001Approval of electronic participation by school board member. Do we have anybody joining electronically? No, sir. All right. And pledge of allegiance, Mr. Conner. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Conner. Next is approval of agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? I need to amend. I'll make a motion to. What's your motion to amend? I need to add an item from the finance. Not today? Okay, okay. Never mind. I don't need to do anything. Agenda approval. I motion. Who's second? Second. Okay. Could you call the roll, Madam Clerk? Mr. Barron? Yes. Mr. Alleyne? Yes. Mrs. Lorry? Yes. Mr. Conner? Yes. Dr. Gupta? Yes. Mr. DePaul? Yes.
002Mr. Julio? Yes. Dr. Farmer? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Next is the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion. I'd like to... Talk about that really quickly and the consent agenda you have one two three four five items And I've tried numerous times to pull up the actual forms and I have not been able to do that so I'm going to have to either vote no or abstain unless someone can Show me what I'm doing wrong because it's not working on my home computer. It's not working on this one There's a number of policy changes. There's no there's no data on the human resources report for any of those and there's no addendum Is that you might need to sign into your board Doc's again? I had to do just
003five minutes I had to sign one more time then I was able to get the documents Thank you. So because I haven't been able to review it. That's why I'm not a second to their motion Second, madam clerk. Would you please call the roll? Mr. Barron? Yes. Mr. Alleyne? Yes. Mrs. Laurie? Yes. Mr. Connor? Yes. Dr. Gupta? Yes. Mr. DePaul? Yes. Mr. Giglio? No. Dr. Farmer? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Next is the old business, opportunity gap presentation. Dr. Midgett. Good evening, everyone. I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Davis. You know this is part two of our three-part series of discussing the opportunity gap, so she's going to provide you all with some data this evening. Good evening everyone board chair vice chair and members of the board dr. Machette Again, this is
004a continuation from our previous data and we will go through this you'll see this spread out a little bit more So I'll condense some of our information and summarize just as I did previously for pre-k to two So if we can go to the next slide, please You're going to note on the next few slides the enrollment data, just as we did for pre-K to 2, noting that we have not had a significant decrease in our enrollment. There are some ebbs and flows there, as always, but you're going to note the high numbers of economically disadvantaged. Again, that is another. concern for us and then remembering that economically disadvantaged this question has come up before could fall in the realm of free and reduced lunches anyone receiving temporary assistance for our families in need or
005our special populations such as homelessness all students would qualify under that economically disadvantaged tag so so understanding what that looks like and that is uh income based as well and that fluctuation has been pretty consistent over the last three years averaging about 41,000 for families on an annual basis for that free meal and for reduced averaging about 32,000 just to give justification of that so again going through telling the story of three through eight and the indicators that we're looking at are enrollment attendance the academic readiness and achievement you can go through the next slide please Again, noting that high number of economically disadvantaged sitting at close to 60%, our enrollment for grade four is pretty stable over the last five years, staying in the mid to above range of 500s for students. Next slide,
006please. Noting approximately 62% for economically disadvantaged, again, which is far higher than our other populations, and noting that that enrollment has stayed steady over the last five years for that as well. Grade 6 tells us the same story. Grade 6, 7, and 8 are going to tell us all the same story, ranging in that 59%, anywhere from 59% to mid-60% for economically disadvantaged. Again, noting that our population has remained steady, I know that there were concerns about decline, but noting the steadiness of that enrollment through those grade levels and noting the high percentage of economically disadvantaged. You could continue on, please, for our grade 7 and our grade 8, noting that. Next slide, please. So those attendance patterns for early indicators, we went over chronic absenteeism and severely chronically absent last time. 18 absences would
007make a student chronically absent. And again, we're starting to create trends, climbing grade levels here. So going through those grade levels and we're missing 18 or more days in that becoming trend data for a lot of our students. The question was asked because we saw previously on the pre-K through two, pre-K through three data, we noticed that there was a decline as we were climbing. But if you notice here, that's not a. continued trend, you see that our chronic absenteeism takes a slight dip in the 21 to 20% for grades three and four and five. And then we significantly increased by 20% for grades six, seven and eight. So that we don't get caught up in just the percentage. This is a concern for us obviously for chronic absenteeism severely chronic is 36 days or
008more But so we don't get caught up in just the percentages the actual student numbers are represented on the right-hand side If you're noting here, we're approximately a hundred and thirty four Down to 102 in one area, but over 100 to over 200 kids in each grade level, grades three through eight who are chronically absent and or severely chronically absent. Yes, ma'am. How many of those students are repeat offenders? Well, I mean, are we looking at each person or each person plus all the repeat offenders are in there and their repeats are in there? Their repeats are in there. Okay. All right. Yes, ma'am. Again, trend data off of this, grades 3 through 5 has remained relatively low. Out of all the bands that you're going to see, this is our lowest band of chronic
009absenteeism. Grade 6 through 8, it's starting to sharply increase. And in preparation for that 9 through 12, we will not, just to prepare, we will not see a decrease for that either. What do you come for the rise? You know, what's the if grade is that middle school? Sixth grade. Sixth grade. At that time, we can do a lot of what ifs. But at that time, our parents are not putting students on the bus any longer. A lot of these students are putting themselves on the bus or getting themselves to school at that time. So we're not requiring an adult after a certain age to be at a bus stop and put. kids on the bus so that could be an attributing factor as well next slide please Not going to go through each one
010of these with you, but I wanted you to note the key when we're talking about I Excel diagnostic data our I Excel data replaced our growth assessments and that was That was voted upon for our division so that we weren't giving so many growth assessments But the diagnostic data is what we did replace it with through I Excel since we were already doing that and there is a direct correlation to on or below or far below grade level for 24 25 and 2526 so that you have the data here in front of you biggest key here is noting that the diagnostic data is very individualized to the student as they're going through as we're collecting data so it's not one set test it does adhere on that baseline for students for ixl next slide please
011are we looking at an improvement where we were okay never mind i'm looking at three to five three to five six eight so we're looking at good numbers from three to five and they're getting worse in a correlation to the absenteeism yes sir yeah so yes for that tie yes sir next slide please So here you have that ELA, which is our language arts, and previously you had our math data. So noting the difference in, Mr. Conner, thank you, I appreciate that, but also noting we were seeing those increases, again, very individualized, and we're seeing that increase for three through five. That's where we see our greatest impact of attendance for the reduction in that chronic absenteeism. As it increased, we're starting to see those diagnostic levels go down. we're getting those chronic and severely
012chronic absentees across the board and we're averaging remember six through eight we're averaging approximately 500 students anywhere to five to six hundred students per middle school as well so getting into the two hundreds of absences is approximately running data for our division we're approximately one in four of our students are chronically absent yes sir decreasing from 24-25 to 25-26 across the board. What do you think is the root cause of that problem? Can you repeat your question? So if you look at 24-25 data and 25-26 data, on or above are less in this current year compared to the last year across the board. What do you think is causing that about 8-14% decrease? So we have to follow the cohort data specifically. So the 24-25, if you look at that for, that was a seventh
013grader. They're now eighth graders, and that is tracking about in the same place if we look at it based on the cohort, based on the grade level from year to year, that track of students versus just the grade level itself. So there has been a drastic change for the grade level of kid for that diagnostic level. For that honor above. These are from 2425 to 2526. It's not the same eighth graders. So 2425 seventh graders are now 2526 eighth graders and it's roughly the same if you look at this. My thing is the foundations are same across the board in terms of their learning, right? So how they are performing on the test is on the negative side year to year compared. to the previous year. Am I making sense? Yeah, I think, yeah. Can
014I answer? Okay, so as a teacher and you've been a professor, as grades get harder, sometimes you grasp something, sometimes you don't. So at the elementary level, it might be easier to grasp some things, but as you get harder in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and in high school, it might be more difficult. And if a kid struggles, they might have been doing good before, but as a particular subject, this is language arts. might be more difficult to them if they're not into literature or whatever else. Or if we're looking at math, maybe now this particular type of percentages or something doesn't make sense to them, and so when they take a diagnostic on it, they might not do that well on it. So these are individual kids, so these are two different individual assessments. So
015they could, the on and above might be decreasing depending on the difficulty of the subject matter and their ability to understand it. Does that make sense? Doesn't matter. That's all I'm gonna do. Well, I think, if I can. I think one of the things we talk about a lot in the Academic Success Committee, like the cohort data is really hard sometimes because you're comparing apples and oranges to some degree because there's a whole different set of kids. So to say a specific eighth grade class, let's take just a single class, performed at whatever level one year. The next year it's a whole new set of kids. Let's say they perform lower. That doesn't necessarily indicate that there's a problem with the classroom or the teacher or the instructional material. It could be a reflection on.
016the kids that are in that cohort are just performing at a lower level. So I think that's hard to identify sometimes what the issue is. Question. Can you please go back to pages 6 and 7? Yes. Up until this point right here, you were making mention how enrollment didn't change. Between this, if you go from 591 to 539 in the next page, 629 to 5, that's about 142 students lost. over that time period. Now we're dealing with percentages. And if you go from losing 142 students, where did they go? Technically, where did they go? Did they go to the county? Were they the ones that are going to private school now? Are these the top learners that are now leaving and going and over dealing with percentages that these percentages are decreasing as they go
017into, you know, as you go in? Could it be that we are losing the better students? I wouldn't I wouldn't stay in the realm of better students or right, right. Or I understand where there could be testing or higher performing or those pieces. This could also just be trend data for for these particular years. We haven't seen an increase in our homeschool. So we do have a pretty transient population that that goes county to us and back and forth. So it doesn't mean that that's where we started the year at. with this but it's where we were at currently at that 24 25. since we're not using numbers and our hard data the hard data is based on percentage since we have lost those 142 over this over this do you call it a cohort
018yes okay over this time period during this cohort we need to take into consideration where they're going and why we're losing them Can I speak to that? If I can just toggle between the 7th grade and the 8th grade slide. So if you look at 23-24, there's 540 7th graders, right? In 24-25, go to the next slide, those 7th graders are 8th graders now. So 537, we didn't actually lose but three students in that cohort. Does that make sense? Those students didn't go anywhere per se. We're talking about over time. I'm not doing lateral from grade to grade. I'm doing from time period because that's been one of the biggest things that people have been talking about, how we're losing students over time. Yes, but this is per grade. So if you're looking at a
019class, you're asking where those students went. They didn't go anywhere. They went up a grade. Does that make sense? No, it doesn't because it's not what we're talking about. That's not what I'm talking about. 2021. i'm going 2021 to 2020. oh i see you're talking about the greater span i see you i see greater span and so mr depaul yes thank you for that that is something that we're digging into further instead of just putting a number to we have this where are they going we are going line by line it's part of the work that we're even We're even going to our institute with our principals to say, where are our kids? Where are they going? What are they doing? What is the performance? We're even looking at transient population within our own division
020of where students are going to. So, yes, that is being looked at. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, thank you. When I ask for root cause, that answers that question. Thank you. Quickly, on page eight, you showed that 134 for the first column in a row and 209 at the bottom row. And that's around 1,000 or so students, correct? Because they're individual. Do you have a pie chart with our elementary and middle schools and high schools up to eighth grade that shows what schools have what percentage of this whole pie? Yes, we have a breakdown of what it's not on here. No, because we are doing specific and like as an overall as a division. But yes, and we have shared that data with our schools to know what grade level, what the chronic absenteeism, severely
021chronic, how many students per school that that's all broken down by grade level. We've actually broken down pretty far and have reviewed that with our with our folks as well. Yes. All right. I'm not going to ask for now, but it'd be interesting to see. especially if it was 70 and above percentage are only coming from a certain slice of schools or school. That would be interesting. And as we go into further, because we're just doing the breakdowns right now is why you haven't seen the full thing. But as we go further, I can tell you that that's not going to be the case for us. Yeah. All right. We can get back to. The slide we were on, the next slide please, we covered that. So summary of our diagnostic data, I will not
022read through each piece. We actually have talked through this. You've had some great questions. Many of our students' grades three through eight are performing below grade level expectations in both that IXL math and ELA with the greatest academic needs in six through eight. That correlational data says that We're not at school. If we're not at school, it's harder to learn that way. It's not impossible, but it does make it that much more difficult. The growth from failed to spring was limited. At that time, and the chronic absenteeism remains a significant challenge, particularly in those grades six through eight, because there is a direct impact of students learning by reducing access to instruction and opportunities to building those skills. when we're looking at this it's not a primary focus about the test scores i know that
023that's an easy place for us to go to but as we're looking through this data the reason it's broken down the way that it is it's about readiness access and opportunity for our students next slide please This is a note again for our trend data for SOLs for 21 through 25. We don't have our data completed for the upcoming year. We know that that comes out in later on, late summer, early fall. So this is just for a look of that trend data, noting where we've gone up in small pockets or where we've gone down and where that's broken down for economically disadvantaged since we have highlighted that for our chronic absenteeism. You can go to our next slide, please. Again, noting this and staying on that cohort tracking for year by year, we have
024made some slight improvements, some slight decline, but has remained fairly steady over the last couple of years. If you even just look at our all students of 55 to 59 to 61, 58 back to 61. Next slide, please. Thank you. So again going through fifth grade you notice that there's some increases going on and when we get through six through eight in just a moment you'll see some of that decline occur again directly related to some of that chronic absenteeism. So here is where we start to see a little bit of that decline for students for reading, noting that that 51, the 60 to 58 to 52 to 51, and that math, where we have seen some significant struggles, there was one slight increase in 21, 22, but otherwise has remained pretty stagnant in the
025high 20s, high to mid 20s to low 30s. Again, noting the same thing that chronic absenteeism is increasing. So you're noting the same declines. Reading seems to be holding steady in about the 50s to 60s. That again is very, someone here mentioned it earlier, building on those foundational skills, whereas math is evolving fairly rapidly, getting into those multi-step equations and other determining factors for your math components. So noting that there is a significant decline there. We're staying somewhere in the, uh mid 20s to upper 30s and having a hard time breaking out of that That grade 8 data shows us the same thing. There is a slight increase into the 40s. Again, not a significant change if you're looking cohort data or grade level data from 6 through 8, staying in those mid to upper
02650s to low 60s for our reading scores and our math scores remaining in the low 30s to upper 40s. So when we talk about these pieces the root cause indicators chronic absenteeism and loss of instructional time persistent foundational skill gaps in reading and math ongoing disparity disparities among the among the economically disadvantaged and historically underperforming student groups that limited impact of interventions and academic acceleration efforts and a difficulty mastering increasingly rigorous grade level content. So as that content is building and we're losing more and more time, that lack of ability to master those skills, they're going to compound over time. So when we talk about gaps where they may start smaller and you add additional factors, that gap is going to widen and widen. We talked about a stitch last time and making sure that
027loop is closed. the more pressure you put on that, the more that's going to separate. And it's going to look like it, bless you. It's going to look like an increase because more and more time is being built in. As a kindergartner, I missed 36 days. As a first grader, now I'm up to 72 potentially days missed. Going into second, as a second grader, now maybe I missed another 40 days. At that point now, I've missed pretty much an entire school year. and remembering that your K through two are your foundational skills. So now when we start getting into actual skill development and a skill build for grades four through eight in literacy and in math, when we're talking about those multi-step components and equations and making connections, real world connections to increase content, that
028gap seems to widen. And Miss Davis, tell them about the pre-K, about absenteeism and what's now law. They need to know that too. For pre-K, we did talk about previously, we now this year, we started last year doing attendance meetings where that was not a requirement previously for pre-K. So one of the biggest pieces, we have a lot of, we have over 300 students that we serve in pre-K. It is a wonderful gift to have our students in for pre-K, but it's also one of our highest rates of chronic absenteeism sitting at almost 40%. So when we have approximately 40% of our students over a hundred and beat in both locations that are chronically absent as foundational skills are not being built and we're already starting negative trends of chronic absenteeism of its what is
029the importance of being and it's important to address those. So if you had a student start in pre-K, we're not even talking about getting to a year's worth of instructional time, actual instructional time missed by second grade. It's before they even enter second grade at that rate that they've missed a year's worth of instructional time or more. Yes, sir. Okay, so my questions are, because it looks like... chronic absence besides the economically disadvantaged piece of it, but it looks like chronic absenteeism is a major issue with our achievement gap. Now, have we, do we know any partner or adjacent agencies that have shown a significant improvement in absenteeism and what steps did they take and what are our plans to address this chronic absenteeism problem. So I'm gonna speak to that because it actually came
030up we're in the middle of Leadership Institute right now with our entire division leadership team one of the things that it's going to have to come out to and I'm not going to But but I've had some experience with this with being able to cut it in half for a previous placement But then also helping another division to cut theirs It seems very, I think sometimes we look at it and we think it's over complicated. It's simple. You have to track it and monitor it. There has to be a process and I don't want to go into the story I shared with them but it was a struggle for me a few years ago and I went to a training and someone said, and they were trying to help me with solutions and one of
031the things that they said was, Christy, you know your data. How well do your principals know their data? You're tracking it but they need to track it. So we're putting those systems and things in place to make sure that Once you get to know each kid and you know what's going on and you're tracking that data, and it's not just, and I'm not putting on principles, it's on us as central office, all of us collectively, we have to start looking at the data. You don't know, we can't wait until the end of the year and say, okay, we're surprised. So we do have a system that we're putting in place to make sure that we're looking at it and that we're tracking that as we go along. And of course you do the normal things
032with working with Dr. Sumner and Truancy and those pieces. But if we don't examine it and we don't look at it on a regular basis and we're not making that contact because it can't just be a robo call or the attendance. So we have some plans. It doesn't come up to the principal. I think tomorrow or Thursday in our training. But there are things that work and it's not common. And what what things are we implementing? Because it seems like the onus should be on me as a parent. to make sure that my child, I know I got to go to work and so forth, but if I would be shocked, and I don't know if this is happening, but if I were to find out that my child has missed six days of school
033and I wasn't aware of it, at what point do we... started addressing direct contact with parents to say, hey, your child is, we're two weeks into school, your child's already missed 50%. Well, those things are happening, but I think it's a matter of, because I can't control what they do in the house. And so in that vein, they're going to court, they're doing those pieces there. But we have to make sure we're taking attendance and tracking it and doing those things on our end first to actually have the data that we need to support us making that phone call. And it may be something, and I'll be honest, I'll just put everyone on the spot, it may be something that we may lean on a little bit of everyone. If board members want to help
034make calls, I've made calls in a previous placement. We're going to have to put people on notice. It can't just be a simple robocall. I know everybody's busy. But so I'm with you absolutely your parent you chose to be a parent is a responsibility at the same time We are being judged on and we have to be able to monitor it because we can't help the students move forward if we don't have the kids here and We're gonna have to do some more personalized things to do that. But our first step for us as a division is really actually collecting the data and monitoring the data and tracking it. Would it be possible for you to come back in a month or so to come with an action plan? Because this looks like it's hurting
035us, right? And part of that could be to help. assign school board members 50 students to track I think the first yes because that is the action plan we actually need to start taking attendance within the first five minutes of class we actually need to start tracking and making sure it's in the system those things can be detailed out in the presentation before the school starts so that we are all aligned and hitting the root cause of our major achievement gap problem truancy And we need to take it head on along with your ad hoc community, you know. Is there anything we need to do policy-wise to strengthen? No, we just need to strengthen our procedures. I think if they did something more so legislatively, when you start thinking about the ownership being on families
036in terms of getting your child to school, that's one piece. Because the policy governs us, but it doesn't necessarily. make that parent to do that. And I'm not sitting here blaming parents. I'm just saying in terms of there's a responsibility on their end, but it's a responsibility on ours to make sure that we have procedures in place that are clean. Is it possible, Dr. Majid, going back to what Dr. Gupta was saying, let's say we had some... clear incentives in terms that we could take to families in the neighborhood. And you had ten things on the chart that says these are issues that are impacting the kid if he doesn't show up for school. And then as a board member, if I could knock on that door, friendly, talk to the parents, they just ought
037to go over that list to kind of rivet those things. Because some parents may not even see the importance of this. And I think if something is sort of structured and laid out for them. that we could present to them, that might be very helpful. I'd be willing to do that. No, that's wonderful. And it's going to have to be a collaborative effort. I know we have a community partner meeting on the 30th, and those are some of the things on some of the locations list that they need help with is attendance and how to get community partners to help us support the parents to do this. So, yes. Dr. Measher, you've got 200 students. You find 20 preachers. 10 students each you see them and we track them down for you and follow them
038and they're committed to doing it absolutely you'll find me damn put me down oh okay yeah i got you safely doing it mr paul yeah so so what what type of confidentiality in terms because that's the first thing that comes to my mind um because i know lcs staff teachers board members you know have already enough on their plates and we have community members that have you know constantly you know saying how can they help and that's one area that possibly the community could actually know but where there's the confidentiality lay with you know saying hey you know this person's child has missed X amount of days what's the deal with it so we really can't do that but what people can do and I think that that is helpful in terms of You know,
039I'm not, honestly, probably never off. But, you know, sometimes I think if you're off and you're out and you see, you know who the kids are. If it's your neighborhood, you know who the kids are. I'm not saying approach or anything like that. But, I mean, you could easily say, hey, you know, just checking on so-and-so there in the neighborhood. But we can't give that information out. But if they know that it's someone that they're seeing and you know that child's in eighth grade. and every day you see this child out at noon, well, we don't have early release to eighth grade. So helping us in that vein, but we can't give that information out. Right. So my second question would be then is there a way around that even with, like, is that something
040where you have to be a LCS staff member? Okay. You'd have to be an employee. But it doesn't mean that when we get those students here in school that we can't have people, we have a lot of people who want to partner and be mentors and things like that, that they could be in the school as a sense of support for kids if they're cleared to be a mentor. It's like a big brother, big sister type model where you take them under your wings and make sure they nurture and grow. You done with your, more slides? No. All right, good. No, the only other slide says, do you have any questions? And you guys asked the questions. We asked you tons of questions. One more question. Go ahead. Can you remind us how the chronic
041absenteeism is accounted for in the new accreditation? Yes. So it goes into your readiness. high. So 10% will go in for middle school this year where it was not counted previously. And our readiness, it's in that bubble of readiness for high school, which is approximately 35%. But I will bring that back in when we talk through accreditation as well. So it does increase as we continue to go for that for that readiness in that readiness component versus growth when you see it for the new accreditation model. Got it. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. One last thing. I know we've identified the absenteeism as the main factor. Are there other factors that we could sort of look at in terms of this issue? This is the only factor that is. So, I mean, are there other factors
042that helps to compound the problem? Yeah. Because I don't want us to just hone in on one thing and then the other contributing factors over there that we're going to overlook. No, I think the purpose in this data is to say that we've got more than what we brought to the table before of this is one factor because a student comes from this household or this location or a race. that it's a factor that there are more elements. So that's why it's so much data, essentially. It's not a ton, but so much more data to say these are the contributing factors. But when we're addressing... components we can't address it from bottom up to say okay it might be this but here is the data that tells us what's our largest umbrella and right now
043our largest umbrella is that chronic absenteeism and our largest group is economically disadvantaged when you look at that so you address it at the root cause of where your largest groups chronic absenteeism is the major issue for our division and economically disadvantages our largest student group right now I would like to see the same data set and parameters excluding the chronic absentee students. And then I would like to see the same data set putting back in the absentee students but excluding the economic disadvantaged students. And then the same data set excluding both. And I would like to see, and I think that would be at least slightly helpful in seeing... What other things are affecting the students that aren't affected as much by these two? categories Thank You mr. David dr. Davis it was a
044very productive discussion at least for me You thank you for putting a light on all these things. So my credit to dr. Midgett through you heard to you Thank you next one is special education and work plan and inclusion plan after midget. All right, we'll have dr. Fowler Director of Special Ed. Welcome. As that's coming up, guys, if you all can pull up Dr. Fowler's presentation. So as that's coming up, Mr. Conner, we recognize we have a new logo and mission and vision. Because also his crew, they're working on all the branding, so you've got to give us time to have it out. Dr. Fowler, I apologize, but I didn't want him to start that party for you. I saw when I logged in. Oh, he was going to say something. Good evening, Dr. Gupta,
045Vice Chair Conner, Dr. Majette. Thank you for the opportunity to briefly share the Special Education Inclusion Plan and the annual plan for the 2026-2027 academic school year. As we develop these plans, we were intentional about ensuring that our work aligns directly with the Lynchburg City Schools mission of growth, opportunity, and success, as well as our vision to empower students for future success through high quality instruction, supportive learning environments, and experiences that connect classroom learning to real world opportunities. The work of special education is not separate from the work of our division. It's essential to it. Every student deserves access to meaningful learning. opportunities, supportive environments, and the resources necessary to reach their fullest potential. Our plan also aligns closely with the division's strategic plan. Through targeted professional learning, collaboration, data-informed decision-making, and continuous improvement, we
046are committed to building capacity at every level, from teachers and support staff to school leaders and our own department team. Equally important, we believe in recognizing and celebrating the successes that demonstrate the positive impact of this work on students. Tonight I will provide a brief overview of our inclusive action plan and the annual plan that will support this work during the next academic year. The slide that you see before you is familiar information. Lynchburg City Schools serves approximately 7,437 students and approximately 15% of our total population is identified as students who receive special education services. Next slide. Since entering Virginia's inclusive action plan in 2023, so we're ending the very first three-year cycle for the state of Virginia, we've had the opportunity to examine our systems, celebrate areas of growth, and identify opportunities for improvement.
047As we move into the second cycle, this next cycle of planning, we're intentionally aligning our inclusion efforts with both the strategic plan and our annual plan for the upcoming academic year to ensure a cohesive and student-centered approach across our division. Next slide, please. The Inclusive Action Framework identifies 10 quality indicators, and they are listed on the slide that is before you. These help divisions evaluate and strengthen inclusive systems. The survey results reflected throughout this presentation come from a division-wide staff survey that was conducted this past winter. Staff members across schools were asked to share their perceptions regarding the presence and effectiveness of inclusive practices within their buildings. This feedback provided valuable insight into both our strengths as well as areas where additional support is needed. The survey results combined with student outcome data and ongoing
048collaboration with school leaders have helped shape the priorities included in our 2026 through 2029 inclusive action plan. I'd like to briefly take you through this next set of slides and showing you the quality indicators and then summarize comprehensively what themes emerged from this data. So for quality indicator one, that was a clear and consistent vision and vocabulary for inclusive schools. I'd like to highlight that in this second cycle, we improved from 67% who agreed in the initial cycle. and we're now at 75.63% of respondents who agree. On the right hand side, what you will see in detail is the implementation and improvement plan for each of these quality indicators. But again, I want to provide a brief summary for you and I am going to summarize the themes that came out at the end. Next
049slide, please. For quality indicator two, legislative and accountability standards, this is where we take a look at the previous data so that we know where we've come from so that we can make projections as to what we're going to do to improve overall. So when we look back at the 2022, 23 through 2024, 25 years, we saw that there were achievement gaps in math. They had widened in some grade levels and that the reading outcomes reflected a pattern of relatively balanced gains and declines. So there was an ebb and flow that we saw over those years. Again, the right side details the specific implementation and improvement plan there. Quality indicator three is strong tier one instruction. 84.03% of respondents, and this was a new area, agreed that structures for tier one instruction are in place
050across the division. And again, this is from the staff survey reporting on what they see and feel is effective in their buildings. Quality indicator 4 speaks to staffing and scheduling and I will speak more about this. But we'll see that 58.82% of respondents believe that general and special education teachers have protected planning time to collaboratively plan instruction, while 64.7% of respondents reported a need for increased professional learning related to collaborative teaching models to effectively staff inclusive classrooms. Quality indicator five speaks to the effective use of resources. 70.59% of the staff responding believes that schools are utilizing student-centered processes for staffing decisions, while 29.41% of the respondents reported concerns regarding the adequacy of staff selection, training, and ongoing support. Quality indicator 6 speaks to the collaboration among educators. Overall, 58.82% of the respondents reported consistent, common
051planning time between general and special education staff within their buildings. Quality indicator 7 speaks to specialized support. 64.71% of respondents feel that they are knowledgeable about the in-class support options available for students within their base schools. Quality indicator 8 speaks to social inclusion of students. 84% of our staff responded with the belief that faculty intentionally create opportunities for relationship building with students and demonstrate an understanding of that purpose of inclusive classroom environments. Quality indicator 9 speaks to family and community engagement. 89% of our staff reported that they believe families are engaged and active members of their child's educational team, reflecting a strong foundation for us at LCS in this area. And our final quality indicator 10 speaks to sustaining inclusive success. Here we see that 82.35% of our staff agrees that inclusive education is a
052district-wide priority rather than the responsibility of a single department. What you'll see on this next slide if we could just spend just a few moments here I would like to share with you how we arrived at the focus areas that you see before you that are the 2026 through 2029 division priorities for the Virginia inclusive plan While we reviewed all ten indicators several themes consistently emerged as areas of need Those themes are building a shared vision and common language around inclusion, strengthening instructional practices, increasing collaboration between general and special education staff, improving staffing and scheduling structures, expanding family and community engagement, and sustaining inclusive practices through ongoing professional development. One encouraging finding that we saw in the previous slides is that more than 82% of respondents indicated that inclusive education is a district priority, which
053reflects a positive shift in culture. While we have important work ahead, there is much to celebrate. Our survey results reflected strong ratings in several areas. Those areas are social inclusion, family engagement, Tier 1 instructional structures, and a commitment to inclusion as a division priority. We were also encouraged by the positive responses related to relationship building, school culture, and growing understanding that inclusive education benefits all students. These strengths provide a solid foundation as we move into our next planning cycle. What you see before you is a bulleted list of what we will consider our division priorities as we move through this second cycle and we are going to implement these starting in August. So we're spending time this summer and we are working with TTAC to bring in targeted special education training not only for special
054education staff but for general education staff. We want to make sure that inclusive practices is embedded in the work that we do with all students. So you'll see that we have targeted training that's going to focus on strengthening those inclusive practices, specifically on co-teaching, collaborative planning, and differentiated instruction within those inclusive classrooms. We're working to increase the alignment between special education and teaching and learning. Something we're very excited about no longer will you see special education operating in a silo? We've already begun that work It's been a wonderful thing for me to see I've been around for a very long time and it's really exciting work So you're gonna see and hear much more about us collaborating. You're gonna see us more in buildings You're gonna hear us talking about data that is about all
055students because we are here as a division and as a team and we're not just focusing on any specific group but we're going to take a look at what those practices are that are going to increase academic success for all of our students. You're going to see that we're going to provide more targeted professional development so that we have a common language around IEP implementation, the least restrictive environment. We're going to start defining some of those acronyms that our department seems to throw out and people are like, what in the world does that mean? We're going to make sure that that actually becomes common language. We're going to expand opportunities for our students to have social and peer engagement and extracurricular participation and leadership experiences. We are working right now. to expand CTE opportunities. So
056I'm really excited for you to watch what we're gonna have happening over our second cycle, our second three year cycle. And this is gonna feed directly into the next slide. So each year, each division across the state of Virginia submits an annual plan. And what that annual plan specifically speaks to is the IDEA Part B Section 11 and Section 619 funds. The important part about how this affects us really is that I'm going to talk to you very briefly about how we're going to use those funds to align with the inclusion plan as we're working to provide better opportunities to grow capacity in our staff as well as in our students. So next slide, please. The numbers that you see before you are the previous budget years and request. They look pretty similar when you
057look at the budget amounts, total budget request amounts on the left-hand side of your screen. Where you will see a variation is in what the budget focus is for particular years. For 2024-2025, that school year had a focus on curriculum and development for early childhood special education, staff salaries, classroom supports, equipment, and motor skills and communication supports. Last year, the focus was on contracted services, assistive technology, iPads, applications and software, and ABA services. Next slide, please. What you see here is I will take you through very briefly the line items and how they will align with the work that we're going to do with the inclusive plan and the alignment with the LCS strategic plan. Proportionate set-aside funds will be used for salary and benefits for a teacher and a speech and language pathologist to
058provide services for our students. We're also going to use some of those funds so that we can focus on students with language delays, provide academic support for classwork, again pouring into the actual classrooms that are teaching our students, so that we're focusing on reading comprehension, math computation, and that we're servicing students with disabilities who are parentally placed in private school or homeschooled in the city of Lynchburg. Next slide please. For our personnel services, we've requested funding to support personnel necessary to provide specially designed instruction that's inclusive of psychological and behavior services, compliance oversight, and operational support. Purchased services will include the maintenance and continuity of services through contracted support staff, including ABA therapists, speech and language providers, instructional assistants, and personal care assistants that our students may need. Under other services, we've requested funding to
059provide professional learning focused specifically on inclusive instruction, assessment practices so that we are learning how to collect meaningful data, how to read that data, and then how to allow that data to inform decisions, IEP implementation and compliance, and eligibility procedures. Finally, under materials and supplies, we've requested funding so that we can purchase a new curriculum for early childhood special education and the related supplies to go along with that curriculum. We want to expand access to assistive technology through AAC devices, adaptive tools, and instructional resources. We want to purchase materials and support for students with autism and behavioral needs, strengthen inclusive classroom environments through adaptive seating, sensory supports, assessment tools, instructional materials, and educational software, and finally, increase student access, engagement, and academic success through targeted instructional supports. What you'll see on the next two slides
060is simply a snapshot of the Section 611 flow-through funds. And then on the next slide, you'll see the snapshot of the line items that I just went through with you for the Early Childhood Special Education Grant. As we move into implementation, we will continue offering professional learning opportunities for both new and existing staff. Our plan alignment and implementation is deliberate. We feel like it is comprehensive because we have sought feedback, not only from staff, but from school leaders. We've sought feedback from everyone that we've come in contact with because we do want to be included. We want to have a seat at the table. We want to be decision makers. We want to be leaders as we are moving our students into academic success. So the ongoing professional learning catalog for new and existing staff
061will be focused on evidence-based instructional practices, co-teaching and specially designed instruction, and special education compliance and service delivery. Again, we are excited. We want to intentionally collaborate. The inclusive classroom is going to be something that is going to be a benefit for all students. And we are looking forward to working with other departments and working with all of the schools, with our students, with our families, and with our community stakeholders as we are an active and integral part of our students' success in our community. I'm happy to take any questions that you might have. Yes. Okay, so I did inclusive co-teaching, and I loved it. It was fabulous. I think Elizabeth and I did it in 2000. 16, 17, or 17, 18, something like that. But how does it set, you said that their planning
062time will be uninterrupted. So how does that work? Are they, like, I know Elizabeth and I, we plan together, but will they be required now, because things have changed, to meet with, what's that meeting every unit has every week? Yeah, the PLC's. It was going out of my head. I'll just ask Jennifer. So will they be having to go to the PLC's too? Is that interrupting their planning or they just plan with their co-teacher? So in a perfect world, everyone would have a common planning period and we could move forward. The work that we're going to start or that has already begun, to be very honest with you, is deliberate meetings, taking a look at master scheduling, helping to to support schools in taking a look at number one the necessity for scheduling special education
063students first for understanding what that balance looks like for taking a look at what options exist in the existing structure to provide that opportunity so it may not be that Co-teaching teams will have a common planning period particularly in your higher grade levels where you have so many different courses being offered But fidelity will be given to creating co-teaching teams that don't have three different subjects. We're really going to be intentional about creating teams that stay within a content area so that then we're growing capacity not only in our general education teachers but in our special education teachers, not only in the content but again in the content delivery. I want to thank you for a well put together presentation. Thank you. And I also would like to know how can we support you? your
064inclusive plan. What do you want us to do? Because I'm ready. Support the children. I think the best way to support an inclusive environment is for us to move away from some of our preconceived notions about what behaviors mean. I think that while we are considering our students and we are being mindful of every student coming from a different home and we're being mindful of all of the reasons that we have questions about chronic absenteeism, all the reasons that we have questions about various things that they really aren't any different for students with a disability. You know, they're all our students and I think as long as we continue to walk through the model that they're all our students and we all learn differently, then I think we will start to see that cultural change.
065I appreciate the question. Thank you. I have an autism child in our family. And he's the same love that everybody else. Yes. You know, they might be hyper sometimes. or they might talk a lot and this child eats a lot but they need the same love that we give everybody absolutely and I admire your spirit thank you so much for these children thank you Mr. Barron go ahead yeah first is just a reflection maybe a request I admire the expansion of the professional development angles and you try to equip teachers and instructional provide instructional growth. And I think that's a focus across the board. We've talked about just expanding professional development as a whole. And I think it's really good. One thing I think I would want to kind of say, don't forget about is
066school board school board members, especially ones that are coming in that might not be familiar with a lot of the same acronyms and such. I've had the privilege of learning a lot of that through being on the disciplinary committee because we talk about those considerations quite a bit as we write dispositions. So I think it would be beneficial to loop school board in on a easy, quick sort of overview, as easy and quick as it can be. I would be happy to. To give us a grasp of the things that we're doing. Absolutely. We're going to write policy for all students. It should include, as you said, not a separate from, but include special education. That's just a suggestion, a thought and observation. The other question I have, and I love that you say this
067is not a separate division. It's not as high. This is a part of the inclusive student body of Lynchburg City Schools. And so I always like to look at sort of, you know, whether it's a school that is doing something really well and how do we transfer that to other schools or if it's certain divisions within our school district that are doing things really well. I would love to say this and I say question to answer now, but how do we transfer the success? that you've had in family and community engagement specifically to the rest of the division. I think it's remarkable that you're at almost 90% of family and community engagement. I would love to see that happen across the board. Okay. In the same line of that, I'd like to see quality indicator
068eight and nine go out to the students and the parents. That are relative to those questions because then you'll have the proof in the pudding with that feedback. Absolutely good idea Secondly, are you are you happy with page? 23 numbers Which of those are the most important to you and which of them? Would you prefer to increase? age 23s numbers The budget number can we go back to the 619? slide the current fiscal Thank you. I would love to increase personnel services. Absolutely. Absolutely. I would love to increase personnel services because finding high quality staff is so important. And it is integral to the type of instruction that a child receives. And I think that if we were able, if I were able to have done a complete request there, it would have been wonderful.
069I had to strike a balance between what was needed for students in the classroom with being able to systematically bring on additional staff so that we could train and then also not negate the needs that were in the classroom. Because what we want to do is we want to be able to provide things into classrooms that are not. certain child specific, like sensory items. There's a bunch of students who like a good fidget, you know what I mean? So we really had to strike a balance between where we were gonna be able to provide student need and provide student opportunity for a way to reset inside of the classroom and also gradually be able to really very intentionally and systematically increase personnel. And on top of what he was saying, as an explanation to you,
070are you also having trouble with personnel finding people? Absolutely. See, this is what we find at Laurel as well. Some colleges even have stopped teaching special education. So there's not a lot of people still going into it anymore. So it's hard to find people to fill these spots. Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. And we, our special education department has an inclusion model. And we also have a division-wide program, which is a much more specialized program. And so the trend, again, I've been around for over 20 years, the trend that I have seen increasing. since COVID is that the number of applicants for special education positions is dropping drastically yearly. And so we really have to do a targeted effort to explain what the program is any longer. We've come away from a highly qualified requirement several years
071back, even pre-COVID. And so now we have found ourselves in a position to where we're really reaching out very heavily to the colleges around us and we're going over. I've done several. mock interviews and different things, trying to build relationships with potential candidates and really just trying to increase that applicant pool. Thank you. We have this technological marketing guru named Austin. You might want to work with him on getting a package out to to do that. Well, and some of it you can't like I know at Laurel, we've had to go like out of state and see if people can zoom in. It's that bad. So yeah, we will absolutely do all that we can for sure to get qualified people in front of us. And are you are you credential? Do you have enough
072credential personnel here where you could train people or does it all go to the video? For the credentials that you said for the the additional things like the inclusion and the higher quality of the same. So for the inclusion model, the inclusion model itself, yes, we can teach. And we're working with TTAC out of JMU to come in to provide targeted training to co-teaching teams. And then we'll use a train-the-trainer model that we'll be able to go back. And then, you know, so we're creating uniformity. and again, that common language. And so we're also, we're working with them throughout our professional development calendar for the 26, 27 academic year, where not only are they gonna come in in the beginning to provide that targeted co-teaching and inclusion training, but they're gonna come back and they're
073gonna do observation and feedback. And so we're really excited about the opportunity to work with them and to be able to increase what teachers have in their toolkit. Thank you. That was a great presentation. Very efficient. Let me say one more thing before you leave. Not only the efficient presentation, you're asking $74,000 less than what you had previously asked. So good for you. You're doing more with little money. We appreciate everything you're doing. I'm trying to get rich, too, Dr. Gupta. Thank you. Yeah, so... I don't... Does it require an action from the board? Dr. Fallon, do you need an action from the board? Does she need action? No. Mr. Polk, go ahead. Yes, I actually have a couple questions and statements. Definitely a nice presentation. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I didn't realize
07450% is pretty significant. Indeed. I'm afraid it may be a little bit more though. And the reason I say that, I'm just curious, how can we help students and families that may be stuck in the middle and quite haven't been identified for services and may be in the classroom? Are there any goals or plans to kind of help bridge that gap? With identification? Yes. So part of what we do as a department is we work with the area pediatricians' offices, doctors' offices, related service providers, and we work with our local. Here's an acronym, SEAC Board. It's the Special Education Advisory Committee to get information out about Child Find. And instead of just putting the information out, which is, you know, here's the process, we really want to spend time talking about at various levels what...
075what disability looks like versus gap because there are times that there's a gap in learning and so you can see a gap in learning that does not necessarily mean that it is a disability. So it's very important to first of all believe that students will reach the bar but in so doing what you're doing is you're making sure that your instruction is not performative and that what you're giving them is high quality instruction that is less lecture and it's more of them being able to synthesize information. That's where you're really going to get. the meat of the data that's going to be important for any evaluation. So part of what we're going to do starting in the fall is not only providing procedural information, but providing look fors, much like when we, our children have
076gone in and we get that one year checkup and it tells us what to expect in the year coming up. We really want to be very intentional about what those look fors are, because what we don't want to do is we don't want to misidentify children. And we also want to Again, just to be more collaborative with families so that when you come if you have to come into a meeting It doesn't feel so intimidating You know we really want for our presence to be informative and very disarming and we want to be approachable and we want to be a wealth of information with regard to What what am I seeing is this something that I need to be? Looking for a process to handle is this something that I could speak to with? Another
077measure so there there's differences in what a gap looks like There's differences sometimes in what home looks like and what is truly a disability So we really are gonna work on providing more of those scenario opportunities Thank you. Thank you If you don't mind me asking who were the respondents in the survey The staff of all of our schools. The survey went out in the winter to all of the staff members in our school division. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Goukia. Thank you, Dr. Mujer. Thank you, Dr. Fowler. Next one is informational items. Discipline Committee, June 11, 3.30. LACR, June 16, 3.30. School Board Meeting, June 16 at 5 p.m. Academic Success, June 23 at 3.30. June 18th, achievement, opportunity, and action ad hoc committee meeting, 9 to 12 in
078Miller Center, 301 Grove Street, room 304. July 1st, 5 p.m., school board reorganization meeting here in the boardroom. With that, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.