School Board Work Session (6-1-22)

001everyone i call this meeting to order welcome to the um november 1st 2022 school board work session miss tanner can you please call the roll the same here samson here clanton president gabriel president jordan here ralston here martin president okay before we um move on to our agenda um just have a a few words um and uh i just want to share with you all um last tuesday may 24th 19 elementary school students and two teachers were fatally shot and 17 other people were wounded at rob elementary school in uvalde texas the nation is in mourning as we continue to learn more details about the heartbreaking act of violence that occurred that day on behalf of the norfolk public schools we extend our sincere sympathy to the community of uvalde texas as they deal with

002this tragedy that is impossible to reconcile may god have mercy on them may the memories of the innocent victims be eternal and i ask that you please join me in a moment of silence thank you safety and security are our first priorities therefore we continuously review our emergency procedures and protocols to ensure we are doing everything possible to protect our students and staff however the most effective procedure we school we including school employees parents and community members we can all exercise is to be visible and report suspicious behaviors immediately i want to thank send a thank you to our security guards our security resource officers and first responders who work daily to protect norfolk public schools and our neighborhoods that is all okay moving on to our agenda item 1.03 um we are going to

003recognize our student representatives but they're not here so we're going to move on to item 2.01 norfolk public schools strategic plan will dr colby presenting if i may have some introductory work sure go ahead thank you good afternoon school board members members of our community and staff we're excited to be here today i feel like today i will be birthing my third child that's what it feels like anyway just regarding the level of excitement that i have about presenting to you our strategic plan as you know this has been an effort an ongoing effort that we put a lot of time energy and effort into for the past year and so today we present to you the mps strategic plan it is a plan for the next five years for the administration to to guide

004our work and to provide some goals and objectives for which we we plan to definitely exceed expectations um we were very fortunate in that we had the valvon group who were contracted to help facilitate this entire process of shauna bell will be with us this afternoon she will be sharing with you the process that we utilize throughout the strategic planning process she will tell you how we were able to garner our we garnered our efforts together in order to get our community and other administrators teachers and students involved in the process we're very very proud of the product we don't think it's perfect but near perfect and so we're very excited about it and looking forward for to your feedback so shawna miss bill will come forward she will talk a little bit about the

005process and then dr paul will actually present the contents of the plan so ms bell thank you good afternoon good afternoon and the information that you're being provided now you you already have received that on board docs but we wanted to provide a hard copy of the the document to you as well it's much prettier good afternoon madam chair dr martin vice chair mr clanton members of the board and dr birdsong as dr birdsong said my name is shauna bell senior consultant for strategic planning for the vauban consulting group i've had the privilege of working with members of the norfolk public school division over the last year to help develop the next strategic plan as you can see from the agenda we'll take the time to walk you through the process that was used to

006create the plan show you the output of all of the hard work and talk about implementation and then finally provide an opportunity to answer any questions that you may have we took a four-step process to develop the strategic plan starting back in august of last year we worked to really understand the current state of the division that was accomplished through these activities outlined that i will discuss in greater detail in just a moment you'll see that we move through the process to define where the division wants to be in five years develop how they will get there and in my opinion the most important step implement with fidelity all of this work was accomplished with the strategic planning committee this committee was made up of various members of the division who provided a cross-functional lens

007to the work they were involved in aspects of every phase from leading stakeholder engagement sessions to looking at data and finally using all of the information that they heard and learned to come up with themes goals objectives and strategies the people selected for this plan were fully engaged from the beginning to the end bringing their full energy and excitement to every meeting whether on zoom or in person two hours or a full eight hour meeting during work or after work their engagement stayed stand fast their commitment to the work is an indication that there are dedicated individuals within the division who not only want to do good work but want to make sure that your students are the center of every decision and every action that is taken now let's get into the process all

008of the work that was done was grounded in these foundational elements we had the drive for five the overview of the division that dr birdsong crafted in order to provide focus this not only provided direction but it was grounded in a quantitative and qualitative understanding of where the division stood coming out of the panel it gave us five areas to consider while creating the next strategic plan this along with the board's accountability plan really helped us really helped us create a structure for data analysis and stakeholder engagement we all know and recognize the importance to gather information from a variety of stakeholders versus using anecdotal information from one or two groups therefore we spent a considerable amount of time engaging multiple stakeholder groups at various points in the process although we had to have sessions

009over zoom due to the covet metrics at the time we were able to create space for participants to engage in conversation as those of you who were able to join these sessions can attest to the breakout rooms provided a smaller more intimate setting to provide input additionally we ran surveys twice throughout the process to get additional input from community members who were unable to attend the sessions our first round of live meetings consisted of three one and a half hour sessions which were open for anyone to attend one one hour session for teachers and an additional one-hour session that included four students from each high school who were selected by school administrators again using the foundational work that was previously discussed there were six breakout rooms that participants were able to self-select to provide feedback

010on three key questions what is going well what should be addressed in the next one to two years and what should be implemented beyond year two there were three rotations available for feedback additionally we ran a survey that was open to anyone within the norfolk community the first survey ran for four weeks and followed the same protocol as the live community sessions and of course we're always interested in understanding and ensuring that we get diverse or that we hear from diverse voices so we asked a few demographic questions you'll see that the majority of the people who provided input in this first survey self-selected as parent or guardian of an mps student again looking to understand where we received feedback we also asked respondents to identify their race and ethnicity the largest two groups being

011white and african american with 21 of the respondents declining to answer i want to once again point out that this data is self-selected so there's no way to confirm or verify that the information reported is accurate all of the information was collected from the engagement activities so the survey information and the live zoom session information held with the community teachers and students and this data was themed based on comments the comments displayed here and over the next few slides represent at least five percent of the total comments for each area now i won't take time to read through all of these but i do want to point out a few things to you and the listening audience as you look through the next slides first comments show up in multiple areas meaning you will see

012individuals talking about how well something is going and then also discuss that it needs improvement i think this shows what we all know which is that all students and families are not experiencing school in the same way for instance you'll see here instruction in terms of of options and support is going well and then also shows up as an area that needs improvement now this phenomenon of students not experiencing school the same isn't something indicative of nps this is essentially which is what is going on across the country but as you'll notice in this plan equity is woven throughout the entire plan in order to support improvement in this area additionally there are items that people would like to see improved that the division has in place or is already working on this shows an

013opportunity for increased communication regarding the good work that is currently taking place this too is an area of progress that shows up in the plan and finally to keep the accuracy of the comments the information being provided is how it was shared with us what i want to point out in communication engagement is the desire that parents in the community have to get back into the schools we know that covet shut down a lot of access and i think it's great to see that parents and volunteers are anxiously awaiting to get back into schools and to be involved and i'm sure you know the division recently launched a new volunteer tool that's already been used by nearly 2 000 potential volunteers in terms of culture diversity equity and inclusion work shows up in all three

014categories where there are comments about the work going well as well as well as the desire to improve the work in terms of curriculum treatment and resources these comments confirm the qualitative data that was reviewed throughout the process that also showed room for improvement with equity in terms of all students having what they need in order to be able to take those higher level classes and be successful again you will see equity intentionally addressed throughout the entire plan infrastructure and technology is another area in which certain themes showed up in multiple care categories such as devices while some praise the division for the one-to-one implementations others still feel as if students do not have devices there could be a number of reasons for such for this such as broken devices or needing to refresh devices

015this won't specifically show up in the plan because it's what i like to call current business where the division is currently working on projects in place around technology and technology refresh and the strategic plan is held more for those things that are new or different that will be done in order to take achievement to the next level items in operational effectiveness additionally show up in multiple places such as resources with some feeling that they have what they need and others not feeling like they have enough of course transportation and the need for more bus drivers to decrease travel time is a problem all over the country and that's also no different here the one thing that i do want to point out because i don't think it received enough attention over the past couple of

016years is the acknowledgement of the food services department and how they provided food to students throughout the pandemic i recently worked as operations in a school and i know that this was no easy feat so it's great to see that the community actually recognizes their hard work and i wanted to make sure to acknowledge that in this space also and then finally teacher staff recruitment and retention parents who love their child's teacher are dedicated to that teacher and dedicated to that school however pay incentives and workload are a consistent request for improvement here and in other school districts across the country so all of that information was taken and five goal areas were defined by the team these areas were defined and objectives and strategies were developed by the team based on data expertise and

017community input this led to our second round of live meetings where we had two one and a half hour sessions that were open for anyone to attend and then four separate one-hour sessions for teachers students principal and other members of the community that included faith-based higher education military and business leaders we outlined the proposed goals objectives and strategies and asked them to rank the strategies in order of importance to achieve the goals we then provided three rotations for individuals to self-select the area that they wanted they had that they wanted and had the opportunity to respond to the questions that you see on the slide once again engagement within the breakout sessions was great we once again ran a two-week survey that was open to anyone within the norfolk community using the same protocol as

018the live community sessions you'll see once again the self-reported demographic data outline where this time we had about an even split between parents and guardians and nps staff looking at additional demographic data we see an even percentage of african-american and white respondents with about the same percentage at 19 of those declining to answer as in the first survey and i want to once again point out that this information was self-reported the next few slides show the average rank of strategies received from the survey again respondents were asked to rank the strategies in terms of importance to reach the goal this is how the first half of the student excellence strategies were ranked and then this next slide shows the last set of those strategies we'll walk through the rest of the the goals and the

019strategies just so you have site but what i want to point out is that these rankings along with the key data points were information that the committee used to determine the final strategies that you see in the plan so we look at workforce this is the first half of those workforce strategies in order of importance and again i don't think there's any surprise that pay ranks pretty high and most important here and then finally the second half of the strategies of workforce goals with differentiation coaching career pathways and performance you'll see that the resource strategies mostly center around equity so what you see here and within the final plan is based on the importance of that equity work you look at community increased engagement and ensuring that all have access to engage showed up as

020important work with that the community desires and i think the thing to highlight here is that there are a number of business faith-based community higher ed and military organizations that are really excited about providing services and partnering with nps to support teachers and students so i'm excited to see how those partnerships come to partnerships form and what the output the output of that work will be and then finally their safety and climate these strategies get to the social emotional support of students and staff in an effort to ensure safety within schools and workplace and create an environment where they all feel valued so hopefully you've been able to see the effort that the team took to provide multiple opportunities for the community to provide feedback and now i'll turn it over to dr paul to

021illustrate how all of this work came together to develop the strategic plan good afternoon good afternoon thank you miss bell good afternoon madam here dr martin vice chair mr clanton members of the board and dr birdsong i'll be presenting an overview of the strategic plan as well as the implementation phase strategic plan continuing the drive equity and excellence for all is based off of five main goals each supported by objectives to reach the goal and strategies that outline activities that we will undertake to incorporate the objectives into the work of the division to ensure a high level of accountability the measures that outline specific outcomes will determine if the goals are met notice the goals are not numbered as they all have an equal amount of importance in moving the work of our division forward

022and to ensuring that each student reaches their highest potential the goals fall into five main ideas student excellence workforce resources community and safety and climate beginning with student excellence where the focus is to create an authentic and culturally relevant learning experiences so that each student will be creative will be a creative collaborative civic-minded critical thinker with effective communication skills notice the connection to the portrait of the virginia graduate with the incorporation of the five c's additionally the focus on authentic learning which will lead to further implementing genuine project-based learning experiences that will connect students to real-life experiences and prepare them for activities beyond their pre-k-12 education this goal also focuses on culturally relevant learning experiences to recognize the importance of including students cultural backgrounds interests and lived experiences to accomplish this goal there are four

023objectives this first objective is to ensure tiered supports and evidence-based interventions are effectively and consistently implemented in every school to support each student's mastery of learning standards this will be accomplished by providing resources and training to effectively implement culturally relevant curricula instructional materials and teaching practices while increasing the focus on students being effective communicators and collaborators within and across all courses and content areas using both analog and digital resources secondly we will focus on improving academic excellence for each student to do so we'll continue to build on our implementation of effective literacy and mathematics instruction and interventions for students grades pre-k to 12 to ensure each student is prepared to meet or exceed learning standards across all content areas next will ensure increased access to opportunities to diverse learning experiences for each student to promote

024growth and life readiness upon graduation by expanding pre-k opportunities for each child through the use of an inclusive delivery model and increasing equitable opportunities for college and career preparation by providing additional access to programs such as but not limited to dual enrollment workplace learning career pathways summer internships specialty programs and choice programs the final objective for student excellence creates a focus on improving student outcomes during key academic transition years this will be accomplished by providing support tools and programming for students and families to ease the transition to school-age programs to middle school and then to high school with each goal measuring the success of implement implementation will be monitored through data points that show growth across specific areas where we want to see improvement these data will be collected and disaggregated by student subgroups with

025a focus on closing gaps across the board as you may notice many of these data points were a part of the great work done by the board with the development of the accountability plan and all of the goals focus on student excellence from reading on grade level by the start of third grade to passing sol tests to kindergarten readiness with a focus on overall school accreditation the student excellence goal is focused on improving all of the measures listed on this slide with the final measure being an improvement in the percentage of graduates who enroll in post-secondary institutions enlist in the military or who are employed upon graduation moving to workforce where we want to attract develop and retain a highly effective workforce this will be accomplished by focusing on two objectives the first of which

026is to create programs partnerships and incentives to attract highly effective employees to norfolk public schools to meet this objective we will develop and implement a sustainable retention programs services and incentives for all staff in hard to fill subjects schools and support staff roles and strategically recruit and develop school and division staff who meet the needs of each student served our second objective focuses on developing implementing a comprehensive professional development process that builds the capacity of all nps employees through creating and implementing differentiated professional learning strands specific to instructional and non-instructional employee needs measuring the success of the workforce goal focuses on retention data teaching positions field higher degrees and certifications as well as having professional development that supports current roles next we move to the goal focusing on resources to ensure an equitable allocation of

027human fiscal and material resources in support of equity and excellence for all which was defined through divisions derived for five although there's only one objective the work in this area is vast we need to identify and eliminate inequitable systems policies programs procedures and practices that impede a student's inclusion and success we plan to do so by creating a cycle of program evaluation in an effort to ensure all effective programs are continued and expanded while any of ineffective programs are discontinued furthermore we must implement findings from division-wide audits that will create fair and equitable practice to increase each student's success having our resources aligned will mean seeing successes through decreased achievement gaps between subgroups decreased concentration of poverty in our schools and increased racial diversity across our schools we'll also see a balance of enrollment specialty

028programs ap classes dual enrollment classes honors classes and within our gifted and emerging scholars that aligns with student demographics across the division we now move to the goal focused on community where we will establish strengthen and sustain community partnerships to support students engagement success and opportunities this work will be accomplished through two objectives first we'll increase the trust of mps stakeholders through timely and transparent communications regarding division level decisions using strategies such as increasing stakeholder engagement through the development of an internal and external advisory groups to include business leaders community leaders teachers students and staff members and ensuring all stakeholders have knowledge of key information and decisions and have a clear process to provide input to further meet the community goal we will review and improve partnerships with external organizations to better meet the needs

029of each student this will be done by developing and implementing an ongoing school specific needs assessment and equitably aligning partnerships to address these needs through the implementation of the community goal we will see increased partnerships volunteer hours active ptas membership on division level committees and increased methods of outreach to our stakeholders and our final goal focuses on safety and climate we will cultivate a safe and welcoming environment whereby the physical and social emotional needs of each student and member of the np nps workforce is valued we will accomplish this by nurturing and sustaining learning and work environments whereby different cultures experiences and voices are heard valued and respected through strategies such as increasing staff input on division-wide decisions that impact workload and responsibilities and expanding opportunities for each student to actively participate in improving the

030climate and culture of the learning environment we'll also be focusing on proactively supporting the social and emotional needs of students by expanding behavioral services interventions and supports for students based on need again with these objectives and strategies in place we should see a decrease in chronic absenteeism in referrals and in suspensions and we should see increases in students with no disciplinary incidents with teachers and students represented on school level advisory committees and with the implementation of multi-tiered system of support activities now we'll transition to the final portion of the presentation with an overview of the beginning of the implementation plans for bringing this plan to a reality starting with the strategic plan implementation committee this committee will be led by our superintendent dr birdsong with the operational oversight being led by the chief academic academic

031officer myself in order to ensure that we can reach all levels of the organization the goal level committee which will be the main committee will consist of co-chairs for each goal each goal will have two co-chairs one division level leader and one principal this will help to make sure the strategy level committees are populated with teachers staff members central office administrators other building level administrators and other stakeholders we want to ensure everyone's voice is heard as we implement and bring our strategic plan to life once the plan is in place there will of course be a media blitz in july and the gold level committee will be developed and begin meeting by august a data reporting schedule will be developed around all of the measures throughout the plan and school leaders will have informational sessions

032during the summer leadership institute these sessions will not only include an overview of the plan but takeaways for each principal to conduct school-level information sessions for faculty and staff as well as for parents then in september all teachers and staff will receive informational sessions during pre-service week and the strategy level committees will be developed in october we will develop a website that not only outlines the full depth of the strategic plan it will outline the data monitoring and to add a level of transparency to our work additionally during the fall open house sessions at each school principals will have the information to share with parents regarding the strategic plan and how parents and community members can get involved in november the implementation committee will have developed a strategy implementation timeline to ensure the work gets

033completed within the five-year implementation phase and finally in january there will be a progress update made to the board and at that point a more comprehensive timeline will be shared we'd like to thank you for allowing us to present the development and the actual strategic plan continuing the drive equity and excellence for all at this time we're prepared to answer questions and have a discussion thank you thank you dr paul i mean we've been i think we're all i want to say thank you for all your hard work but also i think we are as the board we've been waiting for this and we are so excited to be at this point so i just want to make sure i say that go into questions but go ahead mrs campson thank you i'm excited to

034see such a comprehensive plan i like the way you've really worked so hard to get the community involved and i like the planning of this i will be looking forward to seeing you bring in the academics my understanding is that we'll be seeing the baseline academics that will set off our five years in august so that we'll so that we are truly be working in year one as we move into the next school year right so the goal is to have a uh the accountability plan and the measures in place um with the calendar of when we'll have everything so there may maybe a couple measures we don't have by august but we'll know exactly when we're going to be getting everything because we're using this baseline days as the sol's roll in star and

035pals and all the other data points roll in now the hiring and staffing data is all where we're starting from so that's gonna be our start data so as that rolls in the board will have that information and the goal is to have that also uploaded on the website for transparency so so we can be sure that everyone is on point i like the way it looks like it's crossing the whole district so that we don't have pockets of inconsistency from school to school i think that's been a problem that we've had many times in the past is the inconsistency in the implementation and i think that our first speaker talked about implementation and how it's critical that we get that set off and we set keep that pattern going um and in the first

036years the training so i assume there'll be some pre-training on this for teachers during the opening week correct so that they have of the information that they need and understand where we're going and that the principles will be the ones that make sure that we're consistent with the implementation and because it's going to make it or not make it based on what happens with that which is also a large reason why we've decided to have the co-chair model where principals are also a part of leading the implementation committee that way at each level they can take it back to their cluster meetings as well to say this is what's going on and what we need to do next and what input we're looking for and i assume that you'll also be doing that with the

037specialties like with the reading specialist um we'll be having meetings together to make sure that they're traveling on the same road as will the math people and across the across the district and all the schools i i just can't emphasize the importance i don't have to tell you but how important it is that's going to make or break us is the consistency and the deep implementation and that i would then assume that you are going to have your eye on principles that perhaps aren't with us on this i'll use my eyes because this is something that we need desperately it's been a long few years trying to get to this point i'm very excited about what i see the only thing i think i would like to see more of and maybe that's because it's

038in another place is having as we started off with dr martin's message to us then that was very good thank you for doing that very appropriate is more i'd like to some get some more detail in what it looks like what are examples of what we're going to do to make our schools more secure i mean to me that's at this point in time it's very difficult for parents to be sending their children to school when they worry will they see them after school and so i i think we need some hard information there of the district this school board did start a safe and secure task force um it's still there it was voted on not i don't know it just kind of disappeared um after the pandemic but that might be something to

039revisit also so that we get the information of making those i know that dr uh personal and sonic and are working on relationships with our first responders but there was a lot that came out of the early planning there that really ways that they make connections to make it run smoother so we don't see the kind of thing that happened in texas so that would be something that if if we could look at and really focus on that we make sure that we go over and above what needs to be done to do the best we can keeping our schools safe and i'll just i'll move on i don't want to take up all the time i try and not give myself more than five minutes but uh thank you very much i'm excited to

040see this going and implementation thank you anyone else dr gabriel and then miss camp or miss basin thank you dr martin and thank you dr birdsong and our presenter for the nightmast bell right and dr pulford presentation on page 36 you discuss the measures for the academic outcomes objectives and strategies and i really do appreciate the fact that it looks like you're not only looking to really hone in on students who may not be proficient in reading and math but you're also looking to raise the bar for students who are are high flyers advanced placement gifted etc how are you going to arrive on what the percentage is is that something that you will do in collaboration with the board is that in collaboration with the needs assessment and then is that the data that

041we are going to be looking at and tracking as time goes on that's my first question so i just for clarification the data for the goal point or the actual data the starting point the so it so for example it says increase the percentage of students reading on grade level by third grade as measured by the fall growth assessment so are we going to increase it by 30 percent by 10 so as so as we get the initial data so in the when we get the fall growth assessment and have the initial data where we're starting with then we'll have the discussion within committees around what is the growth look like over the five years what would be growth and then that would then of course be shared with the board so you wouldn't use

042this base the sol data that we have right now so the the goal on that one is their reading by third grade so we want to use the new growth measure that all third graders take that test at the beginning of third grade so that would be the measurement instrument for reading on grade level by third grade so that we can also track that summer slide because we don't want to take it at the end of second grade see any summer slide by the beginning of third grade so we want that actual beginning point okay okay so then um so then going back to my question the percentage points who determines that is that determined by dr burton you and your team is that something that the board will look at the data and have

043a collaborative conversation with you that that's certainly my expectation is that we work together as a team with this implementation team that dr paul referred to and we would be bringing that information back to the board we see this as a collaborative process okay and so we definitely want board input and support for this process i appreciate that thank you the other comment that i had was on page dealing with the climate under page 50 proactively support the social and emotional needs of the students and there's a there's a strategy there which i wholeheartedly agree with if you would be interested in entertaining a second strategy i think it's extremely valid and that strategy would be to also take a look at how we offer sports to students at all grade levels and that would

044include recess in elementary school middle school sports and high school sports and i say that because what i have experienced just myself and through the lens of a physician is that when students are engaged in athletic activities they do have incentives to come to school they do have extra support with academics they do have an additional person looking at them looking at their behaviors keeping track of items that might be a little different and so i would see this as a as a very solid strategy to look at social and emotional needs of students and one that i would wholeheartedly support in investing in should that be something that everyone comes together collaboratively on i'm really glad you brought that up because i was looking at it i've been waiting to bring that up but

045this definitely fits because with sports and the role of sports um in scholarships and preparing them for college and um and so that was a discussion that i was waiting for you know the right moment to um to talk about but i agree with you i think that that is important for many reasons that it not only supports the social and emotional needs of the students but also potentially the academic and to entree many students into higher education is that all you had okay great great okay um dr miss basin go ahead um thank you dr martin um and thank you for the presentation today on on this on the work that you and the administration has been doing around the strategic plan um i too had similar questions about um you know baseline you

046know and what our targets are going to be and that's something you know that i look forward to having those discussions through the collaborative process um you know that we that we engaged in last year um as we developed and and i see some of those same items you know in here so some of that goals and guardrails work that we did do um you know i see some of that reflected in here as well as the accountability plan um so going back so i'm i'm gonna kind of go back to the very beginning of the strategic planning process so that i can get a better understanding so the background you often you know the strategic plan it's a road map so we have to understand where we are today or you know as you

047began the process so can you speak a little more about what data you used what you found you know i know the the feedback that we received from the community but specifically what objective data was used to you know guide the development of of this if you could speak a little more to that that would be helpful so even going back to goals and guard rails if you remember the comprehensive needs assessment right you guys got one page back and forth we had about 90 pages back and forth of data that we collected it was sol data star data pals data ap enrollment data gifted data dual enrollment course data ap testing data any academic data piece you could think about we talked about enrollment data as enrollment specialty programs we talked about staffing data

048we talked about uh am i missing anything shauna i mean we talked about the gamut of data to say where are we as a division what we had to take in light though which i think you're all aware of is we were also in the middle of a pandemic with this data so we had some gaps in data you know where some of the academic data may have been from 2019 which was a discussion i think the board had around goals and guard rails but looking at that data then being able to look at some of the active data through the year last year um and then you know coming into this year uh you know we we felt the the the committee the planning committee really had a good idea of of where we

049needed to to move our division forward and then you know i mentioned in here but again the work the board did on the accountability plan and being able to look at data that was that was being scoured and reviewed prior to the pandemic knowing where we had some gaps we we utilized that that data as well and some of the work that was done there but you know we looked at every single piece of data that we could get and that was the beginning part before we even went to the community just to sort of say okay where are we as a division so that we had a clear understanding okay all right i was i assumed you know that comprehensive needs assessment that we received last you know as we began that work was

050uh you know probably part of this but you know as part of this i i think it's important too as as this is rolled out to the community that the community also sees you know what what are some focus areas based on that data and why we're focusing on the things that we're focusing on in the strategic plan i think that's an important um piece of those are important pieces of information um so uh based based on that i guess you know when i think with an equity and excellence focus here i think it's also important that we are all on the same page as to how we're defining equity and can you speak to what you know how it's being defined i mean i think a lot of us know what the definition is

051but as it relates to this plan how are we defining it and i think that definition you know that we all are on the same page about it but also that the community understands how we're defining it i think is important um so if you can talk a little bit about that sure and i you know i think um i'll start with the patent response equity equity is not equality right right equity means that we we support our students where they are and we help them grow to be their meet their best potential and what supports do they need and just like each of us in this room every single one of our students has a different need to meet their potential and equity is truly meeting that potential when you when you look at

052the at the measures here you know we said specifically for each student that's where equity lies it's not for our students it's for each individual student and what do they need and how do we dig down to that level to make sure they're getting the supports that they need and how are we making sure you know we look at our when we look at the the over our plan and the supports how are we putting everything into place to meet our students need and that's really where we see the equity is that we're reaching every single student on an individual level to take them to their fullest potential and mr scene if i may add it was important for us to to think about you know how we're going to meet individual student needs as

053we work through this entire process it's easy to talk about all children a b and c all children this and that but as we as we met as a community as an uh a leadership team as we went through the process it became so much clearer that there is a definite need to focus on each and every child so if you go through this plan you will see very little focus on all children to meet the needs of all children you will see a focus on each and every child because we know how that's how we're going to move the needle if you if you meet children where they are if you provide to them then their instructional needs whatever supports they need to be successful you can expect that child to grow and when

054one child grows other children grow you're going to see a difference at the division level but you have to start with the individual child first and so we we definitely wanted to make that clear and i think the team of stakeholders did a great job of identifying each and every child in this document as opposed to you know there used to be a focus on all children we're focusing on each and every child regardless of where they are on the learning spectrum okay and i i thank you for that explanation and um i guess that that kind of brings me to you know the other comment that i that i wanted to raise you know bring up to the board or remind the board um you know i agree with you the all children you

055know we've been saying that you know for many many years and we have not been serving all children as our data clearly shows and we've had a lot of discussion as a board over the last you know year and a half or so and for some of us who've been on the board uh you know longer than that um that we have to be intentional in our focus and what we've seen in our data what we saw before the pandemic what we continue to see is that our african-american students or students with disabilities and our economically disadvantaged students and english language learners that intentional focus has not been there you know and it's not just a norfolk public schools thing but we are responsible for norfolk public schools um and so bringing that the strategic

056plan around having that particular focus there while yes we're still um you know meeting the needs of each and every child but also being very intentional in our focus that we are prioritizing those subgroups that we know have not been um the focus of our public education system and so and i know you know that's one of the the strategies one of the goals around resources and i i think what is implied in that is that you know those systems of inequity or you know systemic racism that has been in place that has um you know has enabled those patterns of inequity to exist um you know i think that was the in that's the intent by that but having that intentional goal and that focus there i think is really important if we are

057going to do what we're saying we're going to we're going to do particularly for those students and so that's something i would like to see more of um in his plan um and i think maybe through our collaborative process that we eventually engage in with our continued discussion around goals and guardrails if that's what we're you know aiming to do whatever but i think that we have to be on the same page with our goals you know what are our goals what are our goals and how do they align with the strategic plan goal and i feel like we're a little bit out of alignment and i think i think that may have been part of what dr gabriel was also trying to get at with ensuring that we are going to have that collaborative

058discussion at some point um so um anyway that's that's something i'm looking look forward to continuing that discussion um but i do have other comments but i'm i'm gonna let everybody have a chance to ask other questions so i'm gonna okay dr austin and mr jordan yeah first i'd like to say um clearly there was a lot of hard work here and i really appreciate the hard work and the focus but um one of the things that i think is important um in the strategic plan that i was looking for even though it was very holistic which i think is good but i also think it's important that we drill down and maybe focus on schools also and i know we're talking about individuals but i think it's the school that really makes it happen

059i think we can talk about it holistically you know each individual child will get this and get this but the school has to be ready to do that each individual school and um and i think that's important to to sort of discuss or somehow touch on specific schools we know that there are some schools who have more needs than others who have more issues than others and i think that's going to be very important that we focus in on that even within the strategic plan because if not what can happen in schools can be distractions and if there are a lot of distractions in schools then some of the learning is going to be limited if there are distractions in school so it's going to be important that we drill in on schools also to

060make sure that they're at their highest peak also you know in terms of everything they have to offer and all the resources that they need in schools because i think that will trickle down to um improve student achievement and meeting a lot of our goals if schools are tight you know each and every one i just think that was a point i wanted to make this dr paul can you talk to that about how you plan envision impacting the kids meeting them where they are through the schools sure and a lot of that is where the focus on the resource goal comes in so if you notice the measures on the resource goal are really about you know the equity part in in raising students you know dual enrollment and dual enrollment raising students in

061ap looking at you know a kind of a match diversity in in those as well as across our division when you look at our demographics and the resource part there is about making sure that each school each classroom has the resources they need to meet the the needs of their students at that school level so i mean that's where the resource comes in is really talking about lifting up our students who who struggle traditionally who have struggled traditionally with the needs of that school so again we go back to the equity not equality so not funding schools equally but funding them equitably based on need because once you do that you're absolutely right dr ross and once you start lifting you know lifting our students who have struggled traditionally then it lifts everything academically at

062least everything social emotionally and students they start coming to school more regularly they you see them you know younger ages start going into honors and maybe more ap or dual enrollment and they're more prepared for that step after graduation and that's really that goal of the resources area is to talk about how do we focus at that school level to make sure that we're meeting the needs and not just focusing at the division level and in addition dr ralphson um if you look at the student excellence goal another example in there if you look at measure two increasing the percentage of schools meeting accreditation we will find that the majority well the schools that are not accredited are not accredited because they have needs you know whether it be additional resources whatever the issues are

063so we we are definitely looking at that because again some of our schools some of the same schools have not been accredited for a very long time and we certainly this administration is making a concerted effort to put more focus on what's going on with staffing what's going on with resources what's going on instructionally all of that so there there will be a focus on schools i know that we're looking at each individual child but there are some areas in here that address specific schools as well thank you so strategy one objective two in the community talks about developing and implementing ongoing school specific needs assessment and so the the idea behind that was exactly what you're getting at so there's a lot of people who just want to give things right and so you

064might be like hey we have all these book bags you're like we don't really need book bags we need something else so really being able to hone in on like what the needs are at that specific school and then strategically aligning partnerships because the school division can't do it all also so strategically aligning depart or partnerships in order to address those needs assessment so that's like another place that is addressed good thing we just launched our volunteer plug for our volunteer application process through raptor which is on our website for anyone who's listening any other questions okay mr jordan thank you um i appreciate uh the work i'm struggling a little bit i just trying to understand that the process and the big picture and then i may have some a couple of questions to

065help you guide me so first of all i just want to get an understanding as a board member and as a board what is it that you are seeking from us now in this meeting is this a is this a draft that you're asking us to provide feedback is this the plan and you're telling us this is the plan and you i mean what is it that you what are we doing here in this in this conversation so i'll say something real quick i'll just say pat me on the back say good job we're good to what's going to go so i'd like to defer to dr bergson thank you mr jordan we we really appreciate uh that question so for us this is um you know again we've worked on this document a long

066time alongside our community and we want it to be a collaborative effort certainly if this is something that the board doesn't agree with we're going to be spinning our wills and our life will be made miserable for a very long time i mean we want to engage the board in this process so today was our first opportunity to present it to you to tell you about you know the community's feedback what we've um the goals that came out of that the objectives and the strategies and and so we want to give you time to to look at that to reflect upon it and i'm sure we're going to come back again to talk about it a little more we anticipated a collaborative process and quite honestly that's what we want because again we can't do

067this work alone if we have the administration doing one thing the board saying that something else is important and of course we report to the board we all need to be in the sport together this work is very hard it's very challenging we're still coming out of a pandemic right now and and as you know it hasn't been easy for the last couple of years and that has been quite challenging and people have worked very hard and have done a great job and so we want to keep the momentum going we want the support of the board we need the support of the board we embrace your feedback so the purpose here today is just to again this is our first opportunity to present it to you we want you to listen we want to

068hear questions and and get feedback from you and be prepared to keep it keep it moving because we need something to guide our work okay well thank you for that i'm going to offer some initial feedback so like like others have already said i do see integration of a lot of work and effort and measures that have been done over time so i appreciate that i think where i'm struggling is um so i think the board has the responsibility for setting the uh the what what are the goals what are the expectations i think we have a responsibility of engaging representing the community bringing those things to the table and then i believe the administration has you know and obviously whatever goals that we set would be fed and collaborative as has been described but

069i think the board has to be clear on what are the goals that that we're setting for the division and i think the administration then through the strategic plan and any other efforts and initiatives would then say this is how we're going to get it done and and then work with us so that we can measure the progress of getting it done over time and so i am you know just looking at your timeline in the media blitz and those types of things i feel that the board i don't want us to go from this one work session to immediate blitz and then after the fact come back and then try to work on goals and what we're trying to achieve and how we measure it i think that's backwards i think it's important that

070we have an opportunity to review the goals align them with whatever priorities that we've that we're establishing and then in this process be able to have a means for the board to monitor um our success over this over this time period and so right now i'm i'm a little i'm nervous because i don't think we've done that and i'm and i'm worried about that um and it is a part of that so for example you know when we talked about the the accountability plan and some other things there i think the board was working hard at trying to establish you know targets and measures over time and and when i'm looking at the measures in the in the strategic plan i don't necessarily see them as performance measures uh in other words something that we

071have that we can truly measure so uh i'm just happy to be on page eight so no particular reason um the first one says increase the retention rate of teachers so there's to me that is a quantitative kind of output measure but it's not necessarily a qualitative measure that we can monitor over time so i don't know if it's to increase the retention rate of highly effective teachers as demonstrated by whatever and and so i'm i'm i just feel like we need to spend some time on making sure that we are clear at least on the board side what it is that we are prioritizing around goals and how we intend to monitor it and then at the end what does success look like because as has been described in the strategies and the objectives

072in the measures we know that if we do those things well we're going to have success what we don't know at least on my first glance is what that success actually looks like and so i think from a board member's perspective being able to monitor and to give feedback and the focus our work our questions our policies our budget the things that we have responsibility for towards those outcomes and towards that success is is important so i think the work that's been done is excellent i do think we still need to have from a governance team perspective clarity around what the board's work is and what the administration's work is how the board monitors its piece and how the administration is free to do with in whatever framing that the board provides to get the

073work done and and i just i'm i want to have more confidence that that we have a defined strategic process for doing that between june 1st and before the start of the school year i don't want it to drag out i don't want to wait until uh january i don't want to go get two or three years in and we're trying to figure it out dr paul wait wait let me okay i'm sorry my my last comment uh that just uh escaped me for a moment is um um you threw my train sorry i had there was one other comment i like to try to recapture it and and come back to it but um i do think from a boar's perspective i'm not talking about dr bird song that talking about dr paul i'm

074coming from a board's perspective we need to be clear and so that we know what our expectations are and we can communicate that to the administration and we can communicate that to the to the public and i think it would be a mistake on our part if we just put all that burden on the administration i think we have to uh we have to do that work but i may come back once i remember i agree with you on that i'm just i was gonna say was did i hear correctly that we will get those benchmarks oh that was um that you'll be presenting that information to us yeah we'll we'll do an accountability calendar was there going to be that's the first goal when we have the community together is to talk about that

075with our data folks and ara and say what is what is the collection timeline in the a viable you know throughout the year when would database be shared with the board on on this of what we have laid out not just when but what those benchmarks are that we should be expecting over the next five well i think what we discussed earlier dr birdsong said is we would bring that with a collaborative opportunity it wouldn't just be you know here's what we've said and here's what we're going to meet it was a chance to collaborate with the board all right and that dr martin that was my other point so what was mentioned i don't want to uh just throw out um anything that happened uh after the pandemic i think it's important from a

076board perspective that we look at we still look at three and five-year trends prior two and we look at the trending moving forward i think it would be a mistake if we just allowed the pandemic to set all of our new baselines i don't i'm not in favor of us doing that i think we need to be able to see where we were prior to what the impact of the pandemic was and continues to be and then that should help inform us in setting our goals and expectations moving forward i don't want to just kind of like wipe the slate clean and say that because of the pandemic everything just but i heard and if if i'm okay okay so you're all right but what i'm saying is it's just like we just we described

077in this process and i'm just going from our experience it's it's like it's like equity right it's one thing to say it's another thing to find it's another thing to measure it and it's a far different thing to actually implement it to me it's the same thing with the words collaborative process is one sec one thing to say we're going to have a collaborative process it's another thing to define it map it out and structurally implement it and i'm saying as a board we need to in my opinion work with the superintendent so that we know what that process looks like and we're doing our piece i'm they're going to do their piece they're going to monitor it every day so i don't have any question about what they're going to do with the research

078that they get and the data that they do and the work they're going to do from the classroom all the way through central administration back forth and sideways i'm saying our piece of it that i don't want us to confuse what the admin what the administration and their leadership team and and all the brilliant staff that we have what they're doing every day versus the three to five priorities that we may be focused on and set that we're looking at while they're looking at 2 000 things we have to be able to at least say in my opinion within this there are three to five goals measures something that we're going to prioritize out of this multitude of work that's been that's going on and i'm concerned that we will immerse ourselves in the work

079of the administration and not immerse ourselves in the work of the board um thank you for that um but you know i i agree with what you're saying um and our all and in what part of what you're saying is our our role is to hold the administration accountable for the reaching those goals that will the the um definitive goals that are set of benchmarks that are set over the net course of the next five years and beyond um so i still see that as the board not dipping down into the how but to make sure that they've come up with this plan they're committed to implementing it and that we make sure that they're they're doing just as planned just what they're delivering on what what they had set out to do um but

080this again is just the first time we're all hearing this and i think this is really good input um and i'm sorry to have to do this but um apparently the students need to leave and so i'd like to take a break right here and move back to our previous agenda item of recognizing our students and then we can come back here if there are any more questions okay thank you dr cool yes the board members can go to the step and repeat um we want to recognize and dr burr song recognize our student representatives the awards are on the podium dr martin stephen go to the step and repeat [Music] the mps we can slide it up son barbie can you slide that podium up son we have a medallion for this one both

081of them are there there's only one up here you know what it looks like it's underneath okay if the board members can come together and then we'll call each person up individually for dr martin to recognize each student i hope i'm not getting paid you want me to call you no you you need a call all right um so uh i haven't prepared anything but um it is my honor to present these um plaques of appreciation to ms karma johnson our student representative for this past school year and we also have one from shivani i call her miss shavani rastogy our student representative alternate and both of you have done such an excellent job and it has been such a privilege to work with you over the past year and we truly appreciate this we

082will also recognize you at our business meeting but we wanted you to have this plaque we have this plaque and also your medallion so that you can wear this at your graduation okay which [Applause] you're welcome thank you and miss siobhani rastoki [Applause] all right well thank you so much we want to get a picture together do we move this together if we all turn to the side and then inward and squeeze in so tilt to the side and squeeze in one two three did you get it did you i gotta yeah okay all right thank you so much um any more questions for dr paul about our the strategic plan presentation no actually because i said i wanted to say up just a couple notes here um and i was like wow you like

083right there [Laughter] um i just want to commend the um team on this um i think it uh i reiterate a lot of the things that um my colleagues have already shared um i was also you know just going back to mr jordan in respect of identifying clearly what we consider our board level goals our guard rails and as well as we know based on this timeline we'll see a monitoring schedule which will really get into which i think it was stated that you utilize the accountability plan that we had before to really take a lot of those things and i think ms campson and those who worked on that before but it's really going to be critically important for us to really you know this is the first time we're getting it and take

084it back and to really identify the time as a board when we will come back and really look at those high level we've got to you know and i agree in the respect that we can't get ourselves though it may be tempted to get into the operations this is where we have to clearly allow the administration and the superintendent and her team to identify you know methods of ways of tactics of getting that done um so if we come at some particular point identifying the time frame i think i know that we have a retreat that's coming up and things like that if that's a part of the agenda really trying to identify we walk away before the school years start of really trying to say what are our board level goals looking at this

085here conversations that we've already had before and really looking at how we put that into a monitoring schedule and a timeline and i know the valve group will be working with us because i think that also becomes a part of the governance training really for the board what are our board norms what are our goals and so forth and putting that all together i think that will help us going forward to really be focused at a level that we need to be focused at i'm at the board level and allowing the superintendent and also getting into a position where we can actually do the evaluation goal setting collectively as a group um and saying that this is what we're we're asking you to do um and this is what your team is doing there but

086i appreciate this here um i was looking at the gaps and then i went back and said oh it's in the resources um because that was some of the things that we really identified was closing those achievement gaps um and so i love the community engagement piece because that's vitally important and i know that they're high level um you're getting to the nuances of what we're going to do but i think it lets the community know that we are open we value and i love the aspect of hearing that there this is ongoing process a lot of times you'll get these things let's sit on a shelf or you may have a group there but if i heard correctly there will be district level plus principles right so school level and so if i'm looking

087at this also we have a strategic plan and i think going back to my colleague here with ms dr rowelson we're also going to probably have school level implementation plans maybe is that what we'll do after school improvement plans school improvement plans so this plan will literally drill down to each individual school so that i guess this is why we're having these various committees so then they can develop specialized plans for their own learning communities i'm going back to what dr browson was playing was stating so just kind of like so people can see we've got this high level but all these things are interconnected so at the end of the day we can monitor five years of improvement and improvement right that's right it's all about and success all right appreciate the pumps for

088children am i driving out thanks that that mug go ahead mr jordan just uh one other thing i meant to mention earlier in terms of the profile of the survey respondents i know we were you know had to do a lot of that during the virtual pieces of things but you know we talk about this often with our advisory boards and a lot of other work that we look at and since we're talking about you know equity goals and so forth our survey responses generally often to me do not reflect the demographics of our student population and if there's you know we've mentioned it many times if there are additional techniques that we can do if it's part of the community engagement process to encourage all and many to to respond to our various surveys

089i think is important because i think often in our survey responses and in our feedback and even the way that we are you know elected as as board members um the you know we are a predominantly african-american school division and i think part of the cultural struggle that we have is that i'm not sure that our our feedback is often reflective of that and so i would just like to encourage in in your work moving forward that there there are different things that we can support you know i've said before we all knock on doors if there are things that we can do as board members to help drive greater feedback from all aspects of our city i think it's important that we do that together otherwise i don't necessarily know is whether or not

090the the community feedback that we receive is going to be as holistic and culturally responsive as we say we want it to be i appreciate that mr jordan and specifically the measure on the community measure seven is to increase the method of outreach to stakeholders for that exact reason as well is what can we do as a division to out to strengthen our outreach to get better responses back thank you good and i'd also ask miss bell she doesn't mind coming forward because we've had this conversation as well and she has some strategies that she has had some experience with that could support our efforts to do so yeah and so you were right like um responses that you see across like any type of engagement that we've done typically have that same type of

091issue one of the things that we were planning ahead of time was one of the things i've seen done well is going into the community so a lot of times schools want you to come want parents to come to them and for whatever reason like people don't want to or they're working or whatever and so being able to not only change up amount of time or timing that things are done but finding out where who are the trusted people in the community and get them on board and then get them to go and proactively ask members of the community that you want to hear from go into those community centers go into those churches go into wherever they feel comfortable in order to get those um responses and so that's what we had originally planned

092and then numbers went up and we went um virtual i think the other thing i think you kind of touched on it is it is the responsibility um in my opinion for everybody so the school division put out information put it on social media um i'm not on social media but maybe you're on social media and so like what role are you as as a governing body taken to like share it on your social media platforms to go to the people who um you are the trusted person in your community in order to tell them like it is very important for your voice to be heard because we we don't want just the loudest voices to be the voices that we listen to but it is going to take some type of collective effort and

093just different strategies and ways to think about that and so some of those are some of the things that i have seen worked in the past and i think as people get more comfortable of doing those types of things being able to implement those through the implementation will absolutely be able to you'll be you'll see a shift in the responses from those certain types of groups thank you all right any other questions all right thank you thank you dr paul thank you dr birdsong everyone um okay up next we have um item 3.01 pay and compensation study recommendations good afternoon mr billy good afternoon you can get started whenever you're ready okay boards martin vice chair mr clanton school board members and dr birdsong good afternoon it gives me pleasure this afternoon to bring to

094you all the work that has been done by our pay study team with regards to compensation and what i like to call our pathways towards decompression before i get started i would like to acknowledge the work of the pay study team which included mr jenkins our chief financial officer pearl tao the executive director of budget and grants management mr dwight during the director of budgeting grants management keith bailey our director of payroll operations and amanda schilling our hr information and technology specialist this team of professionals worked collaboratively collaboratively together to bring forth the information that i want to share with you this afternoon [Applause] the first thing that i'd like to discuss so that we can talk about what got us to the point where we are now and where are we headed it's basically

095our blueprint so i'd like to talk first about what decisions most imp impact employee compensation so we'll start with talking about the operation of the salary scale document now with regards to the operation of our salary scale document at the time that a person is hired with norfolk public schools employees are placed on the appropriate step via the operation of the salary scale document each contract area has its own operation document so for example if you're an administrator there is an operation document for them for classified staff members and for teachers an operation document each operation document clearly outlines what type of prior experience credit will be given sally salary related promotional practices and educational stipend eligibility in addition the document includes a table that maps years of experience to step placement for example on

096the 2021 operational document a teacher hired with nine years of creditable experience is placed on step seven nps does not currently use a one for one placement and all research indicates the organization has not done so in its history so part of our work was to go back and see how have salaries been determined and how have individuals moved along scales within the organization and one thing we see is that they have it moved year for year mr billings can you define what the one-to-one placement is just for like anybody who yes a one-to-one placement or when someone says that language it means that for every year of experience you have then you get one year of credit for that and so five years experience step five eight years experience step eight the organization has

097not been on that progression anywhere that we see in its history okay okay all right now it's important to note that all employees are placed on what we call the correct step at the time of hire the definition for correct step is defined as the step that aligns with the employees years of experience in accordance with the appropriate operation of the salary scale document so salary scale documents will have one for each year sometimes they've changed some sometimes they haven't that's been that's been work collaboratively between historically hr the budget department the payroll director looking at how should or could or can we change the operation document so in some years it's changed some some years it has not and we have those historical documents as well so right now we're in the 21 22

098school year any teacher or employee hired in the 21 22 school year we have a document for that year if you were hired in the 2009 2010 school year it wouldn't be appropriate for you to look at the 21 22 document and try to find yourself on that because you were hired in 2009-2010 so the information on 2122 document is not relevant to you as unemployed relevant and that you can see it but if you try to find yourself on it you'll confuse yourself okay so that's the first thing we want to point out is the operation of the salary scale document and how it moves the next thing important to know about a factor that contributes to compensation are the annual salary tables each year our budget team updates the salary tables associated with

099each pay grade changes may include but are not necessarily limited to increasing or decreasing the number of steps associated within the pay grade the percent differences between steps and the percent difference between grades these decisions are typically driven by budgetary constraints market research and or pay equity concerns again our research has shown us that over the years within norfolk public schools under different administrations different decisions have been made along the way and we have the evidence of that and i'll point it out to you in some examples a little bit later on the department of human resources uses these approved salary tables to generate annual contracts for our employees in a typical year the value of a step will increase if pay raises have been given for example for school year 2122 a teacher on

100step four earned forty seven thousand nine hundred and ten dollars school year twenty two twenty three a step four will be worth fifty thousand seven hundred and forty eight dollars so there was movement there so again annual salary tables play an important part and an important factor in how compensation is affected and the next area would be annual salary actions that also play an important part the school board reviews and approves or denies salary actions recommended by the superintendent or schools as superintendent of schools as part of the annual budgetary process like the operation documents and salary tables the approved salary actions have varied over the years in the organization examples of historical nps approved salary actions include there have been years when employees were provided a one-step increase for all employees there were years

101when salaries were frozen as as wages and salaries were frozen for all there was a year when two years when two percent increases were given to all employees and provide an increase to employ there was once an employee where where a time when increases were provided to employees hired before a designated date these decisions all obviously impact employees step movement accordingly future budgets hopefully should include a one step increase for employees these different actions have taken place over the years based on the administration who was in charge at that time and those who were here implemented and operated based upon those decisions so that's where we've been so where are we going and again continuing with you know where are we there's been discussion about the 2016 seagull waters study that was done let's talk

102about the seagull water study the purpose of that study it was commissioned with a consultant siegel waters the scope of the study included market competitiveness and internal pay equity those were concerns the consultant's recommendations included addressing pay compression over time by restoring the steps for those employees who lost steps in recent years as a result of the study annual one-step increases were then reinstated in addition the pay scale was adjusted to more equitably distribute the percent difference between steps and grades due largely to the enormous cost of full implementation at that time no further action was approved by the board and or the superintendent of schools nps identified some limitations of that study it failed to account for breaks in service promotional activities and external and or prior experience the steady approach was that nps

103would offer or had offered one for one salary credit meaning again one year experience equals one step but again nps had never operated under the year for year salary placement hence its limitation in being able to bring it forward for full implementation in addition to the cost associated with that then most recently in 2022 at the request of the board the superintendent of schools directed her team to engage an external consultant to perform a pace study the purpose of that study was to explore pay compression and pathways toward decompression management advisory group and the nps pace study team collaborated from november 2021 to may of 2022 mags for short their methodology centered on an employee's last promotion date their decompression formulas placed an employee with say x number of years in a given position on

104step x thinking again for example 13 years experience equals step 13. that's what they told us wanted to do accordingly mag recommended employee step movement based upon that formula as with sigel waters mps we identified limitations to the scope of that study as well mag was unable to account for these limitations which led to our team's reconsideration of their recommendations specifically mag did not consider again breaks in service external and prior experience and historical changes to the operation documents and salary scales that i spoke of earlier as a result of reviewing and and studying siegel waters information mag information our pace steady team put our own heads together to try to come up with what would be the best pathway towards decompression for norfolk public schools and its employees so here's part of our analysis

105here's what we know in the years you see there from 2009 10 up through 2011-12 salaries and steps were frozen within the school district for whatever reason they were frozen 2012 2013 we'll come back and we'll talk about that but look at what happened also from 2013 to 24 to 2017 steps were frozen so once again a number of years when employees were not getting any steps however employees did receive two percent cola increases for three of those years and then the fourth year they received a 2.5 cola increase so i just want to clarify so that 2009 to 2012 um salaries and step uh steps frozen that was a state mandated uh freeze if i'm not mistaken wasn't that coming out of the recession that wasn't um i think we impose it on ourselves

106i would think yes at the organization at that time whoever was whatever the administration so this was okay got it i did get some information from the um actually had a conversation so this is actually i think something when both of the the unions maybe spoken or something with the superintendent at that time i'm not sure exactly what happened but again we just know that they were frozen and there was no movement so true people who were here 9 and 10 when they were making in 2009 and 10 that's what they were making in 2011 and 12. unless for some reason they got promoted i can verify that you confirm all right so we take a moment just to look at that because that's very serious i mean that's a lot that's a lot that's

107a lot of what you've heard about my steps are not right you know put me on my right step all of that well this is what happened in those years you stayed where you were if you were here so that's that's a lot of years of no movement right there so also the people who are here and still remain with us that shows a lot of dedication if they did stay here during that period of no movement in their pay no movement in their steps okay so that's very critical information now continue with our analysis nps did take some corrective action to rectify those step freezes specifically that's why i said we were coming back to 2012-2013 the freezing that occurred from 2009 to 2010 and 11 12 was retroactively addressed in 2012-2013 and how

108was it addressed those employees hired in 2009 and earlier received a three-step increase employees hired on step one in 2010-11 received a two-step increase and employees hired on step one in 2011-2012 received a one-step increase while corrective action was taken to address previous freezes it is of note that employees did not receive a one-step increase in addition to the corrective action this decision resulted in another year of no step movement so unfortunately what happened although the corrective action said 2012 2013 we're going to give you the three steps but then in 2012 2013 we still did nothing for you again so we further contributed to the problem of the compression but hold on a second that's that's based upon the scale that we had at that time because you're you were you you're stating that

109we do not have a one-to-one step increase so if a teacher let's say fell within uh years seven and eight and years seven and eight you still are on that step whatever that stuff was that you came in on that operation document when you were placed on your step when you first came to us right right so in 2012 and 2013 i understand what you're saying that that it was retroactive for the three years prior but for that particular year that particular budget there wasn't an increase in the step for those who on their scale at that on everyone's individual scale if they were to have earned a step at that time then they did not get it at that time right 2012 2013 only said we're going to go back and give you three

110steps if you were here from 09 one step you know two steps from 10 11 and one step in 11 to 12. and we're going to give you that in 12 and 13 but we're not doing anything for you in 12 and 13. we recognize that problem as well in our analysis so though employees receive cola increases from 1314 through 1617 no action though was taken to address the lack of the step movement for those years so again we point out how that perpetuated the problem even more the organization gave individuals a percentage increase but the step didn't move and that's been critical to many employees obviously so what do we do with this how do we move forward as a pathway well our team has come together and we have a um come up

111with some ideas on how this will work in addition to the annual one-step increase for all employees we have a four-year plan to put in place the plan addresses the individual employees who have been directly affected by the lack of step movement for 2013-14 through 2016-17 and the resulting compression employees after hired after january 31st 2016 were not affected by the lack of step movement and would not receive any additional salary adjustment the timeline for the plan will address the longest serving employees first less senior employees will be addressed in subsequent years the staggered implementation is necessary due to the cost of the full implementation one-time funding cannot be used to address paid compression issues as funding sources for salaries and wages must be sustainable so here's what the pathway looks like for employees hired

112before february 1 there would be a nine step adjustment over the next four years this starting with this starting with upcoming school year 2223 those employees would receive their normal one-step increase and then they would receive an extra step for two steps total for 22-23 as you move along their pathway 23 24 they would also receive two steps 24 25 they would also receive two steps and then ultimately in 2526 they would receive three steps for a total of nine steps within the four year period employees hired from february 1 2012 through january 31 2013 that would be an eight step adjustment for them year 1 22-23 they get their one step they'll get their normal one step plus an additional step for two steps and look at their pathway two steps in 23 24

1132 steps in 24 25 and two steps in 2526 again this is designed to recognize those employees who have been most senior with us and who actually were here during the years and there was no step movement then you see those who will get a seven step adjustment are february 1 2013 to january 2014 2223 they get their one step normally and then starting in 23-24 they then would start receiving two steps per year and so forth and so on down the scale um all the way to a person who again will get a five-step adjustment because they'll get they were hired 15 february 1 2015 to january 31st 2016 and so they continue to get their normal one step until year four they get the two steps for a total of five steps what's

114the scope of this impact those receiving a nine step adjustment that's 160 administrators 632 classified employees 208 non-classroom teachers 701 teachers for a total of 1701 of our employees who would receive the maximum benefit of this plan eight step adjustment comes to you see it broken down there total of 87 individuals seven step adjustment 119 individuals six steps 138 and five steps 205. ultimately 2250 employees would benefit from this pathway towards decompressing those who have been most compressed what are the costs associated with this for the first year we're talking approximately 2.4 million 23.24 approximately 2.6 million 24 25 2.7 million 25 26 5.2 million you'll recognize that it's more because that's three steps for um the largest population of folks um at the end for a total of approximately 13 million dollars over a

115four year period i would like now i think it's important let's show how this actually looks for a real employee so i have some samples up here can we put up example a so example a okay this is a salary history for an employee we make it a little larger so what this represents is a salary history for an actual employee this employee was hired with the school division in the 17-18 school year so in this chart you see we had the year they were hired their job title what their grade is what their step what their contract length is as well as what their salary base salary is as well as the column right beside that says salary action approved by the school board because this is where the notes are recorded as to

116what happened that year that that put them there so this employee hired in 1718 notice that in the column for step their steps are progressive one all the way down to looking at the green right now one down two five this person hasn't been compressed because they've received a step increase for every year that they have been employed with norfolk public schools because when they started the steps were already put back into place they had been implemented again under this program in the blue you'll see for 22 23 they'll receive one step 23 24 one step 24 25 one step and 20 526 one step they will receive a one-step increase each year because there's no evidence within norfolk public schools that they were compressed because they were not here at the time during the

117the biggest compression so that's that's a so that's an employee who's most recently hired with us um i want to say step one and again joined us at the time when steps had been implemented i have a question so we're we're not a division that has operated on a one year equals one step process white so but how it's presented here that's how i that's how i understand it to be so on the documents that individual teachers get based upon the year that they're hired for their scale how how does that does i know what you're giving us is a broad picture but this is a real employee so this real employee is going to be counting on a step all the way up through nine years of teaching with norfolk public schools so is

118it is it accurate to say that when she was hired in 2017 and 2018 the scale at that time is showing a one-to-one up until at least year nine well what's happening is this is a brand new employee this is their first year of teaching so they were placed on step one of that operation document so because they haven't had a break in service and because steps were implemented back in 1718 and have been in place since that this employee has been here you can see where this employee has progressed a step so in this employee situation in case they are on a one for one because the steps were implemented back then and they have stayed consistent since that time so in this particular case this person is one to one because they were

119brand new step one and they they're on step five for this school year and under the new program we're talking about they would receive one step each year and we'll take them up to uh ultimately a step nine by twenty five twenty six okay yeah can we ask follow-ups on that mr jordan first okay go ahead mrs so so along those lines um i'm gonna ask about that did you go ahead you can go ahead you have the floor please go for it so so to follow up on um dr gabriel's question i had the same question i think i asked it at the last meeting as well so so 2017 2018 which was which would have been i believe um yeah the first the first year that we began that i think that is

120when we started the one-to-one 30-step scale and i think that's that's the question i'm asking did we start the the one-to-one thirty-six step scale at that during that year so this employee a um you know right now it appears nine years of service step nine um and if we're using the 22 22-step scale that you know so technically if employee a was in nine years of service they would be on step seven according to this so i'm trying to understand because again that's for 21 22 school year this employee started in 1718 then the operation document which is what you're looking at may very well be different from the 17-18 school year likely is okay so the salary scale the opera the operation salary scale for a teacher may be different year to year the

121operation the operation document is what you're speaking of the salary scale is something different there are two different things this is the operation this is the operation document that places a a new employee on an appropriate step upon hire depending upon the number of verifiable years of experience which may not equate to a year for year depends on the operation document from that year okay so this is for new hires and it's only used upon hiring once you're hired we don't go back to that to do anything different with you you are now on whatever progression that the board you all would vote for as far as a person receiving any type of increase so that document is only relevant upon being hired within the organization so let me ask my follow-up then in in

122this example when you say new hire are you saying that the person is a new hire to norfolk public schools are you saying that the person is a first year teacher and a new hired in north public school in this case it looks like this person is a brand new teacher period um first year of teaching with us with period that's why they're step one right out of college if this were a if this were a teacher who came to us in 1718 as their first year of employment but say they had five years experience they wouldn't likely be on step one it depends on what the what the operation of the salary document said 27 18. they could very well have been on step two or step three i'm not looking at that one

123right now but again it's based on the verifiable years of their experience at time of hire now we say at time of hire because sometimes if individuals being a transient city like we are if they've moved here from somewhere it may take a while for us to receive their verification documents from their previous school divisions they teach out in texas washington state somewhere then once we get it then we will adjust them appropriately and accordingly all right i'll wait to the end right so i'm kind of close to it because i did add two things um on that one thank you for explaining that last part because you could very well someone come from another district out of state whatever else have years of experience they're brand new to norfolk public schools but they have

124additional experience outside of norfolk public schools and so their salary is going to be different just because they're starting the division but one of the two things that i had was about the funding sources because i know you have projected cost here um so i'm taking it that this would be the board and i guess this is a mixture of both local and state dollars that i mean i guess we that's kind of find out what we get but this would be local that we would be asking for an increase in our budget to the city council the budget dollars mr um jenkins you want to address that about the budgetary piece of the funding of it so i see there's four years here um there's about roughly two and a half million on um

125those first three years and then five million on the uh year four so this would be an increase that we would be asking for in our request to city council every year right well it would be it's something that we'd have to include in the budget that we're planning so it would be additional cost over and above other plans yes sir okay but this is to the local and this is taking an account for additional state dollars well we would take into account all available resources okay right but not one-time funding we're talking about we um remember that um air city funding is based on a formula it's going to be based on the amount of revenue that is shared between schools and and um the other cities other city services so this isn't going

126to really impact the amount of money that we request from the city it's it we would have to use available resources in order to fund this proposal and if i also understood in your presentation one one of the considerations that one-time funding cannot be used right because it wouldn't be sustainable in the in the base salary of employees going forward can i just speak to that before because just for clarification on that so i'm not sure what's being said there the if we use one-time funds the the budget is the board's budget the budget is considered the board's probably the board's biggest biggest policy statement if the board said it wanted to hire 100 teachers and new teachers new new positions and requested funding and received funding for that the new baseline for the board's

127employees would increase by that hundred if we maintain that hundred moving forward then through the boards process we would be looking at that new baseline and figuring out how we would utilize the resources that we have available to maintain that increase that we did if we thought that was what was necessary in order to improve student outcomes for our children so the the it is true i don't disagree with the the statement that um it's often discouraged from using one-time funds but if we use the one-time funds and it becomes a part of the base of the budget moving forward then that's what the base is moving forward and we have to figure out with the resources that we have available how to prioritize and make decisions towards what we're trying to to achieve it's

128no different than if we created a we have a chief communications officer's position we have diversity and equity positions with all kinds of positions that we approve that we put in the budget they can have impact on that baseline but from that point forward then our challenge would be do we have the resources to sustain it over time and that's the board's decision to make exactly but then going back to that we have a cost sharing revenue formula am i correct between city council and well there is a revenue that's embedded in a policy that was adopted by the city that kind of creates the amount it kind of creates the pool of money that we're going to pull from that potentially we're going to be well it's a part it's a part of it

129i mean we have funding from two primary sources the city and the state of virginia got it so the reason we've we've cautioned about using one-time funds is because we assume that those one-time funds will not become part of the revenue base these are these are funds that are outside of the revenue base exactly and wouldn't be expected or that we could depend on to recur annually definitely i mean we can definitely request and that's why i asked about these numbers here you're giving a result provision for requesting but that involves a and under the city's policy there you can certainly request but you are in that point in that at that point you're requesting an increase in the real estate tax rate okay so the real estate tax rate um so i can explain

130because i i think this gets into this thing because like i've said before i would wholeheartedly want to to do what i possibly could but i want to understand what those restraints are and i think others need to hear what those restraints are and i want to put them in relation to you're saying that there's four years of additional funding that we're adding because this is going to be additional money that's on top of what we're asking each year for four years correct under the city's revenue sharing policy we would not be asking for additional funds unless we're asking for an increase in the tax rate which you've not here before done so we're building this and what we're already getting projected on the next four years is that what we're saying i believe that

131we would plant we would try to build those costs into our base budget okay so the other item that i had just quickly on is that i thought this was important because i because that this was brought up about and i just wanted to know how this affects individuals who are retiring so if you're an individual who's met the retirement you know time frame you've done your 30 years what it may be and you're at year two um you still haven't got completely on your your steps so i guess you'd just be encouraged to stay an additional two years until you you got that if you were affected or i mean i just i just i mean it was one of the things i was thinking about just sitting here because i want to be

132fair all the way around how does that how does that work it would work if if this if we go with this four years if you leave within those four years to decide to resign or retire you end up wherever you were at that time based on how it's laid out here all right i'm going to stop right there because miss campson's been patiently waiting and she's on the list and oh mr clanton that was one of my questions because because i was trying to clarify for myself so now we have this in place now starting with this year this plan goes into effect this coming school year okay so that means that in 2026 and the end of june in 2026 we will be done with correcting the and the decompression thing will be

133done we would have we would have addressed those individuals who historically have been most compressed within the school division as they were the ones who experienced those number of years of salaries frozen no step movement at all so then we're done once once we get through 2026 and when you're saying done we're done with that group of addressing that matter that issue right and we will be further along with people being on a one-to-one because remember as new people come in they are placed on their correct step at that time right i just wanted to make sure we were clear with that yes and i assume the reason that you're starting with the longer term teachers was because of the age situation that mr clinton brought up which means that you know maybe you're 65

134and you'd like to retire but you only got paid out this coming year because you were going to retire next spring well again we're starting with with the with the longer tenured employee because they're the ones who experienced well i've got older for them but your terminology is probably more acceptable i've got the older people that would have been me i would have missed out completely so so in other words people that have retired that were caught up in this and and with and had their their salaries frozen and and have since left then they're just out of luck because you can't go back we can't go back and pay all this and i understand that i'm not asking to get it it would be nice but i'm not asking because i know we couldn't

135afford it because i'll never get any of what i lost and which also brought me to my next the next part was it with the our longer serving elementary principles particular that they have gaps so great that new first-year principals are making more money than some of our learned long-time elementary principles am i correct in that well that could be the case again because of the the compression that happened so what will happen in this case is your longer term in principle employees others too but in this case i'm hearing a lot of when they're comparing what they're making today and maybe they've been a principal for 10 years and a first year principal first time being a principal is starting out with more than they're making this is going to correct that for them

136also it's going to work towards that yes because they'll they'll be getting additional steps over the next four years like we said nine steps over the next next four years whereas a newer principal who started from 1718 on they're they're not getting they're going to get their in-step increase as long as that's put into the budget each year but they're not getting additional movement because they were not here unless they were here do it take it back again unless they if they're a first year principal they're still a first-year principal yeah how long they've been working as an activist but they've been with norfolk public schools because this is driven by your seniority having been within the division so if they are first year principal then yes they would still and they've been here prior

137to 2012 these years that i'm pointing out then yes i'm familiar with those years yes they will be uh they will be uh part of it all right let me ask one quick question that's a little off topic but since we're in finances all right so my understanding is it looks like the state legislature is going to give five percent raises maybe if when they vote on it that we got we got that information from our our our people that working on the lobbyists and so my question is whatever the state comes up with if it's a five percent raise plus a thousand dollar um bonus which is what it looks like is on the list for them to vote for that's not going to impact the five percent we're giving so that we could

138have ten percent raises no jenkins i don't understand if we're giving a five percent raise and the state is see this is what happens certain position i'd like to know i'd like to live in that place ma'am no well so would i so with our teachers right exactly we'd like to do as much because if every time the state gives us money or every time we have a raise in the state anyway the state pays about two-thirds of our don't hold me to exact numbers but around two-thirds of our budget is covered by the state of their general fund and the city covers about one-third so the state's going to put in two-thirds of the cost for the fight for the five percent we don't have to use city funds to pay the other one

139third of that five percent so basically the state is going to give us nothing because we've already allocated five percent now they're they're funding us for their share of what we've already done of the five percent which is included in the proposed in the budget that that you're right we already have it in our budget we already put this in for our teachers and other employees so the state really is just grandstanding no the state is the state is funding a five percent raise for their share of the positions that they cover so it's getting smaller and smaller so that means position what when the first paycheck comes what percentage increase will our teachers have um i believe that we said the average was somewhere it's right around six percent a little above a lot

140do they get a little bit more from the state but not what it looks like but it's right around this allows them to grow that's the average mm-hmm that's the average that's that's right individual yes that's that's average and it's just that some higher some lower there's also the two million on top of that that we had that we budgeted to address not study but to address compression and does that then also the so the thousand dollar bonus that the state says that the teachers are going to get is that like a nothing thing too do not have that embedded in our budget document so that would be an additional thousand and the state is providing additional funding for actually 100 of the cost for the state funded positions again they don't fund all positions

141but of the state funding positions it's just like i'm sorry but it just makes me angry because it looks like they're doing so much for our teachers and they're really not changing hardly anything of what we'd already put in our budget which was i think five percent was good but there are some changes there there are so we're going to talk about our budget all right i'm sorry i should know i didn't realize but i just can't anyway all right but for this the decompression it's going to be over by 2026. everyone will be caught up that is a five-year plan or don't add any more years to it because it's up to five steps before but they start getting it as they go down so they're not waiting to the end of that is

142is that how this works so in other words if i'm looking at this these are the these are their steps with this person right here is not getting anything right right i understand that the way the chart is is what i'm saying that it will begin for everyone who was who was frozen out during that those we did everyone but the superintendent just mentioned that that person did get a big race that year but not that i remember it or anything but that just a little sniper club never mind scratch it but so uh so as as so this year some of these people who depending on their seniority might will get one step but some people might get three makeup steps nobody's gonna get three this first year the 22-23 school year okay some

143individuals will get two to start okay so just be it's gonna be phased in but you want everyone's not going to be waiting around until 2027. we can show you the next example can i see employee b please let's look at this example this is an employee who started with norfolk public schools in 2000 2001 school year he is on step one which means that this is likely a person fresh out of college and they started with us as a teacher let's look at what happens as the years go on in 2001 2002 he got a step increase because that year the administration decided that teachers on steps one to ten would receive a one-step increase that's what's in the records here all right so this person got a step movement the next year 2002

1442003 he stayed on step two because the accordingly the administration here the teacher pay scale changed from 20 to 18 steps and some type of step conversion was then calculated to place those individuals all right i i don't you don't have to go through the whole thing okay but i'm just showing you i'm not going to do them my i think i if i need to write let's see a more simplified question this upcoming year will those people that are on in the middle of the decompression not people that are hired later or already left the district will all of them get at least one of their makeup steps between like us look at that chart back on that chart if you were hired 0 9 and 12 right before february 1 2012 if your

145higher date is verified to be before february 1 2012 then you will receive two steps with the contract that's getting ready to be distributed i think i'm not being clear with my questions mrs campson do you want to take a minute and we'll go on to yes because that's fine i'll talk to you kind of i'll talk to you later he won't even have to do that i'll just talk to you later okay i'll give you a call or something okay miss bistine go ahead so um so part of i think my question and ms hamson you can tell me if i'm wrong but um part of my question is related to i think her question because i want to be i want to be absolutely certain i am now understanding um so this uh

146four-year plan the total cost is 13 million something and that is to go towards this 2 250 employees correct yes so so and as you described earlier those that are most that have been most compressed uh for the longest period of time correct so so all 22.50 okay so then to go back to [Music] but that and is that everyone who has who is experiencing step compression or there are additional are there additional employees who are experiencing compression or is that everybody this is these are the employees that we've identified who've been most compressed because as we pointed out these are the individuals that were here during all of those years when there was no step movement so depending if you were here all of those years then you're going to benefit the most maybe

147you were here for three of the years but not all of the years so then that's how we have identified you that's why it says some individuals are going to get a nine step adjustment some eight some seven because we're looking at who was most compressed and affected first which the identification of that is those who were hired prior to the february 1 2012 year because they experienced it all they experienced the the first three and then they got the year that was skipped or didn't get the year that was skipped but then they got the um then they were in the frozen phase with you know just the two percent colas those are those individuals and that's why higher date is so critical and so important and that's why the chart will show you

148regardless of what your title was it's driven by your higher date and your having been with norfolk public schools okay all right i appreciate that i just wanted to be absolutely clear that i'm understanding the total number of employees that would benefit from us uh you know addressing this compression and the 13 million um so to go back to you know the comments made earlier you know i appreciate the conversation around the revenue sharing formula and all of that but i think as mr jordan said it is up to the board to decide you know you know do we want to include this in our base budget and going forward we have to figure out how to budget for that right and so that is what you know i am in favor of in favor

149of doing and how we can as a board do it and one of the things i think that we need to consider that um and perhaps you know i'd like to hear if your department or the finance department has really looked at this but you know what are the costs like what would be the cost if our employees who have experienced this level of compression over the years what is the cost if they leave if they were to leave the district we would i think be far beyond what it would cost us to invest in our employees and then i think of the costs in student achievement in you know all of the costs that we know that come with not having the adults in the building and i think those costs exceed what we

150could invest um right now so you know i think the board has you know some decisions to make you know because we we have a budget before us that we could say we want to go back and look at the budget and see how we can address this compression now and that's something that i hope that we can get to a point of talking about um so he's saying pay it all off right away instead of four years we're going to take i'm saying yeah i'm saying invest in it now and then that is part of our base going forward that we are then saying that our workforce is important and we know the most important internal uh factor that we can control that directly impacts student performance is having a high quality teacher in

151front of our students yes and so if we believe in that then i think we need to invest in it and we know like like mr phillips described we have had so many years of compression through a number of administrations a number of school boards and now we have this opportunity to do something about it and i say we take it and move forward and say we we and not only that we also demonstrate that all the things that we say we believe raising the profile of the profession you know we've been advocating for higher teacher pay for i don't know how long um you know doing all the things that we say we believe in i can't think of you know a better way to do that and that make that a priority and

152to dr ralston's point in different conversations that we've had over the years i mean over the past several months about the impacts the in on individual schools that we've seen on you know certain subgroups of students i think we need to and make this investment now and so that's something i'm asking the board to consider as we continue these budget discussions thank you i have um dr gabriel um mr clinton mr jordan thank you dr martin and this discussion is incredibly complex and i very much appreciate the time uh mr bellups and dr birdsong that you have taken to put together a very clear presentation on where we have been explanation a refresher for some of us for seagull waters when we when mr jordan and i first came on the board there was an

153overwhelming demand for math and reading specialists in the building because those positions had been removed for whatever reason and we championed that idea and the council at that time we we made the argument that it was necessary for students for academic achievement based upon history and experience from the professionals the teachers that were asking for them and city council appropriated funds for that i did not understand that the funds that they appropriated were just one-time funds so what we had to do was go into the budget and figure out in years subsequent from that how we were going to sustain those positions a math and reading specialist in every building that was the goal at least at that time now on the flip side of that we're struggling to hire and keep those positions filled

154but it doesn't it doesn't dispute the need that academically what the kids needed we advocated for we got the funds for and we were trying to make it work and i know that in subsequent years we had to make some very difficult decisions with regards to budget constraints and the state to ms campson's point online funding soq what what they deem is appropriate but maybe not be appropriate for norfolk public schools but right now there is a real demand for retaining teachers and miss basin is 100 correct when she says the most important person that will advance student achievement is the person in front of them that highly qualified highly effective experienced person in front of them and so we kind of started this conversation when we were talking about the strategic plan about there

155being a a proposal that is brought forth with um what the possibilities are and then it does come back to the board to determine you know if this is something that we feel we want to be aggressive with this is something that we want to proceed with and i don't i i appreciate the fact that the administration is counseling the board and telling us you know it's really not a good practice to use one-time funds for this because it's not sustainable i hear that and i hope that the public hears that too because that's what they're telling us they're trying to help us be very responsible with the funding that we have but on the flip side of it we have such great academic needs and we are vying for the teachers in our area

156because there is such a significant shortage so if it means that we have to make some very bold and perhaps even risky decisions with regards to compensating our teachers appropriately and retaining them i am willing to have that conversation so my request is going to be that if we do and if we if we were to take a scenario b and completely fund this plan this budget cycle what does that mean for this budget site what does that look like in this budget cycle and then because we would have to add it in as our baseline what does that look like in subsequent years and i know that dr birdsong and her team worked very hard to put in other items such as behavioral health specialist and mental health and recess i mean there's like

157so many things that they put in we have to have the options if we're going to make this decision i think some board members really have to feel um settled with the decisions that are before us so that's that's going to be my request just so i'm clear you're asking the superintendent to find 13 million dollars in our current proposed budget so that we can take care of it all in this budget cycle yes that was good no that was essentially my thing i'm within the strengths of the numbers i'm like i've said it before i am not against dealing with this issue and supporting our teachers but again going back to this request that you took it out of there do we have 13 million out of the money that's been approved from city

158council to us right now that's not and i understand we're saying well how the qualified teacher but there there's all these other pulling needs you know behavioral specialists all these other things that are that are going on and but i also see that we also have every year we get all of this funding left over because there are all these positions that we don't feel and so i don't know if that's pocket but that's not me i really i'll just say this i'm not prolonging it i will i support the respect of going in and looking can we find and identify the 13 million dollars to deal with this this particular year and or within two years so if we can't find it all in this one year can we do it in two years

159and not four um but you know i support just trying to get this thing done um because you know i i was a you know i work for the division and i understand i've been to that period of time i want to address this i just want to make sure that we can do it within our means fiscally mr jordan you're up next yep first i have a first i have a question based upon the recommendations before us of the the phasing plan at the end of the cycle of the four years and all of this is done um is are we um will we be a one-to-one uh division or we just or we're saying this addresses compression but we still would not be a one one year one step division we wouldn't be

160a complete one to one because each year as i said the operation document we look at that and we make adjustments to it working our way down so we would not be at the end of four years or complete the one to one but we would have seen significant improvement in growth so so i'm i'm supportive of recommendations that mrs bassine and dr gaber has made you all know i've advocated for this previously but i want to go back to what i'm hearing loud and clear in the presentations and i just want to offer my take on it for the board to consider um when the you know in our budget process we look at needs first what are our needs and then we you know at the in collaboration with the superintendent we determine

161what resources do we want to prioritize in order to address those needs sometimes we may hit them all sometimes we may not when the board votes on the budget and when the board votes every month on a personnel docket what i'm hearing mr phillips demonstrate to us on these charts is the board is making policy decisions so in my mind i do want us to look at the 13 million or whatever it is but i also think that the board should be also clear that we are going to adopt uh a one-for-one policy one year one step when we when we started down this process and even going back to the single water study and what i was hoping to see in this study is um doing a comparison a contrast in comparison to uh

162our surrounding divisions to me is important if we're if we're competing then we need to know what our competition is doing so in the seagulls waters report it did an analysis of what the surrounding divisions were doing so some divisions then were one-to-one some weren't we weren't so if the if the board if the board's what is to be the have the best compensation plan uh for our staff and that's steps that's health insurance all those things let's just say if if that's the the what that we've established then in in our budget discussions in our budget presentations and recommendations that we receive that should be one of the fundamental policy principles that's driving the recommendations that come forward to us and we should monitor our progress towards that and then make sure we are

163voting in that regard so i want to say in addition to addressing the compression i also think that we should have a discussion and make a policy decision towards being a one for one division one year one step and have that drive operational documents and all these other things that we're that we're talking about let's be clear because before the reason why i get frustrated is be before with the single water study i felt like the board was clear that our goal over a four to five year period was to move towards one to one and address compression along the way so since we're here now and we're going to make another decision based upon this information to me this is the opportunity for this board then to be clear not only do we want

164to address compression but we want to be a one-for-one division that allows us to be competitive in the in the marketplace and so that's what i feel we need to be clear about and in the last thing since mr clanton also mentioned that the carry forward funds so we know we've seen in recent years that we have unexpended funds i like for the board to consider that part of the unexpended funds is not just vacancies but also employees that have been compressed so that those resources that we have that are that now become one time i think can be used to address the compression set the foundation for the one-to-one and establish the baseline moving forward just like we said with the strategic plan presentation this is the new baseline and then if there are

165conversations that need to be had where we find that our needs are greater than our resources then that's when the board goes to the council or goes to the state or whoever it is that we have to go to to say we have a gap that we want to fill and here's why we should be willing to have those conversations with the public and with the council or any other policy makers based upon our understanding of our needs based upon the goals that we've established for the what that we want that we want to be and i think that's important for us to not lose sight of as we have these discussions over the coming days so i don't know um i'm going to ask you this question you just tell me your your i

166guess i want to understand i want to i want us to have a clear understanding of what it would take to get to be a one-to-one if you're not able to answer it i don't want you you know well what i know is part of the shortcomings and why we haven't been able to look at that or i mean is that is that is that a best practice i guess i'll start there is that a best practice for school divisions to be a one-to-one scaled pay yes if you could get there but part of our limitations and shortcomings here in norfolk is that there was a change in the system in 2005 to the current system that we have now so almost 20 years ago there was a change in the system the records in

167the old system are papers manual documents those type of things it would require a trying to look in every record of every employee to basically recreate what was going on with them back in those days and then you have to add on top of that as we point out all the different scales that were changed over the years and the decisions that were made over the years all of those things then factor in there as to how a person ended up on the step that they ended up so it's multifaceted and able to be able to go and try to figure out exactly where every employee is to do a one-to-one because it's not just one thing that contributes to that it's multiple things over multiple years over multiple administrations but i feel like we've

168we heard that before yeah and i'm not throwing it at you but it's almost like this requires a project in itself and that we have resources to whatever team you need to to deal with that because i don't think that we're gonna because i hate for us to go down here and say oh we're gonna find 13 million dollars is it and somebody said no i should be somewhere else it's like where's the i mean to get us at the point that we need to be at i'm just what do you need to get there do you need additional staffing to figure that out to get us down i mean i just feel like am i wrong have i not heard this before we we've asked you have heard it before we've asked it before

169and i think that's why they came up with this okay because of how daunting that would take and of course this would get us closer to where we want to be quicker yes get us very close there very close i think so pretty close because it's two thousand and some employees yeah yeah like i said as the years go on from 17 they're not compressed they've been receiving they've already been using them my only point was is you know if i can quote you brenner from the ten commandments you know so let it be written so let it be done and so i'm just simply saying that if the board establishes the policy and what then the expectation would then for the administration to come back and tell us how to get it done i'm

170just saying let's not be confused again or miss the opportunity to be clear what our expectations are and then we may not be able to do it all at one fell swoop but we have to be able to say just if we and i appreciate ms kempson because i think of her often in this regard just if we say that our goal is for 100 of our schools to be accredited then that's the absolute target and then what we're asking is come tell us what you need and what it takes to get it done so i think we should take that same approach when it comes to the compensation because the two to me are are connected as dr gabriel said and also at this point we are doing a step every year now right

171yes we have so we're already into that we're already into every year by step okay i'm i'm thinking about two things there's this there's the there's recommendation here that we're planning to to address with the budget at our in two weeks at our business meeting and there's also the if we have a budget yes yes i'm okay i'm being optimistic right yes we are and then and then there's this lingering very daunting task of the um the files the paper files that would need to be gone through to make sure that we get everyone on one to one um no we're already trying to won aren't we not everyone as of now we are on did everybody get a one-step raise for this coming year not from not the ones who were here back in

17220 well they still got a step for this coming year they just didn't make up the steps they missed right so they're not going to win well we are one to one now if every single person that's hired by norfolk public schools is getting a step then we've moved to that model mm-hmm but not previous they wouldn't be right but what i'm saying from now starting this school year and in the future everyone gets a step for step and this is the makeup for the people that were here during the dark time that's not going to make it 100 of the people who are there then but it's going to get us closer right and so what i heard mr jordan saying he wants everyone to be on that one-to-one scale whether they were here

173before but we're still all getting a step next year every single employee except for the school board yes we'll be getting a step next year okay go ahead dr austin pass well i do think what my colleague said this is a very complex matter yeah and i do think realistically um it it i think it has to be in phases i don't think we can create this civil bullet tonight and give everybody one to one everybody get i that is not to me fiscally responsible and it's also not realistic because i do think from even some of my readings that 2025 is going to be our crazy year and the reason i'm saying this what what's being projected is that in 2025 there's going to be such a teacher shortage we're going to have to

174offer teachers new teachers in that year [Music] this huge salary that's going to throw us off all over again in terms of pay because what's going to happen is teachers who've been here 10 20 years they say you're starting to teach your off with that yeah then it it's going to throw everything off again it's going to go right it's going to create yet another um panic with teachers because and we know this is going to happen that the shortage is going to be so great in 2025 it's already been projected it's not new we know that and we are gonna have to pay teachers almost whatever they want to be paid not just in norfolk but all over the country and we know that's coming and when that comes the backlash is going to

175be teachers who've been here 20 years you're going to start a new teacher and we're going to have to then it's going to all start off we got to figure it out all over again well we'll just have to increase the salaries at every step you will have to if that happens in 2025 well that's what i'm saying so it's going to start but but and so in 2025 you'll have your new hires coming in and getting big salaries about time and and then you'll have each step of the teachers that are already there getting a raise at that percentage and my point is we're talking about 13 mil you might be talking about 40 million in 25 or 50 million so i'm just saying we just need to know and think about what we're

176what we're doing i mean realistically because i understand oh i think teachers do need more money i've been a teacher i am a teacher so i understand that but i also think that we have to phase into this realistically i wish we could just find and i see what you're saying clear this thing up that's why i was saying i wish we could will it be over by 2026 that everybody will be caught up is what that's what i was saying another situation but i'm saying it's going to be another situation so i'm just saying i just want us to kind of really think about it and i do support teachers god knows i do because i am a teacher i prepare teachers i get people to go into the teaching profession every day for

177the last 25 years i understand the power teachers and their worth and their value but i also think we do have to be responsible and really think this thing through also just just for clarity and that's that that's kind of where i am do you need to start wrapping this up i just right now in our budget process we receive recommendations so over the last several years if you go by the chart we received a recommendation that included everybody getting a step what i'm saying is if the policy is yes then then there's no question none of this yeah we might get a recommendation one year or a different recommendation we are saying that's the expectation and so as the superintendent is preparing a budget for us that that's already clear that this is what

178our expectation is and then you know whatever other things that may come forward in terms of recommendations so be it i'm just trying to say that other school divisions that we are competing with have found a way to put it into the policy i'm trying to get it into the policy i'm not saying that it necessarily is going to be resolved overnight but what i am trying to do is get it into the policy by this board so that in 2026 whoever the board is doesn't go back and look at a chart and hear the same precinct presentation we had that this superintendent did this and this board did that no it's going to show that one for one was something that was um established by policy in this board and if another board wants

179to change it change it that's for them to deal with and they would go through the process of doing that okay do you have something quick well i have well so i i don't know i hope it's quick um so the other point you know i want to make is you know we talked about the the unspent funds but also you know the arp funds like can we can we use some of that money which i mean we we can't i mean if that's the will of the board i mean and it's allowed to be used for that to stem exactly what dr rosen described will occur in the future in the very near future you know that's something that we need to have that just be part of that discussion is you know can

180we use some of those federal funds to to uh apply towards this effort so i know we're going to have budget continued budget discussions but i hope we can come back and okay all right thank you thank you mr phillips and we're going to move on to our next mountain chat i just want to make sure that we're clear on what we're taking back are we saying that we're going to send to the policy committee to look at a one-to-one proposal and two are we not we're gonna we're going to we're going to discuss this with better more at our budgets when we have our budget discussion it's on the 15th right hopefully yes who could the policy they're here looking for they've heard what we've requested what's that the policy committee go ahead and

181start preparing for it before that the next day they don't even know about it friday after the business meetings i was i was saying that the budget is the policy document and and that's where the board will have make that determination yeah all right i just want to make one quick it's a comment it's a it's a positive i appreciate you really going in and describe you know really walking us through this it really was helpful to me um so i just want to say thank you so that's that's it dr martin could we looking at item four and item five yeah could we put like a time limit on that display i have time limits on everything that's why i'm watching the time we didn't fill our time for the first one and so

182i it was rolled in so what is your ending time if you've already got them it's already a quarter to seven this one should only take 30 minutes but honestly we're going to be here until we get the work done and it shouldn't take too much longer okay okay so up in madame chair just really quickly because this is important and it involves operations um we've already the administration has prepared contracts are we allowed to go ahead and proceed are they going to sign next week yes we we're on a tight timeline right now so i i need to be clear that i think that we're going out tomorrow or next week at the beginning and they're scheduled to go out next week last week at school always okay so we need to have the

183discussion about finding 13 million dollars in our budget to potentially give that pay increase this coming budget year or we can we can happen if basically what's going to happen is if a decision is made to allocate all the money right now then we'll need to go back and recalculate reprint contracts all of that would have to start all over and the contracts would not be able to be distributed next week well why can't you distribute them and then you can do an add-on if it goes the other way that's why i'm asking for this direction yeah i'm asking for this discussion just you know so can i get a consensus of would we like for the administration to um you have a recommendation around campus this is a train wreck right now it really

184is i mean if the board certainly if we need to come back and make some adjustments we can do that yeah but we are on a tight schedule right now i mean it's not a blink of an eye and everything gets done i mean every decision that is made related to this impacts our workflow and and we need we've already based upon our budget already being approved by the board we have proceeded and the two million dollars what have you that was already we have um asked the board to approve to use for the compression that's what we base the contracts on and so we we've got to at least be able to take some action and if the board comes back with something else we'll adjust accordingly but to keep us hostage right now

185it is totally unfair to the administration and unfair to people i don't want to i don't want to add any extra stress absolutely yeah i'm i'm saying so we need to administer contract distribution rights i don't i'm not sure i understand the question because i think the the concern was mr jordan that you know with with this again with our budget being approved with the the amount that was initially approved for us moving forward with compression this plan was developed we're prepared to address the the first phase of people with the distribution of the contracts and now it just sounded like we were being asked to now you go back and find 13 million which of course would significantly impact what the bottom line is for each employee in our dissemination of contracts my only

186con so i'm not i don't understand enough about that piece of it and i think you have to make determinations but i want to be clear because we kind of talked about this yesterday you know with our two by two the the the board submits a proposed budget to the council the council then responds the council could give us what we asked for they could give us more than we asked for they could give us less than what we asked for the state passes the budget so we still don't know until all the stuff is said and done what we have available and what we can do with what we have available or if we want to make adjustments so i can't i'm not knowledgeable enough on on that side of the house to speak

187to the the contract piece of it but i but i do not want to see the board back away from asking for the administration to come back to address what we what we just discussed i'm just and and i said to dr bird song yesterday so i'm a shift i'm not addressing dr versa i'm addressing my colleagues that these are discussions that i felt like it was important for us to have before but ultimately the the budget is the boards and so the council has given us an appropriation we still need to make sure that [Music] that we're going to drive through on the goals and expectations expectations that we have i feel uncomfortable trying to answer address the the contract issue because i don't know all that but i do think it's important that

188something come back to us that addresses the presentation that we received now and what our feedback has been based upon that presentation so could we would we be able to go ahead with the distributing our contracts and then get more information on the recommendation of increasing the timeline to to take care of the as much as the 13 million dollars as possible as quickly as possible so a new more um condensed timeline on achieving that goal and then going back and retroactively adding a you know addendum to the contracts or making those changes well typically a communication needs to go out to clarify to the employees exactly what happened with their contracts and what is the proposal to happen so if we're not going to be on a four-year plan and we want something to

189go out we basically are saying that for this one year those employees who hired before february 1 2012 will get an extra step and then that ends it because otherwise i don't i'm not hearing to move forward with the four-year plan so we would have to alter our communication to employees so that they don't think that what happens in 2223 23 24 24 25 and on up is necessarily going to happen because that's not what i'm hearing us say but if i mean jordan the contracts that that are waiting right now should have does it have language in there that talks about the potential that this may not be what they get because we still haven't gotten state funding yet there should be language and there's not talk about that and i think what mr

190billus is addressing if i can refer to this chart and mr phillips correct me if i'm wrong for example the contracts that we again in accordance with the original budget proposal and using the two million dollars to address at least next year's compression based on the 1701 employees their contracts have already been adjusted based upon the amount approved by the board for those 160 administrators those 632 classified staff those 208 non-classroom teachers and 701 classroom teachers is that correct mr billups i'm trying to put this in plain language so everybody understands have the contracts been adjusted to meet that employee group based upon the amount approved by the board previously yes the contracts have been adjusted i wouldn't recom i'm not i'm just talking to me i can't speak the whole board right now but

191i would not want to go back and negate what we already approved but moving forward i mean you looking at this funding here so that takes us down to um what 11.5 million dollars or or i mean 10.5 million dollars that we would then look at that lump sum of how can we find that lump sum to accelerate the correction of these steps right right the question yeah there's been no discussion about the head with the contracts we have and give them to the teacher to the stat everyone and get them signed because that's what's there that'll key in with the budget discussion we're having that'll be done and then we can discuss stuff that's right and we can always just walk in and you can just add something to it later like we do

192with stipends or something but right now we need to people need to get their contracts so they can get that right and based on the conversation i support head with the board i support that based on the two million dollars that was approved to deal with at least next year's compression we went back and devised the plan based on that and that involves 1701 employees the employees that i just mentioned those contracts have been produced they're ready to be disseminated again based on board approved action we had no indication that that action would be reversed i'm just concerned about going back and not at least addressing that based upon the initial conversation that we had publicly we are ready to proceed and again if there are additional changes that need to be made this administration

193has demonstrated flexibility lord knows we have we're we're happy to do that but to at the last minute not have us proceed with this would really create a lot of chaos and confusion amongst our our employees and i strongly do not advocate for that at this point again we hear you you want us to go back we're happy to do that we're just asking to move forward with the plan that was already approved right i support that yeah is anyone opposed to moving forward with the contracts as is i'm not opposed but i don't i don't understand why the question of opposition is on the table the conversation that we have had has been about accelerating there's been no conversation about eliminating or reducing what is being proposed in the first year the conversation has

194been about can we do more and i heard that you come back with can the administration come back with recommendations on how we can do more and how we can do faster it's been to me i haven't heard any conversation about how we should back away from what's already there it's been how do we build upon it but mr jordan respectfully we would have to back away from what we've already done because if the plan if the board is telling us directing us to go find this 13 million dollars then the contracts that were scheduled to be disseminated would have to be changed these people would not be getting two step as two-step increase or one-step increase they would be getting nine why don't we just accelerate the plan based upon what you're saying so

195their contract amount would be different mr jordan a nine-year step increase is different than a one-year step increase why don't we just do what we already voted for that's what i'm asking and get that done and then we have time to work on this later yeah and work on it why don't we just move ahead with what we have i object to that i think it's i think it's uh i disagree i think that if the if the intent is for the um what's been allocated to support the first year of the phase in because even the future years still have to be approved in future budgets in no way am i recommending that that the administration of the board back away from that what what the conversation has been is to come back to

196us and tell us how if we can do more it didn't say go and do everything in one year we'll ask you to come back with recommendations when the when the budget proposal first had the two and a half million or two million dollars that was set aside that was why the goal then was for the board to be able to have this conversation prior to submitting our budget so we're just responding to the fact that this is the timing of the way things worked and we're just trying to be clear about where we want to go and i think it is fair for the board that still has to vote on this final budget which some say may have even more than we requested from council to be able to allocate those funds to

197support whatever it is that the board wants to support moving forward and that's that's where i thought the discussion was that's not what we heard respectfully i can assure you based on the faces that's in the sidebars that's not what we heard we heard we want to do this next year i think that's what dr gabriel said find the 13 million i heard a couple of board members agree that that's what you wanted to do and to do it aggressively which is why i wanted to make sure that we were clear because again we're we're prepared to disseminate contracts and there's a difference between mr jordan if we're going to give a teacher or an administrator a nine step increase versus a two the contract would be very much different and so i just wanted

198to make sure it was still okay for us to move ahead as planned and we still hear you about going back and trying to find be a little if if we're if we can be a little more aggressive with the the timeline around dealing with the compression we say find the 10.5 did that give you more comfort none of it gives me comfort based on looking at my i'm understand we spent a lot of time on this and when my cfo says to me and i've asked him how many times have i asked you mr jenkins are you sure are you positive have we talked to other cfos and other divisions and other financial experts and when he comes to me and he says we should not be using funding that's not sustainable i want

199to go on record and saying i hear what you're saying mr jenkins and i appreciate your expertise and that's why i think the board should define the what an administration should tell us the how i agree with that the board what i'm trying to get is the board to be clear on the what i understand based on our conversation it's like the golden rule of budgeting yeah yeah but when the cfo tells you something i mean we're asking him for a reason he's the expert every month we admin contracts absolutely irresponsible i think that's what i heard dr wrestling we will receive a personnel docket on june the 15th and there will be adjustments that are that are made every month at the financial report i ask about where are we with our unexpected balance

200so there are there are resources that are there and the conversation is with those resources that we have available can we accelerate our competitive salary structure in the marketplace that's the discussion understood okay so contracts will go out yes they'll go out based upon this but it'll alter the communication because this is now based upon what i'm hearing no longer a a a plan for four years and employees were going to be communicated as such what was going to happen over the four years this is now a plan letting well we haven't noticed we're supposed to vote on this on the 15th we're hearing your recommendation but we're not going to vote on it until our business meeting right why would you communicate a four-year plan that we haven't approved yeah i wouldn't communion the

201board the board has to vote the policy and that's what you showed on the chart why would you communicate something that the board hadn't approved yet so can we at least communicate the one-year plan since the board did approve that yes yes we're not so you're renegotiating the one when you're then i winning we have two things that are there we've got either this option here or what we've asked for can we find an accelerated option and to come back with us when we meet on the 15th but i definitely think you can communicate that one year because we all voted on that in the budget i i i i think that this is a very valuable discussion and i'm trying to listen and take in all that we have received in this presentation what

202i don't want to do is is cause undue stress for the administration i really appreciate the fact that we have a clear direction we have four years that has been laid out very very well so there is an end point people know what to expect year one year two year three at this point in time since we are going to be adopting a budget on the 15th hopefully if we hear back from the state the communication that i feel should be sent out is we have a we have a plan for the first year and we are working on with the administration on how we are addressing the next years of steps there isn't there's a goal of the four years but we might be able to tackle that more aggressively i guess that's what

203i'm asking for at the end of the day and i apologize dr birdsong if i sent your blood pressure skyrocketing but i see my cfo packing up but but our art no we have an issue it's um it's we all feel the pressure we we all feel the pressure uh and right now i don't want to act in haste but i think that in our future discussions which i think we're going to have some great discussions moving forward again now that we have all of this information before us i think we can't address it um in a in a in a in a very succinct manner so my comfort level right now is to move ahead with what we did vote on but i i would say as far as the communication piece we are

204addressing the one year and hopefully we'll be able to address it more aggressively slower than i mean quicker than the four years that has been presented we'll see okay all right thank you um moving on to 4.01 titles 1 2 3 4 proposed annual plans are you go ahead and proceed when you're ready awesome good evening chairman martin vice chair clayton dr byrdsong and school board members today i will be providing a summary of the title one application for the 22-23 school year i'm kelly cedo the senior director of early learning in title one the purpose of the title one part a grant is to provide supplemental services to schools in order to assist students and meeting academic standards title one funds are also used to support early intervention with our preschool three-year-old program strategic

205intervention is provided at all title one schools to support students academically and behaviorally much of this is achieved through collaboration across all departments on the use of funds and through professional development for staff the proposed application continues to support all 29 current title 1 schools all schools will implement a school-wide plan so that all students can receive the supplemental supports and use the supplemental resources the title 1 part a grant supports mostly staffing and there are some supplemental funds at the school level where principals have the discretion on how to spend the funding later in the presentation i will share how the decisions are made in collaboration with executive directors and the in the senior director of early learning in title one which is myself there we go the virginia department of education shared with

206all divisions to use level funding for the 22-23 school year therefore our preliminary funding is 15 million 400 111 dollars and 34 cents norfolk public schools ensures that title 1 funds are used in direct support of schools to meet the needs of our students families and the community as this slide shows 92 of the funds in this application are in direct support of schools through school-level allocations and initiatives such as instructional coaches family engagement and support for students in transition who are considered homeless furthermore funding is used at the school level to support our preschool three-year-old program the majority of the funding is spent on staffing at the school level in the proposed title one application school-level budgets were maintained at level funding with some having slight increases with principals and executive directors it was

207decided all schools will have a title 1 teacher and title 1 family engagement specialist to support title 1 measurable goals and objectives at a minimum after the base level of support each principal uses their comprehensive needs assessment to create their school improvement plan and school spending plan for title 1. they discuss their staffing needs with the executive director and then we discuss any changes they would like to school level staffing and which areas they need to spend their funding for the following year this is all preliminary until receive the actual allocation in the fall i'm not doing any buttons right now do you want me to do the buttons yes i'm right here thank you based upon current needs and needs for next school year the current position of educational research and data coordinator has

208been changed to preschool instructional coordinator the preschool coordinator will develop and maintain effective educational preschool programs consistent with the state and federal guidelines and the policy philosophy and goals of the school board and implement and evaluate the unified measurement and improvement system for all preschool classrooms this position will also support family engagement at the preschool level and provide workshops and informational sessions for families to ensure we embrace our families as soon as they join the mps family once we receive the actual allocation in the fall principals use their updated school improvement plan to write their title 1 school spending plan this plan details specific purchases that the principals need to make to support their school improvement goals this is reviewed by the executive director and senior director of early learning in title 1 for alignment

209and allowable expenses expenses under title 1 part a once both plans are approved principals use utilize the title 1 handbook that provides them with the timeline for spending and other guidance needed to support title 1 regulation okay we need to go back one since we both clicked thank you professional development will be provided to anyone who works in a title one school they will know what the title 1 program is in nps and what their role is to support the program we will also continue to provide principal professional development sessions in collaboration with the executive directors family engagement specialists will participate in monthly professional development sessions that focus on division title 1 and school level goals and best practices and family engagement the title 1 teachers who provide intervention will participate in professional development in

210collaboration with the department of curriculum instruction to ensure alignment and success for intervention to ensure the program is meeting the needs of our students and families our department works with the assessment research and accountability department and the school improvement coordinator a representative from our department will continue to participate in the monthly school level data meetings to ensure supplemental resources are being used with fidelity and are making a difference for our students over the year title one measurable objective subgroups are presented in the division level data presentations and we monitor this data regularly with our assessment associate we also meet quarterly with the newly established division-wide family engagement committee this committee has filled out three surveys and completed several job tables so we have information from all title one schools to help us guide our decisions

211for the next school year this committee will grow in the 22-23 school year to include preschool and community represent representatives which is very exciting thank you and at this time i'm available for any questions any questions for jordan just a general question i'm sure i've asked it before in the uh measures where you're using um combined rates what's the philosophy behind using combined rates in this particular instance as part of your measures versus using pass rates i understand that the combined rate includes growth but from a uh we're really just trying to look at it what's can you just explain the philosophy why you're using combined rates and not pass rates or combined rates and pass rates sure so for um for our purpose we use the combined rates to ensure that we won as

212you said include the pass rate in it but two it supports accreditation the goal for all of our title one schools is become fully accredited so the combined rate is what's used for that accreditation so we're in alignment since a title one federal grant we're in alignment with that we also know that we do want to make sure that we are looking at growth and ensuring that our students are doing that it is also going to support next year where we know that the students will be taking their sol three times and so we will be able to measure that growth over time which will also help us ensure that we're moving toward that percent goal that we're looking for right but to the extent that you have multiple opportunities for measures is it harmful

213if if you had a rate that was looking at uh pass rates in addition to what you already have there in terms of combined rates i wouldn't say that it would be harmful but it's included in that and it's going to align with the schools in terms of their school improvement plans and what they're focusing on as they're moving that forward so my goal is to make sure that we have that funnel alignment and that systems approach to our data so that is why we decided to do that plus i worked with our department and this went to our division-wide committee our principals so there was a lot of stakeholder feedback in and particularly i put up the vision mission the goals and had them address what they would like to to change and they

214unanimously said keep the combined rate go ahead mr seen um thank you for the presentation um so my question is uh around um the behavioral specialists that have been included can you speak a little more i was looking for it through the actual the application about how that was derived and um if there's any consideration you expand you know what i what i like to think of as the care team for for students in our title one schools absolutely so i work very closely with dr moore and his department dr williams is actually monica williams is the one who oversees the behavior specialist so this year i met with dr moore and dr williams to see what is their vision what's the roles and responsibilities and how are we moving that forward also during our

215elt meetings our leadership team meetings um dr moore presented on that information and we're following suit with what is in the social emotional learning plan with the wrap around services and the tiered tier response to intervention so the behavior specialists are going to receive professional development but it will be through dr williams and their supports because we want to make sure it aligns with the plan that has been approved and created okay any other questions okay thank you i'm fine you can begin whenever you're ready okay is good evening madam chair dr martin vice chair mr clanton dr birdsong and members of the school board i'm bruce brady executive director of curriculum and instruction and i'm joined this evening by meredith hopson over here against the wall all right meredith is senior coordinator of world

216languages and esl and we're here to provide an overview of the 2022-23 title 2 title 3 and title 4 grant applications for your review and consideration these three grants provide federal funding to supplement positions and activities in nps with the goal of increasing student achievement the title ii part a grant often identified as tpt for teacher principal training provides support for professional development to improve the quality of instruction and enhance effective principal leadership to increase student achievement the application is for slightly over 1.8 million dollars under federal regulations private schools in the city of norfolk who wish to participate in this federal grant program receive eight percent of the award so private schools will receive approximately 154 thousand dollars this slide shows the personnel positions involved in delivering professional development that are funded by title

217ii the positions include seven reading and math specialists in schools our four content office specialists three rti teacher specialists and the divisions professional development coordinator and i would like to add especially as it's come up a couple times this evening that with the completion of the reading and math specialist cohorts every elementary school will have both a full-time reading and math specialist next year we are heading into the 22-23 school year with no elementary math specialist reading specialist vacancies and no specialists split between elementary schools all right we get to celebrate that right now good job the grant will also fund a professional development teacher specialist to focus on instructional support for our new teachers assist with planning the new teacher institute and organizing the lead mentor program additionally in order to maintain 12 division

218level instructional coaches one of the positions is being transferred from title 1 to the title ii grant on this slide you can see the numerous professional development activities for teachers and principals that are supported by title ii among these are literacy training such as letters grow your own programs to support cohorts for both administrators and gifted resource teachers support for ap and ib teachers and professional development and coaching for our new principals and teachers our new teacher induction program is supported with this grant and we have set aside funds to provide classroom substitutes for teachers attending professional development the title iii grant provides funding to support the academic achievement of our english learners while working to become proficient in english and assist general content teachers and becoming more effective in their teaching of else students

219the award is approximately 134 thousand dollars on this slide you can see the title three funds professional development part-time pay summer programs materials and our outreach to engage elle's families finally title iv part a provides funding for a well-rounded education a safe and healthy environment and the effective use of technology the title iv award is over 1.1 million with the private schools receiving approximately 41 thousand dollars this slide shows several positions that are supported by title iv funds as well as funding supports for ap exams psat exams sat school day for juniors in the spring of 2023 anti-bullying and suicide prevention materials pbis in support for the arts music and world languages and this concludes the presentation on the title 2 3 and 4 grant applications and i'm now ready for any questions okay any

220questions go ahead mrs i don't have a question but i'm i'm so glad to see the s.a.t school day included in this so anybody's not aware of sat school day we administer the sat exam in school on a weekday eliminates those barriers of transportation uh having to test on a weekend and testing in a building that the student is unfamiliar with so so we're looking forward to that great that's great that is dr allison go ahead yes i'm very excited about all the um resources that we have here to um to help our students to perform you know better and higher and more but i do have the question about that as you were deciding like i we applauded you for having um putting resources in each elementary school but are we also looking at

221the equity concept that maybe some may notice people instead of one or some some elementary schools may need more than others and was that looked at when we were making determinations where resources would go the whole equity notion i know it's equitable to have somewhere in every school but it's not it doesn't necessarily fall into the equity concept because there's some elementary schools who may need more resources well i think if if you're referring to the reading and math specialists [Music] you know i think it was important for us to get to the one in in all of the schools to provide that support and now if if we're able to uh maybe we can start looking beyond that and there is the possibility that even within the grants that we could support uh additional

222specialists where they're needed i think i think that's critical if we are saying we're our echo i mean as a school system and our resources is that we're looking at equity because that's very different than just saying everybody get equal piece versus there's some who may need two or three and i think that has to be kind of looked at closely because we are you know pushing this whole equity concept and my definition of equity which i think everybody my colleague jordan t p may have different definitions i i definitely have the definition of equity is that where resources are needed more they need more so i know if one could go around that's great but then there may be elementary school b and c who may need two three or four based on the

223data and some historical stuff they may need a whole lot more and i think that's uh that's an important piece that i think we always look at whenever we're distributing resources is that whole equity piece right yeah and we can look at that as as we get sol data because uh you know title ii uh is is for going above and beyond and so that that the potential would be there to to do just that we've also had the existing goal of having all of our students on reading and performing math on grade level by by grade three and so when some schools don't even have a reading or math specialist it you know we definitely want to make sure we had them we it makes it harder to accomplish that goal so we definitely

224want to make sure that we have them first and foremost in every school and then you know obviously with the continuing the equity initiative based on well that just slightly defies equity though a little bit i mean you just it slightly defies it yeah but because there are some schools that are already at certain levels already and so it kind of defies equity if you say well they're going to go to every school even though some schools may be very close to having above average test scores i mean and then some that are not and so that defies equity a little bit would we do we have schools that don't need a math and reading specialist well we can certainly look at the sol scores you know as they come in but you know i

225would be uh very hesitant to remove that minimal level of support and i think that's where we're at now with one in every building and it it took us two years of the cohort program but moving forward as i said you know there is the potential that we could add additional positions uh in those locations that that need them well i think an equitable notion would be that for let's say there are schools who may not need that deep of a resource that that some could be shared that might it might be some elementary schools that you could that could share two or three of them i mean like they could do two or three schools because of data and need and other schools may get more but then some may be shares i'm by

226no means saying that a school should not get any of the resource my concern is that some schools need more resources but i'm not saying that why school would get no resources because they have high test scores but they may have to share a resource person with two other schools who may not have the needs and we put the other ones in other schools so that's that kind of distribution but i would never say a school doesn't need one or whatever but i think the the distribution of resources is very critical when you look at the whole equity concept okay and who needs this way so that's more so by no means saying a school doesn't need one or whatever but i'm saying it might the the resources may be distributed differently okay thank you

227okay thank you um mr seen miss campson and mr jordan um i'll let miss hampton go first because i found that she wants to follow up on it just having been a school principal here and being in the early wave of where we were begging and screaming for math specialists to be added to our reading specialist um because a school can be a top performing school and maybe 80 percent of their kids are functioning on grade level which is fabulous but that 20 percent you can't say because the school as a whole is doing well you have to remember how many children need that extra support and so if you start pulling them out and spicing them around and that's the whole point i think of what it is to get these extra seven that

228they are now the thing that's added to the kids to the schools that only have half their kids and rather than taking it away from schools that have used those resources successfully we need to start packing more into the schools that are still struggling and have a larger number because when you go to do your interventions you got to have a lot of people you've got to have a lot i mean you've got to have a lot of support doing that and if you start before you've even reached a point of of capacity of of the of the specialist and you start pulling them out and splitting them up and here cutting and dicing them and putting them in different places then you're going to see that 80 school coming down it's just what i'm

229saying so i don't i wouldn't want that in our mind that it's okay i'm looking at this and going wow this is what we've been saying we finally got the one per building unless they were not title one schools because they their family will form with title one monies now this is title yeah okay but in other words now you're adding to it and using that to add so that you can double up on the schools that are more needy and have more children that need intervention because we we are way way way away from at being at the point that we have enough interventionists in our schoolhouses we have lots and lots of children that need a lot more help and it's very what you find yourself doing is is trying to figure out

230how to get all those kids in for those hits those second dose what we call a second dose and a third dose or you can call it tearing um so i just don't want to see us think oh it we will just pull them oh this school's doing good this year so we're going to pull out that help and and then send it out somewhere else and then that school drops back down to where they were all right all right okay go ahead oh did you have a response the superintendent would like to comment yeah i hope i'm reading mrsa's mind but yeah i thought that um when we talked about these additional positions that we were already we had a compliment of of reading a math specialist at every building but this was in

231addition to to to support i i thought and i know we do look at equity and i know we have missed dr rousen to your point we have had reading and math specialists who are split between buildings because some buildings do need more support than others is what am i missing dr paul so these these seven have actually been in the title two budget for a few years back when the goal was to get one reading and one math specialist per elementary school so there was no change in the staffing here it's just what mr brady was saying because due to the cohort we finally have the staff to fill the positions that we've had where we look at the equity part dr rowson is in title one two years ago we added 12 instructional

232coaches that move based on need of the building so that we add additional supports above the reading and the math um coach that are in the or specialists that are in the building we actually move the instructional coaches based on need because those are division level coaches but this was actually d7 has been in the budget and they were actually to meet the minimum of having you know that reading and math support in every school so that your your your students of highest needed each school have that kind of a support in place so we've been building into the budget additional positions that create that equity that you're that you're referring to so that we can move those around to schools of higher need it's not guaranteed that they're going to be at this school

233for the next 10 years it's guaranteed that when when we have the scores we look at the 12 schools of the highest need and we'll shift those instructional coaches to go to those 12 schools of highest need so that we do and whenever we have extra funds to add staffing we look at that kind of a perspective now that we finally have the one position in each elementary school to fill the reading and the math all right miss spacing go ahead with your yeah um so i i appreciate dr ross's comment and i i i would hope that equity is you know it's what we're doing and not just you know a verb as they say equity is not over right i mean it is a verb like that it's runs throughout everything that we

234do and to my question to um earlier about the behavioral specialists like that was one of the things that i was saving for this discussion too because we know that we've just like we have greater needs around math and reading in certain schools we also have greater needs around providing the behavioral supports in some of our schools more so than others while they all need that and so i appreciate i appreciate that question and i support the effort to not just look at the numbers and and you know strive for equality but toward equity and so um you know so bringing it back to this title ii application you know even with the the behavioral specialists if it is adding more is there was that considered in this application we don't have behavioral specialist positions

235in this application right um the personnel in the title ii uh grant provide professional development uh for teachers and for administrators so that's their job function is in the providing that that pd right providing coaching for teachers and administrators do we have that coaching capacity in this four behavioral spaces there is a budget line for professional development for our uh behavioral specialists our our psychologist okay yeah for pbis training so we do have pd funds okay okay all right thank you thank you mr scene you did approve five additional behavior specialists yes well right and i know it's there but you know again speaking to the equity and understanding you know at least right now we haven't really looked at the data but just anecdotally having an understanding of what is going on in our

236school buildings not just in norfolk but you know across the country with the increased uh uh you know needs around behavioral health that's why you know just asking about are we looking at adding more supports which also could improve morale for our teachers you know could reduce their their workload also so um that's why i was just wanted to know more about that so okay mr jordan yeah i just just wanted to clarify to my colleague dr rowson that the definition that you used is the definition that i use so i support your definition i support the comment that you made that was the reason why in the strategic planning uh presentation i was asking what is the definition of equity because i think often it gets talked about but what you're talking about is

237how does it get implemented and i think that's what we should be monitoring so in uh earlier in the month uh dr burson shared with us the support position asset map awesome and at the asset map you can see where some of those things are but i agree with you that the data and the need should define the resources that are that are allocated so i just wanted to clear that up in case of some confusion there anyone else all right thank you very much thank you all right up next we have um our policy discussion item 5.01 on jjaf student athlete sudden cardiac arrest this is the second reading correct this is just a second reading we still haven't received comments so just a reminder to the public watching that if they'd like to

238provide comment on this before it goes to vote at the june business meeting it's still available on the board's website right any questions or comments from board members the dr paul just want to clarify so we haven't thus far received any any feedback okay all right thank you that means everyone agrees to it okay thank you all right thank you for catching up on our time here there you go lauren you got some extra time all right up next we have 6.01 the superintendent evaluation process and there's a draft process on attached to that and um i did notice i overlooked a um a date i need to correct so um on the road that says july 13th the fourth column review the consolidation comments in preparation for june 15th discussion it should say july

23920th discussion so i apologize for that um any questions or comments go ahead ms campson miss bassine as i was looking at this what i notice is that basically we're using the same plan that we used two years ago and that we used again last year and both of them were very unsuccessful i felt because basically we're all writing all the stuff on on our things separately and sending it to you and then you're putting it together and as i recall last time we had some it's difficult to read what everyone else says and read their minds at the same time when you're trying to put it all together and so it was a lot of time and and i don't recall that we ever finished getting through all of the standards either of those

240years and so i would like to just suggest that we do a little tweaking here just whatever you all decide of course i welcome any recommendations to make it smooth this is my my suggestion is so the part where we go where we all go to ourselves and we do all of our writing and you know if we could streamline that so that you you do not have the burden of trying to read everyone's mind and putting it together my suggestion would be first of all that a lot of us myself certainly included we're looking too broadly when you're doing an evaluation you really need to look at what's the most important thing to be talking about so if i'm looking at this i want to know if i have a concern what's my biggest

241concern you can't get every single concern that you have about someone because then then they're not really focusing on it you need to really really pinpoint what it is that you think is the greatest need or the greatest success so you know my suggestion would be that we do a typical way that you might go through an evaluation which is each of us has our sheets we have the uh the standards or domains or whatever they're calling them now and and if and if i had that i would be looking at it and i would do a initial scan which would i would look at standard one blah blah blah blah blah all right i think she's okay here i know this is an area that i have a concern about well let me and

242let me just real quick i'll try and talk fast um so that if if so when i so i would just go in and and give them a score just in my general opinion of how are they doing in standard one i think they're okay they're doing average they're not setting the world on fire but there's no big problems here and i'd give them that middle score and or they're they're knocking it out in the park and i give them a top score or they're struggling in this particular thing and it gives me a scan it's kind of the way you schedule you you um grade a a classroom of of essays where you put them in high medium and low you do a quick read high middle and low and then you go in

243and you dig into it and then i would say okay you need to to look at the two things and this you know be a limit so you're not looking at the whole world you look at the two most important considerations you have whether they're high middle or low and then that's what you put in you only write two maybe three of the most sentences about it you don't have to write a whole page of detailed reasons because you're right you know first of all that this person's meeting the criteria for the standard and that's all you even have to put or this person came up with this because to be up here at the top you have to do something more than meeting the criteria for that standard you have to create something totally

244new and and something that's really successful it's really helping our schools and our teachers and everyone else or they're really just not getting it with their communication with teachers or something so that you you decide those and so when you finish then you've got two or maybe three of the key things about each of the standards whether it's high or middle or low and then instead of sending them all to you we send them to each other so we can sit down and go through them ourselves and we can pick up the phone with that person and say no well i i noticed that here you're really focusing on this can we talk about it a little bit so that before we so if we actually use that like a team would in other words

245we do a team thing here and we discuss it with individuals i might call tanya and i'd say i don't really remember that that she did that and then she would say well this is blah blah blah blah and then i might have that information so that when we walk in and have our meeting where we discuss it and we go through those things we've already talked to each other a lot so that we're not sitting there and we never get it finished we never get it finished and then you have to try and put it all together at the end and it maybe doesn't always represent exactly what each of us is thinking because you don't read our minds thank goodness so i that's what i was that we streamline this well actually we're

246not starting from scratch this time because we already have the directives that we've given to the superintendent last time and so we would be working off of those we wouldn't become starting over again we'd say did she meet this didn't she how would i rate that so well that sounds like a streamlined thing that i just kind of said well i mean that's what i put in my email that it would be based off of the um directives that we've already given your elaboration on that is clear to me now but i do think it's important that we're all privy to the same conversations um so well i may still give noel yeah i mean absolutely we should we should always work together as a team instead of our separate little silos that we this

247board tends to everyone's in different places and we're not really a team when we do this okay um so i hear what you're saying um any other comments about what ms campson has proposed about consolidate should i consolidate them or not does anyone is anyone against me consolidating them and then us discussing them as a group i mean i i just remember you combining uh comments and not not trying to decipher what you know it's complement by whatever whatever it was but just consolidating it which of course we did go through as a team um but um yeah i i just well first i you know i would like to back up a second and just ensure that you know the superintendent dr birdsong is you know this has all been developed i guess collaboratively

248and you know so that's i think step number one and that um we're on the same page before we agree to go down this timeline so dr birdson you want to speak well if i may it i knew there was an another agenda planning session meeting that was called and i do recall that um a bit of time was was dedicated to looking at a schedule the schedule that was published is definitely not the schedule that that we all talked about so i i'm curious about you know the revisions that were made to the dates and some of the activities because i certainly was i was not privy to that so that would be my my first question okay which states several if you want me to go down the list i'm happy to do

249that okay for example we talked about june 1 of course coming together today that's fine this is what we're doing right now then um there was a discussion about a special call meeting being held on the 29th whereby i was to present information regarding what your expectations were as outlined then on july the 6th it said each board member submits comments to the chair when we had a discussion about it there was going to be a meeting not only july the 6th but on july the 11th to talk about evaluation feedback and then a special call meeting on the 13th for only board members not involving me for board members to come together export only and then on the 20th um during the closed session on the 20th would be the time that we would

250come together the board would come together to discuss the outcomes of their conversations consolidation of feedback and there was not a discussion about a special call meeting on the 27th so when would we have the final evaluation i don't know i'm just going about what we talked about what we discussed what i thought we finalized together and then again this is the first time i'm seeing this which is different to respond to your question so i'm just trying to be open and respond to the information that i have i was trying to complete it before the end of july and again we we dedicated some time to talk about that and what we talked about didn't land on paper and so when the question was asked we're on the same page i just want to

251be clear that the things that we discussed are not clearly reflected here which i think i share that with the board already we got to july 20th in our meetings so i thought the following john 20 is the regular board meeting that we're going to have so there was going to be some time before and that we would talk and meet and finalize that but these special call meetings i think we do need to look at it because i mean july is also vacation month also so it is um yeah um i mean for the 20 i mean all yeah every week in july i mean typically i mean that is i mean we do have um you know things going on so i do think we need to look at me that i'm sorry

252you don't have to tell me that yeah yeah we know so that's why we may have to look at it again this is to figure it out we're not going to be able to get get this done by the other side i guess the board can start but we just need to be current right that's what i'm asking for recommendations you this is so if we move july 13th to the 11th um cannot take every week in july though right now it's every week in july so that's like us i have more discussion about that i think that's a bit much so can i also take a step back and also ask the letter of expectation the what we did last year for the superintendent as far as the evaluation there were there was feedback

253given and the expectations which we all received a copy of is that what dr birdsong is going to present to us on the 29th is that what the agreed plan is right now and is that what we are being expected to evaluate her on right now yes and then moving forward we need to come up with goals through this process that are agreed upon similar to what mr jordan was saying when we were to have the strategic plan discussion so that we can move forward on the same page dr birdsong is that that's what you're prepared to present on june 29th so what can you repeat what i'm supposed to be doing because yes because it's not clear i'm glad we're having this discussion i believe me i want to know what i'm being evaluated

254you know and i shouldn't have to wait a couple of weeks before my evaluation to know what i'm being evaluated on so please i implore you to to to share with me what your expectations are the items that we gave to you and the document for you to respond to your progress on those well well um what did we have there i'm just going to go on the record right now as a board as a board member um i'm going to pull from ms campson when she says to take a look in the mirror so as an individual board member i'm going to take responsibility and say that i really feel that i personally haven't identified goals to evaluate the superintendent on that's number one and what we're doing right now is we're trying to

255satisfy an obligation that the board has as mandated by the state and i don't think it needs to be done in a haphazard way and i think that dr martin you have you've tried to kind of corral us all around dates and timelines and work with schedules but the situation is is that we we have a document that was given last year to her it wasn't clearly identified as this is what you are going to be evaluated on at least that's how i feel as an individual board member and that's what we're assuming right now she is going to make a presentation on so i just want us to all at least have an understanding that is that what we are asking dr birdsong to present on has she hit these items because anything outside

256of that i think would be very unfair of course i mean i that's exactly why what that's my question would be what else would we evaluate her on if not exactly what we laid out last year and then make a good leap of coming together on you know with the strategic plan we have a lot more work with moving forward and to improve this process so i don't know what else we would be evaluating her on if not what was directed in that document okay and the performance standard the tool of the superintendent evaluation tool that we have and that is what we need to be using um so i think the tool is there and so i'm not sure what the and even that that if i may interject because i remember getting emails

257i guess there's some new guidelines or training i just signed up for it for superintendent evaluation there have been some changes things that jack clough so i'm just signed up for it and i encourage all my colleagues to do this one of them is graduation day yeah because i was looking at it too decided they got one on the 21st so again i don't know i understand i held up that sheet of paper to talk about goals and hopefully we will get to that point where we can have mutual goals that we've kind of put on that one and i think this going into july gives us the benefit of having gotten the presentation on the strategic plan having some discussion around it um so if we can you know and at this point we're

258clearly not going to have this done by the end of june there's too much i'm trying to provide enough time for us to go through this process but if you want to have a couple day turnarounds on um you know we can condense this to board members submit comments to chair consolidation i mean we can move that to earlier to accelerate it if that is the issue what is the issue here i'm i'm really trying to i keep because i just not take the entire month i mean every every week in july every week i just and i think assessments are very important and evaluations are very important we all do but um but they do not have to be just you know intense and that's and as i look at this schedule that's kind

259of what i feel a little bit is that i feel intense for the whole month um so i just wanted to um i'm i'm willing i know person i mean to accelerate or condense or even as you know my colleague hanson said to even you know work you know with call one or whatever i mean to make this a little not so intense yeah i don't think evaluations need to be intense i just i just don't not for teachers so so what would make it less intense is what i'm asking i don't know how many ways to ask the same question um so if you get the so um can we agree on um june 29th having our the kickoff which would be dr birdsong's self-evaluation presentation yes no i want to say yes but

260i have a lot of internal conflict about is the superintendent also has a very busy schedule and so is the 29th a date that works for her and all that she has going on with running the division and that's that's the that's really the predicament that i have with the rest of the dates we're asking the superintendent to do too much i mean we've seen a pony you know putting a cart show with this once before we don't need i mean she could come in and just look at the highlights herself that she wants to point out to you i don't know why we have to have a big to-do you don't want her to do a self-evaluation she's not saying that i didn't say that okay what can you i said she can come

261and sit down with us and say all right and this standard and you know sharon just jump i mean dr bertson just jump in but it does not seem that we need to have some long elaborate document for her to put together that list all this stuff here that's that's not what we're asking for well what are we asking for we're asking for each of the points to for her to give us an update on where she's on this but they have to be based on the standards that's what i mean yeah that's right so you just got to keep it in relationships yeah so if we gave her a document and they are if i recall the document did have the standards and they had certain items that we asked that were combined and

262we only we only selected a few for each remember so and from my understanding dr birdsong you were okay with the 29th to be able to make that presentation right whatever the board needs me to present but this is a collaborative activity we have this conversation so it's the 29th okay so you know i'm going to lean on mr jordan for this because yesterday we talked about board conversations and superintendent conversations and at this point i think it's it's critical for the board to have a conversation about their only employees evaluation process and so if i may respectfully just hand it back to you to talk about um and again and i will say this and and i've said this before and i know everybody's watching their clocks believe me we have things that we

263need to be working on too so i appreciate everybody's attention because to me this is important i'm the only superintendent of the school division i take my work seriously i take the work of the administration and our teachers very seriously we are here to do what we need to do for children first and foremost and so for me as i think about classroom teachers bus drivers child nutrition workers teachers they know what to expect of their evaluation already a year ago and here we are a couple weeks before you know this board wants to evaluate me and the board doesn't even know what i'm going to be evaluated on which is why a teacher would be able at this point to say no right because you're not allowed to give it at the last minute

264right exactly so i respectfully mr jordan in alignment with our conversation about this yesterday i'm giving this back to the board respectfully this is why i've been asking to have this topic for months but yeah i have this isn't the first time so that we're not doing this before yeah so uh i i i will answer the lifeline um so one there is a form that we have so the conversation has been around some action items that the board recommended as part of the evaluation process that included all the domains and all the standards yes we should still be completing that process part of that process provides the superintendent an opportunity to present to the board her assessment of the work that she's done that's the self-evaluation piece of it i'm concerned i would i

265would caution us about saying that we are evaluating the superintendent on the action items the action items are just a piece of something that came forward the superintendent will have the opportunity to share with the board those her responses or her progress towards those those action items but we should still be following through the the rubric with the domains with the areas of strengths and recommendations or grows and goals whatever it is that we often have the conversation around and and that's inclusive of the action items and that we came up with with last year um i do think that you know i said this last year and i'm concerned we shouldn't be in a position where um dr birdsong or any superintendent is saying that they're not clear on what the goals are and

266um we were working in that area but i do think that in this form it provides us with performance indicators things that we've reviewed that provide the opportunity for the type of feedback that ms camps and dr roussen are talking about around those those domains i don't think that has to be overly complicated but i do think it is important that if we are going to ask and i think we should uh the superintendent to do this self-eval we should do i agree with ms kimson we should be able to communicate something and not have her go down a rabbit hole of trying to present to us on every single thing that i mean it's just that's why we have meetings that's also why we only selected two to three things per objective those are

267the those are the actual action items those are the action nights i'm saying on the self eval that we provide her with some flexibility but at least some some some framework of she can provide she can give us as much as she wants but if there's some things that we would like for her to give some focus on we we should be able to do that and i don't think it has to be um using dr ralsen's uh terms intense in this this elongated um over thought but but i do think that we should be clear on that and then if you're going to do this on acting on behalf of the board be able to then lay out the dates that work for the superintendent and work for the board you've heard the board

268say we don't want the six meetings so if it's two or three meetings we like to try to get it done in then can you all kind of work on work on that so that we know what we have to get done in terms of completing the our feedback that eventually is going to be a board's evaluation of the superintendent not seven individual members of the board so you're looking at me kind of puzzled but no i'm i'm just thinking but um i'm listening yes so i i don't the only concern i i really have about the i want to say the only cursor a concern i have about the dates that are before us i share what dr roussen has said but i talked about this at the last meeting it would be helpful

269for me personally to still have the big picture because dr rousen is pointing out the dates that have been set aside for the evaluation and that being intensive we also know we have other meeting dates so being able to just have that picture what it's going to look like from june to august i think would be helpful and then the last thing that that i think we need to also factor into this is um and and dr gabriel and i had a two by two yesterday but part of the part of what we also are supposed to be using some of this feedback on is you know some of the performance data so there is an opportunity in this process for us to get some of look at some of the preliminary academic data and

270i think we should also provide that opportunity for dr birdsong to to provide that to us um in whatever way that that makes that makes sense you have to have that as part of this process we do and and you're kind of getting ahead of where i wanted to be at this point since we clearly haven't decided on one piece of this um but uh i mean i did ask dr birdsong if she'd do two by twos in june and um she'd said that it wouldn't be ready the preliminary data wouldn't be ready till july so this puts us in july so again another benefit but when in july we'd have to so we are having the work session was on the 6th as well as our retreat which puts our business meeting on the

27120th respectfully the question was around the availability of the data would it be available during the retreat like it has previously been and my response was it certainly will be i'd asked about two by twos in june prior to it and you'd said exactly what you just said yes that i'm available for two by twos oh in june i i said that during the meeting okay i misunderstood i did not hear that okay okay well that's good dr martin yes can we do the the 6th to 20th and the whatever the first wednesday is in august and first okay july 6 july 20th completed on the first wednesday in august when it was august 3rd as part of our work session and we can add it before after whatever and then with those three dates

272can you work with dr birdsong on a what will be done for those three dates and if there's and then if there's going to be two by twos in between then we just need to have those two by twos occur prior to one of these dates did you repeat what you said mr jordan i'm sorry yeah we know we have a meeting on the first wednesday july 6th we have a meeting on the we'll see the sixth it's not like what we have here is not even for us to discuss on the sixth while we're together it's just a um so to give you a week to submit your uh comments so that i can consolidate them and have them back to you by the 11th now all i'm saying i'm trying to focus on

273the some dates for the board to be together and take action it might be stuff that we do in between i'm just saying if we say that in three meetings we can complete this process and i'm recommending when the board needs to be together the board needs to be together with the superintendent so if those three meeting dates are the sixth the 20th and you said august the third then can you go back and rework whatever content or deliverables that have to be accomplished within those three dates and i think if you work backwards from august the 3rd then in consideration of you know the things that dr birdsong has to prepare for this on top of all the other things then i think it gives her then flexibility to be able to come back

274to you on behalf of the board and say you know these are these if with those three dates if it's agreeable these are the things that i can provide to the board and then the board would then know what we will have and when we will have it and then we can adjust ourselves accordingly to get our work done so by august 3rd we would have completed the task it's what i'm suggesting um so if we have the um evaluation on august 3rd and the discussion our final discussion so working backward like you said on july 20th which is um before our business meeting um in the cell phone she has she was on the sixth her self-evaluation on july 6th so that gives us between the sixth and the 20th so if we get

275the self-evaluation on the sixth um and then have this is good the you how long i mean this is where it gets tricky is you need to we all need to submit the comments for consolidation do you think two days is enough or i gave you until or i can give you till the 11th um and then you're asking me to personally do a really big bulk of work just in a few days i like having them on the on the wednesdays that we already had meetings scheduled which is what i was trying to do i'm not quite following so for the distribution distribute consolidated comments to board members on the 11th so maybe we just turned so um you would now distribute them on the 20th of july on the 20th we're going to

276discuss consolidated comments so now the due date for us turning ours into you is the eleventh distribute consolidate no that's when i was gonna have them back to you so now i'm getting confused going backwards so july sixth self-evaluation and dr martin you don't have to work alone what you don't have to work alone yeah yeah what do you mean you were talking about the consolidation you don't want to work you have to cut and paste and put it all together i mean yeah but you don't have to do it yeah it's seven seven of us we can work together to get stuff done doesn't have to be just you i agree i mean i'd really appreciate it since i'm giving up my vacation on my birthday to be here with you guys so i'll

277consider that my birthday present i've been on a virtual call on my birthday too i mean i celebrate it with you all every time year i'm always working on my birthday ever now i'm just saying that everyone wants me to work around their schedule and i do the best i can but i do also have a vacation that week and i'm not going on it and you guys know i do i do spend every birthday with you and i love you guys so dearly um so um moving back um so self-evaluation on the sixth and then what are you suggesting so instead of submitting your consolidation to the chair you want to do what no i'm i'm suggesting we have a converse we meet for a conversation or on the 11th if the eight of

278us can agree on the dates then you can sit down with dr birdsong and the two of you all can work together or maybe you mr clanton and work together on filling in the these deliverables okay based upon what works for her and what that's what i'm trying to do right now is yeah nobody i'll work on these dates but if we're taking away the consolidation i need to know we need we're taking that away so i i'm not so i'm eliminating a potential date that i don't have to talk about no other dates the only dates that we're looking at are the sixth the 20th that's right the third there's nothing else in between i could send i mean i could send notes to you by the 13th i could send them to you

279we wouldn't be meeting we wouldn't have to meet but yeah you just send them send them on the self-evaluation so when would we we'd have our we'd have to have our discussion of our comments on the 20th and be ready for the evaluation on the third yes yes yes okay just have to manage time yes time management ms christie exactly and you know when you look at evaluation i mean it really is about reflection improvement growth and feedback i mean that's what it is so i'm trying to take away the intensity part completely from an evaluation it's really about growth and improvement that that's how i bet that's how i see an evaluation for anybody so that's really what it's about i've softened it up a little bit well i mean that is that was

280the intention it's just i've been spending a lot of time thank you guys for having me yes you're going in circles so do you have um any objection to july 6th 20th and august 3rd so let me repeat for clarification july the 6th i'm to present to the board yes my reflection okay july the 20th the board will work together to discuss your comments around my presentation evaluation et cetera et cetera and then august the 3rd which is a work session date sounds like now then we will come back together for the board to present to me my final yes so the three dates sounds good okay and they're all already days that are in our calendars and my take on each of these that it would be that those discussions the evaluation the presentation

281are always going to let us say correct yes oh yeah oh yeah absolutely but i would just the reason why i was trying not to do it in the meeting if you if dr bird song goes back and reflects and feels that there needs to be some adjustments i just want there to be flexibility in the content piece we have the dates but if there needs to be some adjustments like for example time for presenting data or time forever that we that we just not be that we'd be flexible around that we have our agenda planning meeting on the sixth though yeah but agenda planning is for second plan for the board this i'm saying if if we i mean agenda planning we're having a we're having we'll be meeting so if dates need or

282to be changed or something needs to be changed we can work that out then bye then oh you mean june 6. yeah we're having an agenda planning meeting june 6th so that would be the next time we'll be discussing schedules all right speaking of agenda planning any future agenda items i don't have a future agenda item but but i do want to go back to my earlier order point of order no i'm just joking no but i would like to go back to what we talked about last week we just talked about a moment ago like the lindenwood thing that keeps getting pushed out so i would like i would appreciate if we could get even if it's just for the next four to six meetings a draft agenda what's going to be on the

283agenda because i don't want to have to wait until or topics you know three days to know yeah what we're going to we just added something on july 6. we know we have something on july 20th we know we have something on august 3rd and i think i saw something around july 5th so so if we can find out what the agenda items are for those meetings prior to our next business meeting i think it would be helpful for us to to be prepared so um miss tanner has been putting the list of our notes of what we talk about in our agenda planning meetings on board docs and i just want you to understand that we have a limited amount of time that we're meeting and so we're not always we don't have enough

284time to plan out that far ahead i mean it does take us a good hour to an hour and a half to plan what we are planning so to ask us to spend an hour and a half planning the next four or five months and that is just we just can't do that i'm not asking you to spend an hour to have to do anything i'm saying don't add any more to the list prioritize based upon the feedback that you have received from the board one other thing i just use lindawood as an example because there has been board prioritization around that there are other things that you're working on we know that there's work we're going to be doing around governor's training on the 5th we know something's going to happen on the 6th

285we don't know what that something is you know something's going to happen on the 20th we don't know what that something is outside of what we decided today we know that something's going to happen on the 3rd of august we don't know what that is i'm asking can you please prioritize and let us know in draft form what it is that you are anticipating will be on the agenda item for those dates july 6 july 20th august 3rd okay um but miss tanner has been doing that on her notes the notes don't mean the notes are your workings okay what we respond to is good draft agenda okay i've been giving you the information i have as far as advances i have it so um okay all right i guess meeting adjourned safe driving home

286you