School Board Meeting - October 8, 2020

001and I called this October 8th meeting of the almal County School Board um to order we will now have a moment of silad okay thank you and as required by law we must read this into our minutes as long as we are uh meeting virtually the minutes of this meeting should reflect that this meeting is being held electronically person Virginia state law on almal County ordinance because the covid-19 pandemic makes it impracticable and unsafe to assemble a quum physically in a single location the meeting is being communicated to the public electronically through zoom and streamed to live on the alal County Public School's website and public comment may be offered through the zoom waiting room feature in accordance with the school board's protocol or by written submission I will now introduce our board members and

002then we will move on with the agenda and each member will give us um a mic check Dr Kate aov Kate aov Jack jitt District joh o Carol joh o Caro at large Vice chair Katrina Carlson uh Katrina cson Rio District Judy Lee Judy Lee Rana District Dave oberg Dave oberg whiteall magisterial District Ellen Osborne Ellen Osborne Scottsville district and tonight we are most highly favored to have uh our second School Board student rep present uh tonight Mr will trout so will will you give us a few introductory um statements for yourself yeah for sure uh my name is W I'm a School senior at monello uh I've been working with Mr rovac uh Mr Paige uh M Johnson the last couple months uh with um who with them and with Milani um I'm really

003excited to for for this upcoming quarter um I think with the with the connections and with the person with with the Rel I have with a lot of the students kind of throughout the county I feel like I can really give you guys an accurate uh representation as to the sentiment of of the of high school students at large um and really I'm just I'm just excited okay thank you so much uh will and we do look forward to working with you as our student rep uh for the next three months we now need a motion to approve our agenda for tonight I move that we approve the agenda second okay it has been moved by Mr alaro second by Dr a and I think Miss Lee did we approve the agenda um Mrs Thompson

004could you please give us a roll call Vote for This yes to approve the agenda Miss Lee yes Mr alaro yes Mr oberg yes Dr aov yes Miss Osborne yes Miss Carlson yes chairman Paige yes moving on to our next item we need now motion to approve um the consent agenda so could I have I move that we approve the consent agenda is there a second I okay was that misley all right I think it was a Carson a duet okay call say okay so it has been moved by Mr Delo um second by Dr a and Miss Carlson that we approved uh the consent agenda Miss Thompson please give us a roll call Miss Lee yes Miss Mr alcaro yes Mr oberg yes Dr A K yes Miss Osborne yes Miss Carlson yes chairman

005Paige yes okay thank you Mrs Thompson moving on to our next item public comment and vice chair Carlson will take he of this segment of our meeting Miss cson thank you chair Paige I will be moderating the public comment tonight I'm going to start by reading the public comment guidelines the school board invites and actively seeks the Public's input in the matters relevant to Schoolboard governance and provides for time during its business meetings to hear from almaral County residents and community members as authorized by ordinance of the county of almor the school board will hold its meetings electronically during the covid-19 pandemic the school board is committed to encouraging public comment for this reason there will be two ways for the public to provide comment first as as always written comments may be submitted to

006the school board clerk prior to the start of the meeting and will be given to all of the school board members for review second members of the public wishing to provide public comment during the Schoolboard meeting May sign up online by 2m the day of the meeting the clerk will email Zoom links to the speakers on the day of the meeting so that they can log in to provide comment before public comment commences I'm going to announce the order in which the speakers will comment there are a lot of speakers tonight I believe we're at 28 so I'm going to do it in three I'll do three speakers and then announce the next three um each speaker's access to public comment will be activated when it's your turn to provide comment because of the amount

007of speakers we are limiting the comments tonight to two minutes I will give you uh one when you when your one minute is up and when you have one minute left and then I'll do this when your time is up and and try to stop you um speakers during the meeting or those submitting written comments should State their name and their address or their magisterial District speak speakers should limit comments to those matters that are relevant to Schoolboard governance are the operations of the school board and although the school board will not respond to comments during the public comment period school board members May address comments at the end of the meeting uh agenda under other business with that we will start the first three speakers are going to be Tracy pulk Kristen Brock Meyer

008and Robin mat so miss pul if you're on you're up yes thank you first I would like to thank the school board and all School staff I know this environment isn't easy to make decisions and there isn't one plan fits all so we're doing the right thing and giving families different options I have two students in the county and third in seventh grade the point I wanted to make is regarding the nine-week decision process regarding the transition between the phases if it's determined that prek through third grade hybrid format is working why do the older GR grades have to wait nine weeks to return to inperson can't we evaluate every 2 to four weeks we have lived in three other states Louisiana Texas and Ohio my friends children in all those states are back to

009school and having success we moved here from Upper Arlington Ohio four years ago they started on time in August virtually and currently all their students in prek through 12th grade are back in a hybrid model and are planning to return five days a week in November they are implementing the same phase as we are and they're moving faster so it can be done we have friends and neighbors here in albam Maro County that decided to switch to private school this year all their students are back five days a week and they are having success with their safety precautions with the current phase evaluations taking place every nine weeks my older son won't be able to have even hybrid inperson instruction until January which doesn't seem fair when private schools and other districts have successfully returned

010to 5day inperson instruction I do support a staggered approach to returning in person I just feel like the decision shouldn't take nine weeks to advance the virus and a nine-week grading period have nothing in common the self-isolation of the middle and high school zooms all day from 9:30 to 4:30 is not sustainable or healthy they also deserve the opportunity to attend iners classes thank you thank you for those comments miss pul the next speaker is going to be Miss Kristen brockmeyer thank you first thank you to all the amazing teachers working hard under these impossible conditions the World Health Organization and the CDC agree that covid-19 poses little risk to schoolage children and is different from and doesn't spread in kids and to adults the same way as other viruses like influenza in the US

01140 children aged 1 to 15 have tra tragically died from covid but there's 57 million kids in the US aged 1 to 15 that's less than one in a million during the H1N1 outbreak in the US 300 children aged 1 to 15 sadly died but we didn't close schools schools around the world and in the US private schools in our County and local youth contact Sports in our County have all resumed and had no major outbreaks to speak of now let's talk data specifically for the Valley of the 20 public school districts in our region only eight remain fully remote and we're one of them of the 12 school districts that did reopen eight had and continue to have higher percent of positive cases than albam maral County none of the districts that reopen schools

012have had any type of covid outbreak among students or staff as a result of reopening and Amherst green and Bedford Counties have infection rates above 6% so again higher than almaral County but they already have PK through fifth face- tace four days a week and six through 12th face tace two days a week and have had no issues based on all the data available to us I support an immediate hybrid model not just for K through third but for all grades and a much shorter evaluation period in between the school board's job is to ensure that the best interest of the children is being met with an effective school system let's all as parents and Educators and as a community do our jobs and make sure our children are the priority and that all decisions

013on going back to school are based on fact and not fear thank you thank you miss brockmeier our next speaker is g to be miss Robin M hi good evening thank you for the time um I am in the whiteall district and I have students at Henley and Western first and foremost I want to say thank you to the teachers and the administration for their hard work many teachers have told me the workload to prepare for virtual learning is beyond taxing the quality of virtual learning versus in-person learning is just not the same just yesterday Robert panata the dean of the curry school did a live interview stating research shows virtual learning during the pandemic has caused disadvantaged students to lose 50% of their gains in reading and 70% of their gains in math I

014am grateful to hear Dr hos is recommending K to three to go back to school the data point he referenced in the Daily Progress that 20 school systems in our region with 23,000 students attending daily have only had three outbreaks and only five employees testing positive with no connection to the school and absolutely no students testing positive is certainly telling as to why and how it is safe to be in the classro but let's not forget about grades four and five and even more importantly our middle schoolers and high scho schoolers as a parent of a seventh and nth grader I am witnessing this unsustainable virtual live learning schedule with just a few short breaks students are literally having screen time or stuck at their desk from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. this self-isolation is

015unhealthy my kids finish school almost every day with a migraine and are physically and mentally deprived and depressed teachers are having to rush through lesson plans cutting out significant content they would be learning in the classroom this model is not safe it's not effective and it's not sustainable offering all of our students the chance to be back in the classroom needs to be our top priority we need to start planning now other school districts and private schools in Virginia are doing it safely 18 weeks is a really long time for the self-isolation learning on top of being out of the classroom since last March if transportation is a true issue acps should be more transparent that more bus riders equals less School parents should have to apply for bus ridership meeting a set of requirements

016thank you again for your time and I hope we are Paving the way for all of our students to have the opportunity to be back in the classroom very soon if that is what their family chooses thanks thank you miss m the next three speakers are going to be Megan Gasper Shan Boyd and Irene cron Megan if you're on it's your turn Miss Carlson Megan is not speaking tonight okay thank you actually our kids played t-ball together so I can just ask her what you wanted to say um next up then will be Shawn Boyd Sean if you're on it's your turn sorry it's hard for me to see all the speakers so I can't tell if they're on or not I see his name I'm on my video has been turned off there we

017go can you see me yep okay uh so um the name is Sean boydd we have three children in the school system all in the middle school at high school levels um and I understand the board is dealing with multiple constituencies here but we decided to speak today because we're concerned that the parents and the kids for that matter aren't really getting heard um we are heavily in favor of bringing the kids back to school the discussion tonight is about moving from stage two to stage three but frankly as a couple of the speakers have already mentioned we'd love to move even beyond that here are the points I need to hit number one virtual learning started in the spring out of the fear of the consequences that we might see if we continue to

018have the kids in the school while the virus was spreading that made sense given the unknowns at the time but we're six months down the road now we've got social distancing we're wearing masks we're being cognizant of power dealing with others and it's working it's working well enough that in Abal County city of Charlottesville and UVA students combined we've had roughly 3600 total confirmed cases our population is 180,000 people so I'm hitting different numbers here but it's the same message you've heard earlier we're hitting 2% of the population so if you stop and you think about it for a second you believe like we do the virtual learning is holding back the learning and the development of the kids we're harming 100% of the kids in the county basically to keep 2% from getting the

019virus we're not talking about deaths that's just confirmed cases many of which are mild or asymptomatic second Point students aren't getting the social interaction they need in-person learning requires lots of interaction with others you see the teachers your friends your School staff maybe a coach that's all gone right now those interactions help you grow and we're not getting that the students aren't getting that um third Point virtual learning is requiring massive amounts of screen time this has already been hit so I'm just going to let it go I think we understand the kids sitting in front of a laptop for six hours doesn't necessarily mean they're learning um last thing I want to H hit we do have clear precedent on inperson learning that it can be done successfully school systems in Europe reopened I

020mean very quickly starting in May preschools here in the states have been opened since the summer private schools including several here in Charlottesville Mr for the last month so it can be done and I'd like to see it thank you thank you Mr Boyd our next speaker is Irene cron hi thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak my name is Irene cron I'm an elementary school teacher at bris wood I have been for 20 years and I'm the parent of a student with special needs I'm here tonight to say that I strongly oppose our school systems move to stage three I'm pleased to tell you that how well my first graders have adjusted to online learning we have a positive classroom Community students are engaged in learning on zoom and through seesaw my colleagues

021and I have spent a great deal of time collaborating to provide students with Rich online learning experiences and it's working moving to stage three at this time would be more disruptive than helpful to the flow of learning for many stage three would be like starting the school year all over again new teacher new learning environment and a restructured classroom Community I believe that the aea's letter to the board requesting benchmarks be met related to covid-19 before moving to stage three is reasonable and is in the best interest of our school Community there's been no evidence provided that these benchmarks have been met also without rapid testing and a vaccine widely available in our area we must remain Vigilant my employer even with the best of intentions cannot keep any of us safe within a school

022building especially in classrooms with young children it's not developmentally appropriate to expect young children to adhere to social distancing and maske wearing students will need to remove class remove masks in the class to eat we all know that respiratory droplets remain suspended in the air for up to three hours students and staff won't be safe universities of opened including Notre Dame and North Carolina had outbreaks and had to close I have been mostly quarantined for seven months I'm doing my part to protect my family and community and prevent the spread of covid please do yours and vote to have our school system remain in stage two thank you miss miss callson you on mute thanks Graham uh the next three speakers are going to be Susan Holly Jennifer McDonald and Aaron Wise Aken bomb Susan

023if you're on on it's your turn hi uh can you hear me yes we can okay I cann't turn around the video my name is Susan Holly I'm a parro in the jack do District speaking today to ask the school board to vote today to reopen the schools to the fullest extent possible our children have suffered disproportionately during this pandemic and it's time for this to end schools have closed his March based on the premise that they would contribute significantly to coronav virus Transmission in our communities now that some schools in the Countryman open for as long as two months we know that's not the case k through 12 schools have not been sources of major outbreaks this trend carries over to our area where some public schools and numerous private schools many cases with

024students in school five days a week have been open for a month or more with zero outbreaks I would also ask that we look carefully at what the case theater in our area means well we've seen the rise in cases with arrival of UVA students UVA is handling the cases aggressively and as our health district director said we have not seen this spread into the community also the rate of hospitalizations at UVA has remained stable providing evidence that these outbreaks are not spreading to the more vulnerable populations also we need to really consider how how Wolly and adequate online learning is well teachers are doing their best I can't help but think of all the academic socialization enrichment my second grader also a special needs students denied iners uh schooling and other acps students have

025missed out since March and how far they're falling behind Additionally the lack of child care school used to provide has meant that parents are struggling to work full-time in some cases losing income stage three needs to go further with providing more days in school for more students so parents can work and support their families we cannot wait to reopen schools until the risk is zero this is not a standard we apply to any any other facet of Our Lives we cannot continue to sacrifice the physical and mental well-being of our children and families teachers and staff who at highest should be accommodated appropriately and individually for the rest of the acps population mitigation strategies will reduce the risk so we can do what's best for the children of Almar County thank you thank you Miss

026Holly the next speaker will be Jennifer McDonald Miss McDonald you're muted I know I've been there unmute there we go I know how to do this it's not working here is somebody muting me still or can you hear me we can hear you now you're good to go okay it just keeps flashing up that it's muted thank you this usually doesn't happen when I'm teaching I'm a teacher at ALB High School uh I am speaking not just for myself but for others who have shared their concerns with me I'm coming up on 27 years of teaching 18 of them in this County and the move to stage three does not affect me directly at this time but it affects my co-workers of ESL and special education students and it affects my colleagues who teach the

027younger elementary students and it affects all of our students who will be impacted I stand here as a voice and solidarity with them I do not believe that forcing people back into buildings when they do not feel safe will help increase the quality of learning for our students I have friends who teach in other districts and regions who have done the hybrid and the iners with masks distanced it is nothing approaching normal and it is not Superior to what we are providing right now in Virtual nothing is better than in person the way we are accustomed but this will not be that not being able to see people's Expressions not being able to properly interact with peers not being able to engage with class manipulatives barely being able to hear student responses through a mask

028these are not conducive to learning I wonder how many students will continue in person like this in in addition the morale of Staff who feel anxious and uncomfortable being back in a building cannot help but be felt by our students no matter how we try and mask our emotions much much less our faces I know we want to believe we can be safe I know we are looking at what rural communities around us are doing but Public Health experts continue to say the numbers and rates in the community are what need to drive the reopening of school buildings we may like to feel that the virus understands where the city lines end and the county begins but it does not many who work in our buildings live in the city many students who will come

029into our buildings have parents who work in the city the rates of cases in both the city and county are higher than when you voted to start virtually and I do not understand what the scientific benchmarks are for making this decision now I've heard from many teachers who feel unheard and that we don't matter please let us all feel that we are still valued not just for what we provide but as the people in this community that we are please be the voice for all of us to feel safe thank you for looking out for us and thank you for your time thank you Miss McDonald thank you the next speaker will be Aaron Wise Akin bomb Miss Aken bomb are you on I do not see her on my screen so I am going

030to move on to the next three and then I'll loop back and see if she's here um next up the next three speakers will be s Sue Zena Forest KCK and Jennifer Warren so sue Zena if you're on thanks for letting us speak tonight my name is suzena I live in the Rio district and teach in the scotsville district my family moved here in July from Columbus Ohio I'm a new PE teacher at Mountain View Elementary School and a parent of a second grader at bradwood our son and my prek to3 students are the most vulnerable ages for need of consistency consistency in relationships with their teacher classmates schedules and daily routines I have never been more concerned and worried about the mental health of children especially this one children who aren't thriving in Virtual

031learning need help all other children need the least amount of change possible when I ask my son as I will again for you tonight Henry if you could choose to continue learning virtually go to school in person or stay with your teacher what's most important to you I want to stay with my teacher he wants to stay with his teacher relationships matter by voting to move into phase three one may think it's a great way to provide the option of inperson for those that want it and virtual learning for those that don't but in reality it's so much more regardless of choice the changes needed to make phase three possible impacts everyone schedules will change teachers will change routines drastically change classroom communities will change risk of exposures will change and mental health is going

032to to suffer if acps chooses to go forward with phase three I ask that you please provide specific information about what each child's schedule would look like for each option available so they know if their teacher would change before having to make such a difficult decision the risk of covid-19 is scary mental health and children Matters by staying in phase two the health of our children in time up and mental health concerns by keeping consistency for the age that need it most thank you thank you our next speaker will be forest kek all right good evening can you hear me yes all right my video won't start but uh hopefully everyone can hear me all right so good evening my name is Forest kek uh I have a doctorate in infectious diseases my wife is

033a teacher at Stone Robinson and we live in the Don Laura District tonight I would like to provide evidence for staying in phase two I want to provide an update on what we know about covid in children as many have said thankfully mortality rates in children with covid are very low due largely in part to children having a muted immune response to the virus while in the surface this seems promising dozens of Studies have indicated that while less than 50% of infected children display symptoms they actually produce more virus than infected adults and can spread the virus twice as quickly as an infected adult even if they're symptomatic while ideally we would have 100% adherence to social distancing and maske wearing many teachers will tell you that such adherence is nearly impossible I would like

034to know what contact tracing the school district has in place to prevent outbreaks when spre uh from spreading uh when they happen we must have a robust contact tracing and widespread rapid testing in place if we are to send children back to school where they could unknowingly spread the virus among their peers or bring it home to their families now some say this won't matter because of AC will be available soon but the truth is we are not expected to have clinical trial results until the end of the year with FDA approval not expected until early 2021 while several companies are starting to make vaccines in anticipation of this FDA approval the federal government is anticipating the doses won't be available to the general public until at least the spring of 2021 in fact several

035officials have predicted that it will take until winter of 2022 to produce enough vaccines to immunize every American just once this is important important because the immunity afforded by a vaccine is short averaging between 6 and 10 months after which time people can get the virus again this means that until vaccine production can expand it is unlikely for the US to reach her immunity I would ask that you strongly consider the broader implications of sending children back into classrooms without a vaccine and without a clear way forward to trace isolate and stop future outbreaks thank you thank you Mr KCK the next speaker is J Jennifer Warren and I saw her on hi um thank you for taking the time to hear me speak today um I want to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation

036to all staff families and students for working together to make this virtual start successful I feel that we're getting into a Groove and things are running smoothly relationships are being formed and fostered jokes Rapport Charisma and personalities are shining through humor care thoughtfulness by teachers and classmates is also apparent I feel guilty thinking of my Elementary School ESL special ed and service provider colleagues and friends um should I who have asthma volunteer as a tribute so that more vulnerable populations such as older teachers and those with pre-existing conditions um be spared if they're not comfortable returning yet why should we make the move when flu and cold Seasons approaching in the middle of finding um our stride cold flu and covid symptoms are very similar if teachers are not comfortable reing in person there's no

037other and there's no other option if ADA accommodations are not granted other than taking leave retiring or resigning the youngest students will not have a teable experience filled with sharing and the experiences that we all want them to have um there was a survey that um for the learning environment I saw 67.3 3% favored virtual over 32.7 um for hybrid for the optical learning condition I very um desperately want to see my students in person um but when it's safe um also what happens when our my um prek and second grader who will remain virtual what happens to them will they have new teachers I think just thinking about that makes me sad um I don't feel that parents were giv clarification about specifics of what virtual hybrid will look like there's so many questions

038that I feel were not answered or the information wasn't given to us also it's um looking at the data it looks like that things are inreasing your time is coming to an in I apologize not FX but thank you for taking the time to listen to me thank you thank you for giving your comments the next speaker is going to be uh I think I think I do the next three Jeff Handler Debbie Stallings and Janny Ballard so Mr Handler if you're on it's your turn I saw Mr Handler earlier but I don't know if he he left or I think Jeff's hi I think Jeff is choosing not to speak tonight okay thank you I'll check in again at the end but I'll I'll just put a note so next up will be Debbie

039Stallings and thank you Miss for that information Miss Stallings are you on I'm here great hi my name is debie Stallings um live in the Rio District uh I am a second grade teacher at agner herd Elementary School this is my 31st year of teaching in um Alor County and I really don't want to be forced into retirement um virtual learning is going incred incredibly well the relationships that I've already made with parents and with my children are amazing um I know that I'm one of many but I know that there are also those of us with the younger kids who are struggling with virtual learning it's it doesn't work for everybody it doesn't work for everybody in every classroom even if the most of it is going well um a colleague of mine who

040teaches Garten said the other day today was the 20th day and finally finally I can say something good about virtual learning and so here we are thinking about taking the time to make a change especially for our PK through three kids who are our most vulnerable Learners it's true they need Rich learning experiences but I I'm just not sure you're going to find a rich learning experience in in our class CL rooms right now we're going to be six feet apart we're going to be masks there'll be no small groups there'll be no um field trips it's just not what we are used to working with and it's just not what the research says is a rich and friendly environment please don't uproot our kids right now they're they're hitting their stride help us help

041us help the ones that this isn't working for thank you thank you Miss Stallings and I apologize for mispronouncing your name the next the next speaker will be Miss Ballard hi good evening my name is Jeanie Ballard I live in the scotsville district I'm a teacher at Mountain View Elementary School this will be my 27th year 36 years teaching in all and I just wanted to take a moment to welcome you into my virtual class classroom here in my home never ever in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would have a whiteboard mounted on my wall and that I'm using a step ladder for a portable teaching desk but I'm making it work and it is working yes we have problems I mean we glitch Zoom glitches but the kids are so perseverant they're

042ready to learn they're willing to learn and by doing it here in my house by them doing it there in their homes we are safe I've been challenged to be creative and Innovative in ways that I never dreamed but we're making it work we are being successful we are being successful do I want to do this absolutely no I want to be in the classroom but it's not safe right now so I want you to consider this phrase one size does not fit all each Alam moral County school has its own diverse needs based on its geography and its Community what works for one school may not work for another if we transition to stage three at Mountain View we're going to go from having about 25 students to over 400 it's too much too

043soon we're going to disrupt the progress we've made by starting over new routines new classmates new teachers possible or probable quarantines and then flu Seasons just right around the corner it's too much too fast I do think we can do a modified stage two because I know that there are kids that need to be in the building but until it's safe for us all it's just not safe I could I could go on and on and I don't want to go on on because you're going to hear the same message tonight I just want you to think that of the word yet it's what I use with my classroom every single day we may not have mastered our facts tables yet we may not know the order of the solar system planets yet but we

044will so we just have to wait we have to be patient we're gonna get there just not yet thank you for your time thank you Miss Ballard the next Miss Carson um Mr Handler has has come back okay I feel like okay we can we can put them in in the future I think we should just move move them to the bottom of the list sorry Mr Handler but it's a long list and people are waiting but go ahead and and speak now because it was I think just your turn one time ago sorry and I'll just be short I think the fact that we're voting on this virtually is all you really need to know that it's not safe to be together yet and so I really encourage you that until you've spoken to

045every school and until you have done your homework and let teachers speak and not just depend it on emails or on surveys with misleading questions and faulty data that I just don't think you have the information you need to know that going to phase three is just a bad decision it's bad for many different reasons and it's going to completely disrupt the learning of many kids in our community so that's all if we can't vote in person we can't be in school yet so that's all I wanted to say thank you Mr Handler I'm sorry we missed you the first time around that let me make sure that I'm getting this all right as you can see I have a very high-tech system here it's involves Crossing things out drawing arrows uh so the next

046speaker valad already went will be Dr hetner followed by Emily Maan methon and then Julia Julie Goan so Dr hetner if you're on you're up thank you and good evening by way of introduction I'm a infectious disease board certified uh physician UVA graduate live here in Abal County um we live in a community the obligations of Community are to look after the needs of the strong and the weak as well we have a duty to educate we have a duty to protect Health although I applaud the plan and I acknowledge the toll uh that it takes to adapt to the stage two I think we should bear in mind some of the points that Dr Forest emphasized firstly the absence of proof is not the proof of absence the asymptomatic Carriage of these young children

047is true it means it's relatively low risk for them to go to school what we're not considering is protecting the vulnerable who are they those are the people that incontrovertibly are at risk of severe disease they are common conditions diabetes smoking hypertension heart disease kidney disease that put people in significantly raised risk of exposure because the exposures lead to symptomatic it Still Remains uh an untreatable disease with an unacceptable morbidity and mortality so quoting what happens at UVA or in other elementary schools is not appropo I want to come back to what my plead to you at the school board is simple protect the vulnerable people you have faculty and staff teachers bus drivers janitors who fall into these high-risk categories we should do our utmost to protect their health we ought not to compel

048them to resign because we cannot provide a safe working environment and secondly I ask you to consider and to further consult epidemiologists because when you have children many of whom live with grandparents or people with chronic illnesses when you take them from an environment where you do not control the transmission of disease you're not equipped to adequately separate the children or to screen them for asymptomatic Carriage you are putting those people at risk when they come back and forth from school to home so my plea to you is to accommodate these people thank you so much I know it's not a presidential debate so I will stop and ask but please to bear in mind what I've said tonight thank you thank you very much the next speaker will be Emily Maan hi so I'm

049Emily Mayon and I'm in the Rio District can you hear me okay uh so the decision to move to stage three or to St at stage two could be an opportunity to follow the anti-racist vision that acps strives for systemic racism is perpetuated when white privileged voices are the loudest and most listened to when making decisions that affect the wider Community my questions for you are when you're considering moving to the next stage whose voices are the loudest where's the pressure coming from to open up how are families of color who we know are hit hit the hardest by this virus being protected what input have you heard from teachers in the surveys you've received are the responses representative of the most vulnerable communities in our County aside from surveys how have you gathered feedback

050from the most vulnerable in our community with cases growing in our region how is this a lot logical time to increase face-to-face learning an elementary teacher friend of mine shared with me the following the plan to move to stage three is not what's best for kids students are going to be sitting at desks or in small spaces isolated from other students because of social distancing rules students that are choosing to be virtual will have to change teachers in the second quarter to a virtual teacher this is inexcusable it's telling children that because they aren't safe in school they are going to have to learn something completely new how is this what's best for kid kids she says leave us alone and let us teach our children and love them and wrap around them through this

051ridiculous pandemic I can't even believe this is on the table right now every single School B School Board member should have to come in and report to duty for stage two right now spend time in an elementary school and see what it's like in a stage two room with students back in the building come and help with technology and remind your kids to put their masks on step into the shoes of these teachers and students I urge you to look deeply this is me now I urge you to look de deeply at where the pressure is coming from to open up and whose voices are being are being loudest when gathering information thank you thank you Miss Mayon the next speaker is going to be Julie Goan hi there can you hear me I can

052okay my video is disabled but um I will go ahead I am a parent of four Alam Maro County Public School students I'm in the Samuel Miller District I want to start by saying to all the teachers and staff who have been supporting virtual learning and virtual Learners thank you so much I have been profoundly impressed by the effort and energy that all of you have poured into this difficult scenario I listen to the zooms and so I know it isn't perfect for everyone every day we're having our ups and downs and I know it's exhausting every day but I also know that all four of my kids are learning and they're gaining new skills and they are making connections with teachers and other kids I cannot comment as Dr kek and Dr hner have

053on the um the plausibility of returning to school with current levels of pandemic so I will comment on this instead stage three proposes a return to school for some populations including a wider group of English language Learners and students with IEPs and also students who are struggling for other reasons to me that makes perfect sense and I'm very in support of that given the successes we've seen in small groups of in-person learners but we're stay agage three falls down is in moving prek to third grade students to an optional hybrid model because this move unravels the current model for students who don't opt in as well as for those who do I cannot believe that two days of instruction mingled with five days without instruction is going to be as effective as the current four

054consecutive days of instruction and as classes are sliced and diced according to who's virtual and who's not I think we'll see a painful disruption of these beginning relations ships that that teachers have started to to nurture so I'd like to request that if we determine the health metrics to be stable enough to move into stage three during the second quarter we move into a modified version of stage three and enable a return to school for El and IEP and other populations and hand a handful of other populations maybe some access to sports but otherwise retain an all virtual learning framework that we've worked really hard to make a success for maximum consistency and maybe we can plan for a robust four day a week in person model Miss go up I'm sorry to cut you

055off we have St 17 speakers thank you so much yeah um thank you for your comments the next speaker is gonna be Chris uh boonin Chris if you're on I'm here um good evening everyone um I'm Chris benan an acps teacher a spouse a parent of three acps a spouse of an a a Grade Three acps teacher a parent of three acps students and our basement currently is a stone Robinson Elementary classroom we are 100% acps the decision before the board and the school division is complex and difficult tonight I want to speak to you as a parent and a spouse first I believe all things considered the virtual Elementary teaching and learning experience has been a success for all stakeholders in my family has it been perfect absolutely not however I am impressed with

056the growth that I have seen in both my children and the elementary learning experience the growth mindset is Paramount in acps these days in fact the improvements I'm witnessing leads to some questions and concerns as a parent my kids are finally getting into a rhythm and a routine with virtual learning now we may need to get ready for another routine the most challenging days we experience are the asynchronous Fridays when their schedule is disrupted and we need to provide that structure I have doubts that moving to stage three is going to significantly improve their learning outcomes have we allowed the virtual learning process to play itself out I believe stage three is going to disrupt not improve my children's learning experiences as a spouse I'm impressed with the selflessness of My Wife and Her colleagues

057they're crushing it and are going well above and beyond the Call of Duty to deliver daily instruction weekly I estimate they're working 15 to 20 hours outside of contract time to design and deliver that instruction I'm concerned at stage three is going to significantly increase our out-of contract planning and this is not a professional Improvement for my wife as a son moving to stage three will require my family to stay away from their grandparents until the summer of 2020 quite frankly the juice is not worth the squeeze and finally the decision you're considering reminds me of Jared Diamond's book collapse which evaluates the reasons why some societies succeed and others fail one reason he submits is that sometimes leaders make decisions that place the pursuit of short-term gains the expense of long-term survival and sustainability

058it is for these reasons that I ask that you not vote to go to stage three and remain in stage two thank you thank you Miss Mr boan the next three speakers will be Lori Alid Jennifer andrasco and Maggie Johnson Miss Alid if you're on you may go thank you all right so welcome to my class room um my name is Lori Alid and I work in The Jacka District I am one of two African-American teachers out of 60 at Brier Elementary School and I've listened to the school board meetings um over the past few months and I just felt like it time for me to speak up um I have been part of the vulnerable population um that uh attend my school we have students of color we have language learners um students from

059all over the world and we've been talking about facts so let me just go over a few facts we know that covid-19 affects people of color at higher rates than other people we also know that it affects elderly and low-income stud people our students belong in that population we also have another fact that we kept keep ignoring we have no idea how covid-19 affects children we don't know we're speculating one last thing that we know is that nothing has changed not one thing during this pandemic has changed and as I teach my students from this classroom in my house I teach them math and I tell them to read GL I'm teaching them how to read graphs I'm teaching them how to collect data in science I'm telling them all about how scientists use data

060that's why we know what we know because scientists do the research I'm telling them all of this but we're not looking at the research we're not reading the data we're not looking at the grass you see the same data that I see we often speak of equity and we start the meeting with due to covid-19 it makes it unsafe to come in physically for school board me tell me how it's safe for teachers and students to enter a School Miss all yes ma'am up okay lead by example I'm gonna end with that and rethink how stage three looks thank you very much thank you be safe and be well the next speaker is going to be Jennifer and andresco thank you Miss Coulson hello I'm Jen andrasco I am in the Rio District I want

061to thank you you uh Miss Coulson for being our representative Miss Lee who I had the pleasure of working with and for the other um fellow brus Wood Elementary School Representatives who've been on the phone tonight who I didn't know would be here um I would just say that suzan ab and Miss Goin and Mr boan um captured everything that I was going to say far more eloquently than I will so I'll try to be as brief as possible and perhaps yield them 30 seconds or so back I have a brus wood second and third grader um I also have a prek who is in private school in the city and they are back in person and so my comments tonight um are not actually about trying to give you my recommendation on stage two

062or three my experience in a private school pre preschool is that actually you can have a very rich learning environment with very young children wearing masks and being socially distanced it is possible the difference though is that my daughter started the school year with her teacher with eight other friends in her classroom and they they all knew what the guidelines were and they all had consistency in the teacher she has had a cold for two weeks and she's been out and we've held her out of school because of course that's what's appropriate but what we know from the National Association of Education of young children which provides guidance up to eight years old is that one of the foundations for successful learning is consistent positive caring relationships and what I can say is that our

063teachers have invested tremendously in the relationship ship that they are building with our K through3 students I see it I have a much better relationship with our teacher than I've ever had when our students were in person Mrs zanab captured it right that a move to mode three right now would be more disruptive uh with new teachers in a new learning environment and I implore you Mr hos tonight to be very clear and clarify what a move to stage three means for those families who choose to remain in the virtual model and what it would mean for them before they have to make that choice thank you and all you back thank you very much miss andrasco our next speaker is GNA be Maggie Johnson good evening my name is Maggie Johnson my pronouns are

064she her and I'm a German teacher at monachello high school my comments this evening reflect my own beliefs and I do not claim to speak for my co-workers colleagues or school I can only I can and will only speak for myself I'm tired I'm tired from fear grief isolation I'm tired into my bones physically mentally and emotionally what I'm tired from in a word is trauma what we are experiencing during this pandemic with the daily reminders of the death tolls the climbing rates of sickness the worries we have for ourselves and those we care about it is all trauma that we as a community and as individuals have not begun to process I fear as others have feared that moving the county into phase three will upend the routines that are youngest students are finally

065becoming accustomed to and in turn the routines of those students older siblings cousins and family and friends this phase won't directly impact me but it will impact my students many of them will turn to their teachers to help process the trauma that they experience what do you say to a student who tells you that their little sibling is sick with covid what do you say to a student who reveals that they missed class because their cousin was asymptomatic and no one thought to keep that child from hugging their grandmother and now their grandmother has died and the child is left with that guilt members of the school board I speak three languages and I don't have the words to respond to that it's not safe it won't be safe for a while we need to

066accept that and put our resources and efforts into making distance learning as effective for our students as it can be and into giving our students faculty staff and Community time and space to begin to process our Collective and individual traumas we need to come together and support one another not spend every four weeks of this year haggling for our safety and debating how many people we can send into school buildings at once there's an undercurrent of irony to this meeting that we're all in a zoom call because it isn't safe enough to meet in person to discuss if it's safe enough to send our youngest students and the faculty and staff to support their education back into buildings I yield my time thank you very much Miss Johnson the next speaker will be Maria riski

067Miss Carson Miss risi um chose not to speak tonight thank you for letting me know Christine next three speakers will be Tracy betsworth Misty Campbell and John Knight Jr Miss betsworth if you're on it's your turn I'm on I'm just working on my video there it is hi thank you for letting me speak tonight and thank you for all you're doing um so my husband and I have three children at Stone Robinson Elementary we have a fourth grader a second grader and a kindergartener we believe that there is limited to absolutely no benefit for stage three to our family I can't speak for everybody else but to speak to our three kids in elementary school all of our children like a lot of people said are thriving on Virtual learning the teachers are doing a

068fabulous job teaching they're building relationships with the students and they're encouraging the students to socialize and build relationships with their peers the reasons we don't want to move to stage three one our kids don't want to be separated when we talk to them about one going to school the other two not going to school they all got upset and started crying after fourth graders at at home our other kids want to be at home there's a huge inconsistency in two days children thrive on a consistent schedule I think I've heard this pattern from Sue from Chris from Jennifer and other people our kindergartener for two days will not want to go to school she's been home six months when we even talked about her going back she started crying um same thing happened in preschool

069it's an inconsistent schedule um again kind of like other people said we would send our kids or we would send their kids back to school if the option was for them to stay with their same teacher our kindergarten our second grader our fourth grader have built relationships with these teachers they want to stay with them also there's a significant increased workload and teaching on parents for three asynchronous days I heard it from other parents our most challenging day of the week is Friday tomorrow our asynchronous day because we don't have a schedule if I have three of those days as a parent potentially five if my kids don't go to school to same day it's a challenge every single day we need clarity as parents of what those days look like will there actually be

070assignments or are we just coming up with something to fill those days um as I mentioned we would absolutely send our children back for four days or request to keep them virtual if we had the option for them to be with the same teacher it's honestly ridiculous in my opinion to think that they have to potentially change teachers change teachers this will only hurt any academic progress that's your time is up I apologize no thank you very much the next speaker will be misty Campbell and thank you yes I can okay it's my kids bedtime so they're in the background crying I hope you can't hear that cannot hear it okay the health safety and happiness of my family has and always will be my number one priority in life I have two small children

071and my husband at home we've done everything we can to ensure our safety and prevent the spread of covid-19 I'm proud of what we've done for the safety of our other for ourselves and others I was so proud of the school board when they have made the decision to Virtual do virtual learning however I am now terrified the thought of coming into the school and teaching face to face has kept me up for multiple nights and I've shed more tears than I am comfortable admitting everything my husband and I have worked so hard the past six months will be lost I'll have to wake up every morning and go to bed every night worried that I may have brought a deadly disease to my family how is that fair to my family how am I

072supposed to live live that way there will not be enough opportunities for virtual teachers who will be forced to come into school or take leave we're not all in the position to take leave my family depends on both incomes taking extended leave is really not an option but if it comes down to it to the safety of my family and the or struggling financially we would choose to struggle my students have always been my second highest priority I love my job and I miss my students terribly I want to be with them again once it's safe is how the we've been making the best of each day the kids are in an amazing Groove and impress me on a daily basis switching them out of their routines and everything we have built and worked so

073hard to do also when the number of C covid-19 cases get higher which they will the students will be bre back to Virtual learning once again upsetting their schedules what's the harm in Waiting nine more weeks I've been working in my classroom during Su for the past several weeks my school only has approximately six students who are doing virtual learning in the building during my time in the building I've seen students walk to the bathroom without a mask on eat lunch and run over to a friend face Toof face with no mask on and students on Zoom who are learning from the school with no mask on this is not from lack of effort and hundreds of reminders from staff they're kids and they don't understand the importance normally running to your best friend and

074telling them a secret is no big deal but sadly in 20120 it could be deadly by the time the teacher can get to the student back to their seat and the spread of covid-19 could have already been transmitted thank you for your time and listening to what I have to say I know I'm only one of one teacher in a county with over a thousand but do think that every voice should be heard especially when the lives of our family depend on it thank you Miss Campbell the next speaker will be Mr Knight Mr Knight junr I'm here can you hear me yes okay for some reason I don't have the video on but that's okay uh good evening my name is Dr John Knight a dentist here in Charlottesville on behalf of my wife

075Wanda and I we stand to support superintendent hass's motion to resume in school education for K through three beginning in November it is our hope that after tonight's public comment period that each School Board member will vote in favor of this motion first and foremost we would like to thank all of the obar County Teachers Administration office Personnel support staff and the board for everything each of you have are and will continue to do for the education of our children our sincere thanks and support go out to each of you for all the tremendous work you have done during these times both Wanda and I have always had the utmost respect and appreciation for all that each of you do we know the tremendous workload each of you are carrying Wanda and I are the

076proud parents of two boys Richie is six Riley is five both of whom are in Virtual learning with the amazing team at Maryweather Lewis School in spite of the tremendous efforts by our sons teachers Miss Shamy and Miss Franco as well as the MLS team team virtual learning is failing our children both of our children desperately need to have at a minimum the proposed two days in school and two days virtual as everyone here I think can agree in-person education is extremely important especially for this K through three age group this in school connection to our Educators and other students is vital to both the short and long-term success of our children in the of seeing families in my practices over the last several months I've had the opportunity to speak with numerous parents children's

077and young adults about their virtual learning experiences over the end of last school year as well as the start of this year the overwhelming response to Virtual learning in spite of the tremendous efforts of our teachers is that it is not working one of my your time is is up oh boy I'm sorry thank you for sharing your comments the next speaker will be Elizabeth White House let me see if I see her I do not see Miss White House on the list on my screen so I'm going to move her to the bottom for now and the next three speakers after Miss White House will be Zana Cheryl Knight Allison Weir wire I write down these pronunciations every week and then the next week it's like I I can't get them right again I

078need to like save them all so I apologize Zana if you're on it's your turn okay thanks so um I am attending sorry I am attending Henley Middle School online and personally I feel like we should be going back to school in person because sorry um okay so um I know a lot of people will disagree with me but um going back I I can't pay attention as well as I did while I was in the school person and I have some special things where um I uh I need um so I'm not in school in person but I have a um thing where it um Pro it I have trouble focusing and I also have three little sisters um when decide to homeschool another one is also attending virtual online and um they and

079they can be distracting of course I'm the oldest um we have a role in our family where we can't have um well um Electronics in our um in our bedroom bedrooms or a closed room for safety reasons and um also the internet can be distracting so I'm it's just me but when we're online we are stuck um in front of a screen the whole day and personally after I'm done with with school um I can't concentrate at all or not very well so um I that's why one another reason and my next reason is PE and physical education PE and physical education in health um it can um be it's supposed it's supposed to have we're supposed to be exercising and if we're in front of a screen on the health we're learning about we're

080learning about stress and Etc well we're being stressed on the computer to thank you and you're you did a great job your time is up so than Anna you're awesome great job the next speaker Isley the next speaker is going to be Cheryl Knight Miss night yep Miss Knight I can't hear you for some reason it doesn't show you as muted but I can't hear you can you hear me now yes yes now we hear you can hear me okay great sorry about that um first of all how delightful to have a young lady speaking um that was just a breath of fresh air and I think that that is that is why as a teacher myself I live in the city I work in alar County I have worked in alar county for 21

081years I'm going on my 33rd year of teaching and um that is the Delight for all of us I did just want to share with you hopefully briefly as possible um just concerns that some folks have that some of my colleagues excuse me have as well as myself and so one of the concerns is just the anxiety about returning several people that I have spoken with have said they would need to resign or quit or take a leave of absence because of their health conditions or for safety reasons for themselves as well um and this is an extremely complex decision so I to I mean I would not want to be in your shoes having said that as well um the other piece of it is how well planned out is our stage three at

082this point if we were to move to stage three we have four weeks to get it into gear will teachers have time to set up classrooms because right now classrooms are not set up will there be days off from students to be able to do that how will asynchronous work work when a teacher is teaching four days of the week so will asynchronous work have to be posted on one day of the week just trying to get those things straight also how will breaks be ensured during the school day in terms of mental health for the individuals working those are my concerns thank you so much I appreciate all that you all do thank you thank you for those comments Miss Knight the next speaker is going to be Alison wi I can't for some

083reason oh Allison we can hear you but you are sound very far away yep Alis I'm sorry about that oh now we can hear you now we can hear yes it's something to do with the new Delta uh Tech I've learned that since my first uh the first week of school well we can hear you great now excellent well my name is Alison we and I'm a first grade teacher at Woodbrook Elementary and like every teacher and several parents have said tonight I am asking that we vote to remain in stage two we are currently in the fifth week of school which according to the book the first six weeks touted by our dis division is a time to go slow build routines and relationships for greater academic gain later on it has been said

084that the achievement Gap is widening but I'm wondering where this data came from at a time that is supposed to be less focused on academics regardless of physical setting one factor of this Gap is attendance I have taken an arguably limited poll talking with other teachers and I'm hearing that attendance is better than ever because students can log in themselves and can watch recordings of any classes they missed after just now getting students into routine virtually moving to to step three will actually slow academic growth as many have said tonight we will have to practically restart the first six weeks and build community as everything changes lists iners routines and also how are the parents supposed to get child care for such a sporadic schedule Administration has reported that many teachers want to return if

085true teachers should be able to volunteer instead of needing a documented medical condition this is important for many teachers who cannot control their exposure like myself as I live with covid nurses and could at any point unwittingly contract and expose my students and colleagues if I must return also at this age Tas are incredibly important do we have enough willing to come in to make this work currently our elementary schools have 20 to 30 kids in them depending on it and as another teacher said tonight and our nurses have said they're struggling with distancing and masks step three keeps being called a moderate increase but really in terms of looking at what one type of school elementary schools it will go from 20 to 30 to anywhere between 200 and 400 in one building plus

086teachers there are many reasons why I feel it isn't safe or or it isn't in the best interest for many to return but I will leave you with this other schools have proven that it is not a question of if kids will get it but when it will be hard to tell if continuing continuing virtually will be a good choice but it'll be clear if it's a bad one to return thank you very much Miss wear the next speaker will be Vicky bigs followed by Shanta Jed followed by Laura gar and ending with Amy gner so miss bigs or Vicky bigs if you're on hi can you hear me I can perfect uh thank you guys so much um first I would like to say thank you to you all um these are difficult times

087and we're all between a rock and a hard place right now with no easy answers um the reason why I'm speaking today is I want to talk about the use of the playgrounds during school hours my son is a uh kindergartner at Hall Elementary and this online format has left him feeling isolated at a time that he should be forging new friendships experiencing all the things that elementary school has to offer which is a new playground um the time of the last mon meeting there had been an email sent out saying that the students were not allowed on the playground from 7:30 in the morning until 6:00 at night uh and this Monday through Friday um daylight savings is right around the corner and six o'clock is just too dark for many of our children

088to utilize a playground while I would love for my child to return to school in phase three I would really like the policy to be changed so that all the students learning from home doesn't matter what phase we're in are able to use the playgrounds so I'm requesting that the board open up the playgrounds for students at 3 o'clock on Monday uh through Thursday and then all day on Fridays I believe this would be a wonderful enhancement for our students as this would strengthen their interest in class and engage them with familiarity between students they would be able to forge friendships uh based on faces in person rather than on a screen and start developing a sense of community um so whatever the outcome is tonight these students should be able to be a part

089of their school and meet their classmates thank you thank you very much Miss bigs the next speaker is Shanta Jam uh I'm just making sure is that Shante James I have it written as oh I have it with the D on the end okay yes I see in your email that it's s James so okay let me turn on my video hello I just wanted to make sure that was actually me well hello my name is Shante James I'm a kindergarten teacher at Mountain View Elementary School as a teacher nothing is more important than the relationships I form with my students and with their families one of my main uh major concerns about stage three is the strong possibility that I will lose some of my current students having a new teacher and new classmates

090after nine weeks of school can have such a negative effect on the students in their teacher as teachers we put our heart into our teaching and in our relationships I have been implementing culturally responsive teaching in my classroom and all that work and progress will be taken away with the move to stage three all teachers understand the importance of in school learning but we are talking about the safety of our students and our teachers that should be the most important part of this decision we have been working so hard to do everything we can for our students working even harder to make sure they are successful working working hours pass our contracted time we love what we do but we would we should not have to risk the health of our students and our colleagues

091and our friends to reopen thank you thank you Miss James the last two speakers will be Laura gar and Amy gner good evening can you hear me I can y I chose to speak tonight as both a parent and a scientist specializing in infectious diseases I support the recommendation of the superintendent to move to phase three it is difficult to assess and accept risk for our children and our school Community I have been reassured by the efforts of our district to implement Public Health measures recommended by the CDC and our local Health Department the goal of these efforts is to create an environment where the risk of virus transmission is very low keeping the members of our community safe even if someone were to attend school while infectious after reviewing the measures taken I feel

092that the benefit of on-site learning outweighs the risk for my family it is my opinion that maximizing in-person learning provides the greatest benefit for our students and their families in addition I encourage the administration and board to consider offering more than two days per week of in-person instruction for young students like mine academically I feel that this is the most effective environment for learning in addition increasing on-site time is also safer it alleviates the needs for families the need for families to piece together multiple Child Care Arrangements increasing risks of exposure thank you for your consideration thank you very much Miss gor the next and last speaker will be Amy thank you good evening Schoolboard members Dr hos acps Educators and Families my name is Amy gner and I'm a resident of the White Hall

093District I'm also Henry's teacher that was a pleasant surprise I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you tonight a school board will decide if stage three plan presented is well thought out and supported by the elementary teachers that will need to implement it Educators have been working many long school days and weekends in order to provide the best virtual learning experience for our students many of us are here to speak and to listen because we care deeply about the decision the board will be making tonight we have many questions and concerns about this plan we have no answers on when and how our rooms will be set up what will we need to to pack up and where those items will be stored we have parent conferences scheduled after contracted hours at the end of

094this month at the same time you may be asking elementary teachers to plan for in-person instruction lessons for person teaching will look very de different students will be working together will not be working together in groups or with a partner they will not have an electronic device to use in school they're expected to stay in their seat or space and keep their hands to themselves in this stage three we will not be kept in pods we will be working with all of our in student students our special ed teachers and Tas will be coming in and out of our classrooms as they serve students on their case load I'm still expected to be in the classroom while students are eating students will be permitted to remove mask indoors if they can remain six feet apart

095who decides if wearing a mask is an optional indoors this is not the mask policy the board adopted teachers are many things but we are not foolish we are rule followers and we know rules are there to keep everyone safe we do not have the confidence that students and staff can be safe in stage three at this time I do not know where other teachers are finding their strength right now but I participate on Monday through Friday Bible study today's leader chose the 23rd psalm this passage is traditionally read at funerals for those who are grieving this certainly is walking through the darkest Valle in my teaching career your vote will decide the safety and financial choices acps Educators and families will need to make next thank you thank you very much that con includes

096our public comment thank you to everyone that took time to share their opinions and Thoughts with us Miss Miss Carson um Miss Aaron Wise Aken bomb who was at the top of our list has now joined us so yes and I've seen her name and I meant to come back so I apologize I'm sorry Miss wiac and bomb yes let's please go Miss y Zen bomb are you on yes okay sorry about that um I'm sorry I wasn't here in the very beginning it said I can't start my video so I'll just keep on going um at this point can you hear me yes I can okay thank you um I'm very opposed to going back after hearing teachers and parents and that are very fearful um One in Every 44 Americans have tested positive

097for covid um our sports team I don't know if we've talked too much about that but our sports teams easily spew germs all over the place and they're with stage three they're G to go right into playing on the field on Maggie Johnson's trauma it would be traumatic for my grandchildren to go to school and have teachers say get your hand off that get okay wa wait wait uh be careful be careful it doesn't don't put your mask on no I mean you don't need to do that we don't need to put children through that and we try to avoid getting next to those situations with our grandchildren um well with my grandchildren um so I just think after 33 30 years of education I I teach at elar high school um I'll quit I'll

098be one of those people that um I'm not going to put myself or my family through through that thank you very much for what you do because I know the decision tonight is very heavy thank you thank you very much Miss um wise Akin bomb that concludes our public comment I'm going to hand it back to you chair page thank you very much Vice chair Carlson we will now move and again I think as Miss Carlson did I think also all of our um people who did make public comment thank you so much for giving us um your input we're now ready for spotlight own education and it's my honor this evening to introduce one of the most important and uplifting achievement in the recent history of our School Division in fact of any division

099on September the 25th we joined the US Department of Education and the Virginia Department of Education in announce announcing that Baker Butler Elementary School had received the prestigious Blue Ribbon award for exemplary achievement this was the first time in the 38 year history of the award program that a school in Virginia earned this award for closing achievement Gap it was a remarkably important moment not only for our School Division but really for any division in our nation that struggles to achieve educational Equity that's a pretty high number the award covers three years of data and here's what B autal of students were able to achieve every student membership group improved their so scores between 20 and 30% and the entire School average increased to 91% in reading and 94 % in math the Pass rates

100for black students increased from 40 to 80% in reading and from 38 to 90% in math our special education students made gains between 40 and 60% in both reading and math students from economically disadvantaged homes increased their path rate Pass rates from 43 to 83% in reading and from 49 to 90% in math and all of those are truly truly outstanding achievements Pass rates for ESO students were 92% in reading and 97% in math the gap between Hispanic students and the overall pass rate of all students was eliminated achievement gaps between white and black students shrink from 40 to 13 percentage points in reading and from 40 to 60 percentage points in math and again outstanding achievements I really like the comments of one of our guests this evening Dr Steve Saunders who was Baker

101Butler's principal during the award period he said that schools Awards is not about numbers it's about meeting the needs of each individual student and I really like something else he said also there is no magic formula for the results that earned his school this award every school every school he said can do this with us this evening is DR Sanders together with the school's current assistant principal Christine Peterson and our very special guest Dr Marie Baker the Widow of John Baker For Whom the school is named I'd like to inv invite each of our visitors here to share some thoughts with us about the significance of this extraordinary achievement and what it means for the future of K 12 public education here in alile County DR Sanders Mrs Peterson Dr Baker thank you uh chair

102Paige I appreciate it um good evening members of the school board as chairman Paige said my name is Steve sers I'm proud to be the principal at Greer Elementary School and I'm also proud to have been the Principal at Baker B Elementary School from 2014 to 2019 and in that role I've been asked to prepare a couple remarks tonight um Baker Butler as you know was recently honored for the National Blue ribbons uh award and uh I join you all in in sending heartfelt congratulations to the staff uh ad Baker Butler like all of you I am very proud of the staff and the students and the families ad Baker Butler and I am honored and humbled to have worked with an outstanding crew there including our fantastic assistant principales Wendy eckerly and Christine Peterson

103and I know that the staff and the students and the families of bigger Bell are both past and present are deservedly proud of this achievement I'd like to frame our remarks tonight by saying that this award allows us to do two things first to pause and to celebrate the award and second to recognize that this work can be done first we should we should celebrate them um this isn't momentous achievement they've worked very hard for it and they should be very proud of it and the fact that they earned a National Blue Ribbon award for closing achievement gaps just makes the the award that much sweeter what they have accomplished is incredibly difficult and rare and they deserve all the good words and credit that's going to them now but in addition to celebrating more

104importantly the second thing I'd invite us to do tonight is to to consider that this work can be done as Educators we know that when we see gaps between and among our students we can sometimes feel overwhelmed and Powerless and depressed but instead of feeling that way I'd like us to remember to frame these gaps differently and instead view them as opportunities and possibilities that's what we did at Baker Butler that's what we do every day Greer and I know that's what we do across the county in almaral let's look at these as challenges as opportunities and work together towards a common mission and vision let's allow this award to serve both as an inspirational and an aspirational goal for us all there is no secret recipe to their success no hidden process no no

105magic no hidden strategy the work is hard it is challenging it is difficult but it is possible it can be done their success was the result of a collective effort Collective efficacy their commitment to a shared vision and value their Innovative strategies brought around about with design thinking methodologies and the alignment of the entire school around effective research-based educational practices but perhaps most importantly we close gaps because the students knew their students and their families on a deep level and they use these relationships to inspire to understand to push to challenge and to encourage and to celebrate each student as an individual closing gaps is not about numbers it's about names and that is what we value in alal county and every student every individual student matters every individual child matters every day and with

106the attention that comes naturally with winning an award as prestigious as this it might be easy to focus on the numbers and the data and that that led to this recognition but I would urge us instead however to consider that the true success of Baker Butler is not about numbers but is said the Deep commitment to ensure that every individual child is known and cared for it and challenged and that every individual child can learn and Achieve every day at high levels this work is both inspirational and aspirational for us all the work is hard but it is our work and it can be done that commitment started before I began at Baker buter it was clearly evident when I was there and I know that it continues to this day the staff students and

107families of Baker both past and present have earned this award and they deserve it and I enjoy I join all of you in congratulating them and I'm I'm privileged to to yield the floor to Christine Peterson who has Deep Roots at Baker Balor and we'll speak on behalf of the school at this time thank you Dr Saunders good evening I'm Christine Peterson and this is my third year serving as Baker Butler's assistant principal but as um Steve alluded I have Deep Roots at Baker Butler Butler because I also started my teaching career there I'm honored to represent our school principal Canard and I are proud of the baker Butler staff students and families we Echo what Mr Saunders believes that every child can and will learn at high levels our school Community remains deeply committed

108to forging nurturing and supportive relationships with students and families in the last couple years we focused on culturally responsive teaching practices which pushes us to reflect on our own cultural lenses we are committed to learning to incorporate the cultural influences of our students how to best teach to and through culture and digging in and cultivating positive learning relationships with students and families Baker Butler's commitment to a shared vision and Collective advocacy remains strong we value our professional Learning Community work and are committed to using the plan do study act framework to examine student learning success and our instructional methods to ensure we're using effective research-based educational practices this award not only recognizes the depth and talent and dedication of our staff but also the perseverance of our students learning is a process and this Blue

109Ribbon award allows us to pause and affirm which decisions and practices have attributed to Our Success success however it also humbles us to keep working hard and staying focused because every student deserves this level of success and our work is never done thank you I'm going to now turn it over to Mrs Baker thank you very much Dr H Mr Graham school board members and the staff of Baker Butler school I am so proud of Baker Bel Butler elementary school first for closing the achievement Gap and second for being named a blue ribbon school by the United States Department of Education I am sure that my late husband John Baker after whom the school is named along with Mr Butler is smiling on all of us and all of you with pride for your outstanding

110and effective work with culturally responsive teaching I have always been impressed by the warmth and caring demonstrated when I visited the school it's like a very happy place for students and faculty and staff who all seem so excited to be there John used to talk about apples for his his teachers each fall I've continued that practice but of course with covid-19 I can't bring Apples this fall instead I give you virtual apples and chocolates too for this wonderful achievement pardon me of recognizing you've been recognized for closing the achievement Gap over the last three years may this Blue Ribbon award inspire you at bakel Butler to sustain this status and Inspire other schools to do the same thank you so much and congratulations again thank you so much um Mr Sanders Miss Peterson and Dr

111Baker uh and we do like um Mr Sanders was saying we do pause to celebrate this achievement and we also pause to reflect because we realize that programs that we have put into place like CRT truly do work and so we expect the success at B Butler to be replicated throughout the county so again we thank all three of you for being here and do any of our school board members have questions or comments for uh Mr Sanders Miss Peterson or Dr Baker yeah I have just just uh two quick things one I want to point out that Christine Peterson was the glue between the Steve Saunders years and the uh Seth Canard years just pointing that out um at some point and I don't know that it's going to be uh tonight uh given

112some time constraints but I I in addition to the uh CRT aspect of this I'd love to be able to do a deeper dive into the how you know what were the the the the pro programs that you put in place what was the inhouse training tring uh for some of the teachers and perhaps you know the PD work in addition to work with Dr harston and the CRT program um you know perhaps it it would be on Zoom another Zoom call but uh that's something I would really love to delve into and I think other members of the board might have an interest in that too congratulations to you all I would second jonno's comments about making sure that we're sharing our successes so that other schools can replicate I would want to say

113Hi to Miss Baker I haven't seen you at the gym recently but it looks like you're doing well um and thank you guys so much I'm so incredibly proud of the success that that you've had so thank you are there other comments and Miss Baker we do look forward was you off of sending virtual candy and chocolates to the whole board or to just I can send that too virtually okay all right so we'll look for that to happen then okay thanks so much to all three of you thank you okay next item announcements Dr hos thank you Mr Paige and I wanted to say hi to uh Dr Baker I'm I'm really it's such a treat to see her here tonight hi hi Marie Hi and um we're uh we there won't be the

114the baker dinner this year on October 16th however uh there will be a celebration of African-American teaching fellows on October 16th so I'm hoping everybody will take time to go to the African-American teaching fellows page and um uh If It Moves you to make a contribution to that organization which provides outstanding uh teaching and Leadership professional development for some of our best teachers uh that we we've hired in the county and and hope to retain um I also want to congratulate Steve and Christine and Seth and all the teachers at Baker Butler this is outstanding work and back to Steve's comments it can be done and it should be done I want to make a quick announce uh two quick announcements one is that um we are establishing a name Review Committee for Virginia L

115Murray Elementary School uh Murray employees and Community will receive an announce ment tonight uh Jasmine Fernandez and I and I will be meeting with principal Allison DWI Seldon and School staff tomorrow morning at 8:30 as you recall the board directed me to review the names of all schools named after people on October 25th 2018 I'm choosing Murray Elementary School now because through circumstances over time Virginia Murray is the namesake of two alal County Public Schools yes this is a fact uh Murray Elementary was established as a school for African-Americans in 1960 and was desegregated in 1965 the school was named for Virginia L Murray uh a Virginia native and the very first African-American supervisor in alal County when acps created a Charter High School in 1988 it needed a facility and Virginia L Murray Elementary

116school was closed the school was housed there and took the school's name for the charter school School Murray High School in 1990 Virginia L Murray School Virginia L Murray Elementary School reopened the Charter High School moved to its current location and took its name with it thus we have two schools named after the same person incidentally the original school at Murray Charter School site was named Rose Hill Elementary School it closed in 1990 and moved to what is now Mountain View Elementary School which opened as Paul H kale Elementary School in 1990 there will be a quiz uh at the end of the meeting in order to have resolution for Murray charter school with regard to its name as it it is a new school now by combining Murray High School and Community Public Charter

117School I think it is important to also address and review the name of Murray Elementary School so that we can have some clarity in that process the second announcement I have is uh really exciting some members of this board our community may recall and our community may recall that in 2018 we learned of an application before the Virginia Department of historic resources to add our own Burly Middle School building to the state's historic register of landmarks the department approved that application last month as well as the designation of another site with significance to our division in the Burley application the school is described as and I he quote the vdhr from their their document it is locally significant in the areas of education and E ethnic Heritage African-American as a rare instance in which two

118localities sought to achieve equal education facilities during the segregation era the building and opening of Jackson P Burley High School proved to be the last substantial effort prior to the 1954 Supreme Court's overturning of the infamous py versus Ferguson decision that call for separate but equal in both public accommodations and in schools it added that the building itself retains a high degree of architectural Integrity as one of the earliest examples in the region of the application of the modern movement into an education building one of the most meaningful tributes to the historic importance of this school's building is the degree to which the school's Educators have made the school's history such a continuing learning opportunity for the students who have come through its halls I express my thanks and appreciation to all have kept this

119history before us and of course our own School Board chair Graham Paige is a member of the Jackson P Burley High School graduating class of 1964 the department also added to its register Riverview Farm the farm once was owned by Hugh Carr a former slave and the father of Mary Carr Greer Mary Greer was a distinguished educator for two decades at alal training school the only Secondary School open to black students during the segre segregation era her contributions are recognized of course in the name of one of the most diverse schools in our division so that's really exciting news about Burley and um those are my announcements for tonight thank you Mr Paige okay thank you Dr hos and I am a proud graduate of Jackson P Burley high school and um with all the

120things photograph is on the wall as I recall what your your class photograph is on the walls oh yes it is down the hallway it's a very handsome photograph too I'm not sure the picture is not the best of quality but anyway it's there and like Dr hos said there is a quiz and so maybe if we could convince Mrs Baker to send some real chocolate and some real apples to us we could use those things as like prizes for doing good on the quiz so Dr Baker see what you can do I also have an announcement too um quite a few people mentioned um tonight that we should maybe try to do a better process of announcing um what move or what phase we will be moving into uh as we move along during

121the year so as we recall on our calendar December the 10th is the date that we had set aside to receive the next recommendation from Dr hos and I'd like to propose and would like a motion to allow us to have a meeting on December the 17th so that we can hear the motion or hear his recommendation on one day and then vote on it on the next and during that time we'd be able to receive probably some more feedback from our parents and students and community members so um some are there any questions or could I have a motion to that effect so moved second okay moved by uh Mr oberg second by Miss Lee and I think Dr aov that we have um meeting a special meeting on December the 17th to vote

122on Dr hass's recommendation about what phase we'll move into doing uh the third nine weeks so uh is there any discussion on that motion okay Mr chair I was a bit perhaps a bit confused did you say no November or December 17th okay Miss Thompson could you please call the rooll on that motion yes sir that was December 17th correct chairman Paige right Miss Lee yes Mr alaro yes Mr oberg yes Dr aov yes Miss Osborne yes Miss Carlson yes and chairman page yes so moved okay thank you we will now move to our school division business first item here cros Elementary additions and Renovations Mrs Lindsay snady will lead this discussion for us good evening I'm Lindsay snotty I'm deputy director of The Building Services Department and per Schoolboard policy the board must approve

123the schematic and design development plans of major construction projects a schematic design of the the cro Elementary editions and Renovations was approved on July 9th this project will add approximately 35,000 square feet in total additions to the building as well as making improvements to the existing building and site the additions will include a net gain of 16 classrooms one special EDG classroom two smaller resource classrooms two conference rooms two offices a faculty workroom and various support spaces the additions will also expand the kitchen cafeteria and Media Center other improvements to the existing building will include the replacement of existing hbac serving the existing classrooms and we have some exciting news to share about that portion of the project as well the current schedule has the project completed for the 2223 school year however funding for

124construction has not yet been appropriated the school board will have a series of conversations with the Board of Supervisors beginning in a couple of weeks to discuss Capital Project funding Ken ther with bmdo Will present the design development plans and budget scenarios tonight this is for information only at the next meeting we will recommend approval of the design development plans and authorization to proceed with construction documents thank you Ken thank you Lindsay good evening everyone um I'm going to share my screen [Music] and show you a few slides here we go well thank you again um first of all I would like to uh tell you that congratulations are in order um earlier today I came from a virtual award ceremony and can can announce to you that Pros Elementary School school was tonight named

125winner of AIA Virginia's 2020 test of time award this honor is given annually to buildings of enduring significance the original school was designed in 1989 with an architecture that is reflective of the modest tight-knit yet aspirational community that it serves in fact this is only the second school to win the award in the 40-year history of the program the other school incident ly was our 1980 design for Scottsville Elementary also right here in alal moral County this award speaks to alal County's long-standing quest to realize quality school buildings uniquely suited to their place on our current project we have completed our design development phase the middle of three phases of design so we are 2third complete with the design process we are aiming to complete our design work in the next few months so that

126the documents can be issued for bidding as early as January of the New Year our Design Concepts have remained virtually unchanged since I last spoke to you um presenting our schematic design plans however there are a few changes to note you will remember that cros Elementary is entered at the upper level and so this is the upper level floor plan at the front door um you you'll note that we are now planning for a new replacement kitchen as Lindsay mentioned rather than renovating the old one this will allow construction to take place during the school year without interrupting meal service at the school we've also added a prek classroom that is needed for that program um we've also combined the movement room Edition with the classroom Edition [Music] uh we have pulled the new construction

127closer to the existing school to better protect the stream buffer along parrot branch and parrot Branch incidentally is visible from uh the the classrooms on the lowest level of the school seen in this plan our recent work has involved intricate and detailed planning to ensure that work can safely take place on an operating school school campus while school is in session during the 21 and 22 school year and in the two summers that bracket that construction schedule so that's 15 months of construction overall uh in describing the scope of the project Lindsay mentioned that uh that these details have been exhaustively reviewed over the last six months by our eight member design committee this group is composed OS of cabinet level Educators Building Services leadership and cros Elementary principal they have evaluated our many design

128iterations and have made decisions that ensure the greatest possible impact on C's Learners and the greatest possible value for County budget stewards classrooms are of course the fundamental building block of any school and in a change from the original CIP our committee prioritized mechanical renovation work in the existing building to improve system reliability and deliver adequate fresh air we are particularly excited about the geothermal heating and cooling system that will serve every room in the expanded school not just in the addition but also in the original classrooms which will allow us to eliminate a Troublesome oil fire heating system the geothermal system will be the first of its kind in albamar and is certainly aligned with the goals of the County's recently adopted climate action plan our work on the site of the school uh

129includes an enlargement of the existing playground new play equipment and a walking Track uh these things were inspired by Community input and we are working to ensure that all will be in compliance with regulatory requirements I think this is definitely one of the things that that U Miss crummy and the school staff are are very excited about in fact last Friday we were uh a part of a virtual staff meeting with uh The cros Faculty uh we presented our design progress to date we reviewed uh early feedback that was solicited from teachers students and parents and explained how those insights informed our decision-making soon miss crummy will convene a group of teachers and students to help with planning an environmental Graphics package that will offer clear wayfinding but also reinforce themes that are important to

130cros school culture in as much as we are happy with the design progress we've made we continue to struggle with the Project's construction budget established several years ago during the CIP process at $1,650,000 our most recent cost estimate show are designed at $1,700,000 a difference of a little more than $1 million or about 7% of the overall budget while initial project budgeting is certainly an inexact science we have discovered several oversights that have impacted our design work along the way we have endeavored to incorporate every programmatic piece of the project in our design in the most costc conscious ways possible and yet our design exceeds the original budget's area Target by 5,000 square ft at an average cost of $300 per square foot that represents an additional cost of about $1.5 million well more than

131our present overage according to our cost estimators the design committee has concluded that the project scope should remain unchanged any further cuts to the design needed to bring the cost estimate back to the budget with will in the minds of the committee members detrimentally impact the scope and quality of the project we do plan to protect your interests on bidday by identifying a number of AD alternates on the drawings these are alicart items such as a new entry canopy a bus canopy an auxiliary Sports field and supplemental Landscaping that will lower the base bid cost and can be included in the project if pricing is is favorable so our cost estimators are well known for being conservative um it it is their job to protect all of us from sticker shock on midday while their

132estimate of the project is high contractors with whom we are familiar claim that they will be hungry for work next year and that their pricing will be far more competitive than this estimate suggests we are further told by our estimators themselves and contractors with whom we speak often that the construction Market is expected to remain soft for a while but it that it will surely surge upward when economic activity rebounds and for that reason they encourage us to bid the work on schedule if at all possible so I will stop the screen share and invite you all to ask any questions that you might have are there questions from the board I have a question Mr ther can you tell me what role I saw a slide about sustainability in the environment and and what

133considerations have you made during the design to to keep the environmental issues in mind the reason I bring this up is because I think I was at maybe it was um city council meeting for Charlottesville and um municipalities and counties can have tremendous impact on the environment in the way they build their buildings and the considerations and I know Kate we had talked about getting a committee to asks these very questions but since we have you here and I saw that slide can you elaborate on the sustainability isues you've considered yeah I think that slide that you saw was uh from um environmental Graphics packages that we have done in the past at other schools um where we' we've tried to emphasize sustainable aspects of our buildings of our schools um to to Really allow

134the school to become a teaching tool for the children um but to directly answer your question I think that sustainability was probably the very first thing that we talked about with Miss crummy when she invited us to visit the school back in March um who who reminded us that that cros has a long history of uh sustainable advocacy among students uh they had just planted trees along the stream buffer um and I would say that that that theme has has been a prominent part of our conversations um throughout the year uh through the full course of our design conversations with with the school community and with the community at large so can you point to specific things and I'm sorry sorry that I'm not well versed in this but specific things that have happened in

135the building or that are being done I don't know what no that's great we love answering questions like this one of the things I would say that we're doing that that uh just makes a lot of good Common Sense from an architectural perspective is that we're building uh as compact of an addition as we possibly can you know three stories seems unconventional for an elementary school but we're taking advantage of the hillside to uh tuck a third story underneath first two um that's really minimizing impact on a beautiful campus um it's uh it's saving uh Heating and Cooling cost with a compact building footprint we are orienting the classrooms every classroom in the in the school that's new will face South so it will be able to harvest daylight for naturally lighting those rooms um

136and then of course the geothermal system system is something that we're really excited about we have implemented them in other school divisions across the state um we're excited to bring that to Alamar County it makes so much sense to to use the ground for your heating and cooling Source year round rather than oil or electricity thank you yeah you bet add sorry let me add one we we are making sure that the roof is solar ready even though solar PV isn't part of this the project scope but that's something that we've done successfully through a solar power purchase agreement for six of our other schools so it will certainly be able to accommodate solar but it's not part of the current scope that's ask that Lindsay because on the graph the mockup you had I

137saw that flat roof space looks good that's our goal K I just wanted to Echo um what was said about the the um geothermal I I guess I had not heard about that going in before and I applaud the implementation of that uh I know several places in the county not not in public buildings but in private homes where that's being used uh the efficiency and and uh benefits to the owners in this case us you know in terms of costs and and all for ongoing is I think just uh so valuable and uh I think great Insight was shown with including that we're we're really excited about it um it's it's free energy there's virtually there very few moving Parts in the system uh it's absolutely quiet which is a nice thing to have

138on a school campus so and and the the payback period is right now modeling at 3 to four years years which is pretty astounding so that that means that the Energy savings you gain after three or four years will will pay for the system and after that they're going in your pocket are there other questions from any other board members gosh I hate to ask this I know we have a dooy of a meeting but can you just clarify so so I'm sure so it's right now seven anticipated to be 7% over budget but we think that next year given the current economic situation there it's going to be more competitive so we think it might not actually be that much over budget is that the takeaway that's exactly right so it's the estimate that

139is over the budget by about 7% right now we're continuing to look for ways to do things more coste effectively and we're we're just bullish about a very competitive Construction Contracting market so if you were to go out to bid on time uh next win this winter January February time frame that could be a an ideal time to hit the construction Market okay Miss nty do you have any other um or Miss Carlson you have another question no I was gonna say I don't have any more okay Miss NY do you have any other um input thank thank you Mr ther for your presentation but um you did mention the supervisors meeting and so make sure that the board members are what happens in that meeting I think would be deciding how we proceed with

140this project right I will defer to rosin on that but I believe just the discussion of capital projects and general and which ones will move forward will be important okay M Schmid yeah so I'll just rosin Schmidt Chief Operating Officer that agenda for that work session is still under development uh it will be very preliminary affordability conversation so I think the agenda will not be structured to talk about specific projects but I think as a part of the discussions there certainly will be will be an opportunity to to discuss it okay all right and this will come back to us at the next meeting or two right yes it'll be on your consent agenda at your next meeting for Action okay are there any other questions from any other board members on this item okay

141if not moving forward our next item our return to school decision for the second nine weeks and Dr hos is going to lead this presentation off Dr H thank you very much Mr Paige and uh thank you very much to the school board um good evening again everyone I'd like to begin by thanking everyone who is here tonight our school board members our staff principes teachers students parents community members I think we've got about a thousand people uh watching the live stream right now I would also like to thank all of you who shared your thinking with the school board and me during public comment I know that it isn't always easy to do to to get out and speak in public like that and I commend you and I thank you for it your

142comments are very valuable I would also like to thank the thousands of members of our school Community who took the time to share their personal stories and Views these past several months they all have been helpful to me as I have considered the safest course of action for our students employees and families I want to thank our employees in our support departments our student nutrition staff who are making and serving lunch and breakfast and serving it remotely to thousands of of our students daily our bus drivers who are delivering meals to families on their bus routes and transporting students to and from school who need to who who uh need to be in our schools and our school custodians maintenance staff nurses administrators and office Associates who are putting themselves literally on the front line

143of keeping our schools safe and absolutely I am grateful to and Amazed by our teachers and Technology staff through your hard work your empathy your creativity and uh Herculean hard work you are making the best of a very tough situation and making virtual learning work as best it can I'm inspired and Amazed by what our teachers are doing and I worry about them every day with the pressure they they are feeling to get it right and there are a lot of things going right thanks to our employees and I can't thank you all enough I see you I thank you as I get into the body of my comments I want to say that my primary hope is that all we that we all get all of the questions answered to the best of our

144ability in this process I hope everyone understands that if the board decides to move up a stage tonight we built our timeline so that we have a full month to continue to iron out details for each employee and student but I want to be sure we can address all the questions we can if you have a question after tonight I encourage you to start with your school's principal if the principal doesn't have an answer please contact me and I will get you to the person who can answer your question and make sure the principal has the correct information moving forward I want to continue to ask all of our stakeholders to use our return tolearn web page it's updated very frequently answers to many questions I continue to hear are found there please please let

145me express my appreciation to the Virginia Department of Education and the health department especially our local Health officials including of course Ryan McKay uh who's here in Charlottesville who have done such a superb job of providing upto-date and comprehensive guidance on the health of our community and the protective measures needed to keep our employees students and families safe I firmly believe these recommendations have contributed to the response by the teachers who are actually in our schools and using them on our recent online survey that upwards of 70% agree that the health and safety protocols in their workplace have kept them safe that is more than 10 times the percentage of teachers who disagreed since our schools were closed in March we have invested more than $1.5 million to keep our employees and students and families

146safe Investments that are crucial to meeting one of the Center for disase Disease Control and prevention's core indicators for the lowest risk of covid-19 transmission one of the most important of these indicators effective mitigation strategies results from our school board's support of such measures as mandating the consistent use of face masks in our schools and it is the result of the outstanding preventive measures in our schools put in place by our support service employees because of these efforts my weekly visits to schools have demonstrated that we are prepared to socially distance students and staff we're doing it now and we're prepared to continue to do it even with increased numbers to follow hand hygiene and respiratory adequate etiquette and to regularly clean and disinfect all classrooms and schools and to maintain healthy air circulation these

147steps have helped keep to a minimum the number of our employees who have tested positive for covid-19 the quick and responsible action by our employees and our health department when an employee has tested positive proves that high quality and reliable contact tracing not only is possible in our division but it is in place and it is working it is important to also keep our focus on the cdc's other two core indicators the percent positivity of covid-19 tests is on the edge between indicating a low or moderate rate risk of transmission the number of new cases per 100,000 people is in a higher risk category but research tells us this number is being significantly influenced by what is happening at UVA in terms of the numbers the the UVA numbers are in alal County data but

148it is not in our schools where there are students in schools in our region experiences largely have been safe nearly 23,000 students are in schools in our region Virginia Department of educations region five with 20 School divisions in proximity and adjacent to us with only minimal instances of virus transmission we can be compared to all of these School divisions on an equal basis because although we all have schools in rural suburban and urban settings when you enter the school our classrooms are about the same size in our current plans for example our class sizes are projecting from 5 to 11 students for an average of about 10 across the county here in our school division more than 13,000 students are not in school for these families fewer than four in 10 parents say their child

149stays focused on instruction fewer than one in four students according to their parents is able to maintain contacts with other students two out of three parents say they would send their child to school if they had that option they had that choice by nearly a two: one margin parents say their child has been less successful this year compared to in-person instruction in Prior years our teachers say also by a nearly two to one margin that they know their students less well than they have known them in Prior years these results confirm what we already know virtual instruction is is less than perfect it is less effective than in-person learning and I believe it calls upon us to thoughtfully and safely expand inperson learning all numbers have context and I want to share with you what

150I think about when I read these numbers and think about the students they represent in Al mall we have an equity mission statement and here it is we will end the predictive value of race class gender and special capacities on Student Success by working together with families and communities to ensure each individual Student Success the current instructional environment in our schools and in schools across our nation are driving ever wider the gap between the halves the have less and the Have Nots according to Dr Bob P dean of the curry School of Education and human development at University of Virginia covid has already LED and will continue to lead to a staggering increase in academic inequality the learning gaps were already increasing but time a classroom matters overall he expects we will see a 30%

151loss in reading and math scores in our current uh virtual environment however for vulnerable populations lowincome minorities English language Learners and special education we expect to see a 50% decrease in reading scores and this is a quote from Dr P a whopping 70% decrease in math scores we will have very very difficult time recovering if it is even possible without enormous and sustained effort covid and the impact on education places generations of kids at risk and I will just say as Dr Kastner the superintendent who hired me to work in alal County public schools once told me that we often do not hear the voice of our most vulnerable and marginalized families I have to say we did not hear them tonight as an early speaker pointed out they are drowned out when we make

152a decision like the one we are faced with tonight that is why we have the gaps in equity that we have research tells us that interventions as early as possible in the life of a child can lead to improvements in a child's survival her health growth and cognitive and Social Development this is a conclusion widely shared by educational researchers and practitioners including our own State Department of Education which has advised School divisions around the state that in-person instruction should be a priority for our youngest Learners the health experts who advis this board recently said and this is Dr Denise bonds uh from Thomas Jefferson health district soon to be bluid health district efforts to safely increase the number of students returning for inperson instruction and recommends focusing on younger students smaller class or pod sizes

153with students adequately spaced ours is a School Division that consistently has valued expanding the range of choices available to students as the most effective Pathway to achieving our one strategic goal for all for each graduate to actively have mastered the skills to succeed is 21st century Learners workers and citizens I am recommending to the board that we expand the concept of choice to more parents and students by increasing the number of students we invite into our schools beginning on November 8th choice to attend school in person should be extended to the parents of all children in Pre kindergarten programs and grades kindergarten through third grade to all special education students in in a based and c-based programs to additional English language Learners to students without internet access and students who would most benefit from in-person

154instruction they are our customers they deserve choice based on consultation with our building principles in-person instruction for our prek students and those in grades kindergart through third grade would be two days per week ensuring that we can continue to keep our learning environment safe and adapt to numbers of students and staff as they grow over time it could increase the entire number of students in our schools to about 2500 students each of the two days of a week for a total of 5,000 students while actual numbers will be determined by how many parents choose the two-day per week in-person instruction option we expect average class sizes to be about 10 students or less on July 30th we told our community that progression from stage two to stage three of our return to school plan would

155be based upon six factors and you'll see those later in the presentation executive orders and local ordinances that impact the ability to provide successful classroom learning there are none preventing moving to stage three guidance offered by the CDC and state and local Health authorities there is none that would prevent a move to stage three current covid-19 conditions in the region within our schools including but not limited to community transmission testing positivity rates and other Public Health Data no conditions exist to prevent an expansion into stage three status of covid-19 testing and tracking abilities the status of these capabilities in alal County schools and in our community allows the move to stage three according to our health department our ability to staff and support the implementation of our instructional and health plans based on our online

156survey and the reports from our principles who regularly talk with teachers and classified staff I am absolutely confident we can safely move to stage three and feedback from stakeholders and school communities which supports a modest expansion to stage three I want to quote two of the authorities we reference in our decision Mak process the CDC has said that schools are an important part of the infrastructure of communities as they provide safe supportive learning environments for students employ teachers and other staff and enable parents Guardians and caregivers to work they also help the CDC says to mitigate Health disparities by providing critical services including social physical behavioral and mental health if we have to I have to pause here and say that I understand fear we should all have a healthy respect and fear of covid-19

157obviously it is an infectious disease with dire consequences I completely understand being afraid of the virus fear and respect and a desire to protect our children and employees is what keep and Will Keep Us Vigilant and safe so far vigilance and adherence to our board required mitigation strategies have prevented outbreaks in our schools and I'm confident that this will continue into stage three I hope everyone understands however that we will monitor daily any cases reported we are working on a web page to report by school the five cases we have encountered since March not breakouts but cases that came in the school from other places and add information to the report so that everyone can check and see what is happening in each School building I also want to assure all of our students staff

158and families that I will strictly follow advice from the health department and will take every measure necessary to prevent outbreaks and spread including those we have not adopted yet as new methods are coming about and becoming more feasible and often more affordable daily and if it is necessary I will move us back to stage two we certainly Clos schools for inclement weather with short notice we can go back to stage two with short notice the only difference here is that the virtual learning environment our teachers have mastered will continue and our plan is for students to retain the teacher they are assigned to in stage three and continue to have that teacher for the remainder of the year I know it will be a disruption in many cases I don't not in all cases and

159I don't think in the majority of cases students may need to change teachers we've 've been in school for one month they will have the remaining um eight months of school a at the after the beginning of November with the same teacher and our let's see last part here the health district the health director for the Thomas Jefferson health district Dr Denise bonds advises us that the value of in-person education for pre to third grade is critical to this age group's overall development and growth Dr bonds assur ures us that providing the opportunity for students to return at this time is important and the current public health conditions in the community support a decision that enables parents and Guardians to send their children to school for in-person instruction based on the current public health risk

160conditions and our plan to minimize risk within School settings the Thomas Jefferson health district Dr Bond says supports a decision for us to implement a hybrid teaching model for prek students and for students in grades kindergarten through third grade experience has shown that this board's measured approach on July 30th was the right step and it tells us now that this is the right time to take another measured step forward and to give parents of our youngest students the right to choose whether they may attend school in person at this time I'll turn things over to Dr mlin thank you Dr H and actually we're going to uh let Dr Collins uh take over Miss Collins take over right now thank you I'm Debbie Collins Deputy superintendent I'd like to share some information this evening regarding

161stage three and the numbers associated with it as part of this presentation we will be viewing the voice voiceover slide deck that was shared last week with staff and families I know that many of you have already viewed the slide deck so pardon the repetition there seems to be some confusion over the past 24 hours about details surrounding stage three so it seemed like a good opportunity to share this information again at its meeting on October 88th the albam County School Board will make a decision whether the School Division should progress to a new stage of the return to school plan this presentation will provide you with the most up-to-date information available about stage three so that you can provide feedback on the material the school board will consider when deciding to remain in stage

162two or move to stage three as we consider the next steps of our staged approach and our return to school plan it's important to remember that stages present a sequenced approach to return to school from fully virtual instruction to fully in-person instruction Public Health Data will guide the decisions that the school board will make regarding the return to school plan and acps will need to be fluid in order to respond to the needs of the community and public health guidance currently acps is in stage two of our return to school plan this means we have virtual learning for most of our students and limited in-person access for a limited number of our students we will remain in this stage until at least November the 6th which is the end of the first quarter this school

163year in July the school board voted to begin the school year in stage two on October 8th the halfway point of the grading period the school board will vote on whether or not we should advance to stage three for the second marking period any shift to a higher stage of return would take place at the start of a new marking period but the school division could move to a more restrictive stage of returning at any time if public health conditions warrant such action the following slides will provide an overview of stage three in stage three virtual learning will continue for students in grades 4 through 12 and expanded access to optional inperson learning would be offered to students who are English language Learners special education students and students who have exhibited a lack of Engagement

164in the virtual experience a hybrid learning option would be available to students in grades prek through three with all families having the option of staying completely virtual finally secondary students may be eligible to participate in athletics and extracurricular activities upon approval of the school division in-person access is different from face-to-face instruction students participating in in-person Access complete all their work virtually but do so at one of our school buildings in a small pod that has a learning coach in the room for support in-person access is always optional for eligible families in stage three eligibility would expand to include all all special education a base and c-based program students English Learners in grades 4 through 12 with a WIA level of 1 through 4 and students who have shown a lack of Engagement in Virtual experience

165during stage two hybrid learning is a combination of virtual learning and face-to-face instruction with a child's classroom teacher all students in grade prek through three are are eligible for the hybrid option but no student will be required to attend school in person in other words all students can remain 100% virtual if they choose to do so we know that our youngest Learners benefit from face-to-face learning and social interactions when they are in school they are more vulnerable to a summer and Co slide when they lack necessary foundational learning experiences needed for successful learning as they advance in grades for instance students who do not learn to read by grade two are more likely to fail to graduate than their reading peers the hybrid learning model for students in prek through third grade would mean face-to-face

166learning at school for 2 days each week with asynchronous at home learning 3 days each week Elementary groups will be generally formed by utilizing virtual AM and PM synchronous groups groups will be adjusted to balance out group sizes if families have children in two different groups in stage two they may elect to change so all family members are in the same group in stage three you may recall that the plan that was originally presented to the school board in July had a 4-day face-to-face schedule for students in grades prek through three since that time Elementary principles have had a chance to review the original recommendation of 4 days a week due to many logistical challenges that 4 days a week puts on elementary schools the principal's recommended a shift to a two-day week hybrid model

167for stage three there are multiple benefits for your child in this model that include a smaller number of students in the building which makes for easier social distancing protocols eliminating the need for split classrooms to accommodate social distancing meaning your child will be with his or her assigned classroom teachers at all times for face-to-face instruction all students following the same bell schedule and a continuation of synchronous specials during at home learning days learning at school in the hybrid model will consist of students in their classroom with their teacher for face-to-face instruction with about half of their classmates access to Outdoors playground and the gym instruction in the full Core Curriculum a focus on social and emotional learning including working with others and School counseling services and students receiving face-to-face intervention services when appropriate when learning

168at home students will learn virtually through asynchronous activities that are supported by School teaching assistance attend synchronous specials classes and receive interventions via Zoom as appropriate in addition to some Elementary School students returning to school for face-to-face instruction Athletics and extracurricular activities for secondary students would be eligible to resume in stage three detailed information about the acps Athletics and activities reopening plan C can be found on our return to school web page creating a safe environment for all of our students and staff is the top priority as we move through the stages of returning to school specific details about our mitigation strategies to prevent the spread of covid-19 can be found on our return to school website and include a universal face covering policy enhanced cleaning and disinfecting health screenings for everyone entering a school

169building enhanced ventilation in our classrooms appropriate physical distancing practices and a transportation health plan we have created a short video to highlight what these mitigation strategies will look like in our buildings the decision I'd like to thank the communication team for that excellent presentation you can find that slide deck on our website as a reminder and to re reiterate what we've already what you've already heard stage three is a progressive approach to bring more students into our buildings stage three Builds on stage two stage two has allowed us to have approximately two 2% of our students coming to school in addition to approximately 70 special education students we have about a 100 English language Learners and 100 students without internet connectivity attending four days days a week while most of our students will remain learning

170virtually with the same schedule theyve they have now I want to highlight the additional students we would would be inviting into our school buildings our largest group would be our students in prek through third grade if all of our students were to choose hybrid as Dr hos told you earlier we would invite in approximately 4,000 students that would mean approximately 2,000 prek through third grade students would attend each day in the every other day model for our fourth through 12th graders we would invite in 250 additional special education students and approximately 315 English language Learners additionally we will identify invite and students who are not thriving in our current virtual environment we anticipate this would be no more than 5% of our students which would be about 470 students finally in stage three we would

171allow for athletic and EXT extracurricular activities to begin in our secondary school during the established process at this time Miss SMI will provide more details on these numbers thank you thank you Miss Collins my name is rosin Schmidt Chief Operating Officer um So based on those student populations that Miss Collins mentioned I wanted to briefly highlight how many students we will anticipate having in our buildings on a typical day during stage three since we know families will elect to remain virtual we anticipate only having about 2500 stud students in our building per day which is only about 20% of our total enrollment if we zoom in on the classroom level our current K3 uh prek to third grade classes are between 10 and 24 students so when brought in on an alternating schedule that means

172that there will only be between five and 12 students in a classroom at a time physical distancing will be a key Health mitigation strategy so these small class sizes will help us Implement that strategy effectively that concludes our overview of the details of stage three so next Dr McGloin will review the factors that were considered in the recommendation to to progress to this stage thanks Miss Schmidt and good evening board members I'm Patrick mcclaflin chief of strategic planning for the school division as you recall from our return to school plan the School Division has identified six factors that should be considered as we make a decision to move from one stage to the next those factors are applicable executive orders and local ordinances that may impact the ability to provide successful classroom learning guidance offered

173by the CDC and state and local Health authorities current covid conditions in the alaro county region and within Alamar County Public Schools including but not limited to community transmission testing positivity rates and other Public Health Data status of covid-19 testing and tracking capabilities in the alaro county region the ability of alaro County Public Schools including Staffing and resources to implement the division's instructional and health plans and feedback and input from stakeholders and school communities tonight we'll provide updates on the current state of these factors the first factor is applicable executive orders and local ordinances that may impact the ability to provide successful classroom learning currently the Commonwealth of Virginia is in phase three of its reopening plan separate guidance in regard to reopening has been provided by the Virginia Department of Education and our recommendation

174to move to albam Marl stage three would fall within what the do defines as phase two allowing prek through3 students and select other groups to attend school in person finally Almar county has extended ordinance 20-13 through November 18th this ordinance establishes strong mitigation strategies for the entire Community including specific limits on occupancy of food establishments as well as limits on social Gatherings none of the current orders and ordinances would prevent the board from moving to stage three of our uh and in fact Mor's local ordinance provides mitigation strategies above and beyond what the Commonwealth has established that will work to further limit Community transmission and lower the level of risks for students and staff in schools we also look to guidance from national state and local Health authorities as we consider moving to stage three

175that guidance comes from the Centers for Disease Control the Virginia Department of Health in our local Blue Ridge health district the vdh has created the following graphic that combines information from the health agencies with the phase reopening approach developed by the Virginia Department of Education it crosswalks the five categories of risk of community transmission from the CDC with the Department of Education phase guidance as you can see on this graphic schools can reopen in doe phase three at the lowest and lower levels of risk can open in doe Phase 2 at moderate or high risk and doe phase one when at the highest level of risk of community transmission as a reminder our recommendation for acps stage three aligns with the the Department of Education Phase 2 guidelines the next two factors that we need

176to consider when moving stages are the status of covid-19 testing and tracking capabilities in the alaro county region and current covid-19 conditions in the Alamar County region and within Alamar County Public Schools including but not limited to community transmission testing positivity rates and other Public Health Data at this time I would like to turn things over to Ryan McKay from the Blue Ridge health district to provide updates on these areas Ryan thank you Dr mcfan thank you to the board um and those listening for the opportunity to provide some updates um a couple of things that are critical in terms of our ability to contain and mitigate risk within the community but certainly within school systems includes some data that we're going to hear uh about in a second but also um capabilities regarding testing

177and our ability to track uh those who are positive and those that need to be quarantined as compared to where we were in July both in Virginia locally and across the country testing capacity is increased there continues to be widespread access to testing um that has been established over the last couple of months Supply chains have been firmed up and even though UVA has been spending a tremendous amount of resources to provide for testing in uh their students they continue to provide access to testing through community events we we are also able to provide Community testing through our own events and we have not yet heard of any uh slowdown or issues with accessing testing throughout the community and providers turnaround times for tests from Labs continue to run about less than 48 hours um

178from the receipt of that specimen which is really important and critical for us to be able to contact those who are positive at this point we have been able to uh contact individuals who test positive within 24 hours roughly 96% % of the time and then close contacts who need to quarantine around 95% of the time there are a few metrics that we're going to look at here in a second one relates to pandemic metrics that we have been sharing with localities for a number of weeks now and then some of the data that's much more localized um that helps inform decision- making and I think that's an important piece of this conversation is that the data shows um spikes it shows valleys it shows Chang and Trends but there's a lot of context behind

179that and these next few slides we'll explain a little bit about that context this comes from the vdh is pandemic metrics dashboard um this part isn't actually accessible publicly because they want people to refer to some of the more um uh metrics that are aligned with the CDC but this is what we've been sharing for the last several weeks uh on the left-and side you can see burden meaning how much is occurring or how much is happening in the community at any given point at this point there are 11 uh uh people per day um per 100,000 Contracting covid based on the statistics we also have a positivity rate that's a rolling 7-Day average of 5.3% as you can see um even though those ends of the bar graphs the line graphs are trending downwards

180we're indicating that we've seen an increase um for both over the last few weeks this just gives you a little bit of snapshot of what we've been seeing over the course of um the last month or so so on September 14th we were at 6.2 per 100,000 and since then we've um gone up to 11.0 per 100,000 as of October 7th um it is an increasing Trend we certainly take a look at this as part of what's the discussion around that um and as we move forward we'll get some understanding of what are some of the events that are occurring that would increase those numbers positivity rate is something that we look at again it also it has some context with it so this is really um just the percentage of individuals who are testing

181positive over a 7day period of time of all the people that have received a test so it doesn't necessarily translate to what the community spread is like but it gives us a better sense and understanding of what is happening in the community where testing is occurring what other events may be happening that's informing this data again we've just ticked over the 5% threshold here recently at 5.3% um but this is something that varies um from one week to the next depending on what's occurring in the community it's important to understand where Charlottesville city is we're very interconnected we'll also look at some data referring to the university but as an understanding of where we are with Charlottesville you can see that there's been um increases in the uh number of cases per 100,000 over the

1827-Day average 39.5 in September and then 41.6 in October and again some of these data points are going to coincide with events that have occurred throughout the community particularly the return of students both on grounds and offg grounds positivity rate so what may seem counterintuitive in terms of the number of cases that we are seeing on a daily basis the positivity rate has actually gone down over the last month this is really attributable to the widespread testing that UVA has done on grounds and then provided ACC to access to for students who live offg grounds it also includes all the testing that's been done um throughout the community over that time if we were to see large amounts of testing occurring uh at this rate but a positivity rate closer to 10 that would be

183much more concerning positivity rates that are under 5% allow us to contain uh potential spread of disease by quickly isolating the individuals who test positive and then quickly notifying those that need to quarantine the close contacts who may have been exposed to covid-19 this allow ows us to prevent further spread from occurring both in a educational setting but also in the community to provide a little bit of context there are some events that occurred related to testing um and then when students return to grounds or also off grounds between August and September it's going to impact the overall data on the left you can see that students began reporting um uh cases on August 17th on their covid tracker on September 6 UVA students moved into ongr grounds housing um at this time there also

184um the vast majority of students who live offg grounds had already moved into um their housing situations within the city potentially some in the county and we begin to see some of the increases both in uh our case counts per 100,000 but also with some positivity rates and then on September 18th uh uba began doing Point prevalence testing in their dorms which means once they've identified a couple of cases through the tradition add PCR testing which is the naval nasal swab testing or through some Wastewater testing indicating higher viral loads of the virus uh in the Wastewater they test every single person in that particular dorm it's a practice that's used in other congregate settings and the idea is that we are going to identify those who need to be isolated because they're positive and

185quickly quarantine those who are considered close contacts these increases in the testing also correlate some of the increases that we saw in the earlier slides in terms of increases in case incidence rate but also some of the positivity on the right hand side you can see some data here that's pulled from our data portal uh on our website but also from the co tracker indicating total number of cases in Charlottesville and alar over that time and then the number of cases that UVA was reporting through their student health um and the data systems that they use to track their own cases obviously there's a greater proportion of those testing positive within the UVA Community than in the El community at large I think another point of context here is that to this point we have

186not really been seeing Community transmission that's also tied to student transmission university has done a tremendous job to provide Ong grounds housing for those that need to isolate in quarantine and have worked really hard to communicate with the entire student body and their faculty on the appropriate measures to take to limit spread for those who test positive these are part of core indicators that vdh is using that also align with the CDC core indicators um to help schools make decisions in terms of what the risk is um here you can see that the SE the 14-day new cases per 100,000 is 172.02 Mission and what that means is is that understanding that risk allows us to make different determinations about how to mitigate risk in different settings for example bringing prek through third grade back

187is one of the ways that we can mitigate and minimize risk within schools if we're going to return students to in-person education the last one is the ability to uh of the school to implement five key mitigation strategies which you've heard a lot about previously one of the things that's really connected to Public Health is the ability to do the contact tracing over the course of the last few months we've worked closely with the county schools to really firm up that process to establish communication Pathways and identify lessons learned from previous uh uh communication maybe um what we would consider um mistakes or opportunities for learning to address those and firm those up before students return in greater numbers thanks Ryan the CDC has recently established qu quantitative levels for each school for each of

188the categories of risk of transmission in schools and as you can see they also focus on the case incident rate and percent positivity in the local community based on our current numbers our case incidence rate places Us in the higher risk of transmission category and our percent positivity rate places Us in the moderate risk of transmission category the third Factor that's identified by the CDC to consider a schools reopen is perhaps the most important one the ability of a school district to implement five key mitigation strategies which include consistent and correct use of masks social distancing to the largest extent possible hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette cleaning and disinfection contact tracing and collaboration with local Health departments alar county has put significant effort into the five key strategies that are outlined by the CDC we

189recently adopted a mask policy which requires mask for every individual in our school school buildings as alluded to earlier our stage three recommendation would have very small class sizes on any given day in our schools in addition students in our elementary schools will will remain with the same group of students throughout the day both of these measures allow appropriate social distancing to be achieved the School Division has installed hand sanitation stations in each classroom and throughout our buildings to promote good hand hygiene detailed protocols for cleaning have been implemented including investing in equipment such as Ms and HEPA filters and outfitting each classroom with disinfecting wipes and finally we have a strong relationship with the health district to assist with contact tracing in the event of a positive case in our schools so when schools

190Implement all of these practices consistently and correctly it lowers the overall risk of transmission in our schools even when other factors are elevated acps currently has all five mitigation strategies in place and we feel that we are implementing all of them correctly and consistently as you will see later in the presentation this is evidenced by strong agreement from our staff who are currently working in our schools that the mitigation strategies we have in place are adequate for keeping them safe when this is coupled with the disproportional impact the University of Virginia has on alar County's numbers as Ryan has addressed we feel strongly that we can safely invite students back to our schools up next I was going to read a statement um by Dr Denise bonds who is the health director of the Blue

191Ridge health district but I understand that Dr bonds was actually able to join us tonight and so at this point I'd like to welcome Dr bons if she would like to um go over the details of her statement or provide any other information to us Dr bonds are you there I am can you hear me yes perfect so thank you so much for having us here you heard a lot of data and information from Ryan McCay and I won't go through that again and I'm not going to read the statement that's on the board there for you um but I will say that um we've been very impressed with the preparations that alaro County Schools have made to bring their students back into class um I do think that it is really critical particularly for

192our younger age kids that they get back in a classroom setting I I've heard from many many parents um the difficulty that kids this age are having with virtual learning um I think that when we look at the risk benefit ratio having these kids back in the class in the fashion that has been designed by Alam Maro County school and really tested out by some of our neighboring school districts makes it an activity that the benefits fall on the side of having the kids return back so I'm excited to see the plan um that's put forward I'd be happy to answer any questions uh and I know Ryan has a uh would be happy to answer questions as well about uh the co status in the district um or about our ability to respond over

193overall thank you Dr Bond and we will likely take advantage of that in just a minute when we when we pause for some questions from our board members uh again thank you for being here uh finally um we've had some questions uh over the past few days about whether the timing of our return close to the winter holiday should be adjusted and I'd invite Ryan back to give the board some insight into that area this question's come up a few times um and I think our understanding of what's happening in the community um what the risks are um both in terms of increase interaction due to the holidays I think gives us a little bit of um time to adjust so by bringing students back on the 9th before holidays begin that really allows the

194schools um the staff teachers nurses to really firm up the mitigation strategies that are going to be put in place to reduce risk um screening uh for symptoms um getting children to understand um the benefits of the wearing the masks um and just making sure that all of those Pathways for mitigating risk are in place if we really wait until after the holidays you have to think about the time frame that you would really want to wait um so looking at what a quarantine period looks like for potential exposure is 14 days um that really puts reopening and making those decisions into middle January maybe even later depending on what the school schedule is so I think the benefits of moving in and bringing students in on November 9th is really important because it provides

195time um to firm up those strategies but we also understand the potential risks that come with the holidays and we can adjust accordingly by providing additional guidance based on what we're seeing in the community in terms of uh the data and potential Community spread um and then what that risk is for the facilities thanks Ryan so coming back to our crosswalk document we have metrics that span multiple categories of risk but none that are high enough that the board would not be able to move our students to stage three of our return to school plan that coupled with the mitigation strategies and the information from our local Health officials gives us great confidence that we can move to stage three safely so before we move on uh to the final two categories that we'll discuss

196tonight I'd like to pause to see if the board has any questions for Ryan McCay or Dr Denise bonds I have a question let me start my video here um so for the first core metric the total number of new cases per 100,000 people within the past 14 days so in the past 14 days of that metric uh it's gone from 96.58% 4 with the highest risk minimum at 200 so um and I I understand what you're saying about UVA being a majority of those although I have a lot of students in my district whose parents work at UVA and it's a huge engine so um do is it that you think that we're not going to get to that highest risk here in the next couple weeks I think it's going to be hard

197to predict whether we will or not um Charlesville city is um but I think understanding what's driving those numbers is important um that the impact of the students being back on grounds and certainly offg grounds is impacting the data and what that looks like as opposed to community transmission Beyond UVA and what's affiliated with UVA in terms of the students um it's going to be hard to predict but at this point what we're seeing and what we're hearing is that even though there may be cases occurring in Transmission in the county it's not happening at a rate within the Community itself that gives us concern um if we were to begin to see transmission between students and the community and those things started happening at higher rates or more quickly then obviously that would give

198us pause for concern um but at this point we're just not seeing that and we think the impact is more on the data and not so much on community spread hey Ryan um it's Dave overberg um I hear you here's my concern um breaking out at UVA the students are staying pretty pretty pretty level about 150 per week but two weeks ago the positivity rate among the staff was seven and last week it was 21 so and you know I I accept the fact that students are really not going to be intermingling with the uh with the community as much but the staff certainly are going to is that a conern I think anytime there's a positive case there's always the risk that it's going to spread Beyond one or two people um what we've

199been experiencing is that between our quick turnaround times as an identifying staff and then quarantining we're not seeing a lot of transmission go beyond one or two people um there's the r not which is the number of people infected and we can't get down to the local level but regionally it's less than one per person um and so we're always concerned about the potential for larger outbreaks for larger clusters um but as long as I think as we're able to maintain that quick contact with individuals who test positive and then the close contacts we're actually able to contain spread that way um and having a positivity rate at the community level at or below five really helps us do that but ours is and that that was the other thing I was gonna ask you

200You' said hey look if we're below five we can contain it but we're at 5.1 if it were closer to to 8 78 n then I would be concerned 5.1 um in three days that could change depending on what the testing is um again positivity rate is sort of one aspect of the entire picture um our ability to get testing results quickly is a big part of that our ability to make contact within 24 hours is another part of that picture and we're very confident in what our team's been able to do to quickly identify isolate and quarantine individuals um and there's been great adherence to those recommendations that we provide um whether it's to students or whether it's to members of the community so how quickly if there is an outbreak how quickly will

201we identify it if there's an outbreak in the community there's a spike what delay is it between the time you say oh God and and are we gonna have time to go move back from stage three could vary on the situation we feel confident that we've identified outbreaks pretty quickly um a lot of that's going to depend on the number of close contacts uh the situation where the initial index case occurred um what's the spacing look like in that particular facility whether it's a school or whether it's a workplace um I think we've been really sound in our ability to identify those outbreaks um in more Community settings it's a little different in congregate settings like a long-term care facility um but we work really hard to limit the number of outbreaks um that have

202occurred and there's a low threshold for that you know an outbreak is um two people testing positive who have an epidemiological link and it's a low threshold for a reason so that we can identify those concerns quickly and adapt our procedures to make sure that we're um getting people to testing for isolating individuals and then quarantining those who are considered close contacts thank you so if there's no more questions I'll move on to our final two factors that we're considering uh and those are feedback and input from stakeholders and school communities and the ability of alar County Public Schools including Staffing and resources to implement the division's instructional and health plans recently Dr hos reached out to all of the school divisions in Region 5 to gather information about their current state of opening and

203to get feedback about how things were going for them this chart shows how the 20 districts in our region compare to our plans to move to stage three at the start of the school year five other districts opened up for special groups only as alar County did all of those districts are currently considering their reopening plans with multiple districts looking at plans that are similar to what acps has proposed in stage three the remaining districts have all opened with larger numbers of students when compared to Alamar of the districts that are currently open those schools are welcoming nearly 22,500 students to their buildings each day one of the indicators that's important to consider as schools reopen are any outbreaks that take place in the school setting an outbreak is defined as two or more labc

204confirmed cases that were contracted within the school environment as you can see there have been only three outbreaks in our region since the start of the school year when that data is expanded out to the entire state of Virginia the outbreak total is 27 while there been cases of individuals with covid in these districts and individuals who have needed to quarantine because of those cases the low number of outbreaks in school settings is an indicated that transmission of covid in schools that have reopened is a rare occurrence the school health Advisory Board now Marl County was created for the purpose of advising the school board on matters related to health policies and protocols each School Board member appoints a member to the uh to the health Advisory Board and there is also representation from the

205almaral medical board the Thomas Jefferson health health department and School Division employees as well as several superintendent appointees the board is facilitated by Eileen Gomez and currently has 16 members including local pediatric and adult Physicians clinical social worker a nursing supervisor as well as other other health professionals parents and School Division employees recently the board shared with us their feedback on stage three and expressed in a statement that they support efforts to safely increase the number of students returning for in-person instruction and recommends focusing on younger students they support smaller classes or pod sizes with students adequately spaced and a slow and cautious transition to stage three and the mitigation strategies that are already in place for stage two we've also been doing some extensive surveying of our employees parents and high school students we

206asked our employees who are currently working in our buildings either full or part-time if they felt that the health and safety protocols in place were adequate for keeping them safe over 70% of both classified and licensed staff members responded that they agreed or strongly agreed that the protocols were keeping them safe less than 10% of these staff members disagreed with this statement and while we're keeping safety as a primary focus of our decision-making process we also surveyed our community on the learning experiences of our students and staff to date we know that our online learning experience for students in the fall is significantly improved from last spring our teachers and staff members have been working incredibly hard and there's a lot that's going right with our online learning there are however two areas from the

207survey that were particularly concerning to us and reinforced our thinking that a move to stage three is warranted in our mission statement we pride ourselves on the relationships that we build with our students in fact a few years ago we revised the mission statement so that relationships became became before relevance and rigor when we asked our teachers how well they know their students compared to last year these were the results that we saw 47.1% answered less well 29.6% answered about the same and 23 .2% answered better when a weighted score Falls below 3.0 this indicates a negatively skewed response the weighted score for this item was a 2.7 additionally we asked our parents how well they felt their children were doing academically this year compared to last we saw similar results here as well with

20843.6 saying they were less successful 34.6% saying about the same and 21.8 su% saying they were more successful this item also had a weighted score of 2 .7 which skews to the negative we did see some clear differences in the responses from our teachers when compared to the responses from our parents when asked what they felt the best learning environment would be as we entered the second marking period we saw that approximately two-thirds of our teachers answered virtual would be best while nearly two-thirds of our parents responded that hybrid would be best we saw similar results when we broke these numbers out for prek to three responses we asked a similar question of our high school students and over 70% of the respondents indicated that they think a hybrid option would be best when they

209have the option to return to school in an addition we asked our parents what choice they would make for their child when face-to-face learning became an option to for them we see that roughly two-thirds of our parents would choose face Toof face and onethird would choose virtual finally we felt it was important for the board to hear directly from our principles and tonight we're grateful to have several of them with us I'd like to first introduce Seth Canard principal of Baker Butler Elementary School good evening thank you Patrick um and thank you members of the school board my name is Seth Canard the principal at Baker Butler elementary school and I'm here today to add some brief perspective um on behalf of the Elementary School principles regarding the possibility of progressing to stage three um

210I want to begin um like Matt did and many of our speakers Did by thanking our teachers our school staff our parents and our community members for their wavering support um and their tireless work over the first half of this instructional quarter um the principles know that this has not been easy and we deeply appreciate everyone's support um pending your decision on Dr House's recommendation Elementary School principles will be prepared to welcome back our preschool through third grade students next quarter while implementing the safety protocols outlined by the county um if this progression is adopted we would immediately begin the operational and instructional preparation necessary to make this transition as smooth as possible for our communities we remain committed to providing a robust virtual learning experience for students in grade four and five um in

211stage three um and for those students who opt to remain virtual under that stage if we remain in stage two we'll continue to refine our work with that as well while the decision to progress to the next stage does lie with the board we do recognize the value in being able to support our youngest Learners in person as we work to develop our classroom routines build their social skills and focus on literacy development face Toof face um we also recognize additional burden that this will have on our families by having two days in person but we do feel this model um and the model that we changed the principles putting forward for today will allow us to apply those County guidelines um and welcome back students and ensuring that they receive instruction from a highly

212qualified teacher um the principal stand ready to serve our students regardless of the vote this evening and again we want to thank our community for their support and we also want to thank you all we know this is not an easy decision and we appreciate your um thought and work that's gone into that thank you thanks Seth we also have Beth Costa from Henley Middle School Dr Costa good evening members of the board thank you for the opportunity to join you this evening to share my perspective on Dr host's recommendation to progress to stage three for the second nine weeks um I am Beth Kaa and I serve as the principal of Henley Middle School to begin I'd like to acknowledge the difficulty of this time many stakeholders have very different ideas of what the

213next best thing is to do all of that comes from a place of good intent from wanting to keep our children teachers staff and Community safely learning through that lens I'd like to acknowledge how incredibly adaptive our teachers and students have been to move to a virtual learning environment and how incredibly supportive and understanding our families have been as we lifted the 2020 school year off the ground now as we turn to the second night weeks the task for us is to consider whether we can continue to do better for our students and do so safely I can say with confidence that we have the ability and capacity to do better for our students by moving to stage three in stage two we have between two to three students in our building every day we

214were fortunate to be able to offer internet connectivity to our families so our numbers are very low after working in the virtual environment for the first five weeks we feel we are ready to secure the next safety net to ensure that more students are successful after a brief transition many students found their Rhythm and are doing relatively well however we hope to be able to work with our teams to identify students who are not thriving in this virtual environment and who whose social emotional and academic needs can be better met by coming to school and working with a learning coach each day another aspect of stage three that has the potential to improve our students experiences through our clubs for all of our students social interaction is a critical part of what they are missing

215in a virtual environment we are in the process of setting up these clubs in a virtual world however we would much rather get these students away from their screen and safely face to face especially while the weather still allows us to meet outside in closing I would like to once again thank you for all that you are doing for our school communities and I hope that you will approve this recommendation to move to stage three allowing the school staff student and family to make the decision to ascend to attend school if the data shows that the student is not thriving in this virtual environment we greatly need the ability to bring these children to school thank you thank you Beth also with us is darra Bonham from alar high school Dara thank you Dr mclin

216uh thank you members of the board for the opportunity to speak tonight I'm Dara Bon principal of Alamar high school I want to start by sharing how impressed and proud I am of our faculty and staff at Alam Marl High School for the design development and the implementation of our virtual learning experiences for our students this goes across Alamar County Public Schools our teachers and staff deserve so much credit they may not wear capes but we should all acknowledge that they are heroes in our community I love my staff and I also love my students tonight I will speak from my perspective from the high school side I've had many opportunities to talk to my students throughout the pandemic I feel for them I know many want to be back in school for academic social

217and emotional reasons I have seen an increased need from our students to receive individual and small group support that can best be done in person individual and small group academic support along with student support through many of their passions and Pursuits is a necessity for many teenagers I've worked in high school for over 27 years and I understand that band drama yearbook robotics sports clubs and other extracurricular activities are part of the fabric of high school student experiences while we can't simply return to normal I believe we can follow safety protocols and practices to provide these voluntary opportunities in academics and extracurriculars that our students not only crave but need honestly I am afraid we are losing some of our students at the high school level we must be purposeful deliberate and safe to start

218getting them back thank you thanks Mr bonam uh and also we have Rick rovak principal at monachella high school welcome Rick thank you Patrick good evening members of the almaral County School Board my name is Rick fov and I serve as the principal of Monella High School I appreciate the opportunity that I have this evening to sh to share a few words concerning your decision to move our school division from stage two into stage three I would like to commend our teachers staff students and parents who are spending endless hours to make our learning situation work kudos to all of you for what you do every single day thank you so much I want to start with our mission the core purpose of almaral County Public Schools is to establish a community of Learners and

219learning through relationships relevance and rigor one student at a time and I know that it was just mentioned that relationship was placed in front because of the importance and we all agree with that we're asking everyone in our school division to build positive relationships with our students parents and communities we know that a positive relationship will lead to Greater success in the classroom but more importantly it ensures that our students and staff members are in a good state with regards to their mental health building a relationship does not happen overnight spending quality time together helps lay a solid Foundation Zoom is a good virtual platform that we use to teach from and build relationships in our current state but it does not replace the face-to-face interactions that Foster positive relationships as Dar just mentioned High

220School is special time for children there's an academic component but there's also the social aspect of school we know that when we return to face-to-face instructions things will not be the same and students are not going to be hanging out in large groups like they did before but anytime they have the opportunity to physically see each other to laugh to share a thought to solve a problem even though they're six feet apart it's a good time they need the chance to grow up together to build memories and to do this safely there are School divisions around us that have done a great job at opening up they have created a template that we can learn from that we can adapt and used to meet the needs of our School Division finally on the surface stage

221three does not look like it has a tremendous impact on secondary schools but if we do not move on we're looking at the real possibility we may not get to stage four this school year which as we all know it's hybrid learning for the majority of students in alar County public schools that means our students can miss an entire year an entire year of face-to-face instruction as you consider the options in front of you please remember that we need to do what is best for students teachers and communities safely we know you will do that this is not a Sprint but a marathon one step in front of the other each day we have to continue to move forward to make progress to forge ahead knowing that we have 14,000 of the most precious and

222important people in the world that we need to take care of each and every day we've got this we're stronger together thank you all for what you do every single day Rick Dara Beth Seth thank you all so much for for being here tonight I know it's been uh an extremely long day you all are working hard leading our schools uh and so again I really want to thank you for taking the time to be with us tonight so the final consideration we'll discuss before opening up for discussion is our ability to implement the division's instructional and health plans at this time I'll turn things over to Dr Kaiser thank you Dr mcclaflin I'm CLA Kaiser assistant superintendent as you all are aware in order to move from one stage to the next we must

223have the staff and the resources in place to be able to implement our instructional Plan before I discuss the data with you I want to Echo what our principles and Dr hos have shared recognizing the tremendous efforts of our teachers and support staff as we began the school year and our current return to school stage while the learning curve has been steep our teachers have embraced the challenge of learning about and implementing virtual learning opportunities for our students and they have truly done a remarkable job as we consider the proposed shift to stage three we recognize that in addition to more students coming into our schools more teachers and support staff will also be required to do so in stage three all teachers and support staff who are associated with students coming in for face-to-face

224learning will be asked to report back to school that includes our prek through third grade classroom teachers and teaching assistants some special education teachers and teaching assistants as well as our Esau teachers and staff approximately 90% of our teachers completed the recent staff survey that Dr mclin has referenced previously as you may expect for as much of our staff wants to be back with their students they are also very cognizant of how the pandemic may impact their ability to physically return to school feedback from our teachers when asked their intentions regarding for inperson learning indicated that about two-thirds of them will be able to perform the work expected as outlined about one-third indicated that they would be able to work with an accommodation to continue to perform their work through virtual teaching when we break

225out those teachers who will be asked to return in stage three you'll notice that our prek through third grade teachers and special education teachers align closely with the 2/3 to 1/3 ratio of our overall teaching Force who completed the survey the availability of two-thirds of our teachers to come back for in-person learning aligns with the desires of our parents who as you saw previously indicated that two-thirds of them or about two-thirds of them would send their children to school at the time that they are invited to attend you'll also notice the section here about the leaves of absence about 11% of our teachers indicated that they would be requesting a leave of absence with a slightly higher percentage for those that are uh in the preschool through third grade teacher category the information provided is

226not necessarily mutually exclusive as we anticipate that some will request a leave of absence only if they are unable to receive a virtual teaching accommodation when we look at the overall number of requests for accommodations the results show us that across all groups all teachers prek through third grade and special ed most will request an accommodation due to health related reasons either for themselves or for a family member as a smaller number will request an accommodation specifically for child care needs most often associated with the impact of covid-19 on their own child school schedule based on the numbers here there are other factors for reasons that they may request an accommodation or leave of absence but we are un unable to ascertain the specifics from this survey what the survey does tell us is that

227we do have enough staff to fulfill the needs in stage three the numbers may not align perfectly across the grade levels and across the schools but we do feel that we are able to support the children who we anticipate returning to school in stage three so going back to the metric of do we have the staff I feel certain that we can say yes to that thank you thank you Dr Kaiser in summary when we presented our factors to the board in July we had two areas of green two yellows and Two Reds currently our first two factors remain green applicable executive order and ordinances would allow a move to stage three and the guidance offered from our local Health Department is clear the health department feedback has also moved our current categorization of the

228covid-19 conditions to Green they've explained to us the disproportionate impact of the University of Virginia on our data and also shared that they are not seeing Community transmission from UVA to the surrounding Community this is supported by our school health Advisory Board and from the actual experiences of our schools in the regions in of our schools in the region that have reopened our testing and tracking capabilities are much more robust than they were in July and our surveying indicates that we have adequate Staffing and resources to open our schools in stage three one area we still categorize as yellow is our feedback we see distinct differences in the feedback we've received from our staff and our community stakeholders we know that online learning is in a much better state today than this past spring due

229almost exclusively to the dedication of our teachers as good as our online experience has become we do not feel it should be a permanent substitute for in-person instruction and we feel that the student experience will be even further improved as students return to our buildings I want to thank the board for their attention tonight to tonight's presentation and to all of our guests who have been here to provide input at this point we'll turn things over to the board for questions and discussion do we have questions from the board can I Personal Privilege Mr chair I need to I need a break yeah okay that was what I was going to also mention um we can take maybe about a 10-minute break at this point and then come back and have discussion and aemotion that's

230a possibility so um by show of well let me give a quick vote Dr a are you all right with that having a 10-minute break followed by discussion and a Motion sounds perfect we could break until 10 o'clock okay uh Mr Al yes Miss Carlson yes Miss Lee yes Miss sterg yes Miss Osburn yes Mr TR yes sir okay so we'll take a 10-minute break we'll come back at uh 10 o'clock for Mr chair as a as a point of order will you be asking for a motion before questions or after questions I think it'll be better to have it before questions and then we can have questions during the uh discussion okay I can make a motion okay okay all right it's 9:59 we can wait one more minute here I always like to

231begin Things Early let's just go why are you laughing jonno uh can I ask the laughing laughing who was laughing explain early what now I'm asking my colleague to explain her definition of early who Miss call but it's now 10 o'clock so we are reconvened later okay all right so we are now reconvened so Mrs Carlson do you have a motion based on uh item 8 uh-2 return to school yes I move that we accept the superintendent's recommendation for a move to stage three and approve said move second motion okay it's been moved by Miss Carlson second Dr a and Mr El Caro that we accept um the superintendent's recommendation to move to stage three we the floor is now ready for discussion Andor questions so do we have questions or um any items that

232we'd like to discuss related to that motion I have a question uh that I think probably it's directed to Patrick but I'm not sure um so I'll throw it out and see see who is best and whoever can answer it can answer it if you can um we looked at a slide and it said the Comfort level of [Music] um I'm just not I'm sorry guys I'm it's it's late um was it the transmission rate no no no no it's it's the the survey surve question about how are your kids doing it wasn't Broken Out by by by by by age category is is it broken out anywhere for the prek through thir uh we we can break that out I don't have that broken out in front of me right now okay do do

233you know am I being articulate enough to to you yes I know there so there's yep there's a question how well do you know I'm sorry it was uh comp compared to traditional in-person instruction how successful has your child been academically this year right right and it is there any way to to break that out from a pre prek through through third let me see if I can um grab that for you Dave and if I if I can get it quickly I will um come back on and tell you okay thanks I have a question regarding the school health Advisory Board um I saw on that slide that there was uh A dissension on on what they agreed upon can you speak a little bit about what that's all about because um that Advisory

234Board are are people that you know we've elected to judge these things the uh the dissenting member was a physical education teacher was there a a particular reason that um probably I would if I were going to sum it up I would just say it reflects the comments that we've heard from uh the teachers tonight before going into some of the other uh questions that I think we we we'll end up talking about I would like to ask Mr trout uh for a student point of view in terms of how uh the virtual learning has gone for you and what your thoughts would be in terms of wanting to not wanting to move forward eventually with hybrid uh classes in stage four yeah um for sure um personally um as a high school senior um

235naturally the the desire is to go back for whatever period we can uh given the situation um but I feel like in looking at you know kind of my I have a I have a 10th grade brother who's also at monachello and in being able to to communicate with some of the other students in our area um everything has gone relatively smoothly smoothly um from from what I've heard um you know naturally there's going to be the connect uh the connectivity issues and the um the you know the the the kind of day-to-day um issues that clearly when we encounter uh on a on a on a regular basis um but I feel that in terms of the the operation and the and the and the the function the the functionality of the of the

236resources that students and teachers have been given um I feel like we've been placed in a pretty solid uh place in terms of being able to being able to learn um with some degree of of uh Effectiveness and efficiency um that that I think is certainly that is certainly I think a noticeable improvement from um what we had in the spring um given the time and all that but um you know other than that um the first couple weeks were a little difficult in terms of just kind of figuring everything out but but since then from from what I've seen it's been really smooth sailing perfect thank you very much for that one thing I would I would throw out uh I would suggest to people listening in who have not uh gone to the

237back to school uh website uh it it uh there is the mitigation video that is available and I'm sure all of the members of of the board have seen it uh with Lindsay snotty and I'm forgetting the one other person who was in it and uh oh uh alen Gomez and it is very well done and very informative so that if there are questions for how things are going to be handled in classrooms with the five um um you know masks and social distancing and hand hygiene cleaning and disinfectants and um and contact tracing all things Dr fouchy has talked to the country about um you'll see in that video that uh it has not been thought through but is already in process of uh of being implemented does anybody have any indication of um

238how much cleaning and disinfecting that we have been expecting of teachers and Tas in the classroom and how that how that's going or is it custodial staff hi get my video on so we have outlined our cleaning and disinfection disinfection protocol and it's an and right so our custodians are doing High touch surfaces during the day including door handles and bathrooms but within the classroom space um itself it's the responsibility of the teacher the the TA each um classroom is stocked with a bucket of disinfectant wipes and there those surfaces are wiped down throughout the day Mr Oar um I was able to uh to find that breakout that you were asking for um so we had when we asked the K3 parents when we asked them about academic success how successful has your child

239been compared to last year that average weighted score was actually a little bit lower it was about a 2.5 instead of a 2.7 um uh we also did break out the question that we asked teachers about how well they know their students and that one was a little bit higher um that was about a 3.0 compared to a 2.7 for the uh prek through three um responses that we had so the teachers are feeling better about it but the the parents are feeling worse about it that's accurate okay thank you um Mr Gard are you still there I don't see you on there yes I'm here okay thanks um so how does the amount of instructional time for hybrid students in stage three compared to the uh instructional time for all students in stage two

240so right now um Monday through Thursday are instructional days with um in person not in person virtual real- time instruction synchronous time where students have um half a day with their teacher synchronously then half a day with follow-up syn asynchronous work um so under stage three those those two days of full um synchronous learning um take place in person and they still have two days of asynchronous learning which should be at home and the Friday would remain in asynchronous day so minute to minute it adds up to about the same however they are highly condensed so obviously when we're in person we'll be adding in breaks and time to move around and recess and things like that um so it may add up a little bit less um but probably more quality time during that

241time I would add though it depends on the grade level correct so kindergarten would have less time than first grade then second grade then third grade so uh for example for kindergarten it's about um hour and a half to two hours uh for the AM or PM uh block so they would get considerably more time when we go we would go to a hybrid right and additionally during those days when they are not in person that's when we can do their specials their essential classes like PE Library art and music as well as intervention services so they can get some synchronous work um virtually during that time as well thank you and one thing that uh came up often as you as we all heard was this um question of Shifting teach teachers um would

242students in both virtual and H hybrid need to do that if we shift to three is this classroom assignments is that the question yeah um yeah it really dep yes and no it depends on the individual situation so if a student let's say um it goes in person and their home room teacher may be someone who um has a has um Ada permission to not work in school or to does not they'll have to be reassigned to a um inperson teacher which is probably going to be the rare case um students who opt to stay virtually if their teacher who they've been working with is not staying virtually as well they'll be reassigned to another virtual teacher so the numbers will be um small but not insignificant to students who will probably be reassigned um

243Claire are we uh are will we take all Ada requests will all those be granted our our anticipation is that we will be able to do all of the Ada requests the ones that we don't know that we we we honestly don't know the numbers yet um it all of the what we're able to do beyond the Ada request is going to be dependent on how many of our students choose to stay virtual and how we may be able to do some um kind of creative scheduling and assigning um within our schools one of the things that's going it should the board decide to uh go to stage three what will happen is next week Miss Collins and I are meeting with all of our elementary principles to start some of the Staffing discussions and

244needs uh simultaneously those Ada and other requests for accommodations will be coming into HR and we'll be working kind of simultaneously to work it all out very honestly when you look at the numbers across the board our hope is that we will kind of have an even match and be able to accommodate everybody but I I would be remissed to sit here tonight and say I can guarantee that and when you're looking at the numbers across the board um have you been looking at them Broken Out by school we do have them Broken Out by school um the the the 2/3 one3 that I described earlier does not align exactly like that across the schools um but how a school is able to staff is really going to um the size of the school and

245the number of classrooms that they have for school is going to uh play some role in that as well and so um again there there's no school that I look at and I think oh my gosh from the projections we're not going to be able to sta it I I do feel confident that we'll be fine there um Miss Schmid I we got an email today from a bus driver saying that students will be on every seat on the bus uh and I just wanted to ask if that's accurate and if I mean that doesn't seem like it aligns to six feet of distance so I just wanted to get more information about that um so we've outlined our full transportation health plan on the return to school website and one of the things is

246that we are going to reduce capacity um and but we're doing that by you are correct that is accurate that seating one child per seat uh we acknowledge that is not the full six foot of distance uh we deem that not practical on a school bus however uh we feel like with other mitigating Strate strategies such as maske wearing hand sanitizing and other means cracking Windows uh that we do have a safe um plan it's been reviewed by the health department and approved I had a phone call yesterday from a gentleman asking about uh he has a grandson at monachello and he was asking about the athletic um activities going back into Athletics uh with some concerns that other schools in the area will be more competitive because they've been doing it uh uh um

247with particularly weightlifting longer than we would have been but um is it conditioning that they are going to be doing coming back into school or is there going to be competition uh involved in in in some of these Sports I'd just like to get that clarified yep so good question Jay Thomas director of secondary education our athletic directors have been working um uh through a lot of different protocols uh this in July uh for three weeks they actually piloted conditioning um what would happen is they are in the process of putting together and finalizing protocols and procedures for each of the sports to be able to condition in November but vhsl Sports actually start December the first week of December so the competitions uh would um uh the practices would officially begin at the beginning

248of December and then uh then games would would start start in December as well for the first season so November would be conditioning December would be practices and December would also be games thank you J but is there a way that we could separate um that piece out from the stages so that if we did not go to stage three that that could still happen those Sports could still happen so you know speaking to the athletic directors that is something that we would I'd like to be able to have considered if uh if we didn't get to stage three I guess I I would just like to say the reason that I am in favor of stage three is that it is it is our job of course to balance the expert advice we have

249about the health and safety issues in schools against what's best in the best educational interests of our kids um I was on the the call yesterday with Dean P at UVA and he talked in quite dire terms about the growing achievement Gap and how the failure to get at least our youngest kids back into school could create a generational achievement Gap that we would have a very difficult time digging out of so not to even permit our parents and families and students to have the option of coming into school I think is not soundly based on the facts of what we've been advised by the best you know Public Health experts in our County um and I also am impressed that one of our colleagues U Miss colon uh has kids who will be uh

250eligible to go go into school and I don't know what her and she um has you know made the motion to move to stage three so I don't know Katrina if you wanted to speak to that can we not talk about can we not talk about individuals that makes me uncomfortable I I don't think Katrina needs to talk about what she's going to do with her kids respectfully are there any other questions or any other other discussions on this item yes we mentioned the achievement Gap do we have any of that um data on the slides that we saw um Broken Out by race uh in terms of uh how parents feel about coming back or or how their how they feel their students are doing we can break that out by school but we

251do not have it broken out by racial demographics good do we have any sense at all as to what um nonwhite people think about this about moving to the next stage Do we have any sort of data at all and a I probably said that badly but Ellen even if you didn't say it correctly because I know it's hard to you know who knows I'm I'm happy that you brought it up because one of our speakers talked about the voices that we aren't hearing and that's something that sits heavily with me um it's something I had to push myself on I know I don't want to make you uncomfortable Dave but I've had to push out of my own bubble in terms of hearing this new modified stage three and thinking um that this was

252just going to be more of a disruption in my life you know it's going to make it more difficult I've got my situation set up and I had to think who are all those families that we're not hearing from because a lot of families I've went and visited schools our esil students are in there they selected that option and I don't know if we've really heard their voices the voices that I continue to hear in my circle which I'm acknowledging is a bubble that I'm in are parents who are worried about switching teachers which is a valid concern and I have a question about that but that's a minor disruption in someone's life to switch a teacher I mean I know in my work with children in the foster care there's families that have lost

253jobs that are losing their house that's the kind of disruption that they're dealing with and they need an opportunity to have an education and and so I I'm I'm taking I'm just I'm happy you asked that Ellen I am I'm curious as as uh Katrina mentioned there was a one teacher that was uh African-American that was going to address that item and unfortunately she ran out of time before I think she could give us her full statement but um at least that one person was addressing the issue the problem and I think we have to push oursel on board members and it's it's hard and I don't know if we're going to do it correctly is that almost any voice we do hear in this form by default is not the people that we're worried

254about like we're worried about that large percentage of our population that doesn't speak English we haven't never had one thing that had been translated from someone um so even her I I I agree I'm I'm happy that she brought it up but I just it is something that has weighed on me when we've made these decisions I have realized that I exist in a very privileged bubble in many ways and I have to constantly ask myself what's going on in other people's lives and and many people rely on school like the kids that rely on school for food I hear that and I and I think okay okay yeah but we all have food like but really there are kids that rely on going to school to eat a meal um you know it's difficult

255and I just want to always it's tough yeah that's a really good point that Miss osbor did raise because um we have don't have any data really on that so that really is a good point our uh our best chance to hear from all of our families uh with with diversity is when the students are in school uh that's when we do our climate surveys that's when we're able to really actually hear from each student about their background when we send out surveys to the community um we we typically get the same um responses I mean surveys are surveys are very useful but as I said earlier in my comments to the board um the the very same students and families that u in many ways we are charged uh to be the equalizer for

256their voice goes unheard in these conversations even when we were looking at um changing the name of Paul kale Elementary School um we heard we didn't really hear much from the members of that community that uh were probably most impacted by U segregation and desegregation it's it's the same thing over and over again in alal county and it's been going on uh like I said Dr casner hired me back in 2004 and he said 'th people that we help uh the people that we're here to help we often don't hear from them and that's we need to uh to pay attention to that and be mindful of it but I'll come back to what I said earlier if we had all the students in school or at least some some semblance of that we could

257we could easily hear from them about what their experiences are but it's hard to do that when we don't have them in attendance when you look at the attendance data that we have uh we we sent an email out to the board that uh parses it out um it's kind of a numbers game for the State Department of Education for elementary school they allow you to count almost any kind of contact whether asynchronous or synchronous with the school for anything during a day so if a child shows up for half a minute um on the screen in PE class that student counts as present for that day they don't even have to be in there synchronously uh they just have to tap into it at some point so we don't even know if they do

258it or if a parent goes in and signs in for them so that's why those attendance rates for elementary schools are so high I heard someone mentioned that earlier that uh they had really great attendance um they we really have no way of knowing because of the way that data is collected and the reason the state department set it up that way is because they don't want School divisions to really lose even more funding for ADM shortages than we already have um I'll point point out that a good thousand of our families have already walked uh voted with their feet um they've the people who have the means uh are have their children either in pods in the community spending thousands and thousands of dollars uh to pay I hate to say it but paying

259some of our teachers who've resigned or gone on long-term leave uh to be their teachers in that pod um so that's what's happening now is the the students who are left in many cases they just couldn't afford to do something different or their parents have to make some really difficult decisions as as Katrina pointed out now you see it in the high school data because we're required by the state for high school data to actually parse out uh asynchronous and synchronous attendance and when you look at and then you combine it so when you get a chance to look at those tables again you'll see that uh synchronous attendance for uh latinx students is about 60% synchronous attendance for African-American students is about 65% synchronous attendance for free reduced lunch students is below 60% we

260would if we had that during a regular school year um the the buildings would be you would notice it in the building with those kind of uh attendance percentages and I think probably all of our schools would uh be on call with the Virginia Department of Education to try to address it but right now to save funding for school divisions uh attendance rates are dramatically inflated and for when I'm sitting in on the elementary school classes the students that are there they they are engaged they are I think the teachers are doing a great job with the students who tune in it's all the students who aren't tuning in um and and they're falling off our radar the last little piece of information I'll throw out is that reports to Child Protective Services drop dramatically

261uh when uh the covid virus came on the scene and that's because teachers are mandated uh reporters for child abuse and neglect that those uh numbers didn't drop dramatically in our community because families were doing great and all the abuse stopped uh alcoholism and drug abuse and all the other things that impact our our students stopped it's because nobody sees it no one no one when when these children tune in for their classes for teachers and I'm I'm not knocking teachers I'm not trying to say anything against what they said but they oftentimes do not even see the students they see an avatar a Pokemon um you know an animal they never see the students face um my wife's an eighth grade teacher for Buford Middle School and very rarely does she get to see

262the students faces and we don't require them uh to show their their faces so to say that they know their students really well I I would be surprised that I I don't know if they would know them if they saw them in person um when they come in so I I do think those voices from those families that we want to hear we're not going to hear in this decision um I would like to add something Dr hos um just in being um you know living and being in the Esau office um since March I've worked in the office every day uh with a couple of my colleagues and I will say to you in a qualitative way our Esau families would love to be back in school and I'm saying that very passionately I

263don't have numbers to share with you but I have the qualitative feedback from the over 400 families I've spoken to and my whole office staff and they've been very grateful for all the support uh from our teachers from our Esau office um uh just they've expressed nothing but gratitude but with the message that they wish to be back in school and all the students I visited in schools that I spoke to all of our Esau students said how happy they were to be in school with a teacher or a learning coach and I think that that speaks to what Dr aov was saying before and that I wholeheartedly agree with is is giving parents some choices in here doesn't just apply to upper level it applies to everybody and uh and and you know parental

264choice is something that that if you I've talked with all of you and by the way thank you to all the members of the board for the conversations we've had over the last week or so um I have learned a lot from from each of you and I really appreciate uh your sharing Thoughts with me um you know in on July 30th that was the reason that I voted for uh stage two was because we were giving parents some choices and that's why in large part why I wanted I'm going to vote for stage three there are a number of other reasons as well but I think to um you know to to the point about Esau um I think a lot of the of the students who uh may come from disadvantaged uh situations

265or be in in the achievement Gap you know I their parents love them I think they'd love to have them uh in a better situation and uh um you know and and helping them so that's all part of why I'm going to vote for stage three I agree I would love to have all the eastall kids back in and all the special ed kids back in uh my main hesitation I I do think that that we could probably handle more students on campus as I I really have a problem with the disruption that we're going to cause to a lot of K3 families with um switching teachers around and I know there's no way to tell about how many students going to have to be reassigned but we always hear how important relationships are and

266now we're willing to disrupt that for some for uh going to school every other day and I'm not convinced that the tradeoff is worth it um however if there were a way to figure out how to get more kids on campus without breaking those relationships and uh creating havoc on families for uh having to reestablish routines you know I'd be all for that you know I I I very much agree with your point on that I guess my one concern is at one what point during the year would it be easy to to make a change um if if they went if we waited until January and then teachers were changed then I think that's going to be uh a really tough situation if we do it in the spring it's going to be an

267even tougher situation if if the basis of the decision is that then we just have to accept we're not opening for the rest of the year because I mean that that is that is something that's going to occur whenever we move to stage three that is going to happen so there there's an argument to be made that it would be less traumatic now than three months or six months from now I'm not I'm not saying it's not the correct analysis I'm just saying that that's you know that's a that's a dangerous that's a dangerous thing to be basing your your decision on for me though it's it's that at this point in time where I see what we've seen happen with the numbers and I and I hear what we're saying that UVA is on

268its own um but I that's not true to me um in my lived experience um but to me then okay the risk is still great I still think that the risk is great and then we're going to break that for the reward that is um for me questionable in terms terms of you know two full days for kids um and then three full days of asynchronous and then um breaking these relationships I mean when I was listening to public comment like I I definitely went into this um meeting thinking about all of the data right I mean obviously I look at data all day every day and I was thinking about that and then I was listening to public comment and I just I was just thinking about all the teachers that I've had who

269I still think about and and the lessons that I've learned from them and those relationships that I had and even though we'd gotten like dozens of emails about those relationships I still sorted like eh okay but then I started thinking about it when I was like hearing people actually talking about it and I just feel like the risk and reward at this moment in time it doesn't make sense to me and I understand like I fully respect all of the arguments here I do want to get I I agree with Ellen like I would love to get more Esau kids in I would love to get more special education kids in and that 5% that we were talking about who we know are disengaged I would love that um I don't know if there is

270a plan that allows that uh right now that's not the one that's in front of us so for me yeah and I wouldn't recommend that because then you're you're having segregation in your schools all of a sudden you're you're isolating a a community and saying because you're you're Esau or you're black or you're don't have the resources of other people we're going to make you now come into the schools I feel like um that's been one of the issues we've had we're not allowed to put special education students and rightly so out in a trailer um we're not we're not to have them on on different places or different sites um and one of the things that concerned me early on was my first one of my first visits to a school was to monachella

271high school and um there were several students that had actually come in first thing in the morning because they didn't have ad internet access well when they realized that hardly any of their peers were there even even though they knew that they had friends that couldn't really get on the internet guess what they did they called they they they left the school they walked away from the school so pretty soon there was one student left uh there that didn't have internet access and then the next day she didn't come in um there's a there's part of the reason we have schools and and people come together in the schools is because it's all different kinds of people being together in a school together and integrating in that way and that's what students look forward to

272that's what I heard will saying that it's the social aspect of it and it's very important to their development so I think um I would caution the board it may be illegal uh to say we're just going to pick pick black students and say well we we're really concerned about you so you need to come into the schools or we're going to pick Esau students and all by yourself you're going to come into the schools I wouldn't even just keep those groups of students after school for a particular program for the same reasons because it isolates them and singles them out okay in addition to all of the things that have been already said three things still stand out in my mind and these are the ones that have not changed really since we took

273our first vote in July and that's the fact that um the cases in our area continue to rise the posit it rate is above the state average and we can't really say with any certainty what's the transmission rate going to be because we don't have walls that separate us from UVA or the city so those are the three really things that stand out in mind my mind the uncertainty of are spreading the virus and its effects on our students I I I I totally get where you're coming from Graham I I really do and I like I said I'm concerned about the fact that the the students infection rate UVA is stay pretty stay pretty constant but all of a sudden the staffs are going up and so if you see the increase at UVA

274it's staff members that are increasing in the infection um but where I come down on this and this is the this is the hardest freaking thing you know I I this is really really challenging um I I I but I've heard so many people over the past eight months ignoring science I I just i' I've heard that over and over again you know and and and choosing to believe what they choose to believe irrespective of analytical data and I'm not I'm not an epidemiologist I'm not a physician I I know what a lower than a one uh um um knock rate is but I I don't really I mean that's just and so where I'm left with is my gut my just my gut my heart says why would we risk it but my brain

275says listen we have experts who have done this analysis who've said look as long as these things are followed it's safe and I don't I don't have any reason to doubt that analysis I haven't seen analysis that's contrary to it I mean we have a Department of Education we have a Department of Health um that sets these guidelines we didn't only meet the guidelines we've exceeded those guidelines and so if I if I substitute my independent judgment for their analytical judgment from my perspective I better have a a real good analysis and factual reason for it and even though my gut tells me one thing I I can't substantiate that with evidence and you know everything we've done in this board for the past five years that I've been on it we keep saying look

276let's look at the numbers let's look at the evidence which is how we knew if you ask people's gut instincts in abmar County four years ago how are we doing on the on the on the racial divide on education I'd be willing to bet you there a whole lot of people would say oh I think we're doing great and in their gut I think you know we're really making progress until we looked at the numbers and said wow our analysis is completely wrong and we got to look at the numbers we have to look at the analysis and in this case I get it I it's it's a fundamental fear I get it I'm as afraid as anybody but if we have experts that tell us look as long as you follow these guidelines this

277is the best solution I think I think until we find out that they're wrong I think we need to follow them I can completely understand what you're saying but the main thing that I think I heard was that there's still uncertainty with even the experts even though we could follow all of those guidelines still there be some uncertainty there and even though it might be really really small and really really hard to pinpoint it's just that that uncertainty is still there and to me I can't really with a good conscience be able to support moving to H stage three right now I can understand all of the arguments but still that uncertainty of transmission and some of the other uncertainties are still there and that's maybe my main misgiving well we do have two two

278fail saves on that maybe that's not the right terminology Mr Paige um a even before November 9th if there's an outbreak we can immediately fall back to level three and if there is an outb break you know beyond the need to close a school for example Matt we've already under our plan vested Matt with the authority to immediately go back to a lower level so I was very much heartened by the improvements in our communication with the school with the the health department uh the improvements in testing ability the protocols for contact tracing um and and just the turnaround in in terms of the testing that I mean there's there's not going to be a failsafe measure but we do have options to back off immediately if if we get that data right true and

279I think sorry sorry Mr P um I I think speaking as kind of a voice of the the the high school community in the area um undergoing for the for the county to to take you know take on that risk to to understand that yes you know this is potentially putting kids in danger the the I feel like the widespread the widespread voice the widespread kind of ideas in in loss of high schoolers is that they they're looking for for for the school board to take this opportunity to to give them a chance um similar to what Mr ver hovak said and really he's been saying that um since the start of the year but really look uh looking at you know this this what we really want to back and and the the only

280way that that happens is through what is clearly taking a risk um and I I I actually feel similarly to Mr in terms of you know my gut is telling me not to but but the I just feel like the the widespread um opinions of high schoolers just more or less to to do what I'm here to do what I'm here to do um is is looking for for this for this board to to put them in a position in which they can they can be back in the school environment as well okay thank you so much for that Mr trout that really is enlightening so thank you so much for your uh your input yeah if if we want to bring roughly 4,000 kids back to school I would I would much rather spread

281that out across grade levels where we're we have a better sense of the teachers that want to be there um and create less chaotic situations in families for changing things so like we've said this is an extremely tough decision so are there any other questions or comments uh from board members before we take a vote I did just want to say one more thing um just that I interpret the data about surrounding School divisions differently um when we say that there have been three outbreaks uh school has only been open in a very limited fashion for one month in some divisions and we've had three so far so to me I interpret that data differently so I know that we're talking about like unknowns to me that feels more known so that's the last thing

282I want to say right and in addition to what they were 27 across the state with three and a half Louisa County has been open for two months and they've had no outbreaks okay I have a process related question I do think we're ready to take the vote but once we take the vote depending on where we land I think there's some valid questions from the community and from teachers that we should discuss I don't know if it's appropriate to discuss it at the end of this meeting or not okay um after we take the vote depending on what it is then we'll also be looking at Future directions that um the staff will be moving into so I think your comment will sort to come in you know or your concern will sort of

283come in at that at that point so are there any other questions or discussion on this item okay Mrs Thompson please call the rooll yes this is to accept the superintendent's recommendation to move to stage three right a motion by um Miss Coulson seconded by Mr Alo Miss Lee yes no Miss Le I was verifying that you had second the motion oh I did not jonno did you seconded yes that's correct and even if you seconded you can still vote no right but okay that okay all right so moving on yeah Miss Lee you voted no no no Mr alaro yes Mr oberg yes Dr aov yes Miss Osborne no Miss Carlson yes chairman Paige no so the motion passes by a vote of four to three to move to um stage three and again

284like I told Al Bard i s of made the announcement before um I think that we have to realize now that we have taken that vote that as a board we are now unified with that decision and as a decision with our superintendent and the cabinet we are unified behind that decision so we'll be moving forward then as a unified system not as 43 split but as a 70 unified division remember who who these people are so come election time we can make sure [Music] people um his okay all right so um we will now go back to um I think Dr mofin and the team of thousands that we heard from bringing us all of their points to um to receive or hear future directions that we'll be taking um Miss Carson did you

285have something yeah I think I know I'm kind of out of line with the procedure but I didn't want to over discuss it since it seemed like we we were ready to take a vote but I just would I feel remiss if I didn't acknowledge how difficult of a vote that that was and and there I hope that any constituents who have issues which it sounds like there might be um well please reach out because I'm always happy to discuss and and hear from people and I I'm pretty sure I can say that for the rest of the board as well um I just wanted to throw that in there before we jump into next step agreed oh uh thank you everyone I Believe Miss was going to take us just uh through some of

286the next steps that we were planning on if the board went ahead with stage three and did we we just have some things that we will do immediately and that's what things will happen tomorrow the elementary principles will hold staff meetings uh uh tomorrow morning to discuss next steps they developed a SL slide deck so that they would make sure that all elementary teachers understood what the the next uh pieces were and and their role in developing uh the different uh components of the the plans uh we'll also be sending a message to our families and announcing the decision and beginning to solicit solicit the hybrid or virtual choice and the transportation need this is similar to what we talked about when we were we were looking at the Hybrid approach to everyone for everyone

287so we will we will talk to every parent and we have a process for doing that uh then we have some key dates the teachers will submit their request uh and those requests by the 15th parents will submit their intent to stay hybrid or virtual by the 16th and then we'll communicate parent assignments one of the things I know is that um principles will be working with parents you uh we all heard the the want or need uh to make a decision based on the teacher perhaps so some some parents may choose to to stay with the teacher overo hybrid or virtual and so we'll be talking through those kinds of processes and then the schools will host meetings with all prek through three parents discuss mitigation strategy so we've given you some key timelines

288we have about a page and a half of other um uh plans and other steps that we'll be taking in the next couple of weeks to ensure a smooth transition okay and all of the dates especially the deadlines will be all of our teachers will be informed of those deadlines and all of our parents Etc because it did appear to be sort of a question as to whether or not some deadlines were recognized so that will all be okay all thank you we we have a notice ready to go to our um our teachers tomorrow morning and uh that will start the ball rolling then okay thank you okay uh uh we are now down to other business by the board or by the superintendent I have questions about that presentation that we okay so

289my issu is one I've heard from teachers actually during the meeting I heard from one and I'm curious how we're going to be conveying to them um her specific question is what is the vision of how inperson learning will look and sound like the way I interpret that is obviously it's going to be a very different teaching environment we heard some of our public um comments about um preparation even getting the classroom set because they haven't been in there so how are you tackling that and how are you going to convey information to the teachers well that's one of the things the slide deck and and um actually I will send that to you as soon as we get off the out of the meeting that the principes did a slight de one of the

290things we talked about and they they approved uh was to give the teachers two days at right at the the change of the nine weeks uh for prek through three teachers to go in to set up classrooms so we've we've looked at how we can make that available to our teachers because we know that they will need some time uh to shift there uh part of how the day will look is dependent uh on the standards of learning and what our expectations are when we are in school about the number of hours we have per subject area so that will be part of the the conversations around what a schedule will look like for the day um as well as what the asynchronous day will look like um uh we know we were going to

291be assigning teaching assistance to help students on those days uh as well as students being doing their synchronous specials so all those kinds of pieces will be put together and will be communicated to parents very clearly about what a day would look like and what they can expect um regarding U the activities that the students will be doing the the positive pieces about the asynchronous is now we're able to send materials home with students and uh we feel like that has a added advantage over just simply doing a seesaw activity we can send books home we can send math materials Etc okay and I do uh want to make sure that our teachers are fully that everything about this is fully communicated to them too so that they will not feel left out of the

292loop because um we do truly appreciate everything that they have done and we have to make sure that they are completely on board with this you know as far as timelines are concerned in communicating with parents when are they when are they going to have to make the decision on hybrid versus virtual I think it was uh the 15 Patrick if you go back to the slide I think it was the 15th or 16th uh parents have until next Friday the 16th to um to let us know and are we going to be able to provide them between now then information about the nitty-gritty of what are they going to be keeping their teacher who is the new teacher going to be these kind of questions that are going to impact their decision My worry

293is that we have gotten the complaint I have heard from many parents that they feel like they're having to make decisions with a lack of data and and it's all right if you tell me that we can't I mean I'm just curious that's that's on a lot of parents Minds the the the plan that we have in place we need to know the number of students we have before we really can talk about the accommodations for staff if we have 70% of our students coming then we need 70% of our teachers if we have 60% coming but I would say we heard you I know Mr Canard is still on the the the call and we will I will talk to principles about that flexibility for parents who that they would prefer to keep the

294teacher than go hybrid or virtual I don't know if Mr if you'd like to speak to that or not I know that that would be something that principles would really um listen to and think about yeah that's something we did talk about really quickly just to provide guidance I'm less concerned with people teaching or keeping their teachers I'm more concerned with parents ability to know what's happening as they move forward so whether I keep the teacher or not am I to know that when I'm making the decision um am I going to be able to back out of the decision I know a lot of people feel like these are kind of binding contractual things they can't ever so that's what I'm looking for do you have answers around that I can go I guess

295uh I didn't know Seth if you wanted to say anything or not uh we the the elementary principles when in having this discussion wanted to make sure that they had some guidance around that for parents so that they really could um count on the fact that once that there this in there would not be a lot of in andout today I want to do this tomorrow I want to do that so they did say they did want it to be somewhat binding in the beginning so that we could really get settled uh and figure out the how the matches were going to happen but we will communicate all of that the elementary principles will communicate that we will communicate that in the survey that we'll be sending out tomorrow um I don't know that I

296answered your question sorry am I having body I'm having bad body language I'm listen no you are and and Debbie it might just be that the answer is you know not an ideal ideal answer because we're not in a situation where everything can be perfect um the survey the reason why I I was doing that although I thought it was in my head and not in my actual body was because we've been getting a lot of surveys and I mean even me as a Schoolboard member I don't you know to have data kind of hidden in the surveys the survey is not necessarily a good way to dis uh disseminate data to people um and so I don't know if we can be more purposeful in letting parents know this is what it looks like

297you especially since we're switching from stage three and it takes a while for people to get on the same page a lot of people I mean there are still parents out there that think we are moving to a stage three as we anticipated it in our initial vote and it's not it's very different um so the more we can be proactive and I know that I just want to put that in the Forefront because beyond the decision to move to stage three the biggest piece of feedback I've gotten from teachers and parents or not teachers from parents um and families is just what does this look like um and I think we can answer that hopefully before they make their decision yes okay thank you another key piece of information for parents will be what

298to do if their kid doesn't look right or has a fever when they wake up where do they where do they log on so that they can keep up with some type of school and if we make that really clear right up front they won't be messing around with oh it might be okay enough to go just if there's any doubt just log on here and you'll get some sort of instruction so perfect true good point are there any other comments or business from board members or our superintendent well I would just say that U you know Mr Paige and I probably talk two or three times a week and we were talking going into this and pretty much agreed that uh either way one of us was going to be saying what Mr Paige

299said and I'd still say the same thing that as a board one of the things that I've I've really I really appreciate about our school board is the the passion and the rigor that you all bring to this work um I think it's commonly known now among Schoolboard members that we actually rehearse our uh presentations and rehearse our board meetings because we want to be prepared and we want to make sure that we're up to the challenge of Pres in to the board and and sharing with the board and the kind of questions that you ask they're they're very uh intuitive and thoughtful and really get get down to details and it makes us better as a as a team and I think ultimately it makes us better as a school system um I can

300imagine that there are many uh Educators out there based on the recommendation that I made that may feel that I'm in some way not in favor of or not concerned about um our teachers I I would say that I certainly am um I also have very very high expectations uh for alal County Schools Employees and I think that uh our customers are our families and while I appreciate and understand that um many views will differ with mine I accept that um I I do receive emails from employees letting me know they don't agree with me um I'm I appreciate that too because it's just another perspective for me to work with but I am still here to support you it may not always seem like I'm supporting you in the way you want to be

301supported but I'm still here to support you and I'm still going to make things right and work things out the board is investing a lot of trust in us not just in me but in all of us uh to make this work and I I know we can make it work and we're going to make sure you have the resources that you need to make it work so thank you again uh school board for your support and we we're going to make it work okay thank you Dr H Mr PA just one one more thing okay I would just like to say thank you will for being here through our four and a half hour Schoolboard meeting about a particularly challenging uh topic I very much appreciated your input and insight and uh I promise

302I Graham doesn't normally keep us quite this long but thank you hey it's been it's it's it's been a lot of fun I think it really I think this was about as much of a jumping into the deep end as you can get so uh it's been it it educational and ready to see what else there is okay very good we do have life preservers to toss to you you know when you jump into the deep end so we aren going to leave you hanging are there any other uh comments okay if not at 11 o'clock our Schoolboard meeting alal County Public Schools is adjourned thank you all good night good night everybody good night Mr Paige good night Dr H see you later see you soon take care okay