Albemarle County School Board Meeting - June 11, 2020

001are you better I am much better yes thank you that's good it's a weird percentage because I still can't like walk around the block really but um I'm able to work which is very good I'm glad for that hello Mr oberg okay why don't we why don't we start off Mr Page I moved at the Albemarle County Public School Board going to a closed meeting as authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act section 2-23711a of the code of Virginia under subsection one for the discussion consideration of interviews of prospective candidates for employment and the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salaries disciplining or resignation of specific public offices appointees or employees the new public body do you have a second second before we go the link doesn't work the other one okay yesterday yeah yeah

002it's an invalid passcode okay that one worked for me the other one I didn't try just for a second okay do we have to get out of this and then get into the other one okay we can go anytime okay we'll just meet up over on the other side okay get on the other side everybody you're right exactly if you want to do the motion the roll call looks like everybody left oh okay stuff take the vote right yeah there was a motion to go into closed session but do we have a corn nope we don't um let me call somebody foreign Judy and Katrina and I are still in the uh public meeting uh we did not vote to go into closed session so with with you saying it loudly as I put you

003on speakerphone okay uh Jennifer is going to take the role and we'll go with that Miss Johnston are you ready yes okay we have Dr acaf on the phone yeah my computer is glitching um Miss Lee yes Miss Carlson yes Dr Acuff yes Mr alcaro yes thank you Kate thank you everybody we'll see you there foreign hi Jennifer hi Jay how are you good you're doing all right having fun yet always foreign hey Jennifer for the slideshow since I own it you want are you will you just screen share with me is that how we should do that for the reasons to be able to share already okay okay it says I cannot start oh well you're because you're so you'll unshare and then I'll be able to share yes that should be right perfect

004okay thank you Michelle I've got a little bit of a sore throat do you think you could just take the um calendar item for me tonight very funny Patrick be happy to if I need to but I know how much you love it oh Mindy Rob and Christy if you guys can just stop your video until it's time on the meeting and then I'll just be sharing my screen on the green button when it's my our turn with the art correct thank you foreign [Music] that would be great okay foreign are all the board members here at this point [Music] but we'll see Dave looks like we're missing Dave okay you know over in the other in in the closed meeting I uh all of a sudden the screen froze while Matt was talking and

005I was the only one who moved on my screen and everybody else was in suspended it's like it was the opposite for us you were frozen and we were we uh we we thought you left us because you were first okay is Mr oberg with us not yet okay and I'm waiting for Mr Uber because he's going to give us the the motion coming out of a closed meeting that what's that oh no Graham's going to make the other motion I'm sorry yep Graham why don't you make a motion to bring us out and then Dave will make the motion uh there he is okay great okay Mr Page a move that the board certified by a recorded vote that to the best of each board member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from

006open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered in the closed meeting do I have a second we have a motion and a second Miss Johnston Miss Osborne yes Mr Page yes Miss Carlson yes Dr Acuff yes Mr oberg yes Miss Lee yes Mr alcaro yes we're getting the motion passes um Mr oberg would you make a motion um uh based on what we heard in the uh in the closed session I move that we appoint for the school year 2020 through 2021 the administrators provided to us in closed session you have a second motion and we have a motion in a second Miss Johnston Mr Page yes Miss Carlson yes Dr Acuff yes Mr oberg yes Miss Lee yes

007Miss Osborne yes Mr Alco yes very good the motion passes uh I called to order this regular board meeting for the Albemarle County uh School Board uh for June 11th may we just take a moment of silence please thank you we could do a microphone check um Mr Page uh Graham page Samuel Miller District Mrs Carlson Katrina Carlson Rio District uh Dr Acuff hate acop Jack Jewett District Miss Lee Judy Lee Rivanna District Miss Osborne Ellen Osborne Scottsville District Mr oberg Dave hoberg Whitehall magisterial District thank you I am Dr Haas Matt Haas superintendent Miss Collins Debbie Collins Deputy superintendent Dr Kaiser Kaiser assistant superintendent Dr Harrison Bernard Hairston assistant superintendent Dr malach McLaughlin Patrick McLaughlin chief of strategic planning Dr Diggs Christine Diggs Chief technology officer Mr jeremita Bill Jeremy to strategic Communications officer

008Mr Holden well I told him School Board attorney and Mrs Smith Rosalind Schmidt Chief Operating Officer thank you everybody just a statement for the record and for the minutes of this meeting should still reflect that the meeting is being held electronically pursuant to Virginia state law and Albemarle County ordinance because the covid-19 pandemic makes it impractical and unsafe to assemble a quorum physically in a single location also the meeting is being streamed live on the all Memorial County Public Schools 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 and with that um our first order of business is to approve the agenda may I have a motion to approve the agenda may I have a second second okay we have

009a motion and a second to approve the agenda any discussion Miss Johnston oh wait I do have a discussion piece Jonah were we going to add in discussion about the sros uh that's going to be that is is planned to take place in section 9.0 oh I didn't see that we had updated so sorry yeah Miss Carlson yes Dr Aiko yes Mr Ober yes Miss Lee yes Miss Osborne yes Mr Page yes Mr alcaro yes the motion passes uh next up is the approval of the consent agenda may I have a motion and a second for the consent agenda to approve the consent agenda a move that we approved the consent agenda second thank you we have a motion and a and a second to approve the consent agenda and Mr chair for me I

010ask that we pull the uh the cross Elementary uh just for discussion yes any other discussion Mr oberg uh I just wanted to recognize that some of the the proximity of the property owners um are I think understandably I'm happy that they're sort of were not included and I I I I know that that was not staff's intention the covid-19 pandemic is certainly a different challenge um and I understand that you know the a couple of people have asked hey can you delay this 60 days my understanding is that we really can't um from a timing standpoint um I would ask um Miss Schmidt could we could we delay it a week so that we could at least allow the the people who found out about it to uh give us some input uh yes

011I think a week is a reasonable uh extension so if I understand we would um bring it again on the special meeting on the 18th is that satisfactory that would make me more comfortable guys any concerns about that from the board okay we have a motion to pass the consent agenda in a second is there any further discussion Ms Johnston uh Mr chair can I make a point of order that it's the agenda as amended thank you the uh so so corrected I think that's a yes I second amended motion and I also yes Mr oberg yes Miss Lee yes Miss Osborne yes Mr Page yes Miss Carlson yes Mr alcara yes okay they couldn't send agenda as amended passes and just making a note okay our next item is a public comment um Mr

012Page uh the school board invites and actively seeks the Public's input and the matter is relevant to school boards governance and provides for time doing its business meeting to hear from Albemarle County residents and community members doing public comment we expect respectful and on-topic comments as authorized Borderlands of the county of Albemarle the school board will hold its meetings electronically during the covid-19 pandemic the school board is nevertheless committed to encouraging public comment despite its need to meet on a virtual basis but this reason there will be two ways for the public to comment during this time span first uh we will be receiving written comments that can be sent to the school board Clerk secondly the board members of the public wishing to provide public comments during the school board meetings May sign up

013online at our website by four o'clock P.M the day before the meeting four o'clock P.M the day before the meeting the clerk will email Zoom links to the speakers on the day of the meeting so that they can log into the meeting to provide comment before electronic public comment commences the vice chair will announce the order in which the speakers will comment public commenters will initially be admitted to a waiting room area on Zoom until it's their turn to speak they will be able to hear the meeting in progress while they wait each speaker's access to public comment will be activated when it is their turn to speak speakers will be notified when they reach the two minute Mark and at the three minute Mark the speaker Zoom link will be automatically deactivated although the

014school board um although the school board is confident that public comment will proceed in an orderly and respectful manner upon instructions from the chair the clerk has the ability ability to disconnect the speaker who is disruptive profane or fails to Abad by these guidelines for orderly and productive discourse speakers doing the meeting of those submitting written comment should state name and address or magisterial District simply stating Albemarle County is not adequate although the school board will not respond to comments made during the public comment period school board members May address comments at the end of the meeting agenda under other business tonight we have five speakers and our first speaker is Amanda Maxim Mrs Maxim thank you is Mrs maximum available she's there she's just not showing okay why don't you come why don't we

015are here okay I'm here sorry I'm having issues with the tech between the live stream on the laptop and my computer okay um [Music] tonight yeah all right is there a timer I'm trying to figure out what's happening here should I just go ahead yeah yes please okay uh thank you my name is Amanda moxom I'm with the Rio District part of being an anti-racist school and Community is continually assessing the internal thought patterns and mindsets to which you subscribe an absolute requirement of being an anti-racist is to learn and unlearn the ways in which you are not only complicit but also how you can take actionable steps to dismantle white supremacy in all of the structures and organizations in which you exist here are three of the ways in which acps continues to be

016fully and intentionally racist the school renaming process I'm appalled at the complete whitewashing of what you have allowed within the school renaming process when we say our school system is anti-racist that means we take intentional actions to decenter whiteness and center the lived experiences of black people in our community launching the renaming process in a way that eliminates and dishonors all schools named after black Educators is one way in which you have allowed for white supremacy to be perpetuated in addition every meeting that has been offered to the public has provided 0 reflection zero research and zero alignment to anything within the anti-racism schools policy secondly ignoring calls for an official policy ban on Confederate and white National nationalist imagery Franklin County School System just voted actually back in January not to ban the Confederate

017imagery then they have just voted to reverse that decision because they understand the imminent danger of it in addition NASCAR as well as the U.S Marines just banned the imagery as well within the last couple of weeks I'm questioning what more insight do you need what more proof do you need other than every organization within this country recognizing that it's problematic thirdly and I think most relevant for today is that you have now doubled down on your support of policing in schools where you put your money is directly tied to your core values and it continues to harm the police continue to harm by their mere presence the Safety and Security of Children and Families in our school system is of the utmost importance and sros do not belong in our schools I'm shocked that

018you would choose to invest more money and more resources from the school system to try to train already racist cops to be less racist that is not how anti-racism works you will never have the local data that you want working off of a school climate report from 2018 is completely blind to the real and present danger I'm really questioning who on this school board is actually willing to step up and challenge white supremacy to dismantle racism in our schools as of today you have not completed your actions to become an anti-racist school system and it's unacceptable and there's more talk than action and your talk is serving to continually reform reinforce white supremacist ideals every single communication you put out does just that thank you very much Mrs Maxim our next speaker is Matthew Christensen

019Mr Christensen hello hello hi um you know because my name is Matthew Christensen I'm in the Rio District I second is Maxim's statements regarding concerns about the uh prevalence or the permission of uh Confederate imagery within our school system the fact that such organizations as NASCAR have even stepped up to ban Confederate imagery um kind of leaves you guys looking like you're more conservative than NASCAR um which I don't know if that's a look that you guys really want to present for Albemarle County Public Schools and regarding the school resource officers I've read through the report the statement that you guys put out and we're not interested in a revised revising the mou with Albemarle County public Albemarle County police officers we're interested in seeing it ended um the I was listening to the Board

020of Supervisors meeting last week and was very concerned when the chief of police gave a statement in which he said that all of their policing is done 100 percent without bias and he emphasized that I don't know anyone who can do that job without bias it's impossible and the data shows that and for the chief of police to say oh no no one in my my staff none of my officers have any bias at all whatsoever even one iota shows me that he has absolutely no self-awareness or he's a flat out liar so looking at your guys suggestions for um a revised mou you talk about it needing to be more educational rather than an officer in uniform and if we're looking at education I don't know why we're not focusing on teachers and if

021we're looking on support for students we should be looking at counselors not cops police officers are not designed and trained to teach students they are not designed and trained to be Mental Health Counselors that is not their job that is not their purpose that is not their training if you're going to bring someone in bring in a counselor bring in a therapist bring in additional student support staff don't bring in a police officer that you're going to then try to maybe get the right training so that they can shoehorn into a job find someone who actually knows how to do the job has been trained to do the job and has the skills to do the job you bring in more social workers bring in more counselors more therapists this is what we need we

022need more teachers to educate not cops to educate that's not their job thank you thank you Mr Christensen uh third speaker is Doug Lowe Mr Lowe yes thank you can you hear me yes thank you my name is Doug Lowe I'm actually wanting to comment about the Crozier elementary school expansion my wife and I we live in the Whitehall magisterial district and we own the property that shares a boundary to the South side of the school divided by Paris ranch stream uh we we share about a 500 plus Square uh 500 foot boundary um I appreciate yeah can you hear me okay thank you yes so hold on just a second can you still hear me Miss Johnson can we hold the clock that should be around 36 years Mr chair as a as a

023point of privilege we might going forward want to let people know that there is some sort of delay between the live stream and uh and I mean it doesn't seem like it's long but it looks like it's five six seconds I think that's messing with it I agree okay thank you Please Mr Lowe okay uh can you hear us Mr Lowe Miss Johnson could we hold the clock I'm not sure if you can still hear me but I'll continue on now we can um and are you listening to some feedback or something unfortunately I'm having some kind of technical difficulty here okay um I'll just have to resume at a different time oh did he leave you did Miss Johnson is he still in the in the waiting room um no okay all right next

024word for having him back yeah he said he tried to come back at some time all right the next person is um Joanne Robinson Mrs Robinson Mr alcaro yes um Mr Lowe is back in the waiting room do you want me to go back to him after Miss Robertson yes that would be great thank you is that all right with you Mr Page yes okay Miss Robertson is there okay Ms Robertson you can begin your statement can you hear us Mrs Robinson Miss Johnson do you still see her in the waiting room no she's not in the waiting room she's actually in the meeting and she's not muted okay all right Miss Robinson you may begin your statement okay thank you Mrs Robinson would you like me to go to Mr hello why don't we

025go back to Mr Lowe and and Steve Miss Robinson can can pick up uh after him all right there he is Mr Lowe you can begin your comment thank you very much I'm sorry I'm sorry my end um anyway I'm writing I'm can you hear me okay yes okay um I basically wanted to talk about the crochet elementary school expansion as I said previously I have about a 500 foot border between our property and the school and I appreciate that Ms stroberg uh asked for a delay I would like to see a little bit longer but we'll take what we can get please keep speaking Mr Lowe yeah Mr Lowe because we can hear you you might be blade what I wanted to do was to point out that I think that there was there

026were some Communications uh mostly As I understand with parents in the school about ideas for the school but to the best of my knowledge there was no proactive uh notification to the adjoining landowners and nearby neighbors so um I appreciate any delay we could have in looking this so that many of the neighbors can get caught up on what's going on with this um I have a number of concerns but first of all I just wanted to ask for a delay and we'll get caught up and we'll try to give as much input as we can my second main point I have several points but second main point is that as I've I've talked to the architect and uh albemar County staff and the project gets the the building footprint gets about three feet outside

027of the stream buffer uh parrot branch and um the in speaking to both sources there it seems that it would be necessary to have the construction work occur in the Stream buffer during the course of construction um I am troubled by that uh situation [Music] um when you have 21 acres of land it seems like there ought to be a way to not have to be working in the Stream buffer and in fact I think I'm fairly familiar with the stream buffer the ordinance and there are exceptions that would allow something to occur in a screen buffer but this project doesn't seem to meet any of those exceptions from my understanding of the ordinance um I I think I would ask As you move forward with the plan whether you stay with this schematic or

028a different one that I would ask the school board to direct the staff and the design team to not only stay out of the stream buffer with the footprint of the building but also with the construction process so that I would think that it needs to be pushed over uh adjusted in some way or think of a different way but please don't work in the Stream buffer that's all I had for tonight okay thank you so much Mr Lowe and we are sorry for the difficulties you experience uh Nick speaker is Mrs Robinson again just in case there is some feedback with all the board members make sure that they are muted hi Miss Robertson oh yes yes sorry um okay thank you I'm a little three-year-old with me I'm so sorry but um let's

029wait it's kind of ended up tonight okay I just would like to call um talk about the issue of sros in the school um system in Albemarle and I'd like to point out um I'm an anti-bullying Advocate um in Charlottesville Albert mall I have my own anti-bullying organization called Stand For The Silent Albemarle and um my both my children went to do it and then Albemarle High School so I just wanted to point out that um there was a time where there was intense bullying um with both my kids but the one that I'd like to talk about is how it was handled it do it with my daughter so um uh they had an excellent team this is when Catherine Baylor was there at handling situations um when even bullying got intense and they

030didn't bring an SRO in but what they did was um they had a type of um uh system where they took my daughter and the other girl before it got intense and they actually allowed them to talk with one another and work it out and it's a situation that if it wasn't um uh like if it wasn't addressed when it did it had the chance of escalating into something really really big um in which other people were brought into it and it could have led to a really bad situation where um one of the girls could have gone to the courts or to juvie and the reason why I know this is before we moved to the county we lived in the city and there was a bullying incidents there that we received no support

031the only support that we got was from the security uh the SRO I think it was officer shipwood and it was a horrid situation just Torrid so what I'm trying to say is that we need more programs in the schools that where there's people that can intervene on situations and help these kids work things out and build relationship ships and build social skills and emotional skills um rather than bring automatically bringing someone in that's going to have punitive damages to something but if you have more people in the schools if you have more uh um type of atmosphere where kids could work things out I mean it's really amazing the difference is amazing so I'm just encouraging you this is Robinson I'm sorry but your time is up if you have other comments you can

032uh send a written statements without use the model of social emotional learning then punitive damages in the public schools thank you okay thank you our last speaker tonight is Vernon lecti Mr Lucky hello can everyone hear me yes fantastic well Theory no problem uh I'll just go ahead and get started my name is Vernon lechte and I'm a teacher at Albemarle High School I'm formerly a voter in the Jack Jewett District but I've recently changed my voter registration to the city of Charlottesville I would like to thank the central office the school board and all the staff on the back to school task forces for all their hard work and ensuring that everyone is safe and healthy when schools eventually reopen I know many of the changes that will be made to accommodate for the

033pandemic of coping 19 are currently being discussed on May 19th the CDC released recommendations that it encourages schools follow in order to make sure students staff and all families are at minimal risk of Contracting this disease I've looked through the CDC recommendations many times since these recommendations have been released many who work in education have been wondering how it would be possible to abide by all of their recommendations in order to follow what the CDC says is necessary to limit this pandemic schools will need far more funding to adequately Implement these changes some of the key features of the CDC recommendations include the ability to screen students and employees upon arrival for symptoms and history of exposure intensified cleaning disinfection and ventilation encouraging social distancing through increased spacing in classrooms and school buses smaller groups

034and limited mixing between groups we also need to teach and reinforce use of cloth face coverings the CDC says that cloth based coverings are most essential in times when physical instancing is difficult my question for the school of division is if we are unable to implement the recommendations due to a lack of funding will it Albemarle County Public Schools simply ignore some of these considerations made by the CDC because they're not feasible after the guidelines were published there's been enormous criticism from superintendents administrators bus drivers and Educators throughout the country most criticism comes from the fact that due to strained budgets how will school divisions be able to afford the unprecedented changes that must be made to meet the safety recommendations for the southern for Disease Control we're in the middle of pandemic the help

035of our students staff and families should be our top priority I will Echo the response of Tina Williams the president of the Fairfax County Federation of teachers who wrote until there is a prudent vaccine and all students and staff are immunized there must be resources and infrastructure in place for screening testing contact tracing and isolating new cases and there must be significant Public Health tools to prevent the virus from spreading end quote I encourage the school division to continue to do all it can to make sure we are fully able to implement the necessary safety protocols the lives of our community are in your hands thank you for your time thank you very much Mr lecti thank you for your comments and this ends our public comment okay thank you Mr Page um next up

036is Spotlight on education and always a spotlight Mr oberg just give me a second [Music] am I on now yes sir okay I'm not good with technology thank you yeah I apologize guys thank you Mr chair tonight I have the privilege of leading two celebrations of Excellence over the past several weeks with school buildings closed and the resources limited we have been reminded of the Irreplaceable contributions by the Professionals in our school division whose Children and Families while the public health Provisions currently in place have complicated how these Services have been delivered they have not diminished their need or value nor the passion or Ingenuity with which they have been delivered this certainly has been true these past few months but how about for those for whom this has been true for more than 40

037years I'd like to ask assistant superintendent Dr Claire Kaiser to help us recognize 64 of our employees who are retiring this year one-fourth have served our community with distinction for 30 or more years including three whose careers have spanned more than 40 years Dr Kaiser thank you very much Mr hoberg um let me do a screen share with you all foreign it is my pleasure tonight and it's really quite Bittersweet always at this time of the year when we get together and we recognize the people who have who have decided that they are going to retire um the the 64 people that Mr oberg mentioned are people that have made great contributions to our school Division and our students and our staffs and our schools and our community are better because of them tonight we

038have invited them to listen to our live stream as they see their the slides and we mention their name and their years of service I will I will state what those are and you'll also notice when you slide a comment that was made from a supervisor colleague or um or somebody else who has worked very closely with them this slide deck will be updated as other others of our employees decide to jump into retirement and we will also be posting it on our main School Division website so without any further Ado I would like to congratulate and recognize the following people Charles Adams lead custodian at Stone Robinson for 24 years of service sorry Barb Albertson teacher at Crozet 34 years of service Dennis barbario teacher Western Albemarle 19 years of service Pat Boudreau teaching

039assistant Red Hill Elementary 28 years of service June Benoit teacher at Meriwether Lewis 28 years of service Glenn Bernhardt teacher Holly Mead Elementary 20 years 28 years of service Deborah Blackwell food service associate at Albemarle High School 18 years of service Judy Blakey bright stars at Woodbrook 21 years of service Tina Bolin teacher at Red Hill Elementary 28 years of service Tamara Bowden teacher at Henley Middle School 19 years of service Tracy Brooks generals at Human Resources 13 years Leslie Brown office associate at Western Albemarle 37 years of service Tony Bruno a courier with Building Services he's been with us for seven years Denise Campbell teacher at agner hurt 31 years Sue chicatelli autism assistant at Hollywood Elementary 32 years of service Mary Clark one of our bus drivers from Scottsville she's been with us

040for 18 years Jenny Coleman teacher at kale 31 years of service Faye Cunningham teacher at Albemarle High School 43 years of service Debbie Davis office associate Western Albemarle 24 years with the county bird dirking 25 years of service she's currently a teacher at Red Hill Curtis Dell a bus driver at Meriwether Lewis 22 years of service Jenny Elgort counselor at Murray in the Community Charter School 19 years Becky Ellis instructional coach 11 years of service Christine Erskine special ed teaching assistant at Stone Robinson 12 years of service Terry Gallagher teacher at hollymead elementary 19 years of service Dusty Garwood special ed assistant at post High 13 years of service Linda Goolsby special ed assistant Western Albemarle High School she's been with us for 30 years Gloria green teaching assistant Western Albemarle 19 years of service

041Susan Grant library media specialist at Henley 38 years of service Joanne Harris Birch teaching assistant at Monticello 20 years of service Debbie hajek nurse at Crozet 10 years of service Jeff Haslett teacher at Baker Butler 31 years with Albemarle County skip Hudgins teacher at kale Elementary 40 years of service Faye Jones office associate at Brownsville she's been with us for 39 years Ashby Kindler from our leadership team 20 years with the county Joe Coleman teacher at hollymead 30 years of service James Lewis custodian at Henley Middle he's been with us for eight years Brenda Lilly autism assistant at kale 27 years with Albemarle County Schools Catherine Kathy Mallory Chambers teacher at agner hurt she's been with us for 32 years Beth Mars teaching assistant at Holly maid 38 years of service Greg Maynard a teacher

042at Albemarle High School 37 years with the school division Donna McCracken teacher in agner hurt 22 years of service Jack McMillan also at agner hurt teacher there 34 years with the school division Julie Mendelson nurse at Red Hill 19 years Melanie Menefee office associate at Albemarle 21 years of service Chuck Miller teacher at Henley 40 years of service Debbie Newman a teacher at Baker Butler 30 years of service Patty Parmenter teacher at Sutherland Middle School 18 years of service Tino Perez custodial team leader at Stone Robinson 14 years of service Sharon Rush airs office associate at Scottsville 28 years of service Kathy Russo teaching assistant at Scottsville 16 years B.J Santos from Murray Community Charter 20 years of service Sarah Schmidt teaching assistant at Woodbrook he's been with us for 15 years Laura Scully teacher

043at Meriwether Lewis 16 years of service Lucille shifflett a transportation assistant who's been with us for 19 years Rita Taylor a custodian at Monticello 23 years of service Bonnie Thacker custodian at Western Albemarle nine years of service Cheryl Thomason teacher at Baker Butler 30 years of service Leanne via food service manager at Crozet 30 years of service Karen warlick teacher Sutherland Middle School has been teaching with us for 11 years Kathy Warnick teaching assistant at Brownsville she's been with our School Division for 19 years Louise Weaver teacher at Monticello 20 years of service Jane Webb teacher at Henley Middle who's been with us for 37 years and you probably noticed as we went through that many of our Building Services people did not have their individual pictures up there we will work on getting them

044and updating this but we do want to recognize them here in our group picture from Building Services they are not all leaving don't worry we would like to to again congratulate each of our staff members who was recognized here today we thank you for everything you have done for our students and we wish you the very best in retirement we will miss you we hope you come back and visit and substitute and all of those things but we and we wish we could have you here in person tonight and shake your hands and congratulate you but I hope that this this little virtual recognition will at least be a little token to let you all know how much we appreciate every single thing that you have done for Albemarle County Public Schools thank you that

045was so heartwarming Claire you know there's so many familiar faces and so many people that I've been lucky enough to meet over the last five years I'll miss them absolutely thank you I noted that at least eight of those people had Direct contact with my child I want to thank them for everything they've done and apologize if we're the reason you're leaving but God bless good luck um I'd like to read you a quote sent in the midst of the darkness around the social isolation isolation and fears forced Upon Us by the coronavirus and the spread of covid-19 illness is as natural as sunshine and vital to our nourishment we're working with a small slice of artwork created by local school children this notice was sent to the residents of hospice of the Piedmont in

046the midst of code 19 Mindy Moran our lead instructional coach for the Arts was the recipient of a request to share the joy of our students with hospice residents Mindy reached out to Art instructors across all of our schools and grade levels to ask for their help hundreds of students as part of their curriculum in April produced visual art Expressions that were shared with hospice residents the project was another powerful demonstration of using art to serve our community Mindy says there was only one requirement to bring a big to bring a smile to a worried face Mindy has a guest with her that I will ask her to introduce I hope they will say a few words about this project what they learned and the impact it had upon them and I understand many also

047is arranging for some 1800 pieces of art for our community exhibits at Stonefield that was interrupted by covid-19 to now be displayed in an online gallery please share that link with us when it is ready this is Moran hi thank you can you all hear me oh great so I'm going to share my screen um hey um my guests can on uh can start their videos I have with me thank you for that introduction you've explained the project wonderfully I have uh two of our art teachers Rob garland from Monticello High School and Christy Lopez from agner hurt um I had three teenagers at the start of this meeting I think I might be down to two Kate Burns and is Peyton on here I think hopefully so yeah I'm just going to share my

048screen to share some of the art and I'll let you see let me see if this works um screen share okay can y'all see it uh and so yeah uh that was that's the exact um description of the project which was embraced by our entire art Department um and those teachers who were not who already didn't have their final weeks planned were able to integrate this project into their work and so um we got hundreds and hundreds of art pieces um kids sharing things that brought them joy in this case this is an elementary student a picture of a dog and others kind of shared their messages and their feelings and how they were feeling here with the student you could see a drawing and then we had lots of photographs and things of their

049pets and things that brought them that that made them happy hundreds of images these are a couple of Rob's art students um but I would like to pop uh in fact that's enough of media talking actually Peyton um if you're here introduce yourself and share your work with us hi I'm Peyton Lewis can you all hear me having good I can okay great thank you so much for um letting me speak tonight so um this project was super um both fun for me and hopefully it brought some Joy to the community um I turned in a couple of photographs um some of Nature and then this is a photograph I took in Quebec city in Canada um we were walking the street and you know came across this umbrella Line Street and I love the

050people and it kind of gives you a sense of like the fun that we're kind of missing out during this time and maybe that the um senior citizens in the nursing home did not can no longer partake in um so I chose this Photograph to turn in and hopefully it brings um the community a little bit of joy and I just think this is a really great project um to both make put a little more time into the work that we do create and um have a bit more purpose to it um so yeah really enjoyed it and um just tried to choose images that brought me some Joy so hopefully they could bring others thank you Peyton you can go get your pizza or whatever you're waiting on on doing thank you you're welcome

051hun and then help me go back have from Western Albemarle Kate Burns this is her piece uh sure so um you know this is really something simple that um I did for my Ceramics class and uh you know honestly I don't think it's one of my best pieces but um it was something that really you know caused you to think about it because I have the privilege like I'm lucky to have both pairs of my grandparents here alive and not in um Assisted Living um so you know it caused me to kind of think about what other people are going through I've been uh quarantined with my family so I'm always surrounded by people but you can kind of Imagine uh how lonely it must get for these people and um you know I just

052um you know there's still a sense of community I'm hoping um in these places but um stuff like this is difficult um for them and especially because of their age and their susceptibility so I just wanted to do something like that you know perfect thank you Kate yeah you did a great job and you can get back to the beach which is where Kate is calling from thank you I wanted to ask Christy Lopez to talk Christy is the art teacher at agner hurt and she worked with Elementary the entire Elementary School um kids and they they also made art Christy thank you so much Mindy um this project to me really was just such a natural project because that's what young children do anyhow is just share share their Joy with others through ART

053and so this is just an example excuse me of a very um young artist that I had that just the very simple I love you and how sweet that was and just that they're able to share Joy with others and that's just something natural I also um think one of the greatest things for me in offering this to my students was the ability to give them something positive to do um I think that this time has been hard um for a lot of our students because it's very limiting time so just being able to give them something that they felt empowered to be able to share with others and help others was very meaningful for me and for them this is another example of a work by an older student who obviously put a lot

054of thought into what her message and I just think that it was I was just so um inspired by my students as they were doing the work so thank you Mindy you're muted oh thank you thank you Donna I just wanted to say thank you for having us and the teachers did a fantastic job it was a great partnership and I think the kids got a lot of meaning out of reaching a way to find meaning in this time thanks just a question when will this be put up when will all the art be put up do you think oh oh okay sorry just to be clear I'm sorry Catherine this work was a separate um a bit a chunk of art that we that we um digitally uploaded and we shared with the hospice

055of Piedmont and they printed pieces on the back of a letter that went out to I'm guessing hundreds of of a residents um the other piece of the day was referring to the beginning was the visual arts festival that was at Stonefield that got cut short uh Rob Garland who's also on the call hi Rob um uh during the pandemic went and shot hundreds fifteen hundred eighteen hundred shots and and put it onto an online gallery that is already up and I can share the link with you however it needs to be shared so does that make sense was that your question right that would be great okay share the link yes anything else thank you guys thank you rob thank you Mindy thank you for having us Mr chair it has been pointed out

056to me that yet again I have screwed up so I appointed the administrators for our school system but we did not appoint a single teacher so we might want to do so at this time I would like to move that we appoint the teachers as employees for the 2020-2021 year school year as we were provided the information at the close meeting do we have a second give it a motion and a second any discussion Miss Johnston um Mr oberg yes Miss Lee yes Miss Osborne Mr Page yes Miss Carlson Dr Acuff yes and Mr alcaro yes thank you Mr obering the motion passes and thank you everybody so I apologize to all our teachers who not have had jobs next year really sorry um okay uh next up is announcements Dr Hiles so uh we

057just have a few announcements um first I'd I'd like for um Jay Thomas uh has a quick announcement about graduations yeah thank you good evening uh uh School Board we are excited to announce that at 7 p.m on Sunday evening this evening or in three three nights this weekend excuse me uh we will be officially releasing our graduation videos from our four high schools so the schools will be sending out announcements to their uh families and the graduates uh letting them know that we'll go live at 7 pm on Sunday evening I've had a chance to skim through all the the videos and they look absolutely wonderful in the pictures that were taken of the kids that we're sending to them um we're we're absolutely uh just beautiful and um the principals did a wonderful

058job in their schools put in a lot of hours to make this as special as possible for the kids they got a lot of wonderful feedback from the family so on behalf of everybody thank you all for for allowing them to do that and um we're excited to get that up on the websites on Sunday at 7. thank you Jay and I think that is the only announcement that we have okay thank you very much um on the school board Miss Lee do you want to uh have an announcement to make an announcement oh sure I um during other business good thank you are there any other announcements from the school board okay I'd like to I don't know I'd just like to take a moment of personal privilege uh that one of my one

059of the kids who's my children from a different parent uh graduated and I was going to give my love to Claire uh congratulations thank you Mr Roper uh next up is uh superintendent and School Board business uh thank you Mr alcaro I just have two two items on that the first one is from uh Dr Diggs evening I am just wanted to let you know this is a quick quick update that we have the technology in place at this point that for our next school year we'll be pushing a link a direct link to our anti-racism policy to all of our student and staff laptop desktops so there'll be an icon right there on the desktop to it they can link directly at to it so that's the Technologies in place for that to roll

060out thank you Dr Diggs thank you and I have uh one more item of uh superintendent's business and that's from uh Ms Collins uh good evening I'm Debbie Collins Deputy superintendent I wanted to provide you with a brief update on the work of the return to school task force as you recall the purpose of the task force is to provide a guidance document for Omar County Schools as we move to reopen forward work groups healthy students healthy staff healthy environment healthy learning comprising comprising of approximately 80 Albemarle County Public School Educators and staff completed their work late last week the return to school task force has now reviewed compiled and completed the first draft the first draft has been sent to our advisory groups parents special education students Health Etc and our leadership teams who

061will be reviewing and providing feedback in the next several days next Thursday as part of our covet update we will present the document to you for review after your discussion we will use the feedback we've received to complete the process we look forward to presenting to the document to you next week thank you thank you Ms Collins that that's all Mr alcaro thank you Dr Oz is there any business from a member of the school board okay I just have to compliment what Ms Lee was just talking about I just have a very brief item to read and that is in the last few days we've received feedback from concerned citizens about the issue of school resource officers sros in Albemarle County public school buildings we've read almost every letter and email and are sensitive

062to the concerns of our students parents and community members on this topic personally I apologize to any of you who I haven't responded to yet I'm I've read just about everything and I intend to get back to you the SRO program will be discussed as a non-agenda item in this evening's school board meeting with follow-up discussions in board meetings over the next two weeks a thorough independent review of the program may be formally requested by the school board during this time frame we will then dedicate a school board work session to the evaluation of the SRO program to just to determine what further steps may need to be taken or necessary next up is tackling the student stress dilemma progress updates Dr McLaughlin good evening board members I'm Pat McLaughlin chief of strategic planning for

063the School Division and I'm here tonight with Jay Thomas our director of secondary education to update you on the progress we've made toward elevating our high school experience in May of last year we presented the board with the rationale for why we thought change was necessary in our high school experience tonight we'll recap that presentation for you provide some updated metrics and then update you on our progress as you may recall from our presentation last year National Trends in Teen Mental Health tell a troubling story incidents of major depressive episodes characterized as suffering from a depressed mood for two weeks or more and a loss of interest in everyday activities Rose to 17.3 percent among girls and 5.7 percent among boys in 2014. the increase in minors requiring hospitalization for eating disorders Rose 172 percent

064between 2003 and 2014. and 25 percent of teens met the criteria for an anxiety disorder and eight percent of children ages 7 to 16 had attempted self-injury we know that when students have high stress levels that often results uh in such symptoms as poor physical health substance misuse and abuse academic misconduct and maladaptive behaviors and we know that there's some stressors that are out of our immediate control such as new parenting Styles we used to have concerns about helicopter parents and new Recent research has classified an even more intense parenting approach the snow pal plant who paves the way for their child's success by removing all obstacles in a child's path the college admissions process is a major source of stress for our students more students are applying to more schools while only nine percent

065of students applied to seven or more schools in 1990 by 2016 that number had risen to 29 percent the effect of this new student approach to college admissions is that the most selective schools become even more selective finally in the recent past teenagers had few options for staying in touch with their friends once they left school for the day this lack of connectivity created a mental break from both school and social life in the evenings and on weekends with the Advent of cell phones however students are constantly connected to friends through various social media platforms and technologies that mental break enjoyed by previous generations of teenagers is long gone a great deal of good can come with this constant connection but it also has a dark side cyber bullying Eating Disorders depression anxiety all of

066these can be exacerbated by social media use and while those factors may be outside of our control maybe largely outside the control of our school system there are opportunities to help mitigate student stress and hcps has been very forward-thinking in this area just a few examples of this from our division include the implementation of full-time elementary school counselors at every one of our elementary schools increased Middle School support counselors an expansion of the step program to reduce out-of-school suspensions and the implementation of an anonymous Reporting Act I think our research Partners at EAB sum this whole thing up nicely when they say that students in a Relentless pursuit of perfection concerned about getting the highest grades in the toughest possible classes to get admitted to the most selective colleges have little interest in learning on

067their own learning or their own growth Beyond building the perfect college resume we've done quite a bit of our own research on this topic over the past few years in 2018 our weighted in our weighted grade survey we saw that 49 of our respondents indicated that weighted grades led to increases in student stress levels 68 percent told us that waiting grades motivated students to take as many AP courses as possible 54 told us that waiting grades discourage students from taking unweighted elective courses that were of interest to them and 70 percent reported that waiting grades gave them a better chance to get into college in the 2016-2017 school year we implemented our division homework policy at the end of that year even with the policy in place we still saw 68 percent of our students

068indicating that they worry about the uh that they worry about the amount they were excuse me about school work has increased 72 percent reported a decrease in the amount of sleep that they get 66 indicated they have less time to do things other than school and 64 percent reported a decreased amount of time to spend with family and friends we asked similar questions to them at the end of last year and while some of the results were moving in the right direction we were still not where we wanted to be our program evaluation that was completed a couple of years ago on the advanced placement program indicated that AP classes were a significant source of stress for our students when we had some Community conversation around our high school program we asked the community how

069many AP courses did you think students needed to prove student or needed to things to prove students could do rigorous college-level work the overwhelming answer 87 percent of respondents said between zero and six the reality with ap however tells a very different story in the 2017-2018 school year we had 253 Juniors who were taking three or more AP classes in 54 of those Juniors were taking five or more that year 359 seniors were taking three or more AP classes and of those 158 were taking five or more you can see our uh most recent numbers from the 2019-2020 school year and things really haven't changed much over the past couple of years one of our strategic priorities has been for students to identify and pursue their personal interests in our school students tell us that

070our practice of waiting grades for honors and AP classes discourages them from taking non-weighted elective classes one way in which this manifests it in which this manifests itself is through our study hall enrollment in the 2018-2019 school year 42 percent of high school students were enrolled in a study hall this year that number Rose to 47 percent we believe that this shows not only that students are shying away from unweighted elective classes but also that students need time away from academic pressures we shared our data on a High School faculty listening tour at the start of 2019 and we receive very positive feedback about some ideas that we had and with our strategic priorities in mind we identified multiple practices that are currently in place in our division that may be barriers to the attainment

071of these priorities it is our duty as a school system to take action to eliminate such barriers when they become apparent to us so last year we came to the board with several recommendations the first recommendation we made to the board last May was a closer monitoring of our division homework policy the process of implementing our policy is ongoing and we know will be successful with the homework policy when we see an increased percentage of our students reporting that teachers adhere to the policy when we see students reporting adequate time for sleep and non-school activities and when we see students reporting manageable stress levels a second strategy that we presented to the board was the elimination of weighted grades so that students could choose courses based on interests instead of based on competition our anticipated

072impacts for this strategy include a reduction in study hall enrollment and an increase in students reporting that they're enrolling in class based on personal interests instead of competition a third strategy we brought to the board was to reduce the academic course load for high school students from eight academic periods a year to seven and to implement a school-wide enrichment program successful metrics for this strategy would include a reduction in study hall enrollment and a reported decrease in student stress levels and finally we advocated for implementing a limit to the number of AP courses students could take during their four years of high school our original our original recommendation was that ninth graders do not enroll in AP courses 10th graders have a limit of one course per year 11th graders two courses per year and

07312th graders three courses per year what we would hope to see from this strategy uh include I'm sorry an increase in students reporting course Choice based on personal interests reported reduction in stress levels and a reported increase in time for activities outside of our school Jay Thomas our director of secondary education has been leading much of this work to implement these strategies and I'd like to turn things over to Jay at this time to give you an update on how we have moved this year uh toward these strategies and how far we've moved this year toward implementing these strategies okay thank you Patrick uh good evening again uh board members uh so we just want to update you with where do things stand what so since we presented this a year ago to now uh

074where are we essentially um as Patrick went through we have we have had the implementation of the homework policy and have done uh several sessions with folks uh working on the adherence to that policy uh we just communicated uh in the last couple weeks the uh to our students who just finished sixth grade the elimination of weighted grades when they start high school we just completed our first year of our new learning management system which is Schoology and our our high schools um this past year for the first time were on a common a b schedule rotation in the schools uh next year what are we looking to do um we were hoping at the end of this year in the spring we were going to have some Community conversations set up at all of

075our middle schools as well as at our high schools for our staffs um obviously that was placed on hold due to through the covet outbreak but we plan on doing that early in the spring and going back out to discuss the different areas that we just talked about and continuing to get more feedback on that we wanted to continually review the homework policy and make sure we're getting the impact that we're looking for with that policy and in addition we have a new uh policy on grading that's going to be coming to you guys for first read in July it's going through the equity uh audit review as we speak we're working through that process and and we'll have that in front of you guys at the July I believe ninth meeting for first read

076and then what are our plans for the future uh the possible implementation of the AP cap and possible implementation of the seven academic classes with that enrichment period so as far as the weighted grades uh we as I said that we just communicated that out in May a communication went out to all at the time sixth grade families and students uh they are the acts of the rising seventh graders it's the graduating class of 2026. so those students when they begin high school they will not have any any of their classes being weighted and what that means is we wait classes on a 4.0 or a 5.0 scale uh several years ago Dr Haas and several of us went to the to the state uh Department of Education and got permission to unweight the classes

077that are mandatory by the state of Virginia to be weighted we got permission to unweight those so everything will be an equal 4.0 weight and with the numbers that Patrick showed you in the study halls earlier we're hoping to to see more kids actually take classes of interest to them what we hear consistently from the college is we want you to take the highest level courses but also be well-rounded and take classes that show your interest and passion outside of the highest level classes kids have felt hamstring to do that because they're not weighted at a 5.0 level with everything being weighted at 4.0 uh we we see that more kids will want to take elective classes of their interest since they'll all be weighted equally uh the next thing we're talking to continue talking

078about is the seven uh classes instead of eight right now kids take four classes on a day four more classes on b day um and what we're looking to do is is do four and three but on that day that says three there would be a fourth class they'd still have four but that fourth one would be in in uh enrichment period that all students would take uh so for instance in ninth grade that's actually where you would see the Freshman seminar so the seminar wouldn't be one of the seven as it's currently one of the eighth it would actually go into that enrichment period so this is again one of the things that we want to have communications about with our stakeholders within the spring uh early spring as we go out and have

079uh Community inputs and continue talking about the benefit of that and what that may look like um and the last thing that we want to talk about is the AP so when we went around talking about the uh AP course courses being limited uh we actually got a lot of good feedback um as Patrick showed most people or you know families fell at the time zero to six as we've continued to get some um feedback and look at some data and try to find that sweet spot our current recommendation is actually to go zero two three four um so total of nine so um just finding out is that the the right uh area to kind of hit on would we take these all at once uh or I mean could you take them at

080any time would they be in the order that we put zero two three four colleges like to see that each year if you're going to take high level courses you take equal or a higher number the next year so that was the recommendation of why You See It Be progressively more than than one each year um so with that that's that's not only uh the presentation from last year but the updates on what we've accomplished this year and just wanted to pause to see if you had any questions for Patrick for myself any questions Jay how are you addressing the question we got uh the comment we got from a student and I think we had a few parents about a rigorous academic programming for the very Advanced kids so the kids that it's not

081a problem to do five APS in a year it's not stressing them out so one of the things you'll see in the AP or the EAB report is when they talk about APS if you're going to limit they say you have to have a firm limit for anybody and everybody because once you allow somebody to surpass that limit then it disadvantages everyone else when they're applying to the same colleges from that school what we have is we also have dual enrollment classes which in Albemarle County we stay to every school that applies on the sheet that the counselors send that our AP and our dual enrollment are equally the highest level courses we offer we have not kept our dual enrollment we have not gotten any feedback from the dual enrollment classes that they've been

082stressful the kids have been taking too many of them and it's also a guaranteed transcript they are taken through the local community college and it's a guaranteed transcript when they leave our school so taking the dual enrollment offerings would be one way to be able to do that thank you sure absolutely would either of you Gentlemen please expand a little bit on the uh on the enrichment period I understand what you said Mr Thomas about it being you know similar to The Freshman seminar in concept and just going in in different levels I'm somewhat intrigued by what the common what you're envisioning the the uh the the the in common education uh in classes like that would be for entire grade levels sure absolutely so one of the things that Patrick can jump in as

083well is our kids take eight academic classes a year so that's uh 8 16 24 32 opportunities just in high school many of them also take classes in the summer for high school credit or even pre-high school as they're coming up so they have way more than the 25 26 credits they need to actually graduate from high school um so in addition to that in our high schools in those four classes we're also currently doing a lot of uh intervention enrichment opportunities and things like that that are built in during the day and we're trying to cram those in on a daily um on a daily basis so having that time built in for uh every child to be able to have an enrichment period every other day is really what we're looking for specifically

084what would it look like that's something that if we decide uh to go uh finalize and go on to the seven with the enrichment period we'd actually work with teachers and and students and families to start building out exactly what that would look like so that there's options in there and that that we'd be able to benefit all of our students during that time thank you Jay I have one additional question you mentioned on their monitoring adherence to the homework policy so how do you plan on how do you plan on doing that so one of the things we've been doing is uh surveys each year and kind of getting feedback from the students um we were actually in the process of doing one in the spring but again with the the covid and then

085uh changing and having so many other Communications going out to families and surveys we actually delayed doing the homework survey at the end of the year um we we meet as a leadership team with our administrators uh once a month as well we've spent some time talking to them and helping them analyze their data I actually know Patrick this year at uh Western Albemarle that was actually one of his school Improvement goals was working with his staff and and them analyzing it as a school so there's a lot of different ways that we do that but really helping uh get the information that the principals need so we can support them within the school of working with their teachers to make sure that they are adhering to that policy is that what you were looking

086for Katrina does that help answer that yeah it does thank you and just so you know I I'm in agreement with homework policy I probably not updated study but when I was a teacher I remember reading that um you know homework is is not that effective it actually can in math it can reinforce um incorrect solving strategies and it's more reflective of someone's uh home life and the the stability they have in their home whether or not they consistently are doing their homework because it's parents pestering kids to get it done in a lot of the cases you know and it is apparent this year I you guys know I have triplets that just finished sixth grade and I thought the teachers at Southern did an absolutely wonderful job across the board with all three

087of the kids with the policy so I think we are starting to see a positive impact with that I thought the homework was healthy and and it was within the right amount and um it was meaningful for the kids more importantly other questions or comments and this isn't well it's sort of related how young are how young is students get homework routinely do we have our kindergartners our first graders with homework when do they start getting it foreign Jay would you like for me to speak to that sure absolutely yes um we uh the homework we assigned for young children is reading every night uh so that can be you can if you're reading already you can read a book it's 20 minutes uh if you're not reading yet having an adult or someone else

088read to you uh or listening to uh audiobooks so that's typically uh the homework we assigned for the first two years uh is is more experiential uh and more life lesson kinds of homeworks lots of choice uh for students but it is based on um beginning to try to think about healthy study habits thank you hey Jay I've got I've got a question from the peanut gallery I.E my daughter I'm getting texts here but um it's a fair question I mean she yes she's she's asking how how how limiting the number of classes to seven encourages people to take more you know uh electives that they're in electives yeah and yep great question we've actually got that question several times so the unweighting of the grades absolutely 100 does that right I mean so that's

089what we've heard from kid after kid we actually had some students go with us um to the State Department of Education that said I would have taken more elective classes that I could have taken for free in high school if I if it wasn't weighted if it didn't penalize me um for my overall GPA so that part of of one of the recommendations we made is definitely going to encourage more kids to take elective classes uh we think the building out of the academy process that we presented to you guys I believe that was like right before we went out on on uh on online learning uh for the year and talking about how we're trying to build opportunities for kids to take classes in area of not just interest but aptitude we think that

090will increase opportunities for kids to take electives so we think as you're doing that um and you put in both of those things you're going to to start seeing the kids that are just like I just ran that data and Patrick put it in there that 47 of our kids took a study hall last year that was just one study hall I also have the data on how many kids took two study halls so the more study halls they're taking kind of offset that so the seven of eight could possibly you know um have some kids making some choices but I think the other choices we made with the the the uh the academies and trying to um to offer some more opportunities is really all about the electives um and and the unwaiting of

091grades is really all about kids taking more classes of Interest which are your electives we think will outweigh that and there'll be more uh opportunities for kids and then we'll see more kids in the elective classes but that is that is a question we have gotten with some of the seven and eight to be fair day um I appreciate it I mean the the only issue is that the timing of the two things are different I'm totally in favor of getting in the way getting rid of the eight weighted grades I I've been in favor of that for a very long time so I think the disincentive of taking art and drama and all those sorts of things is antithetical to what we're supposed to do um but the the reduction I'm not saying I'm

092opposed to reducing the number of number of classes I'm just thinking that in combination some of the kids are going to go to seven classes but still have weighted grades right right so some some will go to seven classes and still have what yes as you transition in like our current sixth graders when they're in ninth grade you're 10 11 and 12 will still have way to grade so it'll be a gradual phasing out of the weighted classes but the sixth grade so let's say uh let's say a ninth grader David is is in um algebra two and a 12th graders in algebra too the 12th grader is going to get the weighted credit for the class the ninth grader won't um but that'll be fair by grade level upon when they graduate does that

093does that make sense yeah but what about the when are we looking to to go from eight to seven so that's on one of the slides we put we put um future considerations so when we originally presented we talked about doing these all together and with these roll in with those current kids that just graduated sixth grade or got promoted from sixth grade to seventh grade and do it as is with that as well we've actually got a lot of feedback from folks with the AP to actually start it sooner um and we've got that across the board from families but originally what we were talking about is really looking to to roll that in with with with the same class so these changes would come across naturally but again I think that's part of

094the the community conversations continue to get input about that and then be able to bring that back to you all and and have some discussion about that is what our what our plan is okay thank you yes sir Jay have you surveyed students to see what electives they would take I mean you could see this sort of changing the demand for different kinds of classes and different teachers yeah we do that every year as far as the uh um the the process of signing up for classes um so for instance I know this year at like Atmore high school for instance Dara actually had all his teachers do these wonderful videos that they ran and the kids could see the classes that we're offering to go back and watch it later they all have fares

095in their class or in the in the school where the different elective teachers come out and kind of promote their subject areas and and so the kids have an opportunity to really understand what is lit magazine I've heard about it I've got a friend that's in it but what is it really and again I really think the academy model that we're kind of talking about of of having different Pathways is really the pathways for kids to be able to to choose which um gosh I started eight nine years ago with the Arts and letters uh Pathways at Albemarle High School and we saw that the kids really liked taking that continuity of learning of experiences and something they were interested in so our data right now is all based upon getting the feedback of what

096kids are registering for and what they're not registering for and we've been having conversations when we've been taking a look at the career clusters with our students of what they would be interested in and we do have the data on that I actually that's some of the data that we used when we came and met with you guys about those different Pathways we showed what kids said they might be interested in okay I have a question about um College admission how will the unweighted grades be um communicated that we are doing that how would that be communicated to colleges especially out of state yeah absolutely yes sir so Mr Page one of the um one of the inclusions in the board packet tonight was a report we had commissioned by EAB that asked just that

097question um you know we wanted to before we made any decisions around this we wanted to make sure we were doing no harm to students in the college admissions process and so the admissions officers are the report um that where they pulled some admissions officers did say that uh that they didn't believe that eliminating weighted grades or uh capping an AP program would have any impact uh on College admissions for our kids now what we do need to do is every year we create a school profile statement uh that we send out from each High School to our colleges and within that profile statement we outline what our most rigorous instructional program looks like and as Jay was mentioning earlier right now that list things such as AP courses and dual enrollment courses uh as

098some of our most rigorous we also uh include in that that we encourage students to have work-based learning experiences and internships and things like that so uh so all colleges uh whether they're in state or outstate out of state have access to that school profile uh and use that uh in the course of those decisions okay all right thanks I would just uh add one thing that um one of the things you said Patrick just kind of helped me remember something that um several years ago we embarked on um a change that at the time was was sort of controversial and that we eliminated class ranking um at that time as you can imagine in our schools there was quite a bit of concern about that that um somehow would impact our students enrollment in

099colleges that they wanted to attend and um it what we found was that it it actually increased uh the chances of students getting into um select colleges because instead of looking immediately at where the child was ranked among their their classmates they looked at the program they looked at the classes that the student took the interest that they had they went to that to see how it would help balance out their their College Community and um I do remember at that time there was a lot of feedback to to not make that change um and we made it and uh that was one that was in alignment with the type of work that we're doing now I think that what we find over time is that the good things that make Albemarle County Schools a

100good school system the the high quality teaching and learning that takes place are the most important things that we're well respected for and so the other changes that we make only enhance those things um the colleges still look to us for uh students of High Caliber and high interest and they also know that we're being Progressive in encouraging students to pursue their interests you know I I would just like to thank both of you for redoing this particular uh session now that I realize uh that uh I was I if you were doing this last May I was out that week for a family emergency and I had no attention paid to what was going on so to see this again uh is is or see it for the first time I think it's great

101for our two newer uh members but it sure has been worthwhile for me and it answers a lot of questions that I've had and I truly truly appreciate it thank you both yes sir thank you okay are there any other uh questions or discussion points okay thank you very much you're still muted John I think we lost your microphone um uh next step and I think Dr McLaughlin that this is you again is the survey an optional calendar for the return to school plan uh for for the fall yes thank you Mr alcaro I'm back again um Pat McLaughlin chief of strategic planning and uh won my second item tonight is to provide the board with potential additional calendar options for the 2020 2021 school year so as we progress through the covid-19 crisis our

102return to school plan for the fall is starting to come into better focus one option for starting school next year that we would like the board to consider is a later school year start date than we have traditionally had for our students included in your board packet are two draft calendars each with the start date in early September we see a number of potential benefits to a delayed start to the school year we'll be sharing the results of our covid-19 closure survey with you at next week's meeting but one of the common threads and the responses we have received from instructional staff is a desire for more professional development if we anticipate any portion of next school year moving to an online format we're also starting to receive state guidance on what types of supplies

103and protocols would need to be in place for the students return to school in a September start date would allow additional time for both of these starting in September would not be without its drawbacks however and one of those includes extending the time that our students must wait before they can return to a school setting so tonight we present the board with two draft calendars one with a start date of September 2nd and one with a start date of September 8th each version of the calendar ends our school year on June 18th 2021 maintains our traditional break times and does not increase contractual obligations of our staff a September 2nd start date would have a start school on when on a Wednesday as we have done in the past and allow for a long Labor

104Day weekend after our first three days a start date on the 8th would have us starting the Tuesday following Labor Day so tonight with the approval of the board we would plan to launch a community survey about the new proposed calendars tomorrow similar to our calendar surveys in the past our survey would gauge satisfaction with each of the drafts as well as the degree to which our community feels we should have commonality with Charlottesville City Schools in addition we will ask the community about their perception of the benefits of a later start date we'll bring preliminary results to the board next week at the June 18th meeting and would request board action by June 26th the 26th at the latest but earlier if possible perhaps even as early as next week the board will ultimately

105beside be deciding between three options our original calendar with a start date in August or one of the September start date options I believe our community will be eager to have a firm start date to our for our return to school and so those are the highlights of the updated uh 2020-2021 calendars and I'd be happy to take any questions that the board may have questions or comments on this and I think the the purpose of this evening is to uh give or or not give approval to move forward with the survey and get that launched tomorrow so we can start collecting data from our families correct I move that we instruct the staff to move forward with the survey to determine an appropriate start date a second emotion do we have any discussion here's

106Johnston and Miss Lee we just we just uh made a motion and seconded to to move forward with the uh survey going out tomorrow to families to talk about the calendar options thank you so Miss Lee yes Miss Osborne yes Mr Page yes Miss Carlson yes Dr akuff yes Mr oberg yes Mr ocaro yes the motion passes uh Dr McLaughlin I think you've got the go-ahead thank you board members I look forward to bringing you the results uh at next Thursday's meeting okay I do have one question that probably answered when you ask for questions but um what method do you think we could use to get data material from people who do not have easy access to the internet I think that could be a problem to make sure that we get the best

107result to have some type of method in place but those people who don't have internet um X access right now I agree with you Mr Page uh and I don't have a firm answer for that but I can work with our Communications team about some strategies perhaps to mitigate that over the course of the next week and provide alternate options I think I have an answer actually uh I I don't let's not forget we just finished um we finished a school closure program where we had a pretty robust check and connect program and we do know who the students are that um do not have internet access so we could just simply ask uh staff to contact those families um to see what they think we know it's under five percent of our student population

108which would be in the neighborhood of under or fewer than 700 students so I'm glad you brought that up Graham this is a unique opportunity to make a direct connection with families and say um what do you think uh we we already heard from you that you don't have a reliable internet access so we're giving you a call to to ask what you think it'll be like getting a a phone call for an election you know a polling question so I'm glad you brought that up this is a chance to do something different I'm sorry Patrick one more question yeah asked about how people felt about it being aligned with City schools in city school had they set their calendar they said we set a joint calendar uh with the city back in January and

109we've been in touch with our calendar committee Liaisons there to make sure we're being very transparent about our process um and we've invited them to uh to consider a later start date as well um we haven't heard that they are um they're interested in moving at this time and so that'll be one of the things that we want to bring back to the board as well the um the city staff are using our uh items from our feedback survey and they're sending out a feedback survey to their Community similar to ours and and part of that they're going to be asking about um their their return to school program um and we'll it remains to be seen if they do ask about uh calendar options but they are aware of the work that we're doing

110and have been part of the the calendar committees okay thank you very much uh thank you Dr McLaughlin next up are the uh second and third quarter Financial reports for 2019 uh 2020 and I see that uh Mr Zimmerman is with us and uh Ms Schmidt is with us um who would you who am I turning this over to I believe that you're turning it over to me uh Mr Zimmerman nice to see you good to see you thank you Jackson Zimmerman the school finance officer I'm here to present for the board's consideration the second and third quarter Financial reports um the second quarter report was prepared in anticipation of the canceled March 21st uh school board meeting and uh it was using data that was prepared prior to the pandemic closure effects so the

111data that is contained within that second quarter financial report in terms of expenditures and revenues received is accurate however the projections that were in the second report have been superseded by the the third quarter financial report which is presented for your consideration so because the third quarter is much more timely and and contains information that is truly relevant to the current situation I'm going to focus the report on the third quarter financial report at this point in time let's see if I can share screen as part of the third quarter I want to start off with the general takeaway of of the third quarter in preparation for the year end we do anticipate the school division of finishing in a strong financial position it will not be as strong as we were anticipating in the

112second quarter um we do anticipate that we will end the year with a usable available fund balance in the two million dollar range um however that is somewhat variable due to a variety of circumstances that we'll discuss but the core takeaway is from the financial perspective um we are in we anticipate being in Good Financial condition at the end of the fiscal year foreign as of the third quarter our overall enrollment is about 181 students more than we originally budgeted for so more kids came to school this year than we originally anticipated typically when you get more kids the state sends us more money this year we anticipate being quite different we do not we anticipate revenues actually declining from what was originally budgeted for a variety of reasons we'll go through and look at

113those uh individually in terms of the local schools Revenue we anticipate that declining about 395 thousand dollars that's due to a variety of circumstances um building rental is a significant component we will not be collecting that rental March through the end of the year spring Sports is another aspect and donations is a is a third aspect we do receive a lot of donations at the end of a fiscal year the next area is State revenues if you remember the the legislature has passed a budget that was based upon um projections that took place before the pandemic and they declined to update their revenue forecasts what this means is any changes in sales tax or Lottery fund monies are born 100 by the locality also when you look at Lottery and sales tax collections on lottery

114and sales tax are delayed by two months we will only receive April's sales tax revenues this month so while we anticipate declines in these areas we have no idea what they really are going to decline so right now the projections are based upon a 20 decline in sales tax revenues but we don't the state has not been forthcoming with any information regarding uh these kinds of declines overall we do anticipate just over 1.6 million dollar reduction in-state revenues and the final area of revenues is our local transfer the money's coming in from local government we did receive information from local government that this transfer is anticipated to decline by almost 2.7 million dollars this is reflects their best take on how the pandemic economic conditions will impact local revenues that's our share of the decline

115in local revenues on the expense side we do have some reductions to show in this area if you look at our overall expenditures compensation salaries and benefits it represents more than 85 percent of the total dollars expended by the school division again not atypical for school divisions we're very Personnel intensive industry the economic conditions associated with covid um we did not reduce staff we maintained our staff and kept them working throughout the this this uh this condition we don't have very substantial savings associated with uh common bins the biggest savings was due to the due to the health insurance the good performance that we had on our health insurance if you remember the board acted upon not raising our health insurance rates in January that resulted in savings for us for the year so the

116largest say largest portion of our compensation savings has been in that area in terms of operational dollars as soon as we entered into an economic uh downturn uh staff did instruct departments in schools to begin limit spending in the final quarter of the year and we have seen that limited spending will result in us about a 1.6 million dollar reduction in overall operational expenses in total when we take a look at our 4.7 million dollars in declining revenues and 4.6 million dollars in savings associated with expenditures we're going to finish the year very very close to what originally budgeted I'm going to skip through all the details the details are there if anyone has any questions or wishes to ask any questions regarding them but we're just going to take a quick look at the

117final year end what we anticipate our fund balance being at the end of the year we started off this year with a 4.5 million dollar fund balance we used almost 1.2 million dollars in our current year budget we do anticipate returning building rental fees to schools schools that incurred expenses associated with building rentals should receive those monies back and once we look at our overall savings that we have we do anticipate using a little bit more of our fund balance than we had originally budgeting 146 thousand dollars that leaves us with about 2.1 million dollars in available fund balance to start off next fiscal year again this is based upon some very preliminary potentially highly variable numbers in terms of revenues we don't know what sales tax is going to be like we don't know

118what um what Lottery monies are going to be like so there could be some variability in this number but this is our best estimate at this point and we do think that it is it's it's as good as you're going to get with the data that we have available and if the board has any questions I would be more than happy to entertain whatever questions and hopefully I can give you a good response with the information that I have available to me questions for Mr Zimmerman Mr Zimmerman it for us to come in with still 2.1 million dollars in fund balance going into next year would be very impressive and uh uh and so uh with with all that could go wrong and did go wrong you know the the the the the work that

119you and your team did is is is very impressive and um I hope you're right and it's only 20 down you know we're keeping our fingers crossed on that thank you yes sir don't jinx this Jonah these numbers could be highly variable so I have to leave that caveat I understand thank you and I ask the Lord to receive the second and third quarter Financial reports I move that we received the second and third quarter Financial reports second we have a motion to receive them we've received the second and third quarter Financial reports we have a second any additional discussion Miss Johnston Miss Osborne Mr Page yes Miss Carlson yes Dr Acuff yes Mr oberg yes Lee yes girl Karen yes the motion passes Mr Zimmerman you you we have received them thank you thank

120you okay our uh last uh item uh and uh is the school board salary public hearing and approval Ms Johnston do we have anybody um who wants to speak on this issue no okay uh so um and and and just refresh me Miss Johnston have we we filed the uh advertisement at this point yeah it was in the paper for two weeks straight okay good so um then I I guess we are not going to be receiving an um a salary increase uh in in Tradition in keeping with the tradition of uh getting the same salary increase as classified staff and so um I think that can close that issue you just need to make a motion to set the salary whatever it is for the current year who would like to make that motion

121who knows what it is I move that we keep the salary level for the school board consistent with what it was last year and not provide any raises as is as we had done with classifieds do I have a second second okay we have the second uh of a motion in a second any further discussion Miss Johnston I just want to say I think it was an Artful motion thank you Dave keep us all on Mr Page yes Miss Dawson yes Dr akuff yes Mr Uber yes Miss Lee yes Miss Osborne yes Mr alcaro yes the motion passes next up is other business and before we start with this I would like to propose taking a short break um and if if everybody else wants to keep going I will I will take my camera

122off and and take a short break uh it's currently 8 34 I would say let's let's start at um at 8 45. thank you okay thank you everybody I apologize in advance for my background image I don't know how to change it but I'm going to turn my video off okay foreign [Applause] Judy and Kate I know that both of you had had an interest in kicking off this session you talked about that and and decided who is going to do that oh I'm happy to go whenever you can go first Judy I mean okay okay I don't care I mean I think I think we're all pretty close to the same page on yeah I think we're all honored yeah okay nobody's closer than Graham page thank you Dave or Paige Graham as we

123sometimes no I know we sometimes like to call in which is the name of one of my dear friends in high school it's like a palindrome so I make that mistake every now and then yes okay um I think we're just waiting on Ellen and uh and then we'll kick off whatever okay um you know I think we can do this without uh the others that can come in and go out as they please um we uh uh you know it was described by Judy uh during announcements and then I uh tried to compliment what what was said there and I uh Judy is going to kick off this conversation um we have all the time we need to uh to uh speak on it and and see what we want next steps to be

124so Miss Lee thank you very much jono um first I want to thank every person who has written in and those who spoke tonight and uh the calls that I've gotten all the parents students recent graduates teachers and community members really showed up to let us know that you two have our student safety in your heart and I thank you deeply for that um to let everyone know overwhelmingly the comments we've received demand removing sros from our schools and I want to Echo that I support removing the police presence from our schools I believe the studies upon studies that show that they don't in fact increase safety and I believe our black brothers and sisters some of whom have been risking their lives in the streets for weeks to protest the generations of Trauma from

125over policing and brutality and if we are to be an anti-racist institution we need to hear them happen being faced with the embodiment of that trauma every day make for a safe and positive learning environment I don't believe it does and when I've asked questions about it in our division I've been assured that there are infrequent arrests made in our schools which is great but it leads me to ask them why are we spending 256 thousand dollars on them each year why do we have them at all when our children return to school this fall whatever that looks like all experts agree that mental health will be a key issue even more so than in past years and we Face harsh budget realities from this pandemic and so I urge us to find a solution

126that provides for an actually safe learning environment for all of our students all of them including our black and brown students that removes this daily presence and funds Mental Health thank you thank you Ms Lee uh I just haven't evidently forgot how to use the uh button when I was uh on break thank you very much and thank you for sharing your thoughts director Yakov did you want to follow that it's hard to follow that isn't it um this is a subject that we have uh looked into for the past couple of years and um and I have long been a proponent of increasing our Mental Health infrastructure as my colleagues know um and I think with any program including the sros even though we haven't had the list of horribles in our schools that

127many other school divisions have said um I can't ignore the fact that the mere presence of having police force in our schools is traumatic for some kids um the overarching goals of the agreement that was proposed so we the revision I mean the goals I think are important for us to think about it's this is the goals that were written into the proposed new mou to promote a positive and supportive School climate and to create and maintain a safe and secure School environment and I think when we're thinking about those two issues we need to look broadly not just how is a SRO program made better how can we look at all of the various tools that we have as a School Division and how should we deploy those resources and I have tried to

128work to make this this agreement much better but I have to say that I am particularly given the extraordinary mental health issues and Trauma of the school disruption added to the clear um the protests and the clear issues with policing that it might be a good time to totally it is a good time to totally rethink how we are providing for our students thank you anybody else want to jump in yeah I would like to say something Judy and um Kate I know we had talked about the sris before and we were working on an interview that that said they weren't actually supposed to be there for for two and four School discipline and only for emergencies and I guess um beyond the points that that Judy and Kate brought up I I need to

129make clear that the statement that that the uh the School Division released is is not indicative of how I feel about this or or the uh SRO officers I I don't think we need to be providing them with additional training um I read some studies on what constitutes a good SRO officers and even SRO off SRO it's a little hard to vacuum even uh sros themselves said that often their job is is social work is relationship building um is being a parent type figure to these students and I would argue that that money would be better spent getting those actual type of um Mental Health Counselors and social workers into our school as opposed to providing training to police officers because the police are still there if there's if there's an emergency you can call

130the police officer to the school you don't need to have them actively in your school on patrolling and so yeah I don't know you guys said it so well I don't I don't feel like there's much more I need to say other than I I think this is a really good opportunity to revisit and think of this with new eyes um sros I think started becoming more prevalent in schools after school shootings and and they've been there for many years now and now there's a lot of research that we can look at and draw upon and I think from from my limited digging into it it hasn't shown that it increases um school security for the students students don't feel safer when they have SRO officers in their school at least not every category of

131student and then the last point which which perhaps doesn't tie into this but it's something that's worth mentioning is I I do agree that we should revisit butter at flag I mean at this point NASCAR NASCAR has banned the Confederate flag um and and just to speak personally when I I posted that on my Facebook and I said it made me happy um and the reason it made me happy my husband works with NASCAR and I just there's so there's like a relief like a weight lifted off my shoulder to think wow all these people that he worked with that I might in my head I had thought that they were that they probably didn't like people like me those people are willing to take a stand and say this is the right thing to

132do and so since um our our superintendent has put that policy into place it's it's been a year and and it's a different climate and I'm not saying what we did I'm not even looking at the past people are allowed to change their minds or allowed to to grow and we're in a growing situation I think it's it's worth um revisiting a difficult conversation um and I'm really excited about revisiting the sros and I do want to make extra clear that um which is what a problem I have with that statement is that it was it's somewhat defensive thing but our sros are good people and our schools are doing well and it's not about being defensive um it's not about saying that our school resource officers are doing a bad job they're not what

133it's saying is that there's different ways to go about things you can you can get you can accomplish goals in different ways and perhaps I do think this is the time to really look at it and ask yourself why we're putting so much money um into sros when there's other areas that have shown it to be effective there are School divisions that do not use sros and we can look to them for guidance so thanks for listening I'd rather let Graham go okay I'm sorry I need to interrupt you all right um I've realized that maybe the SRO program does need some amending and I guess proud of when I heard judah's statement I was sort of in favor of maybe trying trying to have some type of survey of the program to find out

134whether or not there are some negative things with it but after listening to what Juda said I think we too should eliminate the program but I think we should make sure that those funds that's no longer going to be used for the sros probably I should go in about three main things first like she mentioned I'd want a lot of our money for that to go into mental health for our students so that we could make sure that what happened with the covet pandemic and what has happened uh in Minneapolis that those programs maybe our students won't be as affected as much that we can try to sort of make some amends to our students for those and part of that would be having maybe more money being funded into our CRT training maybe having

135some other additional personnel with uh CRT and then that would sort of lead into the third thing too I'm not sure how we could do this but even within our student body trying to make sure that we have some method of trying to build better relate race relationships uh among the kids within our schools when we could see what was happening to Mr Floyd that's something that maybe most of our minority citizens probably realized was a problem for maybe a long long period of time it might have been a wake-up call for a large segment of our population but for a large segment of the minority population it was just showing something that we knew existed all along so I think if we could try to use some type of method of making sure that

136within our schools we have better race race relationships too and that would probably lead to what Katrina is saying maybe really voting to remove Confederate symbols to really back up with Matt had proposed last year tax will have a vote on that so I would sort of go along with eliminating the sros but with the funds being used in some type of way for those other things thank you Ms Osborne on a purely practical level um now that I've been through two budget Cycles um with the County school system and in one year if you look at everything that we fund there's data to support whether or not it works and yet if you look at this SRO program there's nothing to say that it makes us any safer and in fact we've heard that

137it makes many kids not feel safer so um to me it seems like an awful lot of money going to something that could be hurting some students and not even helping those others so um I I would favor putting the money into Mental Health professionals instead or some other type of thing that we knew was going to help everybody after coming through this six months of of covid and all other sorts of drama that we faced in the last last few months thank you Mr elberg you know right if I jump in for a point of clarification because we're old absolutely um on the budget cycle I am curious because I think for the city the way it works and I could be wrong is that it's like a pass-through budget like they it's just

138pretty uh appropriate gives them money but then they pay it back for the police officers so I guess I'm curious um if we give up our sros we don't necessarily then have um 264 000 whatever you said I'm sorry I don't know exact figure that we can then spend somewhere else it's kind of just like they're just taken out of their budget so I do want to get clarification on on how that works and I and I agree with that that's one of the things I want to bring up is as well that was going to be my first question where the funding comes from before we account for it and say oh let's do a b and Z let's make sure the 246 is still there um oh it's uh it is so the

139the funding that we provide for the school resource officers is a split between the county uh local government and the school system so it is actually an expenditure for us it's a transfer so if that got cut we have 246 thousand dollars that unless uh you know of course I'm I would double check back with uh Rosalind but it is money that we contribute equally with them to fund each officer so for example if we were going to add um another school resource officer it would require a commitment from the local government to add the Staffing half of the Staffing for the school resource officer and then we would need to take and add half of the Staffing for the school resource officer so we are it's it's not transferred to us as funding for

140a school resource officer and then return back to them so it is funding that we we use instead of something else instead of doing something else no okay um so just and just to clarify if I could one thing on on that point Mr oberg is uh there's not a grant of any sort that goes into paying for uh the officers no I'm not aware of any Grant so it's wide open there may have been at one time I mean I think I can remember years ago there there might have been some funding around it um with a grant but not not now the quiz I go please um so um I have to admit that when I moved to Virginia the concept of an SRO was completely foreign to me I just I I

141think I don't think they existed anywhere in Alaska when I was a kid but to the extent that they did they certainly didn't exist in our town um and so I've always been sort of puzzled um why we had them um I I got into a fairly significant argument with some people uh at Henley because some of the members of the PTO and Hanley were very much advocating for a full-time SRO uh representative Henley and I was pretty skeptical as to why they would want that and why that was necessary and I think there's some people who are still pretty irritated at me about that fact but given what's taken place nationally I think I've been muted again um given what has taken place nationally hey I I think it would be in sensical not

142to be afraid at some level if I was a person of color I I just I I I I mean you can't unsee what you've seen it's not just a history of 400 years but it's the history of two weeks ago um I I I I just don't know how we get I I I I'm having a very difficult time emotionally dealing with this uh because what what occurred was so I mean it was traumatic to me and I don't have any business being traumatized by um and so I can't imagine what it will have done to some of our kids um I I I don't know the process for for defunding at this point I don't know how we do that but I I'm sure that that's something we can do um if we

143had a vote right now I would say yeah I don't know why we have to have police officers in our in our school and I'm welcome to be educated to why I'm wrong because like I said my default is to say why do we have police officers in our schools if I'm wrong I I I I welcome to be educated on that but my gut instinct is that that's just not something that we need um and so I'd like us to I'd like I'd like I'd like staff to to give us a recommendation give us an analysis um and then I'd like us to have on the agenda um I'd like us to vote on it I'd like to have an actual vote of whether we're going to do it or not um I'd also

144like um I really think we need an up or down vote on the Confederate flag um I I I think we you know I I appreciate everything that that Dr Haas has done um I I think I you know I think I I think I think that the the the modifications we've done to the Dress could have been very helpful but when the Marine Corps and NASCAR are saying that these are are hate symbols and they're not acceptable I cannot conceive of the fourth circuit telling us we can't say that they're not allowed I I just I I said that I said that a year and a half ago I didn't think that the I really don't think the courts would would cite us against us on that and I think after the past year

145I'm I'm more firmly in that opinion and I'd kind of like to make the fourth circuit rule against me on that I I would take that I would take that case to court I would I I think I feel comfortable losing that argument if I'm gonna lose it but that's you know that's my two cents Dr Hans uh I I would love to know your thoughts on this uh let's see so what I think is that um given the fact that uh the uh school resource officer program has been in place for quite some time um I think that what we what what I would recommend is that um we we complete the mou work that's being done right now so that we actually and I'm not saying that I wouldn't want to I'm I

146wouldn't bind the board by saying that it needs to be approved necessarily just that we complete it because it is a document that articulates all of the goals that we would have for such a program and so that would give the board an opportunity to review what the program is supposed to be at this day and time read that document which should be coming to fruition uh thanks to the cooperation of the county attorney's office and the work of Ross Holden really take a look at it study it and based on that we could have we could have an independent auditor uh complete a program evaluation to see if that program in fact is is meeting the goals that have been articulated by the Albemarle County School Board um and at that point then it

147wouldn't wouldn't have to take long to do that uh at that point you would have uh uh you know an independent review and concrete information on which uh basis on which to make uh decisions around continuing the program and then also filling in the blanks for the pieces of the program that um but you know I know someone spoke earlier about well if we have um a social media threat um for example lots of times the school board receives an email from me after the fact that we've had a social media threat at 10 30 on a Wednesday night and the police are heavily involved in uh tracking down where the threat came from and are able to um to work and deal with the student um or or whatever individual made the threat and

148to bring it to resolution and oftentimes it is a student and it doesn't result in in an arrest it results in getting the student the help they need and and help having the school system help them so we so for me as a superintendent I would need to figure out if we're not going to have um a school resource officers how do we re-articulate another memorandum of understanding with the Albemarle County Police to continue a relationship that helps us bring those kinds of things to resolution so I think um what I was thinking about this obviously a lot today and receiving a lot of feedback along with you from members of the public and our and also a lot of graduates that that actually graduated from Alma high school when I was a principal there

149so while while I certainly had a lot of email and that was a little uncomfortable it was really great to see my former students engaging in their civic responsibilities I'm really proud of them what I would say is let's let's put together let's finish putting together that framing document review it I'm not in you know you don't have to sign it you can read it and just look at it and see what the goals are see what facets there are have it have a study of the program and then um make a decision moving forward that's Based on data and information um that you have in hand we can also uh you know we do a lot of surveying we can we can also do some surveying of our own uh to see what um

150you know what the feedback we currently have on on the program is um that's that's what I would do um for you uh so that you just have something to base your decision on Matt do you have enough understanding of how long that process would take um no not offhand but I mean we could certainly expedite it um I know uh we we have our own program in-house program evaluation but I think the board would probably be more comfortable with something someone handling from outside it is an interesting point though you have you have approved a budget that contributes half of the salaries of Five County employees at this point so I'm not sure quite sure how to untangle that if if an action were taken at this time it might be a situation where

151we simply have to pay those salaries but we relocate them outside you might have to yeah if if the board took an action you would be committed to the salaries at this point do you think that Matt's I mean I do think it's important to look at the scope of responsibilities that the sros do I mean all of us are uncomfortable with the issue of General policing and you know discipline and we really tried to write that out of it but as Matt said there's all sorts of other activities so the issue shouldn't be as for me shouldn't be sros or no but how can we get all these various functions perhaps better arrayed in our school Division and there's nothing so it's it's difficult for me to weigh in as I said in my

152email to the board it's such a paradigm you know that um as long as I've been in school administration there's been an SRO at the school when I began as a teacher we did not have a school resource officers um I remember seeing police officers that would come to help with athletic events and things like that so some of the things that that school resource officer resource officers do now were being done in schools where I worked in Virginia Beach without a school resource officer program so I I don't think the two things are you know it's not something that that has to be all or nothing that's that's what I think um and I think that there are ways to address the legitimate concerns um that I think uh students have that parents have

153that um that families have during these times uh and previously with the presence of uh police officers in the schools I think it's possible to um throw away a lot of the to use an analogy to throw away a lot of bath water but keep the baby intact in terms of the safety support um that we sometimes need and to me it's really about maintaining an open line of communication and relationships with the with the police department um four times when uh there is a real safety emergency or or a Potential Threat to one of the schools that's that's the one thing I I just have in the back of my mind but I think you know we could I've already talked to some of the staff um we could turn around to an evaluation

154I think as soon as we could um identify someone to do it pretty pretty quickly I would think because we have the mou which articulates so much okay Matthew mentioned uh an independent independent auditor to do that how much would that cost I couldn't say offhand uh Graham I know several years ago we did um an independent audit for our school system it was an efficiency study um and we had some just a few staff including retired Bill Bosher who was a retired superintendent who helped to do it it didn't take them very long and we we still reap the rewards from the efficiency study so I think um I I don't know I I couldn't say offhand uh Mr Page okay well yeah that's just my recommendation I think it's always helpful to have

155um a little more information before making a making a decision like this um and you know I I just think that would be helpful could we get any price quotes um to give us an idea of how much that would cost before we do it yeah me if it seems that the board is sort of really leaning toward eliminating the program so to pay money to decide whether or not to eliminate it which would be eliminating some of the money that we could use for mental health or something else to me wouldn't be a very wise thing to do [Music] just a question of of of wisdom I suppose um there's there's sometimes you you spend money to prevent costs later uh liability costs um other kinds of issues that could come up that could

156be a lot more expensive than uh an expenditure to have a study just to check off the final boxes before you make a decision okay could that be uh like a independent group of individuals from the community that might be willing to do it as volunteers I would certainly have volunteers on a committee to to review it yeah okay I think there's there's there's a sense of immediacy but in Grand terms there's not right we're not in session right now so I'm sorry say that again well there's no school going on um there's no the sros are now assigned to other duties that we will not have we have time uh to take a look at this we have time there's no school the the sros are out doing other jobs for the police department

157and they won't be reporting back to the schools if we do continue with this program until August so I I feel like now if you were to take a look at it this would be the time to do it go ahead Dave you know I would just say that uh and something I I did not say uh in kind of the setup for this is that I feel very very strongly that this should be a unanimous vote on the board because I think we need to speak with one voice in making in making the decision um and so and I think there is a a Common Thread through through everybody you know on this and but there's part of it is to Dr uh haas's point we're gonna we've got to have a relationship with

158the police in some way you know we don't want to be uh stranding ourselves from them you know as as I'm aware that's happened in other divisions and I think we need to to you know perhaps go through the process that Matt is describing because if we were to make a fast we can take a fast reaction to it and say let's let's let's get out without saying what's next so that and you know then what you know um I'd like to get this done before the end of the month you know um the latest by the by the the meeting in July um but I'd like to have some more information so that we can really strategize in terms of where does the money go you know uh what do we do as opposed

159to saying well we're going to do that and and um uh and then we got to think of well boy maybe we shouldn't have done that part and I'd like to have it be a unanimous vote I'd commit myself to that and uh um and I think uh if we if we review whatever the documentation is which ideally I mean I'd love to have this done by the 26th when we go through our second our second uh phase of the retreat and then we can really talk about that uh as part of the retreat and and figure out what we're going to do with if we decide to go forward with 246 64 whatever it is a thousand dollars because in the big picture that's not a ton of money to distribute out if we

160put it into the Mental Health Counselors we'd probably get three you know um which is better than what we have now and so I'm not negating that I I think we also need to make sure that that money is that money will actually exist John I mean it agreed yeah I'm concerned I'm concerned that we don't we don't dedicate that money prior to actually knowing that agreed but to really think the work that through to term make that determination and if if it is available if it's not different issue if it's if it is um you know what we would do with it so I I think we're we're probably all on the same page you know it's uh it's just the the I guess the process of doing it and I'd like to get

161it done and voted on with speed not haste as I've said before and I know we've received several emails from people saying we should follow suit with what the city of Charlottesville is doing and I've I've read several news reports about it and my understanding is that uh they in my discussions with with staff in the city is they have an old mou from 2016 that hasn't been revised and before they make a new mou with the Charlottesville City police they're going to really hash it out and make decisions around it so I'm not sure I know what the headlines say that they have abolished in some fashion having uh school resource officers but that's not what I'm reading in the fine print that there's going to be some kind of a relationship um so

162I another thing that I would say is just you know I think that we would be doing essentially the same thing that that the city is doing which is real before signing on you know signing on the signature line on it on the mou that we've been working on we would take a step back I thought Ellen uh you know your comments earlier I have to admit it makes me cringe a little bit because everything we have in our funding request is it that's considered an initiative or program has metrics with it and you know we we do quarterly metrics on the proposals that we have and that's one where we we don't have articulated goals for the program in our funding request documents and we don't have a way of um ascertaining the the

163effectiveness of the program um so I think that stepping back looking at what we have in terms of an mlu looking at what would be the goals for it and the fact is that I'm just going to say to you in many ways we don't have metrics uh for the program some of the metrics would be hard to prove for example we don't know how many times someone hasn't gone in and assaulted students at a school because they see the police car parked out there we don't know that we also don't know how many students have had a chilling effect on them as I've heard at least one board member mention um in their learning because when they get to school in the presence of the police officer frightens them or in other ways inhibits

164their learning so I think it would just be helpful to look at the things that we do have metrics around and some things we're just going to have to infer or you're you know I'm going to have to help you infer and you can infer but I think we at least it at least deserves a little bit of um study just like the city is doing I I guess I would like to Echo that I mean the The Joint protocol draft outlines a whole array of goals and specific tasks or responsibilities and I think what a lot of the letters and a lot of the that I looked at were mostly concerned with the daily presence of police in the schools the possibility that they would get entangled in discipline where they're not supposed to

165be and those kinds of actions but they also make sure the school building and you know facilities are safe they they deal with you know cyber bullying and issues like that and threats to the school and for me the issue is how do we how do we get rid of the chilling impact that having a police presence in the schools May well have but keep some of the functions that promote the security of the schools and I don't know the answer to that but I think that's well how can we read and and I would say and I disagree with jono I'm not interested in spending the money yet I mean until we figure out what the new relationship should be I um and I'll just say one more thing because I you're making I

166think a great point which is going through the tasks and the goals it it's also an opportunity for the board to look at the draft and say well so for these things we we Pro we probably need we probably need Albemarle County Police Department for these things over here for these things that maybe the daily presence in the school or um a support system in the school or relationships in the school we we could use another kind of uh Personnel for that I was um I was listening to I was watching CNN a few nights ago and um you know there's a lot of conversations in cities around the country around simply defunding an entire police department um and I and so the a reporter was asking um a young fellow that was part of

167the protest you know well if you don't have a police department then what how will you respond when there's a 9-1-1 call and the the um young fellow said well perhaps social workers would respond or perhaps um as someone that is as a mental health expert could respond not every 9-1-1 call is the same and oftentimes we ask our police to do things that that's not really the role of a police officer and they're they're maybe not they don't have the training to do it or the professional background so if we're looking at things around uh making students feel safe I mean safe for me in a school safe means psychologically safe to be to be part of a positive climate feel good about yourself and be able to learn is is that necessarily the

168role of a of a police officer um if you're looking at an mou the board could say well that's not something we're looking for we're looking for these things and then we we could work with local government if if there's still services that we need from the Omaha County Police Department if the board determines that the mou as we as we've developed it we're not we're not stand moving forward then there's a way to contribute funding to the Albemarle County Police to support the things that the board deems needed and also you could you could build metrics around those things so that's I'm I'm I don't want to I'll step back I I just uh I was invited into the conversation so I'm sharing some of the thoughts that I have about it because uh

169I'm like you I've I've been thinking a lot about it um it's you know uh just like you in fact I'll mute myself I would just wanna I would like some clarity around I'm okay with taking time to to look at the program I don't think we need to decide right now there's there's no pressing reason it there's students are not in school other than um letting people know what the board is feeling like I which I feel like we're doing a pretty adequate job with this discussion um I would like Clarity around what giving the extra time would result in because I'm hearing that what we're going to do is continue to explore that revising the current mou and what I want to make sure is part of that which I think it is

170based on what you just said Matt I want to get to how we can separate because a lot of the jobs that we have written in this mou do not need to be done by a police officer in the school and so part of what needs to be done is is figuring out how to um put those with better equip professionals to handle them so is that what you anticipate I also would love some clarity around the time because I feel uncomfortable um and it does it it could just be minor but I mean I would like to get before kids get back in school oh so so here's what I'm thinking because I'm just kind of reflecting on on what I said um I I think what would be fair uh is for for

171me to talk with the cabinet tomorrow morning in our meeting and just say Okay so because they're all they're all listening right now so I won't have to tell them what happened so um I can talk with them in the morning and just say so what what it with with the understanding that right now we're not in school and we have about a month to work with what could we accomplish for the board that would help them in their decision making process and then what we could do is come back um I realize next Thursday's meeting is a um is a coven meeting but we can put an item on there just to update you on that and say so this is this is what we can do this is this is what we can

172do within the time amount that we have and um and then at that point the board can say well okay that'll work for us that'll give us a little more information that that we need or we also want you to do this um that way it'll just I think it'll be more fair to the board and and um help you have a better understanding of what I think we could accomplish for you in helping you make a make a decision because that's a fair question you know there's also the there is also if for me to say well we're not in school so we have all the time in the world I mean that's not accurate either because whatever decision the board makes um we would also need to build in uh whatever resources we

173need going into going into the fall uh to provide Staffing and supports for kids so is that is that fair for me to come back to the next meeting and say this is what we think we can do in terms of a study to help you to help you and then you then you would have a little like a list you or or a proposal and then you could say well that's fine but we also want this or you could say no we're not even interested in that anymore we're just going to make a decision based on what we see in the mou where wherever is your pleasure are you saying you're just going to look at the mou are you gonna also let staff think about some ways of collecting data yes collecting data

174I'm going to talk to the cabinet tomorrow about how we could possibly do a program review bye oh go ahead I would uh personally I think there needs to be a survey we are so um survey heavy we give surveys about our calendars we give um in sros and Community a part part with getting emails is you don't know where the people are emailing from and you have to have community support for your school's discipline system and so I think this is definitely an area I would want to see a survey and see how parents those kids are in the school feel about um the officers I would like to see how the kids feel about it right I mean I I and and I don't know how we do that in a way that

175people feel safe to you know jono and I talked about our respective kids you know Kendra is in a position that that she's not going to have the same issues that other kids could have I can ask her but I'd certainly like a safe place for people to respond do you know what does that make sense yeah and the thing a point um a board member made uh yesterday was that you know one of the things we need to be able to do is disaggregate the data because sometimes the majority voice um if if you don't break it out it can sound like a lot of overwhelming support for a program that really doesn't have the same meaning for for that group that it does for um traditionally marginalized uh community so just as we

176were talking earlier about um how do we reach the just under 800 students that don't have um reliable internet we would need to figure out how to reach out to all of our all of our students we you know the thing is we had actually had a really pretty good uh response rate from students on our on our budget and um so we would just need to figure that out it was like a play welcome back stay and make a just say this is this is our proposal on how to do a study and if again you that gives you a more concrete picture of what we we could we could possibly do do we have a consensus on this idea I'm happy with that idea I am curious to see the survey is a

177good way to have Outreach but I guess I'm worried about the statement we put out about sros I feel like in the face of um of Nationwide protesting and and people tackling the issue uh are only uh correspondence that we put out there is we have great Sr sros and we'll try to make them a little better but they're pretty good as they are and I'm worried about that um so and maybe I'm the only one so I guess is there any way that that I think important is conveying that as a board we are interested in um figuring out ways to reduce police presence and and shift it to people that might be more adequately adequately um equipped to handle what comes up in schools which is often not restable crimes one of the

178things there Katrina is that that that went out in Matt's name and my name the board was not named in the nor did anybody speak for the board so would we don't know that everybody understands that though what I would offer is that um coming out of tonight's meeting we could we could do a release tomorrow um just what basically summarizing a lot of things you just said Katrina which are you know that the board had had a I think a pretty robust discussion around um how do we take a closer look at the uh the SRO program and um if you know if you want to if you want to send me a few bullet points since you want to make sure are articulated and just send it to the whole board um I

179I we'd be happy to put out a release like that in fact I mean the only one who speaks on it I don't I don't want to speak for the board I just want to think is this something that we should have kind of you know this is what we this is how we feel yeah include maybe asking even for the people who are listening tonight asking those people if they know of any negative incidents involving our sors within the County Schools specific ones what specific ones specific right if they could give us any information about any incidents that they know within County Schools we received a whole lot of information about National surveys in the emails but if we had something as many people as possible who know of incidents within the county if

180they could let us know about those specific incidents I would support putting out that uh that release tomorrow uh along the lines of what Katrina is talking about we'll uh and Graham oh so in the cabinet meeting tomorrow morning we'll talk about it we'll get uh we'll ask Mr Jeremy to work on it and we'll see to it that the board sees and sees it before goes out and sorry to chip in I just um this from with you in group statements is that never not everyone you know is going to agree with every little point for me it's uh I am curious about if there's been specific incidents but I I don't want to get across that we're trying to Target our sros and and say you've done a horrible it's really it's not

181about that it's about reevaluating the system based on the information that we have and it's not just about specific incidents because even if there isn't a specific incident um just having them in the school um causes issues and so um I'm really I don't want to put something out that's that's targeting someone although I'm not things that we know about but I just want to put that in right but maybe the reason I said that is almost a hundred percent of those emails we're noting incidents of things very negative that it happened and I wanted to know whether or not there are incidents of those things within our County you know and I'm not saying that we are trying to throw blame on this so sros at all I'm just saying that if you do

182know of incidents like this then please let us know okay yeah that works I can't think of those incidents seems to me that with every program that we have from time to time we should do a program evaluation you know it may vary in depth but my focus is these are the I think the goals in this document are great and the issue for me is who is best prepared and qualified to do them and how do we address what we know is an adverse reaction to police officers Fair whether it's fair or not but is this the is this without disparaging any of the individuals that I've come to know on the SRO team um is this really what we want to have in our schools how how do we accomplish these goals with

183a different set of characters Mr oberg I just wanted to say that the lack of incidents doesn't indicate that there's not a problem but I'd like to know if there are specificants and it's one of the best emails we got that it was from a student who said yeah I just want to let you know and I don't know if she sent it to everybody it might have just been today but somebody one of one of the former students emailed me and said look you know this bothered me I was afraid of I was afraid of the SRO in my in my in my school I mean that that's to me that's a really important relevant thing and irrespective of whether there was a specific incident that personal testimony is to me a lot more

184effective than a study from such and such universities saying things it just speaks it speaks more to me so if people have those specific things to say Hey look I went to you know Western of our high school in 2015 and this happened to me or this is how it impacted me um I would like to hear it I agree um with everything that you said and also um I I wonder if there's a way that we can listen to this feedback in a way that's not a survey um in a way that's not as cold um and impersonal I think this can be an extremely personal um issue and uh you know and I know that there was some consternation over closing our um public comment as a matter of course and I know

185that those rules have been in place uh as long as we've had these online meetings but um I I wonder if there's a way for us to invite more personal comment on this I I don't know what that is I I just want to throw that out there because I feel like we um I just want to know more from people and I want them to see that I'm listening and you know and just invite that kind of thing I wonder if we could set up a uh instead of having a school board meeting which has yeah it just has Dynamic restrictions on it if you know we a few years ago two years ago when my brain is gone at this point guys but uh jono and I went to places and did a

186listening tour I know Kate and Katrina went and did a listening tour I think jono and Graham did um we could do that virtually we could say you know you know jono and I are good idea John or somebody are gonna have a zoom this is the thing if you would like to talk show up and then we're not bound by any as long as there are only two of us we're not bound by any of the the regulations and policies and procedures and we could just give people the opportunity to to share with us I like that idea a lot yeah I think it is a very good idea Dave and and uh they're just in some technological things that have to get figured on that but I think that's very very doable so

187okay everybody are we are we set for the night is there anything else we need to talk about love you guys can I get a a list for my own Clarity of what what we're doing like what's the next step I think that's what he's Matt's going to put together for us sure we all are on the same page and and I'll put out a list to the board tomorrow and then we're going to revisit this next week yes okay thank you all right sounds good Jonathan okay everybody this is a dumb question John but we had jono but we had did we do this meeting uh the covid-19 meeting in pre-agenda already did we talk about that we have not okay so we'll we'll make sure it's on the agenda yeah no we did

188yeah we did it okay I don't work I don't recall um so Jennifer we'll just need to yeah I didn't double check it yeah yeah but we did do it we did it at the last springage in the meeting that's what yeah I just came back on Tuesday yes yes so long ago as part of the work uh for tomorrow would drafting a statement that more closely aligns with the board's perspective can that be part of the work for us to review yes thank you this this is off topic and I just want to tell you guys I love seeing you I'm just seeing you in person good to seeing you it's this is a good group I'm proud to be part of this board thank you everybody have a good night everyone yeah okay

189good night we are adjourned good night good night good night