School Board Work Session: 5-3-23

001May 3rd to order Miss Tanner please call the rule yes we'll see Buffalo here campson here Clanton president Gabriel president Jordan here Martin present can I get a motion to go into closed session please I moved that we moved closed session thanks Miss campson a second please second thank you Mr Clinton move that members of the school board go into a closed session for the purposes which are set out in subsection a of section 2.2-3711 of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as amended for discussion of the award of a public contract involving the expenditure of public funds and the terms and scope of such contract where discussion and Open Session whatever say affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body pursuance of subsection 2.2-3711 a29 of the act the subject of

002this portion of the closed session is whether to renew the valbourne Consulting groups contract to provide training to the board when this term ends on July 1 2023 or to put the contract out to bid again with potentially new terms and scope pursuant to Virginia's procurement laws consultation will equal Council regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by Council pursuant to subsection 2.2-371188 of the act the subject of this portion of the session is the same as stated in a above the scene aye Buffalo aye camson aye Clinton aye Gabriel aye Jordan aye Martin hi okay we're going to close session in the conference thank you yeah certified a closed session Mr Clinton do I get a second a second um Miss Buffalo seconded oops go ahead Miss Tanner okay a resolution

003certified executive meeting of the school board of the city of Norfolk in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act whereas the school board of the city of Norfolk has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provision of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act number as section 2.2-3712 of a code of Virginia requires a certification by the school board of the city of Norfolk that's such close meeting was as such closed meeting was conducted in Conformity with Virginia law now therefore it be resolved that the school board of the city of Norfolk Care Bar certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters law fee Exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussing the executive

004meeting tuition certification resolution applies you can only say about the business matters as we're identified in the motion convenient days that comedian were heard discussed or considered by the school board of the city of Norfolk the scene aye Buffalo I campson aye Clinton aye Gabriel aye Jordan aye Martin aye okay thank you everyone um before we begin the work session I'd like to attend this meeting over to Dr Birdsong for a few comments thank you Dr Martin and good evening everyone before we get started with our meeting today I'd like to acknowledge the life of our beloved colleague Nicole Keaton Gregory we buried Miss Gregory today in fact just before the meeting many of us were coming back from her burial and um she served Norfolk public schools for 24 years or 24 years Faithfully

005she served our children and our families and she's definitely going to be missed her service this morning was absolutely beautiful and she would be so proud of her children and her husband for the wonderful job that they did today her daughter sang a song you know in honor of her mother and she was just so strong as she stood up there and and she just honored her mother in the most beautiful way and her husband it was very surprising for many of us just to to listen to him speak about his wife it was just so beautiful you could clearly see that Carlton loved Nicole he had so many wonderful things to say about her and a beautiful message for for us all that I will never ever forget and I also want um our

006MPS family to remember that we still have two two of our children with us one at Norby Middle School who is in eighth grade little Carlton who will be going to ninth grade next year at Norview High School and then we have Josiah who's a senior this year at Norview High School going on to Morehouse I believe and we're just so proud of him many of you may recall the publication last year that I put out the drive for five publication and within that booklet we featured dream who is the youngest daughter of Nicole and Carlton and she is studying now at Virginia state and we're so proud of her and their oldest daughter Jade so please keep the family in prayer the children will need us so let's continue to surround that family with

007love and everything that they need and again if we could just for a moment a brief moment a minute have on our moment of silence in memory of Nicole Keaton Greg thank you um so we're going to begin our work session um with three item 3.01 the Booker T Washington High School feasibility study I had considered taking this off of the agenda but I just wanted to keep it on here just so I could say a couple were and brief statement um I'm sorry I wasn't at the last meeting um had a personal emergency I had to tend to but um I do want to say I did go back um and looked at you know read the resolution we looked at the meeting meetings the presentation so on and so forth and what I've

008concluded is that the school the Dr Birdsong and the administration are still in the middle of their process and um are not prepared for recommendation I went back and looked at the Timeline the timeline has a recommendation following community and stakeholder engagement and that would be on August of 2023. so we we are a little premature in talking about recommendations right now and making a decision so I would like to allow the administration the time and the courtesy of continuing the work and um and then when we have we receive that those recommendations then we can start asking questions and and you know making comments on that but until then I would like to see this process followed through that's all I wanted to say about that okay okay that's awesome what's that me at

009the floor sure thank you I know that you made an assessment about what you you've looked at um but I also I'm at mistaken um HBA also stated before this body that they were responsible for the physical structure and their recommendation and not the academic component and I think that that was what the continuation of the conversation was really leading to that we all participated in and unfortunately weren't here to be a part of that conversation but really looking at the academic component of it if we need more time on that one that's that's fine but I do believe that what the superintendent was asking was for Clear Direction on the academic component of it I mean I still believe that that still lingers out there but as far as the trigger to kick the

010conversations going with the steering committee I think that we need to send a clear direction that we want to see that continue to go on but I do believe that there is going to need to be a point where we come back and clearly give clear direction to the superintendent into the to the administration about the academic component there's additional information I know that I've shared um with uh with everyone and I actually printed out some additional copies for you all some things that is a part of even the governor's training Mr Jordan myself have had our conversations and continue to have conversations and I was even enlightened about a memo from 2017 that was submitted in regards to esteem program and so when I kept saying where did all that come from that helped

011me to fill in that there was something prior to me getting on the board for that um I think that there's the board as a whole based on the conversation was in pretty much an agreement on it um but I just think that we need to get to a point where we can send clear Direction and I think that's what our superintendent Administration is asking for but where we can and I did put a motion to defer for here for Action so that was for us to take up something today um so okay so let me get back I did go and look at I went back and Revisited the presentation the presentation has both the um the facility and the educational programming so those are both in there so she so the direction that

012we gave to the superintendent was to do a feasibility study that included both the physical and the educational pieces and those recommendations will be forthcoming in August like according to the timeline okay so Dr Birdsong are you clear on that is that that's I want to make sure that you because we were back in this conversation because we said there wasn't Clarity so in August I can show you the slide we can no no I'm asking the superintendent so we're going to get academic and physical in August yes which we were going to do anyway but there was you know we just wanted to make sure there wasn't something now specific that you were looking at and wanted us to um do more research on but this was a natural evolvement for the community and

013their feedback around the existing program and how they want to see it change or stay the same that was the purpose of the feasibility study is both yeah and and the physical structure supporting of course the academic program but you can't even get to the physical structure until there are decisions about the academic program okay and so we'll be prepared to bring those recommendations back to the board in August Dr Martin what what you described was a little different than what I thought you were going with it and I would say uh since we have a packed agenda today and had a elongated closed session if we can just come back at the at our dual session Workshop prior to our business meeting uh in two weeks and allow for the addressing that Mr Clanton

014agreed to defer and I think we can have some opportunity for the board members to just have some clarity over the next two weeks and I think we can come back and accomplish what we were originally tasked to do today what what you described and go into the existing calendar is uh was a point of discussion at the last meeting and that's where I think Mr Clinton was trying to say that we're going to provide that Clarity today I don't think what you described accomplishes that but I think we can accomplish it if we just defer this to the to the next meeting okay thank you anyone else all right moving on to item 3.02 thank you Mr friley um the gifted education Plan update we have Misty stead sorry hi how are you this

015evening afternoon well thank you is it evening now it's 508. all right we'll begin whenever you're ready thank you hold on one second presentation waiting for to open up thank you good evening everyone Madam chair Martin Madam's here Vice chair Buffalo superintendent Dr Birdsong and members of the school board thank you for the opportunity to be up here to present an update on this first Year's implementation of our revised gifted local plan I am excited to share our progress so first of all I'd like to thank you for believing in our vision to provide more Equitable opportunities to all our students in the division Our Big Ideas behind the revisions of the gifted local plan included a focus on talent development and on services for all students regardless of the label the school board's support

016of providing more gifted resource teachers funding after school enrichment and continuing our partnership with the College of William and Mary is making an impact thank you the Norfolk Public Schools gifted local plan is aligned with the new Norfolk Public Schools strategic plan where our students identified for services will match our division's diverse demographics so during this first year of implementation Norfolk public schools has already seen positive changes this was our first year of our emerging Scholars talent pool which is increasing exposure and enrichments to students who showed potential in their schools across the district we have continued our collaboration with the College of William and Mary who has developed professional development and training for all our teachers the relaunch of the Arts and Sciences after school enrichment program has allowed more schools to provide fun

017and engaging opportunities to excited students across division elementary schools have been implementing the research-based strategy of clustering our talent pool and gifted students which benefits all students Norfolk Public Schools elementary schools are now allocated full-time gifted resource teachers with the exception of PB young and Tidewater Park who are K2 and 35 combined gifted resource teachers are now able to regularly push into all kindergarten and first grade classes exposing all students to high level thinking plus preparing those students for the annual kogat screener and we were also excited to announce the upcoming gifted resource teacher cohort to ensure Norfolk public schools has a pool a qualified gifted resource teachers to serve our kids this school year 22-23 as I mentioned was the first year of the Norfolk Public Schools emerging Scholars talent pool students these determined

018by the results of the universal screener in 2022 the department provided pull out services to 151 second grade students who showed potential to benefit from increased exposure and enrichment these students will all be retested and processed for gifted education in grade four this year's gifted identification process based upon the first grade screener in February identified another 147 emerging Scholars who scored in the top 15 percent of their school on their gifted kogat test this means next school year in 2324 Norfolk Public Schools will have a total of 298 students from across the districts in grade 2 and 3 receiving services in addition to our identified gifted students Norfolk Public Schools partnership with William and Mary's Center for gifted education continues to be productive last summer we partnered to provide training to over a hundred teachers

019across the district this training included how to better identify those gifted characteristics in our underrepresented populations as well as how to collaborate with your school's DRT to provide higher level strategies that benefit all students William and Mary has provided Norfolk public schools now an online repository of training for all teachers to access on differentiation and increasing critical thinking practices for the classroom prts have been invited into their nationally renowned twice exceptional conference at no cost as well as a national curriculum conference for a much reduced cost and in addition 45 7th through 10th grade Norfolk public school students will be attending a two-week stem leadership summer camp free of charge known as Camp launch this Camp was specially designed for high ability students from low-income households and it will be held on the campus of

020the College of William Mary sometimes a picture or in this case many pictures are worth a thousand words again we thank the school board for approving the re-establish of the Arts and Sciences after school enrichment program students were excited to participate in the many programs across 31 schools including chess step club theater art gymnastics ukulele Club just to name a few in addition to these 31 schools there were a few schools that did not participate directly with the Arts and Sciences program as they were already in part of the 21st century schools with funding for after-school programs however our department was still able to provide additional materials or other resources to help enrich those after-school programs now we will focus on data surrounding our identification protocols 22 2022 referral data by subgroup will serve as

021Baseline data for our Five-Year Plan in line with our objective to increase the diversity of our identified students the goal is to see an upward Trend in underrepresented subgroups being referred every year the total 562 referrals represents a 31 higher rate of referrals than in 2021 so more students overall are now being considered for identification and of the 562 182 were found eligible or 32 percent of those students referred next we will focus on our annual gifted screening of our first grade students Norfolk Public Schools scores from the February first grade screener using the cognitive abilities test or known as cogat are showing more underrepresented students with the potential for gifted identification although the percentages here by subgroups are not where we want yet they are moving in the right direction and for the 366

022who moved forward 72 percent of them were found eligible for services or 12 percent of all first grade students who took the cogap full-time dots are regularly pushing into our kindergarten and first grade classrooms and are making an impact students whose cogat scores made them eligible to be processed for gifted identification has round grown as a district by 21 percent and some schools have seen a significantly higher percentage as seen here the emerging Scholars talent pool students average cogat score also improved these are the students who score in the top 15 percent of their school this slide indicates the division-wide average score for emerging Scholars Rose six percent as a division just in one year and for some schools the percentage was much higher you can see here some of the schools whose top 15

023percent cogat score average increase significantly transitioning now to Norfolk Public Schools Middle School gifted program the young scholars applications this year were received from 31 different elementary schools the number of schools that applicants were accepted from was 26 of the 31 schools the current young scholars demographics do not yet match our divisions however as you can see from our incoming sixth graders we will beginning to close the gap and will continue to focus on increasing the diversity of the program finally Norfolk Public Schools is excited to begin our grow your own gifted resource program starts next week where 14 current Norfolk Public Schools teachers will be trained and endorsed in gifted education through a partnership with Regent University again we thank the school board for your support of our mission to ensure that our students

024have the opportunities needed to meet their potential with that I welcome your questions go ahead Mr Clinton and I miss the scene okay the doctor great information um I wanted to go back to the slide that the emerging Scholars benchmark scores 21 21 2022 this is really good to see um but like I jumped out James Monroe went from 62 to 91 and some I think also Chesterfield with the 71. can you kind of expand upon what uh may have potentially occurred there that would work well so one thing at Chesterfield is the first year they've had a full-time gifted resource teacher so that made a direct impact with James Monroe it's their second year but up till then they've only had two and when I actually asked the DRT I said what happened at

025James Monroe and she just she admitted I mean she's been able to push in more but at the same time she said they just have some exceptional students so and James bro as a whole is really making efforts to work as a team to grow the schools so this there's a lot of factors involved but um it's still it's still good it's still good news but a big factor is when we make the investment we can see the results absolutely thank you I was gonna say I was I'm glad that slide is up because I think one of the benefits of having the full-time dedicated GRT in that school is where you know that where you see that trend of um the increase in The Benchmark you know and you probably my guess is probably

026see an increase with other kids too because you're pushing in um but um so speaking of of which um so you talk about the Cog at being used to identify emerging Scholars and so you know we were talking a lot about literacy and numeracy and um so as a board or as you know as we're talking collaboratively here for what limitations do you see um with you know some of the challenges that um we have around literacy impacting um you know gifted identification and I think it's great that you're looking at other characteristics of giftedness but how are you kind of you know working with some of you know some of those challenges in the identification process so the first grade koget screener there is no reading so it's all picture based so the universal

027screener that eliminates that barrier right um it is a relevant concern for the grades for the referrals but we don't uh that's where we look at the other criteria so if they don't do as well on the test section per se where there's reading we look at the student work we talk to the teachers we look um we interview the student we get the behavior rating forms from the teachers and the parents and so forth so we take in other factors the literacy has been an issue coved really put everybody behind even our gifted identification right identified students so just like anybody else they come at different levels and there's been remediation the nice thing about again having full-time gifted resource teachers in the schools they can collaborate more with those teachers and so help

028them with strategies like Jacob's Ladder which works for all it's a it's a gifted program but it really works for all students in scaffolding and being able to push in and work with those small groups because the kids they're all at different levels and even the ones not identified might pre-assess out of a subject so if the DRT could come in they can work with them when they can provide help with the teachers to help with the other kids that aren't there yet so we are aware of it we have some reading strategies that we're doing we're working with the teachers on as well all right and my next question in terms of those that are being referred um how many of the student students with IEPs because I hear a lot about you know

029the twice twice exceptional students and sometimes missing those students who sometimes find themselves you know with behaviors and sometimes find themselves in ISS instead of when really they're just you know gifted and they're being missed I think which we know nationally is you know an issue but we so I don't have that data for this year yet but we've it will be tracked going forward because we're going to start tracking specifically for our twice exceptional the the students however it is a focus in our department we've been working with Dr Carpenter from William Mary who is an expert at twice exceptional right and she's provided us a wealth of content we've been working um with we have some one of our gifted research teachers that's her expertise he's got her PhD and twice exceptional and

030she's done some conferences and PD for our teachers already so we will continue to work we've already partnered and reached out to our learning support people who are very much on board with collaborating with us as well and speaking for you but she's been very uh um they've been very supportive and we want to work together because agreed 100 and we are also going through the summer work on a new behavioral checklist because I feel um and not just me but some of our parents in the giac and some of our drts feel that it doesn't accurately recognize some of those underrepresented behaviors of populations and so we're going to re-look at how that might be better used and we need to train our teachers on how to identify those characteristics on the kids the

031twice exceptional or any student that doesn't have those um stereotypical gifted behaviors as well so that's definitely on our to-do list to help with that okay and then one last question quick question so at the high school level like what else aside from the academic programs you know the specialty programs are you looking at other ways to enhance you know whether it's extracurricular programming or um you know for students at the high school level whether it's you know like I said extracurricular programming or in-school programming to um really you know provide greater opportunities for high school students absolutely so we have our advanced placement we have our honors we know that and we're trying the Arts and Sciences program we're trying to we're pushing that out in our high schools we're providing teachers extra pay

032to provide those after-school activities but for the in schools Sometimes some of those students need something different and unique right and so we are that's another thing we're working on this summer is building creating some curriculum some class curriculum for our middle and our high school an elective of some sort to help those students kind of adjust because a lot of times they don't quite fit in or they're having difficult like they've had an easy time up until secondary and then suddenly they have to work and they don't know how to because they haven't had to so we are looking at building those type of criteria or curriculum in our especially for our sixth grade and our ninth grade our transitioning students so that's the goal is develop a class and then ideally we would

033we would ideally get more full-time drts at the high school so they could teach those classes or they would work with somebody to teach those elective courses as an option and really not just for identified gifted it would be meant for them but really for any student that might need critical thinking skills or trans something like that but that's definitely in the works well great job thank you um Miss campson go ahead thank you very much first of all congratulations on finally giving us the support we need for our gifted children I mean begging for it when we have one or two days a week and then we wonder why we don't have our children identified this is a huge jump and I'm very excited to see that you and your staff everyone is doing

034that it's making the difference as we can say already with numbers I was looking at the page that has the eligible students for identification I don't think it had a page number oh wait there it is this one 13 page 13 slide 13. now I see it okay uh yes I think and this is 21 percent yes that's it okay so Mike when I'm looking at the increases and um of course they all have increases but some of the increases are hugely higher than the others um and and I'm sure that a lot of this has to do with what we just talked about was the fact that we now have support for our students just because you're gifted doesn't mean that you're just all of a sudden gonna be able to know how to

035use that um did have you looked at what was so we know they've all got Staffing in there now so that's equal um so the huge difference is the huge difference because it hasn't been um supported enough and now it's getting support and that's why it's jumping is in other words is this a picture of uneven support in the past very much so for a majority of them most of those schools haven't had full-time erts except for the last couple of years so now we're starting to see growth some of those big jumps I'll be transparent they're a little misleading so they go from two to six but that's still a 300 or 200 increase oh okay I see what you're saying but all right now I didn't catch that piece okay yeah so some

036of those big numbers are due to the you know they just had such low counts to begin with but we are making progress and we want to continue that um a lot of it is yes it's lack it's not it's not Equitable resources at some of the schools and even uh even again that might they have a full time but they have a k through eight so really they only have a part-time for elementary and middle school as well so it's really just ensuring that we're trying to give everybody the same Equitable Services as much as possible now coming off of covid you know some schools were at a different place than other schools and so you might have been able to see a jump like that first year last year but now those other

037schools that are recovering now you're seeing them be able to catch up if that makes sense so we would expect over time for these numbers to start being even absolutely that's the goal if we're near two this is year two of it that's cool well this is what I'm thinking of it as one oh okay because I was like whoa I missed a whole year everyone's laughing because there's ain't probably true okay so that that answers that question because that's I think I'd like maybe when you do it next year if you would maybe put a side by side one so that we could see the actual numbers too not not rush in do it today or any time but when you're doing this these end of the year kind of reports here that would

038be very helpful the numbers and the percentages right because this is a this is something that we've ignored for so long of course I'm happy doing that thank you yeah uh thank you and I Echo uh everyone that has celebrated the good work and my my question is very similar to uh Miss campson's on the previous slide on Slide 12. um and I know that you've you reference the increases which I think are exciting my question is are there interim goals that that you have that you're you're targeting I think increases are great but like when I look at this chart do you have a goal for each subject or each year I think we were looking five years down the road we want to meet our demographics but I think that's I think that's

039an excellent um something that we should do we should make a goal every single year we want to see for this subgroup this percent of an increase is that is that what you're yeah I'm saying if there's some goal over five years I think that would be something we could Monitor and then on an interim basis if there's let's say next year if if I'm understanding this correctly that uh uh 8.6 of black students were uh eligible for gifted identification than is the goal for next year to get 12 and then we come back next year we can say that we meet the goal that we exceed the goal are we behind the goal and be able to have a conversation around whatever it is that we are at that time and if for example

040if we didn't reach the goal then what is it that we may need to do or do differently or provide resources but I think if we have those if you consider having those goals it would add illuminate even more how we're progressing towards what we think we can and can achieve an idea of would you the school board want to give us those goals or do you want us to propose something I think you probably would be the in a better position to propose it I can look at National yeah I could definitely look at National laws and for um and bring that I think that's an excellent idea thank you anyone else we have the Family Life Education proposal update with Dr Cole good evening good evening go ahead and start when you're ready

041at family life right now okay all right uh good evening Madam chair Dr Martin Vice chair Miss Buffalo members of the school board and Dr Birdsall I'm here this afternoon to present updated information pertaining to the Family Life Education as was reviewed during the last presentation in the code of Virginia required the vdoe to develop a family life education standards back in 1987. for each local board to review the curricula at least once every seven years and that parents have the right to review the program and the right to excuse their child from all or any part of Family Life Education during the last presentation a request was made around any research connecting literacy to teen pregnancy in an article posted in the National Institute of Health in 2012 a study of 12 339 females

042in seventh grade showed that females with less than average reading levels were two and a half times more likely to give birth in their earlier teens compared with those that had an average reading levels additionally a significant interaction between reading skill and race and ethnicity indicated that Hispanic and African-American girls had a greater risk of teen childbearing by literacy than those who identified themselves as white shows data from both across Virginia and within Norfolk across Virginia 48.2 percent of teen pregnancies are linked to white teenagers while the white population is 68.6 68.8 percent across the Commonwealth making the pregnancy rate 20.6 percent less in that population average well for black teenagers the rate is 15.8 percent higher than the population average across the Commonwealth when looking at Norfolk specifically 21.7 percent of teen pregnancies are

043linked to white teenagers while the white population is 42.9 percent making the pregnancy rate 21.2 percent lower than the population average while for black teenagers the rate is 33.9 percent above the population average therefore Norfolk has a pregnancy gap of 55.1 percent between black and white teenagers and this rate is 18.7 percent higher than the state's right Gap rather the Virginia Department of Health and Health Resources and services Administration provided a grant to Eastern Virginia medical school to implement a program to support effective Family Life Education and we discussed this during the last presentation and part of this grant was to partner with local schools and Community organizations EVMS adopted the get real curriculum which was published in 2019 to address the SEL needs anatomy and physiology Concepts and the focus on responsible and healthy

044decisions about relationships and health behaviors as mentioned at the last presentation 408 of NPS students voluntarily participated in the get real curriculum when NPS was encouraged not to teach Family Life Education due to the pandemic the students and parents of the students had positive responses to the survey conducted following the voluntary class as well as saw positive growth in learning and as requested here's the demographic breakdown of those 408 participants foreign again the new topics being addressed as outlined in the vdoe Family Life education standards are those that are italicized and bold-faced these are the Middle School topics and these are the high school topics as noted earlier in the presentation parents and Guardians May opt their children out of all lessons or specific lessons if approved the new curriculum will have specific letters sent

045home each day for each lesson this information will also be posted on website with division level and school level calls emails and text messages being sent to families the game or in sight the survey window was extended through April 27th and three additional Community Forum meetings were scheduled and announced prior to spring break as seen here the Norview High School meeting that was added had four attendees the South Side stem meeting had two attendees in the Mori high school meeting had 18 attendees there were also a total of 202 survey responses up from the 98 that was reported last time these were received from parents students community members employees and other groups demographic data was received from 75 of the respondents with the self-reported breakdown shown on this slide and here's the representation of zip

046codes from within Norfolk there were some outside zip codes that were just taken off the graph and into the data 76.2 percent of the respondents believe Family Life Education is very important this data share the level of curriculum the respondents reviewed so half of them reviewed both in about a quarter reviewed either middle or High School and the majority of responses stated the topics were excellent for the indicated grade level and that the content addresses both physical and SEL needs they also thought the resources were excellent for engaging students age appropriate and they included current information the strategies and activities for engaging students providing opportunity for student collaboration and for individual reflection were also rated highest in the excellent category there was also a majority of strong support for the terms referred to in the

047survey 122 of the 202 respondents are 60.4 percent supported teaching all of the topics listed on the survey specific topics that were opposed are listed on this slide please note that participants were able to choose more than one topic to oppose also the items with an asterisk are currently taught within the Family Life education curriculum 86 respondents chose to leave an additional comment of those comments 46 of them are 53.5 percent of the comments left were positive and supportive of the content 35 or 40.7 percent were opposed to various topics that are listed on the slide the remaining comments were not applicable to curriculum topics included in the uploaded documents were copies of each of the survey responses for your review during the community input forums the topics listed on this slide were communicated as

048concerns to the get real curriculum in family life in general allowing an opt-in versus an opt-out the grade six curriculum may be too advanced for students that are 10 to 11 years old the costs of the curriculum which we did note there are no costs as the grant provided the curriculum and will provide student workbooks just give me a little background music that's all the mixing of Ginger which is a research-based practice and we do some of that across family life already with an NPS the communications to opt out which will be improved for next year is already discussed or mentioned the conduct demonstration which has been decided to do via video so it's consistent across all classes and not a live demonstration they felt the process is being rushed and again having gender identity

049as a part of the curriculum allowing teachers to discuss higher level grade topics that were suggested in the teacher guide book however it has been discussed and that will not be allowed and we'll emphasize that through professional development the grade level is the cap of what will be taught and the general connection of the curriculum to Planned Parenthood was also mentioned input from the student health advisory committee discussion of the curriculum are included on the slide ensuring the opt-out process is well communicated the concern of teacher reluctance to teach certain subjects which will be which will be handled with shared teaching responsibilities so if there is a reluctance we'll do class switches with teachers and consistency on the condom demonstration which we already discussed we're going to do with the video instead of a live

050demonstration some of the members were supportive of the full curriculum and some stated they'd pull their students from certain lessons however it was shared with me the general consensus was to adopt the new curriculum so therefore the the electronic copies were posted on board docs under our last work session so the April work session the individual survey responses were posted under tonight's work session and our next steps are for a predicted board vote as May 17 2023 uh thank you again for allowing to be here and I am here for any questions with Mr Brady and Mr person die oh thank you for that information tonight as one of the people that took the opt out kids when this thing hit what in the 1980s 1987 maybe is when it when it first started um

051what I felt that was really important and is what you've already said but I think I want to really hit it harder so that our parents are really really aware of it was the fact that they had the control to opt their child out um and and then it wasn't a and it's not a set of either you're there the whole time or you're opting out the whole time it allowed the parents by topic to go in and make a choice because a lot of parents that were uncomfortable with some of these items which they have every right to be they're the parent um but they did find other ones that they liked other pieces and and the children that did opt out were sent to someone for for some instruction that didn't include the

052particular topic that was being done that day and so that allowed the parents to make their own decisions about what their child is exposed to and learning from and I and and you said that that's all in this data but I wanted to make sure that we pull that out because parents some parents are concerned about it as they they're the parents and if they have a concern about it they are allowed to opt it out but maybe the one that they're doing tomorrow or next week usually they were weekly back then um is is that they could go or not go and and really the schools put a lot of work into to make that happen because somebody you don't just send them down and give them a crayon right they should be using

053their time like everyone else in a way that's academic and so I know I would have to prepare ahead I usually put K and one together and two and three and four and five so that we could do something that was academic but was not in the particular thing that their parents chose not to have them do that time we did a lot of poetry writing and things like that that you have time to do that are still improving your academic skills so I just want to make sure that our parents um understand that they are the decision makers here um yes we have the mass majority of them put their children in it but nothing wrong with not doing that you're once again the parent and so I just want to make sure everyone's

054really clear on this is that no parent has to put their child to see any of it or they can pick and choose what they do and the person that's in charge of taking care of those kids just have to take a little more time in the evening to make sure that everyone has something that is academically appropriate for the child so they're not just sitting there wasting their time the parent wants them to be in school to learn so parents talking to you right up here is you can choose for your child you can't choose for other people's children but you can choose for your child because we respect the fact that you're the parent there so I hope that that just a little extra emphasis that our parents become more comfortable because some

055parents are very concerned I've had phone calls and they're concerned and I understand that and so I just want to make sure that the parents understand that they do have every right to have their children pulled out as as requested Clinton thank you Dr Martin uh Dr Pol I saw Shaq input what's that acronym can you kind of let everybody know that it's the student health advisory committee and that's made up of who it's made up of officials who apply to be a member so it's made up of medical professionals it's made up of community members it's made up of some of our School nurses and it's liaison as Dr Maher our senior director of school illness so these are medical professionals and others throughout the community some may even be parents I know Dr

056Gabriel nutrition she's a parent and and others that are here um I think that Miss campson made a very good note on this and that's the fact that there are some parents who are concerned there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation that's being placed in the community in regards to the actions for which and being very hyper partisan that's out there but I think that we have to go back to the fact that in public education we're here for all of our students each student and when it gets back to that particular Point parents always have the finals Act even whether or not your child goes to public education you have the choice to put them in private or anywhere else which you also have the choice to determine whether or not they're going to

057participate in certain courses and I think that that needs to be highlighted and those who would continue to push inaccurate information about this process I think that you've outlined it quite well for us that we have been intentional about bringing this information in and those who participate in it but then also that that information has been submitted to an external party of this board to make a recommendation to this board which is made up of professionals so that we can make an informed decision but even in that case if the board decides that he wants to go with this the parents still ultimately have the final set and I think that that's important for the community to take back and important for those who would continue to put misinformation or anything against this so I

058applaud the administration in this particular point and I think that needs to be highlighted publicly for doing your due diligence and bringing this information back to us but before I leave I just want to make this very public when I read this article that came from Fox News then it talked about in the headline Virginia governor yonkin on track to restore parental rights against woke education bureaucrats I want individuals to understand what the definition of woke means woke is an adjective derived from African-American vernacular English meaning alert to racial prejudice and discrimination so when I hear things as an African-American male our individuals will talk about woke it is a personal offense to me and it should be a personal offense to any others we're not doing that when we talk about making sure that

059we provide an educational system that is inclusive of all students that is important and as this individual as an elected member of this school by of this school body and a member of my community I will speak up against any anything that takes that or puts that out front to try to divide us so I just wanted to point that out I appreciate the work I will be voting in support of this um and let the message go back loud and clear to our parents you have the final say you always have an opportunity to make sure that you're involved and we encourage you to be involved in your educational process of your child thank you thank you Dr Pol for that update on the uh on this curriculum I too applaud the efforts of

060the administration Dr Birdsong for bringing forward this curriculum a comprehensive sexual health education program is critically important and it's critically important for the reasons partly of what Mr Clinton just said for being inclusive um and for addressing um you know Public Health principles it's rooted it's medically accurate it's rooted in public health principles and rooted in human rights and um with it I think we're saving lives which has been shown in research and unfortunately uh uh too many uh districts too many states are not utilizing this curriculum but there are several that are moving towards a comprehensive uh curriculum so which is great and I'm proud to be one of those districts that is beginning to that will hopefully utilize this curriculum so I will be supporting it I do have a couple of questions

061though because I want to be clear on what we're doing so that when I do get asked questions I'm answering them correctly as well um so we are in line with the Virginia sols we are but in in addition to the way I have been responding to this is that we are in line with the Virginia sols however we are by being comprehensive we have the Sol's but then we are at including additional information and depth to the topic and and the concepts that are part of the Sol is that correct yes okay all right so I just wanted to be clear that that because that's how I've been describing the curriculum to people just to make sure that um when I'm explaining it I'm explaining it correctly the other question I have is you

062talked about teachers um and just making sure that they're explaining when they're teaching the content so I think that's also a really important piece of this and what kind of training they're going to be receiving I know the curriculum the get real curriculum has training for teachers so what will we have in place will we will they be engaged in that training absolutely so some of our teachers have gone through the training as we prepared because we weren't sure how many numbers we'd have for the voluntary classes and that was a big part of the grant was the professional development part of it as well but that will continue on and there will be annual training because the the key and the goal here is consistency so that each classroom is learning the same the

063same content and the same curriculum in the same way that that's an important part of a comprehensive Family Life Education Program so the simple answer is yes we've done a lot of training and we're going to continue on with our partnership with EVMS and do more professional development if the board opt to go with this curriculum it's a it's an intensive part of the work to be done and lastly I just for any board members that might be on the fence I don't know if this helps but sometimes it helps but the American Academy of Pediatrics the American College of obstetrics and gynecologists and there are a variety of other medical and scientific organizations that also support comprehensive sexual health education for in school in schools and so I think you know that's always something

064that reassures me that we're doing the right thing so if that helps if you're on the fence I think that's I'm happy to share those too so with with you all but um just reminded me of something in what you're saying when you were talking earlier about how this does satisfy the SR the standards of learning that set forth by the Virginia Virginia Department of Education but it also goes beyond because it gives them a practical experience and understanding of what this actually is if you're going to you know partake in this this is the proper you know way and in certain like um contraceptives and things like that how to use them and I just think it's so interesting because if you take this subject matter or take take this process and you put

065it into another subject matter I'm always hearing why are you doing all this testing and not teaching practical skills right to set them up for the future and here we are doing that and you know there's been some criticism such as in in that article so you know just the irony is not lost because because we know that this isn't really our children need to know right and I support everything Mr Clanton Just said and that you know our students and our school district will not be fodder for um any anti uh you know LGBT or anti uh African-American you know this this that is not something I will stand for and um you know right there with Mr Clanton and um you know so I won't support that so all right thank you go

066ahead Dr Gabriel I think it's important to share also my perspective and support of the work that the Administration has done very methodical work evidence-based and I'll Echo what Miss bassine said about the support from the American Academy of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology when you open up your presentation with the data that is specific to Norfolk it becomes very important for us to not um be oblivious to the fact that these are our students and they are going through these things and as a pediatrician in the area I have diagnosed teen pregnancy and it is not a conversation fun to have in the emergency room or in the office and for a young lady that conversation will totally change her course of life and Direction not to say that it cannot be redirected but

067for us it is it's it's not just checking a box of revisiting our curriculum as the law requires but it is also let's not only look at this curriculum but what can we do more for our students and what are the needs of our students and here in Norfolk Public Schools I firmly believe that this Administration Embraces the parent as the first teacher and educator of the child absolutely before they even come into our buildings the parent is the first one I feel that way as a parent with Norfolk Public Schools I always feel like I am supported that way and I don't want any parent of our wonderful School Division to feel like they are being alienated from this decision as Miss camson said as Mr Clanton said as Miss bassine said and as

068I feel we all believe they have the ability if they're not comfortable if the parent wants to be that teacher for that particular subject or to to impart their values whatever they might be they have full autonomy to do so they can leave the math and science and English to us and they can take care of everything else we are fine with that as the board but this is an opportunity for us to bring our curriculum in alignment updated and to really provide some very medically relevant education to our students and hopefully make a difference for them so I'm in support of it and this is this has nothing to do with politics but everything to do with setting our students up for success very well said any other comments okay go ahead Mr Jordan

069so I guess I'm the one struggling and I accept that um I have some some questions that to just help me to better understand some things and then I'll you know knowing we don't share personal things but I'm a share some of my personal things so can we just go back to the beginning and just kind of re-explain what our options are I know that there's a curriculum that's been developed that's being recommended that we adopt that's a option that we have before us can you just explain again let's what what the options are as a school board what we're required to do and what our options are so the options on the table are to adopt the new curriculum to align with the 2020 standards you also have the option of the board to

070say we're not going to teach Family Life Education at Norfolk public schools and it's a it's an at-home only no support from the school Division and you have this the the option of um sending us back to the drawing board and say we want something different to meet the standards those are really your your three options okay thank you I appreciate that then I just want you to kind of help me I couldn't quite follow all the all the data so on the slide where you had the comparisons which do you know slide four yeah there's a lot of numbers up there I I apologize about that no I just want to make sure I'm I'm following it so I understand that one is to give us a uh sense of the number of teen

071pregnancies that we have in Virginia we have in Norfolk I assume the the white black thing is and other is kind of align it lighting it with our demographics as a school system and that's the way it's reported on the Virginia Health Department site is white black other so that was the way we could pull the data yeah so can you just give me a sense of what and maybe my colleagues know if you don't but what what's trying to be um shown in terms of the the the racial break release what we call right so I think no such thing as race but what we call Race yeah so I think what's important is across the Commonwealth we already have a gap of 36.4 percent that's the average Gap across every every area in

072the Commonwealth between white pregnancy teen pregnancy and black teen pregnancy so the Gap is 36.4 percent higher possibility for your your black teen females if you focus the data down to Norfolk it's 55.1 percent so that chart on the bottom is what really narrows it down so the Gap widens in Norfolk than what it is across the state and uh I I assume there's some I get that that there's some something we should glean from that uh so then to the um I guess the the point of the I guess the Philadelphia study um that was looking at uh the impact of literacy at least in the 90s uh best we could find Mr no no it's fine no it's I'm just I'm just trying to make sure I'm I just make sure I'm understanding

073that what what this study found was that the uh more that are girls in this case are reading on grade level then the less likely they are to experience teen pregnancy is that is that correct that's what the article States and I I think as the board has stated and administratively stated literacy is the key to a lot right and this ties it to the teen pregnancy rate as well and then on the on the second bullet can you just I'm trying to make sure I'm understanding what what that's saying so in in the study it specifically pointed out that the this was more significant with Hispanic and African-American um girls they had a greater risk um with the with lower reading skills than those that identified them as white so if you look at

074just your lower readers um black teenagers and Hispanic teenagers had a higher risk factor of becoming pregnancy even if they were all at the same literacy rate okay okay that that's that that helps me and so uh one of the um when I was just searching as I often do so I came across some studies on the uh CDC website and they also had some indicators they dealt with grades so one of the charts they had was um sexual behaviors in academic grades this was from a 2015 National Youth risk behavior study and it showed that students with higher academic grades are less likely to be currently sexually active or to have drunk alcohol or use drugs before their last sexual intercourse and are more likely to have used a condom the last time that

075they had sexual intercourse and it's several uh charts that they have there that in essence um because they even broke it down by eight ABCs D's and F's however that's determined but I guess there's some uh they said it's not causation but there's something where we're seeing where students who are performing better with literacy and doing better with their grades are least likely defined their pregnancy rates or drug use or other uh I don't know what the appropriate term is risky Behavior whatever you want to call it that um the more literate you are and the better grades you are the less likely that you're engaging in Risky Behavior I guess is the way it's used to be said so just to get personal for a moment uh so I'm a father of two daughters

076both graduates of Norfolk Public Schools um uh as a parent uh when the Family Life came up uh I opted my children out and I opted them out uh one because um I started talking to my children about uh reproduction and their bodies and male bodies probably when they were four or five and six years old um which I think was about the same time that my father bought me the book uh where did children come from and said go read this uh my mother gave some additional balance but you know that's what I re I remember in the book may still be in the drawer in the in the bathroom that my brother and I shared but uh part of the reason that my wife and I talked about it was um one I

077do believe so I tend to be more libertarian than many uh I I don't like the government dictating everything whether it's uh the neighborhood that I live or anything else I just I think that our democracy is stronger with a responsive government that is uh limited uh but but I do believe that government has a role in I believe it has a role in public education part of the thing for for me was uh more than just talking about sex it was talking about um what our family morals may have been what our religious beliefs were and so I thought that it was important to have um more than just the sex conversation now I think when they got into high school like I can't remember I don't think I opted him out of high

078school but at elementary school level I just felt the middle they were at again so it was the K-8 model that um that I just felt that if somebody was going to teach my children about some of these topics I felt that I was prepared to do that or if I wasn't prepared to do that I knew I could go to Dr vegan testing Dr vacantessa would help me have that because that's the pediatrician could help and have me help me have that conversation what I'm uh in part concerned about well let me ask this question in those three options is uh opt-in and opt out also an option so the um I I pulled the exact language up here let me get to the right slide so on the third bullet there the exact

079language from the code says parents and Guardians also have the right to excuse their child from all or part of Family Life Education instruction which is the opt out that we provide right now I get that but does that then mean that if we do Family Life Education it's automatically opt incorrect okay uh so you know I'm I'm some years away from when my daughters were in uh middle and high school um but um the level of communication and the bombardment I felt as a as a parent I think I had to be pretty well engaged to um uh to hear and listen and pay attention and focus on whenever anything came around opting out of anything and for better for worse my children can speak to whether or not they were well served or

080not that they can make that determination um I think that we need to consider and I and I saw that in recommendations but I like to see it spelled out even more it's almost like when we uh do a lot of the surveys that we do and the surveys to me are good surveys but when we look at the results they aren't always representative of of our of our district and culturally I think that um or better for worse there's some parents who just trust the system uh there some parents like me that struggle don't know what to do uh there may be other parents who are on top of on top of things um I do agree with my colleagues that that parents can always opt out but I think as a division as

081a board it's not about the administration I just mean public schools in general but Norfolk in particular can do a I want us to be very intentional I don't want us to just do what we just think works um so maybe in some of these focused groups of conversations around our goals around family and Community engagement that we're excellent at trying to make sure that parents fully understand not just in this curriculum but any curriculum what's being offered uh I do I hear from parents all the time and parents who would who will uh call me or talk to students and the students will say um uh I'm in ninth grade but I'm not taking math and I'll be like what do you mean you're not taking math and then when we start having conversations

082uh often it's well I didn't know I could take this math or the math I'm taking is basic math not higher order math so that to me is just something that we experience every day as we try to uh have our children expire and reach the goals that they have so I'm squeamish now can I respond to that Mr Jordan real quick sure um so one of the things when we first started talking about the get real curriculum that Mr Brady Mr person and I sat down and talked about was exactly what you're talking about is it Communications with opting out so one of the things that we've done is we've reached out Newport News uses this curriculum so we wanted to see what they were doing they've created individual lessons or letters for each

083and every lesson so we've talked about the importance of increasing Communications and the the um the accountability of a teacher to respond to a parent when they get the opt-out back because one of the other things we heard at the family or the community and forums was a parent of a graduated student had said I found out years afterwards that I signed the opt-out but my child chose not to turn it in so he went to the classes anyway well one of the things that we want to do is we want to say when a teacher gets an opt-out form they contact that parent back and saying I've received the form that way there's a little bit more two-way communication going on with that was a large part of the discussion that when you have

084a curriculum change like what we're proposing to the board that we need to improve Communications on what's going on so we've already started that process and started designing what it can be and realize that this is a this is taught April main time frame our letters are just now going out for this Spring's Family Life Education right now which uses the old Curriculum by the way if anybody's listening it's not using the new curriculum material say that again say that again thank you it's posted on site in the libraries everywhere it always has been but we knew that we'd be spending the good part of the beginning and next year working with media Communications even trying to devise maybe some different tools where they could do a response to a text you know that's real

085quick and easy opt-in opt out you know how can we do something like that that's simpler because we knew the importance of communicating this and getting those forms back on that point and then I'll one more and I'll be done on the on the new oh I didn't know you didn't have your hands up so I apologize I apologize but it is um on the Newport News side they do the get real for high school they don't they do something different for Middle School it it they do I believe they do get real for middle and high school the thing Newport News does differently though is they actually hire additional PE teachers and those PE teachers go from school to school to school so there's consistency across so if the board wants to allocate us

086more PE teachers we're happy for that um but you know that's one of the things they do for consistency I would have to double check but I believe when we talk to them they use it for their secondary curriculum as well then I just have one last question on the on the communication strategy in in our options is there uh does it hinder the the the recommendation if the um communication strategy is brought to us uh prior to or aligned with our action on on the implementation so yes because of the professional development side you know we want to make sure that with uh that with any incoming teachers that at the beginning of the year before before service even starts um that they are getting the professional development they need to be prepared to

087teach this content um so I do believe it would hinder it especially because we do really want to find something that's comprehensive enough in the two-way that there's verification that the opt-out was received that's our goal so so I shared the goals of where we're trying to achieve I am I would like to err on this side of knowing that we're going to have a robust um parent communication platform uh along along with it so I'll see where I'll be in two weeks but I'm just sharing where I am thank you and thank you all for the time yeah first thank you I'll just quickly say um I agree with everyone around the table it's needed like Mr Jordan I did cringe a little bit but I don't think we can over communicate when we're

088you know um Community communicating to our parents especially about the opt out option because there are some parents who want their kids to be in you know um go through uh family life so um yeah just over communicate parents again they're your children you you decide what's best for your family your children and you have the option to opt out of this curriculum if you choose to so and we'll be doing both School level and division level Communications to match it was up to me we'll have Billboards around the city you know but yeah parents you have the power and you can opt your children out of this curriculum if you choose to do so so thank you Dr Paul thank you Dr Paul in round three round three grab my water real quick okay

089continuing item 3.04 continuing the drives strategland update so all right good afternoon again Madam chair Dr Martin Vice Chairman's Buffalo members of the board and Dr Birdsong I'm here now to provide an update on third quarter grades attendance and chronic absenteeism foreign this data will cover third quarter grades attendance rates and Trend data rates by level and demographic students who are at risk of being chronically absent and students who are already chronically absent starting with a high level overview of third quarter grades as seen on this graph grades one and seven have seen a slight uptick in grades 9 10 and 12 have seen larger increases and are above the rate from last year for failing two or more classes well grades 2 through 6 and 11 are all below the rates for last year

090looking at the same data by demographics the data state level from students with disabilities and decreased for Asian students and had increases with other subgroups of students with the largest increase in percentage of students failing two or more classes with the Hispanic student population included in the data on board docs is a report by grade and demographics as well as by School for students failing two or more classes slide goes into the attendance rates for elementary levels over the past four years these percentages represent the total days of attendance for all students divided by the total number of days if possible this rate averages all students together to get the average daily attendance as seen in the data every grade level has improved in average daily attendance as compared to last year all grade levels

091are still a little below pre-pandemic levels for third quarter here's the same information for secondary grades and all grade levels except for 7th and 9th grades have seen improvements from last year and this graph shows the differences in attendance rates by level and by demographics and as a reminder this is not Trend data it's just the the broken down data by level for quarter three demographics here we see the percentage of students in each grade level that have exceeded a 10 absentee rate through quarter three of last year with the orange bars being three quarter three of this year or sorry the orange bars are last year and the red bars are this year this data takes the attendance by students and does not average out all students attendance so that's the difference between average

092daily attendance and chronic absentee rates the shaded areas are the bands for accreditation schools are level one if below 15 percent are absent ten percent of the more days possible or chronically absent and two level two if they're 15 to 25 percent and level three if they're more than 25 chronically absent and then again included inboard docs for your review is this breakdown of percentage by school with all three quarters represented on the document same data by demographics and the rest of the demographics this slide shows the percentage of students in each grade level that are already chronically absent for the year meaning they've already missed 17 or more days of school grades one through six have seen decreases from this time last year the rest have seen some increases this is the same data

093broken down by demographics and you'll see here are black population are students with disabilities and are low-income population are above the line included with this presentation is the estimated chronic absentee rates by school the students failing two or more classes by grid level and demographics as well as the students failing two or more classes by school at this time we're ready for any questions or discussion you may have thank you Dr I will um well maybe it's more directed to the board and in our work that we've been doing and maybe even tying back to the conversation we just had um I think as we continue to support the administration on uh uh literacy and numeracy and achieving goals we will uh uh positively impact student outcomes accreditation and according to research lower risky Behavior

094and I think that's where our focus and attention uh should be um I do have a question I was watching the I think it was the last state board meeting and it seemed if I understood the actual direction that they're going as far as chronic absenteeism as it impacts School accreditation they're moving away from having a grace period longer grace period and are going to have chronic absenteeism be a part of the accreditation system with that being considered can you just kind of give a sense of uh where we are in the third quarter what that might um mean for us I'm not asking for exact numbers but what that might mean for us and then also I know that in many of the smart goals for the that the schools had there in the

095comprehensive Improvement system they also had many of them had targets around chronic absenteeism can you give us a sense as to whether or not most are on target ahead of the game or or or or behind so a couple things about that one you heard correctly the board was asked to consider removing chronic absenteeism the state board from accreditation because really it's seen as almost a double indicator because when they're absent they're probably not going to be successful so that is correct so the board voted that down so that is back on accreditation this year the other thing that I think it's important to know is this year there's no three-year average with chronic absenteeism that's a very important data point to know prior to the pandemic just like with all the other data points

096you have a three-year average because you could have a year at a school at any school that something could happen to spike or drop data so this year the data on the left part of this slide which was included in in the upload is The Chronic absenteeism by quarter and really when you're over 25 percent which these the the schools in red are at risk of right now they're not there it's they're at risk of that right now and I'll let you know this too or else Dr kimsey might throw something at me we're stall this was also I pull this data right at the end of the quarter so it's consistent so it hasn't necessarily been cleaned for the week prior or anything like that so the the principles will always call Dr Crimson

097say Paul's got the data wrong again my attendance is better I'd rather focus on what I know might be worst case scenario than best case scenario right so the sheet you see here when they're in red that one indicator could cause a school to be accredited with conditions that one indicator one year worth of data that's what the Commonwealth board decided in that vote so that Mr Jordan I think the best way to say is that one sheet is the is the best tracking we have right now um as far as I wouldn't be able to answer to specific school goals if they're reading them or not but you know I try to make them as colorful as I can I'd like to see more green on this I think we all would but this

098is the the kind of the Viewpoint of where we are right now thank you my pleasure and you you said it but I want to make sure because uh your first you said the board voted it down and then you came back and you said and that's so this is Governor yonkin's School Board the State Board yeah the Commonwealth Board of Education Governor Jenkins so um it's not not quite yet he's still he's still trying well [Music] my thing is is this there's an overall auction and I'll continuously say here there's an attack on public education and when you look at some of these things here I appreciate the work that's that's happening here but we can't be blind to the fact that there is concerted efforts on certain things to not move things out

099of the way I mean we we we're still coming out of the coming out of this pandemic and we're looking at absenteeism and still trying to find where a lot of our students are and we even saw the data when we were talking about the um about our Ed planning you know that there is a decline across um I don't I just I appreciate what's happening here but and I appreciate for those who are watching and it's in our school buildings because I know and we've also put it in the budget to put for more attendance technicians to support and identify where these students are if they're not in the classroom or even looking at potential changes to our policy when it talks about when we have to deal with disciplinary issues and students are

100not in the class and still providing them educational opportunities um we're working and I see that and I want to make sure that that's acknowledged thank you no sorry it is up um yeah and you know I honestly I I almost you know I feel like a broken record and you probably could guess the questions I'm going to ask and I know we're probably all kind of um kind of burned out on seeing similar data you know quarter after quarter and so it's um I guess in my mind I'm now like thinking about overlapping with topics like we're going to talk about the summer programming and then talking about so let's talk as a board and as a team like so what can we expect to see like like let's like now talk about okay

101like like like a team like how are we moving this forward like you know as a chief academic officer like what do you you know what do you see here with this data that we can actually do what are some high leverage areas yeah what are some high leverage areas and unfortunately with chronic absenteeism and the thing that bothers me is that it's yes it's in it's an highly important area or indicator uh correlated with academic success but it is an indicator that is not a school-based factor that we can really control so it's really difficult for us to say we're going to do X Y and Z to manage this issue because and you know I've sat with some principals to show me exactly how complicated it is because they know I've they've heard

102me in meetings asking so many questions about it I said let me actually show you how complicated it is and so I have a new kind of respect for how complicated that is but um I guess back to you know this whole picture with you know the number of students failing two or more classes and some of these percentages just really you know it just seems like we're really not moving the needle very much you know quarter to quarter and we've been seeing it um you know over the last couple of years and you know and then we have the chronic absenteeism data so it's like what's our what's our game plan you know you know we have the summer programming coming up how do we monitor this we have Investments with the attendance technicians

103like what is you know what should we expect to see are the you know the attendance technicians are just doing what we hope they can do with what little um influence they actually have you know because so much of it is external you know to us but with the with grades you know the same schools where we see the high percentages or the same schools where we see you know the challenges with literacy and numeracy and then we have you know I wish we could talk about this summer like talk about the summer programs and say okay so we have these summer programs here so can we talk about it and put up some targets like so we saw could so those students for instance that we found here that maybe failing two or more

104classes how do we get them we can't necessarily say you will be enrolled in these classes and we're going to see um our best we do our best but right now it's my understanding that some of those students that are failing two or more classes they have the opportunity to get credit or um get passing grades correct is that or is it just only in credit bearing classes well at your high school level and yeah and that's just High School in Middle School level two there there are they have opportunities now you know we did put in place um you know when we uh replace gradpoint with adminum courseware we were able to use that across the division in all levels so we've done professional development on that where a teacher is able to right

105after a unit assessment say a student wasn't successful in these few areas go back and assign those few areas through adminum work with them on that and then pull their grades up so actions like that are happening but the other piece of the puzzles which you pointed out is they also have to be in school to be able to to complete that work so it it it's a difficult task however we we've put we've put items in place to support the task you know with with the the way to cycle students back during the school year not waiting to the end of the school year in in into a summer program um and and on the attendance techs who are trying to track down and find the students and make sure they're coming to school

106the communications even with the courts and doing petitions if students are out too much we're increasing those levels as well um for for Parental accountability on that too okay additional funds for our teachers to stay back with children so they can recover some classes yeah absolutely yeah so I'm wondering there must be a correlation for a lot of the children who are chronically absent and also missing to uh or also failing two or more classes and I'm wondering if we're we could do more to meet these children where they are so if they're not in school they're not in in the at the in the seat so they're not learning but if there's a way that we could um train teachers to you know they I mean because every child has a device right so

107um if there's a way that when they're not in school that they could be contacted to um to get that curriculum remotely and have some kind of follow-up like they're identified you weren't in school today you missed the you missed it now here's your opportunity and if you have any questions you know I can coach you through this so with their let me be a too pronged answer to that with suspensions if a student did something and they were suspended from school we can do that we and we do do that so if the student when they're given their work whether it be canvas or a packet of work if they communicate with the teacher and they're there's instruction going on during that time frame they they can The Chronic absenteeism part those days are

108considered instructional days for students now the other piece of that is for students who are just who may be just absent we can't for chronic absenteeism that we can't we can't credit them even if they're doing work unless they're ill if they're ill we can still do that and we do do that so if a student has coveted has the flu maybe had minor surgery needs to be home for a week if we give them the week's worth of work and the student is in contact with the teacher emailing and turning in assignments we can credit them for their attendance and then of course they're keeping up with their work at the same time however if a student is just not in school and even if they're doing their work and we're getting them to

109keep up with the grades the absenteeism part is still there's we have no control over that at that point if that makes sense but so we do we do have items in place we use canvas our learning management system to be able to assign work in instances like that and to do teacher communication so that we can have students who may not be in school still still learning um yeah I'll leave it at that so what is was there meaningfully engaged correct which is a very loose term but it's one that the bdoe uses so but I see her I see her I see what your thought process yeah re-engage them correct exactly which is what our attendance techs are trying to do to bring them back which is even our teachers with calling home

110contacting parents trying to keep them engaged and that is happening across the division as far as being able to let's just say back in you know when we were coming back from covid you remember we did our hybrid classrooms that were both live in person for half the class and online for half the class it was a very difficult yeah it was very difficult is what we had to do at the time and I wouldn't suggest that but it just seems that that we I would like to see more evaluation around these two issues because they seem to be interconnected and there seems to be something there that we're missing and um and and you know respecting the fact that yeah there is a limit to what we can do because obviously we're not gonna

111pull them out of bed and bringing and brush their teeth for them yeah um so I just would like if there's any models out there that could be right you know if you guys could could look at this a little differently and um and see if there's a way that we can kind of break the mold of the traditional classroom to re-engage these students a day later in a couple of minutes yeah I said we about to hear about that in a couple of minutes yeah and our summer program too you'll hear a little bit about what we do with our summer high school program as well hybrid model correct right you have something else well I have a follow-up question to that so with the attendance technicians are they collecting when they're talking to

112students and families or parents and caregivers are they recording some of the reasons for why they're they're not in school and maybe can we take a look at some of those reasons and um you know look at our supports and do we have the appropriate supports in place um so I'm like you know I know I know they're collecting the data right and I'm sure miss almond and and Miss Hamlin and Dr kimsey and and everybody is also looking at that data because as you know also this year we had a real comprehensive division wide committee focused on attendance as well that included principles and division level folks so I'm sure that'll be a data point that we're looking at on what better supports can we have around attendance and grades which are hand in

113hand Dr Martin just like you said they absolutely because because one of the one of the things is like let's say during covid that a lot of students started working and they I'm just talking about high school right now and maybe their work schedules and earning money became priority or was just you know you know or even the work they were doing was interesting and relevant or what you know they found it that maybe you know a non-traditional schooling option is and you're going to hear what they need which I know we're going to hear about which is what I'm leading leading that's why a lot of our children are there yeah which is why they're there but maybe that's why we would then know whether should we expand a program like open campus or

114you know I think that would be important to know all right thank you Dr Pohl you still here okay yeah he's around three um NPS item 3.05 NPS 2023 summer Innovation and basic skills programs all right good afternoon Madam chair Dr Martin Vice Chairman's Buffalo members of the board doctor I'm here again to share an overview now of our summer of 2023 uh programs for across the division this summer The Summer Stars program where successful thinkers are ready students there will be several opportunities for content-specific learning as well as enrichment programming to meet the needs of all of our students in an effort to continue offering as many programs as close to home as possible there will be Elementary programming in 16 of our sites and the sites with multiple schools will be hosted at

115the school that's in bold font so the students who are zoned for sewell's point and Taylor elementary schools will attend summer Stars programming at Camp Allen Elementary School programming for the Pre-K to grade 5 grades include the Early Childhood special education program a four-year-old summer literacy camp for any of our current our students who currently completed pre-k4 summer Stars which was formerly called basic skills programming a behavior in social skills support program as well as a cross-categorical program for students with disabilities that qualify for extended school year services Camp Einstein getting ready for pre-algebra 6 for Rising 6th grade students the summer arts academy the green stem experience and our English learner newcomer program will all be opportunities for our elementary school students this summer middle school students will be attending classes within the six

116sites listed on this slide again the combined slights are at the bold face School in NPS middle school students will have summer Stars programming the cross-categorical programming getting ready for pre-algebra and algebra Junior university health and PE summer arts green stem summer experience and the middle school English learner newcomer program will be options for our middle schoolers and as was successfully offered last year our in-person summer school program will be a hybrid program with students attending in person two days a week and live online the other two days a week Granby High School will host our summer programs with Granby and Mori attending in person on Monday and Tuesday while Norview Booker T Washington and Lake Taylor will in will attend in person on Wednesday and Thursday of each week high school students will have

117the summer Stars program which will house students who are unsuccessful in a course during the regular school year any student who wishes to take a course for an initial credit will be doing so through virtual Virginia's online program there will also be virtual credit recovery options for students with teacher assistance provided daily to those students two programs for students with disabilities who qualify for extended school years focused on postgraduate Career Development or cross-categorical programs there's also going to be a continuation of the advanced placement summer academies we had last year to prepare students for upcoming AP classes a credential boot camp for students who are eligible to take credential exams work-based learning opportunities a summer eye State program for students seeking their GED as well as continued offerings at open campus as with last year

118NPS is partnering with the United Way to offer Extended Learning for Chesterfield Jay Cox PB young Ruffner and Tidewater Park students through the elite program and for students at Coleman Place Ingleside Jay Cox Monroe Saint Helena Suburban Park and Norview Middle School the 21st Century Learning center Grants will provide for additional learning activities here are the enrollment trends for the past five years as well as projections for this summer and as with last summer all of the programs are free let me say that one more time all of the programs are free to Norfolk public school students thanks to our Sr funding and the applications for the variety offerings are open until May 15th and information went out the week after summer school on that I believe or the week after spring break I'm way

119ahead of myself there thank you for allowing me the time to present on summer programs and we're here to answer any questions you may have I know you said free several times for children Virginia set free yeah we're covering the cost of virtual Virginia initial credit courses as well go ahead Mr Clinton great thank you I'm excited to hear about this program again my nephew will be graduating a year early because he took advantage of these summer opportunities um and so he's decided he wants to be a merch Marine so you know it's like I appreciate on that one I just wanted to go to your chart on enrollment um you showed in 2022 we had 5182 students but you're projecting for 2023 8960. um what's the um uh I know it's a it's a

120significant increase so what are we doing to ensure that we reach those targets so you know a part of that increases due to the data we just saw with the amount of students especially in our high schools that are failing two or more classes I'm really trying to encourage them to attend summer school so the projections based off what we funded the staff the summer school programs I would like to break that if we can however we are encouraging parents to sign up because whether it's summer Stars program for students who need a little bit more academic supports we want to see that nearly 9 000 number be hit so we've worked with counselors we continue to work with counselors we're getting we've met with secondary principals as well and we're going to meet with

121the specific principles of the sites to talk about enrollment procedures the enrollment process this year is is very easy it's broken down into four applications where the parent has access to all of them they click they one they want and it organizes all their data for us and our wonderful assist team is all ready to put them in synergy thank you um so about how much a server funding is going towards all the summer programs do you happen to know uh so we have budgeted um around 2.5 million for this summer and that's a a round number I don't have the numbers right in front of me but it is you know we want to cover every cost that we can because we want our students to be here and that that's a approximately where

122it is and um thank you so in developing these different programs um so I'm assuming that in in determining the number this 8 000 . 8 000 almost 9 000 students that you hope to enroll um I'm assuming that you used the the academic data we just looked at um and you're probably looking at Star data and so we used our academic data and we also used historical enrollments for the enrichment programs as well okay so with that are you and I know this has come up in previous conversations that we've had um do you have like benchmarks that you're that you're setting for the spring and then looking at and setting targets of where you want the kids to you know how like how you what growth targets that you're setting for the fall

123for those students and what how can we monitor that as well so that we know what return on investment um so this year with this funding and also how our students you know because if these programs are working like right now we're using Esser funding but in the future it might even help us help inform whether you know I know some people will gasp but if we were to even think about year round schooling some sort of model or even continuing with the summer programs like we are right now that will then eventually have to be in our operating budget so that's why I asked for how much we're spending on these summer programs I think that's important information as the main goal of these programs is is you know that we want to move

124kids move the needle for the students so so the students who are in grades three through eight we're going to use data from their spring Sol to their fall through assessment so we will use that to look at um the the students in the Stars program who might have had some challenges academically to see if there's any growth in in their vertical scale score because as you remember from an earlier presentation the vertical scale scores are connected Now by grade level so we'll be able to use the Spring to Fall vertical scale score for that the students who are enrichment program based we're also going to look at their scores for summer slide when you look at reading you know literacy in particular and and looking at you know little to no summer slide for

125students who were involved you know in in at least the enrichment program because summerslide is a real thing where students will lose some reading levels between the spring and the fall when they return so those are the data points for those grade levels for our high school students our data points are going to be credits earned to make sure that they're successfully working towards their graduation goals go ahead Miss um Miss Buffalo and then I'll go back to you okay okay I like seeing all this activity going on this summer my only question is are you seeing any staffing issues never so we meet every other week as a as a committee that works on summer school and that's a standing agenda item we had challenges last summer and to be honest the reason why

126we moved all of our initial credits for high school courses into virtual Virginia was because of staffing issues we had last summer we wanted to make sure that we had in-person live instructions for students who are struggling versus the the students who are going for that I want to you know I want to take geometry before I get into the school year you know I want to get ahead on something because those students are going to be a little bit more successful in a virtual atmosphere so we're trying to curtail that with some of the smaller changes we've made but my anticipation is we'll probably see some some staffing concerns you'll see some of our programs like some of the summer programming ends a week earlier than the summer Stars program to help with that

127as well to make sure that we can you know that the teachers also know that they're starting a week earlier next here so all of that together is is you know we've been considering that how we moved moved it open did it just pay you back off that how are you using our um our volunteers or are you using not to teach obviously but in other ways to kind of fill in with the summer school programs so yeah I mean the volunteers we still reach out to them to to work there or to assist not like you said not to teach but for summer reading or different items like that to come in to help enforce um you know just good behavior around reading and literacy itself also with the elite program in the 21st

128century grants they'll reach out as well and and and participate in the programs the scene do you want to ask a question um I was just this was more not a question but a comment for uh board leadership was uh was really um talking to you no um was that when we you know I think it's something that in the future for an agenda topic I think it's it would be good to kind of keep that in mind that when we wrap up and kind of uh come back to see how our kids our students performed this summer is to look at this data that we've come back to the board and show us exactly what the impact of our summer programs are bison with first quarter how it ties in yeah exactly exactly yeah

129good evening good evening so good evening School Board chair Dr Martin Vice chair Ms Buffalo superintendent Dr Birdsong and members of the school board I have the pleasure of providing you this evening with an update on the open Campus High School program I'm going to begin with some context and forgive me if you know all of this but it helps paint the picture for open campus The bridgescape Learning Academy in partnership with NPS began in summer 2014. the program was a partnership between Edison learning and Norfolk Public Schools the program was originally designed to enable students who had already dropped out of high school to return and earn their High School diplomas while allowing some very limited enrollment for overage for grade students or students who had already almost earned enough credits for graduation but

130who had encountered challenges as they neared graduation the program continued as a partnership until 2017 when open campus shifted to a program operated and funded fully by Norfolk Public Schools however prior to that transition to full NPS operation on October 21st 2015 the center for educational Partnerships at Old Dominion University presented to the school board its findings from a formative evaluation they had conducted of the program after its first year of operation in that report and presentation the center made six recommendations including targeting Recruitment and Retention efforts for Recovery students who had dropped out exploring supports for teachers who were teaching across multiple courses to students with a variety of ability levels enhancing peer-to-peer instruction and Interactive Learning providing professional development for teachers and collaborative planning and instruction and developing a process for identifying and

131referring potential students who would benefit from enrollment at open campus the next year and prior to the transition to full NPS operation in the fall of 2016 the district management Council conducted a program evaluation of all Alternative Learning programming in NPS including the programming at open campus the alternative school and services opportunity review preliminary highlights for discussion written report dated December 16 2016 and subsequently shared in a presentation to the school board on January 4th 2017 included recommendations for improving student outcomes at open campus those recommendations included tailoring the program to meet students individual learning needs providing coaching support to core classroom teachers ensuring direct instruction and support to students expanding social emotional supports for students and implementing a multi-tiered system of supports known as mtss for students at the time of the program evaluation

132the primary instructional model at open campus consisted of what the program turned Blended learning however students at bridgescape spent the majority of their time working independently with some support from teachers who are not necessarily certified in that exact core content area in which the student was working during only one class period per day in addition students attended School in person daily choosing one of two or more half day session programs programming options during this presentation and thank you for your patience as I went through all that during this presentation I will share how open campus has now shifted its focus from one mainly of recovery to one focus of focus prevention to open open to all students through working in close collaboration with the five high schools along with other alternative sites in NPS to

133proactively identify students for whom the traditional four-year High School setting does not meet those students individual needs this proactive collaborative approach included the development of The NPS on time graduation team during the 2020-2021 school year this team consists of the five high school principals the alternative site coordinator for open campus who's actually sitting in our audience this evening and that site coordinator for Madison the principal at net Academy all high school graduation coaches and representatives from the assessment research and accountability CTE and learning support departments the team Works to support schools in identifying students who may benefit from alternative programs like open campus among others and ensures that students receive appropriate supports before they might choose to drop out of high school in this presentation I will also share the transformation of the instructional model

134at open campus including the professional development support provided to teachers in that model's implementation along with other flexibilities and supports that have been developed to support students in reaching the goal of graduation students are usually enrolled in three online courses through the courseware platform at a time though this varies as well depending upon the student's academic and social emotional needs hold on I'm sorry I'm backwards okay somehow I'm so sorry okay at open campus students earn course credit through the adminton courseware online prep platform while receiving intensive direct instructional support from content area certified teachers since the onset of the pandemic open campus has transformed its instructional delivery model which I will explore in more detail later in this presentation and the program has increased the flexibility for students attending the program the program now

135allows for both in-person and virtual instructional support and for individualized scheduling for students without the daily half day in-person attendance requirement the staff at open campus includes one English one math one science one social studies teacher and a special education teacher a school counselor and the site coordinator students usually come to the campus campus at least twice per week for in-person check-ins with teachers and or the counselor though these are also conducted via Zoom based on students needs and progress some students may even come to the campus every day while a few may come only a few times per month depending upon their own needs and challenges as staff monitor students progress however they do require that students who show signs of potential lack of expected progress to attend in person until they're once again

136on track and meeting their individual progress goal checkpoints [Applause] I really got this messed up okay all right when a student enrolls at open campus the staff meets with the student and family to develop the students individual learning plan with input from the students home High School based upon the students progress so far toward graduation the plan is developed back with using backwards design with clear timelines for completion of individual courses Sol tests CPR first aid Etc so that the student if possible will reach the end goal of graduation with their peer cohort from their home High School the template for this individual learning plan was completely redesigned by Ms cook and her team during the 21-22 school year to ensure an emphasis upon proactive individualized support part of the plan development also includes determining

137the frequency for the in-person progress goal check-ins for the student instead of assigning students to specific sessions to attend every day as was the previous model in the program allowing again for that individualized flexibility and support to students so the mini less lesson difference the instructional focus at open campus has shifted to providing targeted direct instruction to students when support is needed in real time direct instruction is provided to the student based on each student's Daily Progress through the online modules in the Edmonton courseware platform with teachers using students previous performance on State and local assessments along with the students performance in the modules to develop individualized daily mini lesson plans for direct instruction many lessons are designed to last 10 to 20 minutes allowing students to then immediately practice using the skills and content

138they have just learned as they progress through the courseware module the mini lesson framework for providing direct instruction was developed and implemented at open campus during the 21-22 school year this development effort involved the staff's close work with the curriculum and instruction team including the secondary senior coordinators for Math and English along with the senior coordinators of science and social studies additionally a learning support specialist and Senior coordinator also collaborated on the development of the framework focusing on helping the special education teacher develop and Implement appropriate specially designed instruction the cni and learning support teams developed the mini lesson template based upon that collaboration and they provided individualized coaching support to the content and special education teachers during the 21-22 school year for initial implementation and that support continues now this daily instructional model allows

139for individualized instruction that reduces students frustration through chunking Concepts and skills and ensures students continued progress toward the ultimate goal of earning that high school diploma please note that for some students who have returned to school after having dropped out for a period of time graduating with their original cohort may not be possible however the staff make every effort to support students in meeting that goal while using this model so why open campus due to the ongoing transformation at open campus from a reactive recovery approach after students drop out or significantly over age for grade to a proactive approach in supporting earning their diplomas open campus now enrolls students for a variety of reasons for example some students may be experiencing family challenges wherein they may need to help care for family members or their

140own children during Traditional School hours additionally especially as a result of the pandemic more students now must work to help support their families during the traditional school day so the flexibility open campus affords them allows them to support their families while also earning their diplomas furthermore some students may want to finish high school at an accelerated pace for a variety of reasons other students May crave a smaller setting as anxiety around being in a large traditional four-year high school has prevented their regular attendance at their home High School importantly while our Focus has shifted to a proactive approach open campus does continue to enroll students who may have stopped attending or have dropped out of their home high schools as well as supporting students who may be over age for grade so let's look at

141some data as seen here shifting to a proactive approach allowing for flexibility using zoom and providing individualized direct instruction has resulted in almost doubling of enrollments since 2019-2020 please note that open campus continues to enroll students now through the fourth quarter of the school year so the current enrollment as of April 24 2023 of 105 students as denoted here will continue to grow through the end of the school year in addition open campus will continue providing instruction during the summer as Dr Paul mentioned to help projected summer graduates reach the graduation Finish Line by our August commencement ceremony this slide notes the demographic breakdown by percentage of students enrolled at open campus for the last four school years the number in parentheses represents the total number of students enrolled please note again open campus continues

142to enroll so that number is going to change here you see the enrollment Trends broken down by students with disabilities SES and English Learners please note that a student may qualify for more than one category so for example one student may be both a student with a disability and an English learner the numbers in parentheses again indicate the total enrollment for that school year again open campus continues to enroll students so these percentages will continue to fluctuate here you can see enrollment by gender again remembering that the numbers are going to fluctuate this year as represented here open campus has historically had more males than females enrolled though in approximately 10 percentage Point increase in female student enrollment is noted between 1920 and 22 23. through its transformation from a reactive approach to a proactive

143One open campus has been transforming into a program that meets the needs of our students who may struggle to progress as I said in a traditional four-year High School even with the onset of the pandemic as the following slides will show open campus has been able to increase the number of positive student outcomes each school year while significantly decreasing the number of students dropping out from its program all while doubling almost doubling its enrollment these positive Trends are attributable to the shift from a reactive recovery approach to providing proactive intervention and supports which include implementation of division-wise systemic collaboration the beginning implementation of mtss providing individualized instructional social emotional supports for students and the development of the mini lesson direct instructional framework unlike a traditional high school at open campus students are not assigned a

144traditional grade level they progress fluidly through school on an individualized plan using online using the online courseware platform so that's important also to note Additionally the program's smaller setting allows staff and students to afford strong working relationships and students also maintain their close connection to their home high schools even participating in events like the prom and of course proudly participating with their peers in their home High School commencement ceremonies here you'll note the significant decrease in the number of students who have dropped out of open campus after enrolling in the program the number in parentheses indicates the total number of students enrolled that year note the significance decrease the significant decrease in dropouts between 1819s and 1920. some of this decrease may be attributable to the increased flexibility around Sol verified credits and other requirements

145that the vdoe afforded students do to the pandemic also please note that the increase between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years may be partially attributed to not being able to have those in-person progress check-ins due to the pandemic as we know students benefit from in-person support especially when they're struggling with content or coping social emotionally however the 2122 school year again continued downward the downward Trend and the percentage of students choosing to drop out from open campus this significant Greek decrease over time is attributable again to the shift from recovery to Intervention which includes implementation of all of those supports that I have mentioned before so though we have much work to do and we know that to ensure that every NPS student graduates on time ready for College and Career here you will note

146the significant increase in positive student outcomes for students enrolled at open campus so as a reminder as students students at open campus progress fluidly through high school with progression at times accelerating and at times slowing based on the students individual learning and social emotional needs here I've noted the percentage of students who have met Traditional High School growth standards within the pandemic year also known as meeting promotional state requirements though again students progress at open campus is students progress is fluid based on their needs for example the first year a student is enrolled at open campus the student may only progress through two courses due to perhaps significant family challenges while the following year that same student may progress through the traditional High School equivalent of two years worth of coursework or 10 courses toward

147earning a diploma on this chart we can clearly see the positive student outcomes such as earning a diploma or a GED when earning a diploma becomes Out Of Reach and making progress at a traditional High School rate of completing five or more courses in an academic year and those have increased from 33.5 percent to 54.5 percent since 2015-16 and positive oops and outcomes have increased even during and after the pandemic with 20.2 percentage Point gained since 2018-19 and again increasing enrollment set from 65 students in 1819 to 88 students during the 21-22 school year so where do we go from here in order to continue to make significant progress for our high school students at open campus and in NPS overall moving toward an eventual Alternative Learning Center by placing alternative programs like Madison and

148open campus at one location would allow us to provide more comprehensive instructional and social emotional supports for students while efficiently maximizing staff furthermore current open campus currently open campus uses two classrooms at the Norfolk Technical Center and has one room for office space the program will need additional space to continue to grow its student enrollment so this concludes my lengthy presentation I am verbose and I stand ready to answer questions not more or less a question I do want to recognize again on this cook in the work I'm going to recognized [Applause] um and and the staff and team that is there I remember when we were going into covet and we were going through there um the dedication and commitment of that staff didn't stop um they literally did a drive-by the presentation of

149their diplomas with balloons and those students there but this is exactly what I think you were talking about Dr Martin um looking at and I'm glad to hear that we've made some adjustments um and I even enjoy hearing the recommendations because we're going to have to when we look at Madison we look at a lot of things in the conversations that have come up we want to ensure that every child regardless of their situation that they have the same level level and value that they're seeing if they were in their regular high school and so to ensure that students can get those certifications that GED and make sure that they can go in and be valuable as a citizen it's exciting to see so to look at that data to look at the reduction in

150dropouts to see the increase in diplomas and geds I'd also like to know so are there certifications that are potentially coming out of that as well or when we say they're getting their diploma the certification would be in partnership with the technical center okay but we do have students closely so I um I can't say anything I wouldn't say anything because this is something that I'm passionate about and seeing this here um for us to continue to look forward thinking as we have these larger broader discussions about how we can pull things in alignment to support our all of our students and I think when we look at that attendance some of those situations that I think we're coming out here working and all these other things will begin to manifest and kind of Rise

151Above to see that we have to do something different think outside of the box with programs like this to address all the needs of our students and if each student and to think you know that traditional going to a school building and you know so thank you appreciate it that's it um if I like Miss Mrs Moore Buffalo to go first not go last okay go ahead just two questions um do we have or do we keep data on what high school high schools the students are coming from yes I do have that and I could provide that too I could see that and also one of the recommendations is physical space to continue the growth at open campus do we have a location in mind where we like to see these too oh on

152that I mean we really um we've been um doing a lot of brainstorming and I'm not saying we would be ready for next year but I know if we're looking um to get into a building fairly quickly meaning not next year but the the next year for planning purposes we have the Fair Lawn building that is still empty and it's a viable building we could potentially look at Fairlawn as a site I'm sorry but thank you this is why I said no don't put it on the spot um it's in a wonderful Community I think it would be a great location and the building is just sitting there and we haven't given it back to the city yet we could certainly make good use of it and so again I haven't really flushed this out

153flush this out but that's what we have been talking about since I've been put on the spot yeah you can't say that sounds good um does anybody else have any questions before I mean I feel like I I actually don't talk for a long time I'm like you teeing up for some time okay thank you thank you so much for the presentation and Miss Cook thank you for being here um I ironically before this was put back on the agenda had a great visit over there yesterday um so I got to see the students in action the teachers in action the whole staff in action so um it was great um and um you know this this program in this school is something I've been passionate about as well um and you've heard me say

154we've got to reimagine high school and look at various ways that our students learn want to learn and be Innovative in that process so you know I know my colleagues have known that I've been asking for an update on open campus for a couple of years now because we haven't um I think since that ODU study or formative evaluation was done we haven't come back to really take a good hard look at how open campus is doing how our students are doing there and um you know how the the program is doing and how we might strengthen strengthen it or replicate it or whatever so um so with that um a couple of questions I have um so it's good to see the student outcomes from from that school because you know a lot of

155times we see the graduations with you know they're they're kind of they blend in with their home schools and we can't really see or you know it's it's hard to determine um how students are performing their what what the next step is for the students that that attend open campus so I think it would be nice if we could um I guess my ask is that there be some sort of born regular monitoring for us in some way regular monitoring meeting like we do with any of our other programs at least at the end of the year just as you provided to us today um to to just kind of know you know how our students at open campuses is doing and it to see the trend data um has been really good um and

156one of the things I'm curious about is the number of students that attend open campus and how we've gone from a larger sample to a much smaller sample and that may be due to physical constraints of the building or maybe other reasons and I wonder if you could speak to that a little bit so I have to glean some of that from documents I found conversations with Miss Cook who actually arrived as they made the transformation in 2017 to fully NPS but as I shared in the context when I was reading through all and that's what this is those are all those reports and everything I really read through all that when I first arrived in NPS um and they their emphasis was really upon going out in the street and getting the kids who

157had already dropped out and they had a specific place in mind it was a charter type school right and so it was a different model right and then when it it it didn't meet the the outcomes they really wanted it to meet there at the beginning it had a bit of a rough start at least from what I can glean then NPS kind of went back to the table went to Edison learning redid um you know I read through where they redid those contract negotiations and everything um and then from there it it started to drop because with five staff members and their emphasis really was on that Dropout recovery I read some things about you know challenges with student behaviors some of those things that were occurring in those first couple of years and

158so I have to just infer there's nothing that I can find written as far as that but Ms cook if you'll notice that that Trend data she has worked hard since her arrival at increasing that enrollment and I know we have really been with the creation of that on time graduation team it's a constant conversation which kids can we get to open campus that's going to be the right fit for them okay okay I appreciate that explanation um the other second part of that is with that on time graduation team I heard um you know the at the time the open campus opened you know just as you explained it was it wasn't for um it wasn't meant to be a school where a students who had disciplinary issues or for suspended students so and

159that is still the case correct no this is a true just alternative non-traditional right well I I heard Madison I heard Madison being so their part so it's like once they leave Madison they can come some students come to an open campus but lots of Madison still transition back to their home High School right okay and some it's whatever is best for the student the focus Now is really as a team at the school level and then we support that at the division level looking at every single student holistically okay what is best for that individual student to help support them in that transition and reaching that on time graduation goal all right I just wanted to be yeah no it is not at all a discipline well I know it's not but I was

160just I mean I just wanted to be sure that that direct that wasn't the direction no so let me clarify and the recommendation yeah uh let me share a little bit about that so that that's very clear um they would still operate as completely separate programs we even talked about building a wall in the middle so that there is no cross flow and they would be on two separate schedules as you know open campus is more of a Twilight program kids come between 1 30 and 6 and the conversation would be to move Madison to that first stagger which is the high school stagger so they start school 720 and they're out by 205. just uh thank you for the work and appreciate all that's been done there and my recommendation is don't talk to

161us anymore about next steps until you're ready so that we don't get in your mess his point heard all right well thank you Dr Kim see um and you're on for performance all right good afternoon one more time or good evening sorry yeah and soon to be good night right so that's enough tonight with uh policies there are a few uploaded for you to review EA support services the entire policy has changed just making it more more Broad and encompassing in the legal references have also been updated the ecabz on vandalism our policy was very close to vspa and we can remove the Z with the updates that are made I mean it does add an amount for damages of up to twenty five hundred dollars for vandalism which will help with our Chromebooks that

162might be damaged the gcbeb military leave and this changes the notification notification from the supervisor to be the appropriate HR generalist who will then inform the supervisor also legally that the days change from 15 to 21 days paid for federally funded Tour of Duty iiae Innovative experimental programs that's a current vsba policy we couldn't find it on our books so it's just making sure that we have it on our books and then GCB professional staff contracts no changes are being recommended it's just the five-year review however we are updating the regulation to that one to match the policy language and that those are the updates for policy tonight okay thank you any questions just have one on the on the contracts uh policy is there anything out there where uh School divisions are using electronic

163contracts I notice in this policy it again says that the contracts will be available at the building is is there anything out there that is more using electronic and digital technology for teacher contracts I really don't have an answer for that Mr Jordan I'm sorry but Mr Jordan I can share with you some divisions don't even issue contracts to teachers the paper contract it's it's just um and Mr Cloud would know more about that um basically our teachers are are guaranteed not guaranteed that may not be the appropriate word right now um but Mr Billups do you want to better explain that um and you can you can do it later okay yeah but but there is there are some districts who don't even utilize contracts especially for their teacher Corps because it's almost implied

164that the teachers are going to get a contract unless they um are on a plan of action and then recommended for termination and go through that process otherwise it's assumed that you're going to get a contract for the next year kind of like a continuing contract it's implied and so they don't have paper contracts so so whatever all that great things that you just shared I guess the main thing for me is if the if there's an opportunity to use less paper use less paper illustries kill us trees and lesson if there is a burden on the school campuses then we just consider that and not necessarily put something in the policy they kind of forces something that May inhibit the innovation so that's that's all then they gotta opt out rather than opt-in full

165circle full circle moment all right anyone else thank you very much Dr Bull and thank you to everyone this evening and your patience with us I was gonna tell Dr Barbara song there's uh models of the non-paper contracts um well not even that yeah for something self-service oh yeah yeah yeah and we have that already right yeah oh yeah are you ready we're good be safe driving to you