the dais, guys. Okay. So everybody has to open them. And if you're at home, you don't have yours. People at home don't have theirs. Okay, if you're at home, you will get yours. Don't worry. All right, so we have, everyone can see, we have our ACPS early childhood group for 2020-2021. And they're so cute. They're sitting in little boxes. How'd they do that? So this is the week of the young child, and it's celebrated annually each year for the National Association

221of Education of Young Children. And this year was celebrated April 10th through 16th. And the purpose of the week is to focus public attention on the needs of young children and their families. and to recognize early childhood programs and services to meet those needs. So Dr. Hitchens, were you going to say something about that at all? No? Okay. All right. So thank you to our early childhood folks for sending these pictures. Yes, Ms. Green said we love them. We absolutely do. Ah, so we've got a demolition kickoff. coming. Everybody get excited. The kickoff event for Douglas MacArthur Elementary School, Monday, April 26th, 9 a.m. Everybody, can we get an applause? Are we ready? Are we excited? I think we're... Is it being broadcast? It's being broadcast. Okay. So some of us will be there, I

222think. I know I'm planning to be there. Do I get a big sledgehammer? Okay. Okay. All right. So that is happening on Monday. Also, yesterday was Administrative Assistance Day. So for all our administrative assistants out there, thank you for everything that you do. I saw the Tucker Tigers had some great promo on social media. They had all their administrative assistants being shown. So that's not to say that everybody else didn't. you know, do some great things for their admin assistants. That's just one that I saw. But thank you all for all that you do. And especially during this time as well. I think their roles have definitely been both challenged and changed throughout the pandemic. So thank you all. Let's see. Our next school board meeting is May 6th, and that will also be the

223first budget work session. So tune in for that. We have a public hearing on the combined funds and CIP budgets on May 20th. Also, if you love to join meetings, you can join our city schools subcommittee meeting on Monday, April 26th, and that'll be 5 p.m. via Zoom. All right. So moving on to the superintendent's report. I had some of the same updates. So I'm not going to repeat other than just saying once again, thank you to our staff for all of your hard work and your dedication during this time. And a huge shout out to my executive assistant, Ms. Veronica Tellez. She is one of the most remarkable. administrative professionals that I have the pleasure of working with every single day. She gets to deal with all of my schedule and it's a lot,

224but she does it flawlessly. So thank you so much, Ms. Tellez. I know you're watching because she watches all these board meetings. I'm like, you don't have to, but she loves it. So thank you. And I'll see you tomorrow. All right. Do I have any announcements from the board or from board members? Dr. Reese. Thank you. I pulled a Dr. Hutchings. Yes, I just wanted to thank Dr. Tricia Jacobs, who's the head of our CTE programs for the preparing the Perkins grant application, which is just outlines our CTE plan for the coming year. It was on our consent calendar. I didn't want to pull it, but I wanted to thank her for that. I am the school board liaison to the CTE committee and I wanted to highlight especially I know Ms. Anderson will be

225as excited as I am that we are starting a new pathway next year which is for construction management. So this will support students who want to go into the building trades as well as a pathway to Nova Northern Virginia Community College has a construction management program as well. So it's very exciting. Excellent. That is very exciting. Ms. Green. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to, I know Dr. Hutchinson had a message about this, but I wanted to make sure everyone knew publicly that our Titan volleyball team plays in the state championship tomorrow night. So kudos to them for making it that far and let's bring that championship home. Absolutely. Can't wait. So exciting. All right. Well, with that said, we need a motion to adjourn. Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn. Second. Okay,

226so I have 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. Absent. Veronica, I keep forgetting she's absent. Veronica Nolan is absent. Michelle Reese. Yes. Christopher Suarez. Yes. And Heather Thornton. Yes. Okay, so we are adjourned at 8.33 p.m. Have a great evening, everyone.