001Good afternoon, everyone. Miss Anderson, you probably want me to read the resolution. Miss Alderton. Well, no, I was talking to our city attorney. Oh, sorry. Yeah, Miss Anderson. No, not the former. Not the other. Too many Miss Andersons. I'll just read the statement since we don't have the resolution. They're all wonderful. They're all wonderful. That's right. All right. I think so. Yes. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, this April 26th, 2021 meeting of the City Council School Board Subcommittee is being held electronically pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-3708-2A3, the Continuity of Governance Ordinance, which was adopted by the City Council on June 20th, 2020, or Section 4-0, sorry, 4-0.01G in House Bill 29 and House Bill 30, which was enacted by the 2020 Virginia General Assembly, Virginia Acts of Assembly 1283 and 1289, which allow
002us to undertake essential business. All the members of the board and the staff are participating from remote locations through a video conference call on Zoom. This meeting is being held electronically due to determination. It's not safe enough to meet in person at the City Council Workroom at 301 King Street. Electronic access is provided via Zoom. And as we were just discussing, we'll post the video later. All right. Good evening, everyone. Welcome, welcome, welcome to our April 26th meeting. We are going to begin as we have been for the last year with COVID-19 update from both sides. Do we want to start on the public health side? I see we have Dr. Gaddy, or do we want to start with Dr. Hutchinson and Mr. Jenks? How do you guys want to do this? I think Dr.
003Gaddy first to talk about the health. Okay. Dr. Gaddy, you're up. Welcome. So this is the first time I'm presenting this information here. So if you have additional things that you want to hear, please let me know. So I think just a general update in terms of our cases. We currently have 11,585 cases. If you look at the distribution of those, it is sort of... The fewest number of cases are among the 60 year olds and older that we're acquiring, which is great because that correlates with our vaccination efforts and not being the population that's the most vaccinated at this point. In terms of hospitalizations, 551 deaths, 133. And our seven-day moving average on cases is 14.9. That's actually decreasing. So we've been seeing over the past week or more, definitely over the past few
004days, actually, the cases going down, which is great to see. And our percent positivity is 4% positivity for our PCR tests. And then in terms of vaccinations, we have vaccinated 99,000. 2,218 times. That's the total number of vaccines administered. Of that, about 41,569 people have been fully vaccinated. So that's really... quite a feat that we're very proud of. And of that, I looked at the data on the BDH website, which they don't have broken down by specific age years, but just in terms of what's relevant to the schools, the 16 to 19 year olds. That is 1,655 individuals that have been vaccinated in that category. And I heard that over the weekend, I think there may be a little bit of a delay in the data as well. I heard over the weekend, there were
005a whole lot of high school students who came through our pods, which is great. Yeah, I personally brought one of them there. Saturday and he was finding all of his friends there. So he was very excited to see all of his TC classmates while he was there. So it was kind of like a little reunion at the vaccination pod. So I can speak authoritatively that we got a lot of 16 and 17 year olds done on Saturday. That's great. And we are now seeing that across Northern Virginia that the demand is kind of falling off. We're not having as many people sign up on our pre-registration list, meaning that we will move from the pre-registration list as a way of getting people appointments to doing more open appointment links and having people just able to...
006directly go to our website, click on a link, and just sign up for an appointment. So that we're in the process of operationalizing that and being able to think about getting out into the community in smaller and smaller events to be able to reach the people who haven't been coming to our pods. And I do think that a lot of that outreach may also happen through the schools since you have such a wide reach through the community. And then the other relevant issue in terms of pediatric vaccinations is that likely within three to four weeks the EUA for 12 to 15 year olds may come through for Pfizer. Meaning that that group of people would then be eligible as well. So Dr. Getty, can you talk a little bit more about, because I know we're
007going to enter this phase now where we have addressed the folks who were eager and willing, and now we have to do a little bit more of a sales job on getting folks done. And I have had a couple of folks ask whether we will be setting up at schools, particularly when the 12 to 15 comes through. Is that a... Is that a concept that you guys have discussed with ACPS? Is that something that potentially we should see in the next several weeks? Or how's that going to look? I was just talking with Dr. Crawford today about that. And I think we've talked with the facilities people a little bit. So I think we're in the beginning of conversations as to how that might go. I don't know if any of that's made its way
008up to Dr. Hutchings yet. But we would love to be able to bring some of that to the schools, just the way we will try and bring it to other places in the community. that we think we might be able to access populations that haven't been yet to our pods. So, and it would be great. I think the great thing about the schools is obviously we're, we would be getting in touch with not only the teenage population, but also their parents and families and really trying to make it sort of a. pitch it as a family event or, you know, a family, something that benefits the family as a whole. That's great to hear. Other questions for Dr. Gaddy? I understand Councilman Chapman is now on as well, so I don't see him, but I
009trust he's here somewhere. All right. All right. If there's no other questions for Dr. Gaddy, we will let her go. Thank you very much for the update and the partnership here. Sounds like you guys are connected at the right levels here, and hopefully we'll be able to continue that kind of outreach within both, as you said, both the students and the parents to try to increase our vaccination rate as we go into the next phase. Okay, so next up, who wants to go first, Dr. Hutchins, Mr. Dinks? I'll go ahead and just follow on to Dr. Gaddy. Most of our work on the city side is going to be supporting the health department in the outreach and finding people and developing different communication, marketing, really, why people should get vaccinated. So that's a lot of
010what we're going to be doing and continuing to help staff the points of distribution sites. And then... On the city side, with the average case numbers down, our hospitalization number is down, our positivity numbers are down, we will start ramping up. beginning with skeletal reopening and the mode we were before the late fall with a goal by the time we get to Labor Day and having basically everything open, however, with a good work from home element to it. So we've got a lot of work over the next few months to figure out what that means and how we make our workspaces. how many people we can accommodate in our workspaces given if the social distancing requirements stay in place. So I think we have later on the agenda a discussion on the facility requests. I
011don't know if you want to wait and we'll talk about that then or? Yeah, we can wait. Deborah's going to cover that. Okay. It'll be a nice segue after this. Okay. All right. So we can talk about that later. All right. Dr. Hutchins, you're up. Yes. So just quick update is that we are transitioning more students back in. Last week, we had another group of our elementary students return to some in-person learning. This week, we are welcoming our secondary students, additional secondary students back into our buildings. All of our classrooms have now been converted to three feet apart. in regards to spacing for desks. And we're finalizing and tomorrow we'll be able to share some more information out with our families in regards to our lunch and what that looks like because the three feet
012is for classroom. you know, spacing. However, anytime we're having meals served or mask or removed to eat, things of that nature, the stool is required to be six feet. So every school had to establish their lunch schedule to accommodate that. So we'll be releasing that to our families who are part of our in-person learning this week. Also, we now do have guidelines. We work with the Alexandria Health Department with solidifying our playground guidelines and students will be able to use our playgrounds. We had to put some additional kind of structures in place just to ensure that we're still providing healthy and safety play experiences for all of our schools. But that has gone into play as well. We had a meeting with our staff last month. All of our staff members who had an exemption
013for child care, that provision is no longer available as of March 31st. We did afford our staff a grace period to find the appropriate child care options for their child care needs at home. But those staff members will be reporting back into our in-person learning on May 3rd. So that's next week. So we will see additional staff. in our buildings. And these are staff members who had child care concerns due to COVID-19. Another thing that we just recently shared with the board last week was our summer planning as well as our fall planning. And our summer planning is completely underway. We're going to have four days a week of summer learning. for our students beginning on July 6th through July 30th and that will be in person as well as virtual summer learning. It is
014not mandatory for all of our students. It is strongly encouraged though for our students to participate. They will be four days a week from 9 a.m to 1 p.m and we wanted to ensure that we have summer learning. and fun included in this because we do not want our students to feel penalized because they're doing summer learning for four weeks in the summer. So there is some interactive and fun activities that are involved in our summer programming. We will also this year be adding an additional two week virtual learning for students that have been invited to be a part of this additional two week support. And that will occur from August 2nd through August 12th. And these are for students who have been identified of needing just some additional supports prior to the fall beginning.
015So that will be an invitation only. And it's a new kind of component that we've added to our summer experience. Our fall, we will have five days a week for all of our families who choose to be in person and five days a week for all of our families who choose to be virtual. We are finalizing our planning for our virtual academy, which will be an academy for kindergarten through 12th grade. That is 100% virtual. It is for students and families who would like to have that option in the fall. And specifically, it allows for students to have their learning completely online and that they would have a virtual teacher teaching them online. So in the fall, students who are part of a virtual setting will be taught virtually from a virtual teacher. Students who
016are in-person setting will be taught in person in a classroom with an in-person teacher. So there will not be a hybrid model in the fall or in the summer. And that is a lot that has happened over the past, you know, since the last time we met over the past month. But we are looking forward to continuing our efforts and our work to solidify all of our plans and to transition as many students as we possibly can over the next few weeks. Okay. Questions for Dr. Hutchins? So let me, let me make sure, I guess I have one, one question. I just want to make sure I understand. So you guys had talked previously around these, the Mondays of bringing, bringing kids who need the social, emotional, academic supports on Mondays. So are those, I
017guess, how many kids are in that group? And has that already started happening? So are those, are those kids now in three days a week at this point? That just started today. So I don't know what those numbers are, you know, as of right now, as it just started today. But what I do know is that students also who were needing that additional kind of tier two or tier three supports on our SEAL Mondays, social emotional academic learning Mondays is what that stands for, that we were. contacting those families to get them into our two days per week as well. They were at the top of our list. We did have a prioritization matrix that we're using to bring students back and students who are experiencing social, emotional, academic learning, you know, some challenges right
018now. Those were the groups of students that we were really trying to get back into our school buildings on those two days per week. So I'll have those numbers for you. We'll be providing an update to the board on May the 3rd. for May the 6th. What's next Thursday? The 6th. So, okay. So that's, that's the kids. That's the kids who you guys have prioritized. So some of these kids were students that were fully virtual that you're encouraging to come back in the hybrid, but then offering an additional third day for those students as well. And then I guess the families that had, I don't know, you know, had opted for virtual and want to go hybrid now, are all those folks able to be accommodated now? in person? Prioritization varies depending on the school.
019So right now what we're doing is going through each of those levels. There's a total of seven levels that we're going through on this prioritization matrix. And now having the three feet apart and still remaining at two days per week allows us to have the maximum number of slots and opportunities for our families so that we can actually get through all seven of our levels and still keep staff. and students together and not having to change schedules and things of that nature. This is affording us to be able to be able to do that. So we'll have, you know, some more accurate numbers next week when we provide an update to the board on that. Okay. I may come back to that when we talk about the facility stuff. Any other questions? Mr. Mayor. Councilman
020Chapman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Question for Dr. Hutchins. For the fall, is there going to be flexibility for families to choose between virtual and in-person? And excuse me, once they choose one, will there be flexibility if something's not working and they can choose another one? I think I've heard that for what we have now, parents chose the version of learning that they wanted, but there wasn't very much flexibility. I just wanted to kind of find out where we are for the fall. Yes. So parents will have some flexibility in the fall. But we want to be able to share with our families that there are some caveats that come along with that. So, for example, if you're switching your student from one learning experience to another, that that does impact the student schedule. It will
021impact, you know, that they're going to have a different teacher, things of that nature. We want to make sure that we're sharing that up front. Why we weren't able to do as many accommodations this spring is because we made the commitment to keeping students with their teachers and not having another disruption. So if you are assigned to a particular teacher, we want to keep you with that teacher throughout the remainder of this year. which caused some limitations for us in having so much flexibility. Next year, we just want to be upfront with our families that that will be an option, but we will have to change your student schedule in order for that to occur because we won't have concurrent teaching or hybrid learning in the fall. It would be your child is assigned to
022a virtual teacher or your child is assigned to an in-person teacher. So when you swap, you're assigned to a different teacher for that. But we will have... some flexibility. Right now, what we're looking at is having rotations potentially at a quarterly time period because there are some things that have to take place in order for a change to occur. We're still working through all those logistics. We're going to be sharing an update with the board on May the 6th. Thank you for that clarification. All right. So let me follow on one more time, just make sure. I'm just trying to... trying to kind of understand the math. So you guys are going to go through that, the seventh year prioritization and bring students back. And obviously it varies at different schools, how much capacity you
023have. Do you have, will you have the ability to go and where you have capacity add, you know, days for students, or are you going to stick to the... the two with the potential for a third if they're in the seal Monday, the two plus one or two with an option for one model for the remainder of the school year? Yes, at this time we're looking at remaining at two days for students. So we can have a cohort A and a cohort B. The students who will be transitioning to four days per week are our citywide program students and these are students with disabilities who are part of our citywide program that will be transitioning to four days per week. OK, and so there is so there is a like how many kids are we
024talking there? Is that a big is that a huge number? I do not have that number off the top of my head, but we gave that number to the board. I could get it to you. Yeah, it's not. If you have a report that you can send me, that'd be interesting. OK, so there's a portion that will be. So essentially, you're going to have kind of really four different models out there. You'll have a portion of students that are in four days. You'll have a portion of students that are in three days. you'll have a portion of students that are in two days and then you'll have a portion of students that are in fully virtual remaining. Pretty much that's that's exactly how it will be. Okay. This spring. For the spring. And then in
025the summer, all students would be offered summer learning if they opt for it. Yes, and we also have for in-person. So we will have in-person and virtual. It's open for all students, but we are going to be targeting our students who really need to be in-person during the summer because we are not able to accommodate everybody during the summer for in-person learning. And that is because all of our buildings are not available during the summer. But there will be summer learning for all students. Okay. All right. That one I probably want to come back to when we talk about facility needs. All right. Other questions for Dr. Hutchins on COVID-19 update for now, and then we'll talk about the fall facility needs here as a later item. All right. All right. We have the approval
026of the meeting summary from March 22nd. Is there any discussion on that? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the meeting summary from March 22nd? We need a motion. A motion that we approve. All right. Motion by Vice Chair Nolan. Seconded by... Second. Councilman Chapman, any further discussion here? None. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes have it. The meeting summary is approved. All right. So now let's go to the major projects in the ACPS fall expanded facility needs. Who wants to, I think it was Ms. Collins is going first there. Ms. Collins. So Dr. Hart and I will be presenting on this item just to kind of. you know, bring you up to speed on where we are right now. So the city, the city
027manager and I received a formal request from ACPS outlining the fact that ACPS would be needing to look at not just external spaces, but city facilities as well to accommodate. the CDC expanded requirements in the fall. We formed a work group and so we basically have five representatives from ACPS, particularly from facilities as well as from community partnerships. We also have an interdepartmental work group on the city side. The work group is led by Dr. Hart and myself. So the letter basically outlined the fact that there will be space deficits in the upcoming year and that ACPS would like to work with the city to collaborate proactively for the upcoming year. In addition, it's not just relying on the city, but ACPS is going to utilize a number of methods to meet the anti-space space
028needs, including potential mobile classrooms, leasing space, and looking at possible leasing options. From ACPS, they have formally, priority one, they have formally requested Charles Barrett, Durant, Mount Vernon, Patrick Henry, William Ramsey, and Chick Armstrong recreation centers because they are adjacent to the schools. For priority two, Charles Houston and Nannie J. Lee, if we are not able to accommodate within the previously mentioned classroom spaces. And so now I will let Dr. Hart talk to you some of the considerations around. what they are thinking in terms of the context of what we're doing. Thank you, Ms. Collins. And so that was a great lead in. Essentially, the team and I, in looking at first requests for space, thought it would be most advantageous for us to request the recreational centers that are either attached to or adjacent
029to existing schools. That is from a number of operational perspectives, from a transportation, school nutrition services, being able to maintain spaces. It would be operationally more efficient for us to be able to do so with spaces that are already connected to our facilities. or that are close in proximity. We also did request, as Ms. Collins mentioned, Nannie J. Lee, and I'm sorry, I forgot the second one. I just lost, oh, excuse me, Charles Houston, as well as an additional consideration for... facility specific facility request usage. We are also working with the city's team to say if these spaces for some reason are unavailable, we've provided some additional parameters in terms of what our space needs would be if other spaces would then be offered up in their stead if those spaces are unavailable. As Ms.
030Collins also mentioned, we are working towards looking at what spaces we could accommodate mobile classrooms or modulars. We do know that we had to work very closely with the city in terms of zoning and permitting requirements. So that's why we're including this in our space request need. In addition to what Ms. Collins mentioned from what we are specifically requesting from the city, we are also looking at using all of our existing available space within our building. So again, being creative with... you know, multipurpose rooms, gymnasiums, so on and so forth, to turn those into instructional spaces. We are also entertaining lease spaces from throughout the city. and working with some external consultants on searching for space and finding space and completing activities surrounding that as well. So utilizing multiple ways and strategies to try to
031help mitigate our anticipated space need in the fall. And the reason why we are saying anticipated is because right now we are assuming that the three feet of social distancing would remain at least through the beginning of school. And so we want to make sure that we're planning to that and not planning to a traditional school. setting where we wouldn't have that space distancing constraint. You know, this update or not this update, the request may change if for some reason CDC does update and relax that guidance to go back to not having to social distance, then that space need would not be nearly as great as we are anticipating it to be, but wanting to again be proactive and work directly with the city to try to find ways to mitigate what we are anticipating
032as a space need for the fall. So I guess, and maybe this is a question for Ms. Collins, what, in kind of jumping from where Dr. Hart finished up, what programs do we displace and what are the impacts of that displacement? And I guess, what's the runway associated with making decisions about, you know, whether those programs are canceled or displaced or brought somewhere else, whatever, like, when do we have to make decisions on that? So there's two things. So there are defined leased spaces that we have in our recreation centers. just an example or two examples, Child and Family Network Center. They are based at Chick-Armstrong. And then we also have the boxing club at Charles Houston. And then looking at, and then Upcycle, sorry, that's three, at the Durant Center. So for some of
033those, we have extended leases. The easier one that we probably would not look to, the easier ones. would be something like a child and family network center because that actually adds to the problem that I think even the schools are trying to look, you know, because, you know, it's preschool. And the boxing club has kind of fixed features in their space. But we're going to look at all of those spaces. So the top issue would be, what are those least considerations that we can't break, if you will? And then secondarily, and we've created a whole spreadsheet that the group is working off of, of those daily programs, whether it's senior programs that we have at Charles Houston, Mount Vernon, or Chick Armstrong, you know, like where could we temporarily relocate them in addition to programs
034that are around fitness center and others. The way we've organized the spreadsheet, we have programs that occurred during the school day, programs that occur after the school day. I think right now there's concurrence that we would still be able to provide most of the programs that we have after school. However, and again, we're in the initial stages, a lot of it depends on from the school needs, what are those fixed assets that need to be put into locations that can't just be moved to the side because, I'm making this up, but if the schools need to make sure that a gymnasium has exactly x amount of desks you know, set apart, you know, and they can't be moved, then of course, then that degrades the amount of space that we have for afterschool programming. So
035we actually have now outlined every program that we have and what programs would have to either go away, what programs would we need to find alternative space for or consolidated space for to, you know, accommodate schools. And then also, of those leaf spaces, which ones are kind of longer term. you know, like a child family, I think CFNC, and I'll ask Margaret or Laura to jump in, I think child family network has like a five-year lease versus something like an upcycle that might have like a one-year lease. And then also to your point, part of what we've already been discussing and we're in the completion stage of is that for locations where we would continue programming because it may not interfere with the school day. if we have recreation staff or some other staff that,
036you know, what are, you know, our maintenance staff there, what are the background requirements so that folks are able to kind of be able to go on to a facility that also has school-aged children? I think that so far we're good. And I don't want to get too much in the weeds, but I think right now we're kind of looking at the TV requirement. And I don't think we have an answer on it, but, you know, we do. routine, you know, background checks ourselves, and I think there's alignment there right now. So yeah, priority one is, you know, who cannot, who can we not displace, who can we displace, because there's opportunity and need to do so right now. And then also once the schools, when we complete the walkthroughs, once the schools identify where
037they need, you know, are they going to do, you know, kind of like fixed locations versus, you know, that can't be moved aside for programming versus things that are just a lot more mobile. And I think, was either Dr. Hutchins or Dr. Hart mentioned, you know, we still have the issue around the three feet for learning, but the six feet for nutrition. And how do we, you know, solve those issues? So I guess the one thing you guys haven't kind of talked through and helped me understand this. So is there. I mean, these are not schools, right? So is there build out required? And is there time required associated with that? What do you have to do to make these ready? I mean, if we, if we, you know, to Dr. Hart's comments, right, if
038we said, here's Charles Houston, and here's, you know, here's Nannie Lee. What do you guys have to do between now and the first day of school in September? The team and I, I'm sorry, Ms. Collins, I hope you don't mind if I jump in with that response, but the team and I are working with our city counterparts to schedule walkthroughs next week of the spaces to do just that. Mayor Wilson to identify specifically. what we would need to modify at these spaces. And we're saying modify, nothing that would be a permanent modification because we understand that their primary use is for recreational space. But what would our IT considerations need to be in order to turn this into a viable instructional space? How many desks? What additional furniture or outfitting will we need to be
039able to make this, again, a viable instructional space for the fall? So we should have more answers on that. once we complete those walkthroughs. But from a timeline perspective, we know that we have a very short window to make any of these additional modifications or updates to spaces, which is why we're really keeping it to what our... what are the minimum aspects that we need to make sure that this is a viable instructional space? So really making sure our IT needs are in place, making sure we have the appropriate space from a social distancing standpoint in place, and then also considering, to Ms. Collins' point, staff movement. within the facilities because we do understand that some of these facilities serve as office space for city individuals. So we want to make sure that we're working
040through the process of not necessarily displacing anybody that needs to physically be on site for their work program. But again, how do we work around that through the instructional day for each of these respective sites? So we're still working through those logistics. So when you guys overlay the requirements that you have, assuming that the current CDC guidelines are in place come the first day of school in September, does the combination of your existing facilities and these public facilities that we've identified in the city side, does that give you sufficient space? We honestly won't know that answer definitively until we have finalized our survey information. I believe Dr. Hutchings spoke to it earlier in terms of how we are going to. I don't want to say count, but how we're going to survey those families that
041are selecting either in person and or the virtual academy. Right now, from a planning assumption standpoint, we are planning our space needs to our full projected enrollment for FY22, which is 16,097 students. And so this, the request from the city will definitely help. Will it completely offset all of our space needs? I'm going to. they know because we know that we had capacity constraints prior to COVID. So this is something that will help us get there, but that is why we're utilizing the additional strategies such as the mobile classrooms and trying to figure out if there's an opportunity for lease space to meet those needs. You know, our hope again is that these constraints won't be in place and we will have enough space. you know, to accommodate all those that you choose in person
042with our existing resources, but we're trying to be proactive and plan in the case that it's not going to be enough. So in the case of the commercial properties that potentially you'd bring into the array, where is that? Or have you guys identified, I mean, is that, is AADP involved? Or have you guys identified spaces that are potential for that? I guess my concern is This is four and a half months from now and just trying to understand what work needs to happen between now and then to use these as space, depending on if that's possible. And also understanding that, like you said, we don't know what the guidelines are going to be. And I don't know that we'll have a sense of what those guidelines are until... you know, a while from now. So
043what types of things can you do now? What types of things do you have to do now, or at least put into play? And then what types of things can wait? Yeah, so I just wanted to step in just really quickly. One is that, yes, we are looking at other commercial locations as well. And that is a conversation that we're having with the city, and we're also doing internally with our own land acquisition. Another piece is, I just want to remind you that we do start school in August, not September, because I know we keep saying September, but it's August this year for the first time before Labor Day, everybody. That's right. Right. Thank you. And then two, I just want to. point out the fact, and you said this, you know, we are four
044and a half months out. This is why it's so important when we're doing these surveys. Of course, it's not binding, but we really need to know what families are going to do. I mean, this is, we can't wait till August to determine what kind of staffing we need, how many buildings we need, what kind of space we need. You know, like if we were to do that, we would be putting ourselves in a very bad situation to have a disaster on the first day. a couple months of school. So it's very important for our families to give us some insight about what they're doing and that's this is why we're going to have to give them some clear insight around the implications. Not to discourage anybody from doing virtual or in person but to say
045These are the implications if you're choosing to do virtual today. And in the future, you say, now I want to go to in-person. It's not going to happen right away, right? Potentially, it could change your teacher. It could even change your location, depending on the spaces, because that's why we're looking at all these multiple spaces right now. So we want to be clear about that up front so families can't feel as if you never told me what the implications are. So we're trying to make sure we're being clear about that. That was helpful. Thank you. Mr. Chapman, Vice Chair Noonan, Chair Alderton, questions, comments? Ms. Collins. Not to put too fine a point on, but, you know, again, you know, since the issue was brought up about, you know, we're working towards an August timeline.
046This group is meeting rapidly, you know, every week and, you know, it has an actual timeline action items, you know, with completions and so forth. So we are very mindful that we do not have. any time to linger on this issue. So just so you know. So let me kind of amplify a question that I asked you guys offline and just make sure, you know, and I heard Dr. Hart reference this too. So I want to make sure if we need to put anything from a regulatory perspective in place, you know, zoning authority, anything that needs to be in place to facilitate any of these uses that You know, I don't know, looking at the city attorney, I don't know if it's if it's some kind of blanket text amendment that, you know, basically says
047we can put a school wherever they do help. We damn well, please, you know, whatever, whatever it takes from the from from the regulatory side. Let's make sure that we we have that in place so that that never becomes a hurdle. And also, we don't have to have a special meeting in, you know, late July, early August to to facilitate that. So that's one thing. And then secondly, what have we heard from the state as far as what they allow for instructional spaces? I mean, I know they ordinarily have a lot of regulations as it relates to what can be used and how spaces are used. Is that kind of all out the door right now or are they extending flexibility? What are we hearing from them? We're still working with the state in regards
048to that. They have given some flexibility, but we're still dealing with in-person learning as students. So we got to have to provide a learning environment for the students. We can't just have a space that is just an open warehouse to say, hey, we're going to teach it here. So there are still some regulations that we have to work through. And we're working specifically with the VDOE on meeting those compliance concerns. Okay. Obviously, if there's anything we can do to help in kind of lobbying for whatever flexibility we need down there, we're happy to assist in that way as well. And I guess to the, I don't know if it's the city attorney or Mr. I don't know if we have anyone planning on here as well, but, you know, from the perspective of the zoning
049side, I know that was part of the conversation that you guys had at the board, I think last week. I want to make sure that anything that we need to uh set up we we set up so there's not any problems there mr mayor um i would just say i think that um the temporary i'll call it text amendment that the city council did to address a lot of um the the temporary business needs that um that the city has during um during the emergency um also included using public facilities for any use. So I need to look at that closer to see if maybe that gives us the flexibility to do what we need to do with the schools here. So we can look at that. And if that doesn't give us enough flexibility,
050then I think we can bring forward a text amendment that allows for that. Mr. Mayor. Karen White, MnDOT Consultant, Catherine Carraway. I just wanted to remind everyone that the zoning ordinance does allow for trailers in zones of the city that allow public schools and are associated with the school, does allow for trailers with an administrative special use permit. I'm not sure about modular classrooms if that applies, so we'll have to look into that. Okay. Yeah, I think obviously on school properties, but also making sure that all of our, you know, if you guys end up using commercial properties, you know, that an educational use might not be a buy right use, you might need flexibility there too, right? So potentially in a commercial zone, some kind of CDD zone, I don't know, you know, wherever
051we might end up finding a property. So I think to the extent we need to. layer additional flexibility in there. Let's just, let's put it all that. I just don't want. We can't be the problem here. So let's make sure if there's any zoning issue. I think we should send a clear message to the schools that if there is a zoning impediment to this, we will clear that zoning impediment. I feel pretty confident speaking for my colleagues on that. Councilman Chapman can back me up on that. But we will clear whatever impediment from a zoning perspective is there. All right. Any other questions on that aspect of it? Yeah, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Chapman. Can staff talk a little bit more about how any discussions with kind of the private sector are progressing? So what I
052can share is that we are continuing to work with our external consultants on finding, you know, potential space to utilize for the fall. We are having those conversations first with our superintendent and school board, you know, through our closed session process, just because we want to make sure that we are not impeding, you know, any procurement or contractual process if we do find. you know, we do land on some viable space. But once there is an update to provide, you know, to to both boards, we'll make sure that we do so on those particular efforts with more specifics. Thank you. OK, Ms. Chabon, any follow up there? OK. Other questions? Chair Alderton, Vice Chair Nolan. all right um that will move us off of uh of this topic um please uh keep us updated on
053the the extent to which we need uh work done on our side and and uh any any zoning tools or anything like that and obviously uh on the commercial property side if there's support we need um all right uh high school project mr mayor i'm sorry yeah maybe i My connection earlier on was going in and out. So I apologize if I kind of missed this either from the city or the school side with the last item we were talking about. But when will we see kind of approximate costs around kind of the modifications? If additional money was needed, I know I noted in the memo there was discussion about. finances as well. Yes. So we share with the board just some preliminary kind of assumptions of cost analysis, but it's really going to be
054determined based on the number of our families who are choosing the in-person versus the virtual option to really get to some more concrete square footage that will be needed or additional square footage that may be potentially needed with a cost. But we did share with the board and we'll forward that on to the city council. Last Thursday, we shared kind of the cost analysis and how we determine what the cost will be. So what per square feet equates to and things of that nature. Thank you. And one final question that Councilman Chapman made me think of and a little birdie asked me to clarify as well is around transportation. So what does, obviously, I guess the probably short answer is it depends on what we end up doing, but do you guys feel comfortable that
055even if you end up with these other alternatives that there are transportation options available that can help support this, or do we need to look at, you know, all our Metro shutdown planning of two years ago, do we need to look at additional supplemental transportation support here? No, we think we can provide the transportation piece without much ado. And that's operationally why we were requesting spaces that were already connected and or adjacent to our physical facilities, school facilities, because then we can just, as part of our normal drop-off and pickup process through our transportation routing, we can just accommodate those students through those already existing routes with our existing resources. If for some reason we're given spaces that are not those priority one or priority two requests, then we will reevaluate. But right now, we
056don't believe that transportation would be an impediment in the fall for these requests. Okay. All right. Other questions on that topic? All right. Let's go to high school project. Did you guys finish that yet? Sorry. Dr. Hutchings, okay, if I jump in. Okay, great. So, good evening. Erica Gullick, Director of Capital Programs Planning and Design. Just a brief update for you all on the high school project. On April 8th, our school board voted for the pinwheel concept, and they also voted for site option B, which has the bus loop kind of along Braddock Road. So, we're moving forward with that design. We've met with city staff to already talk about some of the potential modifications we would make to be more in line. with what they're hoping the site achieves. We're also meeting with the
057Federation of Civic Associations this week to go over our concept selection, as well as having a community meeting and a superintendent's advisory team meeting on Tuesday of next week. Internally, we are still talking through the viability of the pool, and we may have more of an update on that next month for this group, but just having internal conversations about that right now. So that's pretty much everything. We're full steam ahead. Thankfully, the school board was able to meet all of our demands for decisions over the past few months, and we're looking forward. to moving forward. Great. That's a good update. Thank you very much. Other questions from a school? Okay. Thank you. Facility assessment CIP planning. It always throws me this topic. So we'll just lump the next two together. I don't have an update
058on the Joint Facilities Master Plan except to tell you that it's coming. I promise. There's a draft in development and we're refining it and we're just trying to get it into a digestible format before we share a draft publicly. So we're anticipating getting this current go around into a layout mid-May. hopefully we'll have something to share for the next subcommittee meeting. Catherine? Yes. You said for the next subcommittee meeting? Yes. Okay, because I was going to ask, did you want me to just take it off until you tell me to put it back on? Yeah, why don't we do that? Why don't we do that until we, Ms. Gulick, please chime in if you have anything to add, but until we... You have something in hand. It's probably best to wait. I would agree with
059Ms. Carraway. Okay. So we will leave it off until you and Ms. Gould indicate that there's something to add to that. Mr. Mayor, are you okay with that? Yeah, I'm fine with that. And I don't know which umbrella this falls under here, but is there an update on the two feasibility studies that are underway, the Mason and Cora Kelly? Yes, there is. So these were kind of put on hold due to COVID. Our plan is to hopefully take an update to the school board in early June, and then we'll be having community meetings following. Our board meetings have just filled up. So we have kind of a almost final draft document that we want to bring to the school board and then the community one more time before they're finalized. Okay, so those will get
060finalized in the fall. Is that right? Or give or take? They should be by the fall. Yes. Okay, so that'll provide an input then to the extent there is CIP budget impacts that will provide an input in the next CIP. Yes, that is the intent. Okay. All right. Okay. Other questions? Okay. That brings us to budget update. We are almost done with ours. We have our preliminary ad delete tomorrow night. Good evening. Yes, we have the busy week for council. You'll have the preliminary ad delete work session tomorrow night and then final ad delete the following Monday with adoption on Wednesday. There are no ad delete items that affect the school's transfer. However, there is one that would affect the city's budget but would have impact on the schools, which is the removing funding for
061the school resource officers and transferring that to a contingency within city funds for mental health and teen wellness programs. So that is one item that is on the docket for discussion in tomorrow night's work session. And then additionally, not an add-delete item, but there is a $400,000 contingency in the proposed budget for the community college concurrent enrollment program. And so council could choose to reallocate that funding to the schools as a technical adjustment in the approved budget. If not, that would remain in contingency for action in FY22. I think that's about all that update we have from the city side. Happy to entertain any questions you might have. So, and just to clarify, nobody is gunning for that money. The question is whether we allocate it to the schools now in approving the budget or
062we require it to be allocated separately as a separate action later in the year. That is correct. Okay. Other questions for Mr. Routt? Okay. All right. Well, that moves us off of budget. Next up is Amazon Virginia Tech. Who's got that up there? I don't know if Kurt is on this session. I'm sorry, I can't see all the people. I'll have a second. He's not present, Dr. Hutchings. I do not see him on. Right now I can tell you that in regards from the ACPS point of view, we do have a meeting scheduled for next month to meet with the director of the Virginia Tech campus to have a deeper discussion around some partnership opportunities that we would like to incorporate into our educational planning. It will have... an aspect that will work directly with
063Nova Community College and Alexandria City Public Schools is what we're proposing to Virginia Tech as well as opportunities at Amazon. So this will be what we're calling is like a cradle to work type pathway where we're working with students. from elementary through middle through high school into a community college a four-year institution such as virginia tech into the workforce um to in uh to companies such as amazon as well as others we know that there right now is a shortage of students of color entering the STEM profession, not just here in the city of Alexandria and DMV, but really across the country. And we're one of the most diverse school divisions in Northern Virginia. So this is the perfect place for us to really groom, you know, future STEM experts. So this is what we
064are going to be proposing. I'm just giving you kind of some insight to what we're... what we are proposing to Virginia Tech and Amazon. But we'll have some more updates after our session. I know it's mid-May, I think, is when we're going to be meeting to have further discussions about this initiative. OK, that's great news. Thank you. Any questions for Dr. Hutchins? All right, let's talk. The final item on the agenda is the ACPS, well, it's total federal funding, ARP money, as well as the other money that was received. So who wants to go first on this? Mr. Turner. Sure, I can go ahead and jump in. I'll go ahead and give the budget update for the school system as well. We're going to have our first work session next week with the school board
065to try to finalize our budget for fiscal year 2022. Things are looking up. So looking forward to that meeting with all of our federal funding. So there's three pots of money. There's the CARES Act funding. There's the CRSA, and then there's the ARP funding. The majority of the funding under each one of those are ESSER, so Elementary Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds. Those are the biggest pots. So we've already expended all of the CRF, which was the Coronavirus Relief Funds. We did that before the end of calendar year 2020. We're probably about 80% expended with our CARES Act funding, so ESSER 1. We are still waiting to have our ESSER 2 application approved by VDOE. That's about just under $15.5 million for that. We're supposed to be receiving guidance for the ESSER 3 application, so
066that's under the American Rescue Plan Act. waiting to get guidance for that so we can start to put together our application for that as well. That's just under $35 million for that, which can be spent over the next three years. So our plan for all of that is what was sent in the board brief. There's still four areas, social, emotional, academic learning, COVID-19 mitigation projects in our facilities, technology infrastructure, and then any supporting staff that we need to be able to have students on site. So those are the four areas that we continue to focus on. Obviously, with this sum of money, we're looking to try to do some things that can stick around after the money is gone. So that would be a huge plus for us if we can get something done that
067will be here for the long term. So we're definitely looking at that area as well. Some of the things that are important to note for the ARP funding. is 20% of those funds have to be used for academic learning loss. We have to also maintain maintenance of effort, as well as there is a maintenance of equity piece for that as well. So with that, I'll answer any questions. Hopefully that provided a good enough summary of all of our funding sources. I appreciate that update. Rumor is that the guidelines are supposed to come out today from Treasury. rescue plan money. So hopefully everyone's clicking reload over and over again on the treasury website. As of mid-afternoon, they were not yet. Yeah. So you can see someone who's definitely clicking reload over and over again, our city
068manager. So we'll hopefully they'll eventually show up. What are the rules on those, the, the, what is it? ESER, the, the, the two money that you got at the end of the year. What are the rules on that money? Cause that's like 15 million. Is that right? Excuse me. Yeah, so it's just under $15.5 million. So there are several different qualifying expenditures for those. Again, everything relates to how COVID-19 has impacted the school system. So again, that's why we continue to focus in those four areas because they all fall under qualifying expenditures. So anything that would help mitigate the health spread of COVID-19 in our facilities. Anything to do with social emotional support, anything to do with academic learning loss recovery. There's a whole host of things. Let me pull up the brief, just so
069I can be more specific. And I guess, is there expected to be enough of a... of an overlap in the criteria from those monies and the rescue plan monies that you can braid them together in a way, like you said, potentially with some of those more sustainable investments. So yes, with the exception with ARP, again, 20% of the funding has to go to academic learning loss recovery. And then we also have to ensure that we're maintaining a maintenance of effort as well as maintenance of equity for those funds. But yes, the qualifying expenditures are pretty much the same under ESSER 2 as well as ESSER 3. The exception is we can't use the second pot of money until we finish using the first pot of money. Oh, interesting. And that term, the term for that
070is coming up pretty soon anyway. It's September 30th. So we'll be done. Again, we're almost 80% or maybe a little bit more than 80% expended with that anyway. Okay. All right. I guess, I don't know if this is a question for the city manager or... or Mr. Turner, but can we talk a little bit about how we're working to try to coordinate on both sides? Because I think obviously we have an allocation on our side as well that we're working through. And I hope there's been, I know there's been some collaboration. I just want to make sure I understand how that's going to look as we go forward. In regards to on the city side, we're at the front end stages of figuring out, coming up with a proposed plan of what to do. We'll
071be going out for public input. The council asked us to get, so that will, I believe, next week is probably when that starts. And we'll see what we get. We have internally produced a couple of things that have a kind of early childhood school relationship that we'll be talking with the... appropriate counterparts in the schools about. Part of our big kind of checking the treasury website today was how much money we're going to get, which not only the regulations were supposed to come out, at least the initial regulations, but the actual allocation. And we could get $30 million, we could get $60 million. That would make a big difference in what we're able to do. And if I can jump in, we have a meeting scheduled on Thursday with ACPS and our city Point of
072contact. So it's with Dr. Hart, Mr. Turner, Mr. Huffman, myself, by Dana Weddles, who is our point of contact on the city side. You know, just make sure that we're talking and understand, you know, who's on first and doing what. Mr. Turner. So from our side, it's... space, that's going to be the largest expenditure that we have. If we continue to have to have CDC guidelines, space is going to be the largest cost that we have that can eat up the entire amount very quickly. So that will be the biggest help in my eyes that we can work together on. Okay. I certainly agree. All right. Other questions for Mr. Turner? Mr. Mayor. Mr. Chapman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Turner mentioned kind of the policies around maintenance of effort. For what you and ACPS
073start to use your money on and for those regulations around maintenance of effort, does that end? at the deadline for the funding in terms of, you know, if you've got this money coming in for the next three years or split up over the next three years, does your maintenance of effort continue after that? Or does it end with the three-year funding piece? So if we're receiving the funding, we have to make sure that for maintenance of effort, that we're not reducing the per pupil expenditure amount. For the maintenance, I know you didn't ask this question, but I'll go ahead and explain the maintenance of equity piece as well. The maintenance of equity piece is we have to make sure that we're not removing resources from any of our Title I schools and then supplanting them
074with these federal dollars. So, again, if we're receiving the funding, we have to ensure that we're continuing to do that for the course of the funding. Yep, I appreciate that. And I appreciate the additional explanation. That was very helpful. I think my question to, you know, the school board members is around your thoughts around the idea about programs and initiatives that you might want to start with the funding and throughout the funding years. And then kind of the thoughts around how does that then get funded after the money runs out? The reason I bring that up is because I think we're taking, we're looking at a different tactic around the using of these resources to be very specific to kind of the funding years that they're introduced. And so looking not to do kind of
075long-term programs as Mr. Turner kind of mentioned and then have to keep those up after funding runs out. Has there been any kind of board discussion or is there going to be a discussion of? kind of the tactic that you use there. I think Dr. Hutchings is in a better position to describe that or Chair Aldershot if you want to talk. But I just want to share we have had discussion as a board about that, ensuring that we're not setting this up for failure where we're having the expenditures go towards either programming and especially staffing long term that then we won't have the funds to make up afterwards. So those discussions have taken place. Chair Aldershot, I don't know if you want to add to that. And then maybe Dr. Hutchings could provide some greater
076details to where the money is being considered to go towards. No, I was just going to add, I think first your point, Ms. Nolan, and then secondly, we are going to actually have a discussion as a board in the form of a work session around this. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Nolan, you said it pretty much. Yes. Sure. So, so yes, Ms. Nolan was absolutely correct. So some of the longer term things that we want to do are for our facilities or for our technology infrastructure. Those things can last beyond the funding, right? So then when it comes, as Ms. Nolan said, when it comes to staffing, we want to ensure that if we're bringing on those staffing, it's limited term grant funded staffing. So when the grant goes away, you know, we've gotten to the
077recovery phase and we've, you know, instilled that back into our students. when the funding goes away then the position would also go away because um you know a lesson learned from the past was when there was federal funding that came in you know we hired staffing and then we tried to keep those staffing when the federal funding was gone um so we'd like to you know not go down that path this time but be able to have infrastructure things that will last beyond um the expiration of these funds thank you other um other questions Okay, that was our final item. Is there anything else that anybody wants to bring up here? All right, I saw you guys took down MacArthur today or started that. That's great news. Looked pretty. Yeah, let's clap on that. That
078was good. So congratulations on getting to that step. That's exciting. All right, I don't hear anything else. Our next meeting is May 24th. And I imagine we'll have a more in-depth conversation about all of these topics at that point with a lot more work occurring. Thanks for everything that everyone's doing. And we will talk again on May 24th. Stay safe, everyone. See you.