School Board Work Session (1-12-22)

001well before we um get started with our work session we have of course he does um so we're going to have his swearing in and then we will begin our meeting so dr ralston and we have judge gerald jones thank you mr martin dr rabson are you prepared to take your oath of office sir yes if you are please raise your right hand and repeat after me i do solemnly swear i do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the commonwealth of virginia and the constitution of the commonwealth of virginia and that i will faithfully and i will faithfully and impartially and impartially discharge and perform discharge and perform all of the duties all of the

002duties incumbent upon me encumbered upon me as a member of the school board as a member of the school board of the city of norfolk of the city of norfolk for a term beginning december 20 2021 for terms beginning december 20 24 term beginning december 2021 and expiring december 31st 2022 and expiring december 31st 2022 according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me god so help me god congratulations thank you [Applause] right all right miss martin if you would sign on both of these here congratulations again thank you let me now take a seat at the table [Applause] okay okay i now call the meeting of the norfolk public school board work session to order ms tanner please call the roll here okay um first on

003our schedule we have the falben group are they connected they are okay what is that we have a link does everyone have their access to the link on the email yes [Music] uh so okay can everyone hear me okay um miss falbrin are you there i am okay and do we have mickey on here as well yes i am okay hello welcome thank you thank you okay um so uh you may begin with your present thank you will i be able to share screen it's telling me that um i'm not allowed to share screen yet so i'll wait a minute okay i'm close now so let's see [Music] is everyone able to see my screen [Music] oops are you able to see my screen yes okay you see it in presenter view or do you

004see it in you see the right view just one slide one slide excellent thank you so much so thank you very much for having us my name is valda valvren of the barbara consulting group we appreciate the opportunity to present to you all so thank you dr versong and members of the board um i want to tell you a little bit about us and then we'll get into how we will help support this work so we are a minority uh woman-owned enterprise located i'm located in charlotte north carolina mickey is located in florida um and what we do is we bring broad experience supporting schools across the country with strategy management strategic planning leadership development um all through the lens of equity we help districts to really plan for their diversity equity and inclusion and

005anti-racism practices through building the capacity of leaders um our company is comprised of a team of highly skilled practitioners who have all been in these roles from teacher all the way through to superintendent um i personally am i'm the former executive director of charlotte mecklenburg schools where i was charged with overseeing all organizational development which includes professional learning opportunities prior to that i was the director of professional learning at ascd in virginia i'm also a former state instructional improvement specialist and did turnaround work in leadership coaching and of course i was a principal assistant principal and a classroom teacher um and i as our chief operating officer is mikhail pope i'll let her tell you a little bit about herself good afternoon and um ayako valdis thanks for allowing us to be here today um

006so a little bit about me um i've spent the last 40 years of my career in education both with the new york city public school system and then retired from broward county public school system uh sixth largest in the nation uh just two years ago as their chief of student support initiatives and recovery uh spent my career uh through uh all of the ranks uh from from teacher to teacher leader assistant principal principal on to district leadership um and then retired as a as part of the cabinet uh in broward county um and since my retirement there i took on a role took on the role of senior advisor whole child developer for new teacher center and from there i've become the ceo of the robin consulting group where we're really doing this work around

007equity um and and it's the part that has it's been the through line with my work from the the time i was a teacher until present thank you so we're currently working in several districts i'm going to highlight a few um we as a former employee of charlotte mecklenburg schools upon my leaving they decided that they wanted to contract with us and so we worked very closely with cms still generally professional learning and leadership development we also work in many districts but the one that i want to highlight to you is that we are partnered with alexandria city public schools uh we did the strategic plan in williamsburg city county schools and i am one of the um the consultants for uva where i work in their their ple program their leadership development program supporting

008districts across the country um again through the lens of equity so we do a great deal of leadership development and and working with leaders to really think through um the strategies that they would need to implement in order to move to a more equitable school system one of the things that we're really really um that's really important to us involvement consulting is that we are collaborative in every way and with every single one of our partners we believe that whatever model whatever we bring to the system has to be co-created that context matter the local context matters local voice matters and and we do not believe in a one-size-fits-all uh kind of a leadership of the work so uh we we recognize that importance of the conversation important to the plans are the board and

009the leadership dynamics um what what is working what has been effective organizationally has to be considered we have to work through some clear agreements and a work plan and we have to absolutely honor the past and current work and ensure that we are building on what is what has happened and what is working while we recognize that the virginia school board is is a separate entity from nsba one of the things that we've prided ourselves on is really staying current to to the current research and one of the things that i that i think is really important for us to think about well as it relates to board governance is how that role is changing right um and this there's an important white paper that that nsba put out about reimagining school board leadership through

010the lens of equity and i was really happy to see that because it does get us to really think differently around the the work of setting policy but through this lens of how do we make sure that we're equitably distributing funds how do we make sure that we're that the curriculum is reflective of who students are and that we're hiring the most effective teachers to work with the students that need them the most and and thinking about that idea of creating this safe learning environment but also a brave learning environment where we can really uh support what's necessary to make sure that all students are getting what they're what they need through the equity lens and again fostering that meaningful community engagement we oftentimes talk about you know equity um and and i don't know

011that we all define equity in the same ways right and so i always want to want to center our work through the lens of what is what does equity mean and how do we ensure that we're helping districts and leaders to get to equity yeah there are many elements to the concept of equity and level setting and developing common understanding is critical up front when we're working with a system around this so we at development consulting like to use the definition that you see here on a screen knowing that there are many variations of of how folks define equity i'm not saying that one is better than the other but level setting and and sitting with the the team around what does equity really uh mean to you um and we bring this um to

012the forefront um we see uh equity having um uh there are two two elements um one fairness and the other inclusion we also take the time to really uh unpack uh unpack what equity is and and helping folks to understand that equity and equality are very different um and then what is systemic equity so as a function of fairness equity implies ensuring people have what they need to participate in life and to reach their full potential to flourish so for every child that walks through your doors every single one and there's there's there's this idea of how do we truly fairly meet this child's needs and help them to flourish as a function of inclusion equity ensures that it's essential programs services activities technologies all of what that child may need to flourish and how

013do we include um that child who they actually are um their identity their family their history their lived experiences and the process of truly serving them um again unpacking the idea that equity is not equality often times in systems we we we kind of bring those two concepts to one um so we sit to this and and we know that it equity is an expression of justice ethics and it is the absence of discrimination so we bring these conversations to the table and then again sitting to the idea what is systemic equity how do we look at the systems the complex combination of interrelated elements consciously designed to create support and sustain social justice and we know that this is a robust system and it and and it's something that we really do have to

014work through as a collective one of the things that we always like to remind folks is that you know diversity is our reality right if you even look at who's on this call right so we have diversity mastered and we find that many districts as they think about leadership and plan for it they often fall back on this idea of we're very diverse and i always remind people that diversity is counting people but inclusion is making people count and so we often remind folks that any work we do whether it's governance work or leadership development or strategic planning we want people to think about equity and inclusion in the area of diversity and i think that matters even in the context of the work of the board really big be being thinking through as we

015set policy as we make decisions are we doing so through the lens of what would be equitable i i i think that it's important for us to consider this that that there's three really big buckets of work right and that is to to cultivate the existing diversity to foster inclusion and belonging and to promote equity in all of the work that the board does and that that means making those organizational commitments to to the culture and policies that support all of your students all of your stakeholders in the ways that they differ versus the ways that they're the same thinking about how we consider all the stakeholders backgrounds so they feel supported valued affirmed and welcomed in norfolk public schools and then removing those barriers to equity being able to identify them and to remove

016them a big part of that work is asking ourselves some some tough questions right which organizational systems and policies and practices foster or hinder equity and inclusion and in which organizational practices need to be reviewed to determine the impact and experiences of those within the organization as well as those it serves and so we bring this lens as we do this work because we want to help the board to analyze how you're seen as individuals how you're seen as a community how do others see and experience you and and the school system and then also really begin to dismantle some of the negative narratives right so how do we change the narratives you know who gets to create the narratives that are currently out there and then how do we uh practice prioritizing and protecting

017and you know and really understanding you know who who do our practices exclude and how do we make sure that they're more inclusive and then what do we do about it and so that's a big part of the way that we that we approach this work is really thinking about it in that way of really disaggregating you know what our role is as as a governance board um through the lens of creating equitable environments i think when we think about school systems we always have to think about that top down right um and and and we we want to make sure that the board is not far removed from impact to the instructional core the ways in which students and teachers engage with content and so we always want to make sure that we're always

018considering that in in our in our discussions around policy practices and behaviors and for us it's also important that we bring in the research we bring in not only the research but a series of tools and frameworks to really um put teeth into the conversation um really uh collect data to bring teeth into the conversation so it's not just sort of this pie in the sky type of conversation that we're having about equity um so in advancing equity we uh what what the research tells us is that um as you develop a theory of action or theory of change um that it has to account for historical racial traumas and it has to ensure that traditionally marginalized groups have voice in the process the research also tells us that boards must commit to setting a

019progressive vision and shared goals for the district with an emphasis on accountability and priorities need to uh be connected to promoting equity uh elevating the culture of the district and those that the district serves effective communication about this work um so that everyone understand the why um the teaching and learning aspects you know how do we make it you know culturally irrelevant in order for us to truly help every child thrive and all of the other pieces that are connected to access facilities technology budgeting and everything else that has an impact on student learning so in reimagining um you know this this work um we're told by by by research that um actions for equity um must have boards setting visions um and policy very directly around it under today's rule of governance and best

020practices school boards must take seriously their role to create a district culture that strives not only for academic excellence but acknowledges and addresses inequities looks at the mistakes that have occurred in the past as learning opportunities sees the work as one of constant and continuous improvement and really just looking ahead um to to be better and to better serve the communities that we're trying to serve so our hope in engaging with you is that we be we work together to to understand the current reality right acknowledge it and honor that existing work but help to really create a pathway for getting to the ideal state and we do so by grounding our work in the pub coherence framework because we think it's really important that any work that we do around governance around leadership takes

021into account the existing systems structures culture stakeholders and resources of the district um you know this research it says that unless you consider all those areas any strategy that you do to implement change is not going to be as effective as it can be because you've not considered for each of these areas you'll see that at the center of this graphic is the instructional core that i mentioned a moment ago right and the instructional core is encompassed of students teachers and content so the way that students and teachers engage with that content is directly attributed to the work of leadership and out and to the board right um and so i we when we use this we should we help people understand how the the work of the board while it may seem that it's

022here right we may say well that happens in the schoolhouse we want to make sure that we're always connecting decisions policies programmatic decisions those discussions that they always find their way back to the instructional core and so part of our work is going to be to help to do that we wish to really build the capacity for the desired change but to come to understand what that desired change is through our collaboration we don't come in and say here's what needs to happen and here's what you need to do but instead again we want to co-collaborate in order to do this work you know this last this last slide really really brings brings to mind this why this is so necessary right so school boards we need to provide leadership to address the educational gaps

023that have plagued the education system and widened during the pandemic the role of school leadership has changed because of the pandemic i would venture to say that the role of school boards has changed as a result of the pandemic and so we don't have the blueprint for what that works look what that what that should look like but we are committed to working together to to develop collaboratively a plan for moving from the current reality to the ideal state um i know we did a lot of talking and so we want to open up for questions and answers and to now just move into some dialogue okay i'd like to start off with any questions for val and mickey anyone go ahead mr jordan and then dr gabriel uh good afternoon afternoon i guess my

024initial question is not so much for the valbraun group as my question is really for uh the dr martin leadership team he just kind of reset for us where we are and what we're what we're doing in terms of the discussion that we're having now are we entering into a contract with the album group is this a opportunity for us to have a feeling out discussion in order to determine whether or not we're going to do that the direction that we're going can you kind of just set for us where we are today from where we were in the last year so um last let's see what knows that november maybe beginning in november we decided to uh cancel our contract with the council of great city schools which we've been working with since last

025february on governance training and um so the next step was to well and i explained this in an email but an effort to continue with our governance training as seamlessly as possible um the i turned to the voldemort group because they have been working hand-in-hand with dr birdsong on her strategic plan and also has been involved with the um you know to just a certain extent with the governance training when our council great city schools governance coaches would have meetings together with dr birdsong her team and the vauban group so there have been they've witnessed and been a part of our governance training from the beginning and so this is a service that they also offer and um you know i really just want to keep moving forward with the work we're doing and keep

026up that momentum or i guess the best thing to say is to regain that momentum um moving forward because it's really important that we have our goals guardrails norms protocols all of those things established particularly before the end of the school year so dr birdsong has been really enjoyed working with them um and so we carlos and i met with them and i i was very impressed by them and so i'm bringing them here before you to be able to go through the process of asking questions and vetting them and i'd really love to come to a consensus today and moving forward again you know how i get i just want to keep going forward and get this done and then actually you know it's just that i just keep thinking about every meeting we

027have that without progress in our governance and having clear goals for our administration it hurts children right we talk about this and so i'm this isn't all an effort to move forward dr birdsong are they we're already in a contract with the vauban group for the strategic planning um we haven't i don't know that um is there anything you need to say about that i mean so you are correct we are under contract with them for strategic planning efforts and um i explained that to you that they have extensive experience as you've heard with governance training and so as you've stated we are moving right along with our strategic planning process and based upon that i thought it was a good idea that we aligned their work to work with the governance team since they've

028already been working with the administration it would be seamless and based on what they demonstrated they've done it they i feel confident that they can help us move forward and i'm looking forward to moving forward right dr martin then if i can follow up so i just wanted to get an understanding of if you or maybe the developing group can discuss the work that we've done over the last several months where they see us today this seamless transition you mentioned goals and guard rails where we are is there a proposed timeline as the cost of this built into the existing contract just trying to understand the logistical pieces of it so um if i can if i may yes please yeah so one of the things that we we discussed when we were together was

029that we want to develop that scope of work with board membership input again we don't come with a pre-packaged plan and say this is how it has to be we think that collaboration is going to be extremely important so we do want to keep those goals and guard rails move to adopt them we want to maintain neutrality but also you know build in some some norms for how this work will go forward we want to um set some clear timelines again with with the board's input um and and again honor the existing work so we're so we're not proposing starting over again at all what we do want to do is take the work you've done so far and then work with you to develop the scope of what the remaining work looks like again

030in collaboration i think that's extremely important um i think it's also important for us to think about you know um what what you all hope to have happen but i think there's also is an opportunity for us to innovate and to look at what were the what were the past issues what what was it that derailed the work going that was already happening and then move forward from there i think that that's an important piece for us to also critically examine so we'll want to hear from you here's what was not working here's where we stumbled right and and and here's what we need to get to that ideal state again very collaborative we're not coming with the this is how it has to be you inform that process and i think that that's what

031we want to see happen we want to make sure that we're facilitating the right conversations that we're getting input from everyone around what this work should look like moving forward but again honoring the existing work that's that's occurred to date thank you thank you for that i just for me i want you to understand this is the first opportunity i've had to have this discussion uh with the board and the superintendent so this is our first effort at collaborating around this um in action and so i'm asking the questions because you know as an individual board member i wasn't uh i didn't have the benefit of the discussions that we're having now so my questions are just to try to get an understanding of where we are where we're moving forward and so even as

032you describe the board as a whole being involved in that direction i'm just trying to get a feel for what we're trying to determine today and then what the next steps will be so thank you for that response just to be clear carlos and i are the only ones who have spoken with them so far and so this opportunity is to do exactly what you're describing is for the full board to be able to ask have their questions answered okay dr gabriel go ahead greetings fellow group and thank you for joining us today i enjoyed your presentation i look forward to working with you all and keeping up that momentum as dr martin had stated i will be very frank and state that while i uh i support the goals and guard rails that we

033had discussed previously i i wasn't buying into them 100 percent and so i definitely look forward to conversations that we will have with the inclusive nature that you have described about discussing you know what what things can we do to discuss items that we may not have felt comfortable with and it's really about the academic piece and this is where my question comes in with your work with schools such as alexandria williamsburg and other virginia public schools can you tell us how you've worked with governance teams that have directly translated to good academic success for students especially students in subgroup categories um that that we really try to focus uh and identify students of color students in poverty uh gifted students for example yeah that's a great question i'm glad you asked it because you'll

034you'll see you'll notice that as we spoke up to each of those slides we ought we incorporated the concept of equity because we ground all of our work in that and so in all of our district engagements we even if they have not hired us specifically to do equity work we always say that equity is the is the foundation from which you do this work um and we do so again with the lens of making that clear clear connection to the impact to students right i'm a firm believer as a as a former classroom educator and person who go through the ranks of the school system that all of the work that we do has to have a touch point that leads directly back into the classroom right so it has to impact student achievement

035it has to impact the student experience that we create um and so in all of our engagements we help our our district leaders to think through what is it that they need to have the capacity to be able to one identify um where there are systems that that need innovation that need to be reexamined um but also setting really clear metrics for key performance right so those kpis are going to be tied to to are we seeing growth for students and are we being intentional about the impact that our decisions have on students of color students of poverty second language learners always consistently bringing it back to those questions and moving away from the did we do enough for the majority right moving away from this every and all type of approach to instead understanding

036and asking the question who are we missing in this decision in this policy in this practice and this behavior that may be part of our operating norms right the way we do business if we know that we traditionally missed some students some student subgroups it's imperative to go back and to examine that and so that's a big part of our work so to answer your question we do set performance indicators that help to measure the impact of decisions behaviors even about professional learning we tie it back to how can this how can this help to impact student achievement and we'll do the same with governance work is always thinking about putting the student the student experience um at the forefront of any of the anything that we do right so i'm going to always one

037of these i always do is challenge people and say what's in it for the kids right so so when the adults are around the table they're making decisions about practices and policies we always have to come back to how will this impact students and which students will be lost will be missing from this will will be impacted adversely from this decision um so i hope i answered the question because you asked about specifically tying it to student achievement and i'm i believe that all of the work needs to be tied directly to to data points that are going to show us the impact i don't know if you wanted to add to that mickey yeah i did just thinking about the work also taking place uh uh uh in in two ways one that we're

038looking at a an individual journey where uh board members are looking at um their own uh idea of what equity is what has been their lived experience and and helping them to develop uh competence in that area and then looking at the system um what are the the the policies the the practices the processes that uh you need to really review and make shifts around as a board in order to have that impact that you're looking to have on those students i see a hand lord thank you for uh for the presentation for the opportunity to meet you and ask questions related to the governance training and what you might be able to support us with um so there's a couple of things um one is more and i'm not sure if the the question

039was answered about the costs and whether the costs were incorporated into the contract already um dr martin i don't know if you're able to are the are the costs already incorporated in the strategic planning contract no they are not because we only contracted them to do strategic planning right and so specifically we haven't discussed how much it would cost because again this needed to be an initial discussion with the board if you're even interested in moving forward okay so um so in that regard so if you know i heard a lot about not starting over the process and as you heard i think dr gabriel kind of alluded a little bit to it there there was some um you know discontent with the process that was used to arrive at the goals and guardrails and

040there may be some um you know that that to me you know what i understood was to be was one of the reasons why we kind of shifted from that work so can you describe to us what's what not starting over looks like to you yeah so not starting over means us critically examining what examining what has been done today we need to hear that from you all right i want to know what led to that discontent because i think that we need to develop the process for moving forward together um that's what i don't want to do i don't want to say here's going to be the process so in our in our efforts to be to be collaborative is it's a co-design of what that process looks like and i think that requires

041us to unpack what what what did not go well and then and then make sure that we solve for that by putting in place the appropriate upgrades um and again it goes this is this is one of the things that we are very very very passionate about is that any work that we do needs to be collaboratively developed um so that we don't get to a point where we say oh this isn't working for us and have to have to do a mid-course correction now given that we're coming in behind a group that has already done that work i do think we work we need to revisit those goals and guard rails um they're not yet adopted so let's have that conversation around you know both the process and the results if we need to

042revisit those goals and guardrails then i think that that's that's primary uh as the work that we need to be thinking about and so again we're very open to that um i do think too and and just that was from what i i have watched some of the board meetings um and i did watch many of the sessions with council of gray city schools and i and i think it's going to be important that one of our initial steps is to do some team building um and to really think about developing norms for how we work together so that would be one of the initial things that that we propose is to spend the time let's take a step back right so let's take a small step back i'm not saying start from scratch but

043i do think it's important to take a step back to examine where things kind of went wrong but to also develop some norms for how this work will will move forward but that has to be done collaboratively it can't be that we come in and say this is how we want you to act and and i will tell you i got the impression that you were being told what to do in those previous sessions and it was not being done in collaboration that's that's what it felt like so i want to make sure not to not to have that same uh tenor and tone to our work together and i would add that's not to say that um you know we're not going to bring uh you know some things to the table um you

044know we have some experience with this work of some successes and so we want to share with you what has worked um you know and uh with other boards um we want to share with you you know the frameworks that we use of course the research behind it all so that we can when we present that then we can plan forward and really move on solid ground uh with direction that is again has been developed by us collaboratively okay thank you and you touched on one of the next questions which was you know had you uh you know watch some of our our governance training sessions and meetings with the council of great city schools and um wanted to get your thoughts on that so so it sounds like the next step might be that

045you talk to each of us individually perhaps to kind of figure that out is that something that you have thought about yes actually it's interesting you say that because that is one of the things that we proposed was to do some one-on-one discussions and really understand what is working and what isn't working from each individual's perspective and create a kind of a safe space for them to be able to articulate that to us um and so that is that is one of the first actions is to do some one-on-ones and then to come together and to really think through you know what should the norms be for how we do this work going forward and then really begin to collaborate on what that scope of work will look like together we're actually in a process

046with another board of doing exactly that um it's a board of 20 plus and we're we're um having one-on-one meetings around a set of questions that we we co-created co-developed um and getting that input in order to really build uh our support moving forward yeah it's really important that that this work be designed by you right because you know it's it's your it's your board and we we want to serve as the facilitators we want to serve as the people who bring resources and bring the research but but ultimately it's driven driven by you we want to be able to push the conversations we want to be able to i like to say we like the whole push pull and nudge right and to to stretch our thinking around the possibilities um because that's what

047it is i mean when you're really being innovative and you're thinking about how do we do this board uh through the equity how do we do the lens of equity how do we do this in ways that are going to move the system forward we want to be a part of that journey with you and there has to be a little bit of organic uh development around me are you good miss passing uh for now okay thank you okay miss kimson go ahead thank you very much um what we all are oh okay sorry very happy to see the background that you're bringing to us um the fact that you've gone through each layer of education classroom teacher which we all know has a lot of challenges along with a lot of rewards of working

048with children uh and and then you moved up to leadership positions and as the building administrator the principal and then you moved on to central office so you have a wide range of personal experience and a lot of practice in what you do and i know you wouldn't have moved on to central office had you not been successful at the lower levels so that's exciting um and then the other thing that i'm particularly um happy about is to see how many times you focused on children in your presentation you talked about of the focus on children you talked about putting children uh in the four four point of everything and it kind of reminded me of what we thought about when we used to think about no child left behind which was always kind of

049my favorite um and and then the next thing is collaboration collaboration i think is the thing that this board has had the most challenges with and so team building and collaboration oh she got muted oh thank you all right maybe i was i'm still echoing but anyway i'll just wrap up what i wanted to say is the collaboration the learning to build a team it doesn't help to be a leader if nobody's behind you so you need to learn how to do build a team by recognizing the strengths of each of the members that you're working with and go with that you need to listen to their voice and then together we need to collaborate and reach consensus and i think that's where we've struggled some over the last three years so i'm really looking

050forward to uh this um not instruction but this new new partnership that we are hopefully being forming with you i think it's really going to take us to places that we want to go so thank you very much thank you thank you so much for saying that and i think that one thing that i think we should also consider is that because we are already working on the strategic plan this is another opportunity to create that coherence across this work um and and to make sure that that that it's it's seamless uh we struggled one of the reasons why i watched all of the governance sessions was because it was important to us to make sure that we were well informed as we were approaching strategic planning work and so and so not being directly

051tied to council of great city schools and in many of the conversations that actually i was able to have with aj um we struggled with it with with being on ver two very different places and so i see this as an opportunity for us to really create that seamless uh integration of the work of strategic planning as well as the work of board governance and so our hope is that we can bring bring that to this work as well thank you thank you yeah just additional comments um so i was comfortable with the council of great city schools training that we were doing we also had worked with the virginia school board association prior i was comfortable with that training as well what um both had in common from my perspective which i think i'm

052sensing in what you're presenting is being able to have some courageous conversations around what the data tells us uh you all mentioned about uh equity and uh dealing with systemic issues and so forth part of from from my perspective um where i think the i'm i'll use the description we're using to break down whatever occurred with the with the council um we worked on goals and guard rails we worked on various different phases um not all of us were there at the same time not all of us [Music] did the homework and so at times when it when it came time to have the courageous conversations we were we were in different places and i think one of the areas that i still have a concern based upon past work and what i'm reading in

053your your work is um we did a needs assessment and part of the needs assessment showed that black students were trailing we're not performing at the rate that we expect and in comparison to some of the other subgroups and so as we were working on our goals the prioritization of black students was coming out in our goal language and i think that caused some discomfort because the perception was that if you have a goal that speaks to black students proficiency in math that somehow that implies that you aren't giving focus or priority to other students and so i think that in order for us to move forward and have a collaboration and some of the things that you've talked about already that you and that you have in your presentation you gave a definition of

054equity i'm not sure what our board's definition of equity is i'm not sure where the strategic plan is having this definition of equity but if our data tells us that there are students that need to have focus and attention and we are and we struggle with how we then take that data and then actualize it into goals that then feed into the strategic planning of the administration [Music] will get stuck again and so what i think we experienced with the sba was when vsba consultants challenged us to have courageous conversations that was difficult i think the council great city schools was challenging us to have courageous conversations and that proved to be difficult and if we're going to do as much of the equity that that you're describing your presentation i think unless we are

055clear up front around how we're going to have these courageous conversations how we can truly be committed to what the data is telling us and if we're going to have conversations about research truly having conversations about research have that drive us at the center of our collaboration and not just it not be driven by personal antidotes or personal experiences or what we think our electorate is going to say that if we're going to be child centered and data driven then we truly have to be there even when the conversations become tough and the data aren't always something that that we feel good about and i think that's what's at the center of some of our struggles around collaboration because i don't think we have built a shared commitment to those courageous conversations and the real

056work around equity we pass resolutions we pass policies we have conversations but then when something stares it's in the face that then says that a group of students i don't care who they are require certain things in order to be successful being able to agree to that and then be able to make sure that we are communicating with our constituents and with the community why that's important and why that's good for all students it's where i think we struggle and i think it's systemic in norfolk public schools it's actually system across the country i will tell you so don't don't own that as only being something that happens in normal public schools in all of our work we we think that there's a lot of upfront work that has to be done the board gives

057strategic voice to what the community wants right what it values what it hopes for the dreams and unless we have shared understanding of the language in order to have these conversations then we won't have fruitful conversations so a big part of this work is to take the time to to develop that that shared understanding that shared meaning it's why we share the definition of equity so that we're level set on what equity looks and knowingly about what does equity look like in our work how do we take ownership and enactment as a board around creating equity but you have to first have a conversation about what that looks like i think the second part of what i heard you say in terms of how that's communicated out right if if all the community hears is

058we have a goal for black kids or for black boys for example and and they're left to believe what does that mean for white kids or white boys or whatever the case is that's a communication piece that we also have to ensure that our community understands our purpose they recognize why that goal is important and i also don't see it as this means that we don't do for all other students right we're saying that we're emphasizing the impact of our work on black indigenous persons of color based on data right but we're also making efforts to increase uh student achievement in all areas that's a communication piece and one thing is that we also pride ourselves on is that we help our districts that we work with communicate to their communities we will write talking

059points right we will ensure that folks truly understand the work that you're doing and don't see it as being done in a vacuum because because that's what happens right sometimes you might say oh we have a goal around our african-american children and it and to our non-african american stakeholders they say what about me what about my students right and so it's really about the ways in which we communicate that so we build that shared understanding of the importance of the work and really helping our community and stakeholders understand why equity is important and how traditionally marginalized groups have traditionally been underperforming it's not because of who they are racially it's because of systems that are in place that we're attempting to dismantle i it all boils down to the way in which we communicate this

060right and again because you're the boards you give that strategic voice we want to equip you with the knowledge the tools the language to be able to convey that to your stakeholders so they understand it and they can come on this journey with us and not see it as a battle between them and us right that's all really important when you talk about this language of diversity equity and inclusion did i answer your question mr jordan is there did i answer your question did i miss any part that nobody yeah you you were fine i'll just putting it out there for for your consideration and i appreciate uh your response mr clanton's up next all right thank you dr martin um i actually have a question directed to the superintendent um when we talk about

061uh this actually the uh racial makeup of our division what percentage would you say our division is african-american and then the white student population falls in about 22. okay so with that 67 percent just looking at a regular 100 50 is even 51 would be a majority but we're at 67 percent african-american so when i hear that and particularly when i hear about the um some of the angst that some that was kind of brought up about some of the things that we were seeing was that the majority of our division is african-american and so there are still other subsets and other groups that are there and so when we look at our goals and then having those courageous conversations those particular groups are that's the majority that's the group that we have in front

062of us that's the group that in any uh with anything that we do of course if you move the majority up your numbers are going to move and i think that's one of the conversations that we had um one of the things in the conference that dr martin said that we worked when we were having our conversations with development group that i kind of walked away with was this collaboration piece um you know my background is in training educations and training and what i when we went through with vsva we went through the council of great city schools i think we all approached and walked into these situations um with an open lens to try to get the work done and i think that um and i was mentioned i think um ms feldman you

063you said you watched some of these meetings and what you even took away with your own perception you weren't sitting in the room but you were watching them and i think what a lot of individuals had gotten and that's where that kind of came to the head for a lot of us was that there was no longer that sense of collaboration or even a trust level and respect level head kind of broke down and so when you don't have that um you don't necessarily move along with it and so for me personally at this particular point as an individual board member i along support what our board chairs stating to get us back on track um and i have seen the work that's being presented to us here and in collaborative environment method and i

064also ask who have you worked with because i think it's important to also understand the the things that we are under uh when we're in the commonwealth of virginia understanding how education is policy is here um in the commonwealth um and how we kind of work to move uh move the ball and so with that i i was very pleased with what i've seen i'm very pleased with the conversations i appreciate the things that um my colleagues have brought up and asking um i believe that at this particular juncture this is a great opportunity for us to get that alignment because i think i brought that up and several individuals brought that up about the strategic plan which will be the guiding force for the division for the not only what we've established as goals

065which is what we were being asked to do but also it really dictates to the superintendent and her administration the actions that need to take place in order to reach those particular goals and when there's a disalignment between the two or confusion between the two that's where i believe that there's uh some of that context of conflict kind of kind of rose and came together i think this is a great opportunity for us to like ms campson mentioned individuals who have been in the classroom who have served in leadership at the building level and who also served in leadership at the administration level and bring on various perspectives we've got a lot of different perspectives around this table and i like the idea of stepping back to have some of these courageous conversations amongst us

066personally as board members first um now we have a new board member that's here at that table who has not been privy to those conversations and so this gives us an opportunity as a whole to have those conversations collectively as a group and to begin to talk about the you know even we look at the goals and guardrails and i want to make sure we're clear on that that we're not talking about throwing them out we're talking about going back and we're assessing them now with a different perspective and a voice here with the new board member but also after we've had a collective conversation as a governance team our norms our protocols for ourselves moving forward and then reassessing these um these uh goals and guardrails moving forward is that what i heard i

067don't want to yes no i just want to make sure people can hear it so that's what i heard and never expected we're going to come back because at the end of the day we want to make sure that we've got clear direction to leadership and and all of us have been around here every year um superintendent evaluation time we've had this pandemic it's been a whole lot of different things you could put the gamut of all the stuff that's kind of disrupted us but i think this is an opportunity for us here to get some work done to come together regardless of what of our connections would have been with vsphere council greater city schools i think that it's an opportunity for us to level set to kind of to come together as a

068team and to begin to have um that conversation you know we if i'm not mistaken we you know we adopted a policy on equity and that was probably what back in 2015 16 something like that so and i agree with mr jordan you know i don't want to get into the posture of we and i think that we've been trying to do that i think that our superintendents brought us some budgets that are starting to move with that i think that's what we're hearing with our driver fire from the administration side but it's uncommon upon us from the governance team from this board to meet that um to make clear as to what our goals and objectives are so that we can ensure that all of our students are being taken care of so um

069i appreciate the presentation and i'm ready to get to work as far as i'm concerned one of the things that i keep hearing but hasn't been said overtly is we need consistency we need to move forward do the work and be consistent and actually follow through to where you know where it's being implemented and we begin to be able to monitor and we just haven't gotten there yet and so i'm consistency is what the district needs um dr ralston you've been very quiet over there do you have any questions or comments and mute yourself yeah from hearing the conversation i am um very pleased with some of the things that have been said and i know as a board member i know one of the things that i said when um i became a board

070member is that my focus was going to be centered around student achievement and student learning and i heard that word a lot in the presentation i feel like that's a big part of what um i hope i bring to the board and you know helping to stay focused on that being our mark in terms of creating policy or practices is that we're really looking at student learning and student achievement and i just kept hearing that over and over and i was just bumming over hearing that were you know in the presentation because that that is ultimately what we do thank you schools the business of schools is to ensure that this is what they need right and so i think that starts at the very top with the board i think one other thing that

071i think as we think about like what that taking a step back looks like we also have to acknowledge and repair harm that has been done um and it sounds like you know we can't get to to these trusting relationships until we put in place um you know those norms for how we'll work together but also to kind of address that and so we we will be asking to facilitate a dialogue both those one-on-ones but also as a group around what will it take to kind of repair whatever harm has been done so that we can move to high performance particularly because you know you have a new board member and if you if you think about that whole um stages of team development right forming warming to performing right we we know there's going

072to be some storming that happens as you're you know trying to get to high performance and so that's why we put in place you know the norms and we really do the work of building trust so that you can be a high performing governance uh a governance board um and so we will take that time i think it's important to take that time and that stepping back to acknowledge where we have to do that repair work so we can move forward um in very collaborative and and and um you know ways that really honor the relationships so that's important too when we talk about the journey we take people on we talk about self first looking in the mirror and acknowledging your lived experience and how you show up but then there's the relationships right

073how across cultures across difference you move to become high performing and then look at the organization and it has to happen in that order and so you know we can't run to just talk about the organization and not consider the relationships that you all have or need to have or need to repair in order to be a high-performing team and so that's that's the approach that we take to towards governance work and again very collaboratively developed through our interactions with you i think we also recognize that you know issues of race justice equity are issues that are very much emotionally charged and so based on you know the experience individual experience of folks sitting around the table um we know that we have to be not only respectful of that experience and their thinking but

074we also have to be adaptive and understanding that their perceptions and feelings whatever they may be comes from a place of their truth and and so honoring that understanding that and helping everyone move into the direction of of the common goal of serving the community you know as a community serving organization um you know we have to work through those issues to get to the that common goal um so respecting that and then helping everyone move in the right direction and again by providing that guidance but also building those accountabilities so we will push the conversation to now how do we create accountability around moving this forward well thank you um val and mickey um so the next steps is i want to get a consensus of how everyone's you know feeling about moving forward

075with the valder valburn group but also the missing pieces the is the contract so i was hoping that we would be able to begin um governance training on next wednesday from two to five and start with the team building and normson protocols which are long overdue um but without the contract i don't know that we'd be able to do that so far so we may need to reschedule that we're we're quite quite flexible and so we will provide you with a a pricing plan um one of the things because we're already in contract with you all if it's easier for you to just do an extension or an addendum we'll be we can work with you on making that happen as well so uh you let us know and also if you'd like for us

076to leave this session so you can have the discussion about whether or not you want to move forward we'll perfectly want to do that as well so you let us know if you want us to not be part of your ongoing deliberations and we will we will say goodbye well i actually would prefer that you stay on just in case there are any new questions that arise and we can deal with it right here if you don't mind um go ahead miss the scene we're not able to hear so i'm not i'm not sure if you're attempting to address something that we need to address we're not able to hear you at all okay i'm sorry about that um we're kind of doing two two modes of meeting structure here um so what i was

077saying is that i think it's important that we have the one-on-one conversations before i know i'm comfortable to make any decision about whether i want to move forward or not i'm not able to to come to any decision about that today because i would like to give and share my perspective uh about what i hope to get out of this work and i also want to have the opportunity to ask you how you might approach uh the work and have that one-on-one um so what i was saying you know there i respect everyone's perspective about the previous governance training work um but i don't necessarily agree with that um and as you've seen through watching some of our meetings there is an extreme level of distrust and i don't believe is a function of the

078governance training that we've had i think it's all us and i take accountability you know i think we should take accountability as a board for that um so with that you know without that piece without having the one-on-one without the contract information um you know that's that's where i stand personally all right i started having a little problem with my thing banging my head but am i coming through okay i i can understand i can understand miss machine's concerns and wanting to have more information uh we do need some kind of deadline so that this doesn't drag on so maybe and i'm not sure how i'm sure they're very busy but perhaps they could start doing a phone call big phone call or a zoom uh 30 minutes or so up to 30 minutes with

079each of the members over the next you know the next few days moving in so that could be done before wednesday and by then we would probably have the contract information that we could also immediately share with everyone so that maybe next wednesday we would have the opportunity to discuss it and then make a decision and that way we could move forward because the clock's ticking but on the other hand it's very important for us to honor what she's saying and i and i can understand that and so maybe that would be a way we could still kind of we may not be able to have the training session next wednesday but maybe we could put everything in place for it i'm committed to training i have been for 10 years i remain committed to

080it now i think it is critical i believe in the priority of being afforded a distinction i believe that excellence in the classroom starts with excellence in the boardroom from the collaborative standpoint um so dr martin when i saw the email about potential training for the next week the reason i was raising the concern is i didn't know where the [Music] two o'clock schedule came from for next wednesday and because i wasn't sure i was going to be available for that and then in the what you just mentioned about potentially starting with norms and protocols to me if it's going to be collaborative then i think we should start with a collaborative process from the beginning and then model that all the way all the way through uh the other thing i think is important

081for us as a board is we have to be able to try to do things in order in terms of our role so if there is a scope of work that either is being proposed to us or if there's a scope of work that we're proposing to the consultants for them to build upon they need to understand what our expectations are they then respond to that give us a scope of work and a projected cost based upon our policies some things may be added on to an addendum i don't know what it may be it could it could trigger uh competition but what my recommendation is going forward is that we be clear on the scope of work that we're asking them to potentially do with us have them map it out from their perspective

082give us a projected cost and then when we if we approve or if it's just added on to an additional contract the entire governance team is clear on what the expectations are what the deliverables are what the cost is and then we all know that upfront going forward and then that then would allow for uh the valving group to then engage in any additional discussions they would like to have with us individually to help do that scope um and it's you know up to them to decide and working with the administration whether or not this is something that falls into their existing contract or something that they bill us for later then they two or three hours talking to us in order to help put this together at our request that we make sure that

083we are either compensating them in the contract that emerges compensates them in the contract that exists or perhaps it's something that's uh this pumped i think it's important that we follow some type of business structure so that we're clear on what we're doing what the cost is and as mrs camps has said what the timelines are and then that allows for all of us then to collaborate from the beginning and to work together to meet our milestones that may emerge thank you mr jordan does anyone have anything to add to what mr jordan said good anything else um so let me just go back to this this contract piece here so we're currently on a contract with developing group to do strategic planning um we're asking them to bring on some governance training and would

084that be i guess an addendum to the current contract that we have is that what they're thinking that's what it appears to be yes okay the only thing that we don't have i guess is a figure as to the scope of the work of how much it would cost of an example um so my next question is directed to mr cloud i guess with a contract that we're under if we wanted to make an addendum to whatever contract that we have in place it's in our all right we can do that right you could do it however i know nothing about the current contract okay my initial reaction is that i would not do that sorry i didn't have uh years ago if you can suggest do not deny that avoid that what i was

085going to say is i would have to read the current contract but it sounds to me like this to involve separate duties additional monies a separate term i would not do this my initial reaction because i would not do this as a amendment so i would have to look at that current contract uh i would have to get a much more detailed sense of what exactly is going to be done and then we can begin to grab something and how much it's going to cost and how that will be assessed something you know nothing was bound to it but the contract wouldn't count so great so this was something like that something maybe about 10 people but [Music] it sounds like it's been in place for a while um val were you able to hear

086that i i was okay yeah so i i we i will say this just as as you consider this if if you're saying that you want us to have these one-on-one conversations with every board member prior to determining whether you will um contract with us i have to tell you that there's a lot of time that would that would require for us to have these one-on-ones um and and and there are costs associated with that as well because that is part of the pre-planning so i just i do want to put that out there as a consideration um our hope was that you know we would develop the scope of work with you and do a monthly um cost for each meeting for us to be on site if that's what we decide um but

087again we we're we have some flexibilities there we are we're in an existing contract but i but if you're saying that in order to make that decision that you're asking us to do these one-on-one meetings first um i i i worry about the amount of time that will take um as well as the investment of our time than to say to have you then say well we want to go with someone else so i just i just need that to be a consideration as we think about what this looks like thank you and it's just going back so dr martin my understanding was that you were doing a general consensus around where the board was i think in my original converse comments i mentioned that based on what i'm seeing here experience there that i'm

088comfortable um with moving forward however i i yield to mr cloud and his recommendation regarding the contract piece and i think that we need to clear that up that the conversation should have took place as to what that contract may potentially look like and as well as an overall amount um but i'm comfortable with trump with moving forward that's where my general consensus is um and with what's been presented here um but as far as a separate contract and being able to work with that or whatever scope we can to have these conversations under the continued continuation of the strategic planning i i don't know but um i do believe that we need to to tighten up what that contract looks like um and figuring out exactly what the total amount is you have a

089standard form contract that you currently use for these services that would be a great place to start and you could send okay great is there anyone here who um is completely opposed to starting the contract review process and moving to the next step i'm not supposed to receive a proposal okay all right i didn't hear mr jordan i'm sorry mr jordan he's not proposed to receiving a proposal we came in we reviewed uh the whole scope of work before we voted on it and we did something similar with with psba and i just think it's just standard practice [Music] thank you okay so val do you understand what we've asked of you yes i can put together a standard memorandum of understanding with the scope of work that includes only the work of the board

090governance with a per session costs um we try to do it all-inclusive cost so it'll be a per session that will include our travel to be on site you know depending on what happens in the world right um and so so that will just give you a kind of you'll have a number um we i know we had discussed um doing this between january and june and so that'll be kind of like the how i do the math on that scope of work if that works for everybody because yeah because because the thinking was also that the strategic plan would be completed and ready for adoption no later than may 1. um and so we would try to try to marry this work with the work of the strategic plan because we're going to be

091on site for some of that to begin with and and that kind of thing so i will put together a two-pager that goes through the scope of work that has our our contract agreement and and the scope of work will have pride next to it okay thank you um unfortunately we're off our normal meeting schedule which hasn't looked normal in a while um and so we normally meet the first and third wednesdays of the month and of course with the new year and coming back last week we pushed it to the second and third and so if you know it it uh truncates the timeline for preparation for our business meeting on the 19th and so that would be the opportunity to review and um the earliest possibility for a vote okay so we will

092have that to you in for that 19th discussion and and we will not plan i know you had originally started start originally thought that we would be there on the 19th and so what we'll do is instead aim to have that for you to have discussion around it on the 19th so i'll get that to you as soon as possible and then we will wait to hear back from you around next steps um okay and plan for your information excellent thank you okay wait did okay sorry my screen moved around so i just want to thank you for um entertaining our questions and and um hearing us out and and thank you for your presentation and uh look forward to hearing more from you over the next week absolutely thank you so much for your

093time we are giving an opportunity to come before you all so thank you so much be well everyone yes stay healthy everybody bye-bye thank you hi thank you okay and this is enough i think we can take it off now we can take them off now all right thank goodness so next up on our agenda we have the um school board mandated cover 19 vaccinations for staff update good evening mr phillips how are you good evening we're moving into closed session no no okay we're not [Applause] yes you can proceed proceed okay okay food board chair dr martin mr clanton vice chair in his absence school board members dr birdsong good evening good evening i'm here this evening to bring you an update with regards to the vaccination mandate as well as the associated testing

094requirements that came along with that so to start just as a recap on october the 6th that was a date that you wrote it to mandate that the its your employees either be fully vaccinated against the cobit 19 or submit to weekly testing then on december 15th the following progressive discipline for non-compliance was recommended and is currently being implemented the first violation would have been a warning letter via a letter of concern second a two-day suspension with pay and then third a recommendation for termination where are we currently as of the date that this data was provided to you on january the 7th here's the status of our employee's vaccination 4253 of our employees are fully vaccinated representing 85 percent 74 of them are partially vaccinated representing 2 percent not vaccinated at all and then

095no response at all 171 individuals now the individuals who have not reported their vaccination status are classified in the following job categories administrators zero or zero percent classified we have 25 individuals representing 15 percent non-classroom teachers two representing one percent part-time employees 136 representing the largest group of 79 percent and then teachers eight representing five percent employee reported reasons for non-vaccination we have 37 individuals who are seeking the medical exemption 129 are seeking a religious exemption 238 have told us that they were going to submit to the weekly testing 94 told us that they were going to schedule a vaccination 18 said that they would not vaccinate request an exemption nor select the weekly test option and three individuals no response checked off no response at all now the weekly testing per your mandate any

096employee was not fully vaccinated needed to submit to the weekly testing and submit their results unless they were exempted from vaccination and testing for medical or religious reasons the results are due each wednesday by midnight the results must include a collection date within that week's window for example the results that were due on january the 5th were required to have a collection date of december 30th through january the 5th these employees were provided with specific weekly testing instructions procedures and they also sent reminders on december 9th 16th the 29th as well as on january 4th of this year the 18 individuals who self-identified is unwilling to comply with the board's mandate were also included in the january 4th communication as a courtesy to give them the opportunity and again the and the information in which

097to comply this is therefore you are the weekly testing procedures this is the information that was provided to inform the employees of a hyperlink where they could check on testing sites as well as the the test results due dates as well as what the except acceptable test range dates were as well now what did we learn in the first week when this information was due there were 559 employees that we considered to be out of compliance out of compliance meant that they either did not submit to weekly testing results for one reason or another so they didn't submit to weekly testing result testing nor did they submit a vaccination card to indicate that they were fully vaccinated however of the individuals who did submit to the weekly testing 157 of them submitted negative results 29

098of them submitted positive results so almost 200 individuals were able to submit appropriately and accordingly as requested 11 individuals we say results not accepted because we had individuals who were simply downloading any kind of a document i think just to say they put something in the system so it could have been a blank sheet of paper something that was unrelated to the whole testing just they input something but it was not what we asked for and then 16 individuals um were on some type of approved or extended leave so therefore they were not part of of this um this window but the main point here is that 559 individuals were out of compliance now of the individuals who are out of compliance with the january 5th weekly testing submission requirement they're classified in the following

099job categories three administrators representing one percent classified staff members representing 35 percent or 198 non-classroom teachers 2 percent for 13 individuals part-time employees the largest group 44 percent or 244 and then teachers 18 representing 101 individuals our next steps we would be continuing to collect this this weekly uh um covet 19 test result information and employees will continue to report their results through um our hr created microsoft microsoft forms that we're using to help us track this information and our employee relations teams will continue to work with this mandate as it has been presented and voted on by you all so this time i'll entertain whatever questions we have oh go ahead dr birdsong if i may before the the board engages in the conversation about this i'd like to add something for the board

100to consider our school division the administration is working extremely hard to comply with your mandate and we understand it to be a mandate and we will certainly comply with that however we are asking for some flexibility at this time as you know there is a nationwide shortage of tests and we do believe that the majority of our staff who are not in compliance with the mandate they have reached out to us to express tests being canceled not being able to get appointments tests not being available and there are some who are just going to be non-compliant and we will be able to identify them also when working with our vdh colleagues they are now offering more testing opportunities at military circle monday through thursday and we do believe that will open up more opportunities i

101know the thought and we too we understand that this was a mandate provided to the administration in november or october we were as soon as the mandate was directed we certainly communicated that directed that directive to staff mr phillips has shared with you how many times reminders were sent to staff in a the whole division and then individually but we do want to show some compassion if you look at the numbers it appears that the majority of people who are impacted by this are our part-time workers but we also have who are certainly very very important to our mission and we have classroom teachers who are unvaccinated as well who many it appears that they are attempting to be compliant with the board's mandate we're simply asking that you provide a little bit of leniency

102perhaps consider making a new deadline of february 9th as you know when test results have to be submitted you're a fully vaccinated status card things of that nature because we believe by that time the system should work itself out in terms of there being availability of tests appointments not being canceled and it will certainly help with morale at this time because we do believe that there are teachers and staff members who are really trying very hard to do what they need to do to either test or make sure their information is provided to the department of human resources so as you gather this data as you review this data we're just asking for that flexibility again we understand the mandate we understand the importance of that being vaccinated we get that we know that's the

103the number one mitigation strategy is to have people vaccinated so that we can all get out of this pandemic but we're just asking for a little flexibility because it's not their fault that there are not tests available yes we know that everyone knew about this mandate in october but that still i do believe that the vast majority of our teachers and staff have tried to do what they needed to do to comply with this mandate we're just asking for a little more time for the system to work itself out and it is creating a morale problem within the school division as you know we are working very hard working extremely hard to keep our classrooms open for children in our schools that the vdh as well as the cdc that was the first thing we

104heard from lori verlano when we had a meeting with her recently superintendents we need to keep children in school as much as possible as as long as we can do so safely and we take that very very seriously but in order to do that we have to have the capacity to have classroom instruction and that means we need teachers so if this buys us a little more time to make sure that our teachers can get vaccinated or be tested we are requesting that because again in-person instruction as you all know is the best and as we've demonstrated before if we need to close down a class we will do it and have done it we will close down grade levels we've done that and we'll continue to do so and if there's a need to

105close a school we will do that but we have to have the staff to operate our building safely and it is not the fault of the teachers at this time that they don't have access to testing so we're just asking for a little bit of grace yeah hey dr bernstein go ahead miss basin and then miss kampson um thank you dr burke birdsong and thank you for the comments that you made um there's in those comments i see two different two sets of information that are obviously interrelated but first to talk about the testing i agree you know we put this mandate in place and obviously currently the infrastructure to adhere to that mandate is challenged i do think opportunities for testing are going to expand in the coming weeks as also as we peak

106and maybe the demand hopefully goes down but certainly as you said vaccination is key to overcoming this this virus testing is also extremely an important part of that layered strategy um and right now i think we're we're challenged i think all of us have also had our personal experiences with trying to get testing and uh know what that's like so i do support flexibility as it concerns testing i do you know the other comments that you made about keeping our schools are open i do i you know as you know i've been eager to get an update about where we are with staffing and mr billups if i'm not mistaken i think every every day there's a daily report that you receive about the student and staff absences is that correct we yes we have

107access to you know pull that information so is there anything that you can tell us about like do you feel like do you and dr birdsong feel like we have the operational capacity to keep our schools open in a way that's meaningful and equitable across the district right now i'll answer that i need to reiterate to the board if i feel the need to close the classroom i will we are going to keep our students safe and our staff safe first and foremost if there is a need to close down a classroom a grade level we have done that we have not closed down at school at this point because there hasn't been the need to do so there are a variety of variables that we look at and i shared that with the board

108recently we're looking at certainly staff capacity you cannot operate a school safely if you don't have the staff there so if there's ever an instance whereby we don't have the staff to safely open up a school operate the school provide effective instruction we're going to close the school down we're also looking at other things as well we're looking at you know mitigation strategies and how effectively they're being implemented we're looking at staff absences student absences outbreaks well first and foremost we're working very closely with our vdh colleagues they are the practicing medical experts and we depend on them for their expertise they have access to data on a daily basis they have access to research and they share that with us so they're looking at the data with us they're helping us to evaluate our

109situations as it relates to classrooms grade level schools and they have been awesome advisors we could not do this work without them so i want to assure the board that we will continue to monitor this very very closely and it may be tomorrow we may end up closing the school maybe not that quickly because we would know by now but if not we would alert the board so you would not have to worry about oh we don't know what's going on we're keeping the board informed along the way we have just been very very fortunate in that we have not have we have not had to close a school we know some other divisions or at least one has done so and there may be others that will need to do so and we may

110be in that position too you know when i said to the board i think it was a few months back it's not a matter of if but probably when and so we are prepared to pivot if we need to to virtual instruction our teachers are ready our building principles are ready and the administration is ready to do to support doing so thank you dr birdsong go ahead miss was seen thank you for those comments um so you know to be honest you know i please be honest [Laughter] you know and i i don't mean to um you know i feel like i know i've sent a lot of emails in the last couple of weeks about wanting to know more information wanting to have the data so that we can have informed discussions about what

111we do next um because like you said like the board the board is ultimately held accountable for the decisions that are made and so with that you know i'm in trust and verify mode and with that you know we have the dashboard i think the dashboard is obviously there's a delay in the numbers that are there which is in with all dashboards but what it doesn't it doesn't tell us a lot of key pieces of information around staffing you know how many how many staff members do we have in quarantine how many students do we have in quarantine um and and i think that's important information uh for us to to monitor every day and i'm telling i'm non-stop getting messages from people about the number of children the number of staff that are out

112of the school buildings and what is being done i have children in the school system and so do many some of you where every day that level of uncertainty among them and their peers mostly you know i'm worried about the students as a whole the uncertainty every day about their risk of exposure and what that does to their learning environment is is really it's it is um yes it's in person but the learning i'm i'm very concerned about what is happening in our school buildings just based on the volume of calls that i get every single day for the past several weeks and so i'm trying to balance what i hear with the data and without having the data i'm having a hard time i don't feel comfortable at night when i go to sleep

113thinking that the next day is going to be a good learning environment for students and i'm mostly concerned about those schools and neighborhoods that have already experienced the wrath of this virus so i need some i need some data i need more frequent reporting i need i need more information so that we can make the best decisions for our students so that we can keep them in school and so i don't know what that looks like but i wanted to have that discussion because our nurses are overworked it's almost to the point where i hear contact tracing is almost impossible and you know you talk about can we effectively upkeep with our mitigation strategies you know i i just i i'm very concerned about that and i i just want to say yes because so

114if we if we if there was a um daily tally of how many teachers were out um i'm just not sure how useful that information is to the board because dr birdsong and her team are not making decisions based on just that data point so um but so if i can explain so vda what vdh and cdc has asked you know as a guide point they've used the school level of school impact which includes student absenteeism includes staffing shortage it includes transmission in schools so those are things that we should be able to look at and a parent should be able to look at and assess their own level of comfort and their own level of you know risk-taking that they're willing to take are we at a low level are we at a medium

115level are we at a high level those are the categories that they have outlined in that guidance so those are things that i feel like we should be monitoring as a board i mean i'm very uncomfortable not knowing what that is on a school-by-school basis well isn't the level of cova that's in our community also in our schools i mean isn't it reflective in our schools of what's in the community i mean but we know as a whole as a city but in the school by school impact is going to be different and that impact includes staffing so we don't know right now does you know booker t have a hundred percent of their staff in place you know what is what is the impact we don't know what that is and what is it

116at uh larry moore we don't know at the individual schools what the level of impact is this is my but the thing is is that it's being monitored by our administration i just and we're also mandated to provide in-person learning so i just don't understand how it would be valuable other than i feel better i feel worse but there's no real context there to offer the public if if we're putting on our website i mean to i just i'm just thinking about also about the amount of work that would go into putting information out there that really i don't see how it would be very useful to people are they going to decide not to so say the administration's keeping the school open school a and there's 50 of the teachers out but they've come

117up with you know a tiered strategy on how to make that work and still provide in person um instruction is a parent going to say well just because 50 are gone of the teachers are out for a temporary amount of time i'm going to pull my kid out i mean i'm not sure what that does that's already happening i mean that's already happening at some of our schools you know some some kids haven't had their permanent teacher i mean we heard that the other night at the norfolk council pta meeting some haven't seen their teacher in a very long time um so that's already occurring in our school buildings i'm trying to get a sense of what is the extent that that is occurring and i know we've been we've been utilizing all kinds of

118resources and i appreciate the effort that the administration is before refining substitutes then substitutes for those substitutes and really you know um i mean it's been an amazing feat i get that but we have to there are exceptions to the bill where we're required to provide in-person learning and i think that's the piece that is also getting lost in this conversation there are exceptions to that and we have to look at that and see are we at a point like right now i feel like we are we are rides in that peak right now could this be a time i mean sentara chkd just put up they're they're not doing elective surgeries anymore they are they are at max capacity uh with trying to manage all of this and i feel like we could be

119doing something as a school system and as a city but right now we are in charge of governing our school system so what i i'm asking these questions so that we can make a data informed decision about can we do this because we are ultimately as a board going to be responsible for that we've given the dr bird songs in charge of operations of schools and is monitoring this i think it's done an outstanding stellar job of monitoring and managing this entire pandemic and i'm so proud to be a part of public schools for this i mean for this and many other reasons i'm just um so delighted but anyways i i just i i just i'm having trouble because if there's something that if there's something that we need to take action on it

120needs to come from the superintendent she needs to make the recommendation that a policy has changed that you know let us know the school's shut down that's on her it's really i'm not seeing how that's a governance decision well and i res i respect that but ultimately you know they the superintendent makes the recommendation and then we ultimately make that decision and just as we're hearing about the board the vaccine mandate it is the board the board we are the ones that that in all the communication going out there it's the board's mandate closing a school will be the board's responsibility so if we are the operation that's not with the board well that's that's what that's what people think though it's a time to educate them on the role of the board and the

121role of the administration and that that is a decision that dr byrd's song will so if so okay so that's a good so let's segue into that so if dr birdsong tomorrow feels that you know as a division every single school has a high level of impact based on the various variables you have the authority to close the school system let's say for x number of days for it because it allows for a temporary uh closure without the board's approval is that correct that was the decision of the board to give me that authority okay and with the closure that means no instruction correct pardon when we say closure are we talking about no we will instructions instructions virtual instructions so with that because i think it just really teaches another thing and i know

122there are many people watching this when we talk because there's so much misinformation about a state bill that mandated that we had to provide in-person learning this board along was opposed to that in our last legislative in that special session that it took away the authority of the local school division to make that determination like we did when we came back and we all voted to go virtual 100 that's come back many times people have asked why can't we go back 100 virtual well our hands are tired we can't do that and i think our superintendent mentioned that that this board also gave her the authority based on this new law here to make the operational decisions so that we're not calling back in for special meetings to determine whether or not kids are wearing

123masks or not back and forth so we're not having a circus show this is an operational issue and that's why we're given the authority for the superintendent to do that but i think going back and forth my understanding here miss facing is has it gotten to a particular point where we need to you know close down every school is that what we're saying yeah and to be clear i was not at all saying no instruction no no i'm just clarifying what i'm trying to do is get clarity here so if we were to shut down if you felt that we were at a particular point and we needed to shut down what is the limitation on the shutdown because we can't just shut down and go virtual for the remainder of the school year right

124no not for them so what's the limitation on we have uh 10 days right we have 10 instructional days unscheduled instructional days that meaning they can't already be in the calendar right that we can go remote that we could go remote 100 percent all of our schools 10 days up to 10 days in anything yeah for virtual learning and anything beyond that we would have to get approval from the state superintendent so with that right now dr byrdsong your team has been monitoring this you're getting information and your determination is that right now we're still in a state of classroom by classroom school by building by building phase you're exactly right again we have closed classes we have closed grade levels we have not yet closed a school but if we need to i will

125close the school and i certainly will inform the board of that and certainly there will be communication with the parents that are being impacted by that so they will know how they can access instruction for their children just because we're physically closed teachers will still be working remotely to provide virtual instruction for our children and our teachers are ready to do that so just for the clarity in that and i'll just shut up here for a moment if you feel based on the data and information that you're receiving as our operational team you will make that call and you will inform the board absolutely that this is the call that we need to make and because we've given you that authority so we don't have to call a special meeting or anything like that to

126deliberate around that that you're every day looking at that information you state it with um with the health experts and everyone else to make those determinations and so just so everyone is clear on it if it gets to a particular point you will make that determination and come back to the board but right now we are still at a classroom black classroom school by school um in that determination um i i can understand wanting to know the data i i could understand and wanted to know what classrooms what schools trust me i think everyone around this table heck i got a call two to three hours ago that impacted close to home for me about what's going on in our schools there but what power and authority do i have as an individual board member

127other than what i have collectively done with my colleagues to give the authority to the superintendent make that determination i can't go in and shut down that's not my job i can't shut down a classroom i can't shut down a school i'm not but at the end of the day i can hold the superintendent because she's the one employee that this governance team has a responsibility accountable for what happens there and so i'm asking these point questions to say that for the community understanding for my colleagues just we've got a person who's who's being held responsible for it it's a lot of pressure you think about the number of kids that we have in this division every staff member that's in there we're not the only school division that's going through this we're and this

128is not an isolated issue to norfolk at all it's worldwide it's worldwide but i mean but i'm just saying i understand because i got the same calls i get the same thing we've we all got it but the superintendent came to us today the sport made a decision about the mandate and she did just that she came to us and said can you give us some grace because this is what we're feeling this is what her hr department's telling her and her staff members that if we can do this we can work to help with morale we can work because people are working towards that that's the information that we need that we can come together collectively as a board and make a decision on so if there's any conversation in this right now is

129taking up the recommendation from the superintendent regarding the extension of the date that's the action that we can take here today all right that's my thing miss thank you mr clinton uh miss campson had her hand up and then dr gabriel so ms campson do you have some a question or well i did have a question but apparently dr birdsong now reads mines and my and my question was about because i was all getting a lot of contact about the situation with people that missed the deadline and yes they could have done it in the fall but you know as it comes up then you not everyone does things way ahead and uh and then you can't though right with the testing there's plenty of tests you need to well i mean with the testing

130you wait until was it 72 hours and prior to the yes and there's also a time frame that they will yes but at any rate i had a concern about people that were sending information that they were having trouble as as doctor birdsong said and so that was simply my question and apparently she already had she'd already acted on it before i asked okay all right dr gabriel thanks dr martin and just to remind everyone i did share with you all that i do have to leave for another meeting at the hospital to discuss this very issue i want to say thank you to dr birdsong and her staff everyone that's here present and everyone that is tuning in watching working every day your words earlier mean a lot to me as a board member

131but more so as a parent and someone who was working literally 24 hours a day and trying to keep our children safe as a parent my expectation is that my child go to school and come back to me safe i know the level of instruction is not going to be what every teacher desires i know that are going to be technology glitches i know that a nurse is trying to make phone calls from the second she walks in the building to the second she lives it's not just the nurse it's probably five of her friends and the principal i'm doing the same thing and you get email voicemails wrong numbers all kinds of things but i have to take a step back and say what is the objective what is our objective here it is

132the safety and the well-being of our students and if we can give them a good quality education during this time i hope we can do that and that's our goal but right now we have to make it out of this alive that's what we have to do everybody is stressed right now everybody who would have thought we would be every every wave that comes through the peak gets higher and higher and we don't know what is going to come next but we know that from the data that we have received that we have some mitigation strategies in place vaccinations do help to decrease death rate morbidity all of that we still have children in our buildings who are not vaccinated at all our precious little four-year-olds and under so i have to i'm so sorry

133that i'm not going to be a part of the further conversations but i do have to go but i thank you and your team and you have my support for the flexibility and the grace i'm going to put a little bug in your ear with regards to the testing though if you test positive for the people who have to go back and retest their tests may still come back positive up to 90 days so we might have to come back and think about again what we need to do in that instance so i really appreciate the discussion um and i thank you for your leadership and your entire staff and i thank my team because you're right you said you're working 24 hours believe me these people are working we're all working 24 hours and

134i mean the safety and security of our staff and children is of utmost importance to us and we do not take that lightly and working 24 hours against circumstances that are beyond any of our controls right mostly so right thank you everyone um did you have something else to add miss missing i was just going to add that as we sit here as elected officials as representatives of our community i think it's important to bring the concerns that we are hearing forward and while we may not be making this decision i'm telling you every there are so many people in the building that are that are not okay right now um from principals to nurses their their ex you know and that's that's the concern that i'm bringing forward um and i hope you will

135take it in consideration as you make the decision and that we have a good framework for getting input from our principals aps nurses you know those on the front lines that are dealing with this i know we have you know the leadership is doing that but you know whatever we need to do um like dr gabriel said you know what's the objective is as a high quality education for our students and that's that's the ultimate goal so go ahead dr awesome i was just going to add one comment because there's also a twist to this also there's preliminary data that says that um certain populations are actually better off in school from getting the virus and of course the academic part because if they are um subjected to remote learning at home a lot of

136them are unsupervised and they're out and about and they're at each other's houses and they're having parties so it's a lot of stuff going on that kind of states actually children young children and even teenagers are safer in schools than being at home even doing remote learning in this process there's some populations that are much better off in a more structured um very confined kind of setting so i think we have to look at that part also i think that's kind of critical that they may actually be safer in school than being at home doing remote learning as it relates to the virus and other issues so that's that's something that we have to look at really closely right and i don't disagree at all but like you said keyword there was data right and

137so um the game okay so and as far okay go ahead mr jordan to be fully vaccinated against clover19 or submit to weekly testing uh that's something that the administration supports right when we discussed it it was so it's collective discussion around that that decision um the second thing uh on the slide um i guess a slide two uh board mandate and associated progressive discipline i think it was on at the december first presentation we were at southside stem where the recommendations were um put forward in a presentation for the board to consider we never took any action on it on december 15th but the recommendations as i understand it that you've listed here from the december 1st meeting is what um according to this is what's being implemented correct okay so it was on

138the first that that we received the presentation and uh and in the absence of any board action you've gone forward with the sense of the board support of the the violation process correct i can i can address that mr jordan i recall during that meeting there was a question about are you asking the board to take any action and we actually did were not requesting the board to take any action because it was clarified for us that whatever we did administratively we could move forward with and i don't know if recommendations was really the correct terminology but we wanted to provide the board with a sense of this is what progressive discipline looks like so we wanted to share with you what we had planned to do operationally to address individuals who did not adhere

139to the board's mandate yeah and the recommendation is probably not the most appropriate term but we did clarify that we were not asking the board to take any action on anything we presented we just wanted to present the process as requested and provide you the data around what we would be facing as it relates to on vaccinated staff versus vaccinated staff versus who wanted a medical exemption or religious exemption etc yeah and i just want to and i'm not i don't have any objection to the progressive process but what is important to me and we talked about it in that meeting we often talk about it at these meetings is uh you know when it's clear when we're being asked to do something that's actionable and not and so i just recall recommending that we

140be clear on what we were doing there so that so that we do but because the presentation mentioned december 15th i just knew that wasn't the case and i just wanted to be clear that we're doing exactly what what dr bursson just described um then i just want to make sure i'm understanding um the report so uh the slide that uh i guess it was slide eight so can you read the font again um what out of compliance means because there's the weekly testing that we were requiring of individuals who were correct i'm sorry the weekly testing is for individuals that are not fully vaccinated correct yes they're not back they're not they have not submitted a evidence of full vaccination right so then i think there was one slide that was showing us who

141has not given or provided documentation for whether or not they're fully vaccinated or not then there's a slide for individuals who've indicated they're not going to be vaccinated but they're willing to submit the testing and then they're individuals that say they're not doing anything so is that correct yes so on the slide where it says out of compliance we are grouping you can you redefine for me who falls into the out of compliance category on the slide that you have on uh on slot eight yes basically anyone is out of compliance if they won have not submitted a vaccination card that indicates full vaccination two in this situation from last week they did not or were not able to comport with submitting the weekly testing results by 11 59 pm last wednesday then others who

142may not have told us anything automatically while this process is is ensuing we put them in the weekly testing category such that they would have been still given opportunities to be able to comport with the mandate so that that that 559 would be comprised of any of those individuals and unless and until it got to a point where if this were to continue then we would be able to look back on our data and say even though you may not have responded even though you may have asked for a religious or medical exemption but then didn't turn the forms all in or complete it we still put you in this category so that if we had to go back and look at in totality what they have done since the first day that the survey

143came out in which they were given opportunities we could recreate that because we would need all of that data on any individual if we were going to bring forth any type of termination or discipline we would need to be able to show it would be in our best interest to be able to show all the things that we had done in order to try to get our employees to comply right and what i guess what i'm asking for is i'm not interested in trying to be privy to all the stuff you have to deal with day to day but on this slide where it says out of compliance at least for me i think would be helpful as a board member to be able to see under the out of compliance who it is how

144many are in the uh not fully vaccinated character what the categories are because once everybody gets rolled up when i'm going back trying to look at your previous and in this slide i don't know how to calculate uh the 559 that you have for out of compliance with the some of the data points that you had in the on the previous slides so i think would be helpful for us i think from aboard at least for me when you show out of compliance we can we can delineate who it is that's in the in the different categories versus rolling them rolling them up and um and then the in terms of the flexibility you know i'm supportive of the flexibility i would also say that i think that flexibility should extend to the um to

145the violations that we have so someone who is simply not doing anything to me is in a different category than someone that we know is trying to comply but because of lack of testing because of results not getting in by wednesday at 11 59 that if we're putting giving letters of concern that we also be flexible in terms of making sure that to the extent that it's possible that we are distinguishing between or withdrawing if we are providing flexibility for those individuals that are doing everything they can to do the right thing versus someone who who may not so i'm supportive of the flexibility but also think that needs to apply to um to the to the notices that we're given so to make sure that we are being parallel where that's concerned exactly you

146don't understand i'm saying no i i think i understand what you're saying but i believe that that's our intent um that's why we're giving any any individual who has not done what they should have done based on the mandate or even has not responded we are still including them in the group with um with the testing and anyone if this were to continue or as this continues as i said anyone who we would then look at imparting any type of discipline on them we're going to have to review their in their entire walk with this whole process to make sure that we did not have any missteps or do anything that we should not have done with regards to that individual but the but the most equitable and fair thing to do which is what

147we're doing is still putting individuals in that testing group because that's the group that based on how we had been proceeding um where the the discipline progression would actually start yeah i'm not i'm not suggesting anything about taking anybody out of the testing group what i'm saying is if you you send me a letter because i have not met the criteria so i get a warning but you know that i am uh following through i've gone to try to get a test i couldn't get the test schedule i'm waiting on the data to come back that's you know i'm doing that so what you are saying to me may be a little different than somebody who's not doing anything so i'm saying that in your consideration of warnings and flexibility that you also consider to

148the individual that receives a letter of warning and they feel like they're doing everything that they can that we're showing that grace that was mentioned earlier that we understand we're sending you this gutter of warning but we want you to understand that we know you are putting forth every effort which is very different from those that you know may not be is the point that i'm saying that in the same way you're recommending to us that there be flexibility and grace i'm suggesting that you also consider that as you are communicating with uh with individuals so it's not a blanket you're just out of compliance you know you're out of compliance but we know you're trying to do the right thing versus you're out of compliance we haven't heard a word from you and these

149results that you're seeing um are as a result of just the first week of trying to implement this in which we were only able to operate with what was in our scope of ability and responsibility which is what the mandate said we certainly did not we certainly purposefully did not want to begin subjectively looking at individuals to say well because you turned in this letter on this date with an explanation but this person we never heard from at all we just did not have that authority so therefore we did not implement anything like that but we are certainly open to whatever we need to do to try to be as fair and as equitable to all of our employees i do believe that if we were to do anything subjectively such as look at this

150person differently because they submitted something versus this one who didn't submit something versus this other person who didn't give an explanation i think that that would cause us more problems to try to do it that way um so on behalf of our employees i do support because we do we've had a number of employees you know that have called us i personally have spoken to a number of them about their efforts that they've tried to get in and all of that and we've heard their their their plea but again i knew that we did not have the authority to then say okay well because you're telling me you tried and you can send me this i just knew that it would not have been appropriate last week for this first round of results for me

151to authorize any type of decisions again i'm thinking that that's the purpose of this discussion right now that the board will come up with whatever it is that you want us to do and we will move forward accordingly i will say too um just as you're considering this um considering making some type of change or edit that um like i said we've heard from many many employees and many of them have complied and interestingly also update a point that we discovered is that once some people got a letter of concern we've received upwards of 50 to 60 vaccination cards they had already taken the vaccination but they just didn't send it in for whatever that reason was for god didn't want to be bothered with it or in a couple of cases they even told

152we just wanted to see what was going to happen so that's interesting as well how that even played out so the numbers that you're actually seeing based upon the report that you got on friday i have evidence today as we pull current data that they're actually improving um so that i think that was our intent and i just want to make sure i'm i'm i i closed on you answer my questions on the numbers on the on the charts after we're having the discussion around recommendations around grace and flexibility i'm sharing some thoughts for you all to consider in in that regard that that's where i'm going with with that piece of it and i'm close with that i don't want to seem like i'm having some debate with you about the chart i'm not

153i'm just simply saying that if we're being asked to consider grace and flexibility which i support i'll just putting forward some other places where i thought we might be able to consider some grace and flexibility i think you're very clear on that determination yeah and then i have one one final question that came up in the earlier discussion because i can't y'all are way too uh far more advanced than in this than i am but the the resolution that we had around testing and what it authorized you all were having this conversation around school closures and classroom closures and all of that that's you're having a separate discussion from the testing resolution is that correct so the resolution that you all are referencing in terms of what we've given the superintendent uh authorization to do

154and so forth can you just send that because i was to me the presentation was about the testing piece and we started having conversations around closure and just so i'm clear and dr rowson is new just to make sure that i have a good understanding of what we have um authorized i also yesterday was looking at it yeah just just just so we're clear on because again to me the focus of the presentation was on the testing piece and then we started having the discussion around the closure piece i wasn't following all that but i think it'd just be helpful for everybody to just be clear on exactly where we are thank you mr cloud um so going back though is there anyone that opposes giving it's only about three and a half more weeks

155till february 9th to work out the kinks in the testing and vaccination process no i i personally don't have any objection i would also ask you know from time to time i see these messages coming from different school divisions that are providing support for testing and then we talked about this earlier whether or not the school division had resources to support testing for for employees i would still encourage if there's something out there some model that they could also help us in supporting testing whether it's on-site providing kits whatever it is i don't know the supply chain and all that kind of stuff but if if there's some way that other school divisions have found some way of doing it that we can improve upon i would just encourage us to to be open to

156that as well absolutely all right thank you mr phillips okay thank you pull this back up again next we have the updates from the governor's proposed budget i'm remembering okay mr jenkins welcome to the podium yes good evening dr martin uh vice chair clinton dr birdsong and members of the board today let's see thanks karen you're pulling up thank you [Music] everyone had an opportunity to look this over before the meeting right that indication that you want him to yeah i think that if you can just roll through it we'll uh thank you we'll go through very quickly that's the way i'm just maybe i feel like it's getting drawn out really going through a lot a little bit okay so tonight we're going to talk about the governor's budget the proposals that he put

157forward we'll also talk a bit about the norfolk revenue sharing formula and the budget process and timelines and in december governor northam released the proposed budget uh for the commonwealth for the years beginning the year beginning actually two years beginning july 1st as we're all aware the governor elect gunkin will take place take office on saturday the general assembly was to begin its 22 session today with control of one house changing i'll bring this up because the incoming governor and the general assembly very likely will make changes to the governor's budget for now however we are working with governor northam's recommendations based on these recommendations weekend norfolk public school could expect to receive 16.2 million dollars more in operating revenue than we're receiving from the commonwealth this year this estimate is uh based on student

158student projections from the department of education it is showing a reduction of 736 students from the current uh the current budget year uh not actually the number of students but that the number that we had projected we are expecting 6.1 million dollars for a 5 teacher pay raise you'll recall that the governor has proposed a 10 over two years 5 in each year 5.1 million reduction from the removal of a a hold harmless provision in the fiscal 22 budget you'll recall that there was a dip in student membership and the state held us harmless so that was removed there's a 4.5 million dollars for based on improved sales tax collections that is in next year's budget and there's an addition of 10.7 million dollars of at risk funds this is almost a ninety percent increase

159in the allocation in that account we also see a 2.2 million dollar increase in the early reading intervention and this is up by 229 percent so almost three times as much money coming in as the current year excuse me two times there's also 10.6 million for school construction this is new we would recommend that these funds be placed in the capital budget and used to further our building construction program there's a 780 000 hold harmless provision uh related to the elimination the the governor has recommended the elimination of sales taxes on groceries this would hold us harmless because part of our revenue is coming from sales taxes that governor northern did not make a recommendation to change the vrs rates that we are currently pay uh paying in spite of the fact that the board

160of trustees recommended rates that are two percent lower than uh what we're paying now we do expect that the general we can expect the general assembly would change that because it would save both money to the state and to us uh and there's also a hold harmless provision of 3.76 million it's related to um reduction in in spending during the years of the pandemic that the state looks at our past spending in order to project how much they will fund us in the future we had a large dip because of the pandemic there's also money a reduction in special education to tuition reimbursements of uh one million seven hundred seventy thousand that's related to a change in policies related to uh who the state will reimburse so the governor's recommendations are also based on enrollment

161projections from the department of ed which we usually use in producing your budget i will say that the projections that the department of ed has are a bit higher than our our internally generated projections so we still will need to discuss with the administration on what we need to do there but just bear in mind these projections are based on the state's estimates of students the commonwealth's biannual process starts with the governor recommending a budget which he did in december it then goes to the general assent assembly each house of the assembly will consider the governor's recommendations along with amendments of its members and probably reversions of the incoming governor in february uh separate budget bills will emerge from each legislative house which will then go to a joint conference comprise the members from the

162senate and house delegates the conference committee will reconcile excuse me it will then be voted by the two houses it goes to conference the committee will reconcile the two bills and recommend budget for each house to consider once the house approves or both houses approve it goes to the governor for signature or consideration the governor can sign change or veto so in a nutshell that will all take place between now and in march we we must send their budget to the city april 1st city council will hold a public hearing consider funding at its main meeting a little bit about the local revenue allocation policy this policy was adopted in may of 2018 it governs the amount of local revenue or city revenue that the city that the city sends to the schools we get

163just under 30 percent of the non-dedicated local taxes that are coming from the list that's before you i won't read those but you can see them under the policy we receive funding estimates for the upcoming year we receive the first estimates in the fall we will receive updated estimates in february and march the city staff would also communicate to us if there are shortfalls if they if they feel that there will be less revenue than was projected there is a true up at the end of the year if we receive if the city receives more revenue than they had projected it means that there is more revenue that would be made available to the school district that is generally settled through a true up that happens at the end of the year or after the

164year closes those that true up along with any funds that we don't spend would be retained and made available to the school division upon request um you can the school board can request an increase in the allocation but it must also support an increase in the real estate tax rate and finally the allocation policy is a city policy and it can make it can be changed by city council at its discretion the city revenue formula again this is the policy was um put in place in 2018 fiscal 2020 was the first year uh the budget estimate was 126 million that was a year the pandemic so we came in a little a little lower than was the original estimate the city had told us to cut back and we did yeah for fiscal 21 that

165was last year the original estimate pre-covered was 229 million that was reduced to 121 million because of covid but the final allocation was very close to the original estimate uh which means that there's there's money that's available that the city is has held but will make available to us in the future the budget estimates for this current year fiscal 22 are 129.6 million and they are projecting a 5 million dollar increase in fiscal 2023 next year uh this is a these are the drivers that are in the revenue sharing formula uh real estate taxes uh we current are the in fiscal 20 2021 again that was last year 239 and a half million they projected a 3.3 percent increase in fiscal 22 and a three and a half percent increase next year you see other

166taxes personal property sales taxes food and beverages business licenses those four or five categories actually they had projected less money in this year than the estimates for last last year and all of much of this or i'd say all of it is related to the pandemic but you also saw that revenue came in stronger in fiscal 21 than was than it was expected so you see that in fiscal 23 they are showing this day the city is showing healthy increases in all of those accounts property personal property taxes sales food and beverages and licenses so we are expecting an increase in revenue from those categories communications and utilities has been kind of wavering around as a projection for next year's that will be down four percent other taxes dropped nine percent in 22 but expected

167to go up next year so the total revenue base for on which our shares determined uh the squad climbed 0.4 percent in 22 and 3.9 percent is projected in next year as far as our budget uh the next steps in january today the leadership team is me will be meeting this month we'll be meeting to make to finalize recommendations that'll be coming to you in march superintendent will release her budget in early march you will hold budget work sessions or where you're scheduled to public hearing must be held before you can vote and again your action is necessary so that your budget can be sent to city council by the 1st of april i believe that concludes my well let's see april 1st is the deadline and then in may council will take action and

168i believe that concludes my comments if you have any questions i'll be glad to answer anyone have any questions go ahead mr jordan uh i don't know if it's a question but on the uh thought where you were identifying requires the local match you had two two asterisks there i think it was at 44 that was for both of those categories combined oh thank you pardon let me see if i can find it there are provisions yes there are provisions in the governor's budget that require that the uh that local match there's a local match to federal uh there's gonna be state funds practically all the money that we received from the state requires a local match practically not not all but almost all so the early reading intervention um that's going up 2.2 million

169dollars we would have to match that by 44 which is i think 800 and some about 900 the 10.7 million dollars of that risk does require a local match 44 which is about one and a half little over four and a half million and then with the proposed teacher salary increase the state is providing half an expectation is that the local community has to come up with the other half in order for right and that one's a little touchy because um the five percent the state's going to cover 70 of that pay raise for the positions that are in the state's funding formula there are positions that are not in that funding formula and we would be responding the locality is responsible yeah and that's why i'm raising it because i think it's important because

170every year at the state level there's always the pledges about we're going to raise teacher pay then it goes out okay everybody's going to get a 10 pay raise one they don't provide for everybody and so i just think it's very important through our discussions that we are clear about because ultimately you know traditionally we try to take care of everybody and so that's where the burden is often placed on the locality to try to um to compete and so i just think if in future presentations if we're able to kind of highlight that as well so that through our discussions we are really setting what the expectation is from the local community in terms of meeting the pay raise and in these other items that you identify that require that that local contribution and

171my last thing at the public hearing presentation we had a budget timeline and i would like to request that we have at least one um school board work session on the budget in february whether we tied to the retreat i think it you know we started off from last year with the intent of trying to align our budget efforts with our goals and our guard rails and our students performance and so forth so we're kind of off that track so i think it would be good in february at least if we could have some type of board discussion or work session about where we are in terms of the the budget that the superintendent is putting together for us any priorities or outcomes that we are targeting and i also think would be helpful with

172dr ralston joining us for us to to do that as well rather than not having any real school board budget discussion until until march and then be pressed around trying to pass the budget in time for for april so because we haven't adopted our goals and guardrails what i'm hearing you say is you want to push that further so that we can then have a discussion around budgeting that aligns with our priorities now i'm saying that we all i'm asking is that we have a budget work session with the board so that we are clear on what we're doing what is it that we're prioritizing so it is true we did not complete the goals and guard rails but we also have existing goals and priorities and data and so forth and so i think

173it has been our commitment and that we did agree that we were trying to be student outcome focus i don't think that's changed so being able to have a sense of what's being prepared and how it can support [Music] student outcomes i can report retention i can support discipline in the in the priorities that we've long established i think is important and it's an opportunity for us as we are resetting to just see where we are and how we're going to plan things moving forward the only thing that wait i'm sorry so the only thing that i i'm concerned about is that we have so much to get caught up on to meet our governance training deadline among our regular work and you know everything else is that adding more time if i'm understanding you

174correctly adding more time to talk about the priorities to put in the budget before we even see dr birdsong's proposed budget seems like not the best use of time to me i think that you really need to focus on our norms and protocols and our you know our governance piece i'm you're you're you're deciding what you think is of of importance on the agenda we're having a discussion i know and i'm and i'm responding back to you because i feel like i'm words are being put in my mouth so i want to make sure to try to clarify because i think often what occurs is a suggestion comes forward and then it's like i'm trying to convince you of what i'm trying to say i don't want to i'm not that's not what i'm trying

175to do i think that there's as we were working on our you know we can we can streamline our meetings but all i'm saying is we're kind of in the state of at least as this individual board member i just want to be clear on where we are in terms of our priorities and goals how the superintendent has interpreted our priorities and goals and what direction we are headed in in terms of the proposed budget that would come and i think it is valuable to the board to have that discussion with the superintendent prior to march rather than just waiting until march and then try to have that discussion later so we just had a public hearing in december we received some feedback we just had extended conversations today about all kinds of things we

176have extended conversations about other things all i'm simply asking is that we include in our timeline a a session to talk about where we are in the budget process and what goals and outcomes that we feel we are tying the proposed budget and i also think it's important because i keep hearing rumors about the city council coming and telling us what we should be doing with school construction and other things and so i just think it's important for the board who part of our responsibility is approving the budget based upon the recommendation that we receive from the superintendent to have a part of our agenda to have a session where we can just make sure we're all on the same page that's all well once just so going so i'm not sure what you're hearing

177about city council dictating what we're doing with our schools because that is not anything that i have heard in any conversation in fact it's actually been our administration advocating for what our schools need and not what the city thinks our schools need so they've been working very collaboratively together and i'm really happy that that relationship has been pretty smooth and that our um administration has stood strong on the needs of our students and and making sure that that's conveyed so outside of that i don't know of any any way that they're making us do anything that i mean you know it's all just but the other thing is and we have we talked we've talked about this before is um my stance is and i i got away i got away from this last year

178dr birdsong should know what our priorities are if she doesn't i'd be very shocked and every year she she's shown that she does and from what i've i'm i'm not remembering otherwise by giving us a budget that has been pretty spot on i mean maybe there's some things here and there but pretty spot on with what our priorities have been i don't believe that it's good practice for us to come up with priorities tell her what they are when she's running the district i mean how many so you're in your third year set two and a half years now 30 36 but i mean i'm just saying like it's super intense third knows what the priorities are she knows where the money needs to go so again i'm trying to be very protective of our

179time and trying to we have a lot of catch up to do i'm just we will have the opportunity once she gives us her draft to go through it and have those discussions i just don't understand why we would have that before we see her draft the it was not my intent to take up time uh having this debate or discussion i i think that the board has a responsibility as a member of the board i like to make sure that we are aligned we have had a lot of discussions we spent quite a bit of time earlier today talking about different perspectives on goals guard rails priorities we talk about accountability we talk about a whole bunch of things all i'm asking is i didn't say it had to be a half a day

180event but something that shows a crosswalk or a lobby between where we were last year what our student performance and whatever other indicators that we're monitoring are what our proposed budget is uh i mean what we're looking at this year and how we're going to continue to to excel and i think that is within the responsibility of the board i think there's good governance and also think it allows for um additional transparent collaborative communication to make sure that we all on the same page i'm not saying for the superintendent to comment for us to dictate to her but i am asking that we come together as the governor's team and collaborate and communicate and ensure that we are on the same page and that we are building upon the success from last year as we

181move towards greater success in the upcoming year i don't see why that's problematic i'm just asking for that as a point of consideration that i think our noise and protocols allow for me to do that okay thank you go ahead mr clinton thank you madam chair i just wanted to point out that the board made a decision that gave direction to the superintendent this past summer to engage with city manager about funding structures and that whatever presentation will be in alignment with that directive not that was the will of the board not everybody on this board voted for that but that is the direction that we gave i just want a direct question i asked the superintendent on this particular piece when we talk about alignment and building this budget you gave just like what

182our chair spoke about you presented a i thought was a very good budget that was an alignment to what we still have in place that this board voted on which is our accountability plan there are some strategic goals that are in there which i think are driver five which you do internally is aligned with is that the budget that you're presenting and then also i mean i guess the framework that you're utilizing because the board has voted on the accountability plan we have not voted on and approved these goals and guardrails we're still working through that but we have three goals um if i'm not mistaken that we're aligned in there um and i think that that's what you've been building your budget on you know and of course i guess we've had some other

183discussions and things like that regarding with the pandemic and so forth but is that essentially the la uh what you're presenting to us something that will continue to build upon that essentially essentially yes and then so based on the timeline you'll present to us a draft and then the board will have an opportunity to to deliberate and talk about that yes we have scheduled a couple of work sessions after that presentation for you to provide feedback but we have that already built in there for us to provide feedback based on what you presented to us and what are the needs financially to be able to do the things for which we've already asked you to do okay so i with that didn't interrupt um but what i'm asking those things for clarity on that is

184that we do have a timeline that's in place and i think that the discussion and honestly i thought it came from some other members on the other side asking us not to have this because we come together with all these different things and then we start putting stuff out there and then we've been talking about we had different requests and so forth but that we allowed you to come back with the recommendation based on the things for which we've already established so i don't agree with adding additional time i honestly sometimes think that it's we got a lot to get done and we have to allow the individuals for which we've hired and put in place to do the job that they need to do and to bring recommendations and for us to deliberate and

185discuss on those recommendations and not for us to be cherry-picking and kind of walking things all down there until we have voted on and identified these goals and guardrails we still have an accountability plan that's in place and that's what the superintendent is working off of and those goals and that's what we've seen in the budget book that anybody can go online and see right now so i don't recommend taking additional time outside of what we already have dr martin just just again we are we receive the presentation each and every time i bring up something we go through this scenario where i bring something to the chair for consideration then it has to go to the superintendent superintendent has to say something back even the conversation there's nothing in the school board's accountability plan

186about drive five so we did the internal i didn't say i'm talking about the board's role right accountability plan i'm not asking nor did i even bring up the superintendent getting involved us getting involved with the superintendent's internal things what i'm just asking for the board to do which is what we're doing now is to make sure that we are all clear and so what happens is if i just say something about goals and guard rails it goes in some direction if i say something about the accountability plan it goes in some direction all i'm simply saying is let's just be on the same page and some of the things that we are behind on are our own doing but the board has responsibility the board hires and retains the superintendent the board approves the

187budget the board sets visions and values and goals and so forth i think it is important in all the conversation that we had earlier today about being collaborative and communicating that we make sure that we are being collaborative and communicating as it relates to what is being done around the budget development process and if the if there's no support for that this will be it but i think i have a right to bring that forward and that you take a moment to marinate on it rather than immediately trying to find some way to undercut what i'm saying so it is something that we've done in the past it's something we can do in the future we have some things that are being planned for the retreat as an individual school board member this is the

188opportunity that i get an opportunity to share with my colleagues some thoughts that i have otherwise we don't have that opportunity on the agenda it tied to the budget and i just think it's something that we should consider as part of our newfound efforts around collaboration so thank you for your consideration thank you mr jordan go ahead mr scene i i support that as well i mean and that was actually what i was going to ask for when i was looking at this one slide that i noticed that that wasn't in there and while we have the goals in the accountability plan i agree i mean we've had so many different discussions which i think if that doesn't demonstrate how all over the place we are i don't know what does but i do think

189we need to be on the same page i think we have presented with data that we that can help fine-tune our priorities and that is what i think the benefit of having that discussion as a board will allow so i support what mr jordan is requesting i don't support a three-hour discussion amongst two individuals nobody said i don't think it i heard anything about it no one said that at all i don't support it throughout our discussion with two individuals okay all right thank you mr scene anyone else thank you mr jenkins thank you up next is it the policy i don't have anything oh yes the sro program sorry my computer keeps winning mr mallory how are you tonight i'm fine how's everybody and happy new year happy new year okay uh whenever you're

190ready go ahead and begin okay uh greetings school board chair dr martin vice chair mr clanton school board members and dr birdsong i'm tim mallory senior public safety liaison and senior coordinator in student support services this evening i'll be presenting the semi-annual review of the school resource officers program i'll share an introduction and overview of the evaluation process responses from the sro evaluation public comments and next steps following the presentation i will be glad to answer questions during the discussion period the school resource officer's evaluation is required by the memorandum of understanding mou which establishes a mutual beneficial framework that both schools and law enforcement work within to achieve shared goals the evaluations of the school resource officers are the responsibility of the city with input from building principles the mou requires an annual review

191of the sro program by the school board with notice to the public as well as the opportunity for the public to provide input in the course of the review pursuant to section 22.1-280.2 section 3 of the code of virginia in 1950 there is an agreement there shall be a review once every two years this evaluation was completed to ensure compliance to the virginia code 22.1-280 point two section three notice to the public an opportunity to comment began december 6 2021 and continued through january 7th 2022 the call of the public comment on the mps website the call for public input for the sro program with the mou attached ran on facebook for consecutive mondays january the 3rd december 27th december 20th december 13th and december 6. it also ran on twitter on consecutive mondays january

192the 3rd december 27th december 20th december 13th and december 6. it appeared in the january 2022 newsletter and the most current version of the mou between the city of the norfolk school board and the norfolk police department is also posted for public access due to the pandemic and closure school closures this report covers cover services rendered from march 2021 through december 2021. for the 2021-2022 school year sro was assigned to the middle schools and k-8 3-8 settings were reassigned to patrol duties in september of 2021 as directed by the chief of police due to police personnel shortages once school principals completed the evaluations forms were shared with each sro's supervisor to review and input comments from the public also were included as part of the evaluation process information provided in the mou the sro evaluation

193instrument public comments the virginia department of educational annual report for discipline crime and violence the norfolk public schools synergy discipline report the school's climate survey and the annual sro evaluation instrument which was developed an agreement between the board and city designees frame this evaluation report being submitted for approval the sro evaluation responses and to begin i'll share responses from the sr evaluation instrument the next six slides will highlight responses and categories that were evaluated dependability dependability in the area of dependability 92.3 percent of the officers are punctual for school and scheduled events while 84.6 of the six percent of the officers can be counted on to perform duties with little or no supervision availability in terms of availability sros are accessible to staff and students 84.6 percent of the time and respond to requests in

194a timely manner 92.3 percent of the time professionalism as professionals 100 of the sros present a professional appearance and 74.9 percent of sros are self-motivated and willing to take on new tasks 84.6 percent of the sro's demonstrate commitment to the school community 92.3 percent of the asteroids are courteous and tactful sros foster an environment of safety and cooperation conducive to learning 92.3 percent of the time they also require students and staff to use their last name and rank when interacting with them 92.3 percent of the time communication 100 of the time sros communicate effectively verbally and in writing they communicate effectively 92.3 percent of the time sros demonstrate effective listening skills 100 of the time and meet the school administration 84.6 percent of the time judgment sros currently assess assess situations 92.3 percent of the

195time they take a proactive role when when appropriate 84.6 percent of the time sros coordinate with school administration and school security officers to prevent and minimize hazardous situations 92.3 percent of the time knowledge 100 of sros are knowledgeable about state laws and local ordinance while 84. 84.6 percent of the sros are knowledgeable about school rules and discipline procedures 100 percent of the sros are knowledgeable about criminal of the criminal justice system whereas 92.3 percent of sros are knowledgeable about school and community resources performance in reviewing the performance category 84.6 percent of the sros take appropriate action in regards to law enforcement 100 percent of the sros act as liaisons between the police command staff school security officers and school administration 84 percent 84.6 percent act as visible active law enforcement officers throughout the school building

196and on the entire campus one hundred percent of the sro is abide by school policies unless those policies conflict with the existing laws or police department policies or procedures one hundred percent of the sros enforce city ordinance and state statutes by bringing violations before the appropriate court system 100 of the sros coordinate with the appropriate police department commanding officer or designee school principal school security in managing and responding to any incidents or problems compromising the safety and security of students staff or the school building excuse me 69.3 percent of sros maintain a daily log of all actions taken during the work day semester reports and all significant school related incidents are provided at the end of the school year by 76.9 percent of the sros performance and enforcing violations vaping 84.6 percent of the sros

197and force policy assaults 92.3 percent weapons 92.3 sex offense is 92.3 percent vandalism 84.6 percent threats to do bodily harm 92.3 gang-related activity 84.6 percent organization all ratings in this area were 100 percent impact on school community was also a category and this in in this area 92.3 percent of principals support having an sro assigned to their schools and have been informed about the role of the sro even though one evaluation response indicated that 7.7 percent of the principals did not support the program please be aware that this is one principle and the context the principal used and responded was a result of of that principle taking into account that other schools may have a greater need than that school community where that principle is aside the principal does support the program but is willing

198to have the sro assigned to a location that has a greater need 77 percent of principals noted sros have reduced bullying between students 53.9 percent of the principal's rated sros is having reduced the number of fights between students principals at a rate of 84.7 percent expressed that sros have increased student knowledge of what is what is and what is not legal and 100 of the principles expressed that sros had knowledge of the legal system 92.3 percent of the principles expressed that sros have made it easier to maintain order in school 84.6 percent of the principles indicated that sro's visibility in the school is adequate 92.3 percent of the principles expressed the sro's availability to staff and students is adequate 86.4 percent of the principals rated the asteroid's involvement with students as adequate 92.3 percent of

199the principals expressed the sros has reduced the fear of crime among teachers and staff 86.4 percent of principles indicated the sro has improved educator law enforcement collaboration principal comments comments for principals provided qualitative insight into the program 13 principals provided comments overall comments indicated that principals support and appreciate having the sro program in their buildings principles indicated the need and or desire to have an sro in school buildings and appreciation for the sro program in response where the principal disagreed with the statement i support having an sro assigned to my school this response was clarified with the explanation that the principal supported the program but would be willing to have the asteroid assigned to a site where there was more need to have an sro there was an indication of a need to purposely develop

200and sustain partnerships with families and community stakeholders in order to nurture positive relationships there was also a comment where a principal indicated a need for shared meaning regarding roles of the sros this this need will be elaborated as i review next steps later in this presentation the republic comments into to ensure community engagement during this process the general public was invited to comment from december 6 through january 7 2022 there were a total of 25 comments as of january the 7th the sro mou post ran on facebook on consecutive mondays january 3rd december 27th december 20th december 13th and december 6. it also ran on twitter on consecutive mondays january 3rd december 27th december 20th december 13th and december 6. it appeared in the january 2022 newsletter and it appears in the school board section

201of our website 20 new comment 29 comments from the public indicated 20 comments approved of the program three out of the 20 approvals indicated the need to have sros trained to meet social and emotional mental health needs arrest students two comments disapproved of the sro program indicated they should be replaced with mental health resources and partnerships seven comments did not provide approval or non-approval two requested virtual learning and one talked about fights and bullying next steps are based on responses and information reviewed on the completion of the evaluation pro sro program currently the five the high schools have sros assigned to their buildings five offices have been placed in schools effective january 3rd and sro was assigned to madison the remainder of the middle schools and the designated ka three through eight schools and three

202of the roman supplemental esros have not been assigned due to directives from the norfolk police chief because personnel shortages in the police department even though all officers have not been assigned to the schools the norfolk police police department has provided immediate and ongoing support to schools on all levels and have assigned officers from other departments within the norfolk police department to complete threat assessments and investigations when needed at this time norfolk norfolk public schools administration is asking that the mou be honored with all officers being placed in the schools as listed in the mou in performing their roles and responsibilities sros and school principals are partnering to carry out the sr program with fidelity areas that require attention will be addressed through professional development for the sros and school administrators these areas include communicating expectations

203developing clear and understanding of the roles and consistently using reporting systems and before i end the presentation and we begin questions and discussion i want to be sure that in clear that the sr program is an asset in support in our schools we have a safety and security measures in place to foster and secure excuse me to foster a safe and secure schools and at this time dr gibson will share the measures that are incorporated into the daily operations of schools across the division dr gibson thank you mr mallory good evening school board chair dr martin vice chair mr clanton school board members and dr birdsong i want to highlight measures we take to ensure safe and secure learning environments in our schools to begin school sites complete safety audits annually to ensure buildings are

204safe for students and staff just as building safety inspections are completed school administrators receive mandatory training such as pbis trainings discipline procedures and updates sexual harassment trainings transgender procedures anti-bullying health mitigation to name a few and they return to their buildings and present these trainings to staff to ensure staff are ready to receive students when the school year begins administrators review the school crisis plans and provide practice drills and lockdowns that are stipulated in policies and procedures they also have written procedures to follow when situations arise the school crisis plan template provides instructions for administrators and to set expectations for student conduct and a safe learning environment the mps code of student conduct is distributed and reviewed with students parents and students signed the code of conduct to acknowledge understanding of expectations under the virginia

205tiered systems of support and pbis schools follow the disciplinary level system as outlined in the code of student conduct in addressing student behavior social emotional learning is supported through pbis but it is also embedded into daily instruction to support safety at our school sites we have building entry procedures that every school should follow school administrators ensure staff and students receive education on actions we all have to follow to support a safe and orderly learning environment the education and the support of staff students and parents are essential in keeping social environments safe as well as our school environments our teachers school counselors social workers psychologists school nurses and especially during the pandemic our school nurses school security officers bus drivers custodians classified staff administrators every school employee takes on the responsibility to be there for our

206students and to report information that may negatively impact the school community we emphasize with students staff and families that if you see something say something we have provided anti-bullying suicide prevention and anti-harassment programs for the students just this week norfolk public schools was notified that we've received a security grant for over two hundred thousand dollars this will support securing improving our security systems throughout our schools the health mitigation plan along with working with the nurses to develop isolation room procedures has been instrumental in guiding schools throughout the constantly evolving pandemic in summary measures and actions being implemented in schools across the division foster safe and secure learning environments we will continue to work diligently in ensuring students have learning environments where they can focus on learning again we thank you for your attention in reviewing

207the sro program i just wanted to take a moment to share with you the many practices that are in place based on mps policy and your work so that you will know that the sra the sro is a component that supports the safety in our building and we appreciate that but at the same time the work that we do following policies every day and setting expectations and building positive relationships for our students really help us maintain and support safe learning environments at this time i yield the floor for questions and discussion you talk about where we are with the mou as far as staffing the sro staffing at our schools yes right now on when we came back from winter break we had we received the sro for madison at the beginning of the school

208year we did receive the five sros for the five high schools our middle schools and our three roving officers have not been assigned as up-to-date the roving officers in certain communities i think there are two of them mr mallory and he can speak to you on how they help out around the city so currently uh because of the shortage of the police department but i can tell you they have assisted us in many ways uh through the threats and things that have occurred following you know national incidents and things like that they utilize the community officers from the communities they use the detective divisions to respond to situations at school so we have that availability and we currently have one roving sro that assists down here on what i consider the south side here there's

20919 in the mou yes ma'am five at the high schools and six assigned there are six assigned altogether madison and the five high schools so we have six assigned but there are 19 in the mou and norfolk is requesting that the mou be honored as it's written and not be amended right so and then there's legislation um that's being proposed to help incentivize the sro per the use of the sro program is that can you talk about that yes mr cloud will probably talk to you about that yeah because that is correct that has been put forward both to require school divisions to and to fund through some sort of grants and i like the idea about it but one the more i think about it the it's not really about the shortage of money

210right that's not our issue it's a shortage of bodies it's a shortage of workforce that are people who are choosing to go into that profession with that and right okay um so i think we're there's a challenge here of moving forward in making sure that we are up maintaining the sro program um you know to the to the fullest extent that it's needed in our schools go ahead and miss the theme oh no no doctor birdsong were you about to see i was just adjusting my microphone before i go to you i do want to say i i'm so appreciative of the work that the sros do in our schools and um and the relationship that building that they do i know we always here on um around this time of year especially in the

211you know we're entering budget process about uh having more um social emotional experts sort of you know certified experts in our schools and instead of sros but i always say well we should have both and i know as you ex thank you for sharing that the sros do have training even though they're not certified but they it's not that there's zero happening um in our schools through the sro program they they are equipped to the amount that they need to be um so i mean i i again i think we need we do need both in our schools um and in our community we need more people in you know mental health fields to be able in pediatrics um helping our students and building those relationships and and resources in our you know to have

212that bridge between the resources in our community in our schools so um but i um i think that police officers who choose to work with children are are kind of a special type of people and i appreciate the the work and the influence that they have on our students okay go ahead mrse thank you dr martin um and thank you for the presentation um this evening um i think you know as like as i've expressed before um i feel that um knowing the disproportionality that exists between those who are more most likely to engage with an sro in the school building i'd like to see us put greater attention on the preventative measures that we can take and with that with the evaluation going forward i like to see more evidence of the restorative practices

213that we're using and the other interventions that were taken before an sro is engaged as you said in ins there is with the schools that don't currently have an sro you've been able to effectively have mpd respond to threats and incidents and you feel secure with how that's being handled right now correct i'll respond to that okay when we said that the mpd responded right away we didn't mean to places where they were not sros we met whenever there was a need regardless of whether the school had an sro or not if there was a situation where the police needed to be notified based on mps policy and following the law when we called they responded so that was just in general overall it's not where if they they don't have an sro but if

214they call they'll go that was regardless of if they have an sro if they have one right and i understood that but my point is so whether there was one or not was the key piece you know so so regardless of whether it's sro in the building or not mpd responded uh swiftly with concerns per our policies dr burris i'd like to i'm happy to address that i know in conversations with building principles about sros especially at the secondary level they have expressed concerns especially at the middle school level those middle school principals have expressed concerns about not having an sro assigned to their building when they found that out at the beginning of the school year they certainly expressed concerns and they continue to express concerns i think and i don't want to put

215words in mr mallory's mouth i think what he was trying to describe was that we do have a collaborative relationship whereby we can call them but you know we have to be honest if they are having difficulties meeting the demands in the streets then certainly if there is something that takes priority that's occurring out in neighborhoods they may not be able to respond as quickly as they would like to for a school situation so they are being pulled in in every direction so at the end of the day if you and i think the the survey reflects this the secondary principles especially you know still want to advocate for having their sro in their building because they they do believe as it relates to law violations because we certainly don't have them intervene with discipline

216because that is the responsibility of the administration and not of the police department they certainly express that they want them to be in their building so based on numbers alone it's just been unrealistic for them to have the sros assigned to our schools in in their opinions but i i believe you know they're going to have to uh collaborate with us one way or another because as you know uh our schools are just a microcosm of of the community and so whatever is happening in the community it often uh is you know it things start to occur in the school buildings and they need support so i don't want you to take away from this uh conversation that we're doing fine without them because i don't think that is and i see you shaking your

217head no if you look at the comments from the principles you will see where the names are redacted but the schools are not and you can see i want my sro i miss my sro i appreciate getting my sro back so um they have um stated that in their qualitative comments right right and i i did take note of that um definitely and i i didn't take it as you know we're fine without it i just i'm trying to to get a better understanding of and perhaps you know as you said dr birdsong you know they're there to respond to law violations in the school building so as part of this evaluation report i think it would be helpful to understand and i know we could go and look it up you know how many

218law violations occurred that past year that we're looking at the snapshot you know that's required to be in this evaluation how many law evaluations we were so many referrals to the just uh okay when you open up the introduction to the mou and you listen to the introduction to the report tonight you will see that the discipline and crime violence report that we give to the state you'll see that the synergy discipline the school climate surveys those documents were used in working through the process of evaluating the sros however those documents are not the focus of this particular report so we have not included them but we have taken them into account right and we think that when we look at our discipline and the things that we need to look at in our surveys

219how people feel as well as what actually happens we can honestly say to you that there is a need in our buildings to have our sros there that the sro the police officer is a part is a microcosm of society everything that goes on in our schools many times in terms of socialization and students working with or without each other or against each other is a result of what's rolled in from the community and so we have to have all of those representatives in our community within our schools so that we can build those relationships they can feel safe they can know that they can go to someone confidentially they can talk to someone and we can build the kind of community within our school which is a sanctuary and hopefully it will flow out

220into our communities and better our communities as we engage our students in educating them right and and so for me there's a lot to unpack in what you just shared which you know we've done before i fully support adults in the building that can build relationships with students programs for students to help de-escalate situations and i did look you know and i looked at the report and i saw the pieces that you did take into account and but i think as a summary for us in the decision-making process i think it's important to review that information because i think it's critical because when i hear or see a principal saying they build positive relationships in the building i then look at the mou that says that you know that that is not the primary reason

221why an sro is in the building but it should be you know so it tells me from a from a standpoint of an individual board member who really you know wants to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline and look at other more evidence-based programs and strategies that we know works to de-escalate situations in the school building how can we put our resources behind those programs and then maybe transition the sro program out and i know there's a bill being introduced there's going to be a lot of things being introduced in the general assembly but you know when we look at for us what's we know through research works i think we have to take that into account so you know i i personally that's what i need to to make that decision is that information is there

222evidence the sro program is not working no there's no evidence that the program is not working and as we began this about a year a year ago talking about the sro program to this date we still have not received complaints of any sort regarding our sros and how they interact within our communities okay can i add to that so the other piece is the survey and i'm glad you mentioned you mentioned the climate survey you mentioned um you know what's uh he's next i'm just saying go ahead i'm listening to you so so we have time and time again i think ask for demographic data like who's responding so not aside from the principles we receive public comment and you know i was two of them and because i wanted to see how many times

223a person could actually respond and there was a word limit and then what an individual could respond multiple times to the survey um so you know the the public comments were slim i mean not even and we haven't had student input in here which i think is also critically important and the demographic data is critically important because sros may provide a sense of safety for one subgroup while they provide the opposite for another subgroup and i think that's something that we have to get beyond this because we've asked for that many times now to have that demographic data um for respondents to surveys and you know whenever you all request something if it's the will of the board we meet that obligation and we respond accordingly i don't recognize also as it relates to the

224children i i recall if it not last year there was um when information data were presented around student feedback around the sro program it was positive so what data are you looking at that indicates that it's negative it well it i didn't say it was i'm just saying this you did say that it wasn't it wasn't positive that it wasn't working for some group children i'm saying what research shows is that when you dig down at the demographic local research we're talking about norfolk public schools right but we don't know in that in the data that we received from the climate survey we didn't have demographic data so children overall have responded positively about their experiences with the sro i remember you asking the question specifically yeah data being provided to you specifically around that

225area correct but but where those who those students were not in division not to the specific identifying level but whether they were white students you know or were they black students with disabilities you know we we didn't have that information is what i'm saying so to align with what is nationally seen about the students that tend to find sros provide a sense of safety where other subgroups find have the opposite experience i'm trying to see if you know what kind of experience we're providing i think that's important in any of the evaluation that we do is having that demographic data especially if we're going to talk about anti-racism and equity i think that's it's especially it's even more important to have that demographic data it seems that it might come out though with with the

226principal's comments that they would be observing some discrepancies and i didn't see that but i'm just saying like there's other ways other than if we didn't directly asked demographics of students in response to survey that it probably you know it seems where else could you decipher that and if the principles aren't expressing that either i think in these various you know they're they're using other forms of data uh to incorporate into this evaluation process so if the climate survey for instance is one of those pieces then it's not in this report right well the data isn't but they've reviewed it it is deemed relevant data that we look at and when we put the sro program together when we first introduced it to you at that time we did share school climate data as we

227were working to build at the sro program as we come to evaluate the program we do continue to look at that data we continue to look at the other data that's listed but that data is not the focus of the of the report the program and the performance of the sros in the building is what we're looking at and when you look in the essa when you look at the evaluation and the evaluation was developed the instrument was developed based on the justice systems template those things that the sros mainly deal with in schools such as vaping and drug offenses and gang related activities those performance indicators are listed in the evaluation where we're where we're looking at their performance so this is a performance evaluation it's not a discipline or a climate report dr

228gibson go ahead mr clinton yeah i just had two quick things here to ask um i thought mr mallory heard it in your comments um did you all sold track complaints is that something i heard we have received no complaints of israel program do you have a mechanism for tracking complaints no but principles typically if there are any issues in the schools whether it's or sro there or not they contact me immediately i spent probably the majority of my time the last several months in the middle schools because of the lack of an sro there definitely and so my second question of that one is i know that it's been brought up about the many different um ways i guess so the role i mean we have the official role for which the sro serve

229within the schools but one of those strategies is to build relationship and trust with those students that are in the those school buildings whether or not it's to deter well i think which is another thing deter whether or not there's criminal activity but also to serve as a deterrent for anything that may escalate into potential illegal activity within the school buildings to provide safety for everyone that's there correct yes sir and how you do that is is from relationships i spent 14 years in law enforcement working in some of the tougher communities in the city of norfolk the one and most important thing for my job was to build relationships in the community and it's no different than building those relationships with the sros and the public schools in order to get information and to

230be a deterrent and to provide prevention within the schools that sro has to really build that relationship with the students because the students are the ones with the information and that's how we find out about things going on in the schools or in the community that may impact negatively on our school buildings and i think if we go back to december and the voices that we heard from those individuals in the community with a lot of the different things in america things that have been going on um one of those things that i guess you can also see with the sros and the lack that we're missing them in certain areas you know particularly in the middle schools we have them in the high schools that are there and i know that the administration's making

231the recommendation that we get the the city to fulfill that but i also want to make clear to those who may be watching this that the funding for the sro program does not come out of the operational budget for the school division but it comes directly from the city of norfolk that's correct that's correct so there is nothing prohibiting the school division from adding additional resources to support uh restorative justice practices there are other things that i've i think i've brought up several times before miss missing we've sat on some panels before to support every activity to create a safe and secure learning environment for our students correct yes sir all right thank you that's where i get what was talking about you earlier the comments about the either or it's not either we can

232completely separate they all support each other and another last thing here because you were a former police officer right yes sir in the city in this city and so you are familiar with community policing right yes sir about how long have we been doing that here in norfolk since early night since the 90s since the 90s and 90s so when i hear about and particularly from a former national that i served in here about this particular thing in sros and the data the data that we had seen across the nation norfolk is a very different microcosm because of some of the things that we put in place back in the early 90s to include community policing yes sir and i would say it started with the dare program in norfolk schools and i think i

233shared my dairy program certificate yes sir yeah all right thank you yes and dr martin i do need to [Laughter] i do need to let you know that the last page the signature page is going to be deleted um because it's not supposed to be there so we're going to remove that last page and i do apologize for misspelling your name and and there's another text where there are some page numbers that need to be corrected but other than that um once you all have reached your decision we'll await your approval and our decision is to the decision it will be for the board to formally vote presumably at the next at the business meeting to either affirm the mou as written or if amendments are proposed they would have to be negotiated with the

234city or um you know terminate the program okay so as proposed meaning the full 19 sros in our schools that we originally paid to okay all right thank you uh i'm sorry dr ralston has a question make a quick point it just sort of hit me um is that what mrs bissing was talking about in terms of in terms of restorative practice i do think that i understood the report was an evaluation but i do think this whole restorative practices and and proactive um intervention is um is very critical in terms of what sros do and some of the results that we really want to get and the whole prison of pipeline thing is very real in norfolk public schools and a lot of schools across the country and um so i do like the

235idea of somehow um being able to capture some of that and some of the data to find out like are are any of our students actually uh how many are actually put in jail through sro interactions are there any who get criminal records through sro you know is that is that is that is that available like you could say from our data we say that 10 students from no public schools were actually got criminal records through sro interactions and i'm not saying that that's the fault of sro but just look seeing that data will give us an indication if it's really prevalent in our you know in our school system in norfolk public schools because that is a big issue you know that that we're all facing and so that was kind of why i

236was really in line with some of the things that she was saying but not disputing the report i i understood their evaluation report but as a side note i felt it was very um um it was very useful about restorative practices and and the proactive part and some of the data about criminal activities as it relates to certain populations i just wanted to say that thank you dr ross and go ahead mr jordan first i just have a point of clarity the um the comments that we were receiving from the on the school boards public comment questionnaire that's something separate from the survey that that you were referencing correct we receive uh there's a survey that we had and all it said was um uh tell us what you think about the sro program and

237then somebody could go in and just write a comment and then that was the public comment right that's the same public comments there's no referencing yes we we pulled that information from from those um entries yeah so from uh from a board perspective we we have had many conversations and also in our community advisory board policy discussion around trying to increase our ability to know who's responding to the surveys you know some of the presentations you all have given us in the past you've shown us um zip code breakdown so i just want to one offer the support for our surveys um trying to be more intentional of capturing um who's responding to the to the surveys i think that's important for for our analysis i also want to offer support to uh what ms

238bessin and dr rowson spoke of in terms of the restorative justice that is something i know when i was serving on the uh chiefs fair and impartial policing group that we had going you know fairfax came down teens with a purpose brought down a group from richmond it's been a lot of work around restorative practices and i think it is an opportunity for us in our mou to be advocates for encouraging that uh restorative practices and training and so forth be clear in our in our uh in our program and lastly i just want to encourage that we be a little more can come up with a better right now careful about how we talk about our communities and what happens in the community and how it flows into the school system there's no question

239that occurs but our communities neighborhoods blocks in norfolk are uh very diverse you can walk from one block to another block and be very different you can walk from one neighborhood to another it can be very different i think we have to be careful that we don't let our biases come into place where we may think that because a community or neighborhood is viewed as wealthy that somehow there aren't issues there and so i just wanted one us as we have these conversations about the relationship between what happens in the community and what happens in the schools what happens in the school in the community for us to be a little more nuanced in our discussion and also be willing to look at some data if we can capture it so that when we do

240see if there's a an issue like that we can we can pinpoint it and do the best we can collectively to avoid any any broad brushing so that's just my that's not directed at you it's just a collective thing that i think that as a community we need to we need to work at because i just hear it all the time oh it's just something in the community has boiled over into the schools maybe you know maybe uh my daughter got in the fight with me this morning and i have something to do with the community maybe as we talk about often uh you know children come to school hungry they all kinds of issues the whole covet thing so i just think to the extent that we can be more qualitative in our discussions

241around that i think would be helpful for all of us thank you for the promise and i don't disagree with mr jordan just to clarify i do believe the research does support that schools are microcosms of the community regardless of whatever school it can be it can be a school in chesapeake a school in los angeles it doesn't matter i'm not picking specific schools that i'm talking about things coming to the neighborhood i'm talking about all schools i'm talking about all schools period and i think the research does support that schools are microcosms of our community yes and what i'm saying to you is the community or our communities is is very diverse so if we just say the schools are a microcosm of the community then what are we saying are we saying microcosm

242of the city of norfolk are we saying microcosm of the attendance zone i mean so i'm not disputing the research because i spent a lot of time in it i'm saying when we say things like the community i think we can be more qualitative or be more uh provide more clarity about what we're saying because when you use the word when one uses the word community it can mean different things to to different folks and and that's why i raised that okay um thank you for that mr jordan and thank you dr gibson and mr mallory for the presentation okay up next we have the second reading of policy employee lead policy gcbdz um hello dr paul any updates on this policy i'm here to say hopefully this is my quickest presentation of the board

243we have received no comments since the last set of edits that were recommended by the community um and so this is the second reading hopefully for vote next week at the business meeting um with the final passage of gcbdz but there have been no additional comments i do have a question about um there's a comment here from l mcintyre and it looks like it was cut off so if you're going to change the section maternity leave to maternity and fraternity oh that was and that was a comment prior those edits were made in this this one so we there was a when we changed the section to maternity and paternity there was still a paternity section in there or a maternity section in there rather so we just deleted that section correct all right any

244questions or comments so this will be um on the agenda at the work session for us to vote on it should be on the business what did i just say sorry business meeting i've been doing a lot lately okay um yeah and i do stand ready to read the entire policy if you would like no thank you we've read it the original the red line the revised thank you dr paul all right well thank you everyone um so with that uh meetings adjourned you