Virginia Board of Education Business Meeting 4/23/26

001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Good morning. It is just after 9:00 a.m. We have a full house and we are going to convene our meeting. Um as is now customary for this board, we will begin our meeting with a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. Please rise if you are able. >> 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. >> Good morning. We have a full uh uh standing room only in in the house today and for those who are livestream, we'll want to welcome you to our board meeting. Before I begin, I first want to welcome our new board members to who are at the stage today. First, we

002welcome Dr. Jamelle Wilson. Dr. Wilson currently serves as the Dean of the University of Richmond School of Professional and Continuing Studies. Prior to her appointment as Dean, Dr. Wilson served as Superintendent of Schools at Hanover County, Virginia from 2011 to 2015. Before her appointment as Superintendent, Dr. Wilson worked in Hanover County Public Schools as a classroom teacher, a lead teacher, an assistant principal, principal, and superintendent, and everything else. In 2015, Dr. Wilson was named Region One Superintendent of the Year, having been selected for this honor by her colleagues in the region. Dr. Wilson served on the Virginia Board of Education from 2017 to 2022. Dr. Wilson earned her Bachelor's of Arts in English and a Master's of Teaching from the University of Virginia, a Master of Arts in English with a concentration in Writing and

003and Rhetoric from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Doctorate Educational Leadership and Policy with a concentration in Administration and Supervision, also from the University of Virginia. Dr. Wilson has been appointed to a full term, which expires on June 30th, 2029. Please welcome Dr. Wilson and some >> Thank you. >> Then, we also have Ms. Beth Rhinehart to my left. Ms. Beth Rhinehart is the President and CEO of the Bristol Chamber of Commerce, serving both Bristol, Virginia and Tennessee. Ms. Rhinehart currently serves on the Virginia Promise and Action Board and is a member of the Sorensen Institute State Advisory Board. She previously served as the chair of the Bristol, Virginia public school board and board member secretary for the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation and Governor McAuliffe's appointee to the Commonwealth Council on Childhood Success. Most recently, Governor

004Youngkin appointed Ms. Reinhardt to the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority in 2023. Ms. Reinhardt earned her BS degree from Mary Washington College, Master of Art in Teaching and Master of Science and Counseling degrees from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from King College in Bristol, Tennessee. In 2025, Ms. Reinhardt was named the King University Distinguished Alumni Recipient at their annual Dogwood Celebration and earned the Virginia Association of Chambers of Commerce Executives Executive of the Year in 2025. Ms. Reinhardt has been appointed to an unexpired term, which expires June 30th, 2028. Welcome. Would you like to say a few words? Great. We are excited to have all of our board members um serve. Um apologies for Mr. Hanson not being here. Uh he's with us in spirit. And again, just want to thank all of our board

005members for being here um and serving on behalf of Virginia's students and families. With that, I will take a motion to approve the agenda as presented. >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Great. All in favor, say "I". Oh, Ms. Reinhardt. >> Yeah, I. >> Dr. Bridges. >> I. >> Ms. McPherson. >> I. >> Dr. Northern. >> I. >> Dr. Wilson. >> I. >> Mr. Robinson. >> I. >> Mrs. Kilgore. >> I. >> And Chair votes I. >> Thank you. Okay. Staff have provided members of the board with draft minutes before the meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minutes as presented to the board? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Great. I'll do a roll call. Miss Reinhardt? >> I'll abstain as I was not present. >> Thank you.

006Dr. Bridges? >> I. >> Ms. McPherson? Dr. Northern? >> I. >> Dr. Wilson? >> Abstain. >> Mr. Robinson? >> I. >> Mrs. Kilgore? >> I. >> And Chairwoman I. >> Wonderful. >> Okay. The board appreciates being able to feature our wonderful arts program across the Commonwealth. This has been a tradition since I have been on the board and has typically been the highlight of our times together. And that is having our students perform at our meetings. I will now ask Dr. Bridges to provide us with an introduction for our guests. >> Happy to welcome up to the front, please, the Prince Edward County High School Chamber Ensemble under the direction of Haley Watson. The ensemble is made up of students of all skill levels in grades 9 through 12. The students performing today make up

007a portion of the Prince Edward High School concert band, which consistently receives high ratings of excellent and superior at Virginia Band and Orchestra Directors Association events. Attending to support the Chamber Ensemble is the Prince Edward Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Mrs. Janine Garrett, and Superintendent Dr. Chip Jones. The piece they'll perform today is titled Through the Purple Mists Ascending by Ted Alan, which was inspired by the poem Prairie Dawn by Willa Cather. The poem begins with a pioneer experiencing the wonder and awe of a vast sunrise on an open prairie. As the poem comes to a close, the mood changes. See, we got to listen for this, right, in the music. The mood changes to a beautiful homesick melody based on a Scottish ballad. So, please enjoy the Prince Edward County High School Chamber Ensemble's

008performance of Through Purple Mists Ascending. >> Ooh. Ooh. >> Um, before we transition on, I just want to say thank you so much for that wonderful performance. Um at my school we typically talk about one band, one sound, and you actually modeled that today. So, thank you. It was beautiful. It's a beautiful way to start the day. Thank you. Oh, yes. And please we after we do our celebration, we will exit and all take a picture. So, if the scholars will just wait momentarily, we will be right there. Um with that, Mr. Robinson, we are now transition to the Virginia dual language immersion teacher of the year. Would you do the honor? Yes. Please come to the podium. Oh, yes, please. Yes, that would be great. >> Good morning. >> It is my pleasure to

009introduce Ms. Nancy Davila, an elementary dual language immersion teacher from Prince William County Public Schools, and the 2026 recipient of the Virginia Dual Language Educators Network Dual Language Immersion Teacher of THE YEAR AWARD. THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE. MS. DAVILA IS A highly respected educator whose work exemplifies the very best of dual language instruction in Virginia. A model in which students learn academic content in two languages with the goals of developing bilingualism, biliteracy, and strong cross-cultural understanding. These programs provide equitable access to rigorous learning while valuing and leveraging students' linguistic and cultural assets. Ms. Davila is known for her skillful use of scaffolded engaging teaching practices. Her expertise in helping students build true biliteracy through purposeful bridging between Spanish and English, and her leadership in mentoring colleagues, supporting curriculum development, and strengthening dual language programs

010within her division. We are honored to recognize Ms. Davila today for her exceptional contributions to bilingual education and her profound impact on students, families, and the broader educational community. Please, uh let's recognize Ms. Davila one more time. >> Thank you, Ms. Davila, and uh faculty and staff, as well as your uh family members. We know that you do not do do this alone. It takes um so many people, and so we want to recognize your family and staff here as well. Oops. Are we okay? Lights? Just give us a minute. Little technical light challenge. Okay. Wonderful. Now, we will transition to the recognition of the 2026 Principals of Distinction. With that, Ms. Reinhardt, would you please read the recognition? >> Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, everyone. Um it's an honor to announce this inaugural

011uh class of Principal of Distinction awardees. I will read through this and will announce each of the principals. Um we're going to do the There's a lot, so we're going to do the recognition as uh Madam President uh mentioned outside and do a photograph with everyone, but as I call your name, you're welcome to come up to the front, if you will, and we'll recognize you that way. So, in partnership with the Virginia Association of Secondary School Principals and the Virginia Association of Elementary School Principals, VDOE has launched a new program to recognize and celebrate principals of distinction. This initiative honors exemplary leadership of Virginia principals, highlighting their significant contributions to education, and inspires excellence within the school community. In fact, the principals of distinction represent schools that demonstrated strong results in the inaugural year

012of the school performance and support framework, Virginia's federal and state accountability system. Under section 8 VAC20-23-620F of the Virginia Administrative Code, the Virginia Board of Education outlines pathways for a principal to earn a Principal of Distinction endorsement. Eligible building-level administrators must have at least 5 years of experience in a public or accredited non-profit school, non-public school, and must have completed a formal induction program as a principal or assistant principal. The statewide Principals of Distinction program provides an opportunity for principals to receive recognition while engaging in meaningful professional growth experiences. VDOE opened the application period for this inaugural cohort in December of 2024, and applications were due February 15th of 2025. Each submission required a letter of endorsement from the division superintendent. Successful candidates participated in a professional training symposium and completed a high-quality professional development

013capstone project at their school in January of 2026. Priority was given to applicants who demonstrated strong leadership in improving student achievement, providing effective instructional leadership, and cultivating a school environment that reduces non-academic barriers. Emphasis was placed on evidence of impact on student outcomes. A total of 31 candidates were selected to participate in the first class and the following 25 principals successfully completed all requirements to be recognized as the inaugural class of the principals of distinction. So, I'm going to read each of those and please give me a little grace if I mispronounce someone, but I will do my best. If you would like to come up um and stand as we call everyone, please come forward. Meghan Arthur, Roanoke City Public Schools. Christopher Benson, Roanoke County Public Schools. Kristen Bohlam, York County Public Schools. Mary

014Jane Boynton, Rappahannock County Public Schools. Liza Brauman, Aldona Arlington Public Schools. Micah DeLoch, Virginia City Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Mary Lee Grubb, Orange County Public Schools. Heidi Haggerty-Wagner, Alexandria City Public Schools. Stephanie House, Virginia Beach City Schools. Kim Hiers-Smith, Roanoke County Public Schools. Cynthia Jackson, Washington County Public Schools. Katie Johnson, Loudoun County Public Schools. Michelle Luttrell, Loudoun County Public Schools. Mark Mekevic Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Daniel Mehan, Virginia Beach Public Schools. Drew Miller, Rockingham County Public Schools. Melinda Morgan, Montgomery County. Bridget Outlaw, Chesapeake City Schools. Angela Ramsey, Danville Public Schools. Ryan Schubert, Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Michael Sidebotham, Stafford County Public Schools. Beverly Smith, Chesterfield County Public Schools. There's a lot of you, that's great. Paul Thiessen Jr., Loudoun County Public Schools. Amanda Walker, Chesterfield County Public Schools. And Shane Wolf, Fairfax

015County Public Schools. Again, please give these principals, leaders, teachers, this recognition is just tremendous. I was trying to capture all the places across the state that were captured. I think every almost every part of the state is captured. You all didn't just get recognized, you actually had to do work to do this, which I think is incredibly important. And as a principal who I know you don't do it alone, I just want to celebrate you, celebrate your team, celebrate your families. And again, just give this group a tremendous round of applause. Okay, with that, we're going to exit to take pictures with our honorees today. We will take a brief break and then come back for public comment. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Great. Um, just want again say thank you for our teachers, our

016principals, and our students who performed today. Um, they're just a small representation of the excellence that is across the state of Virginia. And so, for those who are watching, again appreciating all the teachers and leaders and students who performed. Um, we are now going to transition to public comment. As stated in the board bylaws, it is a pleasure of the board to accept public comment on all matters related to public education in Virginia. Before we begin our public comment today, I want to share a few comments about the manner in which public comment will be conducted. I ask that you all model professionalism, dignity, respect as you share your thoughts today. As adults, it's important that we model respectful, civil public discourse for our students and children who are either in attendance today or viewing

017the stream now or in the future. We also appreciate the enthusiasm and passion and commitment that everyone has for your students and for the work that we are doing here at the Virginia State Board. When you begin, please provide your name, role, of or affiliation, and where you live in Virginia. All remarks must be directed to the chair, not to any individual. Speakers will have 3 minutes to share their remarks. You'll notice that a timer will be on the screens will begin with 3 minutes in green. At 1 minute, the screen will turn yellow. The screen will turn red when the time is up. At that point, please close your remarks promptly. And I again apologize in advance for respect for time, I will interrupt if I have to. Speakers may provide copies of their

018comments to Mrs. Droke, Mr. Droke right here in the front, the department's regulatory and board coordinator. Joe RE raised his hand. Okay. All written comments received during the public comment will be collected and provided to the board as soon as possible after public comment. You may also email a copy of your remarks to the board at [email protected]. dot gov. With that, I have a list of uh individuals who have signed up. I would ask that you come to the podium uh and as mentioned, state your name and where you're from. I first have Scott Braybrand. Is that right? Did I say it right? And next up is Lawanda Travis, and next up is Neely Minton. Good morning. >> Good morning. President Ashton, Superintendent Conway, and members of the Virginia Board of Education, my name is

019Scott Brabrand. I'm executive director for the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. I live in Lynchburg, Virginia. I want to welcome all of our new Board of Education members. And I want to thank all of you for your dedicated service to the Commonwealth of Virginia. On behalf of Virginia school division superintendents, we respectfully submit the following feedback around today's agenda. First, the return to separating first review from final review. We strongly appreciate the return to separating first review from final review on key educational items before the board. This additional time allows for thoughtful feedback from stakeholders across the Commonwealth. We also appreciate the posting of key board meeting documents the week before your meeting so that we can provide the informed public comment at your meetings. That is truly appreciated. We also strongly support the simplification

020and streamlining of the yearly accreditation report that's before you today. We look forward to continuing to work with you to refine and simplify reporting requirements for all of our school divisions in Virginia. In regards to the school performance and support framework updates, VASS appreciates the use of value tables to measure growth and their transparency and ease of use for both ease of use for both students, teachers, and parents. We also appreciate the update around the exit criteria for students who are English learners with the most significant intellectual disabilities that are taking the alternate access test. We will provide any additional feedback to VDOE on these updates as needed before your next meeting. And then finally, we also appreciate the revisions to the school construction assistance program that is now going to provide even greater flexibility

021to school divisions to access these important state funds for school construction. Thank you for your engagement with us and with so many others, and we look forward to continued partnership with you in the year ahead. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is it Ms. Lawanda Travis? Are you present? No. Uh Neely Minton? Present? Thanks. Next up will be Ms. Taya Shaw. Oh, wait. Let's Oh, just wait till the green. If not, I can Where's my clock? Okay, there you go. Okay. Good morning, Superintendent Conway, President Ashton, and members of the board, and welcome to the new board members. My name is Neely Minton, and I'm speaking today as president of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium. First, I want to extend sincere appreciation to the VDOE and board for your recent engagement with the field. Thank

022you for not including Social Studies in the proposed ESSA amendment today. That decision reflects a clear understanding of both the intent of recent legislation and the importance of preserving space for high-quality, locally driven performance assessment systems as outlined in Virginia code. We support accountability, but it must be based on the right measure. Thank you for conducting a comprehensive listening tour. That process has mattered. It has reestablished trust with educators across the Commonwealth and signaled that practitioner voice is not only welcome, but valued. And thank you for your intentional inclusion of VSSLC members in both the local alternative assessment committee and the innovative assessment committee. These partnerships are critical as we work together to ensure strong implementation moving forward. At VSSLC, we are excited to continue and build upon Virginia's robust inquiry-based performance assessment system. We

023believe deeply in a simple principle, good assessment leads to good instruction. In classrooms across the Commonwealth, assessment is not separate from learning, it is learning. Across the Commonwealth through local alternative assessments, students at all grade levels are engaging with compelling authentic questions such as "How have Jamestown and Werowocomoco changed from long ago to today?" in first grade. "Why do we need government?" which aligns with the civic strand of the third grade SOLs. "How did all American civilians on the home front help the soldiers on the war front?" in middle school US history two. "Why is the consent of the governed essential to democracy?" in 12th grade government. To answer questions like these, students work with content-rich primary sources. They build knowledge of important historical, geographic, and economic content while applying critical thinking skills to analyze,

024evaluate, and synthesize that information into evidence-based claims. Facts absolutely matter, but they matter most when students use them to make meaning, draw connections, and support their reasoning. This is rigorous, engaging, and it's the kind of work that prepares students for civic life. This is the system we are committed to strengthening. VASSLC stands ready to continue partnering with the VDOE to support school divisions across Virginia in implementing this work with fidelity. Thank you for your leadership, your willingness to listen, and your commitment to getting this right for students and teachers across the Commonwealth. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Okay. Tia Shaw. Did I pronounce that correctly? >> Tia Shaw, thank you. >> Good morning. Good morning, Superintendent Conway, President Ashton, and members of the board. My name is Tia Shaw, and I'm honored

025to serve as the president-elect for the Virginia Social Studies Leadership Consortium. First, I want to extend my sincere appreciation to the Virginia Department of Education and the board for your recent decisions and your engagement with the field of history and social sciences. Thank you for your decision not to include social studies in the proposed ESSA amendment. That action reflects a strong understanding of the intent behind SB 200 and HB 299 and protects the space for Virginia's locally developed performance-based assessment system to continue to grow. I also want to acknowledge the work of the local alternative assessment committee, including VSSLC members, ensures that the perspectives of practitioners remain central as this work moves forward. That connection is critical to getting implementation right. While we support accountability, we will continue to advocate for local alternative assessments because

026of what they produce in our classrooms. The priority is not just measurement, it is ensuring that assessment drives strong, meaningful instruction. At VSSLC, we are actively building that accountability through the development of high-quality performance assessments. Through our grant work with the Library of Congress, we are creating and sharing tasks grounded in rich primary sources and aligned to Virginia standards. This work not only strengthens classroom practice, but also has a potential to serve as a model and resource for divisions across the state. That is a system we are committed to strengthening not just in theory, but in practice in in classrooms across Virginia. VSSLC stands ready to continue partnering with the Virginia Department of Education to support school divisions in implementing this work with integrity. That means ongoing collaboration, clear guidance, strong exemplars, and sustained investment

027in teacher capacity. Thank you for your leadership, your willingness to listen, and your commitment to getting this right for students and teachers across the Commonwealth. I look forward to the work ahead. >> Thank you, Tia. Shaw, not thank you. Um next up we have um Ms. Wendy Little, Rodney Jordan. >> Greetings, Virginia Board of Education. Ms. Ashton, I realize you have masters in special education. Congratulations. Thank you. To the rest of the board, there's many things that you are unaware of because you're new and there's some who are very aware. So, I am here to deliver an oral color of law notice to the entire board and superintendent. Um Ms. Conway, um the J. Jones determination was uh written for my son. There is a state complaint the Board of Education determined that Chesterfield County

028Public Schools was non-compliant with special education requirements in 2023 with letter of finding 7172023. Chesterfield County Public Schools had one administrative appeal and lost that appeal uh by Cecil Creasey Jr. End of story, compensatory education services and related services to get him back on track. Instead, what in what is supposed to have been if none of this in another prior private day school had not given him elementary school work at eighth grade, he'd be graduating this year. And I fully expect that every single one of you is going to make sure that happens on May 21st, as was his trajectory with his peers had none of this ever happened. So, I'm also here to say that as you consider your IDEA Part B um application as well as others, that it is non-compliant because compensatory

029education has never been made available, provided, nor delivered to Aaron Little from the 22-23 school year. When I filed due process on the Board of Education, I had to do it twice because of complete sabotage, then I turn around and filed it on the Department of Education. Um and PL Prince determined, yes, indeed, my son has not received educational supports and services since the 21-22 school year. That was last summer. Somebody buried that. That is a public document that's supposed to be on your website for review and available to SEAC to consider whether to recommend that you apply for IDEA Part B funds. So, I have some information. Here is a letter that was also buried because Sam Hollins goes, um uh as we discussed, and I had to file the due processes last summer

030based on that. Senator Favola said, Board of Education, Department of Education, you work with Chesterfield and resolve this by and report on it publicly July 2025. That was already 1 year past. Your final deadline of July 2024 to comply with enforce this your own Department of Education state complaint and appeal July 2024. This is unconscionable. Somebody's going to fix this because he will not die under my watch because of a complete failure of the Board of Education's failure of oversight and multiple superintendents protecting all the stuff, and many of you have had detailed information before. This is not the Department of murdering children instead of public education in a public school building. We This needs to be corrected, and it will be corrected because my son is not going to die under my watch by

031lot by this continuing to allow to go on. He will graduate May 21st with everything he should have had. >> Thank you, Ms. Little. Rodney Jordan, please come to the podium. >> I'm sorry. Good morning, uh President Ashton, members of the board, and Superintendent Conway. My name is Rodney Jordan from Norfolk City. I bring you greetings on behalf of President Ginnie Nichols, Executive Director Gina Patterson, and the entire Board of Directors of the Virginia School Boards Association. To the newly appointed members of the Virginia State Board, welcome. Your willingness to serve in this capacity is both meaningful and necessary, and we appreciate your commitment to the students, families, and communities across the Commonwealth. The work before you can carry great responsibility. The decisions made at this level shape not only policy, but also the conditions

032that allow student achievement to take root and grow in every division across Virginia. At VSBA, we we remain firmly focused on supporting that work from the local governance perspective, ensuring that school boards are equipped, informed, and aligned in their efforts to serve students well. We value the long-standing relationship with the State Board of Education and VSBA, and we look forward to continuing that partnership with each of you. Strong alignment between state leadership and local governance is essential if we are to see meaningful and sustained progress in student outcomes. Our goal is to be a resource to you, whether through feedback from the field, collaboration on key initiatives, or simply serving as a conduit to the experiences and perspectives of local school boards. To that end, we we consider it an honor uh we consider it

033an honor and demonstration of meaningful collaboration that the past Board of Education presidents and members accepted invitations to speak directly at VSBA Board of Director meetings and task force meetings. We extend that invitation to each of you today. On a personal note, it is an honor to stand before you today having had the privilege of serving as president of VSBA and now continuing my work as a consultant. I have seen firsthand the impact that thoughtful collaboration can have on strengthening public education across our state. Before I close, I would like to take a moment to introduce a new member of our VSBA team who will play an important role in the collaboration moving forward. We are pleased to welcome Sophia Panetta as our new governmental relations staff person. If she would please stand. And Sophia

034will be working closely with the General Assembly and partners like you to ensure strong communication, coordination, and advocacy on behalf of public education in Virginia. We're glad to have her on board and look forward to the contributions she will make in strengthening our collective work. Again, congratulations to each of you. We look forward to working alongside you in service of our shared priority, supporting strong schools and advancing student achievement across the Commonwealth. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Jordan. Um Ms. Candace Lucas. And if there are other members who would like to provide public comment, please uh come to the front. Public Just 1 second, Ms. Lucas, please. >> Dr. Lucas. >> Sorry, thank you. >> Dr. Lucas, you may begin. >> Good morning, board members. My name is Candace Dr. Candace Lucas. Um my

035doctorate is in from Liberty University Law School of Education regarding special education law. My dissertation centered around the uh school-to-prison pipeline and how the Virginia Department of Education rapes black mothers of their humanity, dignity, and their overall opportunity to educate their children. Today, I'm here again. I've been coming here for about 15 years. Actually tomorrow will be my 57th birthday and I'm celebrating it protesting outside of your office, Jenna. Okay. Because Jenna, you made the comment that every child >> Sorry, Mr. >> deserves to enter school. >> but you please direct your comments towards >> Why didn't stop him from addressing her, the previous person? >> Thank you. >> But but you didn't stop the previous Stop my time. Stop my time. >> You may continue. >> Stop my time. >> make sure you have

036the appropriate >> Thank you. >> Go ahead. >> If you're going to correct one person, you need to correct everyone. Cuz he welcomed her and you didn't stop him. >> Okay. >> All right, thank you. Every child deserves to enter school to enter school ready. Every child deserves to leave school life-ready. That is not happening. The Epstein files have nothing on the video E-files. The truth be told. The fact that our children are dying, specifically our black and brown children and children with disabilities, are being funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline, and every month we come back here, parents like Ms. Little come here and tell you and you do nothing. You are co-conspirators with the death and the murder and the mass execution of millions of children. And under oppressive systems, all due respect, chair,

037civility, respect, dignity, and professionalism are out the door. I'm going to fight like hell to protect my children. I don't even have a child with a disability, but every child in the Commonwealth is my child who has to fight for their right to be educated, and you have failed them. Under Virginia Code 22.1-214, it states verbatim, "The Board of Education shall prepare and supervise the implementation, shall prepare and supervise the implementation by each school division of a program of special education designed to educate and train children with disabilities." That means that is your responsibility under the Constitution. You have failed us repeatedly. The second issue is that the Virginia Constitution gives the parent the right to direct direct the educational upbringing of their children. That means Sands Anderson Law Firm can't do it. That means

038you can't do it. That means the school division can't do it. That means the Superintendents Association can't do it. The parents direct it. The parents have been relegated to second-class citizens by state-acting oppressors. So, no, we will not be civil. We will not be respectful when you're killing our children. It is time for it to end. I'm giving you notice that every parent that I'm associated with will file a lawsuit against this board to hold you personally and professionally accountable. You have no immunity because you violated the Constitution. You have no immunity. You have none. Our children are in a crisis and you are sitting here as though this is a Sunday brunch and we're having tea. No. It ends now. >> Thank you, Dr. Lucas. >> And oh, I'm going to give you these

039out. These Minister Cheryl Sampson, take these and hand these out. Prayed over this oil. Please take it and anoint your heads and your hearts. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Lucas. Is there anyone else who would like to provide public comment today? Okay, thank you. That ends our public comment session. We will now return to the agenda. Thank you. We are going to focus on our consent agenda, ascent consent agenda. We have first up final review of to certify a list of qualified persons for the office of the division superintendents of schools. And then we have a final review of the financial report on literacy fund and updates to the first priority waiting list. Is there a motion to waive first review and approve these items on the consent agenda? Is there a second? >>

040Second. >> Great, I'll do roll call. Ms. Reinhardt. >> I. >> Dr. Bridges. >> I. >> Ms. McPherson. >> I. >> Dr. Northern. >> I. >> Dr. Wilson. >> I. >> Mr. Robinson. >> I. >> Mrs. Kilgore. >> I. >> And chair votes I. Thank you. All right, we have our action items up for discussion. First Oh, sorry. Final review of the regulatory action in line with item 130H of chapter 2 of the Acts of the Assembly 2022 special session. Mr. Chapman. >> Yes. Thank you, President Ashton, members of the board, Superintendent Conway. Um I have no additional comments from the presentation that occurred last month other than to note that we have received no comments on this item since that that presentation. And also to make sure for the new members, this item has

041been in the works for quite some time. Um this particular phase of the action since 2024, but before that started as a fast track action back in 2022. The same text has come before the board. This is the the sixth time. We have never received any comments on this text and the recommendation for the the superintendent is this to get approved at the final stage. >> Great. Is there a motion to approve the final stage of the regulatory action as presented to the board? So moved. >> Second. >> Great. >> Um >> Ms. Reinhardt? >> I. >> Dr. Bridges? >> I. >> Mrs. McPherson? >> I. >> Dr. Northern? >> I. >> Dr. Wilson? >> I. >> Mr. Robinson? >> I. >> Mrs. Kilgore? >> Uh >> And chair votes I. >> Thank you. All

042right. Mr. Chapman, you're up again. >> Yes. Thank you, President Ashten. Item D, similarly up for final review. This is a legislatively directed change and this action the the changes to the regulatory text in this case in order to account for an alternative to accreditation for these these two programs related to counseling is very narrow. It comes right from the statute. We recommendation from the superintendent is to also be be approved on final review. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Chapman. Is there a motion to approve the regulatory action as presented to the board? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Ms. Reinhardt? >> I. >> Dr. Bridges? >> I. >> Mrs. McPherson? >> I. >> Dr. Northern? >> I. >> Dr. Wilson? >> I. >> Mr. Robinson? >> I. >> Mrs.

043Kilgore? >> Uh >> And chair votes I. Thank you, Mr. Chapman. Okay, we have um Ms. Michelle Wallace, uh assistant superintendent of instruction for the second review of the Virginia textbook and high-quality instructional materials process. Good morning. >> Good morning, President Ashten, Superintendent Conway, members of the Board of Education. Welcome to our new members. I'm Michelle Wallace, the instruct the assistant superintendent of instruction for the department. It is my pleasure to bring to you the second review of the Virginia textbook and high quality instructional materials process. We commonly refer to that as HQIM, so that's what I'll what I'll be saying. Uh in 2025, the General Assembly enacted chapters 680 and 683, commonly referred to as House Bill 2777, which made changes to the textbook and other high quality instructional materials process that are being

044used by school divisions as the basis for local curriculum of classroom instruction in English 6 through 12, mathematics K through 12, science K through 12, and history K through 12. The changes require that each local school board adopt and implement textbooks and other HQIM in these areas, and that each education prep preparation program that provides training of individuals seeking initial licensure include a program of coursework and clinical experience in identifying and implementing textbooks and other HQIM. These changes do not impact the existing requirements for required core instructional materials in English K through 5 and supplemental intervention materials in K through 8 English as required by the 2022 Virginia Literacy Act. In your materials, you have links to the current 2011 process, which is the last time that the process was approved by this board, as

045well as a redline version showing the changes, and then there's a what we call a clean version, but you will notice that it does have some changes in it as some updates have been made as Superintendent Conway and I reviewed this again since the last board meeting. While it looks like a lot of changes in that redline, actually the process is very very very similar, but what we are changing is the definitions for textbooks and HQIM, the supports offered to school divisions and other stakeholders prior to and during the process of an adoption process. The rubric that assesses alignment to the standards and to the definition of textbooks in HQIM, and then find finally the support that follows that process that will be provided to school divisions. Next slide. We will start with the importance

046of HQIM followed by a synopsis of how the textbook and HQIM law changed in 2025, stakeholder engagement, and an overview of the changes to the process. Next slide. And again. High-quality instructional materials are some of the most powerful levers to improving student outcomes at scale, particularly when there are new teachers in classrooms, including those who have gone through a non-traditional pathway to licensure. HQIM ensure that every student has access to evidence-based, standards-aligned content to support mastery. In 2025, Virginia law passed uh or Virginia passed legislation to define textbooks as textbooks and HQIM, and requires divisions to select such materials to align with this rigorous expectation. Additionally, this effort aligns with priority one of the board, which um includes uh that helping to set every learner up to meet high expectations. Next slide. So, the research

047on HQIM is presented in this slide, and you can click into that link to uh link out to some of that research. Um but curriculum can have an immense impact on student learning, and so these are just some of the studies that we pulled forward as we have been training and working with school divisions on HQIM implementation. And so, you can see uh that implementing the HQIM leads to improvement in student outcomes comparable to more than a half a school year of additional learning. Next slide. Now, we'll talk about the new law and the implications. So, this slide kind of outlines and some of these are already existing. So, not everything on this slide is new, okay? Uh some of this already exists. Um but basically, it outlines the responsibilities of the Board of Education,

048the Department of Education, the school divisions, and our educator prep programs. Of course, you, the Board of Education, approve the revised process that we will use. Uh you'll also approve textbooks and HQIM as they come forward for first and final review. And then, with this legislation, there is a requirement to approve a list of vendors of uh curriculum-based professional learning to support the professional learning of school divisions and teachers around implementing high-quality instructional materials in the classroom. The Department of Education, which is the staff within the instruction on the instruction team, uh we take the the lead in reviewing and updating that textbook review process for your consideration. We then also review and recommend to you textbooks and high-quality instructional materials for those content areas that you see. Uh develop and adopt and publish that

049list of vendors for professional learning. We annually will publish a list of textbooks and HQIM and professional learning resources adopted and procured by each local school board. This is a new requirement and something that um currently, we do collect information on textbooks, but we don't collect exactly what they have adopted except in our K-5 English literacy uh realm. And also, uh we will provide support to ooh to HQIM liaisons. Let me get back to slides. Did I knock something? Thank you. And uh we will also conduct HQIM review and monitor implementation for schools identified in need of improvement. So, uh that means that we'll be working with our office of school improvement to ensure that schools have that have been identified uh in certain areas will be implementing curriculum that are from the approved uh

050list and provide support to them. And that also is new with the legislation. Uh school divisions are uh required to adopt and implement HQIM in English language arts for grades 6 through 12, mathematics, science, and history and social science for for grades kindergarten through 12. Uh from the list approved by the board or through a local adoption process that incorporates board requirements in accordance with board regulations. So, the first part of that is a little bit new. Um the requirement that they shall adopt is new in the legislation. However, the local adoption process that incorporates requirements that follows the process this board adopts is already in effect and will remain in effect with this legislation. Uh they will have to annually review their professional development. That actually is already in the standards of quality and

051is not new. Uh and they should provide that professional development around HQIM now. That's the new part. Ensure that division-wide comprehensive plans include support for student achievement through HQIM. Uh divisions already have comprehensive plans. Uh those plans should now include uh how they plan to support student achievement with the adoption and implementation of HQIM. Uh they have to designate a faculty member to serve as the HQIM liaison and that has already occurred. We had them identify an HQIM liaison this school year. And then report to the department through our SOQ reporting process which textbooks have been adopted. Again, this is semi new. They have um just indicated on the current report if they have adopted textbooks that you guys have approved. Now they will have to name which uh materials they've adopted. So a little

052little new nuance there. The part for educator prep programs is completely new and that is that the educator prep programs include a program of coursework and clinical experience and require that the students uh in those programs demonstrate mastery in identifying and implementing textbooks in HQIM and support the identification and implementation of HQIM as a strategy to support uh student learning. And so that part is actually we've already started working with our educator prep programs uh on this particular component of the legislation. Next slide. So what really changed with the definition of textbooks is the incorporation of HQIM and uh really looking at the adequate content of materials for student mastery of the corresponding standards, defining instructional practices that are aligned with general and discipline specific research evidence. So we know that what you do in

053a science classroom might very well differ from what you do in an English classroom. So that's what that means there. Assessments to monitor student mastery of curriculum content. So those assessments should be built into that HQIM so that teachers can monitor student mastery ongoing rather than at the end of a end of a semester, end of a nine-week period. Um this assessment these assessments typically go on almost in a daily fashion. Guidance for meeting student needs including enrichment above grade level uh students and for the intensification for students who are at risk for not mastering curriculum content. This includes our English language learners and students with disabilities, as well. And then resources for our teachers. And this is really to give teachers that support to develop their own knowledge about the curriculum. Uh we know

054that teachers are not content experts in every single content area, particularly at the elementary level. These materials give them that support so that they know the content and can instruct on that content, and that the content is reliable, trustworthy, and valid. Next slide. So, where are we currently? Um currently, the textbook review process was last adopted in 2011. Um so, it it's a little bit out of date, um not just with the HQIM and the trends in education right now, uh but just some other nuances that uh had to be updated throughout the plan. Um Johns Hopkins also conducted a study in the fall of 2024. So, that's almost been 2 years ago. And so, some of you were on the board of when Johns Hopkins came and did a synopsis of that study, and

055you heard that 63% of English teachers reported using HQIM most frequently, and approximately 37% of teachers reported using materials that did not meet an EdReports alignment or usability standards. In from In mathematics, you see the numbers are drastically lower, um and so, uh that was only 10% and that Remember, this is 2024 uh reported using HQIM most frequently, and approximately 80% reported using materials that did not meet um EdReports alignment and usability standards. Next slide. With the Virginia Literacy Act, um we of 2022, it actually went into effect in the fall of 2024, where teachers were using core instructional programs for the very, very, very first time. So, every student uh must be receiving core literacy instruction from an evidence-based literacy curriculum for the entire literacy block, and that is done through the K-5 core

056literacy programs. Additionally, uh the law calls for K-5 and K-8 or sorry, 6-8 supplemental and intervention programs. And several times, if you've been on this board, um or if you've watched meetings, you've seen many uh items come before the board for review and approval uh by the board. And we will have some for this board to adopt later this year, so you'll get to experience that part that process if you haven't already. Uh some of the lessons learned are kind of informing our process moving forward. Uh we realized that implementing HQIM requires significant effort at all levels and involvement of division leaders and superintendents. So, with the ELA implementation uh at the K-5 level, we did a whole series of implementation of on HQIM. We have already started that series with our division leaders, um

057knowing that this legislation and that this process is coming into effect very soon. And um then with the uh since the 2024 study of Johns Hopkins, we now do have 100% of our schools using or that have adopted core programs, uh and as well as those instructional intervention programs in K-8. Uh all divisions have division literacy programs that outline that curriculum adoption, and therefore the department does know what divisions are using for their um curricu- their core instructional program. Next slide. This is just an implementation timeline to give you an overview of what we have done since actually 2023 with the adoption of uh where we began our evidence-based adoption for K-5 as early as 2023. We have new standards in English, we have new standards in mathematics. We have adopted textbooks in uh both

058English 6-12 as well as mathematics. When those textbooks were adopted, of course this legislation was not in effect, but we did um look for the tenants of HQIM because uh we did have some flexibility in that second part of the rubric that allowed us to do that. So, we did go ahead and start applying HQIM, not necessarily by the definition of this legislation, but certainly for the tenants of HQIM that are being used nationally. Um and then we um are anticipating board action for final review on this process in June. We anticipate some uh additional summer training for our EPPs. Um actually, we have that planned out, and then um we will be be bringing to you also this summer a process uh timeline for the processes of science and history adoptions. And then um

059we anticipate additional training on this process because that is part of what the feedback from stakeholders, they wanted more input, they want on the front end, and they wanted more stakeholder um support on the back end. Next slide. And again. So, as I said, this process, this legislation had us convene a group that looked at our current textbook process. Um we used those individuals who had been through recent textbook processes for English and mathematics um because they could provide some great insights into the actual process for the from the 2011 process. Uh we also engaged with others who had gone through previous processes and those who have not been through any textbook processes at all. And so, from all of that feedback, um you know, overwhelmingly the feedback was the process is a good process.

060What needed to change though were some tenants, the definition of textbooks and HQIM, and then what we look for in the process. And then again, those additional supports to make sure that we are implementing the textbook process with fidelity. Um textbook vendors also provided uh uh feedback on the process as well. And then uh next slide. Our stakeholder process our stakeholder feedback, again, like I said, primarily favorable and supportive of the current process. Um instructional support for special populations was identified as a critical need. And so that'll be built into the process where we're getting uh making sure that those student groups are represented on our textbook adoption committees. And then alignment to the standards was um highly regarded as a a priority and should remain a priority since uh we are teaching the standards

061of learning, testing on the standards of learning, our textbooks should be aligned to the standards of learning. And then clearly defining our processes for publishers what um what the different areas of adequate limited and no evidence mean. And then um HQIM should provide that in-depth support to facilitate teacher understanding. So that's that back-end training that we're talking about to make sure that teachers, after something has been adopted, they actually had great ideas about having each vendor do like a little 10-minute snippet overview of their program uh offered to all stakeholders. Next slide. The additional feedback is that rubrics should reflect discipline-specific components. And so that is where we do um you know, you'll see a a generic um kind of one that we've done for English, but those uh components would be specific discipline-specific. That

062also is in alignment with the legislation. Um building extra time for the new process uh time became uh a big topic of discussion because with our recent implementation of English and math standards, we kind of uh implemented those uh on a little bit earlier timeline than has been typical in the past. And therefore, they wanted to make sure that we had textbooks and HQIM in process as new standards are adopted and new textbooks are then subsequently adopted. And then um division leader participants requested training. and so we've built that into uh the recommendations. So, next slide and then again So, as we think about the the revised process before you, we have the broader definition of textbooks and other HQIM that's within the legislation from 2025. We have uh incorporated the identification of how textbooks

063and HQIM will support advanced learners, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities. Additional training for textbook reviewers, additional feedback solicited on the materials to be being considered for adoption. We made a lot of technical changes. That's a lot of the redlines that you made and then or that we have and then the timeline uh for the cycles to align with what the field is asking for. Next two slides. Um so, our next steps uh after this meeting, you know, we'll solicit additional feedback. We'll bring it to the board in June for your final review. Once approved, we'll engage with our field on the process and develop resources to address awareness and training needs. We'll review current materials and timelines. Uh the legislation did set some enactment clauses on the timelines, but does give us flexibility to

064change those timelines based on when we last reviewed standards and adopted other materials. And so, we'll um we'll be reviewing that. We've already done that actually, but um just to give you some parameters, uh science and and history are being selected to to go first because they don't have any materials in those areas and we know that history in particular is has been asking for a long time. And then you guys know that you just adopted the science standards in the last part of last year. So, we're right on time with science, which is why we would be doing those at the same time. Um use the new process uh to when we adopt uh so, we're currently going through a core K-5 materials review process. That's led by the Virginia Literacy Partnerships at UVA.

065Our partners in the VLA implementation. And so we've been working really closely with them. New for this year, this cycle, we are after they've done their initial review, we are taking a comprehensive look on the DOE side to standards alignment and then we'll be putting out documents that inform what how those materials align to our standards of learning. And so that is something that'll be new for this cycle. And then finally ensure a full compliance with all aspects of the law recommending vendors. There's an appendix there that shows you you can go to the last two slides. That shows you the professional learning that took place since the last board meeting. We had really great response from the field on just learning about HQIM in anticipation of the legislation and anticipation of the new process

066coming. And so you know, that's been very welcomed by the field as far as how divisions think about what they're going to how they're going to implement the new HQIM in other content areas other than English literacy K-5. Any questions? Okay. >> I do. >> Dr. Wallace, thank you so much for that presentation. Going to go to Ms. McPherson and then Dr. Wilson. >> All right, thank you. So going back to what I have as page nine, the current state. As the John Hopkins study indicated that 63% of the English language teachers reported using some form of high-quality instructional materials, correct? But only 10% of math teachers were using some type of high-quality instructional materials most frequently. >> Mhm. >> So it am I to understand that um and 80% of the math teachers were

067not using anything that apparently met Ed Reports alignment and usability standards. So, one of the slides also indicates that it looks like the best data we have will demonstrate it will take us 3 years before we will see any improvement or manifestation of the use of the high-quality instructional materials as it relates to math because it takes about 3 years before we'll see a difference. >> Yeah, so that's a good indication to me. Anytime you change anything, we in school improvement, we typically say 3 to 5 years before you're going to see improvements. And And when you have high-quality instructional materials, you're going to That's really dictating. I mean, that's going to be a less time. So, I'd say yes on the 3-year end. But remember, this is a 2024 study and we're in 2026.

068And this board adopted mathematics high-quality instructional materials last February and March. So, divisions have been going through their local adoption processes over last summer and this fall. Some have started implementing those those HQIM. We also had a $10 million grant that targeted high-quality instructional materials use that was awarded to school divisions. And with those funds, divisions are also purchasing some of those high-quality instructional materials. So, I would say that the vast majority of school divisions will be using high-quality instructional materials in the math classroom beginning with next school year, the 2026-27 school year. Um and so, yes. I mean, but some have already started implementing because some were early adopters and they implemented piloted in the fall and more implementation with fidelity in the spring. >> Okay. And at some point, I'm assuming that we

069will also get information as to the use of those materials as it relates to the performance on the SOLs. I'm hoping that we'd be able to crosswalk that. So, we Okay. >> Yeah, so great question. So, two things in addition to what Dr. Wallace noted. So, I think the first is a survey gives you a snapshot, but it's not kind of systematic. Where it is or is not being used, right? Because there's who sort of opted in to complete the survey. I think those survey results did their job in saying, "Hey, we're further along in English language arts than we are in mathematics." As as Dr. Wallace noted. But ultimately, what I think the comprehensiveness of this law does it is also calls more broadly on the department not just in the area of instruction,

070but to think about for example in the area of accreditation, which we're going to talk about later today. How do we check to make sure now that this is state law that every school, not just the division as part of a a broad plan, but every school is has chosen and has adopted a high-quality curriculum. So, I think you're going to see Ms. McPherson us developing better systems to gather that information. And then, once you understand what a school is identified as using, then you can then go back and marry that with the growth and the performance based on our standards of learning assessments. And so, I know that's something that we're looking at right now now that we have systematic information on K-5 literacy. We've not yet done this, but we can look at

071the 3-5 literacy growth and performance. And then, sort of at least at a minimum correlate, right? It's not causation, but can correlate that with the curriculum choices. >> Okay. Uh Dr. Wilson. >> Dr. Wallace, thank you very much. So, this point that Superintendent Conway just made about the uh what this information um study recognizing limitations provides us as a baseline and thinking about the through line then and the responsibility of the department to help support divisions. Uh and holding the the department and the board accountable for its part in uh student learning. >> Absolutely. >> So my question though goes to roles and responsibilities and and and who um is identified in terms of making and keeping track of information. So on the slide that talks about Board of Ed, DOE, school divisions, and then

072educator prep programs, I noticed that the department is required or will be um publishing annually a list of these materials, but I don't see a similar level of responsibility at the local level. So it seems to me that there is some responsibility. Yes, for the department and the board's perspective, we need to be able to to understand what's happening and how our work is impacting what's happening in the divisions, but thinking about the local responsibility, I wonder if there is any expectation that locals are are are publishing and being um perhaps transparent to their communities about what the materials are that they have adopted um in where that that line is. >> Yeah, so that actually falls within their comprehensive plan. So their comprehensive plan, which should be on their websites, um is where they

073would document the information, and every division does comprehensive plan differently. Um some give a lot of background information on how they got to that point of what they've adopted and how they're doing with that adoption. Some may do it differently. Um but that's where their accountability comes in. Um the legislation calls for us to publish. Um, the legislation doesn't call for them to publish, but through that comprehensive, um, division-wide plan, uh, they should be including that. Um, then again, when if you look at the the division's responsibilities, um, or excuse me, the department's responsibilities about monitoring implementation for those schools that have been identified on school for school improvement, uh, those school improvement plans have to go before their boards, which is a public document as well. And so those improvement plans should also incorporate

074some tenant of their textbook adoption since it becomes part of the school improvement process. >> So just one follow-up comment, if I may. Um, thank you. Um, that reminder is good. I think for the public though, uh, who may not know where to dig for that information, um, it makes it a bit more difficult for the public to understand at the local level what is happening, how it's happening, and then it comes here. So that's my observation. Thank you. >> Yes, thank you, Dr. Wilson. So, um, uh, in the spirit of of transparency, and I want to applaud Dr. Wallace and the instruction team for their diligent work on what I consider to be a very important law, um, that provides a a nice framework for this body, for the department, for divisions, and for

075educator preparation partners on how we should approach this work. Um, as uh, I am in in my role, I'm evaluating, um, the ultimate kind of how do you implement this law fully? I want to note that it will, I think as we come to you in subsequent meetings, be much more than instructions, right? So and and you'll you'll notice a similar vein when we speak later today about school improvement, that it can't just be owned by one division or office within the department. So when you think about holding schools accountable for input-based measure. That's our accreditation system, right? And thinking about how we make sure, once this all goes into effect fully, which is on July 1st, right? That that is so that every superintendent understands when they are signing off on accreditation, that they

076are too attesting to the use of of high-quality materials. Um, I think when we work in partnership with with uh our COO and our deputy superintendents around how do we make sure that, you know, to the extent possible, our federal funds, right? Are, you know, in sort of any applications, as Dr. Wallace noted, we had a a math grant on this, but again, if this is a top priority and we know that folks are still in the process of changing, aligning resources to make it uh possible and to encourage uh more divisions to to purchase these if they've not already. Ultimately, there is a big shift for school improvement, and I think um really thinking through not only um you know, where is it in your comprehensive plan or where is it in your improvement

077plan that you take to your board, but how do we put this at the center of the school improvement plans and how do we think about making that more publicly available? Uh it is not necessarily part of the school performance and support framework. We don't necessarily want inputs there, but you could see where we might, um as we have done in the world of early childhood, post online on the school quality profile which curriculum is being used, right? So that parents that do know to go there for information about schools could do that, and then they again, really thinking through with our educator preparation partners, how do we make sure that they're not only delivering this, right? But that it is we're seeing changes in terms of the educator candidates that that come out. So,

078um that is uh you know, I want to sort of both recognize the incredible work of instruction, but just acknowledge that there are multiple aspects of the department that will need to think through this implementation and be responsible for communicating that in order to comply with all six layers. And then I think thinking through as well, how do we make sure that our school division partners understand this is not just a chief academic officer at the VDOE to the local division, but is broadly and you think about your funding choices, your school improvement, your teaching and learning as well as your superintendent's office that all of those folks are understand what the law calls for for them. >> Dr. Bridges. >> Thank you. I have a couple questions. I do think to Ms. McPherson's point

079this is it's exciting with the focus on math. We really should start to see some movement in those math recovery outcomes just from this because we know that alignment and reducing variation in what children are receiving an instruction can can be a huge big step. So I'm excited about that. I wanted to ask to your point about the Ed Prep programs because we've got so many educators coming in now from alternative programs and not even having field-based training as part of their experience before they're in the classroom. Do you see Do you feel like we're we're able to close that gap with the professional development expectations that are that are in the proposal? >> Yeah, I mean that that actually it's not spelled out in the legislation. So you know, this is what you know,

080we we're charged with implementing the legislation. Certainly we can go beyond and I think that that is also a valid point to bring up to school division partners, right? As in how they are training their local teachers. And so with the curriculum-based professional development that is also a part of the legislation. It's not a requirement that school divisions use CBPL. It is a requirement that the VDOE adopts or puts out a list for curriculum-based professional learning, CBPL. Sorry for the acronyms. Um, just kind of kind of kind of rolls. Um, but >> It's education. >> Yeah, we know. But that yeah, we're a sea of the alphabet today. CBPL and HQIM, they're your two two new ones today. Um, but the the legislation calls for us to adopt CBPL at the at the state level

081that signals to divisions these are approved by us to support the curriculum that we have adopted in Virginia as well. And so those kind of align, right? And then it's divisions have the option to select from that list to get that curriculum-based professional learning, which is direct, typically, direct classroom observations, um, support to teachers. And I think that is where that training is really going to hit any teachers that have come in a non-traditional fashion, cuz they're going to be really looking at that curriculum, not just holistically what is HQIM as our educator prep programs are going to be doing, um, but also very specific to that school division's implementation of the HQIM at the classroom level. And typically that type of professional learning is a very sustained type of professional learning that it's not

082one and done, it happens over the course of the year many times. And we actually do have a couple of grants right now. Um, the math grant is one. We also have a literacy grant that is doing that same thing right now in divisions to provide that, um, that support through curriculum-based professional learning vendors. Um, you know, but very valid point in how we can really think about maybe working with some of those alternative accredited or alternative teacher pathways that offer that. And you know, I will just say that we've encouraged we've we've been talking with EPPs for a little bit now. They were invited to all of this training, so they got what the divisions got. And we've encouraged them and we'll be encouraging them to reach out to their localities, find out what

083they have adopted and get samples of those curriculum materials for their students to see, put their hands on, look at the lesson plan thematics and how it how it's set up and what they can do to adjust lessons to address student needs or disabilities or advanced learners or EL learners. >> Thank you. I have a second question, but it's not it's not related. Um I think the other really important piece there is that uh the law provides uh a clear expectation that we're gathering this data, right, in order to publish it, but it also means that we can start to look up at, okay, what do we know about this school? How many provisional license educators do you have, right, at what levels, right, and then what are they using in terms of HQIM? Where

084are we seeing growth? Where are we not? Where might that be related to professional learning? So, the uh Dr. Rawls is exactly correct. This will probably be our priority over the course of the next 4 years in terms of like that's how long it takes. On the other hand, uh what we've learned from our our work in early childhood is really thinking how you measure and show that back to a school division every step of the way is critically important. Um as you sort of think about, what do we have at the aggregate level? How do we take things from accountability or sort of test level performance, attach that to what we know about the workforce, attach that to what we know about which HQIM are are or are not being used. >> Right. Ms.

085McPherson. >> Oh, wait. Oh, Dr. Bridges has another question. Do you want to add on or >> Yeah, I'm adding on. >> Okay. Okay, so I'll be quick. >> So, I'd like to from an elementary standpoint, um so the role of the board is to obviously look at systems and make policy that's going to make changes. And in order for us to do that, as we adopt standards and as we adopt materials, that information has to flow out to everyone, so that we know that they're all on the same page with us. These are the high-quality instructional materials that we expect that you will use. And so, the communication needs to be really clear. Cuz I'll give you a perfect example. I'm sure that during COVID time, and even before that, because I've got some

086experience with it, there were materials that were being used to provide shortcuts to learning. What we have found from the experts is that as well as that was intended, those materials were not based on fundamentals. Because the textbooks that are approved have fundamental steps of growth in them. And as you go through those materials and you master those, you get to the next set of materials, you're you have the building blocks. And when you shortcut that, you don't have the foundation. And then students fall behind. But from a board's perspective, what we're trying to do is say, we need to get on the page together, so that we can move from the materials to some of the other issues that teachers and principals and superintendents have said create problems for them, such as self-regulation in

087classrooms. So, that's my point. Can we get the word out? This is where we are. This is what the expectations are, so that the teachers are clear about what we're expecting of them and their accountability. And we can then help them with some of the other issues that are facing the school system across the board. So, I do want to thank the staff. I do want to say thank everybody out there that's trying to do the best that they can under the circumstances, but just understand the framework. We want to try to move on from this to help you address some of the other issues, so we can build a first-class Virginia entire system for the growth of our students. >> Thank you. Dr. Bridges. >> Thank you. This is just a clarification for my

088understanding. The background document, not the presentation, talked about the excellent Ed report that only eight states require maintain official adoption list. Does that mean Virginia with this law becomes the ninth? Is that Is that what it does? >> That would be my perspective. I don't know that the specific underlying criteria, but in my 15 years this is a one of the more assertive state laws on HQIM. We are thankful to the General Assembly for it. >> Yeah, and if you look at those eight, there's a couple in there that, you know, are getting some attention for some of their advancements in in outcomes. So, thank you for that. Thank you. >> Dr. Northern and then Mr. Robinson. >> So, I just want to underscore um a point just made by our superintendent. Like, this is

089this is huge in terms of what we're being asked to do. Um I've got frankly mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, there is no other state in the entire country that's deciding HQIM for history and science. Because guess what? It can be a hornet's nest. Like, we know the problems that we had and I'm just being real frank here. We know the problems that we had with our history standards. Getting them you know, right so to speak where we could actually feel good about them and and all the negotiations and collaborations that we had. So, you can imagine us trying to as a a body say like here are the science textbooks that we think are great when nobody else is willing to do that, right? So, we're going to have debates about

090climate change, about evolution. Like, these are no small issues. Um and so that's one. Both science and history have their own hornets' nest, right? Um, so I would suggest that there's going to be some education that we need to do with the General Assembly to say, um, there's a reason no other state has done this before, right? We started with with math and ELA because they're easy, right? And we know they're not. So, um, I guess just that point. Like I I just feel like this is going We're we're going to be the frontrunner on this when nobody else has done it. Um, and so we need to be real careful, and it's going to take time. Um, I don't think we need I don't think we should push and say, "Okay, well, they told

091us we had this timeline." And it's more like, "Okay, let's tell you like why it's important for us to take our time when we're going to be the the only state to to do this, period." Um, my second point is I think that, um, we're trying to do this through the textbook adoption process, from what I understand. I guess that's the right vehicle. Um, I worry, though, like is it the right vehicle to say like this is how we're going to think about this process? I don't know if it's I don't know if it should look like a textbook adoption process, um, given that we're not in 2011 anymore, and teachers are not just using a textbook. We've got like all these materials on, you know, on Google Classroom and on Canvas and on all

092these digital learning platforms, like the getting a textbook and putting it in your backpack is not the world we're in anymore. So, I really do think that we might consider what the process look needs to look like in 2026 and going forward, given that textbooks are not what a teacher mean I just did a survey in my day job. Teachers are telling me they use 37 different types of materials. Um, and and but, you know, intervention and core and supplementary and and all this stuff begins to blend together. So, I would just encourage us to think differently, um, about the process and not try to tie it to 2011 um, process. And I'd also be um, I'm also curious. This is my question what the textbook vendors said because I feel like we've put them

093in a compromising position. In some cases there just haven't been enough high quality ones out there and we've had to force ourselves to say we think these are high quality even though I don't think some of us were convinced that they were and so sometimes the field hasn't caught up with what we're being asked to identify and so again I do worry that there may be no HQIM in these two areas because other states haven't been forced to do what we're getting ready to do. >> So that the vendor that specifically gave feedback I talked with them and said hey while I've got you let me ask these questions get your feedback. And actually you know they they they like the Virginia process the the process of that we go through is a good process.

094And primarily it's not changing. What is changing is the way we implement that process with the rubrics that we're using to evaluate things. As far as textbooks and you think that we look at textbooks we did not get a single hard copy textbook in the last two reviews for English and math. Everything was digitally reviewed. So we are up with the times on our review processes of the materials and we do look at those tenets. What's changing though is the ancillary other materials that are with that textbook that becomes the whole package. Those are now going to be reviewed where they haven't been reviewed in depth in the past. Now we did incorporate that into our math textbook and and ELA textbook review process because we knew that there was going to be legislation coming.

095So we did look at some other like supplemental type materials with those not just the textbooks right? Whatever the vendors sent to us is what was reviewed and that included those other materials. But now this process gives us and the def the clear definition of what HQIM are in Virginia, gives us a clear mind and and to develop a rubric that can go along with that definition and along with, you know, what is an what is a quality assessment look like for um looking at the materials uh in the progression that students should be making with those materials. Um and so I think that we we're we're we're already moving in that direction. So I want to reassure you on that that even in our last review process, uh we're already moving in that direction.

096There's no way we could look at a hard copy and then we have to keep all of those hard copies until the next textbook review. Um and so yeah, so that that piece. Um but the the the vendor, going back to the vendor, they appreciated because we're very transparent with our vendors throughout the process. This is where uh we need to see better alignment and then they revise and and then they send back materials and we review again. Or, you know, if we have questions, they're very responsive about getting us what they need. Um our process is very clear that we have to know who who wrote the materials. It's not that the you know, who was the editor or the author of the materials. You know, there there's some components of our process that

097are safeguards not just for the textbook vendors, but also for divisions. Um because the pricing structures, things like that, all have to be submitted ahead of time. That protects our divisions uh in the long run. And so, you know, overwhelmingly both the the stakeholders, teacher educator stakeholders, as well as the vendor that I spoke with, were in favor of how our process works is a good process. Yes, there are things that could be >> Quick follow-up. >> Yep. >> Dr. Morgan. >> And then >> Um so we know that HQIM um differs based on the subject and the grade level. We're being asked to do this for K-12, every course, I assume, and every grade level. So, I would just suggest, I know we've relied heavily on UVA in the past to help us with

098our reviews of HQIM in in reading and literacy. Given, again, that we're going to be the the forerunners on this, I would suggest that we find, you know, our partners in the state who are also experts in science and history and have have some real credentials around this as opposed to putting it all on the feet of our educators. I think we're really going to need some heavy-handed expertise here that have expertise working with other states that are you know, maybe have done this at a local level. Again, I know nobody's done it at the state level. And so, yeah, I just and and also our last point is just that we study it, right? I've talked to the superintendent about this before. Like, everybody's saying HQIM, but we don't have any impact data that

099actually shows that particular HQIM are increasing student outcomes, which is a real problem. We're still using rubrics and so on without real outcome data. So, two points. We do invite institutes of higher education onto our review committees. We also get feedback. You know, so we we do have some insights there. And then also our team right now is learning about HQIM, and there's a session today going on about science HQIM in the session that that my team is attending as we speak right now. So, we have through CCSSO already been looking at science HQIM. We've been talking about it for about a year and a half. There are a few states that have some OER that are considered HQIM and that they've been implementing and it is getting more national attention on the forefront. As

100far as history, you're 100% correct. There're not going to be a lot of um all HQIM uh in history. Um and we've seen that there are some states that are developing their own. Um so there there are lots of different things going on nationally. So, very valid points. Thank you. >> Superintendent Conway. >> Yes, thank you. Um you know, want to kind of acknowledge, I mean, it is a very big deal to contemplate this work for history and and social sciences and science. Fundamentally, particularly with the definition of HQIM, uh saying that it's adequate content and materials for student mastery of that content means in in some form or function, it is it is a re-litigation of the standards, right? As you think about the extent to which um uh that content is covered, uh

101how you demonstrate uh what what you sort of define as that threshold for mastery, and then um how you make the choices about what's in and out when fundamentally in in in drawing that line. So, I want to acknowledge that. I also just want to acknowledge um and again have appreciated Dr. Wallace and the team jumping in to the the deep end here, but this is a significantly different definition. This is not just take textbooks and just added the four words, high-quality instructional material, but the reason we had the team uh put the definition here on slide eight. Um and the reason that we brought this back for second review is I am concerned because you have not heard more about this that we potentially don't have a full recognition in the field uh when

102you think about what Dr. Northern just noted and how many grades and every single school division, every single one of our 1,883 schools, right, uh would be affected by this that there's probably some additional work uh to be done around really making sure that it supports student mastery, that it is thinking about the science of learning in terms of the instructional practices. It is calling for, you know, intentionality around that ongoing assessment, which is completely different. And we know when we when we when we were out on the listening tour that from a educator or parent perspective, you're pretty indifferent whether these assessments come from the state or the assessment comes locally, but if the testing balance is not right, that that impacts your experience as an educator or as a as a parent. And

103then how do you really make sure that there is the professional learning? And so I just I don't want anybody to underestimate the magnitude of that definition. And as we think about then all the responsibilities that follow on on that chart. So I think, you know, this will you know, there's a flag here and and wanting to one, as we heard today, make sure that there was some time for additional review between now and June. But I think we'll also be looking at the maximum discretion on how we roll this out over the next four years. And I think this is a four-year law, quite frankly, that will, you know, for at least the entirety of of my tenure. And thinking about where we need to take more time to get it right because the

104thing that you're watching at where you're avoiding, and I know this is what is beyond the newness of it. Then and and Dr. Northern is an expert. The other thing that you want to avoid is a whole lot of work for a null effect, right? And if and if you say everything is okay, then what you see is a ton of investment. The vendors of products end up making more and more money, but there's not actually effect on students. And so really thinking through how do we bring the right partners to the table? How do we make sure our school division uh partners are fully aware and phase this over the next the next uh 4 years um and make sure that it is a core piece of whatever kind of 4-year road map that

105we would produce. >> Great. Mr. Robinson. >> First, I want to applaud that ambitious goal and the the ambitious effort. Uh and we're seeing uh in places that moved on literacy uh you know, high-quality uh instructional materials um uh really fast movement in many divisions and many schools in dramatically improving student achievement. And so, I think when when done well, um you know, I I think we need to absolutely study it a lot more. And this is an anecdote not a research that I'm um saying, but you know, we have multiple examples um uh of of students getting dramatically better instruction and seeing results within a short window. And that And so, one thing I want to say is just encourage us to yes, it often takes 3 to 5 years for a change to

106stick, uh but we're making this huge investment. Uh you know, we should start to be seeing student outcomes, particularly for students furthest from opportunity, in in a much shorter window. And uh what I want to ask for comment is, you know, about the alignment to standards to remain a priority. That's one of the principles of of the board. In this this comprehensive shift of this definition, um do you have discretion as you think about the scoring rubrics and how you evaluate whether or not we're keeping a high enough standard for whether these materials, knowing it'll be very hard in uh harder in history and science than math and and and and language arts. Um you know, I'm concerned that is is our is our criteria actually high enough? And are there too too many materials

107being approved as HQIM and just what your experience is so far? >> Yeah, so that that's a it's a very valid question. And um I will say that um alignment is at the forefront of this process. And so, um the first leg of the review process is alignment. And if they don't make it through that alignment component, they should not make it through to the next section of the rubrics, which is the HQIM tenants. >> Right. The alignment can be defined in a lot of different ways. It could be 60% aligned to standards, could be 80% aligned to the standards. And just just curious, um, you know, how we're how we're thinking about using this opportunity to ensure that that we feel very good about those evaluation criteria. >> So, so my team is is

108really good on alignment. They and they train very well on alignment. And really anything, um, we we would for adequate alignment is around 80%, but we try not to equate it to an exact 80%, but um, looking at the whole, you know, all of the materials across the whatever was submitted. Some materials are only submitted for, you know, a couple of grade levels, some materials are submitted for K-12, some are 6-8, some, you know, And so, um, you know, we we hold that higher standard on our on our committees. >> And then, um, you know, back to to the implementation, you know, once you have those that have gone through, I love that we're adding the in the definition assessment to monitor student mastery of the content. Um, and uh, as we do that, I

109worry about it being very focused on what the curriculum providers are are promising and not necessarily aligned to the standards. And so, I I I'm I I appreciate the and and support the addition of that and love your explanation that was more about the formative assessment. And I think the field needs a lot of help in in ensuring that we aren't just giving the keys to all of our assessments to what the curriculum providers promise us. And and instead, the field is getting support in how they're thinking about how that ties to um, you know a set interims and units and other assessments that help ensure the learning is is is deepening and is aligned to Virginia standards. So all that to say I support all this and and encourage as we think about the

110training of system and district leaders which I see in here as part of the the criteria that that we really hone in particularly as math is so new in in thinking about how we're scaffolding system leaders to support teachers with systems for assessment and PLC that are are more comprehensive than just what the curriculum providers provide. >> Have you been dropping in on my staff meetings? Our team has already considered a lot of what you've said. The PLCs we have a literacy plan in cycle that was introduced with the English the Virginia Literacy Act and we're applying that to like a lesson planning implementation cycle. So we've already integrated it in our math materials that we've shared out but we'll be doing it holistically. We have additional tools like walk-through tools that are designed for

111HQIM implementation for those division leaders to look at how the HQIM is being implemented. Also looking at those assessment results, looking at where teachers are filling in the gaps where something may not be aligned 100% to meet the the rigor of our standards. We're also so that whole planning cycle that that that we're talking about with school leaders is all about what you just said and you do that through your PLC. You know it's not let's go to a PLC and talk about our field trip. It's let's go to our PLC and talk about how we're going to implement this new HQIM lesson and what did our data say from our last set of walk-throughs that we did and when we were focused on X Y and Z. So we've put out new walk-through tools

112that we're training divisions on that really is specific to um at that implementation of HQIM at the classroom level. Additionally, I do want to say um we are looking at SPSS data for literacy already. Our team has looked at the data. We have We're currently doing um school visits to those schools that have shown tremendous growth, which we do think that came from the implementation of HQIM. Um and so our team is finding um some pockets where there are some strong places of HQIM implementation of that literacy K-5. And we'll be highlighting some of those in the fall um through a process that we're we're working through defining. Um we also are seeing where um and and this is where Superintendent Conway and I have had some discussion that um you know, sometimes incremental steps

113like that you see the teacher still using the the you know, holding the computer to go through the lesson. They're implementing, right? They're implementing with fidelity, but they are not 100% confident. And so, you know, in the listening tour for example, I went into two different classrooms. One where the teacher had the had the computer, and the other where the teacher was on the floor saying verbatim what was coming from the HQIM. They had script They They knew the script. They knew it. And that's what you're going to find with your quality teachers that have been there a little longer, your experienced teachers that, you know, kind of you know, they know the routines. They know the content. That's why HQIM is so good for new teachers because it's all there for them. And they

114And it outlines a high-quality instructional program for students. Um in particular, our students that come that don't have the resources and and the backgrounds at home that they're bringing to the classroom. So, um all those things taken into consideration. And I swear I think you have a microphone in in in my staff meetings. >> Dr. Northern. So, just last comment on this for me. Um I would just suggest since we are the the um the guinea pig, I'll say, um for the entire country on this. Um I think that like we did with our process for history review where this board and this is before I was on the board, but they meticulously like rolled up their sleeves and got involved in making sure that those standards I remember Mr. Rotherham I saw pieces like

115literally going through this. Um, I would just encourage you to involve this board a little bit more on the process and how it rolls out and when you begin to review um, textbooks uh, particularly you know, since you said science and history's first. Um, let us know like give us examples as you continue to confront you know, present to the board of like here's what we're seeing as we're looking at new textbooks. Here are the problems we're coming up against. Um, here's where we worried like that we just don't think there's going to be enough um, history history textbooks out there to match our standards because you like we created a really good standards. I don't know if textbooks have caught up with us um, on the history front. So, just in general um, because

116I do think there's going to be some education that we need to do on this and I'm I kind of look forward to that. Like okay, if we're going to be the forerunners here, then let us be a model for other states and let's be transparent about the process that we go through with you guys um, and be real um, open about the troubles that we see in trying to do something like this. >> Thank you. I appreciate the request and welcome that. >> Great. Okay, so chair has final comment on this one. Which is just going to say everything that you just said um, first I just want to thank the previous board members, previous staff members and our current board members and current staff. This is really just the the most appropriate next

117step in our work. Um, we've done accountability, we've done standards, we are you know, accreditation and performance framework. Um, from my experience high quality instructional materials is the highest leverage thing that is going to move our our state across a state forward from you know, from our youngest learners to our highest learners and it takes time. And that's that's the tricky part. So, how do we have the patience, persistence, but move with urgency around high-quality instruction materials? And what I hope you are hearing and that the board is agreeing that we are 100% on board with moving forward high-quality instruction materials for our for our state. It has different parts and elements, whether it's the process or the tools or the resources, but we are 100% on board with it because we know it it

118is what is needed. Um just just a couple things from my experience, it is almost exactly what you said, the implementation with fidelity. What we know and from my experience is there's a third of our sector that is hungry for this and is already moving forward, and they're going to see probably the most immediate impact on academic outcomes for their community, and we need to learn from them very very fast. there's another group that's somewhere in between, like you said, you know, they've got the materials. What the shift is from my experience is teachers have to internalize the materials. They can't just read a script. That is more heavy lift. It's a different kind of lift for educators that we're used to. I have examples of a you know a teacher who was tremendously successful

119and a new teacher coming in. New teacher just takes it, implements, and in turn it gets better results than a teacher who's been teaching for many years just because of the rigor of the standards and the alignment. And so, there will be varying stages of implementation. And I think that the more we learn, the more we're patient around it. The last thing I'll say, two two last things is is the point you made all of the data and there's a lot of data and research around this. Our most vulnerable students are the ones who don't have access to high-quality instructional materials, and that is where we're going to close the gap by the work that we're doing today. Uh and this is a change management process and what I think you've heard is um I'm

120one who does not want to be in all the details particularly around history and science standards um but but take that to Dr. Northern. Yes. Yes. However, the communication around this the um whether it's to all of the stakeholders what I would just really emphasize is why. Why high-quality instructional materials? If we don't spend enough time on that, I think we'll we'll run into two just bumps that are unnecessarily. And so again, we can get down to the details, but I think the more we emphasize the why and you know, we're we're not the first to lead on high-quality instructional materials. That has been happening across the country. We would be the first around science and social studies. So it's really an opportunity for us to just jump frog the whole country around it, but

121if we don't explain the why, I think that we're going to have some missteps. So just thank you for the team and with that, we will accept this item for second review and see you in June. >> Thank you very much for your time. I did not anticipate it would be this long. >> So exciting. Yes. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, board, are you in need of a break? Maybe a quick 5-minute bio break? Okay, we are going to take a quick 5-minute um break and we will reconvene on our next item. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> after that brief break. Um, we will uh return back to the agenda, although I don't know if we need to wait for that. Um, this is Mr. Williams, thank you. Our assistant superintendent of

122child care, health, and safety. >> His name is >> I remember the the I can't remember the exact comment, but ickies or something. Um so, yes, we are we are up getting an update, I believe. So, would you uh please present? >> Yes, ma'am. Uh good morning, Madam President, Superintendent, and board members. Uh my name is Jeff Williams. Um so, we're here to um do a final review for our guidance document for licensed child day centers. So, I'm here for any questions, but uh in full disclosure, to stay out of the ickies, uh hopefully there aren't too many uh questions, so we don't have to get into goopy eyes or crusty lesions. Um but, what questions might you have for me? >> Great. Thank you. Board members, any questions? Okay, thank you. Um is there

123a motion to approve the guidelines for notification reporting of communicable diseases? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Thank you. All right. Ms. Reinhardt? >> I. >> Dr. Bridges? >> I. >> Ms. Ms. Morrison's not here. Dr. Northern? >> I. >> Dr. Wilson? >> I. >> Mr. Robinson? >> I. >> Mrs. Kilgore? >> I. >> And Chair votes I. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. >> All right. All right, Mr. Chapman, you're up. >> Thank you. Um Having been in the technology gentleman's shoes, please forgive them. They hate this. They they're trying their best to keep this running and just have to do their best. >> We understand. We also appreciate the library for hosting us and moving us from room to room, so we know it takes a minute. >> Well, if it's okay,

124Madam President, I don't think my presentation depends on on the slides. >> Okay, yes, please jump in. >> uh thank you, Board, uh for hearing this item. Um Mr. Williams will stay up here just because the content area falls within his his his jurisdiction. Um however, the reason I'm presenting is cuz this is a a very highly technical item. And essentially what has happened here is this this action, a series of actions that affected a number of different chapters in the child day center regulations, have come back before the board a couple of different times and this is just the latest iteration. So in 2024, the department started the process of enacting a piece of legislation that had to do with epinephrine availability in early in child day centers. Um that action had stalled for

125a couple of different reasons and then proceeded in the fast track towards the beginning of this year. Um so this is obviously a much longer implementation time than I think anyone is anticipating for the the so-called fast track process. Um when this went into public comment, it triggered a provision of the administrative process act. Basically, these received more than 10 comments of folks who were you know, a little wary of this action. I will say that the the reasons for the weariness seemed to have more to do with the with the the controversiality of the action and people not really liking some of the provisions, the cost aspects of this, things that you know, were considered by the general assembly, not the textual aspects of the actions. However, under the administrative process act, the those

126actions as fast tracks must now proceed as full regulatory actions that are going to take a much longer period of time. Um we are coming before the board today to ask the board to withdraw those those actions and allow the department to come back with a single Nora, a notice of intended regulatory actions to kind of restart these for one specific reason. We have had a very large regulatory chapter in the works. It's a replacement of 780, which is the standards for the licensed child day centers. It's been in the process for 5 years Um, the the the Nora came out I think my third month on the job with the department. And that is in the final stages. We expect it to come back to um, to the board next month for first review

127uh, at the final stage. That is a very large ship and we would really like for that ship to kind of dock and get settled since one of these epinephrine actions from 2024 is amending the old chapter. Um, it doesn't make sense from a policy standpoint to have the licensed child day center there is completely out of sync with family day uh, family day homes um, and with voluntarily registered uh, child day centers. So, we we we think the right thing to do at this point is to take a step back um, let the other regulatory action play out its course and then come back with a Nora in order to amend to the correct new chapter and all the other chapters at the same time. So, this is just a very sort of wonky

128situation with um, regulatory a regulatory action that we thought was going to be much quicker um, colliding with a a very large a very large regulatory action that uh, that sort of needs to needs to complete this five-year journey. >> Okay, thanks Mr. Chadman. Are there questions? Okay, is there a motion to waive first review and approve the action to withdraw actions of 6380, 6381, 6383, and 6384? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Great. Ms. Reinhardt? >> Aye. >> Dr. Bridges? >> Aye. >> Dr. Northern? >> Aye. >> Dr. Wilson? >> Aye. >> Mr. Robinson? >> Aye. >> Mrs. Kilgore? >> Aye. >> And Chair votes aye. All right, thank you. Okay, Jim, you're up again. >> Thank you, Madam President. >> So, we're doing the first review. Yes, okay. >> Sorry, yeah. Item H

129is a first review of a fast-track regulatory action to amend the regulations governing pupil transportation. Um, this chapter had a periodic review in 2025 where in discussing um, the the language in the text with staff, we found a series of amendments, very small changes that needed to be accounted for uh, that we thought a couple of, you know, minor clarifications. Um, there's one instance, probably the most substantive has to do with school buses and when they move over railroad tracks, the current regulation say that those lights need to be turned off before they go over the railroad tracks, whereas I think the practice has changed in the time since these regulations were originally published that now we want them to turn off after they cross the road or tracks. Um, it's some some very minor

130technical changes um, along those lines. Uh, we do have uh, Carrie Miller who is our director of of uh, pupil transportation who we've been working with a lot on this. We have also consulted with a number of uh, pupil transportation uh, directors across the state um, and the DMV about these changes, but we are we are presenting it to you as the results of the periodic review and uh, these changes we think are in line with the periodic review from last year. The recommendation from the superintendent is this be accepted for first review. >> Great. Are there any questions? Okay. We will accept this item for first review and see you in June. >> Thank you very much. >> Okay. Let me see. I think we are reviewing the 2026-27 क्यूब 5 guidelines. Is Miss

131Carol Oh, there you go. >> All right. Good morning. Thank you to the board for having us here today. We're excited to build on the great conversation that we started yesterday during the work session where we talked about early childhood, Virginia's birth to five system and specifically V क्यूब 5. So, I will kick us off again today and I will once again turn it over in just a few slides to our expert and lead in this area, Chris Myers. Um so we can go to the next slide. Uh so today we will um take just a few moments to refresh and reset on some of the key goals that we uh are seeking to accomplish through our VQB5 efforts. Again, that's Virginia's quality measurement and improvement system. We'll talk a little bit about some of

132the feedback that we have heard from the field in doing that and the structure of our VQB5 guidelines. Um these have of course been provided to you. They are uh one of the I'm sure many uh monster documents you got today. Uh so we'll summarize some of that for you as well. Um and then Chris will provide some details uh related to the two key changes that we are proposing for this year as well as um some of the uh more technical uh edits that we have included. Uh next slide. Um so we wanted to start with just taking a quick step back and looking at our our guiding principles. And so these principles have been um essentially uh exactly as they are here from the very beginning of our development of this quality measurement

133and improvement system. And that is work that started um seven uh seven maybe plus years ago. Uh and we uh designed these before we had the name VQB5, before we even had the measurements identified, and have worked hard to uh refresh and remind ourselves of them um every year and as we go through the year. Um so we have sought to build and support a system that really uh focuses on the impact on school readiness. So as we talked about yesterday, really centering on school readiness for our birth to five learners. Um using measures that can distinguish quality and support growth. Um, so really uh equipping teachers and the professionals in the field to know how they can get better. Actionable information and incentives for improvement. Um, we knew when we were charged with building

134this system that we uh were going to uh need to expand it to every publicly funded site, so 3,500 plus sites. And so that requires that the system is affordable and scalable. Um, so there's some you know practical measures to keep in mind there. Um, and uh importantly uh that we are increasing opportunity for children, uh that we're mindful in what we are measuring as far as outcomes, um much of which we discussed yesterday. Um, and then always with the centering of how this is useful for families um as they make one of the most important decisions they make uh related to child care for their young children. Next slide. Um, so one thing that we're really uh proud of on our team is the uh level of engagement and opportunities for feedback that we

135try to keep um consistent throughout the year. Both as we prepare annual revisions to this document, um but also as we uh launch in the fall and the spring. Um, and uh the uh amount of feedback we have is sometimes overwhelming, but we have tried here to summarize some of the key themes that we have heard throughout this year. Um, so the first uh key theme uh we continue to hear um general satisfaction with class and curriculum. Um, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people just attest love for the class tool. Um, and we're actually going to provide some examples of of what that looks like in action in just a few slides. Uh we received general support uh, for the ready region, for Link B5, and for the way that

136we have um, as a system been able to coordinate responsive supports. Uh, yesterday we highlighted the success of the honor rolls, uh, which really gave programs an opportunity to highlight areas where they shine. Um, and we've seen that carry throughout the year as well. Uh, people are very pleased with the accessibility of our VQ B5 data. Um, this is a very transparent system. We actually just post an Excel file with all the scores and ratings on there. Um, folks can, you know, do with that, um, in a in a safe way, of course, but um, do with that what they want. If they want to, you know, really dig into that. Um, and then as we mentioned yesterday, we've seen our quality profile website be, um, extremely popular with, uh, about 200,000 visits in, uh,

137just 2 years, not even 2 years. Some of the areas that we have, um, heard feedback on that we are continuing to refine are related to the Link B5 and the VA Connects user experience. Um, as we mentioned yesterday, the VA Connects website was new this year, and we've heard some ways that we can continue to make that, uh, more user-friendly, and are are actually actively working on some of those, um, updates right now. Um, I think sites have communicated that they, uh, continue to uh, benefit from hearing what the purpose and rationale is. Um, this system is work. There is, um, lift to be done here, and the more that we can help folks really understand the benefit to everything we're asking them to do, uh, the more we equip directors to do that

138when they have to ask their teachers to fill out profiles, um, and, you know, participate in in way, um, the better off, I think, we are. Um, we, uh, have continued to, uh, expand the way that we use our data to support classrooms, and I think that will continue to go as we have more data year over year. Um, and then we have heard, and we will talk, uh, quite extensively about this today, uh, but we have heard feedback, um, that we, uh, that there's a demand to make sure that the rating levels are accurately reflecting children's experiences. Um, and as we showed you yesterday, currently, uh, the vast majority are sitting in that, uh, one middle rating level. Next slide. So, um, again, you have the the full guidelines document in your materials today.

139We have not changed the structure of this document significantly. Um, this is the sixth time we have brought this document, um, to the Board of Education. We've brought a set of updates every year. Um, again, trying to be responsive to this evolving system. Um, we, you know, started in a pilot. We had these as, uh, guidelines that were, uh, evolving, were a first year, a learning year, a practice year, and, um, have continued to make some refinements annually since then. Um, one important thing to note, and I don't think we covered this yesterday, but we do have the Early Childhood Advisory Committee. And so, this is a, um, legislatively mandated group that we take every document that we bring to the Board of Education to them beforehand, and they have the opportunity, um, with their

140expertise to really weigh in, ask questions. And so, we did do that on March 19th, had a great discussion with them, and received an endorsement. Next slide. So, there are two, um, key proposed updates, and I'm going to summarize them here, and and Chris will give more information, um, but uh, you know, just to kind of steal the surprise for her, uh, the first change that we are proposing today is changing from a three-level rating system to a five-level rating system. Um, and so we alluded to this a little bit yesterday. Again, this is really um, with the goal of providing more meaningful information to sites and to families um, and more distinctions in what quality looks like. Um, and so she'll explain a little bit more what that looks like. And then the second

141change is changing to a required site improvement planning for a larger category of sites. So for right now, that starts at 399, which is um, a rating that very few sites receive, and this would be a uh, modified uh, but required improvement planning process for an additional group of sites, which we will also talk about. And next slide. So, um, why are we talking about this? Um, so as we covered a little bit already, um, we have seen several challenges with the three rating levels, which again is our our primary, I think the biggest change we are proposing here, and um, somewhat motivates the second change of the um, the site improvement planning. Um, so I think some of the challenges we have seen is with those bigger rating categories, we're really getting more general

142feedback. Um, and we're grouping a whole bunch of sites together that are really doing very different things. Um, I think that is limiting both for our higher performing sites that are in that category that really have something to be seen, and it is also limiting for our lower performing sites that fall into that big category, um, where when we know that they need some additional supports, um, compared to others. Um, again, we also want families to be able to see uh, the more accurate information and have more meaning from the readings that are available. Um, moving to a more, uh, uh, differentiated rating system is also important for our ready regions and improvement partners. Uh, we really emphasize prioritizing supports to those that need them most, and this helps us identify who that is. Um,

143with that, we will go to the next slide, and I Chris Myers will take us through some of the details, uh, for our first change. >> Good morning. Uh, glad to be back and to follow up again on the great discussion we had yesterday. Um, so, uh, this is our kind of big change. Uh, so, what you see here is our current structure, the three rating levels there on the left. Uh, that is what we were are under right now. So, when we, uh, share profiles in the fall, that will still be under those three rating levels, but we are proposing, starting next year, to move to a five-level rating system. Again, those would not be published until the fall of 2027, but we'd begin measuring under that system. I'm going to walk through just

144a couple of the key changes here, uh, but the full definitions, uh, are in section six of the guidelines, page 65. Uh, if you want to refer to those as well, uh, but we tried to pick even just the names for these uh, levels to be something that was easily understood and kind of built on each other. So, the first thing to point out is, uh, we are keeping the lowest level uh, exactly the same. Uh, so, a 100 to 399 points will still be called a need support rating. Um, we are also keeping the top level, at least the points, uh, the same. So, the top level will still be a 700 to 800 points. We are proposing changing the name of that level. When we look at what those class scores are, and

145we think about calling these sites national exemplars, which they they truly are. uh, We think distinguished is actually a better name for that level. It also aligns with the K-12 framework. So, we think there's some nice alignment there. Then basically, what we have done is taken that meets expectations range and broken it into three categories that we think better explains where these sites are. So, the if we start from the bottom there, the 400 to 499 points, we're proposing calling those approaching expectations. They are partially having some of those uh good quality interactions. They just aren't fully there yet. Uh 500 to 599 would now be considered what we expect, and that would be meeting expectations. And then the exceeds expectations sites, 600 to 699, again, they are doing some higher-level interactions and things that

146we'll break down in just a minute as well. So, we think that's a better label for that 600 to 699 category. Next slide. So, it's important to note we are not proposing a change to how we actually calculate the rating. And this will actually allow us to continue to measure year-to-year growth from how we started in year one. So, it will still be this three-digit score. Again, we just found that parents found that three-digit score confusing. And so, again, having a shift in the labels and the the kind of cut points will help with that. So, we calculate these ratings at the end of the year. So, this just kind of summarizes what we're doing now and what we will do under this new proposed system. The first thing to highlight is we will continue

147to get most of the points from those local observation scores that happen in every classroom in the fall and the spring. We multiply the average score at the site times 100, and that's how we get up to 700 points. If there's a score replacement, as we talked about yesterday, if there's any inconsistencies, we factor that into that interaction point category. The curriculum point is a slight change and this was actually approved by the board last year. Um, if you'll go back to that other slide. Um, so the curriculum change was approved by the board last year, but it doesn't actually go into effect till next year. So just want to remind everyone that currently we give the 100 points if they are using a curriculum in at least one classroom and again that's optional. Um,

148then starting next year again they wouldn't have to use curriculum, but if they are using it, they would need to use it in every classroom in order to get that additional 100 points. We'll still add the points together for the total points and then you can see the difference between the cut points for the three levels versus the five levels that would start in the fall of 2027. Next slide. Uh, so this has been one of our favorite slides to share with the field to kind of show the impact. You didn't have to look behind you, Jenny. You knew what slide this was. Um, so we were trying to help the field understand what the impact is going to be with this change. Um, so what we did here is we took our existing scores

149from the 24-25 year and kind of modeled what that would look like or what it looks like currently and what it would look like under these new cut points. So the blue line there on the left is all 3,293 sites that currently have a quality rating. Uh, the orange in the middle is their current where they fall in currently. So again there were 101 in that top core category, uh, 25 in that lowest category and all others 3,167 were in the middle. Under the new cut points, that's the green bar there on the right. So what would end up happening is most sites would end up in a higher or equivalent rating category. So we still predict very few at that top in that distinguished. We still predict very few at the bottom in that

150needs support. But, then we think there would be about half of those meets expectations it would move into that new exceeds expectations category. Another fair chunk that would stay in meets expectations. And then about 300 or so that would drop into that approaching expectations. And that's what we'll talk about in a few more slides again about how we would require some additional improvement support for those particular programs. On the next slide we took a look at what this looks like by site type. So, the dark blue is the current three level rating system and the lighter blue is the five level rating system. And then you can see the percentage by centers, family day homes, and public schools. So, again most site types would fall either into exceeds or into meets expectations. That's true for

151all three site types. But, overall there would be more public schools that would be in that exceeds expectations category. And when you look at the approaching expectations category that's mostly centers or family day homes. However, we do predict there would be a few public schools that would be in that category. We have not had any public schools in the needs support category, but we do think there could potentially be some there. Again, this is our estimate. We'll have another year of data this summer that we'll do another modeled impact on, but this helps us kind of predict what would happen and what the impact would be on the field. Next slide. So, when we were thinking about how we could potentially shift to more levels. One of the things that we talked a lot about

152was how do we help our system and help families in the field use these levels to better understand what children are experiencing. That's really kind of one of our main points with using the class tool is to understand what those children are experiencing. So, we decided to use these 100-point brackets because every 100 points then represents a shift in the frequency, the quality, the intentionality of the interactions that are impacting children's experience. The CLASS tool itself actually uses a 1 to 7 point scale. So, each one point of CLASS actually represents meaningful changes in how that teacher is supporting interactions, and a one point in CLASS is equal to 100 points on our interaction system. We're not going to have a seven point rating scale. That would be too many ratings. And really, when we

153look at what's happening 399 points and below, truly children in those sites are rarely if ever having those positive interactions. So, again, that would kind of be our lowest chunk. But then, we'd move up by 100-point intervals, and you can kind of get a sense that the frequency of those positive interactions that support learning happen more frequently as you get up each level. On the next two slides, we're going to break this down even more. I know we talked some yesterday, but we thought to really help this hit home on what we're talking about with what children are experiencing, we wanted to put this into a couple slides. So, we've got an infant toddler example that we'll look at first, and then we'll look at a pre-K example. So, what we've done here is we've

154taken some actual children's experiences based on things that the CLASS tool looks for, and we've broken them into the low, mid, and high range. So, the CLASS tool also kind of lumps things into low, mid, and high, and then has individual score breakdowns within those. So, if you start on the left, if you read those interactions, it's it's it's pretty hard to read to think about our babies and toddlers being in settings settings that are having those types of interactions consistently. That's why those are considered sites that need support. They need very intensive support because we need to have our infants and toddlers having better experiences. Um if you look first, let's just kind of do the three kind of basics. So, if you look at meets expectations, those sites tend to have class scores

155that fall pretty much in the mid-range. So, when you look at those types of experiences, uh that's primarily what's happening in a site that's meeting expectations. Uh definitely some good things happening and things that are starting to support uh learning. And then if you go to that highest level, uh what would be considered a distinguished infant and toddler uh site, uh you would see uh the types of experiences you see listed there as well, which are very high-quality stimulating uh experiences for those little ones uh brain that you saw the pictures of yesterday that will really support that high-level uh brain development. The two new levels that we're proposing tend to be a little bit kind of on the border and have a little bit of a mix of interactions. So, what we see in

156the approaching uh expectations, that 400 to 499 category, those class scores tend to be a mix of some lower interactions and some mid-range inter- interactions. And then the 600 to 699, what we see again is a mix. We see some mid-range interactions, but we also see some of those higher-range interactions. And that's why we think having those additional categories helps uh that make more sense. This is also similar to some of the language we'd like to use more with families to help them understand what the class tool is and why these interactions um are important. Next slide. So, similar to what we just looked at, this one it's pre-K and it's also just one domain of class. So, the pre-K class uh actually has two other domains that look more at emotional support and classroom

157organization. But this instructional support domain, it is actually uh the one that we see the biggest variation in across our pre-K classrooms. It's also the lowest scoring overall domain across the state. Uh so, we wanted to kind of really try to explain and put uh it as much uh you know examples here to help you understand what's happening for instructional support and a need support site versus the other levels as you move up the system. So again, if you start at the left, the things that are happening there are not really supporting learning in those need support sites and so we need to get in there and help those programs start to promote learning and to do it in ways that are developmentally appropriate for young children. Meets expectations again, there is definitely some interactions

158that are starting to promote learning. They're sort of a mix. They're just not happening as frequently or at the depth. And then when you get to that high level, not only are these things happening, but they're happening frequently. They're they're lasting longer. We talk about the duration and the depth of those experiences. And I think even after yesterday's meeting, we were talking about how just helping folks understand how important talking and having those back-and-forth conversations with young children is for promoting their brain development. Again, those two new levels, they just they're more of a mix. So again, the 400 to 499, we see a mix of kind of low and mid examples there. And the 600 to 699, we see a mix of mid and some high range interactions. Next slide. So we wanted to

159give you a little more data about these two new levels again that kind of helped us really feel like these were the right levels and breakdowns for these sites. So first on the left is the sites that scored 600 to 699. So we looked very closely at those scores. And some of the trends that we noticed from last year's data is that these programs had a higher average compared to all. So they their average was 639 compared to 592, which was the overall average. 99% of these sites were using an approved curriculum. So pretty much all of them were using an approved curriculum compared to 80% of all sites. Um most of these sites, 92%, were returning, meaning they mostly had had a couple years of being in VQB5, although there were a few that

160were first-time participants in VQB5. Teacher retention overall was higher at 84% compared to 77%. That probably means there's less new teachers coming in and some strategies at those sites that are helping retain those teachers. Um and then on average, when we looked at a couple different categories of experience in years in early childhood, these staff had more years of experience in early childhood compared to other sites. So we feel like these sites need the recognition to serve as peer models. In some ways, as we think about those distinguished sites being our national exemplars, these are our state exemplars, too, and we want to be able to learn from them, so that people have more examples of what this really looks like, how is it working and what they could do to reach this level. When

161we took a closer look at the sites with 400 to 499, they definitely demonstrated more of a need for that targeted support. So their overall average was lower, 466 points compared to the overall average. Only 23% of these sites reported using an approved curriculum, so very little curriculum use, and if they were using it, they're probably not using it that effectively to be in this category. Um still most of these sites were actually returning, 77%, so a little bit less, but these are sites that for the most part had some experience with VQB5, a few more newer sites, but showing that potentially we need to get in there and help support them more. Uh teacher retention was a little lower, so these sites probably have more new teachers. On on average, staff had less experience

162coming and working at these sites. And then this last point really hit home for us because we have been prioritizing these sites the last 2 years. Uh we send letters, we encourage them to participate in coaching, we tell our coaching partners to prioritize them, but as of December only 14% of these sites have taken us up on those state coaching supports. Uh so that is partly what led to us wanting to have some kind of requirement for this these sites to help them improve. Which I think takes us into the next slide. So the second part of our change, which again is related to the first, uh again this would not actually start till the fall of 2027 cuz we'd measure under the new five levels next year, and then we'd actually publish the new

163levels in the fall of 2027. But starting that year, we would require site improvement planning for both our need support sites and those approaching expectation sites. Um when you look at the definitions of those sites, you can see again they're a little different. Uh that need support definition again, they are definitely significantly below the standard. Uh so we are actually not proposing any changes to what we're doing with those sites. It seems to be working. It's very intensive both with a DOE quality consultant and intensive coaching. So that would continue to be a very intensive required improvement support to meet the quality expectations. For the approaching expectations, again they are making progress towards they're just not fully there uh towards our uh quality standards. So we would propose more of a targeted approach that would

164be required to help them fully meet our expectations, which we'll talk about a little bit more on the next slide. So to give you kind of a sense of of the differences here on how we'd kind of differentiate the support, we put this side by side. Uh so again, the need support items, uh no changes. This is actually what's happening now. So need support sites, their goal is to move out of need support. Um ultimately, we want them to reach that meets expectations. Uh, they have to work with our uh coaching partner out of UVA, the Virginia Early Childhood Coaching Consultation, so no choice there. That is the coaching partner uh that works with them. Every site leader, every classroom, every new teacher at those sites has to participate in the coaching, and the coaching

165happens uh a lot. Uh, so on average, it's about every 2 weeks, but it might happen even more, and at minimum uh to meet the compliance piece of this, they have to have at least 10 sessions during the program year. So, a very intensive approach that we would continue to have. The approaching expectations is a little more uh flexible, but still again with some requirements. So, their goal would be to get to that 500 level point um level or higher. We would give them a little bit more choice here. So, we have four current state coaching partners. Uh, the VECC is one of them. We have some stream uh coaching related to using the stream curriculum. We have an infant toddler specialist network uh and our T-TAS uh as well. So, uh one option would

166be for them to work with a state coaching partner, and if they work with them, those coaching partners again have those minimum requirements of coaching, and that would meet the requirement as long as they're participating and keeping up with their coaching. The other option would be that they identify another qualified coach uh or an improvement partner, and they would work to develop their own quality improvement plan. They would have to submit it to us, and we'd have a committee that would review it. Uh, and if it met our criteria for that, uh we would approve that, and they could kind of manage their own quality improvement uh pieces. We'd monitor it, but not as closely uh as we would uh with some of the others. This The second option is probably more an option we

167think for like our public schools who already have instructional coaches on their staff. Sometimes our Head Starts have their own instructional coaches. This probably a more challenging uh option for family day home who doesn't necessarily have a coach, but potentially there could be other coaching organizations that again, if they met some requirements, this could potentially be an option. But we would we would guess and we would want as many as possible to take that state coaching partner option. Um as far as who would participate in coaching, a little more flexibility here. We would require the site leader themselves to get coaching. We'd look at the individual classroom scores. Um so and determine which of those classrooms had the lowest scores to participate in coaching. It is potentially there could be a center that has 10

168classrooms and maybe one or two of them actually had higher scores. So we wouldn't necessarily require every classroom to participate, but we use our data. And then any new teacher at these sites we would require to get coaching. Coaching would happen less frequently. Again, this is kind of our initial proposal. We'll work and kind of think this through over the next year, but we're thinking something more like a minimum requirement of at least every month with something more like five sessions throughout the year. Again, as a minimum, there could certainly be more than that that we'd encourage. So that's just an overview of kind of how the two are differentiated. You can go to the next slide. So that kind of sums up the main two changes. And again, we can take some questions on

169those in just a minute. This slide I won't go through all of these individual items, but as you heard Erin talk about when she introduced the guidelines document, we do just find kind of every year there are places that we can strengthen our language to talk more about the purpose or perhaps adjust a deadline based again on either the feedback or the data that we see in the field. So this kind of outlines some of the areas where we've made some smaller clarifications again to address those pieces from the field as well. And something like the honor rolls is not new. We just didn't have that fully fleshed out in the guidelines and recognize that we needed information in there as well. Next slide. So, to wrap up, just want to kind of share with

170you and remind you sort of of this timeline. One thing that we are currently doing is going out into the field and having lots of stakeholder sessions about these proposed updates. We had a webinar just a couple weeks ago that has almost 2,000 views of the recording. So, we are trying to get this out there this spring. This summer, sites go in and they have what's called a data verification period at the end of July and they get to preview their rating. And that's when then they can request a change if they think there was an error. So, when they do that this summer, they will go in and they will see their three-level rating and we will also have some kind of additional information that will say, "If you got this score this year,

171it would look like this under the new five-level rating system and it would give some information as well to start them thinking about that." In the fall of 2026, again, those quality profiles would still be published under the three-level scale, but we would start to have some communications on the website and for families to start letting people know that this is coming and what this means. The improvement planning, again, starting in the fall would still just be for those needs support sites, but we would continue to prioritize coaching and we think more sites might be motivated to take us up on it if they know that they're going to be required the following year. Throughout the winter and spring, we will plan on doing many emails, newsletters, webinars both for families and the field. And

172then next summer of 2027, when we have data verification, that's the first time they would log in and see their kind of preview of their rating under the five-level scale. And then the fall of 2027, we'd publish with the new scale. Again, we need to have have resources and FAQs to explain the shift and the change and that is when the improvement planning requirement would start for both needs support and approaching expectation sites. And with that I will open it up for questions. >> Superintendent Conway any >> Just appreciation for the team and for the incredible amount of work here. I do want to note that the early childhood advisory committee does go through this in depth and there was a full unanimous endorsement of this and as noted 2000 views already but continuing to

173gauge so that no one is surprised by what is a very significant shift and how we how we rate these these these programs. >> Great. >> I'll just I don't have any questions. I you know I think the transparency in the the change gives just the great feedback that providers need in order to improve but also to highlight the providers that are doing an excellent job. So I just want to thank you for the presentation. >> Dr. Bridges >> Thank you so much for building on what we learned yesterday and and really taking us through the the very thorough process y'all have been through. I just had two quick questions. I see in my rabbit hole of links that y'all provided that class has a new version that the class two and that's not being

174used yet and so is there a plan for that integrated into into this? >> So a couple things with that the second edition of the the pre-K has been out now for about three years and so we have built some initial capacity at the regional level to understand and explore the tool. It it aligns pretty closely with the current tool. It's not major shifts so it can be used for some professional development. It's just a bigger shift to completely shift to that and they had not released the infant toddler second edition until this past fall. And that tool is significantly different. They've actually taken the two separate tools and combined it into one. So it it would be a pretty big lift both from you know, the cost of it and the time for people

175to completely recertify. So we're we're exploring it and we're sort of trying to like kind of look at that capacity, but we will not shift yet until we feel like it's really the right time. The second edition tool is very much still it's not like they're going to phase it out. They are still using it is still very much supports high quality interactions and there's really more of a research base still behind the initial the original versions. And so we've also asked for more data on the impact of the second edition tools. >> Side note from the rabbit hole two, I didn't know that class was used in K-12 settings and in some studies is even has proven to be more effective than the Danielson framework which we see so often. So anyway, that's just

176food for later thought. My second question and honestly this the the move to the from the three to the five rating scale makes so much sense to me as someone who has personally wrestled with standard base competency base grading myself in a college setting um and I this semester dropped exceeds expectations from my my system because I was finding you know, the subjectivity increases so much when you get anywhere beyond meets because you can really map you met these things. Here are the things. So I'm just curious for y'all how you think about the need for exceeds but even distinguished. Is there is that incentivizing anything in your mind to add the distinguished there? Is there an advantage in terms of incentivizing improvement for others or or spreading best practices? What what do you What

177do you think having both exceeds and distinguished provides for providers, I guess? >> You want me to start? >> I I can I can jump in. Um that's a great question and it is true that it's a a fairly small group that is currently in that what is now exceeds and will be distinguished. Um however, those sites really and truly are national models. Um to be able to multiple times across a program receive scores at that level, um it it is a distinguished rating and um we do hope that it is motivating for folks to see that. Um we also hope that we can continue to equip those sites to be models to the sites around them. Um we didn't share this graph today, but we do or start today, but we do have a

178map and and the sites that are in that category, while you know, not not a ton, um they are around the state and they they cover every site type, which is really important. Um and so we think it's important that there are family day homes that are distinguished, centers that are distinguished, Head Start sites, schools, and we can point to those. Um and hopefully, you know, regional partners can do that, too, to really lift up what that looks like there. Um Anything you'd add? >> Superintendent Conway? >> Yep. >> Uh so I think the other important is to take a step back and to to bring together some of the concepts from yesterday and today is that this is all a a very significant evolution, right? So before the law was passed, one in six

179of our programs that took the child care subsidy program, predominantly family child care and child care, were participating any form of uh rating system and most of them were at the entry level, which was functionally just licensure, right? That was sort of the the the floor in terms of health and safety. And as we rolled out this system, we wanted to be very cognizant that if you were going to tell folks that they didn't meet expectations, what they would more likely do is to say, "I'm not going to take public dollars." Right? And then the risk would be, unlike our K-12 system that sort of has to take public dollars, that they would simply say, "I'm not going to take public dollars." And then our our most in need uh children and working families would

180not have access, right? And so the whole idea was to say, "Okay, we will lay out a reasonable bar for meets expectation and we will drive resources for improvement to that group that no matter where you went and no matter who you were, that if you walked into that classroom, you would agree, this is a place that needs additional support." We then also said, "We know that the research from the tool sets a very high bar. It is a very hard bar to achieve and we have the benefit, as Chris noted, of of almost two decades of class." Right? And we can say, "If you can get a six, like, no matter where you go, if Dr. Wilson walked in or if Dr. Bridges walked in, they would be like, this is truly exceptional." And

181that compares kind of across the country. But setting that bar, right, meant that in year one, we had about 79, is that right? Like uh sites that met that bar out of 3,000. And this year, we had 101. And that feels like a really, you know, feels like almost too small, but you keep it small because it is truly exceptional. By creating the exceeds, it truly recognizes those folks that are higher performing, where there is a difference for children, um and allows there to be kind of a recognition of of that, that um again, thanks to the underlying tool, there truly is a difference between exceeds expectation and meets expectation. I will say, and I have this sort of this is a a rare moment of mentioning other states, but we happen to know that

182there's another state that has had this system in place for now than a decade, and one of the things that I had the opportunity to share with the authors of the class earlier this year was the power of holding that high bar. So, when we looked at some of the Louisiana data, 10 years into this, they still have the five levels. So, similarly in Louisiana, we started with three and moved to five. Um that you have examples. And the example I'll give is of is a very rural, underserved parish in the Mississippi Delta, known as East Carroll Parish. When this effort started, they had three early childhood sites, and they were kind of an approaching expectations, right? So, if you think about what we describe, and that kind of where kids are not receiving those

183high-quality interactions. Fast forward 10 years later, they have eight sites. They So, they didn't reduce the access, they nearly tripled it. And their network average, the average across those eight sites was a 6.02, which basically that plus curriculum would put you into um you know, that that distinguished. If you were to go back, and Aaron and I were to go back to East Carroll Parish in 2016, it never felt possible, right? It did not You could not imagine only half of their only a quarter of their population has bachelor's degrees, you know, 70% is poverty. It felt like that bar was too far out of reach, but we think by creating the kind of the stepping stones, by aligning the resources, and by keeping that high bar, even though it's a little frustrating in the

184beginning because only you know, only 100 out of 3,000 sites earns it, that if Virginia could hold that bar and add that ingredient of support and time, we have to believe that it can be done anywhere. >> Thank you. Um Mr. Robinson. >> Speaking of holding a high bar, I for those who didn't get to to uh the presentation yesterday, uh I just want to recognize one reason that this is such a phenomenal change in raising the bar is because my understanding is we had about 50 schools that had were in that bottom category a couple years ago and now only 25 in part we hypothesize because of the strong support the team has provided. And this will raise the bar in not only expectations but also in more schools receiving support. >> And so

185my question before comment is like do you do we have the resources is that like you're been twiddling your thumbs to dramatically increase the support that we'll be providing to schools in the way outlined? >> This is a great question and one that we've been receiving and are actively working through. Yes, we do and we'll continue to figure out to make sure how make sure that we are prioritizing the supports that we have. We're currently getting an estimate of exactly how many classrooms and we're going to use our most recent data to make sure that you know the the supports and the coaching partners that Chris mentioned that we have available will be able to meet those needs. I do think that will require us to do some thinking potentially some you know re-evaluating this

186year of exactly how those supports are prioritized and reach the the teachers that need them most. But as Chris said this this is a change on the requirement but it is not a change in how we have been doing this the last few years. We do reach out directly to this population already. In fact we have our coaching partners these are the folks that have contracts with the state reach out to them directly already and what we have seen is just not a lot of uptake and I I don't think that is a criticism on these sites at all. I think these sites are likely overwhelmed and and you know, handling many challenges and we believe from what we've seen in that very lowest group that has been required that putting some you know, wait

187behind that and saying you you have to do this to stay in the system will get them to participate. Again, primarily with these partners that are already in place and already targeting these populations or these sites rather. So, yes, I think we have the right resources. We will take this year to re-evaluate, look at our most updated data and when we're going into designing scopes of work and so forth next year, make sure that we're spelling that out exactly as we need to. >> That's phenomenal. One thing I was most excited about was when you said that you'll start to offer the support and I I really encourage modeling exactly and learning from exactly what you've proposed here. So, if there are new sites in that 4 to 499 range, really treat it as change

188management and learning lab to to model this, learn from it, see if you think you've gotten it right as then we then require it to a lot more the next year so that you have that that that learning and and then final comment in terms of power of holding the bar high. I don't want to I love the simplicity of the model in terms of how it's scored and and defer to the committee that's already fully endorsed this and just want to recognize that we're proposing that I think about 50% of our sites are now would be now be at exceeds expectations in an environment where thanks to your work and the educators across Virginia, we're continuing to raise the bar in the scores. And so, I would just want to us to at least

189consider long-term, maybe not now, raising the score bar as well on what it takes to exceed expectations as we incentivize better practices for our youth. >> Great. >> Ms. Smith. >> Yep, Miss May in person. >> So, I was looking at um the scores in the category of the 400 to uh sites in 2024. So, where their total point average was lower, about 466 points, and they need to get to 500 to 699 in order to be at meet expectations. But, I also see that one of the biggest problems they have is that they're not using an approved curriculum. But, then am I correct that they're getting 100 points if they just implement an approved curricula in at least one class, which the 100 points then to one of one school that say is scoring

190466 would then put them into immediately put them into meeting expectations. So, for every for every school that implements at least the approved curriculum in one class, do we give them the 100 points, and then it would move them over into meeting expectations? And just do you think that skews the numbers, or or is it that all your data would tell you that that alone makes them meet all the other requirements pretty much for meeting expectations? But, as we go forward, I mean, I'd also be curious into in understanding more about where we really making a difference, or should we require that all of their classrooms have at least the approved curriculum for them to get the 100 points? Cuz it's going to move them to another category immediately. >> That's partly what led to

191us requiring it in every classroom. So, that's one shift that would also be in place. So, they wouldn't uh they would need to start using it in every classroom in order to get that 100 points. Um but, we would look at again to get the class scores that would also help them get to that level are, you know, not as low. They are some of those mid-range class scores. So, the combination of those together would still be what we would look at. And we do analyze, even currently, how many sites are like just across the edge and what are the characteristics of those at all the cut points uh and just below the edge as well. So, we'll continue to kind of watch uh what that means um to Do you want to add anything?

192>> Much appreciated. Appreciate the work, too. >> Board members, are there any other questions? >> I've one. >> Okay, Dr. Northern. >> Um, just kudos. I um just like many of my uh colleagues here on the board just really applaud the effort um and the process, and I've shared this with the superintendent privately. Um, just the way in which um the system cultivated trust, right? Buy-in, of course buy-in, but not buy-in sounds kind of icky, right? It really was building trust um over time and um and acceptance, right? Cuz when you have a trust, you kind of accept the system you're and you want to work with it. Um, and it's incentivizing sites wanting to get that higher bar, right? Because now we trust the system, we understand what we're being measured by, all the

193transparency stuff my other colleagues have said. So, um I I actually think the process in which this was carried out was really informative for me, frankly, um just in terms of how we think about change, right? And how we begin to um build trust uh in in change. Uh, and my other comment is is a little bit more pragmatic. I was looking on slide 18. I've personally been excited about linking data systems, um and I know we give vowels, it's a K3 screener, right? Not just um K and so, I mean, is there Am I right that we are going to begin at least on the literacy front with vowels to begin to um connect these data to the early elementary school grades and to begin to see, okay, now we can look across and

194begin to identify these kids even earlier prior to the typical third grade identification when we have their when they have their first SOL test. >> Yes. Uh absolutely. That that is um absolutely one of the key goals and outcomes that will be possible through the new VA Connect system. Um you know, again, we have you know, prioritized doing this as safe as possible, making sure our systems are in good place, but having that data all housed together is going to allow us to really take a look um both at the in both directions, right? What is happening in early childhood and how is that working out um in later grades as we go on and have more and more years of data um as well as looking back and and just understanding the more full

195picture of how we got to those um early elementary outcomes. Um it's a very unique perspective to be able to have. I think we're the only, if not one of the only states that are going to be well equipped to do that at this scale. Um and we are uh incredibly excited to explore that data at probably none other more than Superintendent Conway. >> Great. >> Well, with that, uh Ms. Carol, Ms. Myers, we want to say thank you very much for your presentation yesterday and today. Um as been echoed, we think this is a model and hope to have some best practice in and learn for our K-12 system. And so, with that, we will accept this for first review and see you in June. >> Awesome. Thank you very much. >> With that,

196um we still have a number of items, board member. I would propose that we uh break now for lunch. Is that okay? >> I move on. Okay, great. We will adjourn now for a brief lunch and then we'll come back in about 45 minutes. Okay, thank you. >> Mhm. >> and get back into session. In the back, are we all set? Okay, thank you. All right. Um, we have a item J. Um, Mr. Jennings, is that that's you? All right, we are the first review of the amendment title nine of Virginia's consolidated state plan. Wonderful, thank you. Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon, President Aschlin, Superintendent Conway, and members of the board. My name is Mark Jennings, I'm the assistant superintendent for assessment and accountability. I have two presentations for you today. The first, we will

197talk about this proposed amendment to our consolidated state plan, and then we'll pause, take any questions, and we'll move into our accreditation system. So, we'll move through the slides, and if you turn to the next slide, I want to outline the presentation for you. We'll talk about the purpose of amending our state plan at this time, two proposed revisions that are needed for 25-26 accountability, and then we'll talk about the process and timeline for next steps with this amendment. And so, our next slide. So, we talk about the purpose of of making these changes uh for the 2025-2026 school year that we're currently in. And I want to share that it is this administration's priority that this will not occur in the future. You know, coming to the board at the middle of the year

198or the end of the year, talking about accountability during the year is not best practice. And so, we want to own that, admit that up front. And we're excited that at the June board meeting, we will share with you any changes for 2026-2027. Uh we'll do public comment as needed, and then would ask for a final review for that in August. Uh but as you saw in the last presentation, really what we do uh states would have this really locked down by April at a board meeting like this so that school divisions can plan their summer professional learning and know what's expected for the next year. So, want to share that vision with you and the public that's listening, and that is a cadence we hope to move to. Uh and so, we stop this

199practice of being in the middle or end of a school year asking you to make or approve changes to an accountability system. Now, these two specific elements you're looking at today are federally required, and that is why we're asking for them. And so, we'll talk through them today. The first is using value tables as our growth methodology for reading and mathematics. And then, second, we do need to establish an exit criteria and progress levels for our students who are English learners uh with the most significant intellectual disabilities, and they take an assessment called the WIDA Alternate Access Test. And so, we'll turn now to our next section. And there you'll see on the slide about value tables transparently apparently measure growth. Uh and so, you'll see here national experts uh from our uh technical advisory

200council, uh they've given us guidance on this, and Virginia educators prefer that we use value tables. Uh in 2015, when the Every Student Succeeds Act was passed, states, you know, could use this as an indicator, and Virginia selected to do that. Virginia embarked on a study, and we looked at value tables. At that time, they were progress tables. I'll explain the difference. Uh we looked at student growth percentiles and we looked at value added. And from that research and stakeholder engagement, Virginia selected progress tables at that time. Uh we did use value added model for 1 year, which was the past year. And so, the proposal today is to return to value tables uh with some modifications to it. And so, why does the public prefer these? Why did TAC recommend these? One, uh what

201value tables do is they're going to measure changes in performance year over year. Uh again, that helps with transparency, consistency, and familiarity to Virginia. Schools can look at these in advance and tell families, teachers, students, this is what's expected for growth. Uh this is what your target is. And pretty immediately, they would know did the student meet these expectations. Value tables allowed both the SOL test and our VAP program, our Virginia alternate assessment program, to use the same growth methodology. Last year, we had two growth methodologies. We used value added for our SOL test, and then we used value tables for our Virginia alternate pro- uh assessment program because the vendor was unable to uh create value added model for our alternate program. So, we actually did have to run both. This will bring both

202back to use the same model. And as you see in the last bullet, educators stated that using value tables again provides better communication with families and the public on student growth. So, I'll share with you. We asked one of our uh experts who worked with us on accountability, Chad Alderman, who's presented to this board multiple times. We asked him to look at uh value added in the way we ran it last year. And then we asked him to look at value tables in the way that we're proposing it to you today. And when he did a correlation, he found there to be a 0.96 correlation between how schools performed in value added and how they performed in value tables. So, a very high correlation to see that schools that are having students grow, the students

203are growing. I mean, so I wanted to share that with you. Uh we did find some differences as far as with our value added we had done some partial credit for students. It was a bell curve. Those students some students may not have shown the same partial credit uh with the value uh tables that we're talking about today. So, if I give you percentages here for reading using our previous model, we had around 50% of the state showing reading growth. Uh under value tables it was 66%. So, you can see a clear difference in metrics. In math, we had 49% of the state showing growth using the value added model. Value tables is at 65%. And so, you can see using value tables you do have more students showing growth individually. They're not being compared

204to their peers. That's one of the key differences there. We'll turn now to the next slide. And you're seeing here in Virginia we use a 0 to 600 reporting scale uh currently. And that's what you're seeing grades 3 through 8. These are our annual assessments. And so, you know, we call it a horizontal scale. It's it's how we communicate sort of how a student has performed. We have four performance levels, you know, are they below basic, basic, proficient, or advanced? And what you'll see for growth is now on the next slide we have a vertical scale. And that's where we take uh we took the test from grades 3 through 8 and we link them. We funded a linking study to look at our assessments for reading and mathematics to see what progress should be

205made year-over-year with these tests. So, rather than seeing them in isolation, uh you'll see there's a through line from 1,000 to 2,000. If you can turn to the next slide, please. And so, that's what you're seeing there all the way through. And that's why the scores are different, which you'll see on some of the tables that are coming up. So, what does a vertical scale do? Well, it allows for reporting of scores across these SOL tests to measure student growth. It's more sensitive than the horizontal scale I just showed you. Now, the progress tables we used previously, what we did with those is we would say a child is high basic or low proficient or high proficient. It was still within a bucket, but it was very broad. So, you know, we might say to

206a parent, "Your child is high advanced or low advanced." What the vertical scale does is it actually gives you numbers to that. And so, it's much more specific. Uh and so, that's the difference between a progress table and a and a value table is we're actually using the values versus uh using the progress or the bands there. And so, we will look at a student's performance year over year to see how they did individually uh from one test to the next. And the expectations for growth can be defined so that again, teachers, students know what's expected for them at the beginning of the year. The next two slides uh here, eight and nine, uh these are examples Well, these are the value tables that we had uh based on our current SOLs. You see the

207score ranges there from 900 to 2,000 uh looking here at reading, and you see the different ranges and the expectations. Uh we can go to the next slide and look at mathematics. You see the difference is we have a large percent, about 50% of our students in middle school will take an end-of-course assessment. They'll be in algebra. Uh you Most of them are algebra and some are in geometry. And so, that is why we included algebra in our linking study here as well so that we can measure students who may move from eighth grade into algebra uh to measure their their growth. And so, that's the that's our math table uh that we've used and we would continue to use based on uh our current proficiency standards. On the next two slides, you're going to

208see our proposal. And so, in the past, when we had uh value tables, what we said is if a student moved up a level, they received a point. And that was it. We also said if a student passed the test, they received a point. And so, really, as long as a student passed, they were getting a point, and if a student moved up to low, they got a point. That That was the business rule to it. That was the methodology. What we're doing here is we're proposing some indexing. We're looking to reward students who are showing moving from one performance level to another. And so, if a student failed in the prior year and now demonstrates proficiency, they would get a 1.25. Or if a student was proficient in the prior year and now they're

209advanced, it would be a 1.25. Uh or if you see a student who moved two ranges, you would see the 1.25 as well. So, we're trying to incent uh more growth and growth moving from uh not being successful, not passing to passing or showing advanced. Uh and if a student still move one range, we're still doing the point. I mean, they're still showing expected growth there. And so, that's what you see on this proposal on this slide. And now, if you would, go ahead and click through for me. You're getting some animation here around the different point values and how they work. You can keep clicking. We're going to move to the next slide. And on this next slide, what you'll see is now we have where students may not advance. They may move back

210one or more ranges, and so they would not demonstrate growth and would have zero points. Uh students may move back one or more ranges, but they're still uh being successful on the test, and so they would receive 0.75. Uh if students were not successful on the test, but they maintained, then we're uh proposing a 0.5 value. And if students stay in the same range, also again proficiency, you're seeing the 0.75. Uh staying in the same range, I know this is very detailed, but this really came from stakeholder engagement, really to look at individual students and how they're scoring and providing all these different points. And so, I'll say to you in this complexity really was to honor that feedback and say students grow in different measures. And so, could have kept it simple uh but

211we wanted to honor those different points there. And so you'll see there if you can keep clicking through these visualizations you'll see there on our final point is a student who scores at the top of the range and then the next year is the top of the range they also get 1.25. There's nowhere else to go and so from our feedback and our study there 1.25 seemed appropriate. I'm going to move to the next section and again we'll take questions on the growth methodology here at the end. I want to recognize today with me is Nikki Saunders she's the department's title three coordinator. She was very instrumental in the work I'm going to describe to you now. Also want to recognize with us a national expert help lead us through the conversation I'm going to

212share with you Molly Faulkner Bond who works with WestEd. She's a national expert in multilingual learners and she helped facilitate this process. So we're going to talking with you now if you go to the next slide about the WIDA alternate access. And so this is an English learner progress assessment it is based on the alternate model performance indicators is developed by WIDA just like our access test. These are for students who also participate in Virginia's alternate assessment program which in Virginia by federal is supposed to be around 1% Virginia very proudly was under 1% last year we're very proud of that. And so in Virginia you have about 3,246 students who took this assessment last year which is 0.3% of our population 2% of our English learners take the WIDA alternate access. And so what

213this assessment is it's a large print paper pencil test administered to students one-on-one who have the most significant cognitive disabilities. And so what it's assessing is students language arts mathematics and science across the four language domains of listening speaking reading and writing. And so, the next slide, please. And so, the test was redesigned in 2024. And this is why we currently do not have an exit criteria. We're bringing it to you today, and that's why we're bringing these progress levels. They expanded the test to be in compliance with ESSA. ESSA requires that you would have a measurement for your kindergartners. And so, they expanded that. And they also made substantial changes to the grade 1 through 12 pieces. Uh so, that only 15% of the original items remained. And so, when this happens at both

214the national level a test like this or at the state level, we come before the board and talk about standard setting. What is the proficiency level, progress levels? And so, while again the test itself, you know, had pieces that remained the same, given the changes to the academic language, uh the rigor of the assessment did change. And so, we convened a standard setting committee. We had uh English language learner specialists. We had special education uh both from the department and the field on this committee. Again, our national expert facilitated this process. Uh of course, Title III was a part of this. Instruction was a part of this. Uh assessment and accountability. And we worked together to give you these recommendations uh for an exit criteria and progress levels. And so, on the next slide, you'll

215see the proposal. The committee's recommending that of the five levels that for a student to exit with this assessment, they would exit at a level four. And there's no integer or this is integers here. There's no decimals. It's not like a 2.3, a 2.1 like the ACCESS test has. Uh the these are whole numbers here. And so, previously again, if you're wondering, well, what was the prior exit criteria? There wasn't one. This is a newer assessment, and Virginia did not establish exit criteria previously. So, this will be the first. We did coordinate with many other states on this to hear as they walked through this process where they uh landed as far as their their recommendations. And you'll see in the final bullet some of the methodology that we used. We did look at performance

216level descriptors like we would do with our reading, math, science, history standard setting. We looked at data on how students performed both on this assessment and our alternate access our alternate uh assessment program. And we also looked at services. We looked at the services that students receive in title three instruction or instrumental in that. Uh because you talk here about if a student exits, these are duly identified students. So they still have services under special education, but now they would exit under English learner services. But they still would have monitor status. And as we talked through this uh again Nikki's available any questions around sort of a student might exit and might be reclassified. So just to share, that was very instrumental to this work. Um to think through sort of a student's exiting that

217communication to families, but they may also reenter. And on the next slide you'll see the data. So what is the impact of this? Again, currently there is no exit criteria. We have students who are scoring as you see a level five, the highest level, and they're not able to exit because Virginia is not defined. And and by federal law we need to do this work. So exit level four was proposed by the committee. The committee had great conversation between levels three and four. Looking at the performance level descriptors, thinking about this exit, thinking about the students, thinking about how they scored on VAP, all that criteria, really good conversation. They really, you know, between levels three and four and they they they settled on a proposal of level four. This will go to public comment.

218We'll hear from the public around that as well and bring that back to you at the June board meeting. Uh but the recommendation from this committee was to to maintain a higher standard at four. Uh we did find many states that did select three. Uh but uh our recommendation here is a level four. And now that's exit criteria. So now we need to talk about what about students who continue in to be measured through this? How do we measure progress? And so if you turn to the next slide, we're going to talk about progress for this assessment. So, the approach for this was we only had 2 years of data. Uh and so this is something we will examine this fall with more data. It's a new assessment, how are students doing? But even with

2192 years of data, you still need to determine progress levels. It's required by federal law. So, we used the data uh and I say 2 years of data, but really you're looking at 1 year cuz it's really 23-24 being compared to 24-25. So, really that one data point. We were looking at grade clusters. Were certain grades performing better than other grades? You know, how are they doing uh based on the type of assessment and the different levels 1 through 4? And again, we looked at the calculations uh for the groupings and the average performance. And so, considering all of that. Now, if you can go to the next slide, I want you to see our proposal here. And I'll mention to you JLARC, uh the Joint Legislative Audit Review uh Commission put together a study

220on our K-12 program accountability made a list of recommendations you'll hear more about. And one of the recommendations, you know, based on the feedback was to index English learner progress. This is the beginning of that work. Uh it's something this committee felt very strongly about. And it also signals to the field that we would look at partial credit. Currently for English learner progress, we simply say did the student meet the benchmark? Yes, they get a point. No, there's no there's no credit. This starts to look at a way to say, well, they made some progress. Could we give some value to that versus no credit? And so, what you see here is very interesting in the data. Typically, what you have with English learner assessments and from WIDA's study and other assessments is that the

221lower uh the students are performing, they actually move faster. And that the higher students are performing, they're actually slower in their growth. It's actually the opposite here. Students at the proficiency level of one are showing less growth than students with a higher proficiency level. That's unique to this population. Again, this test is intended for students with uh significant cognitive disabilities, and so you're seeing some of that plateau. But, that that's different. Uh you know, if I come back to you about access, it would be the opposite. And we need to treat these tests differently, but just to share sort of you know, it's not what was expected in this research. So, the proposal here is proficiency level one. Uh you know, you might look at it and say, "Really? One point? One point uh scale

222score for this assessment in this population?" And nationwide, I will tell you that was the consensus. That one point for a scale score is considered to be growth, and the student would earn a point. If a student went over one in their scale score, then they would get 1.25. And I got again, just to set sort of the ground there in the establishment. Uh now, Virginia, I've got to I've got to share with you. Virginia, uh other states, they let that be the the guidelines for all all levels. Uh looking at our data, uh we found that two points for levels two through four was very doable. We saw students as an average uh meeting that benchmark if not exceeding it. And so, our proposal is for students in proficiency level two through four, if

223they meet the two-point threshold, they get a point. If they exceed the two-point threshold, they get 1.25. But, let's say they improved by one point, then they get half a point. And so, you're starting to see some of that partial, you know, credit there for showing some growth but not full growth. Our thought here again is to have this by law. We need to have this. We'll come back and analyze more data this fall with a next another year of data, and to see sort of again if the trend is continuing with the student performance. Uh and so, with that, I'm going to turn to next steps and share with you where we're headed. This will go out to public comment. We'll announce this next week. Uh we have meetings already set up next week

224with uh English learner specialty groups and leaders to talk through this and get more feedback from them. Uh we will embark on listening sessions around these proposals. Uh we have some conferences coming up. It'll be made publicly available through our website, our newsletter that has over 2,000 subscribers. It'll be on the website for a minimum of 30 days, you see there. And then we'll bring all the feedback to you, to the board, and share what the public had to say. If there's any proposed revisions from the public comment, and then we would ask you in June for final review. With approval from the administration and the governor's office, it gets submitted to the United States Department of Education. They've already been made aware of this so that they could expedite the approval process so that

225we can run 25-26 accountability and have it on time. I'll last say that the appendix that you see is for you and the public. I just want to share, if you would, go ahead and click to that appendix really quickly cuz I just want to highlight the reason this is there is to share with you transparently in the public. There's no changes to the weights. And so we just want to share that the same weights that were used in the prior year the same weights we're proposing for the framework. No changes there and that's why just to sort of put that out there and be transparent. And then that final slide was around some scoring on the ACCESS test, some of the levels. So I will pause there and take any questions or feedback. Thank

226you. >> Yep. Superintendent Conway, anything to Okay. Board members, Dr. Northam, coming straight to you. >> All right. This is going to be unpopular. Um I have several issues with value tables. I've been really thinking about this since you initially presented it. Like, are we going forward or are we going back because we've been talking about doing growth right for a few years now. So the issue with value tables is that we're incentivizing focus on the bubble kids, which is exactly what we wanted to get away from. So value tables are only measuring whether a a kid is moving between the performance levels. It's not measuring growth within a performance level. So you're incentivizing again, if the kid is far below or far above proficiency, they're going to receive less attention because you really only

227care about the kids who are just about in between those levels, right? And moving those levels. And so, I think it's confusing and not very good for parents, either, because they're going to see um the risk is that they're going to see no level change as no growth, even if there was a lot of growth within the level, right? And I think once we try this out with school districts, they're going to get a little frustrated, right? Because they're going to they're going to be trying their hardest to get kids to move, and we're only capturing if they move between the level and not within the band. And so, I think that um the other problem is a very small shift in scores can then cause this huge shift in ratings because now you've got

228your little all your teachers are concentrating on those bubble kids, like we used to do, frankly. I used to do it, too, when I was teaching. Um and now you're going to see you're able to move some of them to the next level. Um and so, you're going to get a big shift, right? Even though you didn't have that much growth. Like you just got your bubble kids over. You actually didn't have growth in all the different categories because again, the system's prioritizing um you know, up between the levels. So, I think that a lot of other states have done student growth percentiles. Like people like value tables cuz they're simple, but they're simple because they're ignoring like 85% of the data, right? Like we're just concentrating on the moving the levels. And so, an

229SGP, even though it's a little harder to explain, I don't think it's I don't think it's out of the realm of explanation because you're basically comparing a student with another student who has the same exact prior test score. And then, if you're if you're making that comparison, then you're able to look at the whole distribution of growth. And we want to be able to look at the whole distribution of growth cuz that's the way we started 2 years ago. Like I remember all of us were aggravated because the old system prioritized the bubble kids. And now I feel like we're kind of going back to that because again, we want to be able to look at at the whole distribution of growth and not just movement between categories and then ignoring the growth within the

230one category. Does that make sense, you guys? >> Yeah, I think you raise good questions. Um I guess um is there a specific question you have for Mark to respond to or >> So, my question is can we continue to discuss this? And if it's going to be an issue where we're meeting a deadline and we're you know, cuz I think this is a to me, this is one of the biggest issues to get right on the board is how we measure growth cuz we've never done it before and we've been trying to get this right for so long. And now I feel like we're making this quick change to value tables um when that wasn't the right direction we were going because we heard somebody say it's simpler. Um so, my question would be

231like do we have time to actually continue to workshop this, try to explain it to folks like the like why I just tried to hear like explain some of the negative ramifications of going this direction. And then I mean, maybe we just say, "Okay, this is something we try. We were we get feedback from the field, but we're not going to, you know, etch this particular um methodology in stone." >> So, a couple comments. The of old, the way it was done is the way you described it. This this proposal is students would still get credit for moving within the same performance level. So, as long as they move up one range, we still give them credit or if they move up two ranges. But you could you could show growth even if you're low

232basic to high basic, you could still earn growth. Um what I also would say to you is we do currently do not have a methodology to run accountability for this year. So, I don't want to speak on behalf of the superintendent, but just to throw a proposal is we could, you know, solidify this, have this for 25-26. And again, I look to the superintendent is, you know, with future years, you could then explore student growth percentiles. We could, you know, investigate, have more stakeholder engagement. We did examine that before we brought this back to the board, talked with TAC around it, analyzed it, but the thought was for some of the same reasons I mentioned was the familiarity, the consistency, sort of this is what Virginia adopted prior, that this was the best route. >>

233Superintendent. >> Uh thank you. Thank you, Mark. Um so, I had I heard two things. I think one is uh about how do you make sure that you focus on on more of the kids. And so, it seems to me while it is probably not possible to go to something that's uh kind of a a value added like we used last year, that you arguably what I hear you saying, Mark, is that, you know, because we do split, there's a difference between kind of rating and range. Like you you you you move you get credit for moving range even if it's sort of basic or uh efficient. I I suppose the team could go back, right, and look at could you make even more ranges, right, which would allow for um uh a more incremental

234focus, right? Like you could divide it into more than two ranges, right? And you could and we can look at sort of the mathematical impact of that. I do think it would um uh still reflect kind of a um the most practical solution with the time constraints that we that we have, but I think I can we can ask the team to go back and at least look at that, and we could then sort of really look at the number of ranges. Um and this is math that makes my head hurt a little bit, and sort of which students fall in which and sort of growth and sort of try to understand is this only affecting X percentage, so that we are have some confidence that it's not just a a a small percentage. And

235then I think the second piece is the concern, Dr. Northern, about Etch A Sketch N Stone. I think we acknowledge that um uh this is uh uh a kind of an ask for a surgical change to sort of address a real need so that we can roll out accountability by the first week in October this year, but is not as we sort of we we we hear the underlying concern about this approach and so thinking through doing things in parallel, which is what is the best way to get this year's done while also coming back to this body and saying, you know, there will be some discomfort in in in continuing this in in perpetuity. >> Just a follow up. So just a clarifying question. So right now are there just two ranges in each

236>> Yes. >> column? >> Yes. >> Okay, so your point is, which I actually think it's it's interesting, right? So if we, and I don't want to get too technical either, but if we build out like four ranges within each bucket, are we capturing a more complete distribution? Like what are is there still like how grossly are we clumping together parts of distribution? You know, I I would think that four would be better. You're going to lose some of the, you know, ease of explaining, but yeah, I I do think that you're going to actually incentivize what we want to happen, right? More what? Paying attention to all students in that way. >> And I can go back to the researchers as you put this together and ask absolutely to look at more more ranges

237within them. >> Great. Mr. Robinson. >> First off, I support both broad pushes that I'm hearing. So first of all, thank you for prioritizing surgical shifts to get this ready for a timeline that's going to be more responsive to educators to actually learn from and enhance education by by by having results to schools and districts much earlier this year. And so I I deeply appreciate both proposals in terms of their surgical precision to move things forward quickly. And I also support um at least an examination of whether moving from eight to either 12 or 16 levels could make sense. I was heartened to hear that that Mr. Alvin's or Dr. Alvin's research showed that there was some correlation between this and the value added. Maybe that could be made public at some point, but you

238know, regardless like I think this is a great push from from Dr. Northern. And then and then my my my push would be like to make sure that not necessarily for this year, but as we think about long-term we're considering a growth measure that that's truly prioritizing growth particularly for the students furthest from opportunity. When when I look at this current measure, like it makes me you know Could we reward more students advancing three levels? Rewarding the same someone advancing two levels as someone staying the same level. I understand that it's we want to incent people to to continue at high levels when they're already there. But we already reward that in our our proficiency scores. And since this is meant to measure growth, I'd like to see something that better prioritizes growing the results

239for under served learners at least considered. And one bubble specifically I want to call out is right now in this proposal if you're at proficient and you go down to range four, you get zero points. And if you're at range six and you go down to range five, you get 0.75 points. And that's you again I'm I'm supportive of us prioritizing proficiency, but that seems quite a stark you know, not the intention of a growth measure. >> Great. Thank you. Dr. Wilson. >> Thank you. So Dr. Robinson's uh observation this last observation is exactly one of the questions that I have. It doesn't quite make sense to me. And so I I appreciate that observation. So, having made that, you having made that, I'll um, tag in to uh, Dr. Northern's um, concern about, you

240know, are we fully recognizing and capturing growth in a way that is uh, evenhanded across a full population of stu- all of our students. As we examine that, we should also be thoughtful about how we explain this to our community and to families because the accountability system certainly is for our use, but there is a call from the public that they understand and it's not, you know, we talked about the acronyms that we use consistently, right? So, this education-ese, that is a real concern. And so, um, as we are thinking about how to best represent what's actually happening across students uh, performance, we can't lose sight of how we communicate whatever it is at the end of the day to families um, and the broader community. >> Great. >> Thank you. Board members, any other

241questions? >> Yep. >> Dr. Bridges. >> I I'm uh, not seeing who that the technical advisory committee. I I know you mentioned quickly, but um, is that Can you say more about who that group is because that you said they're the ones that were at saying that the system would provide transparency, consistency, familiarity. So, can you tell us a little more about that? >> Yeah, so they're they're national experts in their field. They're recommended. Uh, some have served. Uh, I mean, I can provide for you their names. Um, some have served as uh, state uh, leaders in other states and they serve on different advisory boards. Some, one of them in particular, uh, worked at the University of Pittsburgh in assessment evaluation. Some have worked even with other companies such as like an assessment vendor

242and they do that work. And so there's five members of the team. Molly now sits on that team, Molly Faulkner Bond, Dr. Bond. Previously she hadn't been but now she sits as one of our TAC members. And so we meet at least twice a year. We bring to them assessment and accountability topics and they help advise us. They look at the the data from Virginia. They bring their national expertise and provide those. And so and it's a great conversation very rewarding. So they have been talking through this with us for um since we you know first initially brought to the board and looking at the data and sort of looking at the context of Virginia with the research says. And so they had recommended for a variety of reasons that the value tables were a

243good fit for Virginia. I think the piece you know one of the things they said was what you may lose I think to Dr. Norton's point what you may lose in statistical statistical usability you gain in usability. And so just that sense of they're very usable. And so I think that's part of you know talk about the trade-off sort of what you get from one for the other. >> Okay. So then that's five you said that's five folks? >> Yes. >> Okay. So the the open comment time will get the Virginia perspective cuz it you know they're saying it's familiar to Virginia based on their their external examination. >> adopted Virginia's been using value tables since 2017. >> Got you. >> they were progress tables and then after this linking study was done they were

244value tables. And then for one year last year was the first year we we shifted to value added. This proposal you're seeing was presented at the VASS conference last year. And so superintendents also gave feedback on this. So they've seen this as well. As we were walking through with the board and talking through it. So they've given feedback and some of their feedback was incorporated to the changes that you're seeing today. And and so they've also seen seen this presentation. >> So can continue? >> Yes, go ahead. >> And so uh, I the the reference to the appendix and and that nothing's changing there, but I'm curious when will that change? Because having previously been a part of, um, groups that had looked at the the necessity for growth to be in the overall accountability

245system weighted a little bit differently than it currently is. Is that sort of let's not do both things >> So, >> at the same time because >> Correct. So, this is a close out this school year because we need these two pieces to have accountability for this school year. And then our proposal is to come back to you in June with thoughts, recommendations, uh, with more stakeholder engagement to save Jay Lark's recommendations. You just referenced one of them was to consider growth and the weight of growth, uh, which we were just speaking of. And that could be used for 26 next school year and beyond. Okay. Um, but we wouldn't obviously retroactively apply that. And so, that conversation will be forthcoming in June. And you could do public comment in July and then do a

246final, uh, take final action in August. >> So, when you say So, then and is it essentially the open comment period will be asking folks about both things? >> This This is to close out this. So, this is we're now sitting in April. This will go to public comment now during the month of May. We come back in June to close out these two pieces that like the superintendent said, it's very surgical because we we need to close that out. And then we would open up another amendment. So, amendment 10 would have the some of the pieces you're describing or looking at growth more broadly, maybe SGPs more broadly, sort of really looking at the accountability system at large. But these two pieces are to satisfy federal law and to run through, uh, so our

24725-26 can be processed. >> But you But you're saying still we would we would be trying to get over the summer public comment and input on, uh, >> For amendment >> amendment 10 >> be in the month of July. >> to complete in August. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Thank you for that context. That's all. >> Yeah, I know. Thank you. And and and and Mark is right. So, we're trying to balance between, uh, we we don't want to be confusing to the public, but we also want to make sure that we are using first and final review and also being responsive to this body executive order four that came from the governor on her first day and and recent legislation. So this is surgical related to this year. It's still because it

248requires an amendment that goes to USDOE has to have public comment, right? And so we we just got to do that and check that box and we'll try to to do our best to explain why this is so narrow as much of the field is still wondering as you are Dr. Bridges about the broader set of recommendations. Because of executive order four and the feedback we've received from the field we as early as next week have a proposed approach for thinking about the broader set of changes to the school performance and support framework that we will share with the superintendents do some engagement around not official public comment in the way that USDOE recognizes, but just to at least be able when we come to you for first review so you'll be final review of

249this and first review of a broader set of changes which would ultimately become part of amendment 10 that there we would then need to then do formal public comment after that. So think of some of what so we're doing two things in parallel formal public comment for these very narrow changes engagement for the broader set of changes, but a commitment that you will have both a first and final review for those broader changes that could begin as beginning as early as June. >> Dr. Bridges have answered your question. >> I've got a timeline in my head. >> Great. But Dr. Northern >> The broader set of changes doesn't this gets settled in June and then the broader set of changes doesn't have to do with this. >> Exactly. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So,

250it's consequential. Yeah. It It doesn't have to do with this. No, it doesn't. But, I think what it what it does, I just want to sort of note we we have to solve for this year, right? Because we have to we have to deliver it. It has to be It has to be growth, or you know, I just don't know that we can, you know, change everything. What it What What I hear in this conversation is an important and this is something that Jay Lark recognized um as something we needed to look at more carefully when it came to the 3E uh readiness indicator is you have to do the actual math and the modeling to understand the impact of these changes on the sort of what is the on paper percentage versus depending on

251how students are earning points, what is the actual percentage. So, the example cited in Jay Lark is that even though the on paper for 3E is, I think, 25% Mark, correct me if I'm wrong. You know, when you count how the students earn it, ends up coming up to 34% of their piece. So, I think that's the sort of similar point that uh Mr. Robinson is naming in terms of let's look at, you know, as we sort of ma- you know, math this out. I don't know you're supposed to use math as a verb, but that like if we end up that we are, you know, proficiency ends up being more than we meant because of how we've done this, we need to make those adjustments. Um and so, part of what that ultimately means

252without giving this away is that we have to think about these changes in chunks because you have to do the math to understand the impact before, for example, you you reset the threshold. So, what this will be, I think, a healthy part of the the June conversation and sort of saying, "Here's how we're thinking about it, so we have enough time to do the math and modeling and bring back the changes to you all." Um we just are in as as Mark noted um at the uh outset, we are in a an awkward position and we just have to resolve this for this year. Um uh and I we appreciate this feedback cuz it helps us understand, okay, even now, how do we think about the analysis we need to do this summer so that

253if this is not something that you want to see, you know, in the future, that we we are hearing that and gives us some time to think through, how do we make sure we we organize to do that. >> Dr. Wilson. >> I was just going to reiterate, you know, the point about clarity for the public. You know, as we are thinking through and articulating here, kind of the the timeline, what has to come first, second, what's temporary versus long that clarity will be really important for the field as well as for the general public. >> Okay. >> I am and you know, I think that's what I wanted to also add, you know, um Um, Mr. Jennings, I I appreciate actually the way you started this, which is just acknowledging that this is not

254the ideal timeline for us or practitioners or, you know, folks who are in the field to make decisions that impact the next school year and you mentioned in an ideal world, we would be having this in April, but this would be final. I guess I'm trying to get to next April. Um, so tell me with the the changes that we just said, the surgical, we're going to get this done and then there's the the broader changes like in the ideal world, if if I could put you on the spot, where would we where do we where do we see this changes happening so that, you know, we're getting ready already for school year 26-27, where 27-28, where we ideally be related to this? >> Ideally, no hot seat questions. >> Yeah, so I mean, it

255ultimately comes back to the why, right, which is that the purpose of accountability separate from giving all of us an opportunity to test our math and decision analysis skills is about, as Mr. Robinson noted, uh students, educators, and classrooms for this from opportunity. And so, one of the most salient themes I heard out in in the field is that, you know, the sooner we can get to schools an understanding of how we define and measure success so that they understand which schools need the most help the better, right? And and I am realistically saying to you all based on what I understand to date, like the first week in October is the best we can do for for this year, right? With obviously still pieces being you know, decided now, which is which is not

256ideal. From a school perspective, they would like to have this in August, right? In terms of if not earlier for some of our schools that begin then. And that um and there's also a uh a relevancy here in terms of a significant amount of federal funding, which sort of in general rolls over in line with the federal fiscal year, which which which starts on October 1st. So, you know, already there. Like that is what matters, right? For schools with the additional consideration that um uh you know, knowing what changes when in the spring before that year is is is ideal. Um uh realistically, we have uh uh a a JLARC study that on the one hand, which is great for this body, says fundamentally the school performance and support framework is foundationally strong, right? And

257that, you know, and that it would be preferred to kind of continue to support the implementation of that rather than than to start over. On the other hand, it gives you a very long list of um of of recommended changes, some of which, you know, changing one would affect the other. And again, the most obvious example of that is it very much says we should not have the same scoring threshold, although that is simple and easy to explain. If a 90 is a distinguish, right? For, you know, across the board, well then it's very easy as a parent to understand. However, as you see how that played out, it meant that we had a very different message about high schools than we did about elementary schools, right? And we in a way that we did

258not think served our schools or educators and our and our students well. But we have to kind of do all of the other changes and then look at the distribution to then decide, right, where um you know, we would we would change those thresholds. So it you know, in that you're going to hear us say, here's a set of changes we think for next year that probably do not go as far as some might want in terms of what best practice is, but are are realistic about what we can actually change. And then, you know, it will be the subsequent year in which we will bring to you the sort of the the the the broader set set of of of changes. So, um you know, I think we will be in a solid place

259uh by the probably the 2028-2029 realistically in terms of getting those pieces um in place uh with you know, transparency, clarity, you know, more simplicity while also, you know, kind of you know, making sure, similar to the conversation about guiding principles this morning, that we're kind of remembering the why about about this work. But I think we also need to hear, you know, you know, from you all in June with specificity around, okay, do you want us to move a little bit more quickly here or there, right, even if it is a little bit you know, potentially more confusing for the field, right? Or even if we have to, you know, change that this year and then change it again next year. I don't know that we'll be able to evaluate that until we put

260that in front of you uh in June uh realistically. >> Great. Thank you. That's very helpful, Dr. Wilson. >> So, as you all are playing out the timeline and process, it may be helpful to understand from VASS and from VSBA, because when been about resource allocation and budget uh season and all of those kinds of things and requests and how superintendents and boards put those proposals together. You know, all of that may inform what the timeline realistically needs to be because we want to set divisions up for success. We want to set students up for success. And so understanding that may be really helpful. >> Great. Thank you. >> Ms. McPherson, before we transition to Jim question. >> It was a comment. It was quick. >> Okay. >> We may end up needing a complete

261work session to deal with that material. You know, where it's not necessarily a board, you know, where we're having to also make a decision. We may need a work session so that we get the materials we have. >> The gods think otherwise. >> Right. I get it. And I And I didn't even want to be the one to say it. I'm just saying. Okay. It's so much going on everybody's schedule to get ready and pack everything. But I we just may need it. We just, you know, we probably need to dig deep into and everybody flesh out evaluate what you're thinking and we we do what we asking everybody else in terms of the professionals and the and the um the teachers and superintendents to do to just decide what we like and don't like

262about where we are so we can get a really clear message out to the public. >> Great. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Jones, thank you. We will accept this item for first review um with a follow-up in June. I think you're now on for the school accreditation system report. >> Thank you. >> Decoupling. Where we separated out our accreditation and our accountability system and so I'm going to speak to you now about that accreditation system and if we can move to that slide deck I'd very much appreciate it. So we brought this to you previously and we last year the board approved a report that was exclusive to the 24-25 school year and so what today will be an update of that report and sort of expectations for the accreditation system. Let's go ahead and go

263to the next slide. You'll see the outline for the presentation. We'll differentiate between accountability and accreditation in Virginia which we're still learning. I mean the public is learning with this. We still have conversations internally and around sort of these terms being used. I'm going to provide for you a background of the standards of quality our Virginia code and the standards of accreditation determining how our accreditation designations determine the review and appeal process that we're going to propose for your adoption and then changes to the report itself. So on the next slide you see here the accountability and accreditation system. If you go ahead on the right side you see the accreditation system. This is rooted in the standards of quality Virginia code which you'll see on an upcoming slide that directs the board to establish

264these regulations for how to accredit schools. Goes back to 1970. This came after colleges universities course are being accredited and so the expectation from the General Assembly was our secondary schools should be accredited too and that's how it began. It was only for secondary schools sort of mimicking what we were seeing at the collegiate level and then it also went was moved down into elementary and middle school. So accreditation from the outset was very much inputs which you would think of the term accreditation to mean. As we got into the 90s with the standards of learning and move starting to assessments Virginia was a pioneer in this work. This was before No Child Left Behind. Virginia had a seat at the table of No Child Left Behind because of the work that we had done

265and that's when the words accreditation started becoming outcomes and we think of it in that sense of, you know, accreditation how are students performing. Uh and so from there we're going back to how its original intent was. You get these accreditation designations of fully accredited, conditionally accredited, or accreditation denied. This information is shared publicly through reports and we provide support. If you're out of compliance, what do you need to do to be in compliance? State law is very clear that division superintendents should should ensure that all of their schools are fully accredited. That that's what should be. I mean there should be no sort of you know, that should not be the exception. That should be the norm that all of my schools are fully accredited. Uh and in our previous system, we would get

266pushed back from superintendents on that because they would say, "How do you expect all my schools to be fully accredited when you're waiting all these academic factors?" But the law was set up for these compliance measures. You see on the left side what we just talked about and and to the board members' comment, uh Ms. McPherson or out of work session, I would absolutely I would embrace that idea to walk through with everyone the framework as it's is now and then any proposed changes. But you see from this this graphic of the framework, uh we have three standard models. Elementary and middle are two and high school is the third. You're actually not seeing on this, we actually have six models total because we also honor our combined schools and they have their own weights

267to honor their configurations. From those calculations and the different indicators in these buckets of growth, readiness, and mastery, uh we get a performance category and we'll be talking more about performance categories and these names uh in the the near future, but currently you see what they are. And then we move to federal identification. So, our system now is cohesive between state and federal. This meets all the requirements of ESSA and so you see that some schools, most schools in Virginia are not identified. Uh some schools are identified as targeted or additional target support, really looking at the student groups. And then we have a percentage of our schools that are comprehensive support, whether it's based on graduation rate or the lowest serving 5% or they are additional schools, additional target support schools who the student

268group is just not making progress after 3 years. All of that again is publicly reported and the department has really shifted to allocate both state and federal resources into one to braid those funds and help schools. And so we can look at our application process and rubrics and say this school is in need of support both on the state side, federal side and then give what it needs to maximize effect. And so that's that's the bifurcation we talk about the decoupling of these two systems. On the next slide you see the standards of quality that I referenced. Standard three here says again the board, these are the expectations these eight criteria are laid out to the board to say regulations need to be established in these areas. And so the from those regulations standard three

269in the standards of quality, we move now to the standards of accreditation that this board adopts. And if you go ahead and go the next slide, you see there the intent of the standards of accreditation are to ensure an effective educational program is established and maintained in all of our schools. They provide an essential foundation. Again, a continuous appraisal and improvement of school programs. They foster public confidence that parents know that what the inputs in the school are doing they're supposed to be doing and then I can see the outcomes. It ensures recognition of Virginia's public schools by other institutions of learning. We do certify that our schools are accredited for NCAA, teachers on visas. There is a purpose behind this. It is it is important. And then finally to establish a means of determining

270the effectiveness of schools. We're looking to see sort of again how are they using the resources they have and being in compliance. So on the next slide it talks again about the board has adopted a process to accredit schools. The 2024 regulations that the board adopted shifted some of this when we bifurcated between accreditation and accountability and section 300 of chapter 132 outlines, which you'll see in a moment. Uh and so part of this process is the department is charged to make all of this transparent, all of this clear, and make it very accessible and understandable uh to superintendents, principals, and the public. And if we go to our next slide, you'll see these areas of compliant. There are 11 total. Really, it's a list of 10. Uh because number 11 says if you were

271non-compliant in the prior year, what have you done to address it? But this this list of 10 items, you know, promotion, retention policies, graduation requirements, instruction, safety and facility, uh parental notification, school planning, and there's a piece for federally identified schools, that's what we're looking at as far as inputs. Are schools meeting the requirements here uh both from regula- regulations and statute? And so this is all spelled out for them. So from all this information on the next slide, you see again a school can be fully accredited, which means they've satisfied everything, conditionally accredited, or accreditation denied. And let's unpack those together on the next slide. So fully accredited would mean that all evidence is submitted to the department and it's satisfactory. And so that's what you expect to see. State law says all schools

272should be fully accredited. That that's the expectation. Conditionally accredited says that some of the information received by the department uh was unsatisfactory. And they'll remain conditionally accredited until the school successfully submits additional evidence. And so there's a pathway that a school that's conditionally accredited can submit a corrective action plan and move to fully accredited, cuz that's our that's our goal. I mean, that's the expectation. And so some schools have to provide more justification to move to fully accredited because they did not satisfy the fully accredited. They didn't do exactly what was needed uh by a timeline. And then you see accreditation denied. Uh for a school to receive that, they would have to have been conditionally accredited, and they would have to demonstrate that they were not making progress. There was no corrective action plan

273or no progress in that corrective action plan. Uh we currently have no schools accreditation denied. You would again have to establish a pattern, and this is a new system, and so no no pattern has been established yet. I will share with you from our results last year, the schools that were conditionally accredited uh sought to appeal, sought to make corrections, and wanted to move very eagerly to fully accredited. We didn't see any schools say, you know, we're we're just going to maintain that sort of we're going to let it be. And so we want to share with you today two slides about the review process. Uh on the next slide here, the process has these two opportunities. First, and this this is going to work as well with our accountability system. We really want to

274provide ways for divisions to see their school data, to be able to verify that data, validate it, and make sure it aligns with what they've sent to us. And so when after they've completed the report, I'll share with you prior to public release, they would be able to see what the designation is. Are we, you know, categorizing them as fully accredited or conditionally accredited? And then they would know why. Which area? Listed the 10 items for you. Is it number 1, 2, 4? And then they would have an opportunity to submit additional information to the department. The department would review that with respective offices. So if it's in the area of instruction, we would pull the instructional offices and take a look at the additional information, and then the school could move to fully accredited.

275We would note they had to give us additional evidence, but they could move to fully accredited. Uh and so any issues identified during this stage, again the expectation is to have them resolved before the results go public, which benefits us, benefits the schools. Sort of it's not a gotcha, no surprises. Everybody knows why they're receiving what they're receiving. And so that's phase one. That would be over the summer before any of the public release, they would be seeing it internally, we'd be having conversation with them. Part two of this process on the next slide is an appeal process that is outlined in the regulations that the board, this board has authority to allow appeals to their accreditation designation. And so what would happen is after that first phase, if we're still haven't reconciled to move

276to fully accredited status, a school division may appeal to you and we would they would have 30 days to do this. We would look at some of the specific areas here, you know, extraordinary as substantive data, procedural errors, um circumstances beyond their control, sort of other circumstances that warrant special consideration. We would review their information here at the department. Uh the superintendent would review it and let them know sort of would they receive her recommendation for the board to support this appeal. And the school division would have then have the the authority to say we want to submit it to the board after another look or they may say we decided we don't want to go public with this, we'll accept sort of your findings. It's another another opportunity for the department to re-examine additional

277information from the school division. And you see the final note there, the board retains final authority to hear and decide all accreditation appeals. And so if the division does want to pursue it, we'd let them know the superintendent's recommendation and then this would be brought forward uh to to the board for final review. In our next slide, we'll talk here about some next steps. So the report itself, you see on the screen a redline version for you. The report on the left is the 2024-25 version. We went through the regulations and pretty much spelled out uh in great detail what is required under each of those 10 areas. Very detailed. And what we went back to examine based on feedback is many of these items are also captured in the standards of quality report that

278superintendents do. Could we reduce paperwork? Could we reduce the burden? Could we simplify it? And that's what you're seeing in the red line is that we're not saying these areas are not important. We're not saying we don't collect information. We're simply saying we're going to get this from another source, and so we're going to remove them from the accreditation report because they're already captured in the what we call the SOQ compliance report that superintendents complete. And so the report that would be completed this year shorter for that very reason, but we still note where this information is is coming from. The next slide gives you a sample of the screen that the division superintendents would see. Our proposal is that superintendents would complete this again this year on behalf of all their schools. Uh we

279would want to work with our associations and superintendents about principals having a role in this. The regulations do speak to principals, but we need to build that process together collectively. And so the survey here ask again, did you satisfy the requirement? If not, tell us why. It's self-reported. And then on the final you get a summary here of what we're looking to do for 25-26. Uh again, division superintendents would complete this and certify it on behalf of all their schools. Uh this would be the specific 25-26 report. Again, it removes any items if we collect these in other sources. We want to be very clear and we've given to you we provide already to the public for feedback this appeal process. The board needs to adopt an appeal process that they would use. And so

280we've submitted that to you for your consideration. And make that also publicly available so divisions know the expectations and the timeline. Uh our goal again is public reporting to be clear and more transparent about how schools are meeting these obligations. This information is on the school quality profile. We're really working to make sure the public understands accreditation versus the school performance and support framework. And then documenting how schools are satisfying these again in their commitment to use these resources uh to improve student outcomes. And so, thank you today. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Jennings. Superintendent Conway, do you have any board members you have questions? Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jennings. We will Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Mr. Robinson. >> I just wanted to express gratitude for the simplification of the process of

281reporting for superintendents and divisions and all of the thoughtful work that went into this. Thank you. >> Getting you off the hot seat, Mr. Jennings. So, thank you. We will accept this for first review and see you in June. Thank you. >> And good job, as usual. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. Let's see. We are now at the first review of the exit memoranda of understanding. Uh Dr. Ballard, you're up. >> All right. Ready to go. Good afternoon, uh President Ashton, uh Superintendent Conway, members of the board. I am Dr. Quentin Ballard, and I serve as the director in the office of school improvement. Uh today I'll present an update regarding eligibility of uh five school divisions to exit their respective memorandum of understanding with the Virginia Board of Education. Next slide, please. So,

282in today's update, you know, I'll talk a little bit about an overview and the history of the use uh of MOUs to uh improve student outcomes, the impact of uh separating the accountability and accreditation on the current MOUs, share a little bit of data uh from the impact impacted school divisions, and then finally recommendations to the board for your consideration. Next slide. And so, as shared during the November 12th uh 2025 board meeting, the standards of quality require all local school boards to maintain fully accredited schools and describes a process for addressing systems and processes impacting student performance outcomes. When the Virginia Board of Education determines that the failure of schools to meet standards is related to division level failure to implement the standards of quality or other division level actions or inactions a division

283level academic review actually may be required. And so the division level academic review refers to a process used to kind of analyze a school division systems and practices to determine the degree to which the local school board is meeting its responsibility as prescribed in the standards of quality. Outcomes from the division level academic review inform the development of a memorandum of understanding between the board and the local school board. And so this formal agreement really defines the responsibilities of the board, the local school board, the division superintendent, the Virginia Department of Ed staff to strengthen implementation of the standards of quality and improve student outcomes. Next slide, please. And so since 2004 there have been eight school divisions have entered into an a memorandum of understanding with the Board of Ed. After implementing interventions to

284build local capacity for improvement four of these divisions exited including Lee County in 2006, Sussex County in 2017 and Franklin City in 2018. Although Richmond City exited an MOU in the Richmond City School Board actually requested a second division level review in 2017 and entered into a second MOU with the board in the same year. And so currently we have five divisions that are under a memorandum of understanding with the board. We have Danville City Public Schools, which entered in June of 2020. Greensville County Public Schools, which entered in March of 2018. Petersburg City Public Schools, which was enacted in April of 2004. Prince Edward County Public Schools, enacted in June of 2020. And then Richmond City Public Schools, enacted in July 2017. Next slide, please. And from July 28th of 2000 through September 25th

285of 2024, the Virginia School Accountability System included an integration of pre-accreditation compliance standards. And there are things like school instructional programming, school instructional leadership, and past student pass rates on the standards of learning and other alternative assessment. This resulted in an overall rating for individual schools, which Mr. Janis just talked about a little bit and reviewed in his presentation, around fully accredited. You know, schools being designated fully accredited, conditionally accredited, accreditation denied, etc. And so, in 2024, the regulations were revised, as he mentioned, which separated accountability from accreditation. Current MOU exit criteria were established. I want to emphasize that under the prior unified accountability and accreditation system. Therefore, divisions operating under an MOU status are currently measured against criteria aligned to a system that is no longer in effect. Next slide, please. Each school division's

286memorandum of understanding contains specific exit criteria agreed upon by all parties related to schools earning full accreditation status before the local school board is released from the former agreement. Moreover, these agreements include different exit criteria based on the regulations and legislation in effect at the time of the respective MOU enactment. So, this slide really talks a little bit and intends to contains the specific exit criteria for each of these impacted school divisions for your review. It is important to note that many of these divisions have experienced growth, improvement during the MOU period. However, they may not exit their respective MOU until 100% of their schools are rated accredited, as you see presented in the language there. Next slide. The current standards of accreditation sets a new threshold for division level and and eligibility. I'm sorry,

287the the current standards of accreditation sets a new threshold for division level review and eligibility, if you will, for an MOU with the board of education. The new criteria emphasizes the percent and number of schools within a school divisions that are identified as comprehensive support and improvement and or additional targeted support and improvement. If 40% of schools in a division are identified for comprehensive support and improvement or additional targeted support and improvement or 10 or more schools are identified as comprehensive support and improvement, the division will be required to undergo a division level academic and resource allocation review that is conducted by the department consistent with the elementary secondary school act and the and the school board will enter into a MOU with the Virginia Board of Education. Based on these criteria, Danville City Public

288Schools, Greensville County and Prince Edward County School Divisions do not meet the threshold. However, Petersburg and Richmond City Schools would be eligible for division level academic and resource allocation review, which would result in revisions to the current memorandum of understanding with the board. Additionally, Franklin City Schools meets the new eligibility requirements for division level academic and resource allocation review and MOU. Next slide, please. And so at this time I'll take an opportunity to kind of review uh the data for each of the impacted divisions. And so next slide. First up will be Danville City. Uh it's eligible to exit this MOU uh with the board based on the new criteria, though all of its schools, if you look at it from last year, what you're looking at is a presentation of uh of its accreditation

289information from 2024 school year compared to the 25 26. And so you have an opportunity to kind of see uh what the conditions uh look like as it relates to accreditation accountability in this particular division. Next slide. Greensville County. Greensville County is eligible to exit this MOU with the board based on the new criteria. Next slide. For Prince Edward County Public Schools, it's eligible to exit this MOU with the board based on the new criteria, although you'll take a look that all of its schools have not been accredited without conditions for two consecutive years. Uh for Petersburg City, next slide, please. Sure. Uh division level academic and resource allocation review. That's the abbreviation for division level academic and resource allocation review. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. No problem at all. And so for Petersburg City Public

290Schools, its current MOU will require revision since it does not meet the previously established exit criteria. Additionally, the division currently meets the new division level academic and resource allocation review criteria promulgated in the 2024 regulations and the Virginia Consolidated State Plan under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as amended, as you see presented here. Next slide, please, for Richmond City. Richmond City uh current MOU will require revision since it does not meet the previously established exit criteria. Additionally, the division currently meets the new division level academic and resource allocation review criteria uh as well as similar to what was just presented here uh for Petersburg. And so um Can we go back a slide? Can we go It's ahead. Next slide, please. Did it skip? Go to the next one, please. Somehow that way got

291out of order. Okay. And can we go to the next one? I'm not certain how that happened. Okay. Uh for Franklin City uh Franklin City Public Schools is actually eligible to enter uh an MOU because it meets the new division level academic and resource allocation review criteria um as uh outlined uh and attempted to be presented here. Uh if you would transition back then, I think based upon the order of this, if we would go back maybe two There we go. Yes, there. Okay. Um and so what we're attempting to share to to show and here is an overview of the divisions with a significant number percentage of schools that are federally identified for comprehensive support and improvement over the past uh 2 years. And so presented here for you, you'll see the Danville City

292has remained constant with four schools or 36% of its schools that are identified as CSI. Greensville has no schools identified as CSIs for the past 2 years. But tell what has remained constant with one school at 33% of its schools. Petersburg is at 66% of its schools for the current year. Richmond City uh uh has 45% of its schools or 20 schools. And then Franklin City uh has uh one of its two schools that is currently identified for uh comprehensive support and improvement. And so if we could go forward now, I think that's going to be two slides forward. One, two, and there you go. Right there. Okay. And so based on the information provided this the in this presentation the superintendent of public instruction recommends that the board accepts or first review the recommendations

293to one release the Danville City Public Schools board from the memorandum of understanding with the Virginia Board of Ed that was enacted in June of 2020, release the Greensville County School Board from the memorandum of understanding with the Virginia Board of Ed enacted in March of 2018, and release the Prince Edward County Public School Board from the memorandum of understanding with the Virginia Board enacted in June of 2020. And so at this at at this time it is recommended that the board should not take any action on the three school divisions Richmond, Petersburg, and Franklin City that are eligible for a division-level academic and resource allocation review and may need to revise or establish an MOU. This will allow video and staff to conduct additional analysis on the results, engage stakeholders and identify sufficient funding

294to produce recommendations for moving forward. Next steps certainly would be brought forth to this board uh at the June board meeting uh for consideration. >> Great. Dr. Balow, thank you. Board members, Superintendent Conway, comments first. >> Absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Balow. And I know there's a lot of letters and systems here. And so I'll just do a a quick summary and and and and Dr. Balow or Mark will correct me if I I misspeak. But basically you we have a system that identifies schools in greatest need. And you do that through the federal identification and through our school performance and support framework. We then have gone a step further and we said you know if a substantive number if if a division has a substantive number of those schools then it warrants additional attention and

295intervention from this body is is the is the gist of the changes that were made as we separated accountability and accreditation. What Dr. Ballard notes and just wants there to be transparency about is that the original agreements were very much rooted in a time when accreditation reflected performance in addition to compliance with expectations, right? And so even though it said that then, as of 2024, we move to a system where we said the additional attention and intervention would be based on how many of your schools, either as a percentage or a raw number, above 10. And so we we with with that lens sort of said, if you apply that lens, three of them three of these school boards should be exited and we want to bring that from first review and then final review

296first review today and final review in June. It also means that there are three that we now need to sort of figure out the path forward for that additional attention and intervention, but we need a little bit more time to kind of come back to this body with a proposal. So that that's the again, I know we're we're making our brain think in all different ways around sequencing here. But that is it sort of helping you understand the change, understand the move from accreditation to accountability, noting that the intent of MOUs was not really about compliance, right? As I think you heard from Mark and Dr. Ballard, the idea is every one of our schools ultimately should be fully accredited because that means that that's a kind of like the floor in terms of compliance.

297And ultimately the purpose of the MOUs was around that additional attention and intervention if there are students, classrooms and educators in in greater need at a higher proportion within these divisions. >> Dr. Wilson. >> I'll apologize because I have several questions. So thank you first of all for the analysis and looking through kind of where divisions are at the moment. So, um I don't even know where to start. Uh, so, the as we are contemplating releasing three school divisions from an MOU, my fundamental question is, do we believe that over the course of time that they have been in under this MOU, that they have now developed the kind of structures and systems that are necessary to move continue to move their school divisions along? Um that's the question. Kind of related to that, when

298you look at the number of schools that are uh, right now receiving comprehensive support, for example, in in each of the divisions, the number, you know, for Danville, for example, that number of schools hasn't changed. They still need comprehensive support in 25-26 as they did in 24-25. Same thing with Prince Edward. So, I wonder about, you know, have we really helped the divisions to be more ready to continue to to improve and make significant mark. And I'll go on and finish all of my questions maybe at at one time. And then, thinking about sustained support for the divisions that remain and or going forward. So, in the um, number of and and what resources are available that the division or that the department can provide. I remember when a number of these school divisions entered

299into MOUs, and the conversation at that time was a huge concern about what are the resources available at the department to actually provide the kind of supports that are truly needed to move divisions. And so, thinking about, you know, kind of the ebb and flow, as we release some divisions, for example, but then we add potentially, I know that this will be a later step, but potentially adding others. Does Do we have the resources really ongoing to provide the support that that whatever the divisions are know knowing the number of schools who who are under this need for comprehensive support and improvement. So, in any what in any order you'd like to address those, Dr. Balow, happy to hear any response. Thank you. >> Uh thank you. Um and so, if I miss one of

300one of two of the one of those questions or two, uh please come back. Um so, what I will say is that the the the new division level academic and resource allocation review, you know, you know, after this uh the the state superintendent and, you know, OSI certainly planning to engage our division superintendents and our leaders to really talk about what a meaningful process is to look like. The board is act This process has to come before the board for the board to kind of determine what that is actually going to certainly be. Um as it relates to progress and improvement, uh you know, if I may say, these are kind of the rules to the game now, subject, you know, considering that we have this new as these new SOAs and how everybody, if

301we're going to treat everybody kind of fairly and equitable, etc., uh these are the these are the terms and the the rules to the game, if you will. These many of these divisions, I would say yes in terms of where they were and to where they are now have put in systems and processes. One of them have actually partnered with uh external vendors, one of which is, you know, UVA UVAPLE to kind of really look at driving some systems changes. Um and they have done two works of service two years of support through that entity, and this year is actually continuing. And you can see the evidence. They came before this board in, I I to say August or September and provided a presentation around just some of the systemic improvements, some of the improvements

302that they've actually made around leadership in the areas of human resource leadership, in the areas of student academic performance. Um and so you know, as it relates to improvement from where they were to now, certainly these divisions have put forth some systems and processes in place. We can certainly say as well when you talk about the nature of the support. So with these divisions, sustainability planning is is crucial and key. Many of these divisions as you see if they have federally identified schools or schools that are identified on the state or federal side, they'll continue to be supported through our office. Things that we have done which have been prioritized placement in any technical assistance offerings, workshops, different things that are offered from the agency. We've triaged. They've These divisions also have had uh consultant

303support and an executive liaison that have have been on site to provide, if you will, a monthly support to them in in in some of these divisions. In addition to that, we continue to monitor their schools to ensure that they're meeting state and federal accountability, to support them with their needs assessment, support planning. In addition to that, there's on-site technical assistant offerings. So we typically we will go out, we'll coordinate and work from an interagency perspective as well. So if there is an identified need that exists with these divisions, we're coordinating with the instructional office, with the accountability office, with the special education office, with whomever to really make sure that we're there to provide the necessary support that they certainly need. When you say the capacity moving forward, I do want to say that

304as we consider releasing these divisions, they are not going to be left alone. They are still going to be under the if you will the support of our office and the support of the agency for sure. >> And that if I just to follow up that that's that's my observation is that you know, by the sheer numbers we're I know that the ethos of the department is not to you know, um but when you look at the numbers we're we'll be moving even with releasing schools from our divisions from the MOUs we'll be moving from 25 25 schools to 30 schools. So you're at we're still so because we're not leaving them, we're still in some capacity increasing the number of schools to which the department will be providing support. And so just observing that

305that's a resource need and and ensuring that the department has the resources in order to provide the kind of support ongoing uh for new and or those who are or remaining under the auspices or the wings of the department as you move forward. So just an observation that I think >> Absolutely. >> considered. No, and I think there's an important consideration here. I think to Dr. Ballard's point around according to the criteria set forth by this body, you know, the the exit is there. They are still federally identified schools, still eligible for the school improvement resources, still the top priority for this department. I also just want to acknowledge part of that fairness is also recognizing that we have other school divisions that also have a high number of identified schools and really thinking through

306how do you think about the resources for all of those divisions? You know, the MOU is this designation of additional attention and intervention, um but I think what we have heard and we saw this as we separated and had more clarity around accreditation and accountability, we also heard a clarion call for agency-wide support around school improvement for every single identified school. And I think in the past it's sort of been either in the MOU bucket or out of the MOU bucket and somehow the perception is if you're out of the MOU bucket that um that you're okay. And I think what what what I hear from our General Assembly and from JLARC and from this body in the conversations and making the the decisions to separate or as you might say bifurcate, um that you

307know, and to change that that end or that number of students meant that we identified far far more schools through school performance and support framework. It does raise a resource question. Um this was another uh uh key principle that went from JLARC and was uh adopted into legislation. And I imagine as a group, in addition to looking at what we need to do for these particular three school divisions, uh also thinking about what the resource implications are and being prepared to advise the governor uh as she prepares her her upcoming budget in addition to maximizing all federal resources. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Yep. Ms. McPherson. >> Okay. So, I was looking at um Petersburg finances. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And the length of time that they've been under the MOU. So, I'd be

308interested in knowing for instance, from their perspective, what it is that they believe that the department has not provided to them that would help them remove themselves from this MOU category. And am I correct that the total number of schools is seven or you're just giving me the numbers that need comprehensive support and improvement? >> Uh will you >> you said 50% of the schools >> Six. They They have They have six schools. >> In 2020 or 2025 with comprehensive support. And then you got 66% and you and then the number is only four and 25%. >> They went up, ma'am. So, they have one additional school that was identified for comprehensive support and improvement. So, previous year was three of the six. This year is four of the six. >> Okay. >> Yes, ma'am.

309>> Which is why you put Elsburg to amend the MOU. >> That's exactly right because they are above >> you know, this direction it was basically the needles going >> They are they are above the 40% threshold. Very good question. I do want to to just simply add while their their MOU was enacted in April of 2004. It was updated by both parties in November of 2006, November of 2009, and then most recently in April of 2016. So, that was the last time that it was actually kind of updated if you will between the local boards and the Virginia Board of Education since 2004. I I mean you you raised a very good question. I would also you know, mention I think that's what the state superintendent is certainly wanting to do is to get

310out and get get get in front of these division leaders and talk with them a little bit about what their what a meaningful division level academic and resource allocation review is going to look like it mean for for them. Petersburg is I would say a little different in the sense that in the last I've been here now four years in my four years of service here they've had five superintendents to include three acting. So, when you when you when you think about just the work that that has to happen and you know, some of these questions that you're some of the data points that you're looking at. I certainly would say to you that you know, their their current superintendent has been there since the summer of 2000 24 and certainly I think has built

311a team of of of leaders from across the nation and and filled vacancies across principal you know, with principal ships in the schools etc. to kind of get some stability there when it comes to recruitment and retention which we know having highly effective leaders in schools is very very important. >> Right. Certainly no doubt about that whatsoever. I I've been involved with talking to city officials in Petersburg and I know that there's this great push to try to, you know, change things and they got great leadership. But, when we look at the executive order and we talk about the the new the new governor's executive order, it specifically says that we should be looking at focusing the financial resources to to the places that need it most, which is why I'm concerned about us having

312some underlying data about, for instance, Franklin City Public School that has one that may have to go into an MOU. What is it that we need to provide to them, really hearing from them, and then let us measure how they're doing based upon this joint effort, us and them together, because, you know, we're making gifts our standards, which we should do, but obviously there's there's a missing piece here that it seems to me would be easy to correct. And before we decide with the new standards, oh no, we have all these other people who need some intensive support. We need to fix this first. We need to help these schools. >> And the division level academic review will will be in 10. It's a way of kind of diagnosing, if I could, you know, use

313an analogy of taking your car to the auto body shop and they're they do running a 100 point analysis or or diagnostic, right? Like determining what are the components that we're going to look at, if you will, underneath the hood. Uh if I could use that as an analogy, it's going to be part of this process and initial phase of of our efforts and before we come back before the board in June. And I think what the state superintendent certainly want to make sure that she that that is done in terms of engaging these divisions. >> Great. Dr. Northern? I'm just um wondering why um what they're struggling with. Like I'm looking at these 11 things, you know, that they they've got to kind of provide documentation for, but if there is a pattern you

314know, which of these 11 things do they most struggle with then period. >> Yes, ma'am. I what I would say to you Dr. Northern is that that again with um you know, we transitioning to this new accountability system and certainly where we are at this point we would want to go in and do a new analysis and that division level academic review resource allocation review would be a driver to kind of help inform uh the very answer to the question that you just that you just raised. For many it's what I would say to you. >> Yeah, let me add to that. >> But and I think Mr. Mr. Jennings can kind of maybe speak to some of the the uh data maybe I think you maybe asking for more specific data. He he would

315be be uh prepared to share. >> the hot seat? Okay. No, you know, I guess the one question you you you mentioned a small anecdote. I I would be curious about leadership in all of all of these divisions meaning how long, how many if that if there are some trends there. Um well also wondering about the local school board. Again, how long, new members. That would just help me have clarity around um you know, we are a governing body that's setting policy and looking at data but don't have the the face behind the data and so being able to just have that anecdote of who is leading and how long might give us some more clarity. So but I don't know. >> So I'll speak first some of the comments heard Dr. Wilson I'm going

316to speak to some of the comments you raised. Uh and so let me let me frame it. Our old accreditation system was the compliance but actually was more of the academic achievement the things that we think chronic absenteeism. So some of these schools it was any school that had a level three was conditionally accredited. So some of these schools were able to improve in reading math and science but not chronic absenteeism. Many of these schools as you see the dates on the board enter their MOU right before the pandemic. So when we look at their academic data and we're trying to look at all of them went up because right after the pandemic, I mean, we had 20, 30% pass rates. So, they entered there and I will say as I analyzed the data, to

317be fair, we used what we call the pass rates, which is the simple the kids who took the test and they pass or fail. No exclusions. Uh we have to provide that for the federal government. And these schools are showing increase. Some schools went from 30% pass rates to 60% pass rates. Um some went as high as 70 to 80%. So, we're seeing growth to the question with Dr. Wilson sort of are we seeing evidence? We looked at the key metrics in reading, math, science, and chronic absenteeism. And so, some of the schools, science was still an area of concern, but we saw reading and math and and chronic absenteeism. Now, to your question, they're still federally identified schools. I just wanted to clarify. These schools to exit federal identification need to show 2 years

318of growth before they can exit. Danville could not exit three of their schools because they need an additional year. Those three schools are showing tremendous growth. We're projecting based on what we've seen they would exit this year. The same is true for Prince Edward. So, while they're still federally identified, they're on track to exit this year. So, I just wanted to put that out there, too, as far as they're going to exit and they saw these federally identified schools. Um we're seeing tremendous growth. They're following the procedures and the the supports that are available. But I did want to provide that piece sort of why they haven't exited yet. Um but we we analyzed the data in those three areas, uh reading, math, science. Those are the core areas. And then we did look at

319chronic absenteeism. But I would say to you some of the divisions like Greensville, it was level three just in science. So, they were making growth in reading and math even before the new accountability system, but they were still not fully accredited because of science. And so, they basically it's just this sort of the expectation was fully accredited, which means everything has to be, you know, about at these certain benchmarks. >> And my question is, how many CSI schools do you have statewide? >> 80. >> Yeah. So, again, it's the real answer in terms of what paying attention to. >> The real number of schools in which we're paying keen attention to, to use the analogy of the blue line from the early childhood conversation yesterday is 80, right? So, it is this is a you

320know, a higher percentage than most, but all of those schools are in need of that comprehensive support intervention and indeed the sort of the full attention of the department and this body. >> Great. So, uh Do you have a quick Dr. Dr. Morden? >> I I think it's a clarifying. So, the bifurcation that you kind of started with Oh, sorry. The bifurcation that we started with, I mean, the old system was measuring outcomes. The new system for accreditation is all inputs. Like when I look at this, it's compliance with facilities and safety provisions, compliance with parental notification provisions, compliance with the requirement to offer courses. None of that's outcome, right? It's all input, which is really how an accreditation system should be. >> Right. >> think you're saying, and you can correct me if I'm

321wrong, going forward, now that we've got a whole 'nother system that deals with outcomes, we're actually going to be following Virginia Administrative Code, right? Which kind of we should have been before, but before we we couldn't. We were doing both because we had the system that was glopped together. >> Yes. >> But now that we're pulling them apart, going forward, are we saying that we're only going to identify schools based on these compliance measures? >> No, it's completely off of the 40% federal identification, which is in alignment with federal law, which says a significant number of federally identified schools need to receive resource allocation support. Sort of here to as a state agency, you need to show what are you doing for those school divisions. So, our new MOU with the new regulations says 40%.

322>> Sorry. Sorry, shouldn't have a side conversation. So, if you look at page seven, and and again, we asked asked Dr. Bouldin to include the old content about accreditation so that we were being transparent, but the idea is this body decided in 2024 to move away from compliance. Let me say this straight. So, ultimately with accreditation, the goal is that everybody at the end of the day wants to say that all their schools are accredited. And so, even though you do have a number of schools for a variety of reasons last year that weren't fully accredited, that the hope is between now and then that we're having conversations to get them into compliance on that, right? So, that no matter where you go in the Commonwealth that you'd see we have 1,883 schools, they're all

323fully accredited. It doesn't mean that the performance within those schools is the same. And so, uh we are we you know, even though it was an MOU and with that contractual agreement was was in place, we are saying that the reg that was passed in '24 supersedes that going forward. It is all about, you know, your federal identification, which is based on on performance. Um that's right. Obviously, you know, we're still monitoring uh and would like for for Richmond and Petersburg City to get those schools up to accreditation. Um uh but we will we will only be able to exit once you reach that that certain performance level. I would also note that there to Dr. Wilson's point about clarity, I think there's still some confusion in the field, right? There are a whole lot

324of people were very excited that all their schools were accredited and you know, and we were also excited for them. Uh I would say that when they put that on their billboards and put that in their newspapers that many of us, you know, I think there was a general assumption that was still reflective of performance. And so, there's still some some work to be to be done, but ultimately getting the system to pay keen attention to the 80 identified schools. And then once you have a, you know, a preponderance of those schools either more than 10 or 40% um that that is where we go a step above and beyond. Um, I also think it is really helpful to hear your feedback on how we think about uh what we bring to you in June.

325Uh in addition to uh what what the board president noted and and and and Ms. McPherson, these are also just very different contexts. And so, I think that we are trying to balance between where you want this to be consistent across the board. However, Petersburg is quite different from Richmond City, uh which is quite different from Franklin City, which has a brand new believe superintendent, right? Versus Richmond has had the same superintendent for 8 years. And so, really trying to balance between from a fairness perspective, which Dr. Ballard noted about, and where we want things to be uh consistent enough, but then from a an equity perspective and a contextual perspective, that these look very different. Running a school division uh that um has as many schools as Richmond City looks very different from running

326a school division with two schools. Um, and that happens to get over that uh 40% threshold because one of its two schools uh meets this this this criteria. So, this is incredibly helpful feedback as we think about what we ultimately need to bring to you for the school for the divisions that are going to continue to be engaged in this way with the board going forward. >> Mr. Robinson. >> Uh forgive me for my excitement and nerding out on this topic a little bit. Um, but I I think Virginia has a opportunity to be a national leader here. Uh the MOU process, uh the fact that it exists, the fact that we have this reset with the criteria with to align with fiscal performance framework and uh and separate it from inputs and more focus

327on outcomes, and the fact that we have a chance to to learn and and and write new MOUs here, um I think we should take full advantage of it and and truly move from an MOU process that sometimes is perceived as compliance focused uh to one that is focused on what uh we as video e and the divisions together decide is going to take for transformational outcomes. There's so many great things about the existing process. Number one, the opportunity to be partners together in understanding needs and and building on the other board members thoughts and how you coalition build towards what needs to change, but also with the fact that it's tied to a corrective action plan, which gives a chance for bold action and cover to do the work that our students need the

328educators and adults doing on their behalf. And so, just a few things I want to share from what I've seen nationally in places like Ogden, Utah that had five of the eight lowest performing schools in all of Utah, and then a few years later had none of the bottom 20% or Fulton County that went from 29 F schools down to three. There There's or even Danville that that is showing great gains. There There's consistent themes. And And one is starting with a comprehensive needs assessment. So, I I I know the statute talks about instruction and resource allocation. I would and I'm in full support of the deep focus on instruction and better tying that versus thinking of school improvement as separate. But but I really encourage the team to to think comprehensively about the needs

329as we think about talent and time and and other things as well. Number two, there's a chance to tie it to these divisions haven't had MOUs written in over a decade. So, there's a chance to tie it to what has the video e learned over the last decade. So, for instance, do we have any non-negotiables in our theory of change similar or at least aspirations similar to how we have in early education? We've said we want high-quality curriculum. We have a theory of change about what needs to happen to help that come to place. How are we building that into the comprehensive needs assessment? And then finally, how do how do we get the divisions to drivers of transformation, not just a long list of things to do. Um, because they already have they already

330have comprehensive plans. They're still going to have comprehensive plans. We're still going to support comprehensive plans. How can a corrective action plan be about the bold things that we're designing together need to be invested in, um, need to be shifted, um, and might allow for not only better implementation, but innovation and boldness in thinking about things like, you know, do these divisions want more high dosage tutoring? Do these divisions want, uh, uh, more time for teacher collaboration? I don't know, but the point is what's gotten us here is not going to get us to where these students need us to go, and I I just, uh, again, forgive my um, uh, passion on this topic, but I we the Virginia has a better opportunity than most states get this right because of all the moves

331this team and this board have made preceding this, and the existence of this MOU process, and please come to the team with recommendations, but please take your time. Like like let's get this right. Let's be bold. Let's This is a generational opportunity. >> But, Mr. Oh, I just like at one point there I I I Thank you, Mr. Robinson. This is all very very helpful feedback. And again, without giving Dr. Bell a heart attack here, um, I think the other piece is I think we have to get it right for the 80, right, not just the 25. And so, I just again, I think there's been this, uh, to your point earlier, Dr. Northern, about the sort of the bubble, I think the MOU and that hitting that threshold signals the bubble, right? And that

332And you know, and if you're Franklin sitting here, like, but only one of my school is, right? And there's a lot of other divisions that have far more than one school affected. And so, I think it's about, obviously, what we have to do to comply with the law around these particular divisions, um, and doing this in partnership, not to because they don't need another list of things to do, but also being able to come back and think about for all 80, what are we doing and how are we working with the school division that otherwise might have incredibly high-performing schools, but for whatever reason, historical, contextual, also has schools in great need. And those kids at those schools are just as in need as in the ones in the MOU divisions. >> Great. Ms. McPherson.

333>> Oh. >> Yes, I was going to say, just like we also reward good behavior, we also have to hold people accountable for what we do do and put in place with them. So, a part of the comprehensive needs assessment or to also have built in the performance that relates to it, exiting, and what resources the board has when people are not performing when they could perform. So, for instance, if a school gets some of the latest and greatest teachers, and you know, teacher salaries have gone up as we understand like 19% over the last few years. If those things are put in place and then there is no improvement, then the question becomes to the board, what are our rights and responsibilities as relates to those particular schools? And I'm always hopeful that everything

334is going to turn around cuz I think the kids are so resilient that they get it right even when we don't. But um I'd be interested in the needs assessment, comprehensive, and again, hearing from those schools that are struggling to let us know what in fact they really need and then we need to meet that need and then we can measure the performance as we go forward. >> Great. Thank you. Dr. Bridges. >> All right, I'm going to see you, you're nerding out, and raise you a passioning out. I don't know what else to call it. Um I'm not usually one to like go on and on about myself in my second meeting with any organization, but I do want uh y'all to have a little bit of context of why um this may not

335sound as coherent as I normally like to sound. I was I joined the Richmond School Board in '07 and I served on it till 2012. I was chair in the still to this day own one and only year when all Richmond schools were fully accredited as we called it then, right? >> Okay. >> So I saw firsthand what it took to get there and then I went to DOE and watched it unravel. And so now I teach a course where I use Richmond as my case on sustainable improvement. And where did I realize that I went wrong as a governance official at that time and watching, you know, continuing to watch today as as these schools struggle. So you see Richmond, Petersburg's been in a long time. Richmond went out right when I was there,

336got everything, put all the put all the pieces together, got fully accredited and then they it eroded. Leadership turnover was a huge piece of that, but not the only piece. There were four superintendents after I left between 2012 and 2017 when you include the interims. That's a huge piece of it, but coherence and a and a robust theory of change where the entire division understands what their what what their big levers for improvement are. Actually we learned that at the PLE because at that time I came as a school board member to better understand some of these things. So so what I will say in terms of thinking we've got the immediate decision about the the couple of divisions for the MOUs, but then the bigger issue, thank you so much for the work you're

337already putting into it. I would say there there are things to think about because I don't see the MOU process as distinct at all from the accountability process even though you've done this bifurcation to me MOUs and VDOE supports are the other inputs now with accreditation and then the outputs and the outcomes obviously if you continue the logic modeler, we should be able to we should be able to put those puzzle pieces together in a way that we see outcomes, but we set divisions up for sustainable success because it is all too easy for things to erode when leaders turn over, boards turn over, teachers go away, etc. So, I would say the three big questions I think we should be able to ask of any of these divisions when we're doing these reviews is

338if they if they're coming out of it like Danville and and you're seeing some success, what support did they get? What did they do with it? And how will they sustain? And and not talking about those things mean that we don't have lessons learned for for the Franklins of the world. And I know Dr. Conway was so right, every context is different, but we do know from the literature that there are there are themes in what you can do, and coherence is a big one of just having folks who all understand where you're driving towards and what your levers for for success are, and knowing that those things are you're just you just become religious about doing those things. I watched two superintendents do it successfully, and then I've watched as it's all all um

339gone by the wayside. And so, in terms of the short term though, with Dr. Wils- Wilson's point, we hear that some things are heading in the right direction, and and so, the recommendation is that they exit this, but I wonder if there's some middle ground there of maybe it's not an MOU, but maybe is there some kind of um you know, caretaking kind of that No, I don't like that language. Um some kind of partnership >> that can still be in place sustainability sustainability >> to help them sustain, to help ensure that we don't see Danville sliding back in in three or four years if the stellar superintendent there gets plucked up by another division cuz that's the thing that happens, too, right? So, that's what I'm thinking about the short term. Is there another

340option, a middle ground there where they exit the MOU but still continue to get some kind of identified resources? And we do need to hear from these division leaders about what they need, what their big challenges are, where they would if they could wave their magic wand for VDOE help, where would they point to those places that would help? So, does that help with sort of short-term thinking? And then the longer term, yes, let's talk big picture about what we can do that might be transformational, William. I agree with you that, you know, really take an opportunity to think about meaningful support that can provide improvement that sustains. >> Thank you, Dr. >> a lot, I know, but I'm telling you like this this is my jam. I love pre-K, but this is the thing

341for me. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, Dr. Bridges. Dr. Balow, did you have any >> No, I just wanted to just simply you had asked a question about the uh time frame by which these division superintendents were serving. I just wanted to just simply share that for many of these all of these divisions, none of the superintendents that are currently serving went through the division level review process, were not in position when these divisions entered. So, uh Greensville actually just made it named their new superintendent as of April, in fact, their April board meeting. So, they have a new superintendent that starts May 4th. And that was supported by the Virginia School Board Association with their superintendent search process, etc. Prince Edward, Dr. Jones is in his first year there, July 1 of the 25-26

342school year. So, he's in year one of in Prince Danville, Dr. Harriston, who is a Danville native as I understand. I think he's been there now about 4 or 5 years, maybe. So, I just wanted to just simply share that information. And likewise with Petersburg, and obviously Superintendent Chambers was not in place when these division level review was was enacted. So, I just wanted to make sure that I clarify that and share that information since you brought that point up, Matt. >> I promise I won't talk that much again. Can I ask a quick question? I did notice, again, thinking about these things as all linked together now. We got accreditation as an input. We have MOUs as an input. But I did notice both Franklin and and RPS do have accreditation challenges. And so,

343knowing what those inputs are and what what the challenges are will help us to better understand perhaps any investments or supports that they need with that. It didn't look like, I don't think, in the last report that Petersburg had accreditation. >> Well, well, accreditation in in the sense of the new how, you know, how accreditation is defined. >> report, the spreadsheet. >> Sure, but but the way that accreditation is defined for the 25-26, right, compared to the previous year. And so, they that's what I would what I would want to maybe make sure that I I emphasize there. I can invite uh >> So, so you're saying what the spreadsheet I was looking at it was not just reflecting inputs. It was reflecting performance. >> So, yes, there's >> Okay. >> There's one element, not

344to confuse things. There's this one thing the code of Virginia, the first one says that it includes student growth and outcomes. And so, in the regulations adopted in 2024, section 300, it talks about schools that are CSI, comprehensive support improvement schools, they start off as conditionally accredited. For them to be fully accredited, they have to be showing academic progress at a rate that they could exit within 3 years. So, there is a correlation, to be be fair, and this this will come up in our future accreditation talk. There is a correlation between these schools being federally identified as CSI comprehensive support, and they're also for the accreditation piece, even though everything else might can be compliant, their data's not showing they'd exit, and so they're also conditionally accredited. So, I just want to be clear

345as far as that might be the area of need, which is roots back to the outcome piece, which is something that's on our >> And this goes back to just one of those things where again, uh additional conversation can be had in this area, but this board and the superintendent, remember we cannot rewrite code. So, the idea is that there there could be a scenario where there are recommendations to the General Assembly to remove that, not because they don't care about growth, but because they want these to be two distinct systems. Uh the desire of this body was for it to be two distinct systems. They just got stuck in this one little piece of law that uh continues to blur the two systems. >> Great. Well, Dr. Berta, thank you very much. We will

346accept this for first review and see you in June. >> Thank you. Okay, we have Chief Berta, you're up. So, we are in first review of the guidelines for school construction. >> Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board, Superintendent Conway. Uh I am Christina Berta, Chief Operations Officer for the Department, and with us today we also have Mr. V.J. Ramnarain, who is the Director of Support Services, uh and the master of making sure that all of these things get delivered to school divisions in compliance with your board guidelines. Um for those of you that have been through this presentation before, please forgive me. I'm going to go a little deeper for our four new members, so that there's a clear understanding about um what these guidelines are and what they support for our school

347divisions. Um we have taken the approach in the past that this has been first and final review, and we're hitting the brakes a little bit just so that you all can take this under advisement. Um it also allows for our school divisions um and other stakeholders to also provide feedback before you vote on that in June. So, funding for the school construction assistance program began in 2022 to 2024 and I don't have a presentation. You're just going to hear me talk. I'm sorry. Um and that has continued in the '24 to '26 biennium with $80 million in funding that was included in the appropriation act for fiscal year '26. These grants support um our a competitive basis for school divisions to apply and they are for local school school divisions to remodel, build, construct schools

348and or our regional career and technical centers. Um they have to demonstrate poor building condition, commitment, and the need for the funds for construction, expansion, or modernization of public school buildings. During the 2025 General Assembly session, an additional $30 million was transferred from the literary fund for a total of $110 million being available for distribution of grants in fiscal year '26. Any unobligated appropriations in the SCAP program in a prior fiscal year can also roll over into the next fiscal year um and be used for the same purpose. There were funds that were left over as of June 30th, 2025 by way of 88,341,766 and an additional 5,269,283 from previously awarded SCAP awards that were returned by several school divisions due to the inability to execute their grants as they applied for them. This brings

349the total available in this grant cycle, once these guidelines are approved, to a total of 203,711,049. The legislative intent of the school construction assistance program is to provide funding for major school construction, renovation, or additions project giving priority to high need school divisions and regional CTE programs. Funding is intended for planned projects, so it has to be in their CIP or for a planned project that lacks sufficient funding and that are not yet in a construction phase. Program funding is based on a competitive criteria through an application process. The Board of Ed, you, are charged with developing guidelines for the administration of this program to include establishing competitive criteria used for the scoring of the applications and determining funding eligibility. The competitive criteria must reflect the categories of commitment, need, and poor school building conditions,

350and a minimum qualifying score is established for a project to qualify for funding. These current guidelines include various criteria reflecting these three categories and assigned point values. Department staff have updated the data used for several selection criteria so that the latest available data is used for the upcoming application process. A minimum of 65 points on 100-point scale was previously adopted by the board as a minimum qualifying score for a project to qualify for funding under the program. School division and regional CTE programs apply through the Department of Education for grant funding during all of our designated open application periods. As established by the appropriation language, awarded funding is based on 10, 20, or 30% of approved project cost depending on a division's local composite index and the local localities fiscal stress category. This item aligns

351to the Board of Education's priorities and goals for the 2024 to 2029 under the category of to advance safe, and healthy schools. In your documents, there are some key proposed changes to the guidelines to ensure that divisions can enhance student learning environments, and these changes include the following. One, we have made adjust a recommended adjustment to the point score for the building a poor building condition to enable some divisions that did not achieve a minimum score of 65 points in previous applications to potentially qualify them for funding consideration. We have also recommended the addition of a new criteria for school division enrollment trends. Using data from the fall SRC, which is our student record collection enrollment, divisions could earn a five-point um weight for increased enrollment over a course of three years. So, we will

352look at their student record collection, and if they are uh seeing increased enrollment, we are recommending that we assign a point value for that to recognize their growth in their schools. The points for the scores awarded to school enrollment criteria are obtained by adjusting the following criterias. One, reducing ADA criteria points from five to three, reducing debt capacity criteria from five to three, and reducing the condition of all schools criteria with a previous maximum score of nine to a max score of eight. We are also recommending points be adjusted for the ISP, which is the identified student percentage, fiscal stress designation, and poverty percentage, which may enable some schools that fell slightly short of the minimum 65 points to qualify for funding in the next application rounds. We have also added language on the process

353to determine the correct final grant award for projects whose actual cost are below the estimated cost that they provided us in the original application. We want to ensure that the grant aligns with the allowable criteria and requirements outlined in the appropriation act. Uh as you take a look at this item for first review, attachment one provides you with a redline version of the criteria. Attachment two is a clean version with our recommended changes, and attachment three provides you with the detailed criteria change in a summary format. I am happy to answer any questions that you may have while this is under advisement for first review. >> Superintendent, do you have anything to add? No, okay. Uh Dr. Norton? >> Yeah, I was just um I'm intrigued. I don't think I noticed before that the funds

354could be used for regional CTE programs. >> Yeah. >> Um does that cover like equipment or like can you talk a little bit about what's in and what's out relative to the CTE program funding? >> Yeah, it's for buildings. So, it's got to be and let's say they wanted to convert a cosmetology area to an auto mechanic area, and that is included in the regional plan >> Mhm. >> and they have their board, their regional board approve that, that would be allowable. Um it would also include that equipment, but it's got to be the construction of to be part of the project. >> Okay, so you're creating a new space or you're rehabbing an old space. >> Yes. >> And with that, okay. >> It can't be for non-capital items. It has to be capital

355expenses, which I would include a renovation of a space. You can't have the space without the equipment. I would classify that as collective. >> Okay. Can Just follow up, can you tell me um is there a percentage or are you seeing that more um applications are for CT um programs or are you not seeing an uptick? >> So, I believe that the board changed that criteria to allow regional CT CTE centers 2 years ago, and we saw two CTE centers apply. Um in your last round, in fact, Chesapeake, I believe, received full funding from this program up to the allowable amount to build a new CTE center, a regional center for their school. >> And and also happy to see the points for the enrollment. I know we've talked about that before. >> Yes, ma'am.

356>> Okay. Any questions? >> Yes, Dr. Bridges. >> I I'm in support of the additional uh criteria, the changes that you made. I do wonder for divisions uh that aren't increasing enrollment, you know, sometimes one of the toughest things they have to do is to consolidate schools. And often times those are very, very old schools that would meet some of these criteria. And I wonder about the potential of this funding conversely to be able to incentivize um you know, consolidation where you're getting essentially two or three schools worth of small, old buildings into a state-of-the-art facility. I I mean, is that something y'all considered or >> So, it gives them points if they are increasing enrollment, but it does does not exclude them from other things. Their building may be in such a dilapidated state

357that they get points in another category that they still could qualify for the award. So, I don't want you to think that just because they don't have increasing enrollment doesn't mean that they may not get an award. There's there's 12 other criteria that may qualify them um for that. I should add for the new board members, too, that once you approve these guidelines and um we put the open application period out there, before we make awards, you will see all of the things that came to us, what their point values were, assignments, and you actually approve the distribution of those awards. So, that's that's also an item that will come back to you in a future meeting. >> Yes? No? No? Yep. Mr. Robinson. >> I just wanted to second the uh I'm not sure

358if this exact um program can be used to help incentivize very thoughtful consolidation. But I just wanted to second the with the demographics in the student population continuing to decrease. And you know back to the earlier conversations about cover for hard decisions. Anything this division can do to help move our school buildings and the student experiences to state of the art and serve only only have the number of school buildings that are appropriate for serving that population. The better student learning opportunities we can give our students. Again, that may or may not be something you can incentivize because this has to be a I understand a a scored program for equitable allocation. But it it it I am similarly curious. Yes, sir. >> Okay. I thought someone was moving. All right. Chief Bertha, thank you.

359We will accept this for first review and see you in June. With that though, that completes all of our review. We are now transitioned to presentation and written reports. Is there anyone who's going to present on this or there's no one left to present. We've cleared the room. It's It's a a very different room from this morning. >> They must be known that they had enough of us. >> Yes. Okay, well we'll take the report as as is. Final anything final from you Superintendent Conway and then I will close this out. >> One, thank you. For those of you who know made it last month, it was a little easier, a little shorter than this month. So thank you to Dr. Wilson and Ms. Reinhardt for your your patience. Deep appreciation to the team for

360the preparation. I think as we as we heard this morning, a full commitment to try to make sure that there is ample time for first review that is separate from final review. I want to flag that at certain moments both yesterday and today uh members of this body were apologetic for having lots of comments and I just want to gently remind you that we see feedback as a gift and that the purpose of first review is to hear your passion, to hear your questions and to let us know sooner rather than later if there are things that you are deeply concerned about. So, I know many of us can have a tendency to sort of apologize before doing that, but you really don't have to because this is incredibly valuable for for for our team

361and just want to thank you for that. Part of what we wanted to do is to hear what you care most about, what you would change and that will then help inform us so that we ultimately don't have a place where we're coming back in June and you're saying, "Oh whoops, like this is really not what I want to see." So, again, and I'll we'll work with with with Mr. Hanson to make sure because he wasn't here that he has plenty of opportunity between now and then to to get up to speed in this on this. So, I I really want to reiterate some of you who heard us on the listening tour and I think for Dr. Wilson who's observing for years in these board meetings, the feedback is incredibly helpful. Please do not

362apologize ever ever for it and the team, you know, we we use it to to be better. All of us can be a little bit better tomorrow than than we are today. So, with that, thank you for your patience and I just a steadfast commitment to getting this content to you on time, making sure that our partners at the various association are dedicated folks who come and and and make comment have it in enough time so that they can be prepared and then where possible having the two opportunities for review so we can fully hear from this body is a top priority. >> Thank you Superintendent Conway. And my only final comments are that I appreciate all the board members. I appreciate getting the materials and you know, when I hear the apology, it's actually

363a reminder that there's great work that happened with our previous board. It's the transition to our new board and the apology is like if this already has happened already and you know, I think that we we do appreciate the questions and the comments and just the respect that you all are bringing to this process and to the team. It's just great greatly appreciated and you know, I will always be committed to moving us cuz we always have to get out of the library by 5:00 but I I really and just appreciative of the questions, of the engagement, the time, the materials that the staff presented and always Superintendent your your ability to reflect but also here and just commit to follow up. That's the level of transparency and trust and flexibility that we just want

364to continue to build. And the listening tour getting the updates on the listening tour has been invaluable. So thank you for that work as well and please extend it to the secretary and to the rest of the team. With that, I will take a motion to adjourn. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor signify by saying aye. >> All right. Motion No roll call. Run out of here. Thank you everyone. >> Mhm.