School Board Budget Work Session - March 5, 2026

001Good evening. It is my privilege to call this March 5th special budget work session number three to order. Do I have any motions coming out of close session today? >> Yes. I move that the board certify by recorded vote that the best of each board member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting. >> Second moved by Mr. Beard, second by Miss Lee. All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? We now move into our regular open meeting. We always start this with a roll call and part of that is because we know there are lots of people listening and watching remotely and this will help

002identify a speaker with a face. Um so I ask that we go around um starting at um Dr. Kaiser um to introduce ourselves and um our position. >> Daffhne Kaiser, assistant superintendent for school community engagement. Kate Ako, Jack Dwitt district. Judy Lee Rayana district. >> Ellen Osborne, Scottsville district. >> Rebecca Berlin, Whiteall district. Allison Spilman, at large representative. >> Jim Dillanbeck, Rio district. >> Bob Beard, Samuel Miller district. >> Matthew Hall, superintendent. Josiah Black, chief legal officer. >> Aaron Stone, assistant division council. >> Christine Thompson, clerk of the board. Dan Reading, chief HR Officer, Patrick Mclofflin, assistant superintendent, >> and as always, thank you to our safety officers who are here um to protect us. We will now stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of

003America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> We will now pause for a moment of silence as we begin our meeting. Thank you so much. Agenda point 3.0 approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion for the approval of tonight's agenda? >> I move we approve tonight's agenda. >> Second. Moved by Miss Lee, seconded by Miss Spilling. Spilman. All those in favor? >> I I >> All those opposed. >> We are now moving forward with today's agenda. Um 4.0 is is the consent agenda. Do I have a motion for the approval of tonight's consent agenda? >> I move we approve tonight's consent agenda. >> Thank you, Miss Lee. Do I have a second? >> Second. Moved by Miss Lee, seconded by

004Dr. Akoff. All those in favor of tonight's consent agenda, >> I I >> Any opposed? Thank you so much. We are now moving into 5.0, our agenda item, which is a uh discussion uh and questions regarding our policy IGDA intercolastic and extracurricular activities. Um before I invite Dr. Russell Carlock uh to the podium, I just wanted to read a brief statement. There has been a lot of misinformation about why this proposal is coming forward today. I think it is important that we provide clarity so the public understands where we are in the process and how we arrived here. On November 13, 2025, the school board unanimously agreed in open session to direct the superintendent to review and update all policies and administrative regulations governing student extracurricular clubs and outside speakers to ensure both robust protections

005for freedom of speech and safe inclusive learning environments. The school board initially requested that a staff recommendation be presented on December 2025. However, staff requested more time to ensure a full and comprehensive review of policies to make certain the goals of the board along with federal and state legal requirements were fully considered before making a recommendation. Tonight is the first reading of that staff recommendation. We as a board agree that this should come forward in this way so that there is ample time for public and the board to review the recommendation. We also wanted to make certain that this policy decision was developed with the full transporty with ample opportunity for public comment. We may have some clarifying questions this evening to make certain we understand the proposal fully, but we are not debating this

006issue tonight. The public deserves the right to hear what staff is recommending and to provide their input on this policy before we make any any decisions on this policy. Next week, we will bring this matter forward for deliberation and ultimately for a full vote of the school board. I encourage those who wish to make their voices heard to send us an email or to sign up online to speak during public comment at the March 12th schoolboard meeting. Following public comment next week, the school board will bring this policy forward for consideration. At that time, we may offer changes to what we see proposed here tonight. We will deliberate on the merits of each recommendation and each recommended change and ultimately we will create a final draft and vote on whether to adopt the final policy.

007I hope that provides some clarity on this process and I'd like to turn it over now to Dr. Hawen staff to present the staff recommendations. Good evening, Chair Berlin, Vice Chair Spilman, and members of the school board. Um tonight we are bringing forward a review of policy IGDA related to student activities. Um this work was undertaken to better understand how our current policy compares with peer uh divisions across Virginia and to identify areas where additional clarity could strengthen guidance for schools and student organizations. Um as part of this effort, we conducted a comparative an uh policy analysis and gathered feedback from students, staff, and families um across our schools. Um I'd like to now invite Dr. Russell Carlock, uh educational equity data scientist with the Office of Community Engagement, who led this work to walk

008the board through the process, findings, and suggested revisions. Thank Thank you, Mr. Clark. Welcome. Um just a note for um my fellow board members. Um I ask that we uh take the time to first listen um to to Dr. Clark's presentation and then after it's completed um if we have questions regarding um either what he found or the policy itself and we can bring those forward for clarification. >> Uh thank you so much school board. Thank you Dr. Kaiser for having me this evening. I'm excited to talk about student activities policy IGDA um and the review that we conducted and what we learned. So, first I want to talk a little bit about the process that we used and then I'll discuss a little bit about the comparative data analysis that we used in terms

009of looking at other peer school districts within Virginia uh to find where we lie on a spectrum in terms of tightness around certain issues within the policy or looseness and sort of understanding where Al County Public Schools uh finds itself on that that spectrum. We'll also talk about the interview and the focus groups that we conducted in order to understand what the proposed recommendations may mean in terms of student experience in our our student activities programs in our secondary schools. And then finally, we'll go through the major revisions that we're suggesting within the policy. So, we are here tonight because of that November 13th board request for review that was unanimously voted on by the board and moved forward and that led us to begin the comparative policy analysis. I'll go further into detail about

010what that comparative policy analysis looked at like but that was a way for us to look at our particular policy and how it compared to other policies throughout the state. After that we were able to make some ideas around the direction of potential revisions to the policy that we took to the ACPS policy committee for further input. That committee includes uh members from the department of strategic planning as well as our legal council for Alen County Public Schools. Once we got approval for that general direction of those recommendations, we then wanted to get feedback from multiple stakeholders across a variety of different student activities uh from the caregivers perspective as well as the student perspective as well as our faculty and staff members who are involved in student activities to get a further understanding one

011of how is the current policy being implemented in our secondary schools and two if we were to make these revisions with a specific focus on some of the financial uh discussions that were recommend recommending as well as some of the chartering process details. How would that if at all impact our student experience in those student activities? Once we did that, we got another round of feedback from the ACPS policy committee input. Uh we were able to go ahead and begin drafting what our revisions would look like and we were able to get input from that policy committee on that draft. They were able to make some suggestions to uh the the direct uh edits that we were making to the policy and that's what you have in front of you today. And so here we

012are looking at that recommendation and uh the ideas that hopefully we'll be able to soon come to consent with public deliberation around what those final revisions may look like. So a couple of the questions that led us in this process. Uh the first was around how our policy compared to peer divisions specifically looking at what the school board was was asking us to look at. So we wanted to look at creation of student organizations, facility use, safety, viewpoint neutrality and guest speakers. We also wanted to understand where areas of convergence and divergence were within the constellation of policies that exist in the state of Virginia and then where do we fall within that constellation and then finally based on that comparative analysis we wanted to get feedback from our students, our faculty and our caregivers

013around the recommendations that we were providing. So first our comparative policy analysis. These are the school districts that we looked at. This was our method. So we searched policy databases for the following school districts using keywords clubs, extracurricular and student activities. There we performed one round of open coding on 12 district policies. And open coding just means that we went through line by line uh taking notes on what the policy said without considering the schoolboard themes yet. We we wanted to make sure that we were trying to understand these policies um just how they exist and what are the themes and the connections across them um that are there in the text. Uh we noticed there were a few school districts listed here that we looked for using this method. We were not able to

014identify policies um that that were public that we could find. We did use a couple of districts from Massachusetts, not for the coding process, but just for comparison. We wanted to look at one state outside of Virginia just to see how does Virginia compare to another state's policies in these these regards and we picked Massachusetts because historically they've had the strongest educational outcomes um in their public school system going back for some time. So that led us to finding codes that came out of that process. But we also had a schoolboard theme. So we wanted to put those together and see okay what is in these policies and what did the school board tell us to look at and how are those things alike and how are they different. Um so we were able to

015find most of what the school board already asked us to look for but there were a few things that we thought were also important and that is definitions of clubs. So our other schoolboard policies very much are defining what is a co-curricular and a non-curricular club and we found that that is very important especially when we look at federal law around this. Um, also funding was very prominent in other school divisions policies. Ours did not mention funding very much. And then supervision of clubs was also something that that came up in the other district's policies. Uh, so we per performed an additional round of thematic coding using all of those codes together just to make sure that we had captured everything that was important within uh, the policies. Once we did that, we brought to

016our focus groups. We wanted to conduct semi-structured interviews and focus groups with a variety of staff, students, and caregivers. Uh these this was not to provide a representative sample of public opinion. Rather, it was to answer two specific questions. One, we wanted to know how is our current policy being implemented in our schools. We wanted to really understand that. And then secondly, we wanted to understand, okay, if we make potential changes to finance policy around uh student activities in secondary schools and a chartering process, if we were to include some kind of a chartering process, how would that impact uh our student activities, especially from the student perspective? So, we really wanted people to think about what do we get out of student activities for our students and how would these things impact that experience

017of our students. Uh so we did stratified sampling across our three comprehensive high schools. We wanted to make sure that we had a diversity of student activities involved. And so the interviews uh included representation from our black student union, our marching band, mountain biking club, Mocha Poka, Turning Point USA, National Honor Society, Student Government, Thespian Society, Future Farmers of America, Ultimate Tic Tac-Toe Club, Future Business Leaders of America, and the Jesus Club. uh we transcribed these interviews and conducted one round of open coding uh then triangulated these with our comparative policy analysis. So again, we wanted to go back to what the students, caregivers, and our faculty and staff said and just start with their words and kind of work from there and see what are they saying is important um based on these questions

018that we're asking and then we compared that to what the school board asked us to look at and then what we also found looking at other districts and all of that we put together to begin to make the recommendations. Uh before we get into the specific recommendations, I want to highlight the importance of student activities. And this comes from some of our interviews. I have one from a student, one from family, and one from staff. Um so, one of our students said, "Clubs give you a sense of place." In my club, our community is very tight-knit. We're very passionate about keeping it alive. It's dear to our hearts, and it makes us want to come to school. It speaks to school beyond academics. And I think it's very important that non-curricular clubs don't get undermined

019because they speak volumes to our school community. A family member said, "Clubs enabled my student to meet new people and explore a new side of herself. They expanded her worldview and skill set." And one of our staff member who monitors or supervises a club says, "I think that clubs and activities play an important role in developing our students and giving them a full well-rounded education." I want to state that because uh the federal law that dictates a lot of this says that schools don't have to have a student activity program. It is not required. This is something we choose to do for our students for this reason. Uh and when we look at some of the legislation around uh why we have student activities in schools, it really is about creating a space for students

020to find who they are, to be passionate about things that aren't necessarily in the curriculum and to express them themselves, their identity, and to find themselves as leaders. And that was very true within our interviews with our students, our families, or our staff that that is happening in these spaces in our school. And so that's something we really want to preserve while making sure that we're also addressing some of these lacks of clarity within our existing policy. Um so some of the themes from our interview. So uh there was fairly wide agreement of the benefits of a chartering process across diverse groups and perspectives. They saw value in taking the time to say what their student group is for uh what the purpose is of their student group within the school. and they saw creating

021a constitution or going through a chartering process as something that was useful for them. Many of the student uh sponsors or monitors said that they believe that that could be a great beginning of the year activity for student activities to go through that process and just kind of revisit, hey, this is what we say we stand for. Is this what we stand for? What are we trying to do within our school community? What is our purpose? Also there was a lot of confusion at all levels in the distinction between co- and non-curricular activities. Uh so students, faculty and staff and administrators even were saying that sometimes they weren't really sure whether some activities were considered co-curricular or non-curricular based on our current policy. Generally people agree that they want to protect the ability to associate

022with outside groups but they also wanted clarification of the role. There are a lot of outside groups that work with our students and our schools through student activities. Um and there was a lot of confusion sometimes about what the role of those outside groups should be within our student activities. people agreed on a general establishment of groups that promote the welfare of the school and promote understanding among groups that have diverse perspectives amongst themselves. And this was something that's true across different uh groups, saying that sometimes they feel like other groups within this school don't understand who they really are, that they're making assumptions about what their group stands for that isn't what they see themselves as standing for. And that was true across different types of groups. Um, and then people also expressed a

023lot of confusion around fundraising, student activities, what's okay, what's not okay, what do we do with the money? There was a lot of confusion around some of the the fundraising questions um and activities for for these groups. So, putting all of that together, the key findings are there's ambiguity in our current chartering process. So, there's not clear answers on how do student organizations form, what record is there of active organizations within our schools. There's a lack of financial governance. How do student organizations manage funds? What is required for a fundraiser? What is the role of external funders to student organizations? And there's little guidance on external involvement. So, what roles, if any, do outside organizations play in student organizations. We're going to go through I'll go through now the the key revisions. There are some

024minor revisions that won't be in this presentation, but they're in the document that was shared publicly and you all have access to. So, if you have questions about that, that's fine, too. But I wanted to highlight the really um big ones and the ones that the school board asked us to focus on. So the first is around safety. And you can see that there's existing language in our schoolboard policy um prohibiting student organizations that are engaged in any activity that's contrary to law, schoolboard policy or school rules or disrupts or clearly threatens to disrupt the orderly operation of the school. We added some base language from Chesterfield um that goes a little further in describing some other kinds of activities that could be prohibited. And this language also comes from some pre-court cases around student

025expression in school that could substantially disrupt the the school's learning environment um or hinder the school administration's maintenance of order and discipline on school premises. This second part is ported from our student code of conduct policy. So, uh, asking our student organizations to have the same, uh, standard of conduct that individual students do. And this is around a promotion or endorsement of violence or hatred toward identifiable groups. And those identifiable groups are also located within our uh, student conduct policy and also are in the Virginia Human Rights Act. This is really important, the definition of co- versus non-curricular activities. It's important based on the federal law, the 1984 equal access act um that was passed around these kinds of questions. And a little bit of context on that law that was passed in 1984 to

026uh protect the rights of students to create prayer groups in schools at a time when many schools were banning those groups because they said it was against the establishment clause within the constitution. Um, Congress passed the law that and it was passed and it still is an existing law that says that non-curricular groups have to have the same access to school space as co-curricular groups. Um, they have to have the same physical resources uh that the co-curricular groups do and that includes groups that could be prayer groups or political groups. Um, it has to be uh a viewpoint neutral in that sense. And what is interesting is 15 years later, that same law was used to protect the first gay straight alliances in public schools in America. Kentucky was banning uh some gay straight alliances

027in schools at that time. And the ACLU uh took those school districts to court and won that court case based on this same law. And so this law has protected the rights of students to form prayer groups in our schools as well as the rights of students to form gay straight alliances within our schools. Um part of the reason that that definition is important is because the law does allow the schools to treat co- and non-curricular activities slightly differently in terms of funding um in terms of what the role of the adult is in the room who's monitoring that activity. Um however it requires equal access to uh the right of students to meet and use physical space within the school. Um and part of that is creating this idea of a limited open forum.

028U the idea is that this is a limited open forum because it's limited only to students who are enrolled in the school. It's not about outside adults telling students what to do. It's not about inside adults. It's not about uh faculty or staff telling students what to do or think. It is about students having a space to express themselves and figure out who they are and what they care about and creating that space in our school. Uh and so that's where the non-curricular piece comes in. That's what those groups are for. A co-curricular uh group can have a a staff member or sponsor who is directing or leading student activities. A non-curricular group uh is not supposed to have an adult who's telling them what to do. They are supposed to be leading it. It's

029supposed to be studentled. Um so that's why this definition is important. Our previous policy did not have a definition and that would led to some of the confusion we saw. So we added uh definitions based on uh different language from different school divisions. Most school divisions did have some kind of a definition. So this one we used a lot of the language from Henriiko that defines a co-curricular organization as academic honor societies, language clubs, student government, academic course related clubs, career and technical education organizations, yearbook performance groups related to the fine arts and other similar activities. The basic requirement is the club subject matter must be taught in a regularly offered course within the school um or connect to the overall curriculum. So again something that is taught within the school. So what is a

030non-curricular club? Non-curricular club is everything else. It is a very wide net. Okay. So if we look at the examples that we pulled and this one comes from Chesterfield. Uh a non-curricular student organizations are initiated by students with recreational, community, religious, political or other interests that are not part of the school curriculum. Um and you can see one addition there and this is really important as part of that idea of the limited open forum uh concept in federal law is they must be open to all students right so these a club can't say you can come in you can't come in these clubs or activities have to be open to everyone um in order for them to meet what this definition is of the limited open forum. So board the board also asked us to

031look at facility use. We found that existing policy was sufficient in outlining facility use uh that all non-curricular student organizations must have access to school facilities and physical resources equal to the access of co-curricular student organizations and it gives examples of public address systems, periodicals, bulletin board space and fundraising. Uh a key revision is around role of staff in non-curricular. We had some of this language in our existing policy, but we tried to make it stronger and clearer based on some examples from Fairfax where it says that non-curricular student organizations, this is part of the existing policy, they shall not have a faculty sponsor. However, a member of the school's professional staff shall attend every meeting. Um, Fairfax goes a little further to describe what the role of that person is, saying that um, anyone

032any school employee present at a meeting of a non-curricular student organization, which includes political activity, religious worship, prayer or practice or is identified as having a political or religious p purpose, shall attend in a non-participatory capacity only. The board also asked us to look at guest speakers. there were not a lot of school divisions that addressed guest speakers in their policy. Um Fairfax did have a little bit and so we used some of this language from Fairfax and we added some based especially and I should say one other forum that we used to get feedback was a student leadership forum in which we had uh student leaders from around our three comprehensive high schools discuss this topic for over an hour and gave great feedback. And one of the pieces that um was added in

033part because of that, but also in part because of some of the other feedback that we got from families and safety was that in-person guest speakers during the school day shall be invited only by co-curricular student organizations and must present content related to the curriculum. In-person guest speakers shall not be permitted for non-curricular activities during the school day. And a request for approval for all guest speakers shall be submitted to the principal or designate for review and include the purpose, content, and duration of the speech. Again, partly to protect the student voice in the non-curricular activities as being the primary voice um to be heard. The board also asked us to look at viewpoint neutrality. We found that the existing policy did have language around new viewpoint neutrality specifically saying that no student organization shall

034be denied equal access to school facilities during designated meeting times on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical or other content of the speech at the meeting of such organization. There were questions from the board as well as from family members about messaging in schools and also there some of the students also wanted more clarity around when can we put up posters, when can I hand out flyers. These are things they want to do. They're not sure if they're allowed to. They want to make sure that they do it in a way that's consistent with expectations. And so um there again there was some language around this but we tried to make it clear that student organizations may hand out flyers and post announcements and other materials only with prior approval of the principal or

035designate to ensure compliance with schoolboard policies and school regulations. Some of our schools were already doing this. This just makes it standardized uh at the district level. Fundraising I will say that fundraising uh ports over to a lot of other policies. So there are a lot of questions around fundraising and we are trying to do as best we can in this revision to connect the student activities policy to extent policies around fundraising in our schools whether it's crowdsourced funding or old school going doortodoor collecting money for something funding. Um so we do that here by linking to pol word policies KJA, KJB and JL um say that all fund raising by student organizations both inside and outside the school requires prior principal or designated approval per those policies. Much of this is already in those

036policies. We're just reiterating what is already said there. One thing that is new is that all monies raised or collected by student organizations or clubs shall be school activity funds and shall be deposited promptly within the school. Um there are several school divisions. We used as our model V Virginia Beats and Chesterfield do this. Uh and this was recommended as part of the idea of having greater oversight but also understanding and having greater clarity around fundraising for student activities in schools. Another board priority was the creation of student groups. Uh it is my opinion after doing this work that this may be the most important revision. uh and I will explain why. Uh so in our ex existing policy we have very little about how student groups get created. Um much of that is being

037done at the school level. We see that there's great inconsistencies across our high schools in terms of how this is happening. Um and it's one of the places where we are farthest out of line with our peer districts. Um most peer districts have some kind of a chartering process for student activity groups in their school. Uh currently we don't have a consistent one in our district. Um so we added language specifying a group charter to include a purpose statement and activities. So this is coming from Chesterfield County, Virginia Beach, and York County. And the proposal would be that all new student organizations must submit to the principal or designate an application for approval that includes a constitution describing the purpose, type, co- or none, activities, membership or fee requirements, if any, outside group affiliations if

038any, and staff sponsor or monitor of the group. Approval will be based on criteria applied equally to all proposed organizations, including compliance with all schoolboard policies and may include a minimum number of students interested. The school will maintain and update approved student organization constitutions for as long as the group operates within the school. Non-curricular student organizations approved in this way will be sponsored only through equal access to use of facilities and will receive no public funding. the purpose and content of meetings for non-curricular groups will not be considered as endorsed by the school. Uh this was something that was popular across student groups and across sponsors of student groups. Again, they felt that having this process in place uh allowed them to bring students together to discuss the purpose of why they are coming together

039and have an opportunity to explain to their peers. Um and this connects to our next revision which is the list of student groups. Uh so the total program of activities in the school should be comprehensive and well balanced. That's from our existing policy. It's ported over here from a different place. The updated program will be shared by the beginning of the second quarter via an annual message to families and posting on the school's website and also shared with the assistant superintendent of school community engagement. This communication will include a brief description of each student organization based on the group's approved constitution. Students felt like this would be a way for them one to understand all of the activities that are in their school. Many students said, "I don't know all the activities in my school.

040I would like to be able to find out more about that." Many of our schools are doing club fairs which are fantastic. Uh and at the same time, it can be hard to go to every single club's table and learn about what they're doing. And so having something where it's not just a list, but it's a list with a description from the students perspective of what are they trying to achieve in the school, what is their purpose, who are they. The students said that they would appreciate that because it would one clear up some of the misunderstandings they feel like are there about what their group does, and two, it would help them choose, hey, I didn't even know this club existed. Maybe now I can learn about it. Um and then families also thought

041that that was a good idea because then they could learn about what are the student activities that are available in their child's school. It also creates uh a basis for us to understand what is the purpose of each of our students organizations and also have a much better understanding of which student organizations are curric co-curricular and which are non-curricular and that can become part of the process of that determination by the principal in collaboration um with the district. So those are key revisions that we are suggesting and now I'll leave space for questions. >> So again uh my colleagues this is time for us to ask questions specific to the policy. Any clarification that you need? >> I just want to say job well done. I know there was a lot of work that went

042into this over many months and um I know family council and student um senate and a lot of other groups were involved um and I can really tell the care that you put into this to make sure that it's fair and that um it's uh consistent. Um and I you know I know I emailed you a few questions earlier. Um, I think the biggest thing for me is, um, the consistency across schools, um, and that we make sure that a club at one school is has the same criteria at another school. Um, and so how do we develop that consistency and that we make sure that um, it's shared across all the schools. Um and I think you know I I think we talked about it would be a good you know project for the

043spring and summer to prepare for next year of having making sure that um all the schools have consistent um accountability for all the clubs. Um and also you know you were talking about the uh creation of the clubs. I think that our clubs will probably need some guidance on writing the constitution and how to apply it. Um, and so I don't know how we would develop that, but I would give that some thought as to helping our students make sure that um, they're they're getting all the support that they need. Um, and I I think not a question, but I just think it's really important um, how much you pulled in from other school divisions in the state. um that it shows consistency across the state that we are not doing anything far out in

044left field that we're you know doing what's consistent um across the state which is really great. Um, and I think the last thing is just, you know, this is not about a club. It's not about a speaker. It's not It really is about making sure that all of our clubs. Um, it's consistent across all the clubs. And so, you know, GSA is going to be held to the same standards that Turning Point is. Um, and I think that that's really important to note that, um, we just want to make sure that we're creating a safe environment for our students and also freedom of speech that they can meet during lunch and discuss all their views. And I think that's a beautiful thing. Um and that you know the speakers for curricular um clubs that's great

045for during the day and I welcome you know the extracurricular clubs to have their speakers after school and have people come. I think that that's great too. So I just want to say job well done. Um and you know I think you answered all my other questions that I sent um before. The last one I think I had was about the fundraising and you know how do we will there be an SOP or anything like that to make sure that we have oversight over those funds? What does it look like when funds are received from a club and and what is the standard for getting those? You know, because it's not any different than our athletic teams. You know, when you pay for new equipment, it gets deposited to the school and then gets allocated.

046The school play is the same way. I just wrote a check to Western for being in the school play or the robotics club. So, you know, it it I think it does create that consistency and that oversight and allows us to allocate those funds appropriately um while making sure that we're following the law, which is also really important. So, I would like to see some sort of standard operating procedure for what does it look like when those funds are received and how they're dispersed um so that there's consistency from sports to clubs to drama or whatever it is. So, but thank you. I think you did a great job. I really appreciate it. >> Thank you, Miss Berlin. >> I have a question related to your list of student groups. Will that be on the

047school websites or a division website or just because I think it would be really interesting to be able to look and see how many elementary chess clubs there are across the division because maybe that's a popular thing, you know. So, I feel like we'll get a lot of information about our student interest out of this as well. >> Yes. like under the way it's currently written, it's at the each school's website, but it'd be fairly simple to aggregate those at the district level to begin to look at what our student interests look like across schools. >> And I'm just going to jump on that. Didn't we also say that there was going to be a sharing, a quarterly sharing or something about amongst the principles about what clubs are or maybe it was at the

048beginning of the school year, what clubs had formed at each of the schools. Um, just so that they know like, hey, we've got that club, too, or whatever. I think that that shared information is really powerful. Yes. So the way it's written currently, it would be at the the beginning of the second quarter would be when that would occur. Um and we would able and there's there's further information that we didn't go over here that was extent in the policy in terms of um the how the activities program is created. Uh in terms of what you're saying, Miss Spillman, around the implementation of the policy, there's certainly going to need to be guidelines for how to implement the policy. And one of those will be uh how how to collect data on student interest because

049that is in the current policy that we're supposed to be looking at what students are interested in and forming uh helping students to form clubs around their interest. There's not a lot of consistency in how that's done and there is some work that we could do uh to better make sure that that data is front and center of how we're making the decisions and supporting students to create the the clubs that that meet their interests. >> Yeah. And it's very obvious that you this was very data driven. Um which I really appreciate because you can't really deny what what the numbers and what the the data shows. And so I think that would be a great thing to extend that beyond into making sure that all of our students feel represented in the clubs that

050are in their schools from elementary school all the way through our secondary schools. Yeah. >> Other clarifying questions. >> Not really. But um thank you for your work. This was great. Um with respect to the if we implemented this you know if we passed it uh all the existing clubs would need to go back and write charters if they don't already have them and you'll will you have a prototype or something for them to provide guidance for that. I think it would be important as part of implementation to provide some templates of it's not in the policy that's more in the implementation of the policy but I do think that that would be an important role for the school division >> and so all the existing clubs would need to go back and do that

051>> thank you >> uh one more for me um professional staff shall attend every meeting or activity of such organizations how does that work in relation to um what we're asking of staff and what we're promising ing them in terms of free uh unencumbered lunchtime. How do we how do we juggle that? >> Yeah. So, the the principal would have to be really careful and make sure that whatever we're doing in terms of supervision of student activities is consistent with the collective bargaining agreement and the other aspects that we have in terms of human resources and working with our teachers. Currently, most of this is occurring uh during periods of time that are already within teachers contracted time. Um some teachers opt to supervise for example study halls instead of a student activity. Uh and

052so that's really that if we start to do it during lunch um which has happened in the past prior to the collective bargaining agreement. It just has to make sure that this that the principal is following those collective bargaining agreements. >> I've got a couple questions that I think I know the answer to, but I want to ask them anyway. Uh thanks again for for the good work. Does this uh revised policy give principles an absolute power to shut down uh a club unilaterally >> within the the No, they have to do it consistent with the policy and the guidelines that are set up within the policy. >> Okay. And does this policy prevent an outside speaker from coming to a high school after instructional hours? >> No, currently only during instruction during the school

053day. The instructional hours. >> Last question. who is uh currently in charge of managing money donations that come in to the club >> within the school. >> Yeah, >> there's a bookkeeper who is usually in charge in in collaboration with the principal to ensure that any kind of fundraising that is happening is consistent with our fundraising policies. >> Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. I just uh we've gotten a lot of emails from the from around the public. I just want to let everybody know our constituents that we're all listening to everybody about this about this issue. I'm just wondering if you could give some examples of non-curricular clubs and how many there are in our high school if anybody knows and how many students are in them. I don't know. >> Yeah. to to your

054second question. I mean that speak the fact that we don't know speaks to the the point of needing some kind of revision because we really don't have a good recordkeeping system right now for how many of these clubs exist, which students are involved. Uh which is really important as we start to look at student engagement data. There are some districts that even measure that as a as a way to see like are all our all our students connected to something, right? We want to make sure all our kids are connected to something. Right now, we don't have a good way to measure that within our school division. to your first question like some examples. Uh so the ultimate tic-tac-toe club was one that I didn't know existed until I went through this process. Um the

055Jesus club is one uh at Alma High School that exists. Uh we have the mountain biking club. We have ultimate frisbee club. We have Dungeons and Dragons clubs. We have Magic the Gathering clubs. We have Pokemon clubs. Um there are quite a few. there's there's vast and varied student interests that are out there that students form groups around within this time. >> Thank you. >> And I think that also speaks to taking a lot of the weight off the principles by having a consistent policy where they're not having to make a a decision without any guidance and then decide if if you know if we have that club if how it's going to run. You know, that's something that when I talked to all the principles, that was something that they really wanted was guidance

056so that they, you know, it wasn't all on their shoulders to make these decisions. >> Um, Russy, I also wanted to just um this to me feels extremely comprehensive and I I appreciate all the work that went into it. And for me as a school member who every week or two weeks looks at policies that you know we're um reviewing policies um it it just reminds us that there's a lot of work to do in our policies. I mean this I sometimes think like oh well there must be a policy for that and it must really be working but clearly this really needed your work. So I appreciate that and I take it as a a note for myself. >> Thank you. Other clarifying questions? Seeing no other clarifying questions, I just wanted to provide

057a huge thank you um for all of your work on this and for all the input that we have received over the last, December, January, February, March um five months. Um just to let the public know again kind of next steps in this is that you again thank you Mr. Beer for saying this. Um, you know, please, um, reach out to your schoolboard member directly or through, you know, the our email schoolboard k12ar.org. Um, we will also have public comment on this, um, next week at our March 12th uh, board meeting. Um, and you can sign up for that online um, through the system. You can call Miss Christine Thompson or you can sign up um, up to the time of public comment. Um, so that is that is available to you. Um and then

058um after that public comment, the board will deliberate and take a vote on this. >> Any other clarifying pieces I need to make on that? >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> The next piece on our agenda is a um 10-minute break and I'm going to look to my right and to my left to see if the board would like to take a break before we go into our work session. >> Sure, J. What? Charge ahead. >> Charge ahead. Yep. Okay. I'm getting I'm getting from the from Mr. Black a charger ahead. So, um uh you may see us getting up from time to time to um to get some chocolate or some water. So, um that's just what we're doing. Um so, um the next piece of our uh uh agenda is

059um 6.0 um our budget work session number three. um uh Miss Kumazawa uh our director of budget and planning um and she is here to share additional information um uh and address some of the questions that we brought forward. >> And again, just a reminder for everyone um online or in the audience, any of the information that we have regarding the budget is also um available online um at k12albrammar.org/budget. org/budget. Um, and that includes all the budget documents as well as the PowerPoints um that um are being used tonight. >> Good evening. Um, I'm Maya Kumazawa, director of budget and planning, and I'm here to facilitate our budget work session number three. This is our agenda for this evening. Um, we're going to first start with a presentation about scholar studios by Megan Maynard and

060Katina Dudley. Um, and then I will provide an overview about our per pupil expenditures and changes over time. Third, um Jackson Zimmerman will present the FY26 second quarter financial report and fund balance projection and recommendations for one-time funding. And then I will come back in the end um to help prepare for funding request approval that is scheduled to happen next week. So the first item is a presentation on scholar studios. I just wanted to um remind you what that impact was on the FY27 draft funding request. This um proposal is $1.4 million and it includes the addition of 11 new classroom teachers and operating budgets for field experiences, industry credentiing and promotion. So, I will turn it on over to um the staff to tell you a little bit more about this proposal. Good evening.

061Good evening, school board chair Dr. Berlin, school board members, superintendent Matt Hos, and the cabinet. Um, Megan and I are actually really excited to be here tonight. Um, we wanted to begin tonight to kind of frame our conversations around the Scholar Studios instructional program with you all. These career connected learning communities are operating at our three comprehensive high schools and at two of our careermies. These communities work to embody our ideals of high school redesign. As we look at our data and think about our next step, it's important to remember that we're not alone in our journey of implementing career connected learning. These small learning communities integrate academic coursework, career exploration, and work-based learning to improve engagement and post-secondary res readiness for our students. This is a model that has shown results for several decades,

062and it operates in thousands of schools across the country. It is supported by research and resources which Megan and I have used over the years with teacher teams throughout the design process to align this work to best practices. Today, career connected learning communities are no longer an emerging innovation, but an established national model. Thousands of high schools across the United States, many even here in Virginia, organize learning through through career and pathway structures. We also continue to learn and grow with innovative school divisions around the state who are tackling similar challenges through engaging in the Veilen network. We were part of this inaugural cohort six years ago and we have again rejoined this cohort for number six. Veilen is a community of practices of innovative school divisions learning and growing together across Virginia focused on

063high school redesign. And we currently have a team from our division that includes school leaders and division leaders in a cohort of leaders across the division. This also includes leaders from Williamsburg, James City, Stafford, Ronoke, and others. We've actually been studying reimagine high school examples from across the country from experts within the field. Here you can see Here you can see a few of the examples that we have explored as future ready learning models. It has been a pleasure for the both of us to be part of this journey with you as Alamar strives to create high school systems that align with the needs of all students. This slide gives a recap of various touch points we've worked through with stakeholders including the school board. You can see specific points where we have formally engaged

064with the board through updates and feedback as they pertain to high school redesign. So high school redesign um scholar studios was a component of that larger picture. Conversations with the board, our community, our educators, and our students led us to the tenants of high school redesign that you see here. The first, we know through research that students are motivated through learning experiences that they value, fostering a greater sense of belonging and autonomy in their own education. The second aims to mitigate persistent gaps by providing access to specialized learning communities for every student. And the third focuses on connecting students with pathways that expose them to work-based opportunities and specialized skills guiding their trae trajectory towards college and/or careers. In our conversations with students and families, we asked them, "What makes this model valuable?" Here's what

065we heard. Students appreciate being able to take a deep dive into a subject that they care about. They share that they can develop interest in real real world applicable skills. Two studios give students an opportunity to learn with peers that share their interest. A lot of students in the program say these are my people. We get to learn from teachers who are experts in the topic who care about us. Plus, we have the chance to connect with Pr professionals working in the very spaces where we see our own futures. And three, the program gives us ways to learn through experience. We enjoy hands-on learning experiences, through lab experiences, field experiences, etc. A lot of the learning is project based, meaning that you can work and learn by focusing on real world problems. And another responded,

066"This roll up your sleeves hands-on learning helps us build realworld skills." Based on community conversations, the scholar steering team built out the components of Scholar Studios. Students who enroll in studios enroll in a gateway course, two pathway sequence courses, a capstone course, and then a pathway plus course. A pathway plus course is um another course outside of the pathway sequence that's aligned to the students studio learning. Um examples that come up often would be psychology courses, statistic courses, um courses that would help prepare them for the next part of um their high school experience and or college and career. We heard very clearly from our community that they wanted academic core classes included. And so with this new model, we have added academic core classes that will follow the students through the 9th through 12th

067grade experience. And we've also aligned our coursework to kind of use the instructional framework for these core classes as well. We're also excited because students are really excited to um have work-based learning opportunities and also to work towards earning industry credentials. And I'm going to turn the next part of this over to Megan Maynard. Good evening. Through the components that Kina just mentioned, we have woven together some learning goals to create learning experiences and environments that are engaging and preparing our students to be ready for life. We've resoundingly heard from advisory that we should be striving to support students with transferable skills and the skills that we work together to identify will help our students to be purposely self-aware, curious collaborators, confident communicators who initiate impact. These will be fully implemented starting in each gateway

068course all the way through the capstone courses. As many of you have seen and joined in, we have an active and committed advisory board that meets regularly with industry professionals, educators, and students to inform and shape our model. And that helps us to align the learning to workforce needs. The industry community partners shape our curriculum, provide mentorship, and identify key skills for current and future job markets. Our advisories are helping us to stay connected to the fast-paced industry in our region and our world as ACPS is a key component to the talent development pipeline in central Virginia's innovation corridor. And Cina mentioned even though we just um worked on this slide in the fall, there are already new um innovations happening that aren't even represented on here yet. We work with industry and higher education

069partners, our amazing student ambassadors, and our teacher and instructional experts to incorporate their input in alignment with what we know is best practice for high quality learning. This has given us a living structure that helps us to support our learning goals. After each advisory session, what you might not know is that we continue together. Um, we have dedicated time for our student ambassadors and our scholar studio teachers to grow and develop and shape the learning. Here you can see our ambassadors and teaching teachers engaging in a community of practice where they're practicing, designing, and prioritizing learning with agency and shaping their educational experience. This slide shows our student ambassadors engag engaging in leadership programming with um our very own expert Makaya Holly. Mentors help our students to grow in depth and complexity towards our expectations

070of being ready for life with those transferable skills and in this case it was towards being a confident communicator. Last year we established an interdep departmental scholar steering team. It was made up of stakeholders from our high schools as well as each of our departments. and working together as a team. Our goal was to holistically implement high school redesign and to proactively address the daily challenges that are impacting our students and families and develop a sustainable support structure for high school redesign and the ACEMIES. This has been really rewarding work and some of um in terms of my own profession, some of the most rewarding work I've been able to be a part of to see everyone kind of working together towards this a common goal. An example of this collaboration includes work to mitigate

071the transportation barrier of providing access to high-quality learning for all students regardless of zip code. Student and family feedback provided directly to schools through our counselors and administrators gave us the specific data that we needed to problem solve collaboratively. The transportation team and building leaders worked with our technology department to create new forms and processes. And our communications department and instructional teams collaborated to provide timely information in various formats and languages to our students and families. We're really excited to share the increased interest so far from students and families in the Scholar Studios instructional programming with approximately 25% of our 9th graders and about 40% of our current eighth graders requesting a Scholar Studio next year. As a caveat, we're only a few weeks in to our uh registration season and we still have several

072weeks to go. Looking at these requests across feeder patterns, we see high interest in our northern schools such as Almaral High School, which comprises 50% of our high school students and 10 of our 12 scholar studios are located on its campus. For example, approximately 60% of our current Journey and Lakeside ETH graders chose to participate in a studio. We continue to monitor data to ensure access and success across our membership groups and have seen for the second year in a row, our student interest closely mirrors that of our division membership groups. Katina and I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and appreciate the board in helping to support this program with specialized staffing for our English learners and students with disabilities. Our counselors, case managers, teachers, and families have shared with us that they

073felt heard. This has helped them to have confidence and credibility in this program to live up to its ideals of engaging and preparing all students for a thriving future in high demand pathways. Scholar Studio supports goal one objective three by of our strategic plan by expanding innovative learning models that promote deeper engagement and meaningful learning experiences for all students through personalized pathways, real world application and student agency in learning. This model strengthens students sense of purpose and readiness for post-secary success. After years of preparation, we alongside our community look to the future with hopeful anticipation, eager for the vision to come to life with the opening of our new ACE Academy as a hub of innovation on the Lambslane campus. It has been very exciting to be a part of this uniquely designed state-of-the-art facility

074with new equipment. To meet the hundreds of students and families at curriculum fairs over the past several months who are planning to attend next year to listen to the educators who are inspired by this vision and want to be a part of launching it, to welcome our new principal and building leader, Stephanie Carter. Welcome to the team. >> Good evening. Um, Dr. Berlin, members of the board, and Dr. Hos, as the newly appointed principal of Almorall Career Exploration Academy at Lamb's Lane, I want to I want to thank you for the opportunity, and I'm happy to share a few closing comments and thoughts. Um, ACE at Lambslane represents something truly special for Almor County students. The scholar studios model allows students to engage deeply in areas of interest while connecting their academic learning to real

075world applications, field experiences, and the many pathways our diverse students may pursue post high school. As you saw in the presentation, this work is grounded in research and designed to prepare students not just academically, but for college, careers, and overall life after high school. The skills students develop over four years at ACE at Lamb's Lane will serve them well as on whatever path they choose. The level of student interest already emerging is truly exciting. Families and students across the division are clearly eager for hands-on collaborative and goal and passiondriven learning experiences. Over the past few weeks, as I've begun meeting with teachers and staff who want to be part of this work, I'm inc I've already been incredibly inspired by their enthusiasm and passion. They see the opportunity to design meaningful learning experiences, partner with

076industry and community organizations, and help students build the transferable skills that will serve them well long after high school graduation. Opening ACE at Lambs Lane this fall is an exciting milestone for Almaral County's high school redesign. I'm honored to lead this work and deeply grateful for the board's continued support as we build a school where students can explore their interest, develop their talents, deepen their understanding of core academics through application, and graduate truly ready for life. Thank you for your support. We are building something exceptional, and I am truly excited to come to see it to fruition and to be a part of it. Thank you. >> And we're available to take any questions from the board. >> Um I actually have a question about um since this is for the budget on the um

077staffing for the studios. I got um a text that um social studies um I I hope I'm getting I know it was at least social studies teachers were being rifted and then new teachers were being hired and there was some upset about this. I was wondering if you could just explain a little bit more the decision on that and if it's a budgetary decision or what but there's some heat that I'm been getting and I'd love to be able to explain it some more. >> Sure. Sure. It's definitely a busy time of year. I could probably give an overview to what I've been a part of, but I would defer to Dan Reading if he wants to be more specific about how the hiring process works. >> Okay. >> All right. As it relates to

078riff, we typically riff by school when FTEEs in the school decline. The school is then overstaffed in certain areas. At the secondary school, that's based on uh teachers who are licensed in areas that the course sections are no longer needed. That number of course sections can be taught by fewer staff. So those staff then go into RIFF. they are in a priority consideration under schoolboard policy for other uh areas of their lensure other positions in their area of lenture in the division. So in the terms of ACE I'm not sure whether anyone has been hired that's not a current ACPS teacher. >> No. >> So I and I can say too I have um I've been working really closely. I've only this is what third I've been here seven days or eight days or something

079so and it's all running together but I can say I have worked really closely with the principles at all the schools because they have been they we have worked tried incredibly diff conversations with with potentially opening up positions by placing current ACPS employees. We haven't we have not hired anyone external at this point. Um, and specifically for social studies, I have a small pool of recently rifted teachers that I am going to meet with before we open up anything external. Um, so we have we we are filling the positions with internal hires only right now. >> Okay. All right. That helps. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Do you all have any estimates of projections, enrollment projections for center one at this point? >> Yes. So we, as I mentioned, we are several weeks into

080collecting requests. So we do have those numbers. I didn't split it out in the data that I was shared and don't have it off the top of my head, but we can provide you an update tomorrow and we're tracking that daily and we'll have more finalized numbers towards early April. >> So that figure, I think it was 790 of students that have enrolled. That includes center one. >> That includes center one. >> That's helpful. >> I do think the numbers are close to where we've been projecting. Someone else might be tracking that, but I think they're very close to where we've been projecting. >> Great. And is there any rough idea of the sort of I'll for lack of a better term, call it the the dropout rate that that you've seen at Center 1.

081In other words, just making up figures. Let's say there were 250 students that enrolled in Center One. by the end of the school year had that num number dropped by 20% 5% 50%. Any um sense of how that's happened at center one? >> So I don't have that data at the top of my head. We're tracking both how many students started at the beginning of the year and continued and how many students are choosing to continue next year. Yes. >> So I know um Jay Thomas and his team is working through that. >> That'd be helpful. >> We can provide the followup. It would also be helpful if you include students that chose other scholar studios. I know one of the things I talked to Jay about the other day was >> that it's not

082just students just leaving the scholars program, they just do are doing what we want them to do which is if they're not passionate about a particular pathway that they go on another one. >> So they're entering the transfer portal. Is that what you're saying? >> That's right. Yeah. We again we are having those conversations and so we're noticing some of them are like oh actually I want to try this which is exactly what that gateway course Kina mentioned is about giving students an opportunity to kind of get a taste and then decide is this for me or is it not before they head off to >> I knew that was a concern board members had brought up was you know if you go into a program are you locked into it and >> um we

083wanted to be sure there was flexibility >> and we've honestly encouraged students if they're wanting to kind of help Sorry. So, just so the public can hear, >> just that we've we've encouraged students to do that. We've had we get that question a lot with our eighth grade students in particular, and we tell them, "Yeah, try one out if you want to try another one." And so, we're not only seeing that at Link, we're seeing that in a couple of others where we've seen students move from one studio to another. So, as we talk about overcrowding and we're talking about, you know, the need for CIP funding, um Dr. Dr. Hos and I have had conversations about if the scholar studio is not at full capacity, what is the plan for using the space as

084um a kind of rollover space for Rival Marl since Alamarl is very um over capacity um so that we're making sure we're maximizing the space um that we've spent a bunch of money on. >> So um I've met with Mr. Barfield several times and one of our initial immediate conversations was was that students at Alberal that are in culinary for example we're going to have a nice beautiful new culinary lab and we are working closely with them so that those students can come over and use our space even as AHS students I think right now um we're looking at that we have space to bring over um some classes for GIS culinary and sports med so we I'm working really closely with him and the bell schedules align well enough that they can access their

085our building second, third, and fourth block. Okay. >> Um so we're definitely we're here to serve all um Al County students. So um if we have the space, we we would welcome them. >> I would love just a update on that as enrollment goes along and as we're getting closer um as we are kind of prioritizing our CIP budget. That would be really helpful as to where those priorities lie. If we are being able to make up um some of that from Alamar, that would be great. So, if we could just get an update as you're finalizing those things, that would be wonderful. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. Happy to. Yes. >> Other questions? >> Um, I want to know how the vivid studio is going and are you going to have a ambass student

086ambassador next year for that? >> Yes, I believe those are already in the works and so our um our fine arts coordinator Damon Snider is doing really good things with um with our arts teams. they kind of joined on this year as a pilot to learn how the other ambassadors were were set up and what that process looks like so that they'll be ready to launch next year. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> Thank you for all of your time and dedication with that. >> This is more of a comment. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Louden. Um and which I I would say maybe are I don't know five years ahead of us kind of on this on this path. Um, and I it was very interesting and because I kind of

087listened but also kind of as said kind of, you know, one of the things that our board is bringing up is this question on enrollment and how long does it, you know, how long does it take to get this the word out about this, right? Even though we feel like we've been done doing this for a while. And they said, one of the things they said, I there'll be a question here, but one of the things they said is it's not just middle school, but they're actually spending some time with their their third, fourth, and fifth graders. Not necessarily using the word career, but kind of the, you know, interest areas and some activities that they're doing to get them thinking about, you know, where concentrations might be that I would be interested in. And

088so I'm curious where are we right now regarding like where do we start talking to kids about this? And then like do we have plans of how do you continue to bring it down so that we're introducing just this idea and not not just about the studios but more about how do you match your interests with uh things you um potentially might want to do in your future. >> Yes. Um well I'm a fan of that prek to 12 plus career development. Um we're really excited with uh Cabbell Guy, our counseling coordinator, is um really looking at what does that look like in a comprehensive way. Um we have it inconsistently kind of happening right now and so he's actually built out scope and sequences for each of those different levels. Uh we do have

089um as you mentioned we do have in the middle school a pretty strong uh career development in our advisory and in career investigation courses. The state has something called an academic career portfolio that students start at the elementary school that Cabbell is working to get piloted. Um, and we actually just opened up this year school links, which is the program we use in 6th through 12th. We just launched that in January with our fifth grade students, and it went really well. Um, for course registration. So, the next step will be layering in the portfolio and the assessments as well. And, um, through all of that, we also try to tie it to the things we offer right here in our school, not just the careers long term. Um, and then you may have also heard

090about our goatee tech program that will be happening in the middle schools, which um, kind of expands access to more careers and hands-on learning um, at the middle school level that will be tying to the studios as well. So, I think we have opportunities to grow and I agree that that is an important thing that we can continue to do. I'll just add about four years ago we worked on a K through2 framework and the guaranteed field experiences were also a big part of this and every lesson that we put out to our K through8 teachers also has a component of career development and when we work with our um external um partners we also ask them to expose students to different types of careers that are occurring at that particular site. >> Thank you

091so much. I know we'll be working on sorry future work sessions. I know Dr. Mary Cuff um um and myself and so that might be something if it's of the interest of the board of spending more time talking not just at scholar sketers but in about that kind of continuum um so we can learn more and understand because I I mean as you've heard I think one of the concerns of the the board it continues to be you know what are we doing to make sure that like there is an interest we know it but how do we get them here and into the doors and what are we doing to to prepare them throughout their their uh educational experience. >> Yes, we would welcome the opportunity to partner with you on that. >> Okay.

092Thank you. >> I have one more question regarding the studios. Um and forgive me for not knowing this. Can students join their junior year or is it really something that they have to get in like freshman year to do all four years? >> Yes. So um as you know we originally started the career learning communities in 10th through 12th because we had some feedback from themies that 9th grade was too early. Um we expanded it. This is our first year of 9th grade. I know it feels like we've come to you guys a lot. This is actually our first year with 9th grade students in the scholar studios. Um and so our current registration is our second year with ninth graders in the scholar studios. Um, and we have an opportunity for students to join

09310th grade, and that's to be full scholar studios completers and meeting all the components that Kina shared. We have always allowed juniors and seniors to join in on the programming as long as they have the prerequisites. So, for example, if you're coming over to do um a class in engineering 2, as a junior, you had to have had engineering one at the base school, which we offer. Um, not all of our programs are offered at the base school, so it doesn't work perfectly, but we do. We have always allowed students to join in as long as they have the prerequisites to be a part of that cohort and that programming because maybe it isn't until their junior year that they figure that out, right? >> Um, we gave it a name this year >> because

094previously it felt like it was just a conversation between a counselor and a student and a principal to work that out. So, we called it advanced studio access. I don't know. We'll see if it catches on, but we put some FAQs around it, shared that with counselors and started sharing that with teachers and I think that will help as well. And we have we have space available for our juniors and seniors. So, help us get the word out. >> Great. Thank you. Helpful. Dr. Carter, you're going to give us a tour sometime this summer when you get settled. >> I would love to. I I have not achieved a doctorate yet, though. I will tell you, but I am happy to give you a tour. >> We'll let you get your feet under a little

095bit. >> Oh, and and and I failed to say welcome from the board. We are very excited to have you back. >> Thank you. I am most happy to be back. Thank you so much. I'm super excited. >> Seeing no other questions, I think we can move on with our um our work session. Thank you so much for your time. We so appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um so this next section is going to focus on per pupil expenditures. um with the purpose being we're answering the question why are per pupil expenditures rising. So if I explain it well enough I'm hoping that each of you can walk away and explain it. So as I'm going through a lot of numbers please feel free to jump in because this is a type

096of topic you don't you might forget exactly what you didn't understand because I'm going to walk you through it step by step. So please interrupt. Um I'm starting here first with a slide from work session one which feels like ages ago but it was only two weeks ago. Um where we talked about section A and section A of the budget book is where we step through and build up from an FY26 adopted budget. So our current year's budget and then all the changes that are happening to build up to next year's FY27 draft funding request. There are many many changes that are happening but for the ease of communication they are grouped together in these categories and these changes include baseline adjustment, non-discretionary, new schools, workforce investments, service reductions, and new proposals. These changes equal

09727.1 million. And that's the difference between this year's budget and next year's proposed budget. I also want to emphasize again that most of the numbers we'll be discussing tonight are changes. So if you see a dollar amount and you see the word compensation next to it, that doesn't mean that's the cost of compensation. That's the change in cost of compensation from one budget to the other. So we're talking about um changes for the most part. The way per pupil is calculated is you take the um total adopted budget um we're focusing on the school fund and you divide by the number of students. So for example the FY26 adopted budget of $284 million um is divided by our number of prek to 12 students which is $14,000. That provides a per pupil budget in FY26

098of $20,000. Then we add in those changes that were in the previous slide. That's the 27.1 million. We add that to the adopted budget and get to the draft funding request, which is $311 million. We take that number and divided by the number of pupils to get to a new per pupil amount of $22,000. So these next few slides, so this is just for one year, FY26 to 27. Um, I really like this kind of I think it's called a waterfall chart. It's building up from one place to the next. You can do the same analysis for multiple years. So, what we've done is uh done a budgettobudget change from FY20 all the way through FY27. There's a separate handout that you all have with lots of numbers on it. Um, and I'll go through

099each of these um, what what it means in detail, but what's on the slide is a summary version to summarize exactly what's on the handout. So, we'll start with FY21. The adopted budget was $193.7 million. So, that number is divided by the number of students at that time, 14,236, and the per pupil calculated amount is 13,69. When you move across the sheet of paper from FY21 all the way to FY27, you can see that the change from previous year in terms of the total budget is increasing. There's a percentage increase every year. In addition, the per pupil budget is also increasing. You can see the percentage change from year to year. In total, since FY20, um, the changes have equaled $111.8 million. or if you converted it to a per pupil amount, it's about $8,000

100per pupil. If you're following that, you might say, "Well, why why is the per pupil increasing?" Um, if you look on the line that says budgeted enrollment for K12, you'll see that we've talked about this a few times now. Our um enrollment has steadily grown since the pandemic, but not at a significant rate. it has it has grown at a rate that is smaller than the rate of budget growth. And so when you have that, the per pupil amount is going to grow. And so everything in the rest of the page, so the middle to the bottom of the page shows you every change that has been made since FY20 to show you why the expenditures are increasing. Again, this has been simplified. Even this paper has been simplified to categorize expenditures in such a

101way that we can compare them from year to year and it's oversimplified. Um if you are interested in any of the specifics behind each category, they're outlined as u mostly as new proposals or non-discretionary technical changes in every budget book in section A. So you don't even need to read if you wanted to go back to a different year. Just look at section A and you'll be able to find exactly what the changes were and that's what's outlined on the handout. >> What is VRS? >> H oh retirement. >> Oh, thank you. >> Yep. Virginia retirement system. So what's on the slide in front of you is a summary of that $8,000 and what has contributed to that change. So, um, as you can see, the, um, largest bars are compensation, health care, and new

102proposals. So, I figured we might spend a little extra time on those. So, those are the three drivers of what is changing our per people amount since FY20. We'll start with compensation. Um, and compensation is one of those items that, you know, is not related to the number of students or student growth. So this is something that would increase per pupil at any school division. It's closely aligned with inflation and cost of living. Um so you would expect that to increase post pandemic. You might remember that inflation levels and cost of living was incredibly high unprecedented levels. And these compensation changes you can see post pandemic also reflect um that. So um in FY21 there was no salary increase given. In 22 there was a five to four% salary increase given and so on. So

103you can see that we've separated um the teachers and the classified employees because they often receive different salary raises based on our different compensation strategies each year. Um overall if you add up the I didn't compound the percentages but if you just add up the percentages teachers have received um greater than a 37% salary increase and classified employees has have received a greater than 36% salary increase. So this is the single um largest driver of per pupil as you can see from that last chart. There any questions on compensation? I also want to note that when we say compensation, it's called compensation because it includes the salary costs, but also the associated benefit increases that are a percentage of salary. So that would include FICA, VRS, retirement, um, group life, and um, other benefits that

104are percentage based of your salary. >> Questions or comments? >> I think >> it does not include health insurance, right? because that's not related to salary but perfect leavein to the next slide another driver is healthc care increase um this is the same chart um I shared in work session one just expand it showing more years where we've seen um a very significant increase in the healthcare rates starting with the FY23 budget going all the way through into the FY27 draft funding request overall we're seeing a 134 4% increase. Again, that's unrelated to student enrollment. Those are increases in cost to provide the same level of services. And then um the last major driver is new proposals. So this is a list of every new proposal that has been approved by the school board beginning

105with FY21, which is not included here because because there were no new proposals that year. Um, but you can see them listed out by um by their different titles or what we called them. I do I put FTE amounts next to them just so you can get a sense of why FTE counts are increasing. The total cost of the proposal is not always FTE. So you can tie this slide into um the bottom half of this sheet lists the dollar amounts if you wanted to um tie them with a dollar amount. It's correlated with FTE counts but not exactly. Um and then the ones that are starred, those are proposals that were added in a specific budget year and then um but they haven't been fully carried forward because of a reduction in our budget

106process. Any questions? >> Questions from the board? >> Back to the last slide for a second. I know you don't have a crystal ball. Um, and I I understand from somebody who's way smarter than I am. This is getting into the weeds that the cost of the health insurance does um those projected costs come out based on a calendar year. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> So, as we're planning for the budget for fiscal year 27, we've got to base those estimates on costs that came out six weeks ago or whatever, >> 1 of January. >> Historically, has that estimate been pretty close? Do we have, you know, within a certain range there? It's a good question. Um, for the last couple of years, we have underbudgeted our expenses for healthcare. Um, and I believe

107it was last fiscal year we had to make a one-time infusion to build our reserve back up. And so, um, that was an I think a sound approach to be where we want to be. Um, and but we have seen what we do is we look at the trend from and Dan correct me if I'm saying anything out of place, but we're looking at trends for the current year. what we're actually experiencing and we're extrapolating that into the future. And so what we're seeing now is that our um expenses for healthcare are stabilizing back to a more I guess normal level than before. And so that's the projection for the next plan year. The reason why the there's still an 18% increase is because we're still paying for plan year 26, our current year. Yeah.

108>> As part of next year's budget. And that increase is part of that blue column. And so I would ex if if the stabilization continues, I would expect that when we're talking about FY28, that percentage will keep coming down to reflect more of the plan yearto plan year increase, which is more in the range of around 10%. >> In the history of the universe, have healthc care costs ever come down, Maya? >> The percentage increases have come down. Yes, I think that's what I meant to say. Yeah. glass half full. >> Thank you. >> And forgive me because I'm new. At what point did we decouple from the county in terms of health insurance? >> We haven't. We're still coupled with them. >> Okay. Sorry. >> They um >> I'm thinking of HR. >> Yes.

109Okay. >> Well, and I and I've wondered this is that a possibility to since we've separated our HR to have control over our health costs. We'd have a smaller population, >> a smaller pool, more susceptible to variability and high costs >> because we're a bigger chunk of it. >> Yeah. >> There are only what 600 >> I think the county government's in the 900s and we're about 2800. >> So it would have the effect of shrinking our risk pool which >> could have the unintended consequence of raising our rates. you're spreading the total. I just wonder if we're the majority of it if we could have more say in what the cost you know >> we're told how much to spend but don't have any say right in >> making the just >> there is

110there is a joint steering committee that makes decision or guides decision-m okay >> while the fund is overseen ultimately by the county >> gotcha >> there's a joint effort >> gotcha yep >> okay thank you for the clarification >> invite people >> right >> so we invite another county >> right >> I don't Yeah, >> invite the city. >> Yeah, invite the city. Keep first step in this collaboration. >> That is something that you are seeing happening in these in these kind. >> The other thing we're seeing is that other localities are experiencing the same thing. So, it's not just us, right? >> What's in what anecdotally I've seen that we experienced these increases earlier, >> they're seeing it upcoming >> and so while we're stabilizing, they're seeing big spikes. And I find that interesting.

111That's been that's been a topic of the regional superintendent meetings and I last year I was talking about >> our really uh huge increases that we were having and there were there were a handful there's 25 school systems in our region a handful were talking about the same thing. This year it's everybody else. >> Yeah. >> It's like they've all it's it's all come home for them. And then I would add that um there are multiple agencies that are also part of the uh health insurance pool. So the jails um >> can you think of other >> um ECC >> ECC's in there? So authority >> they're smaller but they all add up to make it a pretty pretty good size uh pool. Um so speaking of other divisions, this last slide um is a

112comparison of all Virginia school divisions in the blue. So we'll start at the bottom. The blue line represents per pupil expenditures for Virginia on average. And then the yellow going up one step represents ACPS's per pupil over time. And then the dotted lines are the same thing, but they're adjusted for inflation and represent today's dollars. And so um you can see that from 2008 which is post great recession all the way through around FY21 that inflationadjusted dotted line is pretty flat. Um what's happening in FY22 through FY24 that's where we see the increase and that's why we focus this analysis on that time period. So we'll start first with FY22 labeled 22 actual. In that year, uh, we made a we made a student enrollment projection. This was right after the pandemic. Um, and we

113we expected students to come back and they didn't. Well, they did, but not at the rate that we projected. And so the variance from our enrollment projection, which our budget is based on, to the actual students that showed up after the budget year had started was -628. And so that's why you see that spike of well we budgeted for 628 students that didn't come in and that's why that per pupil is spiked. The year-over-year change in reality was 260. So we actually added 260 students that year. We just didn't add the full, you know, 800 students that um had left from the pandemic. The year-over-year percentage change that year was 2% while the state enrollment percentage change was 0%. So we actually growing quicker than the state in 22 but we had overbudgeted that year.

114In 23 we corrected that. So you can see our variance from projection was close to zero um or 0% and we added 125 students. The year-over-year enrollment change was 1% in line with the state. And then in 24 we under we are getting closer but not quite there. We overbudget by overbudgeted by 262 students. We saw um a slight decrease that year but just a 0% change both for us and for the state. So that's the enrollment side which is um the the denominator. What's happening in terms of expenses over those same years is that um we had a 20% compensation increase as you saw on the slide with the year-to-year compensation changes. We had a 50% healthc care increase. Um, as I mentioned, those two items have nothing to do with enrollment. But what

115is related to enrollment is we also decreased class sizes during those years. So, we said we want to keep the staff we have and the teachers we have, the students didn't show up the way we expected, but we want to take advantage of that and keep our class sizes small, especially with recovery learning recovery efforts. We, the school board felt that was important. So that added 30.5 FTE. Um some of the other major proposals that were approved during those years was the school-based substitute proposal that added 57 FTE. And a lot of these proposals like the schoolbased subs, it's not just net ads. Schoolbased subs have lowered our costs for wages we pay to temporary employees. Um so that was added. And then mental health supports, we've added 30 FTE in that area. So on

116the right are the kind of the biggest expenditure changes those years and then at the bottom are also the impacts of enrollment. And then after FY24 though I think it's interesting that we are getting back to kind of the this the same we're getting closer to where we were with the statewide average where we were in all the previous years. Um and we're kind of moving along the same trend line as a state. So again, we talked about health care being a trend and market compensation. We provide those recommendations based on the market. And so you can see per pupil, we are generally in line with the rest of the state with a few exceptions during those middle years that are highlighted. So I will open it up for questions and discussion. Questions or comments

117from my peers? So I think this was one of the first questions I sent to you is like is there like we continue both from constituents as well as board of supervisors to just provide a better explanation of per pupil and I appreciate this. I may have you talk me through it a little bit more before I present to the board of supervisors. But I think this the chart um the waterfall chart I think to date has done the best explanation instead of just saying it's it's a list of things but to show the the added um impact um and the size of it um is important. So a huge thank you. The only other thing I and I think we've talked about this before and I don't know if Dan knows it. Like I

118know we can say like there's data out there that says where Virginia as a whole ranks in the country, right, for teacher salaries and I think it's like we're number 26. I because teacher salary and staff salary is a moving target, right? Because everyone's going through budget season. Just as I'm showing this to kind of to my peers at the board of supervisors, you know, you see this, oh my gosh, we did, you know, the the size of the compensation jump. However, if you put it, you need to show it in context that we are still at a level, you know, lower than 25 states and you kind of in the mid median of the state. So if there's anything else we can show just to to to show that that yes we've made a

119huge investment but our still teachers are still like there I said Dr. Uh there's an article out right now about the number of teachers who have to work. This is nationwide second jobs, right? Um or who get some kind of assist to federal assistance. And so I also want to help the public understand like, yeah, it looks like we're giving them huge raises, but because of where they started, this is just in a way keeping up with inflation. We're still not making the gains that we really need to to show the um to to show what teachers and staff actually deserve. So, if there's anything in that context that we could include um that you know, Dan, or just when we present to uh the board of supervisors, I think would be helpful. >> Yep,

120that's a great idea. >> Yeah. I think the expression is um we're a taller tree. I wouldn't even say we're a tall tree, >> but we're a taller tree in a really short forest. >> Yeah. >> When you think about Virginia. >> Yeah. >> And the overall lack of expenditure on on public schools in Virginia, >> I didn't even know we were up to 26. I think that's where I heard the last, but we can you can we can someone can fact check me on that. Good evening, school board. I'm Jackson Zimmerman. I'm your school finance officer. I'm coming to present to you uh a preview of uh what's going to be on consent agenda for next week. uh is the financial report for the second quarter of the year. We have um I know

121you're talking about budget for this upcoming year, but we also have resources in the current year and those resources some of those resources are available for to meet the needs of kids in our current year, but they're also a few resources that we're we're proposing potentially to be used to address resource needs for next fiscal year. So that's why the second quarter financial report has some bearing upon where we are in the budget process right now. Let me skip to the next next page. We our operations for the the last quarter are very very similar as to what we saw in the first quarter. We have accelerated a little bit of our our expenditures because we started the year a little earlier. Our reception of resources in terms of uh revenues is very similar as

122have we've experienced over the past few years. The only thing that's sort of changed on our expenditures is we're accelerated a little bit um since we opened school earlier. Uh there's also a side effect of opening school earlier since we had sort of a a crossover of our benefit packages during that time period. We are experiencing some one-time savings associated with that because of the crossover of the coverage of health care. We had budgeted through August for the prior year. We started in August. So therefore, we didn't double up on that healthcare payment during that time period. So there's some one-time savings associated with that that doubling up of that that potential crossover of coverage from the decision to open school a little bit earlier. So, we've identified some savings that we believe we'll we'll

123have available to us through the end of this coming cycle as part of that uh of of of our ending of the year for 25. Sorry, going back. So, what we'll see here is a new projection of our fund balance. uh very very similar as to what you have seen with the first quarter financial report with the exception that we have made there is an audit adjustment that's been posted. So when you saw the first quarter financial report, there was not an audit adjustment part of that. Uh there were um some small adjustments associated with inventory that were made, but the large adjustment was um a component that's a brand new Gazsby uh government accounting standards board uh pronouncement that forced us to account for um our ESBITS, our our uh technology uh contracts that

124we have that carry forward across multiple years. And so there was a $500,000 plus dollar adjustment in that process to account for espits and that is reflected in our in our uh projections that are showing what's available fund balance during this time period. So we're showing um we had our fund balance we have some of the audit adjustments. We did collect more revenues than we expended last year. So we had a very good financial performance for last fiscal year. So therefore, we started off this year with about $4.5 million in available fund balance of that money. $91,000 was uh budgeted in the budget that is we're currently operating under. uh we have uh purchase order carry forwards from the end of the year last year that vendors didn't deliver all the goods and that leaves

125us with um and then we're we we have some savings that are going to be generated for this year. $1.8 million of that savings was due to that one-time health insurance benefits component. uh and then we have identified some other savings that are associated with that as well. We have some recommended one-time expenditures that will be uh shown uh on the next page. And then we're looking at um available fund balance for at the end of this current cycle, this current fiscal year that may assist with um budgeting for next year. components of it may. So, we have a recommendation of one-time funding. Some components of this are in the current year. We re we're we intens anticipate using some of those savings that we've generated in the current year to meet some current year

126needs. Uh things that we we really do must in some of these issues, we must address them. uh particularly the things that are associated with trailers and classrooms. Um vehicles, we've had a long-term need for replacing some of our vehicles, um instruments and arts equipment. Uh we're recommending uh we are planning on spending those dollars in the current year. Uh and then for fiscal year 27, we have some recommendations for one-time items that can be used in fiscal year 27. Um, these items are uh recommendations for you to consider during your budget process. We would add them on to the budget process at the end of this at the end of your cycle. Um, but these are proposals that staff is bringing forward for discussion uh and consideration during the budget cycle. So, this is

127where we have current year needs that we're going to discuss and then future budgetary needs that can be met using one-time funds. Again, there will be a full uh financial report on your consent agenda for next week. Uh, and if you wanted to pull that and I'll be I'll be available to discuss it. um or um any discussions that we might have on uh this presentation tonight. >> Is the recommendation under textbooks um $600,000? Would that be in addition to the $800,000 in the proposed I was going to ask >> budget? >> It would be uh $600,000 in addition to what is proposed. Um, can we get a sense of what some of those unfunded instructional resources are that would be >> We'd be happy to come forward with additional information on that. Thank you.

128>> Um, similar to the if we could get that as well as the transfer to technology replacement to just get a kind of a list of what would be included in that. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Other questions? I have a wedi question. So, you said there was a kind of on page or uh POS that were open POS. I know this goes way back um to Dr. Hayes. I know when we had issues with our math, the new math curriculum, one of the things we talked about, you kind of assured the board is like we were having these issues. You're working with them and at that point we hadn't paid them anything. And I'm just wondering where that is. Is that what this that number is or has that have we already has that been

129paid? >> Has that been resolved? Thank you. >> Good evening. It has not been resolved. >> Um we are in the process now of reviewing the items. They shared uh the updated items with us and so we're in the process of reviewing those. Um we're going to share some uh things with our staff at the principal's meeting next week and then if everything looks good, we'll work with our finance department to move forward with the close out. One of the things that um they're going to do is replace the items that we received this year that were faulty and then send some new items as well. >> Got it. So would that be >> it would do you think that's part of that PO carry forward or is that already is that part of the

130PO carry forward? I don't think so. Okay. >> I don't think so. I think it's a separate >> It's already It's kind of being >> It's already a separate >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Just a a comment. It's my understanding that when we did away with the fees for students to be in band or in in in one of the musical things, the fees used to be collected at each school which provided the replacement funding. So this is our effort to equalize access to music. Uh but there somebody has to pay the piper I guess >> it's helpful. Okay. >> Yes the answer. So right this is an effort to level the playing field so all students would have access and so if they're not collecting fees we pay the fees >>

131to replace the instruments. >> That is correct. Um and uh also we want to make sure that students that are signing up for our courses don't if if I'm choosing to play the trumpet and we don't have a trumpet then I don't say I don't want to be in band. Um, and so, you know, that was one of the challenges that we were hearing from our community. Um, that I want to do this, we don't have it now. I have to go do the flute. I don't want to do the flute, so I quit band all together. And so, we wanted to make sure we eliminated that barrier. Um, and making sure we updated our instruments, had enough for students um, across the division as well as um, our performing arts and uh, digital arts

132uh, programs as well. some of our our equipment um has very special like unique uh needs like our kils and things like that and so we want to make sure that that those uh courses can be offered and don't create a burden for our schools. Um so we want to make sure we can we have those funds at the division level >> and unlike many school divisions that did away with their arts departments we have always supported them and that is part of the cost per student. >> Y thank you. That's helpful because that has come up with conversations with principles and and and constituents before of kind of where is this replacement money coming from in the future. >> All right. So, I'm going to um zoom us back out to kind of the

133overall picture looking at next year. This does not include those one-time items. We'll bring those back forward when we're getting closer to adopt a budget. Trying to keep the one-time items separate from this um budget based on recurring revenues. Um the expenditures that we've been looking at for next year are $311.3 million. At the um the superintendent's draft funding request presentation, that balanced to our anticipated revenues. Um and then as we provided an update last week, those revenues are projected to be lower by about $6.4 million. So um the discussion for this evening really um is three questions. One is which revenues do you want to approve for the FY27 funding request? whether it's the a balanced budget based on formula that was the um presentation earlier in February or a balanced budget based on

134updated revenues. So that would include reductions in the expenditures to match the $6.8 million in anticipated revenues. So we'll start with that first question and then we'll get um to the other two questions. I would do it based on a the historical funding formula that the county we've used with the county for the past what 30 plus years. Um I mean they already last year deviated from that funding formula by their 4 cent tax increase giving us a tenth instead of 60%. So that would be my inclination. I I agree because I haven't really gotten a sense or answer about what has changed about the county's priorities such that we're no longer working from that long-standing formula. Um I think for us to have a discussion about what our priorities are um is a robust

135discussion. I think that's really important um to see what is working and what we would like to see different and what our priorities are. That's our job. But I don't yet have a sense of why, you know, the priorities for the for the county is lower for the schools this year than in previous years. >> Plus, our our legal obligation is to provide a needs-based budget and we of course needs-based funding request. And of course, in the end of it, we have to have a balanced budget, but that's not what's required at this point. Do you have a sense about what's going on with the paternalistic I will hold 6.4 million and we'll talk about it later. I mean does anybody have a sense as to what that's about? >> You can talk about out

136loud. >> What? No. What has been stated is um the purpose of it is to provide future flexibility for the board of supervisors >> out of our funding. >> Yeah. Out of what we would have traditionally received. So it was the combination of two things. One is to set aside funding for capital for the capital improvement plan but not designate it for schools and then to flatten the variability of funding that can occur when we have fluctuations in the LCI. That was the >> right or they were looking at um our increase in state funding which is a in a significant percentage increase when you look at one year to the next. Um, as you all know, that was a restoration from the last two years. >> And we'll um, so Jason, I just reviewed

137um, a little while ago, Jason has developed a a slide deck. So, it's going to be a little different when we do the 2 by twos. It will not be just a presentation of a rehash of what we presented before. This will be a discussion about that, about the shift in the funding. and we're we're going to be seeking to invite a conversation about it and we'll see how it goes. I mean, I don't think doing the rehash of the presentation will do that. It will just be more um inviting governing officials to get down in the weeds around how we're doing the work in the school system. Whereas uh I think by taking this approach which is more focused on the funding and the prioritization of schools in the funding what it should engender

138that conversation we we are hopeful and just looked at today he's done a really nice job of putting it all together. So >> I mean I think one of the things I always think about and I think Dr. house and I talked about this right before his presentation is that when you're doing a budget, right, be it for your home, be it for a school, be it for a county, you have to take a slice of data at that time, right? You can't continue and I think you this is why now you're said you're like we're not going to continue to adjust if we're hearing potentially something um uh relevant from the state. And so I think in my sense doing that is like everything was built around this number which was the number we

139had uh history on. And so I feel like using that number because that is what this budget was built on. Um and to to Dr. Akos's point is we have to provide a needsbased budget. Um and I think we are showing that there are there are a number of needs that we have that we if we that we are going to have to cut um if we already bring down that funding level. So >> I I've I feel like it doesn't really have to be A or B. I feel like it could be somewhere in between because I don't necessarily agree with everything that's in the budget and everything that we want to spend money on. So, in my opinion, I think there are some things that could be cut or re-evaluated that would drop

140that 311 down, but there's no way we're going to cut $6.5 million. That's not like >> But I I do think that there is probably somewhere in between that we could land on that. Um, >> yes, it's a needsbased budget, but do we need everything that's in there or are we, you know, are there some cuts that can be made or that we can economize on that? Um, we get that paper down slightly. >> I I think that is a good point. I mean, it I always take everything back to kind of your own old own household budget, right? Like we all have needs, but like how do we continue to think about are we make making the best choices with our money? are there things that maybe were working five years ago um that

141are not as relevant? So, I know we have historically we made significant budget cuts in the last two years, but I just think it's good fiscal operations um and because fiscal oversight is a piece of our board for us to continue every year to look at that and do that. You know, keeping the needs of our students in mind, but also saying, you know, is this piece still working? um are we being the most efficient and effective with our money? Um and I think that that is falls well within our um our duties as board members to analyze that. Um which is why I I do think that there's probably some compromise to be made. >> Well, I mean I think isn't that though the difference between a funding request and a balanced budget is

142when do you make those cuts? And I think in terms of our legal obligations to advocate for what we think would be the best um we may we will unless the unless Jackson finds us some more one-time funding and uh the supervisors relax a bit. We're going to have to make cuts. Um, but the issue for me is how do we keep the funding a needsbased funding request, which is not the same thing as a budget. How do we keep that in its best form and then come back and do what we have to do? We've always balanced budget. It's been painful many times in the past decade. Um but yeah, no I hear you and I and I don't necessarily disagree but I think um as we are presenting what those needs are, have

143we analyzed it as a board? Have we looked at are those truly our needs and are we presenting that to to the board of supervisors? And I and you know I I think we we may disagree on on when we would start to analyze that. I think it it is good fiscal responsibility to say look we looked at all this stuff These are programs that aren't necessary and and um we can cut those. Um >> but yeah, I mean we still want to negotiate against ourselves. >> It's also good fiscal responsibility for the county to be consistent with us from year to year. Absolutely. And you know, if there are things that we can cut, then let's cut them and throw that money into capital because we our capital needs are unfunded. >> No, absolutely.

144and they're not promising that money is going to go towards absolutely >> we don't want X Y and Z or we can do without X Y and Z that would be money that we could save to to go to capital or some other thing >> more effective absolutely I don't see how the public would support changing the formula just on a whim like this >> well and and not doing it out in the public and and doing it you know that that to me is what bothers me about this whole situation is that it was done behind closed doors in close session, not out in the public saying, "Hey, this is why we came up. We don't even know why they decided to do that." And that is what feels um frustrating, I guess, or

145>> biting my tongue. Um but we also have to find a way to work with them um and and um repair, I don't know. I don't know what the right word is, but um make this work in some way. Maya, does the 311 million include what we had talked about before of of 4 something million to go to the CIP? >> Yes. >> So, if we strip that out, then the additional cuts that need to be made is roughly 2.3 million. Is that correct? >> Yes, that's correct. >> Okay. >> But we don't know that they're not going to still say you have to take six million. They're going to take six million regardless. I don't know. Plus, can we really cut anything from our CIP, >> right? Like I mean, because they're they want

146to put it in a fun in holding, but not necessarily for CIP, >> right? >> Well, I'm wondering if the board of supervisors will actually take what the county administrator wants to do and follow and and and follow along with it and and and do it. So therefore, if you take if you do B, you use updated revenues and you cut, then the board of supervisors is just going to take whatever cuts we want and run with it. Right? So therefore, we should do a based on the historic 54% formula, right? Does that make sense? >> Makes sense to me, Bob. >> I'm going to restate question number two based on the feedback you've provided. So if you want to balance based on formula if do you have any changes you would recommend? >> Hold

147on. Can you now you me >> if if you want to balance a budget based on what was presented um in the draft funding request. Is there anything within that you would want to change in preparation for approving it next week? >> Not at this time. >> No. You can always change it later, right? >> Yeah. So, uh I just want to make sure just to clarify if we have specific ideas about budget items that need to be changed. Is this the time to raise those issues or are you saying either speak now or forever hold your peace? >> No, this this would be kind of a a first time you could raise that. Um and then that would give staff time to work on that because we are adopting a budget at the end

148of April which really isn't that much time and that many meetings. >> Okay. >> Um so we can start the conversation now but the funding request is typically um at kind of the dollar figure for the school fund. So you're requesting a dollar amount. What goes into that dollar amount can be changed today or it can be changed during the school year. Um, so there's a there's flexibility in how that money is spent. This is kind of the starting point is the full dollar amount. Okay. And then we'll come back, >> right? So if we wanted to reallocate the 4 million that that that Jim just raised that we were going to put into capital, we could do it after the funding request, but before the adoption of the final budget. Yeah. >> Yes. and

149and um I haven't talked about this before, but the budget that's adopted can be amended throughout the year, which is what we're doing with um we have some fund balance savings this year. So, we're proposing to change our spending to make sure we spend that money. And that's something you can do throughout the year is change um how you want to spend. >> So, it's not there's a lot of touch points and a lot of stages, but nothing is ever final. And if I remember Jackson's presentation, that amount currently we have a fund balance of $5.3 million >> and that's projected for the end of FY26. >> If you accept the recommendations in the one time, that would be the projected amount we have at the end of this year. >> Okay, that's good news.

150I think >> are we hearing anything any good news from the state in terms of educational funding? >> Um, yes. a few hours ago, I received some updates, but um and they're all generally positive, but we um I'm not presenting anything specific because um they're two separate versions of the budget. >> Once those there's the crossover or the the conference budget where it's kind of the agreed upon negotiation, that's when we would build in um a state revenue update. So, um we're not recommending any changes to revenues at this point. But we should have that info before the adoption of the final budget. >> Perhaps we'll have a version. Yeah, they've dragged it out for Yeah, >> the hope would be I mean the two and I'm just interested in looking at a little closely.

151I think we mentioned earlier just um on the the textbook which would be there's a there's like the There's the 800,000 plus the 600. I think I'm interested in just seeing just understanding what that looks like across pre-K12 and then just the the the technology like what is included. Again, not questioning it, but just trying to like anytime I see these large pieces in the budget, just trying to understand kind of what that is being used for. >> I think we did get a breakdown of the 800. >> Did Okay, I apologize. >> No, that's fine. But not the technology, but we did get it on the 800. Um, I would like more information on the half million dollars. That's a discretionary um amount for safety officers and talent. Um, that's kind of I don't

152even know what page it's on. Um, I'll have to go find it. Sorry. But that's a lot of money and it's just kind of in there. Um, but we hadn't really discussed adding additional um, >> safety officers or safety I I'm sorry. I >> school security officers. >> Thank you. Um but you know that's half a million dollars. I would love a little more where that came from. Um and um yeah. >> Yeah. I Let me start first with the technology piece. Um that number represents um a replacement of our classroom display equipment. This was a proposal that was submitted. >> Um and it's not funded. It's not in the budget. >> Um but they do need to be replaced. Um there is some conversation about whether they all need to be replaced. Um maybe

153it can be done in stages. Do we really need to replace all of them? So it's it's um it's a more of a technology contingency. We know we need the money. The equipment needs to be replaced. We haven't decided exactly what it will be used for, but there are and if we don't use it for that, we would, you know, come back and describe that or it could be used for other technology. But as a placeholder that is um mostly for display technology. Um with regards to the school security officers, the reason why um you have noticed um that those FTEs have gone up is it's simply a budget change. There's no change in in increasing the number of school security officers. What schools have been doing is um using their own staffing to staff

154to the level that they would like. And so what we're doing with the FY27 request is better reflecting so it's more transparent the level of school security officers we have in the school. So there's no additional cost to it. It is a shift of cost from instructional staffing to SSOS to reflect what the schools have decided to do for talent development. Those FTE changes are incorporated into the workforce investments proposal. it was about $4 million in um making sure we adhere to the collective bargaining agreements. Um so in order to adhere and make sure we have the guaranteed lunchtime and the guaranteed planning time um those FTE increases were recommended to ensure we have the right staffing to be able to provide um those benefits and that's included as part of the cost of workforce

155investments. >> Okay. Thank you. So, um it sounds like um the consensus is we would bring back a balanced budget based on formula that is um the draft funding request um without any changes. Um and so are there any other questions or requests or about the process itself that I'd be happy to answer? >> I this would be for Dr. Berlin's presentation to the funding request. I mean, I would like to see a um the a graph or a chart of the the traditional allocation of the formula, the revenue formula that we you know, how this is a deviation from that. Well, I can't force Dr. Berlin to talk about that, but I I would offer it as a suggestion. >> We we have that in the works already. >> Okay, good. >> Um All

156right. So the next step would be um a week from today uh we'll bring forward a a quick item for you to approve the schoolboard funding request and um we're still open for questions. As I said it's an ever evolving process. It can be changed at any time. So we're always open for feedback throughout. There are no deadlines. >> When is the funding request? What what is the date of that? >> March 16th. >> Yeah, it's March 16th at 5:00 p.m. though. That's a change. >> That is a change. Monday. Yeah, they'd be just because of new um some of the new the schedules of the current the new board of supervisors I think just until so >> I'll be part of the cheering squad. >> Thank you very Dr. >> Um and yes and

157um uh just yeah and just as a reminder we just go back just for a second to the to this slide that shows the for everyone um and the public making sure you're staying a breast of all of the information. and it's all up on the website as well as um questions and and I promise to read the rest of them before the next meeting. And thank you and uh I think we're going to ask you how many were submitted um at the next meeting. We don't have to count right now, but >> Brooke did count today. Okay. Oh, did >> I for next week put >> and 50 pages >> that's that is thank thank you for all of your work and then thank you to the public for your engagement. Um I want

158to know how many pieces of paper they generated. That's what I want to know. >> Speaking of savings, >> 400 of them yours. >> So pulling my agenda. Yeah. >> Um so we are now moving into um uh 7.0 other business. So other business by the school board members and superintendants. I know Mr. Dylan has an appointment to the long range planning uh committee. This is also a time where we could talk about um our committees or school visits. >> You want you go so I don't forget. >> Yeah. I am delighted to uh mention that um Craig Weiss, a community member of Longstanding, um is the new appointee from the Rio District to the Long Range Planning Advisory Committee. Uh he and his family have been residents of uh Alamar County for many years.

159He's got at least three kids that have gone through ACPS. uh and he's super super smart. So, I'm excited to have him as part of the committee. >> Thank you so much for that. >> Um I just wanted to mention that I spoke with a scout troop. Um they were the Wee Belows. Uh and it was hilarious and fun. >> What grade is that? Like third, fourth. >> It's like fourth, fifth around there. Um there was a lot of like, you know, flipping your eyelids inside out. It's a I think Anyway, um it just was a lot of fun and we talked about uh elected officials and then what happens if there's a tie and how many votes did you get? How many people vote? Anyway, it was a very interesting thing. So, if you're

160in uh invited, I would fun. >> They asked like, "Are you going to be president of the United States next?" We're like, "No, >> how many years can you serve?" >> And I said, "Well, what what do you think?" And he said, "400 million." And I was like, "That's correct. I can serve 400 million." >> Thank you. >> Um Dr. House and I had a visit to Western on Monday which was great cuz my kids go to Western. Um got to see one of them in art and it was a great visit. Um no cell phones out at all. It was really impressive and it was quiet and um Western had a fire today which was interesting in one of their pods. I happened to be at the school when that happened so that was

161exciting. But um I also was in their theater tech. Um, Miss Gilman Bennett and I are volunteering on the uh, high school musical uh, committee. So, we are in charge of um, propaganda. I don't know what do you call it? Promotion. Propaganda. Close. Promotions. Promotions. It's been a week. It's been a week. Um, but that should be really exciting. It's going to be the last week of April. So, I encourage you guys to come. And we have students who are actually doing the promotion for the first time. And so they had amazing ideas of how they wanted to promote the show and get the whole school engaged in it. Um, so it was really impressive and I'm excited for that show. So >> yeah, I'm I'm really looking forward to the musicals. >> Yeah. >>

162What is the show? >> High School Musical. I know. It's like who's on first, what's on second and it's High School Musical is the High School Musical. Um, it's the 20th anniversary of High School Musical. So they're very excited about it. And um, yeah. So, they are um >> Zack Efron gonna make a >> I I don't know. I did get a I did get an appearance for their show last year. Maybe I can try to pull some strings. But they're very excited about it and I'm really impressed with the students um engagement in it and trying to get sports teams involved and other students to get involved and they're doing contests with teachers and um a photo booth and they're going to have apparently they have a cutout of Zack Efron and so they're

163going to put it in different classrooms and like where I don't remember the character's name but wherever he's going to like be in a different classroom every day and it's really it it was really great. >> Better than going to the movies. >> That's right. Yeah. Can we get a list? I'm trying to think of who I should look at for this. I don't know if it's Dr. Kaiser or Dr. Hayes. Could we just get a list of the >> um musical end of year musical, end of year concerts? Like we can't go to everything, but I know we'd love to do as much as we can and the more the earlier we have it and the more consolidated it is, the better. >> We at least have some representation from the board of each

164one. That would be great. >> Awesome. Thank you so much. I had a chance to visit the uh prek class at Woodbrook, one of them. Um, Front Porch, you may be aware of, is this great organization that have teachers go into the uh most of the uh preK classrooms in in the county um and teach music. They spend 30 minutes. I was there with Chris Matthews who's paid by front porch so it doesn't cost the ACPS anything and yet um kids are learning the alphabet and learning how to count using music which is fantastic. So I'm hoping to have front porch come and tell us a little bit more about what they do. But that was that was really cool. >> Cute. >> I know Dr. H has a statement. >> No, just real quick.

165Um, so I'd sent out an email to the board, uh, I think earlier this week, but what we what we what we're going to do, um, and I'll just read real quick. So, as you know, there will be a special election on April 21st. 18 of our 24 schools serve as polling locations, and several principles have already raised concerns about parking, traffic flow, and general crowd management on that day given the anticipated voter turnout. in light of those legit logistical challenges and considering that we still have two and a half days banked based on our instructional hours following, you know, we got through this last week. We're just kind of holding off on making a decision. I am planning to convert April 21st into a non- studentent day. We will follow up with additional information

166on expectations for each employee group regarding reporting that day or not reporting that day. This would allow teachers to use the day either as a workday or professional development day with the option to work on site or telecommute. I should also note that Charlottesville City Schools are planning to make the same adjustment to their calendar because this day will affect our shared K-tech programming. It makes sense for us to remain aligned with the city schools on this change. My intent is to support our schools in managing the operational realities of hosting polling locations while also providing staff with a productive day that benefits instruction and planning. So the 21st will be a non- studentent day. >> Great. >> Thank you. I appreciate >> Thank you so much. Do I have any other announcements or motions

167in front of me? Seeing none, it is Gosh, my eyes are bad. I'm going to look down at my phone. It is 8:50. Um and we are concluding this meeting. It is now adjourned. Thank you so much. >> I'm bad for