001First presentation as a part of our national expert series we will hear from two speakers from John's Hopkins University. We have a more detailed biography available on the board's meeting page on the DOE website, but I would like to provide a brief introduction now. Dr. Dr. Ashley Burner is director of John's Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and Associate Professor Professor of Education. Dr. Burner has published dozens of articles, books, book chapters, op-eds, and widely watched TED X talks on citizenship formation, academic outcomes, pluralism, and the political theories of education in different national contexts. She led the design of the institute's school culture 360 and ELA and social studies knowledge maps. Dr. Burner represents the institute's work across the country and consults regularly with international, federal, and state level agency agencies, non-governmental organizations and school systems.
002Dr. Dr. David Steiner founded the Institute for Education Policy at John's Hopkins in 2015 and serves as the executive director and professor at the School of Education. Dr. Steiner has published more than 50 journal articles, edited multiple books, and given more than 70 public lectures in the United States. His board service included four years on the Maryland State Board of Education and the Core Knowledge Foundation. He currently serves on the board of the Relay Graduate School of Education. And with that, I ask Dr. Burner and Dr. Steiner to please come forward. Is it on? I think you see the green light on the microphone. Okay, good. and then my colleague Dr. Steiner will talk about >> Oh, shall I start again? >> Yes. >> All right. Uh, thank you very much for having us this
003morning. It's a wonderful opportunity to present some findings from a project that we undertook last fall with your state to talk through the high-level findings and then turn over to my colleague Dr. Steiner who will go over some of the recommendations from the survey and the long-term implications. So let me give a brief comment about the context for our work. Our institute focuses on the quality and the outcomes associated with highquality instructional materials and intense implementation. So the research record is very clear that when students have the opportunity to learn from a highquality knowledgebuilding consistent curriculum with teachers who are prepared to deliver it well that good things happen for student outcomes. They can raise the the proficiency rates and the overall achievement rates and close achievement gaps more than any other single intervention. So
004taking this research, several states beginning with Louisiana and now extended to 14 states in the Council for Chief State School Officers network have focused intensely on making it easy for divisions districts to adopt what we call HQIM or highquality instructional materials. My colleague Dr. Steiner has been a longtime senior adviser to the CCSSO network and we have worked with most of the states in that network and with others on creating the conditions for instructional rigor and excellence. So this project itself was designed to answer the question for Virginia, what are Virginia teachers using for the two main subjects ELA and math? What materials are they using? What are they using it for? How effectively are they using it? And what else are they using? The teacher survey of curriculum use is is an is a
005tool that we developed in tandem first with the Rand Corporation which started the national teacher American teacher panel that found all kinds of data about this. We have adapted that, validated it and customized it for regional, district and state use. It's very important. It gathers teachers voices. It's anonymous, provides baseline data to leaders, and it enables long-term planning. So, the types of information that we gather are things such as what do you use most frequently to deliver instruction? And there's a long list of core instructional materials. We often use science of reading foundational lists as well. What are you using these materials for? How do you judge the value of these materials? Are they good for all the subgroups of students with whom you work? And most critically, we ask, what else are you using
006besides these core materials? Are you going online using Teachers Pay Teachers, Pinterest, and so forth? And so for this particular survey, we worked with your agency, the Department of Education, to field an anonymous survey statewide between September 5th and October 16th of last fall. The participants were all the K to K to2 ELA and math teachers in the state. We disseminated the administration of the survey online. We worked with superintendent to send to their principles. We were participating in in meetings to recruit participation and so forth. And the time required to take the survey was 10 to 15 minutes. Um we often recommend that states implement this survey during a PD day where teachers are all gathered together survey on their phone or on a computer. Statewide response was 23%. It was a state sample.
007Therefore, it was variable from division to division. At the highest level, what did we find in English language arts? We found that the majority of teachers report using materials that we would consider HQIM and that Ed reports has deemed sufficiently high quality. 37% of the teachers in the state sample are using materials that are either partially aligned with, do not align with, or have not been evaluated by ED reports, which is the clearing house for such things. In math, the highest level finding was this. Only 10% of the K to2 teachers who answered reported that they were using HQIM for their math lessons. that and of those 10% using HQIM there was variability even within that sample some of them were using HQIM materials others were using materials that only partially aligned with we also
008found districtto district variation for example Fairfax County a full 88% of ELA teachers report using HQIM but only 2% of math teachers do. Whereas in Virginia Beach, 31% of ELA teachers and 34% of math teachers use HQIM. In SUFFK public schools, for example, 81% of ELA teachers, but only 2% of math teachers use HQIM. So you I'm going to turn this podium over to my colleague, Dr. Steiner who will talk about most importantly the recommendations that we made post survey and the recommendations that we would make to the state for long-term excellence. Thank you Ashley and good morning to all of you. As we look at the findings the crucial question is of course what's to be done and I want to start by being at about 50,000 ft. As we all know, the implementation
009of HQOM is useless if teachers don't use it. National data from Tom Kaine at Harvard and our own research suggests that teachers are often resistant because they don't believe their students can use the materials because they themselves are nervous about the level of their knowledge in the subjects and therefore they water them down. They leave them on the shelf. uh clearly professional development, professional learning is going to be crucial without without that nothing. The second point is that often and this again is nationwide data we think that professional development means a day's workshop and a breakfast. That is actually the national average for new curriculum quite astonishingly. Again, we need more than that, right? You don't change the habits of a decade, 12 years, 13 years, which is a typical new American public school teacher
010because you have a day of a workshop. It's it's too deeply ingrained. At least 20 hours, multiple months, and of course, if one can afford it, more than three months would be great. And then crucially, your state no different from the national average in many ways on NAPE. We know that the majority of students aren't proficient in either ELA or math. Now, these materials are designed to be grade level rigorous. If your students are a year behind or two years behind, it's not irrational for you to worry that they can't manage the materials. So, we have to be concerned with students who are below grade level, students who have special needs, English language learners. Otherwise, again, in many districts, rural, urban, these things won't be used and not again irrationally. So, as you think about
011all of those supports, it will be exciting to do the survey again and see the progress that's made year to year. More concretely, we find that teachers are the best ambassadors, right? So if you can find those divisions that are using the materials well, find master teachers who are really effective and believe in these materials, they do far better than I do or other tweet jacketed professors at sharing success stories, right? Those matter. Teachers listen to teachers. We have to enable templates and resources for cycles of continual improvement. That means that we don't just generalize. We don't just say teach them. We we actually need templates to share with schools and with divisions that says here's how you think about a bell schedule, right? Here's how you organize your tutoring if you only have right
012funds for 2% 3% here's how you think about supporting the kids who are behind. Really concrete guidance. And then you're only as good as your leadership, right? You all know this. But if you focus only on teachers and don't worry about the district uh leadership that is the divisional leadership or the superintendence or the principles and that we'll come back to it isn't going to happen. Right? If a principal is in a school and doesn't give a you know what about what's being taught, the teachers get that message very quickly. And I I'm going to be very concrete here that if the principal is still using one of the old Charlotte Danielson right Marazo rubrics that doesn't explicitly ask to see the teaching of the adopted HQIM the teacher getting the message that it doesn't
013matter right might as well use the same old same old so it is important that principles and teachers get exposure to why they should be using this material, the persuasive stories of its use, the success stories. And that's really what I want to emphasize. It it's teacher to teacher, principal to principal, superintendent to superintendent. Uh we we cannot just think that we can parachute this stuff in and it will somehow blossom and be used effectively. It won't. We believe uh because we we think that this is not a two-minute drill that in some cases using competitive grants to incentivize really thorough usage particularly for your districts that are underperforming may be a a valuable tool. We think also that one of the biggest problems is that we have to figure out how to translate diagnostic
014assessments meaning I ready MAP whatever you have into well who goes into our tier 2 instruction right into tier three. In other words, which students are going to get which support on which materials at what point in time? easy for me to say, but I have yet to see more than a handful of districts in the around the United States who do this effectively, right? They look at their I Ready data, their MAP data, and it says, "Well, most of your kids are a grade level behind in a whole bunch of math skills. Thank you." Right? I like I didn't know that. Um, of course you knew that. question is do these students need the this prerequisite skill before unit four right of Eureka that that's the question the diagnostics have to answer and very
015frankly the the divisions need need your help right they need help in modeling that translation of diagnostic to usage if it isn't translated you'll get a mismatch you'll get kids sitting in tier 2 instruction who don't need to be there. Others who aren't there should be there and you'll get them misinstructed. You'll get them being given materials that don't link to their HQIM, right? And then they're going to get two kinds of math and they're just going to be confused, right? Uh the same with tier three and the same with tutoring. Often the tutors have no idea what's going on in the main classrooms. More incoherence. So, we have to tighten this whole system up so that there's a very easy throughine. Um, it has been done. I mean, that I'm not a a fan
016of everything that's happening in Houston, so don't misunderstand me. There are some issues there we we don't want to get into. But there's no question that the the students are taught the critical prerequisite skills they need in good time so that the access to that rigorous material is made more effective and the teachers have more confidence that they can teach it. So I think the the the crucial point I'm trying to make here and I would leave you with is granular effort counts. Right. It it it's not glamorous this work, but it's crucial. Right. It it's that really school by school, division by division work that says yes, we've got a sense of our bell schedule. We've got our tier one, our tier two, our tier three. We know how to use the diagnostics. we
017know how to put kids into those uh you know help in into those areas of help into differentiated instruction in the right way at the right time. So thank you and we're here to answer any and all of your questions. >> So I have some questions but I'll let board members go if you before me if you'd like. Dr. Northern, I'm sure you have questions. I just start with Dr. Northern because it just makes Yeah. Go ahead. >> I'm actually just curious about how you guys see um highquality instructional providers using AI so far >> since that's what's top of mind for everyone and whether it's going to make differentiation and customization easier and how >> great. So first of all uh on the professional development given by publishers I do want to uh give
018you a little bit of news from Tennessee which is that they've introduced a system where part of the payment to those publishers for the PD is resultsoriented. They don't get paid the last part of their contract unless the students meet outcome targets. I think that's very exciting. The best work we've seen on AI is supplemental to the core HQIM curriculum. It hasn't yet come much in those curriculum themselves. So for example, there's really exciting research for a software called course mojo that sits next to the HQIM in ELA and really gives students realtime practice while the teacher is focusing on the the big needs groups. So that's one. uh Zern which sits on top of Eureka. Again, we've got external John's Hopkins research, we didn't do it, but our colleagues did that shows it supercharges
019that HQIM using computer diagnostics, right, with AI to say to the child, you need practice on this skill now, right? Otherwise, you're not going to understand what's coming up. So, I think the answer to your question is it's a work in progress. we can recommend three or four of these uh interventions. I would say we've wasted billions on stuff that doesn't work where we have zero research and that's embarrassing just like we've wasted billions on professional learning that's generic and not linked to the curriculum you're teaching. But I think we'll see more and more of this. The best is when it works with the teacher, right? not shunting the kid off and staring at a screen in some separated experience. >> Other questions? Anyone? Now it's time to go here. Uh so I um am
020so thankful for this presentation. I think it really grounds us in directional um sort of where we need to go moving forward. helps not only the board with some direction but also it gives our staff at the department um quite a bit to think about in moving forward. Um I do think that um there again I'm going to kind of double down on what you both said which is you know we can lead a horse to water but we can't make them drink. Um, and so we can provide, you know, schools, school divisions, um, can provide all of the most wonderful materials that could ever be published in our lifetimes. And if it is not practiced and taught to those who are going to be teaching our students and if it's not repeatedly practiced. So
021you know it's that continuous professional learning that really really helps for the teacher to hone not only their craft in the content but also their continual um just professional maturity uh as an instructor in general. Um, and so I think it's really important for us to to talk about more in depth and maybe you all want to talk about this too, just what it means to ensure that our instructional leaders in our buildings, principles, assistant principles, whomever will be the evaluator of teachers knows and understands the curriculum that is being delivered in every classroom deeply enough that they're not simply going into to a classroom to evaluate a teacher on uh their ability to uh you know their classroom management skills. Our outcomes that we are looking for are not based on a teacher's ability
022to have uh you know very successful classroom management. While that is a piece of it, we are we are very intent on ensuring teachers know how to deliver their content. And that's something that I think we've got to start with our classroom princ our our building principles, assistant principles and evaluators on before we can move into really um aiming this professional learning, continuous professional learning at our teachers. Mhm. So, we would concur. And I just want to give one example and then let David respond to look at the state of Louisiana, which had been historically one of the lowest performing states in the country. When John White was the state superintendent, his agency made curriculum the one thing, highquality materials and instruction. And every meeting they had focused on that. And this is a local
023control state. V um Louisiana is. And they still created the conditions from the top. Created the conditions to make what they called make the best choice the easy choice by procurement mechanisms by holding annual summer institutes for teachers and principles to practice the materials. They aligned their professional learning around the curriculum. They aligned their teacher prep programs. they started to around those there are all kinds of levers at the top that can create the conditions in your regions for high adoption and high implementation it's starts with the state it's also the regions it goes down to the principles and then the classroom as you mentioned Grace having curriculum aligned classroom walkthroughs and what they did in Louisiana which our team helped with is they aligned their state assessments with the most commonly used HQIM which
024had another effect of keeping teachers in the materials instead of leaping away to teach disagregated skills. >> So I want to stress a couple of elements. First, you have real authority over your teacher prep programs. You accredit them, right? They should be preparing teachers to understand why HQIM matters and how to teach it with real examples. You have one course, University of Virginia, but this is not enough, right? Uh you need to really get serious about supporting shifts and that's not easy because the faculty have no idea, right? I speak now as a former dean of a very large school of education. Uh and it's not a two-minute drill, but one of the things that Louisiana was able to do because 80 90% of the teachers were teaching the same curriculum, very tiny list that
025the ed schools could be motivated and told you will prepare the teachers to teach this. Um secondly as you have the adoption happening your funding contribution to professional learning can be isolated to classroombased observationalbased right learning and not takeaway workshops for weekends that you know have nothing to do with what's happening on Wednesday morning. So again, it's it's frustrating to have to be at that level of granularity sometimes, but otherwise such a it's such a waste of funds, frankly, of the of the public's purse. So that that's the second thing. And the third thing is to really focus on the fact that you will have master teachers who can lead the teams in your divisions, in your schools. I mean making a recognition even a professional recognition of that mastery and elevating those teachers so
026they can lead the change is again so much more effective than having people parachuted in from the outside. Right? If you you know your colleague, you respect your colleague. Again, it means figuring out how to identify those teachers, then giving them some recognition financially uh and enabling them to act as effective ambassadors. >> Just add that at one point Louisiana had two teachers from every single school who are being trained on how to look at curriculum and why it matters. Superintendent Gixson, I know you wanted to make a comment. >> Thank you. Well, we're so thrilled that you're here. Um, I want to recognize Dr. Angela Bird Wright in the audience who helped partner with you all to implement the survey and say, uh, I hope we are doing another survey this fall because I
027do know, um, when we did the survey, the board had not yet approved of our math textbooks. And so I'd be really curious come this fall, you know, 18 months in, what do we notice and what changes are and then continue to monitor that? Um, and the team has been really excited to be part of the CCSSO network. So, thank you for your thought partnership. Um, I know they have raved about those resources. We have just started some of the ELA observation tools um that you just noted um and still um moving forward on math um but we um have started to be able to observe classrooms for HQIM implementation. And just given our new board members, I just wanted to pause for a minute to make sure you all um since you weren't here
028when we did our legislative sort of overview that there is a new um law on the books um HB277. Um and this one is really exciting. There's two prongs to it. Um first starting next month we have some focus groups and surveys underway um with experienced teachers, division level content specialists and subject matter experts really looking at current textbook review um and where we have areas for improvement and evaluation. Um and then ultimately getting towards um shifts moving forward um with um use right and adoption of highquality instructional materials um and phasing in uh by July 1st of 2026. And so there's more here. Our staff is here in case the board has additional questions on that. and obviously hoping we're close partners with John's Hopkins on all of that work. Um, but I wanted
029to make sure you all knew this is especially timely with some of the work we've been progressing on over the last year at the agency, but also with the new law and continuing to look forward. Um, and I do know from a few superintendent who have asked about where they have developed in-house highquality instructional materials um, and are getting results for students. I'd love to hear your reactions on um if there are other states who have also led on sort of a rubric or if John's Hopkins evaluates some of those materials um where uh >> we can make sure that we're still keeping that high bar on high quality instructional materials, but you're not necessarily penalized for not having to go seek a outside curriculum if you feel like you can demonstrate what you've produced
030inhouse and it's um getting outcomes for all kids. So, that question has uh come up on my phone since your presentation went live. So, would welcome that >> um without uh chatting with the team yet, but I figured I would put it out uh for you to elevate for us. >> Uh three brief points. First, in the aggregate national data, the data we've seen, division created materials tend to not be as high quality as those that are produced with intentionality behind them. But there are exceptions. We have reviewed some outstanding district created materials and yes the institute has a a very very tough and enlivening review of ELA and social studies materials. We also do math as well to determine how high quality they are where there are gaps where they're excellent where they're exemplars.
031So yes, um number two is that um having a whatever curriculum is being used, if it's being used consistently, it's going to be you it's going to have a better effect than teachers selecting their way out of alignment. So, you know, just to be encouraged that divisions that have created their own curriculum, if it's deemed highquality, they should absolutely double down on that and make sure that there's alignment between classrooms, grade levels, and so forth. >> Yeah, agreed. And results speak louder than anything else, right? Results are results. Um the only issues are one uh unless you have a a teacher prep program that is tied to that division. It means you can't pre-prepare teachers to teach that material, right? So you have to do it inhouse, which is a lot more effort. And of
032course, you can't share tips across divisions, right? Um if if you have a lot of teachers teaching core knowledge for example in the early grade levels there's a huge body now of shared research tips techniques none of that's available to a a homegrown so if it works great um but there are some costs that come with it >> so I just I know I'm going to shake the earth with uh with this comment but as we're talking about how we're preparing teachers. Um, you know, our our traditional EPS are, um, you know, bringing our our new teachers out for sometimes five years, depending upon whether or not they're doing a bachelor's and a master's at the same time. Um, but you know, as I've continued to think about all of these things that we're asking
033teachers to do every day when they come in, I reflect on my own experience in my EP and it was largely pedagogical. >> Yeah. >> Right. Um, and so, however, I came out at a time when I had to have a contentspecific major alongside um, my educator prep program completion. um and that's not necessarily the case these days. So, you know, as the advisory board on teacher education and lensure is an advisory board to this board, um I think it would be um it would kind of behoove this board to hear from the two of y'all around how can we um and hopefully we have um professors and ed department chairs listening to this this morning. um you know, how can we reimag today's teaching because I think that's kind of where we are stalled
034a bit. >> Yes. >> Um and so I'd love to hear your feedback on that. >> So I disclosure, I'm on the board of Relay Graduate School of Education, but as Texas results show and elsewhere, they have the highest level of outcomes for their graduates in the United States. Why? because they've inverted the model, right? They the the conventional model is you do a lot of textbook reading. You read John Dewey for two years and then you get dumped into a classroom with some overh harried, overpressed mentor teacher and and an adjunct professor. I'm not exaggerating from the EP program who haven't been aligned and aren't trained. And we hope we hope and pray that that's some kind of professional learning. And of course it isn't. It's where medicine was in 1905. Very frankly, what
035Relay and other innovative programs have done is flipped the switch and said, "Look, the clinical has to be the core." Right? Your own program uh had realized that, but it's very rare, right? So, the seminars, the readings are based on at best videotaping of you in front of your students, right? And even if you can't video, the person who's teaching you should be watching you in your practice teaching. Right? So the more we can switch the the emphasis from reading, reading, and reading, right? It's like if I want to get better at tennis, I don't just watch Roger Federer on a video. I mean, it's very exciting, but I got to learn to throw the ball up straight, right? And the only way I'm going to do that is to have somebody help me actually
036watch me do it and get me to be better. So there's a lot to be done in terms of reducing that textbook learning and increasing the clinical learning time. And then secondly, I wish that this state could take national leadership in certifying mentor teachers, right? in actually recognizing as do by the way all the leading educational nations in the world go to South Korea see how they do it certifying mentorship as a professional development line as a growth professional opportunity for teachers so that it's not some second thought right it's it's crucial because last thing I'll say the most damage to an American child in school is done by first year teachers I if is that a madam president may I speak into that a little bit? >> Yes. >> Yeah. But because I have
037a little history with this from also my time at a university and um there were some challenges in in doing this in Virginia in that we couldn't relate the assessment data >> to the individual student teaching >> right >> student teach. So you all are familiar with this. So CAPE and I was actually on some accreditation teams for CAPE and ENKE which is part of the EP prep program. And um when you talk to colleagues in other states, they were able to access that data and tie that student teacher to the assessment data, right? >> Uh because they do require to show progress in K12 learning. Uh we also my last year there uh kicked off edpa which is the videotaping um that you're talking a lot of unique things trying to kick off uh
038that first year and they've come a long way with it. But again, it's another component that I don't think is required um for our institutions of higher ed right now, but maybe should be um because it does the clinical piece that you're mentioning. So, >> absolutely concur. Um I I want to go back to something that um President Cesy said about the content, the subject matter mastery, because to David's point, all of the high-erforming nations in the world have two things required of teachers. Number one is clinical. Number two is indepth content knowledge and background knowledge about the subject actually drives pedagogy because it's impossible to lead kind of dialogical instruction in the classroom where you're you're socratic seminars if you will if you're not comfortable with the background knowledge. So making sure that every
039teacher in your classroom is knows where each subject is going, focusing on the content and then the clinical. Those are the two pieces that high performing systems have used for decades. >> Very quickly on that in this country, we know that a great percentage of elementary school teachers went into that profession because they love children. They may enjoy the arts. They probably enjoy literature. One thing they almost never enjoy is math. I mean, we have a a level of math phobia among our elementary school teachers that translates into disastrous national results in math. I mean, I I use that word carefully. We're in the 30s in terms of the the rankings internationally in mathematics. And it starts young. So some of the tests we use for new teachers to assess their math, they're out ofd.
040They don't represent the kind of rigor um the the national experts on this issue say for example that elementary math teachers simply don't understand why the children are making the mistakes they're making. Right? And if you don't know that, you can't teach them effectively. So the math is an special problem uh because it's not just lack of knowledge, it's antipathy for the subject. >> Dr. Dr. Northern. >> Yeah, just another quick question. Um I'm a little I get concerned that we don't have a strong enough knowledge base behind HQIM. >> Y >> um I know we kind of rely on ED reports and a lot of that's inputs based and not outputs based. So, and we know that there's not an incentive for curriculum uh vendors to, you know, give their curriculum to the what
041works clearing house and have it evaluated or to pay for an RCT, >> right? >> Um, what efforts are you guys seeing nationally to bolster the rigorous research behind HQIM that's more outcomes based? >> So, the first real RCT came from uh charter schools, unfortunately. Um I don't say I I love charter schools when they when they work for kids. I love all schools, any school that works well for kids. But David Griezma who did the work found that core knowledge had outside gain and that wasn't RCT but it was in the context largely of charter schools. Then Tom Kaine did his work and what he found was that teachers weren't using the materials. The headline was there was no increase in results. But the real finding was that fewer than a quarter of the
042teachers were using these materials for anything approaching right what they were supposed to. The best proof points are individual districts, right, like Houston, um, like Duval, which was one of the first, and states. So, Louisiana and Mississippi. Uh, you all know the Mississippi miracle. It's actually not a miracle. I was there and had the privilege of being when I was commissioner in New York sitting down with Carrie Wright who's now in Maryland but was of course at Mississippi and she had this huge table with her 112point plan for implementing HQIM in Mississippi 112. And I I remember laughing to my shame um because I no one's going to make this happen. Well, she did. My point is that those two states were among the worst performing in the country and Louisiana Ashley has mentioned went
043allin, right? They they really said we're going to have a coherent system. We are not going to have 30, you know, 50 uh bad curriculum. We're going to train the teachers on it. We're going to teach it and for at least a time we're going to test it. That's a whole other story, right? Um Ashley mentioned briefly our ELA tests are tests of nothing in particular, right? They are totally SCES tests. I I mean they're highly correlated with SCES because they're really tests of background knowledge. If you know what the passage is about, you can find the main idea. If you don't, you can't. Right? If we would do what most countries do, which is actually test what kids read and then give them an unseen text, they would, you know, the gaps would close.
044So bottom line, you're absolutely right. We need more research, but the problem has been that with the partial exception of Louisiana, Mississippi, we haven't had high implementation. So there's been nothing to research. The reason David Grismo went to those schools was he knew that those charter schools were really teaching that curriculum, right? He had the ground level data. So he could say, "All right, I'm going to randomize between those kinds of schools >> and I'm going to see the difference, right? The schools that are using core knowledge, the the ones that aren't." >> And he found major effect sizes. I mean, really strong effect sizes. So I would say that it's it's a young science in this country um because we have a great deal of resistance to to usage. Um, but I I think
045Louisiana is your best guide. And I'll close by saying this. It was the only state that showed progress through co, right? I that's a remarkable achievement. >> I just want to add something to your your question, Dr. Northern, about the clearing house issue. So in math the ed reports um evaluates the skills and standards but in ELA where at we love ed reports in ELA and social studies in the humanities subjects there's a vast difference between content knowledge and skills and so ed reports is a wonderful gateway for standards alignment but in our judgment in the humanities background knowledge is the key to closing achievement gap. So we really believe that research there's quite a lot of research much of it done by Dan Willingham here um Edie Hirs internationally certainly when we study international
046education the content knowledge is what we see so our institute does have these knowledgerrich reviews of materials which we're happy to share um some of them are not public but that is a clearing house of sorts the knowledge matters campaign in ELA has reviews of whether or not curricula are intentionally building knowledge and that is really worth a lot the knowledge matters campaign. So I would commend that we have done some early research on the impact of witten wisdom on student success and happy to talk about that. It's not an RCT because of course it's hard to design an RCT. But finally, there's a new organization, a new nonprofit called Cambiar that is funding RCTs of some of the best knowledgebuilding ELA materials. So, we're very much looking forward to what they find in the
047field. >> And the most powerful evidence actually does come from abroad. So when France dropped its national knowledgrich curriculum, every sector of the student population over the next 10 years dropped dramatically in their scores nationally and internationally. But the most underprivileged children suffered the most. England did the reverse. they had a skills-based curriculum and they switched back to contentrich and they started climbing in Pisa dramatically. So I don't think there's any doubt. I do think that we you're right we need right those studies but we need the conditions on the ground to make them possible. Just one one brief comment from one of the studies that we undertook in a large suburban district is that we studied for three years the implementation of a knowledgebuilding highquality material. And we saw we saw number one that
048it took three years for many teachers to use it at scale routinely. Number two that principles were the crucial factor sort of the differentiating factor in whether or not teachers were really buying into it. Um and in another study of the same materials, we did find that concerted efforts with one curriculum with PD alignment at the building level had positive academic signs for kids outcomes for kids and also for teachers in their sense of well-being and in their retention. >> Superintendent Gixson. >> Um thank you. This is incredibly helpful. I want to circle back to our educator prep programs. As you know, in Virginia, the Secretary of Education oversees um 56 agencies, including our community college system and all of our public higher ed institutions. And so, we sit in a little bit of a
049different spot than some of your other state partners. We also um are certainly big fans of Relay, but um as a Teach for America alumni, they are always known as a disruptor, right, and leading. And so I'm curious, I appreciate the plug for Louisiana and Mississippi from the department side, but I'm curious about which states really been leading on sort of the the state EP um shift effectively well because obviously relay's just always been known as sort of cutting edge and forward thinking. And I specifically I'm flagging that because there was the recent um NCTQ report. Um and some of our um presidents flagged that with Secretary Gada on you know it's specifically called out that Virginia's teacher prep programs are not including math pedigogy right um content in their programs. And so we just
050have this really ripe opportunity. the governor convenes with our council of presidents um every quarter and you just have some um interest that might not be as um accessible in other states and so I'd just be really curious sort of who's leading on that EP transformation versus they just started from the ground up as a disruptor. >> Yeah. So with the exception of Louisiana which has that very special situation because of years of of HKM and then of course Mississippi on the science of reading where they did the same holistic approach. Heather Pesky when she was deputy commissioner in in Massachusetts began to do really exciting work including certifying the men I mean thinking about what a certification program for mentors would look like. Um I I wish I could give you a longer list.
051I really do. I I don't think that the best practices frankly are to be found in the United States. Uh you you know obviously I'm a fan of relay but they are a disruptor. I think you know this this is one case where looking at what some of the best countries in the world are doing is is worth it. Um partly I think I'm going to put my neck out here. There's a politics here. When I was commissioner in New York, one of the great challenges I had with reforming teacher prep programs was that the teacher prep programs made money for schools, right? They were low overhead, high tuition and any effort to disrupt their current practices and they their presidents were calling the state senators and the state senators were protecting. I it's just
052just true. Um it it is notoriously difficult to move these institutions but I think it's notoriously difficult because boards of education have been reluctant to pull the lever of accreditation right I mean it's an old secret frankly that these national bodies almost never cancel accreditation they give you one chance two chances three chances right and Th this is this is it's not corrupt. Don't misunderstand me. It's just business as usual, right? To get tough with teacher preparation programs means sitting down with your your divisional heads and saying, "Here's what you need to be demanding from your teacher prep programs, right? um they should be requiring absolutely shared rubrics around the placement of clinical student teachers and not just have two languages that don't meet in the middle. So there's a lot of work that can
053be done if the state has the courage to do it. Uh I I did some advising with state leadership. We have plans. In the end, I have to say it's it's about political courage. Any other questions or comments here? >> Please. >> I just wanted to say thank you. This was wonderful. I I I'm trying to keep up with the notes, but I really appreciate y'all's expertise. So, >> thank you so much for the opportunity. >> Thank you. We are endlessly grateful for you all and the work that you've done for us. Um, and we hope to continue to do. So, thank you so much. >> It's an honor for us. >> Thank you. Um, and if we could take a quick five minute break before we move to the next item. Thank you. We
054are ready to move on with item B um international balora program. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, President Cesy, Superintendent Gullixson, and members of the board of education. My name is Amanda Nevetrol, director of the office of advanced learning at the department. As requested in an earlier board meeting, I am pleased to present today on international bal laurate programming in Virginia. We are also fortunate to be joined by a member of the IB organization team, Laura Lane. She will be presenting a few of the final slides focused on interdisciplinary instruction in the middle years program and how that work aligns with the IB diploma program and the IB career program. I will formally introduce her and the work that she does in support of Virginia school divisions. Shortly international bal laurate programming in Virginia provides
055students with robust learning experiences in the K through2 space. This program is highly regarded internationally as an accelerated personalized option for students that prepares them for the post-secary landscape. IB provides a comprehensive education for students that develop lifelong learners who thrive and contribute to a global society. Today's presentation will cover IB enrollment data in the Commonwealth, intended to enhance understanding of where specific IB programs exist in Virginia, the number of students enrolled in the various IB programs, and performance and professional development data. Then we will transition to dig into IB specific components of programming. On slide four, you see a color-coded map of Virginia. The divisions marked in blue indicate that an IB program is offered in one or more schools. The IBback laurate organization offers four different types of programs under the IB umbrella.
056This graphic displays the four different programs and the number of individual schools in the Commonwealth that participate. We will highlight each type of program on the following slides. The PYP or primary years program is offered in school divisions listed on the slide. This is a program for students aged 3 through 12 and provides an inquirybased transdisciplinary curriculum framework that builds conceptual understanding. The number of students at the top represents all students that attend a PYP school. As this is a full school model, meaning students enrolled in this school are automatically considered PYP students. The MYP or middle years program is offered in many middle schools and/or the first two years of high school in the school divisions listed on this slide. The my encourages students to make practical connections between their studies in the real
057world. Most NYP schools at the middle school level in Virginia also utilize the full school model, which is indicated by the number of students enrolled in my programs on the slide. To break that number down a bit more, approximately 8,500 Virginia students continue their journey in their ninth and tth grade year of high school. The CP or career program is offered in several school divisions in Virginia. This is the newest IB program and incorporates the values of IB education to address the needs of students engaged in career related studies that can lead to additional education, apprenticeships or employment. Students can earn a CP certificate if requirements are completed. Specific requirements for the CP will be covered later in the presentation. The DP or diploma program is offered in many school divisions in Virginia. As you
058can see on the slide, the number at the top represents students that are working toward the IB diploma and students that are opting to take one or more IB courses but may not wish to pursue the diploma. This number also includes CP candidates because as Laura will explain later, CP candidates are required to take two diploma program courses. On slide 10, the graph shows the growth of diploma program and career program enrollment since 2018. Virginia students are highlighted on the light blue line as compared to United States students as a whole on the dark blue line. As you can see, the light blue line showcases steady growth in IB participation in Virginia. I want to highlight a few facts on the right side of this slide. There are private schools in Virginia that offer IB
059programs, but most IB programs in Virginia are public schools. In total, this includes over 40,000 students. In May 2025, about 1,500 students were projected to earn an IB diploma and approximately 4,000 students were identified as diploma program course candidates, meaning those students took one or more IB courses through the school year. On slide 11, I would like to share a bit of performance data and additional information about IB teacher professional development in Virginia. During the last school year, over 15,000 IB exams in 45 different subjects were taken by public school students in Virginia, with the majority earning a score of four or better. At most Virginia universities, a score of four or higher is recognized for college credit per the Chevic. The department continues to work with Chev to better standardize credit transfer policies across
060Virginia universities and community colleges. On the second bullet, you can see that IB students from the United States and other countries are actively applying to Virginia universities and outofstate institutions as well. We do like are happy to report that 71% of Virginia IB students do remain in state. And finally, I want to highlight that professional development is an integral part of success in a high in an IB school. Last year, many Virginia teachers attended an IB professional development workshop, and I have the exciting opportunity to sit beside IB teachers from Fairfax next week to attend a similar PD opportunity. It is also noteworthy that a little less than 200 Virginia teachers are members of the IBEN and are active examples of teacher leadership in the IB community. I want to transition a little bit and
061extend a warm Virginia welcome to Laura Lane. She is from the international back laurate organization and currently serves as the IB world school senior manager supporting all public IB schools in Virginia, Delaware, DC, Mississippi, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. She previously worked in Falls Church City as an IB coordinator and brings her expertise to the board today to discuss NYP requirements, interdisciplinary frameworks, and DP and CP requirements. And we will both be happy to take questions after the conclusion of the presentation. Good morning everyone. We'll start on the next slide. The NYP offers a framework of teaching and learning and assessment designed for students aged 11 to 16. In Virginia, the MyP is most typically offered in grades 6 through 10, while there are a few schools or divisions that offer the MYP
062exclusively in grades 6 through 8. The framework requires students to take courses in eight different subject groups. a language acquisition course such as Spanish or Mandarin, a language and literature course which is English in Virginia, an individuals and societies or history course, a science course, a mathematics course, an arts course, a physical and health education course, and a design course which teaches students the design cycle for innovation and problem solving. These eight courses are taken each year by NYP grades 6 through eight students and NYP grade 9 and 10 students have some flexibility to take just six of the eight required subjects due to the nature of high school scheduling. In each year of the my teachers are asked to design at least one interdisciplinary learning experience for students. Students are also expected to engage
063with their community through service, guest speakers, or field trips to enhance their learning experiences and connect learning to their community. Through community engagement, students and teachers have agency to determine what is important within their local context. Finally, the MYP community project in grade 8 and the MYP personal project in grade 10 promote academic rigor and engagement in learning. Both projects are aligned with rigorous learning objectives. The NYP personal project is internally assessed by the school staff and then a sample of student work is provided by the school to be externally moderated by IB trained examiners. This helps to ensure the school's learning is aligned with the IB's rigorous international standards. In the NYP, teachers plan and students engage in at least one interdisciplinary learning experience each year. Interdisciplinary teaching and learning integrates subject specific knowledge
064with a synthesis of understanding across the subjects. It connects disciplines to develop new understandings and address real world issues or create new products that would have likely been un would have been unlikely through a single approach. An interdisciplinary unit of instruction assesses students abilities to evaluate, synthesize their knowledge, and reflect on their understanding. An example of an interdisciplinary unit taught in Henriiko school division synthesized knowledge from physical and health education and science. In this grade six unit, students explored the intersection of science and technology by participating in fitness stations modeled after NFL training. They collected and analyzed data to make informed decisions about drafting players and optimizing nutrition for peak performance. Then they created presentations to demonstrate their understanding of how scientific innovations can enhance athletic performance and influence decision-making in sports. Another example comes
065from the seventh grade class at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Arlington. The students through their science and civics classes completed an Earth Day interdisciplinary unit. The goal was for students to learn how citizens can influence environmental policy. Students learned content and concepts in their respective courses and then synthesized their learning through poster presentations and a town hall meeting with Congressman Don Byer where they were able to ask their questions about environmental challenges. On the next slide, we will learn about the DP. The MYP offers an opportunity for trans for transition to the DP. Students have choice within the diploma program to participate in the full program or participate in DP courses of interest to them. The DP is offered over a required 2-year period in grades 11 and 12 in Virginia schools. During those years,
066schools have the option to offer any number of the over 50 DP courses available to students. You may view the full list of courses at the link available on the slide. There are six overarching subject groups and students must take at least one course in each subject group with the exception of arts which may be replaced by taking two courses in another subject group. For example, in the individuals and society subject group commonly known as history, students could take history of the Americas, psychology, or economics to name a few of the options. The arts subject group is also flexible area for schools and students. For example, if a school has a strong science program, students might opt to take two science courses like physics and biology instead of taking one science course and one art
067course. Building on the MYP, schools can offer interdisciplinary courses in the DP such as environmental systems and societies, which effectively combines science and individuals and societies concepts, or literature and performance, which combines literature and the arts. The DP requires three core projects of full diploma candidates. The first is a course scheduled during grades 11 and 12 called theory of knowledge. During this course, students reflect on the nature, scope, and limitations of knowledge and on the process of knowing. The course is designed to encourage students to reflect on the central qu question, how do we know? And explore multiple plausible answers to the questions. There are two assessment tasks in this course, an exhibition project and an essay, giving students the opportunity to demonstrate their learning in different ways. Building on the MYP community engagement component,
068DP students participate in creativity, activity, and service, fondly known as CASS, where they engage with their community in a variety of ways and reflect on their experiences. This component supports the holistic nature of learning in the high school setting and often connects a student's extracurricular choices to their learning experiences through reflection. The final DP core project is the extended essay, an academically rigorous independent research paper presented as a formal piece of academic writing. Students have agency to select from the list of available DP subjects to connect their research question to, and they are supported by a supervisor at their school who offers guidance and encouragement through the research and writing process. In 2013, the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning and Higher Education conducted a study exploring the benefits of the extended essay
069for university students at the University of Virginia. The researchers concluded the students who undertook an extended essay in high school felt more prepared than others to conduct research in college. Some examples of extended essay research questions from Washington Liberty High School in Arlington include to what extent did the CO 19 pandemic impact the restaurant industry in the Washington me metropolitan area. This was an economics paper. How did the application of trigonometric principles help Capernacus come to the conclusion of a heliocentric model? This was a math paper. To what extent can a machine learning model be optimized to improve stock price prediction performance? This was a computer science paper. How does respect or lack thereof within teacher student relationships affect student learning and growth? This was a social and cultural anthropology paper. To what extent do
070the formal qualities and values of ancient Greek and Roman architectural design influence Lorenzo Bernini's sculptures and architectural structures? This was a visual arts paper. Moving on to the career related program. This is another option that students in Virginia have in grades 11 and 12. And this is a pathway that allows students to demonstrate learning that goes beyond just academics. Similar to the DP, students in the CP take courses over two years. They are required to take a minimum of two DP courses from any of the six DP subject groups as listed on the DP slide. And they take a personal and professional skills course where they explore the content, context, concepts, and skills ingrained in their chosen career related study or career and technical education pathway. The CTE is offered by the school or division
071and must have an element of external examination like the DP. CP students also have three core projects. CP students complete a language and cultural studies project that allows them to inquire into and reflect upon personal linguistic and cultural repertoires through journaling. Community engagement activities support students learning from, in, and with their community. Through the reflection and journaling process, students respond to relevant opportunities or challenges in their lives. Finally, students complete a reflective project designed to support inquiry between their career aspirations and ethical situations. The reflective project requires students to write a holistic reflection essay of approximately 1,000 words and present their project to expand oral communication skills. Thank you so much for your time today and I believe we are open for questions. Are there any questions here on this presentation? I have some. Dr.
072Northern go. >> Okay. Um so my first question is um well it's kind of a series of questions related to the same thing. Um how are we or how are schools that are IB schools are are they participating in the actual IB review? So are they authorized by um the international balorate program? Do they all have and h and continue to be reviewed for ongoing um uh standards alignment? I I I'm interested there. Um and how how broad is that? But I know you've given us some examples here of um some interdisciplinary projects and units that have been undertaken at at particular schools, but having a child that just finished um middle school in an IB program, um it was uber holistic. And so just ensuring that with the outcomes that you're talking about or
073the the statistics about how successful students say that they feel coming out of IB programs, just making sure that those programs are taking a holistic approach and not a one-off. Um, you know, I know that kids can choose whether they want to take an IB level course or not in some instances. Um, are we encouraging in Virginia that more IB program holistic approach or sure if you want to take honors or IB, you could take that course in honors or IB? Do you follow what I'm asking? Okay. I don't know who wants to answer that. >> Well, I think Laura can probably speak a little bit more to the IB evaluation process and the candidacy candidacy process, I think, specifically. Um and you know we we I feel like IB is only been you know
074recently um represented at the department within the past year. So I think we have some work to do there. Um but really have been reaching out to connect with different IB coordinators and talk about best practices in the IB community um to talk about that holistic approach. But I'll let Laura speak to exactly what the evaluation and candid candidacy process looks like. Like Amanda mentioned, we have been building our support for school division leadership over the last year. Um I would say we started with momentum about two years ago and last year we really got some momentum with the connection with Amanda. So that is really exciting for us. The candidacy process starts when a school signifies to us that they're interested in becoming an IB school. They will go through a period of time.
075It can last anywhere from a year to three or four years depending upon the school's readiness to move forward with their verification visit. Once they are authorized, we come back and we evaluate the school every 5 years. They do have myself as well as other staff members at the IB as a continual point of contact. So, we are able to support them um answering questions. We uh provide guidance. We meet with principles. We meet with IB coordinators at schools and we uh help guide them. We help onboard new IB coordinators and new principles when they come on board. I think the other le layer here, there's an interim layer is the net the very strong network of IB schools in the state of Virginia. All of the um schools in Virginia belong to the Mid-Atlantic
076Association of IB World Schools, which is a local nonprofit that includes DC and Maryland schools as well and allows coordinators and principles to come together quarterly throughout the school year to network with each other. And so they have that informal peer-to-peer support in addition to the support from the IB and coming back to ensure every five years that the school is still meeting our minimum expectations and we provide them with suggestions for further development at their school of their program. >> And so speaking of that those suggestions for further development, how's that continuously monitored um for compliance? >> It's a great question. So we we try not to refer to it as compliance. Um because >> right so we give schools agency because we know that research says that if schools own their goals that
077they are going to more likely to achieve their goals. So we have a pro a process called program development planning and that is something that I engage with the school leadership on in a continuous basis. It has been um it was introduced in 2020, September of 2020, which was not a super great time for schools to take on a new process because of the COVID pandemic, but we have been slowly bu building momentum since then. And I think that schools really own it. They we monitor that process. Every year at the five-year evaluation formally, but informally, we have formative check-ins annually with schools just seeing how are you doing, what supports can we provide? And if they determine uh that they need to shift their priority to a new goal, they have a new curriculum
078standards or they have a new principle with new ideas, then we fully support that and we help them draft a new plan to move forward. >> Thank you. Are there any other questions? Dr. Northern. >> So, I am a big fan of the IB program. Um, it is just uh nationally considered just a shining star in terms of the program that it provides to to kids. Um, I'm super excited that you've getting some traction in Virginia. Um I see this as one way in which we can continue to widen the pipeline of our you know high achieving kids and our kids who are um in advanced um course work that we want to obviously we're trying to incentivize that in middle school. Um I'm looking at the numbers. I don't know if there's any way
079that we can incentivize schools to participate um and you know help support them to do what they need to do to be an IB school. Um it looks like we've got um 11 primary schools in the primary program which is barely 1% of our elementary schools in the state. So that's a really low number. So I'd love to see us be able to um get that number up because again we know that we need to intervene early for kids to be able to have these more advanced opportunities and I see this as one way that we can begin to broaden that pipeline. Um I'm noticing too that we have 27,000 uh middle schools um middle school kids participating. Um but we that goes way down, right? Then we lose them like immediately. Then then that
08027,000 kids in middle school turns into 4,000 I think in the diploma program. Um so we're have a massive drop off, right? So, we want to continue to make sure that these numbers bolster year after year and at these different um stages. And then it looks like we've got barely 10% of our middle schools participating. So, these are really low numbers, I guess. And I get that you guys are just starting. Um but whatever we can do to, you know, incentivize these um schools to participating, I think is great because it goes along with our larger plan um in terms of our vaccal group and what we're trying to do in Virginia. Um, and this is I didn't even realize IB started in primary school. So, the fact that you guys have such a program
081um is huge. So, I'm just that was a long way of saying that I love that you're here. I love that we're trying to uh bolster our numbers and I see this as perfectly fitting into a larger vision that we have in the state. So, thank you for what you're doing. >> Thank you. We're also excited about continued growth in the future. Other questions or comments? >> Superintendent Gixson. >> Thank you. Um Laura, this question is for you. From the other states that IB has partnered with, just as a preview for Amanda and I, um sort of what's the percentage of schools that maintain their IB program year after year versus maintain it for a few years and drop off? Like are there high consistency rates? I will have to get back to you on
082a state level data. I don't know that off top of head. I do know that my department, we are very proud that we have about a 98.2% retention rate year-over-year globally. Um, but that includes all of the IB schools around the world. So, I can certainly look that up and pass it to you through Amanda. >> All right. Thank you guys so much. Appreciate it. >> Um, so we will go on to Item C, Miss Ba. >> Good morning, President Cesy, members of the board. It is my honor to be with you today to share an update from the department on Virginia education funding. Today I will be reviewing the investments that have been made specifically for education from fiscal year 2023 to fiscal year 2026. Federal flexibilities that are available through the US Department
083of Education for our federal funding and upcoming in support and training for our local school divisions. As we start to go through the slides, um over the next few slides, we will h I will highlight the investments that have been made specifically to public ed um since Governor Yncan took office in fiscal year 2023 through today. Looking at slide four, there have been targeted investments specifically for school construction in the amount of $1.8 billion since fiscal year 2023. These investments have been made through the school construction assistance program, often referred to as SCAP, the literary fund loans, and school construction grant programs. The school construction assistance program provides funding to school divisions and does not require repayment by school divisions to the state. Last year, the board of education updated their guidelines for this program
084to include regional CTE centers as a potential recipient of the funding. We are currently in the process of drafting further revisions to allow flexibility for school divisions to access funds and utilize these funds specifically for innovative construction projects in schools. Literary fund loans allow school divisions to leverage the state's triple AAA bond rating when it provides access to funding for school divisions that may not have the same bond rating in their local communities. These funds must be repaid back to the state to the literary fund. Looking at slide five. This is a super exciting slide to show the substantial targeted investments that have been made to public education and direct aid since fiscal year 2023 with $10.2 billion being invested for students. Significant investments have been made specifically for at risk, including prevention, intervention, and
085remediation funding, often referred to as PIR, in prior budgets, which was absorbed into at risk funding to provide maximum flexibility. English language learners. This is one to watch because this is an important lesson of why it's important to have data to make decisions to support changes in the funding model. The funding formula was modified to include a pupil teacher ratio by proficiency level which was data that was not collected by the department at the time of the decision. When the data was actually collected, the fiscal impact was recalculated and there was a need to add more funding in fiscal year 26 to support the funding model change. Special education programs have included special education add-on to provide funding to support special education students based on their disability levels in fiscal year 26. Lastly, compensation supplements
086have been provided to provide funding to support salary increases for SOQ funded positions in each fiscal year. Looking at slide six, local school divisions have access to title one, two, three, four, five funds. career and technology Perkins funds, special education idea funds, title one 1003A funds to provide support for school improvement and comprehensive literacy grants. For example, to support divisions, we have been evaluating and providing training on the ways that school divisions can blend and braid these federal sources along with their state and local funds to maximize the positive impact for students. We are thinking bigger and bolder with thought processes in operations and construction funding, transportation flexibilities which will be shared with you in an agenda item tomorrow and to maximize the use of funds to support students. Looking at slide seven, we have
087been working with school divisions to discuss and share how to pull reports from our grant management system, Omega, to see real-time reimbursement data and determine the progress of their burn rates to ensure that they are stretching funding across the federal grant cycle of 27 months. We are also helping school divisions consider priorities and determining if there are advantages of them blending and braiding funds and ensuring that school divisions keep in mind the requirement of federal funds to supplement versus supplant in their resources. Looking at slide eight, BDOE is also exploring possible flexibilities for nimleness to aim at maximization of dollars to support student need. Some school divisions currently use the transferability option to move carryover funds between their title two part A or title four part A into eligible programs to better align the funds
088with student needs. We are also in the process of evaluating the ability to leverage maximization of the direct student services support through title 1A funding to maximize the impact for intensive uh support schools needs intensive support schools. Additionally, there is an opportunity for us as a state agency to apply for what is called EDF flex through USD. This flexibility provides VDOE with the opportunity to select to wave select requirements of the federal statute or regulation that apply to school divisions or schools without having to first submit those to you. The US Department of Ed for review and approval before we do so as it relates to title grant funds. In the past, ed the Edflex waiver, as we have evaluated how it is commonly used across other states, they have most utilized the carryover authority
089waiver, which allows school divisions to carry over more than the 15% federal funds across fiscal years. We are also excited to partner with the newly established office of excellence and best practice to support all DVDE offices beyond the instructional team. Moving to slide nine. We are in the process of centralizing grant operations in the Virginia Department of Education. There will be more to come on this topic next month. We are working to ensure that we are aligning all competitive grants to board priorities with federal and state grant sources in an effort to maximize every dollar for students, offering opportunities for all divisions to apply for funding in a fair and competitive way. Um, as we move to the next slide, I'm going to exercise a point of personal privilege. Um, and this is a humble
090moment for me to share because my career has come full circle. So, as a practitioner for almost 24 years, 20 years being in a school division, as a honored two-time international award winner, Eagle and Pinnacle Award winner through the Association of School Business Officials, I have made it my mission to come back to this role at the Virginia Department of Ed to make an impact. And so, uh, the next few slides, it's hard for me to believe that I've been here for almost a year, um, back in this role. I visioned this in 2006 that this would be my function, and here I am. So, super excited. So, um, it is hard to believe that I've been here almost a year, but I'm happy to also share with you that Deputy Superintendent of Budget and
091Finance, Stacy Longest, is my partner in crime in this work. um we are doing some amazing things and making things come to life that I always wanted as a practitioner for the last 20 years. So one of the items that I made a mission as I came back to this role was the dire need for support from the Virginia Department of Education to the field. And so um this is a very proud moment as I go into the next few slides to tell you about the upcoming training and support opportunities that we are providing. It is our goal to make sure that we provide support to the field and to meet this goal we have a series of training that we have scheduled and actually began yesterday and some opport opportunities that are on the
092horizon. So as you look at slide 10 uh VDOE hosted their first lunch and learn series training for division superintendents and school business officials yesterday. There were 154 attendees. Um during this training we reviewed with them federal funding opportunities to maximize the use of funds and evaluate burn rates to extend across the entire grant performance period. We also next week will be hosting the second of our coordinators academy um August 4th and 5th in Norphick. This is specific for federal grant training. We will have two additional lunch and learn series August 21st to talk about US grant flexibilities, transferability and supplement versus supplanting. And then on September 11th, we will highlight the US ed flexibility and benefits and have a conclusion where we wrap up all the FAQs that may arise during our training session.
093Additionally, we are hosting office hours with our title one, two, three, and four teams August 11th and the 13th. And we are offering on September 10th Omega support training for our field. I am excited about this work and the support that we have and will continue to provide for school divisions. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today and to share the great work that is occurring in budget finance and operations. And I'm h happy to answer any questions that you may have. Are there questions for Miss Ba? >> No. No questions. >> Please. I just I it's just neat to see the investments being made into the school systems particularly given the changes and some of the standards that are being brought up. So it's neat to see the numbers. So appreciated
094the presentation. >> Mr. Hansen, >> I'd just like to echo that and just thank you for your leadership and um and I and I do think these are historic um spending levels that have taken place over the last three and a half years. And I think it is also not by itself and I think you referenced it too just with the implementation of our standards, our accountability uh system and really focusing on those things that matter most to really helping us dig out of the the hole of our learning loss from the COVID years. And I frankly think and I still um maybe in your spare time would love to maybe do a little bit of a historical look at um you know during those years we had historical spending with our ESSER and COVID
095funds like we've never seen before with the um $200 billion coming from the federal government and then we had our historic learning loss coincide with that and and even within the Commonwealth, we had the biggest drop in the country. And so I just um think in looking at really where we were and where we've come uh with these historic increases. And just one last note, and I I love this last slide too of your targeted work uh at the local level. I and even with some of the national focus on putting work back at the states, that's important, but it's even more important for the states to put it back at the local level and even more so back at the the parent and teacher level. So, I just really want to commend you for
096um what you've been about this last year to really help uh especially drive the financial picture in such a a great way not just for the Commonwealth, but really again where uh it matters most and that's at the local level. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Uh well, since I'll I'll wrap this one up for us. Um, Miss Burda, I know how valuable it is as a professional and personally to have those full full circle moments. And I would be remiss if I didn't say that I am so thankful not just for your professionalism and your commitment to this department and to the Commonwealth and to school divisions, but also to Superintendent Gullixson for elevating you and empowering you to do the things that you know the field is deeply needing. Um, and so
097I think that it only serves us as the board and the department um to do and res to do what the field is asking us to do to be responsive um and to be more than anything supportive of their needs. Um that are often more often outside of just handing money to them. Um to really showing them that we hear them. uh we know what they're living through every day and that this department is here to support them in whatever capacity we can do. So, I really truly thank you um for for your diving in over this last year um and really really taken your department into new places. So, thank you. >> Thank you. And I would be remiss if I didn't thank Superintendent Gooix. has um been refreshing to have support to be
098able to do what I know needs to happen in the field. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> We will I guess see you tomorrow. >> Yep. >> Um and so we are at a spot where is Amanda still here? >> Um let's go ahead and go to item E. Our um item D is actually not going to be prepared for us to engage via Zoom or Teams or whatever it is uh virtually until sometime between 12:00 and 12:30. And so we're going to try to move up um that last presentation on the e presentation before I guess maybe I'll see where we are with lunch and then we can kind of progress through our timetable here uh however we need to. if we get could just take a break
099really quickly, please, while we get those others set. Thank you. We will bring this meeting back to order. Um, and I would like to invite Amanda back up um for item E presentation on um the New River Valley Governor School proposal, please. Good morning. I have good afternoon in my notes, but it's still morning, I think. Um, good morning, President Cesy, Superintendent Gullixson, and members of the board. At the June meeting, the board voted to update the procedures for initiating an academic year governor's school, a crucial step in expanding opportunities for advanced learners. Today, I am pleased to introduce the planning committee for the proposed New River Valley Governor School for the Arts and Humanities. I have been working with members of this team for the past two years and am excited for them to
100share their proposal with you and answer any questions. and I am pleased to present this proposal for first review during the business meeting tomorrow. Thank you. And the president of Radford is going to kick us off. >> Thank you, Amanda. And good morning to Superintendent Gullixson and board members. We are so excited to be presenting this to you today. This has been a a project that we've been working on for about two and a half years to bring forward to you today. and uh we appreciate your your willingness to review this proposal and also we've got a great delegation uh together from the southwest uh Virginia area and we are just going to briefly introduce each person just in case questions come up and they answer them that you know who you're speaking with and
101Rob and I'm Brett Denovich by the way I should have introduced myself so county >> for county of the college of sciences. >> Good morning. My name is Adam. I'm superintendent schools in Rapid City. >> I'm Laura. I'm vice chair of the school board in Montgomery County. >> Good morning. My name is Rachel Williams and I'm director of >> All right. and we are going to have kind of a three-part presentation and we're going to keep this um not too long because I know you've got a very full schedule today. Um I'm going to start out with giving kind of a highlevel overview of what's happening in the school. Uh Superintendent Graham will then move into benefits for the school system and from that perspective and finally Roxanne will walk you through a parents perspective
102about what this means to ch her children and children in the area. So in starting with um about Radford University and its ability to host a governor school. So there are are seven summer governor schools in the Commonwealth. Radford University is the host for three of those. We host the Governor School for the Arts, the Art Governor School for the Humanities. You're probably sensing a theme there. And we also host the Governor's School for uh medical and health sciences up on our Rowanote campus. So while we don't currently host a academic year uh governor's school, the New River Community College does, they are a close partner. We have been developing this part uh this proposal in concert with them and we're taking advantage of their knowledge and logistics for what works for the same counties
103that we will be working with for the arts and humanities. So we do have the knowledge in our area of how this works. And in my background, I was at Florida Atlantic University for four years where they've got a fairly novel lab. They call it a laboratory school here. Translating that to Commonwealth Talk that is that is a a governor school and that's a highly successful program, nationally ranked uh school, public school that allows opportunities for students to directly participate in classes with university students and that is built on this. saw that experience and we are adapting that for our area of the state. So as you're aware um most governor schools are taught through uh a mechanism by which the courses are taught to other students in the governor's school and this is a
104little different. The financial model is largely based on students when they're taking university level courses they are occupying open seats in university courses. So the courses would be taught already but students are being added to it. Now that's a very high level overview. It's a little more complex than that but it makes this a fairly financially viable um mechanism or or way of teaching to implement. And you may wonder and others may wonder about high school students taking classes with college students directly. Florida Atlantic University my four years and all the years prior they never had any neg I'll say negative outcomes between university students and high school students it was a non-issue but part of that is how you prepare the faculty our faculty will be prepared to work with their minors in the
105classes we're going to have both educators overseeing the school and uh resources available for students and coaching them also what the appropriate behavior is for our school and please note for their sophomore year when they first start at Radford University. The students will be in a beautiful business building, but they'll be in classrooms there. When they're outside of class, they will be receiving tutoring there. It allows them to transition to what it feels like to be at a university to get the commuting in place, to get the knowledge of their classmates in place, their supervisors, so they don't have to worry about those details when they start university level class learning. Okay? So, it's a really helpful process that they're isolated that sophomore year. Uh, I will say self-contained at some level, right? Then they
106start mixing uh into different buildings on campus their junior and senior years and they're well ready for that experience. I believe what's really important for this is that students are going to take a track of interest to them in the arts or humanities and their courses will be in the arts or the humanities. So this is not where the students are taking a smorgish board of classes some outside their area of interest when they opt in for this program. And this is this is a a discussion with their parents. when they opt in, if they're interested in the arts and they take a track in the arts, they get courses at the university level in the arts, that is different than if you provide other courses that they have to take that they're not interested
107in. We want these students to be successful. If they're interested in the arts, the likelihood of them being successful in university level classes is very high. Then they have the confidence that they are ready for university level learning. Okay. It reinforces that they're able to do this type of work. And because we're partnering with businesses throughout the area, you've got a listing of some in the proposal, there's a lot more interest than that. The goal is to take whatever field they're interested in and show how it leads to a career. Yes, we want to map that to the southwest region, but obviously that is mapappable to to anywhere. So for students, the proposal would uh have them receive up to 30 credit hours by the time they graduate from high school, which in general would
108reduce uh the the or place them as a sophomore in a university because of the way accreditation works. Credits are transferable among institutions. We've partnered with NRCC. These credits would be transferable for an associates degree. For most institutions, they would all be transferable, but of course, every university has its own rules. They would certainly be transferable to Radford University. Okay? And the the last item that that I want to uh say for this is that as we put this together, we've been working on this for two and a half years. our campus, the communities around us are excited for this opportunity pro to provide parents and students the opportunity to select something that may be a best fit to excite their students, still getting them a high school degree, but really pressing them and challenging
109them them in other ways. So, that is my overview and I'd like to pass on to Superintendent Rob Graham. I'd just like to say too, it's uh very rare that uh you have the opportunity to work with a university president like President Brett and the new River Valley appreciates the school divisions there appreciate everything that you bring to us and the support that the entire team in and Rapid University provides to all of our schools. It it's very meaningful and beneficial for us. Uh good morning members of the board and superintendent Gullixson. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about a transformational vision, one that would significantly enrich the educational landscape of Southwest Virginia. I come to you not only as a superintendent, but as a voice for thousands of students across
110the newer valley who deserve the same access to advanced arts and humanities programming as their peers in more metropolitan regions. Today I am here to advocate for the creation of the Newer Valley Governor School for the Arts and Humanities located on the campus of Rafford University. The Newer Valley is home to a vibrant network of school districts, Pilaski, Montgomery, Radford City, Floyd, Giles, and beyond. Our students are talented, they are curious, and they are passionate. But what they often lack is access. access to advanced arts instruction, interdisciplinary human humanities programs, and pre-professional experiences that can set them apart in college applications and future careers. A governor school, especially one situated at a strong liberal arts university like Radford, would give our students a chance to grow in a rigorous college level environment. Currently, many of
111those students must travel hours or relocate for similar opportunities or worse, they simply go without. Your approval of this initiative would allow them to to would allow them the opportunity for school choice and access which our students need and deserve. While we deeply value STEM education, we must also recognize the transformation transformative power of the arts and humanities in shaping our critical thinkers, empathetic leaders, and cultural literate citizens. In a time of AI, automation, and global uncertainty, creative creative students and human understanding are more important than ever. The school would focus on visual arts, music, theater, dance, creative writing, literature, philosophy, history, interdisciplinary projects, blending arts, ethics, and civic responsibilities. That's a lot for our students. It would offer our students pathways into college programs like arts, arts administration, law education, public policy, and of
112course, the arts themselves. The value here isn't just career readiness, it's human readiness. Raph University is uniquely positioned to host this school with its strong college visual arts, performing arts department and its commitment to regional engagement. Rafford brings the following certainly a world-class faculty to serve as mentors and adjunct instructors facilities like state-of-the-art performance halls, galleries, and stu studios. I don't know if you all have been to Rapford University, but we've had a lot of construction there lately and it is absolutely gorgeous. And and for for Pilaski at least, I don't know about I'm sure Rafford, I was in Rapford, too. We have students who don't even get to those campuses. So, this would give them the opportunity to be there, too. Additionally, the university's central location within the NRV makes it accessible for students
113across multiple counties and with regionable transportation logistics. The Governor's School just isn't an academic opportunity. It's an it's an regional advancement strategy. Southwest Virginia has long been underrepresented in the state's advanced educational initiatives. Establishing the schools sends a clear message that artistic and intellectual excellence is not limited by ge geography or zip codes. And there's another benefit, talent retention. When we show our most promising students that their gifts are recognized and nurtured here, we increase the chances they will stay, contribute, and lead here in our communities, our local economies, our civic institutions. We're already in conversations with local school divisions, art organizations, and Rapid University to lay the groundwork for shared support, cost efficiency, and this would be a half-day model very similar to the other school divisions, other school school governors, other governor schools,
114allowing students to remain enrolled in their home schools while receiving specialized instruction at Raf University. We envision cross-d district transportation solutions, dual enrollment credit opportunities, grant-seeking partnerships for scholarships and programming. We are not asking for a blank check. We are asking for collaborative investment, one that multiplies in value through student achievement, regional pride, and cultural enrichment. We do have uh Dr. Joyce is here as the superintendent in Rapford City. We have complete support from Giles County, Floyd County, and McGomery County, too. So, all of us are deeply uh motivated to to make this happen for our students. In closing, I ask you to imagine the ripple effects of a school like this. The Mary Ingles Wild Wilder story highlighted by a Rafford High School student at a Glen Co Museum festival. A high school artist
115from Pilaski County High School publishing her first children's book. A young violinist from Blackburg High School performing on a university stage and a theater student from Floyd County High School discovering his voice and his purpose. This school can be a home for them, a launchpad and a beacon. I urge you to support the creation of the newer Valley Governor School for the Arts and Humanities. Not just for what it will offer students, but for what it will inspire in communities across our region. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your belief in the potential of every child in Virginia. We certainly appreciate that. Uh at this time, I have the honor to introduce Dr. Roxan Suma, who is a parent, but she's also a coordinator of uh special education Pilaski County School System, too.
116So, we're very lucky to have her as well. Thank you all for your time. Good morning, members of the board and superintendent Gullixson. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today in support of this proposed governor's school. As a parent, I see how this program can elevate the experience for students passionate about the arts and humanities while also honoring core values for families parent choice. It offers a meaningful option for students whose strengths may not align with STEM focused paths. For students gifted in the arts and humanities, opportunities to grow their passions can be limited, not by lack of effort, but by the natural constraints of geography and available resources. Our local schools work hard to support all students, but specialized university level experiences in the arts and humanities simply go beyond what most can
117provide. This would be the first governor school in our region focused on the arts and humanities, filling a gap that has existed for too long. That's why I'm urging you to approve the new New River Valley Governor School for the Arts and Humanities. This Governor School would be a gamecher for families in the New River Valley. It offers students up to 30 college credits, a full year of university level education at no cost to parents. That means a tuitionfree head start on both college and future careers. And as a parent, I welcome that opportunity. I believe that when programs are thoughtfully designed and well supported, our teenagers can rise to the challenge of college level learning. They are capable and in a safe, nurturing environment, as will be offered on RU's campus, they will thrive.
118But it's more than academics. This school provides realworld hands-on experiences through partnerships with theaters, museums, and civic organizations. Our children wouldn't just study history, they'd work alongside historians. They wouldn't just dream of performing. They'd be mentored by professional artists. That kind of engagement doesn't just prepare them for college, it prepares them for life. This school also offers balanced opportunities and gifted education, something I've experienced firsthand as a parent of two very different learners. You see, I have two children. My son is is passionate about science. He builds robots, codes programs, and dreams of becoming an engineer. For him, there's already a clear path, the Southwest Virginia Governor School, which focuses on math and science. But my daughter's different. She loves painting and drawing. She's passionate about dance and music theater lights her up. For too
119long, accelerated learning has centered almost entirely on STEM. Students like my daughter haven't had the chance to grow and shine in their areas of strength. With the creation of the New River Valley Governor School for Arts and Humanities, she would finally have access to the same level of advancement and enrichment that her brother can already pursue. I ask you for approval to make this vision a reality, not just for my child, but for countless students across Southwest Virginia who are eager for the opportunity to develop and share their unique gifts. Thank you for your consideration. >> We're open for questions. >> Okay, >> you all are welcome to those of you who presented to come back up to the podium so that we can direct questions to for the public's benefit they can hear if
120they answer through the microphone >> which I don't have on great uh are there any questions from board members >> not so much a question but more so a comment so I do want to say kudos thank you guys uh for your patience I think I heard it it's been two and a half years since you guys been working really hard and very diligently on this effort I love innovation I love new things. Um I think what you guys are doing are um is certainly definitely uh exceptional. Um I like the the what I heard earlier in terms of this transformational vision for New River Valley as you guys seek to create the best fit uh for your students in the region. I think that's so beautiful, so awesome. Uh and quite frankly, I think
121there should be more of this. And so I was very encouraged by your presentation. I just wanted to say to all of you, keep up the great work and uh hopefully sooner rather than later this will become a reality for you all. >> Thank you. >> Other questions or comments? Mr. Monk. >> Thank you. Echo those comments. I saw your four-year forecast. Um looks wonderful. 110 students and you talked about kind of capacity of classes. Is there a cap that you're envisioning uh aspirationally? So I will say that the cap is a is a delicate dance okay between two things. One is because schools just like all the other governor schools when uh the divisions send their students to participate they do underwrite some support for those students to participate. So so that will naturally
122cause a capp capacity for the program. Now that said the dance comes in the longer term for this. Let's just say that there's a whole lot of interest in that. We will have to supply some courses like English at cost because the number of students coming in, we will have to provide that. But there can be efficiencies with scale when if it grows beyond a certain size, we don't actually have to charge the school systems as much. That's the dream where we get to a point where it's getting more affordable for the school divisions and therefore it it it feeds growth. What that looks like in the end, uh, dream with me. Okay? You know, this could support hundreds of students and I believe it can get there, but it will take time like all
123things. >> Other questions or comments here? >> Dr. Northern. Um, so I am a Radford alum. >> Oh, yay. >> And I taught in Palaski County High School. >> So, I'm over here just like jumping for joy. Love that we have this new artist center and that you guys are thinking about how you can um utilize that center. So obviously I am all in on this because it's just amazing opportunity for that region of the Commonwealth. Um and also so proud of everything that you've done uh Brett at the university and stemming our enrollment loss, bolstering all that. I mean there's just such it's such a just special place that part of the Commonwealth. Um and my heart is is at Radford for so many reasons. That said, two quick questions. Um, can you explain
124in a little more detail the um, funding the financial model and um, I'm also wondering how we're making sure these high school teachers know how to teach these higher level courses because I do know that there um, I was trying to see if it was faculty teacher like how how the instructional what that looked like. So the financial model and the instructional model. >> Great. >> I can handle the financial I can do the instruction. >> You want to start with that? >> Both of us can handle the instructional. >> Why don't you start with that? Okay. >> Uh that was a really good question. Um and we feel very blessed in the newer valley to have teachers that really know how to differentiate. >> Um so we feel like that sophomore year is going
125to be more of an orientation learning period for them to be on campus and learning in that way. Um and then once they they feel comfortable and then move into the the higher level classes with the Rafa University professors, they will be ready to excel on that too. Uh Dr. Suma has been one who has has really kind of written the curriculum for that that sophomore year and worked with the uh deans here to uh decide really what the that's the semesters are going to look like. So I I'll I'll pass it on to you too. >> I think you did a great job. But um the sophomore year is really sort of a a high school acceleration almost similar to what you would find in advanced placement. So it's exposure to advanced learning but
126not throwing them into the deep end to go ahead and get those college credits. Now once they hit junior and senior year um there would be um professional learning opportunities for the uh the professors of the college courses to learn uh best teaching practices for high school students. So there would be some type of uh support in in that level to help. >> But the courses are taught by the high school teachers, right? >> The sophomore year. >> Oh, the sophomore year >> and then junior and senior year they're taught by the college professors. Yes, ma'am. >> Oh, okay. That's the key point that I missed. Okay. And one thing that we forgot to to neglect to tell you too is it's very crosscurricular as well. Um Rafford's known for a lot of RA University
127is known for a lot of good things, but they grow teachers. I mean, it it is a teaching school and and we suck those teachers up as superintendent. We really do. Uh but the opportunity to have some of those pre-teachers to go to work with our students in this in this situation and observe them and get really uh on on on time practice with them is just a benefit that we kind of found as we were going through the proposal. So, uh, we feel like that would be a wonderful thing for Rafen University students, too. And then it would also enhance our students, uh, in and getting to know those folks, those students on campus, too. >> And, and as as my colleagues identified, I mean, that really sets the school apart in that these
128are not courses, university courses taught by high school teachers. They are taught by university faculty. It's the real deal. Okay? It is the actual course. of the experience is an immersion university courses. It's exactly what it feels like. So therefore, they know they can succeed when they go to university because they've already had the faculty in the classes. Um so the financial ma model I I there's a lot of pieces to this. So I'm going to give you an overview and Dr. Northern you can ask as many follow-ups as you'd like. Okay. So, so on the on the start of this, like all governor schools there right now, what we have noted in is the charge for most of the governor schools uh for a student to participate is $3,850 back to the division. Okay,
129so that's what we have noted on a per student basis. Long-term growth, again, maybe we can bring that down, but that that is the current model. There's also uh Department of Education I believe has some kind of underwriting from the state to support on a per student basis what that is. Now that is not the same at all governor schools. Okay, it's a little bit different. So we've gotten an an estimate um on what that amount would be. So I think we've got that pencled in as $2,900 per student. Okay, that is the amount that is the inputs into the system. Okay. Now, the first year we are going to be um all things to get them started are an investment. So, as you'll see on the the financial model, this shows a loss for
130the first two years. Um it's unavoidable. Okay, we have to hire a director. We've got to hire a teacher, get them organized, get them set up, and there are no students at that time, right? So, so that that's a cost. the first year when there are 40 students in the sophomore year. Again, we are paying full costs to have the model set up including the busing and the only income is based on those 40 students. Roughly speaking, when those students are juniors and we're estimating about 75 students in the program, roughly it is costneutral. Okay. When you see the senior year withund 110 students estimated to be in this there's a line that is written down as overhead you can think of that as the amount that is going back to the institution that is
131offsetting the costs for instruction I believe the way that's documented there it's just north of $200,000 okay 110 students taking all these courses that's what's coming back to the institution should that can this is not intended as a money-making effort Okay. Um, we want to make sure though that we're able to offset the costs coming in because I do have a budget that prior prior prioritizes university level learning and it's I can't directly subvent a K12 system. That said, we don't intend to make money. So, just as we're able to grow and keep it cost neutral, that's where we hope to lower costs on a per student basis if we can keep the program growing. So that's how it works on balance and and again there are no costs to students themselves or parents. Okay.
132All all the supplies the books would be covered by the institution. >> Thank you superintendent. >> Thank you President Crazy. Well first thank you. Um this is so exciting. Uh Amanda will keep me honest but I think this is our first governor's school since 200 >> 15 years. nine. Yeah. >> Okay. So, huge deal that the board is taking this up and I just love how much you've listened to parents and your community around where are gaps on innovative options that are student centered and driven around what student need is. And so, um I love that focus and appreciate your thoughtfulness on the freshman and sophomore experience and then expanding that. I think that is such an exemplar model for others around the Commonwealth to learn from for that transition into being full-time higher ed
133students. Now, you know, we work closely with Chev uh and so we've been really thinking about how can we make it even easier for students and families on direct admission when we are championing merit opportunities and students are demonstrating college readiness. And so I'm curious how students that would participate in this governor's school, is there direct admission pathways that you all have decided on for Radford or other opportunities? Should that be of interest? >> Are you able to speak to that? >> Well, not not that we have formalized to uh it's something that we've discussed with the planning committee and something that we're very very interested in. Uh but we also need to continue work with Amanda to make sure that that when we do head it that way that we're doing it the right
134way so that we don't have to go back and revamp it again. >> Superintendent I I I appreciate the question. One of the things is when we start this we really want to start it in such a way that all students that participate are successful. Right? worst thing is a person has a bad experience when they start the university and that that has a lot of feedback into their families in their in in their life right so we have direct uh access for Radford University now right if a student has a 3.3 uh grade point average and I think they've passed college algebra 2 okay you know they're in right they they can join the the difference with this is it it's probably aspirational to get there because the concern is if a student has
135a grade point average or they've taken a class and they come in studying university level classes even with a year preparation and starting that in your junior year it does take a level of um independence and drive to be successful and so I we'd have to sit as a group and figure out what that would look like because I do love the suggestion in that every time we can remove a barrier for students they're more likely to participate All right. And that's that's, you know, in almost every situation. So that that would be great for us to get there, but defining what those conditions are because it might be if you get an A in this course or, you know, in in high school, you're ready. But but it's just going to take a little
136bit of um working with the data and experience to know where that end point is. But it but I think that is a wonderful aspiration to reach towards. >> Mr. I just also want to thank you for the vision and the tenacity and bringing this forward and I I just really love everything about it from the parental choice component, the opportunities for our our students and really I think you've mentioned a lot of it even with the student pathways and only having to pay for three years of college and whatnot. I just actually had a question. It's probably more for the superintendent just since none of us were on the board in 2009 when the last one was approved. Maybe just help us understand the cadence and the approval and review processes both for the
137department and for the board or is there somebody else that can help us with that? Amanda. So I was in my first year teaching in 2009. But um this is this is a a a multi-tered process. So uh this proposal will go for first review tomorrow. It will go for final review in August. And then there is still um the the funding piece that will go before the general assembly next session to secure um that that state share of funding that the president referenced earlier. >> I have um a technical question and then an aspirational one. Um can we talk a little bit about um from the school divisions that will be participating in um in this governor's school, what what does time look like, transportation time look like? Um you know, Southwest Virginia is
138obviously very rural. Um my home county participates in a governor's school as well, and I think they are the furthest away from the governor's school. Um so you know noting that this is a a unique um location also. So this is kind of a two-part question. It's the the um the transportation question but also the aspirational piece is you know have you guys given any thought to how to expand and extend these opportunities. though for that that travel time. Are there, you know, I've talked to college presidents around and they're like, "Yeah, you know, I've got a couple of of uh floors on a couple of different uh residence halls that I might be able to give up here or there, a residence hall here and there that that can be um can be shifted
139to something else." Have you guys talked about those opportunities particularly for those students that may be traveling from the furthest away or maybe have those future aspirational discussions? >> I'll start and if you don't mind me clean it up. So, so uh the reason why we have the five school divisions that we have is because the busing is all less than an hour. Okay. So, I was going I'm going to address the first part of your question. You you may have noted in the public conversations that we also had a discussion with the superintendent down in Wville for the for for the uh Wville division. And the difficulty is with two schools. The school in the north would be within an hour and the school in the south of Wville would not. and we couldn't
140build something where the students had the experience we were trying to build and allowed them to continue the credits back at their institution to keep them in line when the busing was at over an hour. It just didn't work. So, we had a productive conversation. So, I'm going to say as written, that is our definition. Now, the the Governor's School for STEM that's hosted by New River Community College, just for example, they do have other counties that are participating that are kind of beyond that region. Certainly from a from a standpoint of, you know, how others might participate. I I think there may be opportunities where parents or nonbusing systems provide that opportunity, but I'm going to say that that's um there there's probably more discussion that's needed there. But um although the New River
141Valley is magical, there's nothing that's specifically magical about our students compared to one further county. Okay. So, so if we can extend this opportunity, I think we'd be very much all into that. And and I don't think we've talked about the the type of like a a residential school long term. Again, that that's probably, as you said, aspirational getting us out to that point, getting us set up, running well, proof in concept that it's adding value to those students, their families, their communities, and then how do we build on that? But but I love the suggestion. >> I do too. And I think um with the south with Southwest Virginia Governor School uh we have folks coming from all the way in Marian um and that's along you know children getting up students getting up
142at 5 in the morning because they know how important it is. And I think I see this vision this with a very very strong reputation for students that love the humanities, love the the fine arts and feel like that they would commute. Um, New River is probably 10 to 15 minutes from uh, Rap University. So, it wouldn't add too much on to that. Uh, now as far as transportation uh, for our the New River Valley folks and talked a little bit about this with our superintendents and of course we lost one in Giles who retired and we're losing another one in McGomery unfortunately who's who's moving back to to New New Jersey. But I feel confident that we can work together to really have a robust transportation system. We were thinking the other day perhaps,
143you know, Giles could come to New River. Pilaski could meet Giles at New River and get them all the way in. Floyd could come to maybe Auburn High School, meet McGomery County at Auburn High School and have them come all the way in and that would cut down a lot on the cost of of the transportation as well. So, I think we could work out a system that would be very beneficial. Luckily, Rapford City's right there, so you could have some students just walk right there, couldn't you? >> Thank you, Superintendent Gullixson. >> Uh, well, you have the department's full backing on thinking about transportation modernization with Delegate Austin's new law in effect. Um, governor's schools were um a named entity. And so, um, transportation modernization and options is my favorite topic next to seat
144time flexibility as the staff knows. And so, I've already been pinging them. We will be following up with you um should you get approved by the board. Any other questions or comments here? Well, we certainly appreciate um the the travel uh to Richmond here to be with us today. Um and certainly appreciate the opportunity to move forward with this unique uh model. Um and with that, unless my AG council decides to tell me something different, tomorrow we have this on our agenda as first review, but it could be the will of the board, if I'm not mistaken, to take it up for first and final review. the board's appointment. >> Thank you. So, I'm just seating that for our board members. So, thank you all so much. Appreciate it. >> The opportunity. >> Yes, sir.
145Thank you. >> Okay. Um Yes. If um we could break for just a minute, we'd like to get a picture with all of you who came for this. Thank you. everyone um for giving us that moment to go and take a picture. Um we are going to now take a lunch break until 12:30. So, thank you please. Um, Dr. Rosa has led projects on state and school district finance policy finance financial equity pensions compensation higher education finance and other related topics including the institute for education sciences multi-year study of a weighted funding uh student funding and the finance and productivity initiative at the center for on rein reinventing public education and the schools in crisis rapid response paper series. She led the creation of several newly available financial data sets and data visualizations including nerd
146dollars I don't know produced uh school by school spending on every school US public school in in the country the esser expenditure dashboard and ROI scatter plots. These freely accessible resources have been used extensively across the field by researchers, education leaders, advocates, and journalists to bring transparency to how f how funds are used and to inform financial decision-making. Prior to her appointment at Georgetown University, she served as senior economic adviser to the Bill and Meinda Gates Foundation. Previously, she served as a lieutenant in the US Navy teaching thermodynamics at the Naval Nuclear Power School. And with that, I will turn it over to you, Dr. Rosa. Thank you for being with us today. >> Great. So, hopefully my sound is coming through. Um, I'm going to >> Great. I brought a lot of Virginia data.
147So, um, and I'm hoping this is more of a a conversation, but the topic here is how to leverage whatever dollars you have to maximize value for students. And so, what you can see here is a one decade trend of that in Virginia. So, the the green line is how much was spent per pupil over time. Um, and you can see it's it's outpaced inflation. So, um, the spending is up to an average of $16,000 a student in 2023. Um, I we don't have the most recent numbers, but we can get those. And so, you see that kind of uh not not a massive investment, but the investment is growing faster than inflation. and um you know around 2015 and 2017 depending on the subject the um the student outcomes started falling. So obviously a
148lot of that drop here in the 2019 to22 was due to COVID and um and school closures but you can see that the math 8th grade math scores continue to fall and you really don't see much in the way of um recovery for reading and reading has been falling before the pandemic. So these are NAPE scores and we very purposely picked which ones um fourth grade reading because it is an indication of how well a system is teaching kids to read and kids need to learn to read in order to access the rest of their curriculum, their experience in in uh K through 12. and eighth grade math we choose because it is such an important predictor of kids' future livelihoods. So not only uh graduation rates from high school but also college going what
149majors kids pursue what kind of jobs kids get what kind of post-secary or uh po postlife um earnings they have. It's also even a predictor of a state's economy. So um including actually the the their lifespan. So it's such a critically important predictor that we we want to watch it and track it over time and not every individual student score is a necessarily a perfect predictor of their life but at a system level we do see that that the system level these kinds of scores are really important predictors of that. So that's why we have the eighth grade math and the fourth grade reading. And as you know the NAPE test has not changed over time. So it really gives us a sense of of how um how the school systems are uh working over
150time to affect these particular outcomes. Obviously these outcomes are not everything but they are something and um we ignore these trends you know at a at you know with our at our own peril because they they are predictive and important for that. So, Virginia has some work to do for sure in order. >> You're good. >> All right. Did people still see everything? Got all sorts of >> We lost you at Virginia has some work to do. >> Okay. Virginia. Um, so do you still see me? >> Yes, we see you and we see the change in spending and scores since 2013 slide. >> Okay. Okay, great. Because that's funny. That's not 100% what I'm saying, but it's sort of changed. All right. So, let's let's go on to the next one. Um we we
151do know first of all before I I leave the slide some states are able in their you know there's a lot of variation across states but some states are seeing a lot more progress in reading and math than others. Virginia is not alone in seeing its scores fall. Um but there are states that have really turned it around and are seeing substantial progress. So, we know that states matter when it comes to what kind of progress that students are getting. We also see a lot of variation in districts and I'll get to that in a few moments. But um it's it's uh the trends really vary by region which tells us that some uh that some state policies have h have have been able to deliver a a really stronger outcome for kids. So I'll
152get more into that in a moment. So a couple other things that are coming fast at Virginia is the fact that enrollment is scheduled to fall. So it it it did fall in the pandemic. A few of the kids came back, but you see it kind of flattened here. With decreased immigration and declining birth rates, Virginia is expected to see more contraction in its enrollment. And meanwhile, at the same time, you see that over the last decade, the state has added employees or the school systems have added employees. So divisions have more more school district employees than at any time in the past with 10,000 plus more employees over the last decade while enrollment has fallen and has continued to fall. Usually people will then ask us, well who are all these new employees? if
153the school system is staffed at a higher level now than at any time in the past. And I think that's one one of these questions is whether or not those increases in staffing are actually delivering value for students. And so I did go and pull the new positions added and you can see there's a little over 3,000 new teachers, uh, a little over 2,000 new teacher aids, and then over 6,000 in all other. And all other is a lot of what we call the middle layer in schooling. It's not the classroom and but it's it's all these specialists that we've added. So whether it's reading coaches, math coaches, interventionists, counselors, uh social workers, um special ed specialists, etc. Sometimes they're administrators and they're overseeing a program. But that is where this new layer is really
154grown in schools. And one of the reasons we point this out is that we're worried in lots of states, not just Virginia, but that this new layer of positions isn't delivering as much value for students. And you can kind of see it in those scores as um as we had hoped. And you can kind of see why. In many school districts, um, the strongest teachers were promoted to be one of these specialists and then the school division went out and hired a new teacher to fill that opening. Well, in the last few years, the applicant pool for teachers was pretty thin. So they may have actually brought in a te a less effective teacher to fill that spot when that super strong teacher was promoted to being a specialist. So there are a lot of
155students now in classrooms which with less effective teachers than we'd had in the past. And now we've added this layer of specialists, but this we're not getting as much value out of the specialists as we'd hoped. And so it kind of reminds us that when it comes to staffing, quality um matters more than quantity. And especially quality in the classroom. So where you want to have your strongest talent, you want that talent to be in the classroom actually teaching kids. And that's when you get the most value for that. So we're encouraging districts to make sure you know who your most effective teachers are, that you're keeping them in the classroom. even if that means paying them more, that you're trying to get more students in front of those teachers, even if that means you
156have to let class sizes drift up. But, but evidence is pretty strong that having more students in front of a more effective teacher is of higher value for students than smaller class sizes. So, um that's that's one thing definitely to watch in Virginia. um teacher shortage, you probably heard a lot about that. It's a little bit of whiplash here, but it's over now. And that's because nationwide, um the federal relief funds, the ESRE funds, triggered a whole lot of hiring and and we call it like combat hiring. One district division would hire from another and they would hire back and all this, but the applicant pool was quite thin. And so we didn't see that much in, you know, we didn't we we really saw that uh labor supply depleted pretty quickly. But when those
157funds are gone, now what we have are school divisions uh with a hiring freeze, no longer hiring. Um and so the newly minted teachers who are coming out of their teacher prep programs are actually having a hard time finding a job. So, um, we just it just worth putting that context in there. We've shifted really quickly from we need to spend a lot of money to raise teacher salaries to now saying we have a we have the opportunity to be pickier and choosier about who we have in our teaching force. and some of the people that we maybe brought on board who are not a great fit for teaching, maybe this is a great time to exit them and and potentially either move specialists back into the classroom or find potentially um stronger teachers to
158fill those roles. So, looking ahead, we're not going to be able to maintain um uh staffing levels at the rate that we did with those ESSER funds. And so, the motto here is really quality is is likely going to matter more than quantity. So, we're we're advising more targeted raises for um for stronger reading or math teachers or in in higher poverty schools that that all make more sense now. And and that's our question for most is whether leaders have the data and the tools to know who their most strong teachers are and whether or not they're effective at keeping them in those classroom positions teaching reading and math. So, another big challenge is is that Virginia, like many states, is projected to see a lot of enrollment declines. 37% of Virginia divisions have already
159seen enrollment declines since 2019, but they're going to come fast and furious now. Um, and uh the light colored states here, of which Virginia is one, are the ones seeing deeper declines over the next decade. And that means that um that divisions will also need to be shrinking. while they're trying to improve their delivery models. Um, and across across Virginia, we're we're seeing different levels of success that at that. So, I'm going to explain this very messy graph for you for a second, but what you see here are only elementary schools with 50 to 75% poverty. So, they're that slice. They're not the highest poverty, but they're not the wealthy or or middle class schools as much either. their schools, comparable schools, um, elementary schools that have that 50 to 75% poverty band. And on
160the bottom here is how much they spend per pupil. And on the vertical are their pass rates on fourth grade reading using the state assessment. So up in the right hand corner, these are more expensive schools with higher outcomes. Over here, we call these our ROI superstars. they're they're getting really strong outcomes for this mix of kids without disproportionately more resources than their peers. Um and and these are uh lower scores, less money. And over here is sort of the opposite of ROI. These are expensive schools that have uh relatively low outcomes for this batch of students. And so you could see in in Virginia and and yes, there's there are some cost of living differences, but there are some real score differences for the students. And it really gives you a a chance to
161say where are our investments working to look deliver strong outcomes? Which schools and which divisions are able to translate their money into strong reading outcomes for their kids and which ones still have quite a bit of work to do. So um this website is on our our uh this data is on our website. You can look at it. You can mouse over all the schools. You can ask to highlight different dis divisions. You can narrow it to different groups, look at math outcomes, just look at large schools, small schools, and so on. But when you start to look across these, you see that some school districts really are quite a bit better at making sure their kids are um reading by fourth grade than others. And so I think that's a place to start with.
162Well, what do we know what's working? How can we make sure that we're focusing attention on the school school divisions and schools that are not successful and figure out where there's a change because clearly based on this data um it's possible to get a higher percentage of kids reading than is happening in some in some of these schools. So, one of our our findings has been in across the country is that um leaders may not know that that these that they're you know they're less successful with the same batch of kids as some of their peers. And um and here you see it's not like a strong correlation of of money. It's that the money is delivering value in some schools and not in others. So, I'm going to show you the math outcomes. These
163are just same uh 50 to 75% poverty. Actually, I take that back. This is a typo on my slide. It should be 25 to 50% poverty. I didn't switch that over. So, they're different color schools because there's different poverty levels. So, it's 25 to 50%. I'll make sure that that gets changed in the final data set. So these are school middle schools without um without really high poverty levels. Again, real a lot of variation in how successful they are at ensuring kids are um passing in math in eighth grade math. And so um you know if you if you had a uh if you were your school is 50 to or 25 to 50% poverty you could see that even among the same investment level there's massive variation in how successful the school is. And
164even as we add more dollars we're not necessarily seeing across the board better math outcomes for students. So again here we would want to make sure that leaders knew. So we'll just we'll say these kinds of schools over here that that your school does have disproportionately more resources and yet is not at least so far getting really high value in math for the kids that you serve when other schools in the state are more successful. So that's how we use this data to really drive ROI is we bring people in. We let people sort of examine it. We help make sure they understand. We let them ask questions of their peer schools that are more successful. Not everything translates, you know, to a simple answer. Often we learn things about schools that are not transferable,
165but it does focus leaders attention on this relationship between investment and outcomes. So, I I have a little bit of special ed data for you, but I wanted to pause there and see if there are questions before we move into special ed. Or would you prefer I just do those last two slides? >> Are there any questions or comments here before we move on to the last two slides? >> Okay, you may proceed. Okay. So for for special education um in Virginia divisions we what you see here is this is the overall population of students. You saw that line before. This is the percent um this is the the population of students being identified for special ed. So it's rising. Obviously students weren't identified in the early times of COVID but they uh identification rates
166are are up up right. So you you look at that another 20,000 students identified with disabilities over a decade while the overall student population is shrinking. So one one thing really to point out here is that the largest category of kids for disabilities is learning disability and that's mostly read reading disabilities. These are kids who are struggling to read. And um what that tells us and usually when we see that growth in kids with reading disabilities, we worry they're not getting strong reading instruction in the early grades. And so if a kid's not reading by, you know, third grade, they end up getting referred over for special ed. And some of those students with stronger reading preparation in the early grades may not have drifted over there. or if they are drifting over to special
167ed programs, stronger reading instruction in a in the mainstream classrooms would have uh reduce the amount of time or services they needed in their special ed programs. So just to just to keep this in mind, it really affects this the school division's bottom line, how many kids are being referred and it is very much related to the strength of their reading instruction in the early grades. Um but you know we have these trends in some other states too and this will be a big cost factor going forward if we don't find um better ways to serve kids potentially um at lower cost and you can look here these are the two graphs for students with disabilities on NAPE. So, um, the top one is is reading and Virginia here, the special ed students underperform the
168national average in reading. And so even as we're identifying more students, we're we're not particularly successful with them and at at teaching reading with most of them have reading disabilities or other things like um uh ADD is a very common one or speech impediments or things like that, then we we should be able to get them to read. U we're a little more successful for our kids with disabilities in math. And you can see here if Virginia beats the national average for its students with disabilities on the NA math scores and that kind of um points to uh urgency around really improving reading for all students. And and this is another thing in special ed is that when we see school divisions put an emphasis on hiring specialists in special ed, we don't see that
169progress for kids in reading and math who have disabilities. So again, same kind of thing is let's keep our strongest special ed talent and the teaching talent in the classroom and let's improve our reading program for all of our students and that should pay dividends all across across the board. So that's what I I have for you today. Um, and I could I'm happy to talk about how um other ideas that we have for for how states can really um harness their state role in um in in in making sure that you know you see a better connection between the investments and outcomes. And that can include things like shifting away. I know Virginia has a pretty heavy emphasis in state law on um class size caps. I would move away from those. You really
170want to make sure that as much as possible, you're encouraging divisions to to put more students in their strongest teachers classrooms and potentially pay them more accordingly for that. Um, we also think that states need to identify who their strongest teachers are using student growth data and make sure that they stay in the state and they stay in these reading and math classrooms. Some states are kind of trying to bypass divisions and put money toward that. And then you really want to make sure in every division that the leaders are really focused on leveraging their available dollars and investing to try to maximize these um value for students on some of these core academic measures. And I'm happy to talk more about that too. >> Any questions or comments here from the board members? >>
171No. Dr. Northern. Yes. >> Hi, Margaret. Amber Northern, nice to see you. Um, hey, I have heard you say this before and I just wanted you to kind of educate us a little bit when you're talking about the drops in student enrollment that we're seeing nationally and I've heard you say school districts need to start thinking small. Um, can you talk to us a little bit about what you're seeing? What lessons you're learning across the country from other states that already beginning to sort of grapple with the student enrollment loss and what lessons we might take away from other folks as we face down this own challenge here in Virginia. >> Yeah, I'm glad you asked that. So, it it's hard for divisions to shrink, right? means um shrinking your workforce, potentially closing schools, ending
172programs. And what's critical right now is that we do that in a way that um allows us, even if we've been doing something for a long time, we are eliminating what isn't showing as much value for the dollar. And um and that is not in the DNA of most division leaders. And I I'll I actually have this other slide and I was thinking about doing this, but we did focus groups of district leaders and we asked specifically around budget cutting. What drives your decisions about budget choices? And of course, they always said, "What's best for students? What's best for students? What?" So, we actually redid the question and went back and did a bunch more focus groups because this didn't match what we were seeing. And we gave them this question. A vendor is offering
173tech tech based tutoring and is has great results. A district wants to use title one funds to pay for it, but that would mean letting go of a reading coach and a parent coordinator. And so this is like a classic case of we have a constrained budget. We don't have enough money to do everything. We're thinking about keeping something that's getting good results for us, but that would mean letting go of employees. And then what we heard was, you know, things like our union would never allow that. Our board wants us to minimize job reductions. And I can't cut our staff, their family. And I I say this because um so this kind of came out of that is that people say they make decisions about what's best for kids except then they often, especially
174when they're contracting, really first and foremost protect labor. And I get it, right? We don't want um school divisions to willy-nilly get rid of staff that they are part of the community. Except that this time while we're contracting, we do need to be labor is everything that districts pay for really like 80 to 90% of their budget is labor. And when we contract, we have to be really discerning about which of our employees are adding stronger value than others. And with so much rapid hiring recently, we have the opportunity to do that, especially among our newer employees. If we're not seeing the value, rather than just shrink via attrition, we can potentially um take a more proactive role and and um exit some of our weaker employees even if that means maybe going and hiring
175new ones because the the labor pool is rebuilt and we can be we can afford to be a lot choosier. So, it's a hard role for division leaders to take on right now is how do you shrink in a way that really is designed to make sure you end up with a smaller, stronger school system. But that is the challenge ahead and there will be divisions that will shrink. They a lot of them wait too long to shrink. They end up jeopardizing their financials. They try to, you know, avoid any hard decisions. Um and it it really leaves students getting um a smaller less effective system instead of a smaller stronger system. >> Thank you. >> Um but yeah, that's closure school closures. Um you know what I think would be the worst way to
176shrink would be to let go this whole middle layer where we see a lot of our talent in our system and um and and exit them with early retirements or things like that. It would be like exiting all our talent. And I know it may not be palpable, you know, appetizing for many people to return to the classroom, but I think school divisions could make it fiscally lucrative for some of their intermediate specialists to come back to the classroom where that talent could really deliver value for kids. >> Great. Thank you. >> Other questions or comments, Mr. Monk? >> Thank you. you you talked about the um all other category and kind of the discrepancy between dollars and uh results there as well as kind of class size caps. Can you expand a little bit
177of maybe other examples you've seen in other states where uh that's been flipped a little and some opportunities? I think you've done that um with Dr. Northern's question, but maybe a little bit more around that. >> Yes. So, um, there are if you with if you can get around class size caps, you can pay teachers more to take on more students. So, let's say you were aiming for a class size of 25 and you said, I'm, you know, I take my strongest teachers, pay them um, $2,000 more for each additional student they take on. And you're only offering this to your strongest teachers. It's not a pay for performance, a pay, it's a pay for workload. But if they took on four more students, they're teaching 29 kids, making $8,000 extra, and four more kids
178have the experience of spending their year in a strong teachers classroom. And that's a really strong way. When we we saw this with ESSER funds, really, for the most part, almost nothing was a guarantee of improved outcomes except getting more students in front of the strongest teachers. So, a lot of districts did that. They um found their strongest math teachers and said, "Hey, I'll pay you extra if you teach an additional class at the middle or high school level or a zero zero period class um of a kind of a recovery class for some kids or we'll put more kids in your classroom." And where we saw um districts do that, they saw more value for their investment. So, I think there is um an opportunity to kind of change our thinking from the kind
179of factory one-sizefits-all classroom size to one of how do we find the most valuable players and um make sure that more students have access to them. And and that is a different approach to schooling, but it's one that the research really supports. And that means moving away from class size caps and this idea that you have this kind of standard one-sizefits all model both for compensation and for um uh class sizes. It some people say our parents would never put up with that. And we worked with a district that um had paid its strongest teachers to take on more students. And um and sure enough, you know, there there'd be a school and there'd be 23 kids in one classroom and 28 in the one next door. And so a parent in the 28k classroom
180would come in and say, you know, why does my kid have so many kids in their classroom? And the principal say, because it's a really good teacher, you want to move your kid out, I can do that. No one ever moves their kid out. They want that stronger teacher. No one ever does. You know, maybe they want another kid to move out, but not theirs. And that of course is not on offer. So even parents seem to know, of course, you can't do this to teachers and not compensate them more. they they deserve that extra compensation with that extra workload. Um, so it it means it changing our approach to both of those things. >> Other questions or comments here? >> Okay, Dr. Rosa, we really appreciate you and your time here this afternoon. Um,
181and we uh maybe we'll see you in the future in person. >> Great. Excellent. Well, thank you for tolerating me being on video. Oh, you're great. Thank you so much. Thanks for tolerating our tech issues. We appreciate it. >> Thank you. Take care. >> Okay. Are we okay to use mics still? Should we log out now? So, everyone logs out. Okay. Um All right. So, at this time, we've completed our work session agenda and we'll move into our executive session. um for the remainder of today's meeting. And so I would ask Mr. Hansen if he would please read our motion to go into close session so that we can consider our lensure cases. I move that the Virginia Board of Education convene in a closed meeting for the following purposes. Discussion for consideration by the
182board of education of information relating to the denial, suspension, or revocation of teacher licenses subject to the exclusion in subdivision 11 of section 2.2-3705.3. 2-3705.3 pursuant to section 2.2-3711A40 of the code of Virginia and consultation with council regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice pursuant to Virginia code section 2.2-3711A88 2-3711A88 of the code of Virginia and the legal council to the Virginia Board of Education staff whose presence will aid in the board's consideration of this matter participate in the closed meeting. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Um Dr. Aan >> I. >> Mr. Green. >> Dr. Northern >> I. >> Mr. Hansen. >> Hi. Mr. Monk. >> Hi. >> And chair votes I. Okay. We are now in close session. Thank you. Hansen, will you please read our certification
183to return to open session? >> We convene today in a closed meeting pursuant to a recorded vote on the motion above and in accordance with the Freedom Information Act section 2.2-371. 2-3712 of the Code of Virginia requires that the board certify that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempt from open meeting requirements under this chapter and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened or heard, discussed, or considered. Any member who believes there was a departure from these requirements shall so state prior to the vote indicating the substance of the departure that in his or her judgment has taken place. The statement of the departure will be recorded in the minutes. >> Dr. Arian >> I. >> Mr. Green
184>> I. >> Dr. Northern I >> Mr. Hansen >> I >> Mr. Monk >> I >> and chair votes I. Okay. Um, at this time, uh, let's see. I'm going to go this way. Um, in the chair will entertain a motions on our cases that we have just gone through. Um, in case number 2025-22, um, the chair will in entertain a motion to revoke the license of Ilana Abigail Russell. >> So, >> second, Dr. Arian. >> I, >> Mr. Green. >> I, >> Mr. Monk. >> Hi, >> Dr. Northern. >> Hi, >> Mr. Hansen. I >> and chair votes I. Um in case 2025-24, um the chair will entertain a motion to revoke the license of Amarice Smith. >> So moved. >> Second. Dr. Arian >> I. >> Mr. Green. >> I. >> Mr. Monk.
185>> I. >> Dr. Northern I. >> Mr. Hansen. >> Hi. >> And chair votes I. Um, in the case numbered 2025-23, the chair will entertain a motion to issue a license. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Dr. Arian, >> I >> Mr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Monk, >> I >> Dr. Northern, >> I. >> Mr. Hansen, >> hi. >> And chair votes I. Um, in case 2025-21, the chair will entertain a motion to take no action. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Dr. Ari, >> nay. >> Mr. Green, >> I. >> Mr. Monk, >> I. >> Dr. Northern, >> I. >> Mr. Hansen, >> I. >> Chair votes I. Uh in case 2025-18, the chair will entertain a motion to revoke the license of Dexter Benjamin Gore. >> So move >> second. >> Dr.
186Arian, >> yay. >> Mr. Green, >> I >> Mr. Monk, >> I. >> Dr. Northern, >> I. >> Mr. Hansen, >> hi. >> And chair votes I. Uh, in case 2025-25, the chair will entertain a motion to issue a license. >> So move. >> Dr. Arian, >> I, >> Mr. Green, >> I, >> Mr. Monk, >> I, >> Dr. Northern, >> I, >> Mr. Hansen. >> Hi, >> and chair votes I. >> Okay. And that brings us to the end of our day today. Uh thank you all for your work and I will see you bright and early in the morning.