001Check. Check. This will turn red. That'll turn red. I was kind of hoping all Good afternoon. Um, I'm Carolyn Williams, vice chair of the school board. I'd like to call this informal workshop session to order at 4:00, April 28th. Madame Clerk, will you please announce the role? Thank you, Vice Chair Williams. Present in the schoolboard chamber are Vice Chair Williams, Mr. Bowensteel, Mr. Ken, Mr. Co Pepper, Mr. Cummings, Miss Dwire, Miss Felton, Dr. Green, and Miss Rogers, and presently on Zoom is uh Chair Brown. Thank you, Madame Clerk. Um, do any of my colleagues have any um schoolboard administrative matters or reports? Yes. Okay, Miss Felton. Yes. I just like to say that I had the opportunity to uh meet with um Indian Elementary School uh community day. It was wonderful and I got the
002chance to meet with the PTA people as well, parents and the uh um coordinator. So, I made a piggy a pinky finger promise that I would wear my tie shirt that they did for me and that's I'll be showing it. So I just want to let you know it was wonderful. The uh engagement the students was as well fifth graders, third graders was great. So I just get a shout out to Indian Lake Elementary School. Thank you. Any others? Um yes, I wanted to just report that yesterday was the last meeting for the mental health task force and I don't want to step on Mr. Jameson's toes because I know he will be giving a full report to the board on our committee. But I did want to do a little tiny shout out for
003the team because they did so much good work this year. Our access team updated our utilization chart which helps to um document all mental and behavioral supports offered to our students. Our awareness team um did the celebrating children children event which was an amazing event which you'll get to hear more about in his um report and I don't know if Dr. Robertson's doing something on that but you guys will see it. Um, our family engagement team, we have a work in progress which is a family connection video to be able to be accessible to the community by midmay. And our staff mental health team created a staff mental health resource utilization chart. And I specifically wanted to do a shout out to our partners which um always help us with our work and are so
004instrumental in everything we're doing. Um, our partners were NAMI, the Kempsville Center for Behavioral Health, CHKD, the City of Virginia Beach Child and Youth Behavioral Health, City of Virginia Beach Prevention Services, City of Virginia Beach Office of Consumer and Family Affairs, City of Virginia Beach Department of Public Health, the Sarah Michelle Peterson Foundation, as well as our internal people with family and community engagement, the Office of Opportunity and Achievement, K to2 Gifted Programs, Department of SC Leadership and Administrators and School Counselors, as well as school psychologists. So, thank you everybody for a great year. Thank you. All right, Mr. Callen. I attended the weather education day at Harbor Park and I don't know if it's been officially announced to the public yet. Uh, but Dr. Robertson will be leaving us and signing a contract with
005the Baltimore Orioles because he threw out the first pitch and it was so impressive to the organization that he has a sports agent now that's representing him and uh it was nothing short of stunning if it was cricket secondarily on that same August day although it was in April uh Matt Cummings and I had an opportunity to attend the student advisory council meeting that was held with the students at Chemville High School and we had an opportunity to mix and mingle and interact and ask question answer questions that they were raising and just participate in the process of engaging with students and learning from their point of view. So, uh it was a stunning day marked by stellar accomplishments. Thank you. Thank you. I hate that I missed that. Dr. Robertson, you you know what
006a baseball fan I am. All right, I don't see anybody else. All right, colleagues, I do have the signup sheets. I'm going to start here with Miss Felton. Make sure um it gets all the way around. It's for the May one- on-one meetings and school visits with Dr. Robertson. All right, we are moving on to program collaborations, supporting students, staff, and families, child care, and expanded student opportunities. We'd like to welcome the director of employment services, Amy Church. Welcome, Mr. Church. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chair Williams, members of the school board, and Dr. Robertson. On behalf of Dr. Darnita Tropman, chief human resources officer, and the human resources department. I am Amy Church, director of employment services. This afternoon, we are pleased to welcome representatives from the city of Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation
007and the YMCA of Southampton Roads. Today, we are excited to highlight how our collaborative programs support students, staff, and families across our division. This presentation showcases child care options, expanded opportunities for students, and the strong partnerships that make this work possible. We will begin with an overview of our partnership history, shared mission, and core values. Next, we will highlight the unique services, programs, and opportunities each partner organization offers to support students, staff, and families. We will also showcase how these partnerships create meaningful experiences and resources at both the elementary and secondary levels. Our partnership reflects goals three, four, and five of Compass to 2030. by investing in staff, strengthening family and community connections, and advancing organizational excellence. Together, human resources, parks and recreation, and the YMCA provide meaningful support through shared resources, accessible programs, and
008strong community collaboration, delivering on all three goals in a coordinated student centered way. This partnership began in the 2022 2023 school year with the introduction of child care program to the school board. In 2022 2023, excuse me, in 2023 2024, we expanded outreach through principles league meetings. And in 2024 2025, we welcomed additional members to our work group to strengthen this collaboration. Now in 202526, our partnership continues to grow as we expand programs and increase access. Although each organization has a distinct mission, we are united by a shared commitment to youth development, family support, and community engagement. VBCPS is dedicated to empowering lifelong learners. VB Parks and Wreck strives to exceed community expectations through inclusive programs. And the YMCA advances youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility. Together, we extend learning beyond the classroom and
009create safe, enriching environments where every child can thrive. Before highlighting each partner's specific offerings, it is important to recognize the common strengths they share. Both Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation and the YMCA provide programs within VBCPS schools and facilities, giving families access to child care, enrichment, and extended day support. Their services are available during school breaks, staff work days, the summer months, and weather related closures. and both organizations also offer financial assistance to help make these opportunities more accessible to families. At this time, I am pleased to introduce Mr. Harry Young and Miss Tiffany Cole from Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation who will share programs and services they provide. Good afternoon. My name is Harry Young and I'm the coordinator of Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation out of schooltime programs. We are proud to offer
010a wide range of elementary and middle school programs that support students, families, and school staff throughout the year. Parks and Recreation provides very affordable before school care at 30 elementary schools and afterchool programs at all 55 division elementary schools and ODS including our rise academic enrichment programs at all 14 title one schools. Additionally, we offer afterchool programs at four of our community recreation centers. In total, we serve over 2500 Virginia Beach Elementary School students each day. We work and communicate closely with the school division to provide as much support as possible to parents during school closures and inclement weather events. We offer break camps during school breaks and summer camp opportunities at 11 school division, elementary, and middle schools and five recreation centers. In addition, we also offer two 8-week school-based RISE summer enrichment programs.
011Our RISE summer program serves students whose families meet financial assistance criteria. Parks and Recreation summer camps and programs are designed to encourage curiosity, creativity, and cognitive activity throughout the summer. In addition to supporting students social and emotional development and physical health, our parks and recreation students on the swim program uh provide swimming instruction for over 1,400 second graders from 18 schools and continues to expand. Our many recreation centerbased specialty camps further extend opportunities for student engagement and enrichment. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Tiffany Cowell. I am the coordinator for the Virginia Beach Youth Opportunities Office in the Department of Parks and Recreation. Um I'm also a proud graduate of Virginia Beach City Public Schools, um Kempsville High School. Go Chiefs. Um so it's a pleasure to be here with you and share with
012you today. Um for our secondary students, Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation offers a variety of programs. Um we focus on uh leadership development, career readiness, and enrichment. A signature program that we offer is the summer youth employment program. This is an 8-week paid experience for students ages 16 to 21. that provides real world work experience, financial literacy education, as well as um um workplace readiness training. Additional opportunities include summer programs for and summer camps for middle school students, therapeutic recreation programs, hands-on learning experiences such as the Bayside High School Passion Projects, creative engagement through the Williams Farm Team Media Studio and leadership development through the Mir Youth Leaders and Action program. Together, these programs offer students uh the opportunity to build skills, explore interests, and prepare for a successful future. Our seven recreation centers are
013open and remain open for our um secondary students with um gymnasiums, weight rooms for those who are 14 and up, game rooms, swimming pools that are open year round. The membership for our recreation centers for youth is just $40 a year and that gives them access to all seven recreation centers. Currently, preschool and prek programs are offered at four Virginia Beach recreation centers. Beginning in the 2026 2027 school year, early childhood subsidies will be accepted at various school v various early childhood programs throughout the city. This change is intended to expand access for families, provide greater greater accessibility and choosing program locations and better support and better support participation in early and access to early childhood education. Our inclusion service our inclusion services provide individuals with disabilities and make sure that those individuals have access
014to all parks and recreation programs. Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation provides appropriate modifications and um also supports as needed so that individuals can participate fully in all of our programs right alongside their peers. This commitment reflects our goal of creating inclusive, welcoming environments where everyone has the opportunity to participate and to succeed. Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation offers volunteer opportunities that we provide for middle and high school students with meaningful ways that they can complete their community service requirements. Financial assistance programs sponsored by the Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation Foundation are available to ensure that participants have access to our programs and services regardless of income. This allows us to maintain equitable programming areas within Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation. And our parks after dark program provides safe supervised nighttime programming for youth from 6:00
015p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, June through August at three locations including Level Green, Green Run, and Western Bayside. In partnership with the Virginia Beach Police Department, we provide free meals for the first 400 participants at each location, mentorship, recreation, and positive community engagement opportunities. All of these support, safety, well-being and positive decision making for young people. Now, it's my pleasure to introduce Amelia Scott, Seth Foster, and Jamie Childress with the YMCA of Southampton Roads. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Ameilia Scott and I am the WISE chief experience officer. The YMCA of Southampton Roads is committed to youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility. These values guide every program and partnership we pursue. We are proud to collaborate with VBCPS in supporting students, staff, and families throughout Virginia Beach. Good afternoon. I'm
016Jamie Childress. I'm the vice president of youth development for the YMCA Southampton Roads. Our 63 elementary programs provide year-round services for families. Preschool childcare serves serves ages two to five uh using the stream and three curriculum aligned with Virginia quality standards with a focus on hands-on learning, character development, and kindergarten readiness. This is structured intentional early childhood education. Our new early childhood program will expand access to three state licensed centers. Virginia Beach City public school staff will receive access uh priority registration, 50% off the enrollment fee, and the Y member rate on tuition, a concrete benefit that reflects how much the division values its people. Before and after school care provides homework help, physical activity and enrichment activities. And our summer day camps run at 20 locations for children ages 4 to 12 with weekly
017themes covering outdoor play, art, science, and swimming. In Camp Silver Beach, our resident camp on the Eastern Shore offers students ages 6 8 to 16 sailing, climbing, swimming, sports, and performing arts in a safe outdoor setting. For many, it's a week and a summer they will never forget. Good afternoon. My name is Seth Foster, association director of youth development and a proud graduate of Virginia City Public Schools, attending Fairfield Elementary, Brandon Middle, and Tallwood High School, where the lovely Mrs. Woodhouse was my principal. The YMCA offers four programs designed to keep middle and high school students engaged and connected. Leaders Club built character, civic responsibility, and community engagement through guiding activities, service projects, developing the next generation of community leaders. Summer team membership provides access to the YMCA facilities, fitness programs, and recreational activities throughout
018the summer, giving teens a safe, structured space when school is not in session. Teen Pass extends that access year round at $10 a month to students or families ages 13 through 17, made possible by community donors. Access to the wise should not be limited by income. New this year, the Block Community Cafe is a welcoming space led and operated by teens, empowering them to connect with peers, access mentoring, and drive youth centered programming. It has already made a meaningful impression in our community. Our entrepreneurship program is a direct investment in the future workforce of the community. Currently active at Luxburg Middle and Kentville Middle Schools using proven curriculum with trained learning coaches. The program develops the top skills the World Economic Forum identifies as the most sought by employers today. Critical thinking, creativity, and leadership.
019Students build these skills through fun and interactive experiences that foster resilience, flexibility, and an entrepreneurship mindset. These experiences are designed to be engaging, practical, and align with the skills students need as they prepare for the future. The program is academically aligned, career ready, and a strong fit within the VBCPS mission. We were honored to receive funding to build an infrastructure that expands child care services in partnership with VBCPS for title one school staff. And in our region, only 30% of children ages 0 to 5 have access to full day childare services. This partnership allowed us to spend time reviewing the needs of teachers and staff, discuss and research every option to create learning seats and decide on a pathway that creates a truly sustainable early learning service across the city of Virginia Beach. We knew
020that building new early learning centers would take time. So once we learned of the funding, we quickly coordinated to offer VBCPS title one faculty and staff seats and exclusive tuition rates at the wise existing preschool sites and with locations in Virginia Beach and Portsmith for the current 2025 2026 school year. Our collaboration with staff to meet the critical community need is a model approach and we are proud to continue our work into the future. Title One school employees currently receive 10% off of the member rate for preschool child care serving ages three and four at the Salem YMCA Family Center and the YMCA of Portsouth using the stream and three curriculum. The new early childare program expands that benefit to all VBCPS employees. The package includes priority registration two weeks ahead of the public, 50%
021off of the enrollment fee, and the Y member rate on tuition. To put it into concrete terms, the community rate is $250 a week. The my Y member rate is $195 and Title One employees can pay 17550 per week. There's a real saving savings for working families. For those needing additional support, the YMCA's Open Doors Financial Assistance Program can offer an additional 40% off based on demonstrated financial need. No family should have to be turned away from quality child care because of cost. The clip we are about to see brings to life the strategic partnerships we've discussed with you today. Specifically, you'll see the YMCA's before and after school programs in action alongside Virginia Beach Parks and Recreations Parks after dark program. Through program collaborations, we extend our reach far beyond the classroom. These moments
022reflect the joy, safety, and engagement made possible through our shared commitment. In summary, this partnership unites BBCPS, Virginia Beach Parks and Recreation, and the YMCA to support students, staff, and families across Virginia Beach. Together, we provide academic enrichment beyond the school day, affordable child care for staff, and reliable yearround coverage during breaks, staff development days, summer months, and weather related closures. We are grateful for our partners continued support in helping make Virginia Beach City Public Schools a place where students, families, and staff can truly thrive. Thank you for your time this afternoon. We are happy to address any questions that you may have. Thank you so much to all our presenters. It's so helpful for us and the community to be reminded about how many services you provide and all the options and and what
023a vital partnership this is. So, we really do appreciate that. All right, we have some questions. Mr. Cummings. Um, I just had a couple questions just about the early childhood care program for VBACPS staff and just wanted to hear a little bit about the roll out and communication to uh to eligible employees, how they're receiving information about it and maybe just learn a little bit more. Sure. So the um 25 2025 2026 we met with all of the principles prior to the school year starting and shared anformational flyer. Uh it's open enrollment revolving. So anytime we know that a lot of people make their care plans early and in advance and so um we are available for that anytime someone would like to start care. But that was how we initially introduced it. And then
024the new care options um we currently have uh several things with uh the filed with the city so that we can get those started. So as soon as we get uh an initial approval then we would be free and clear to start promoting those widely uh so that we can get enrollment there and really demonstrate that benefit. What's it look like on the school side for those employees? Do they receive digital communication from us about services or we communicate through various means. Uh one way is we share information through our principal league meetings for individual schools to include the information in their newsletters. I know that our department of school leadership um executive team they also share out the information as well as offerings. And then any of the programs that are highlighted at specific
025schools, we publish that information to them directly. Okay, that's great. What an exciting presentation, too. By the way, y'all, like I I appreciate the work that you do with our our young people so much. I have one quick question about the entrepreneurship program. What what is the target ages grades for that program? So the grades would be sixth grade through 12th grade. Okay. Um right now we're focusing on the middle school age group as we know um when we get that that age group right that's the feeder to the high school and so we're focus on that age group but the offering is for sixth grade through 12th grade. Awesome. Thank you. Well, I just wanted to pivot to just making general comments and just say thank you so much to our our partners for
026the great work that you do with our young people. Um, you know, when I think about healthy communities and thriving communities, it takes it really does take a village, right? And it takes before school, after school, during school to ensure that our our youth and young people are safe, but also becoming eager learners. And so I applaud the work of the YMCA. Both my kids are products of afterchool programs there. Many eons ago, I woke up at about 6 something in the morning and helped and was a volunteer at the breakfast programs at a local YMCA. And it was really was a fantastic experience working with that community. And so I applaud the efforts that you folks do and to our parks and wreck people. Um, I know how how close the uh parks after
027dark is held by our our community and our district and how prideful people are to have this in their community to have these opportunities. So, I send you much appreciation for the work that you are doing as well. And I do have to give a quick shout out to Kimville Recreation Center. I was there just recently over the weekend and they had a very informative display about autism awareness month and I found I just took a few moments read through it and I really appreciated uh them taking some proactive time to educate the folks coming in about about this issue and I see the work that our parks and reccks folks are doing to build inclusive community and thank you so much for everything that you do Miss Rogers. Thank you so much. Um I
028had a question on slide 12 with early childhood. So I that you guys Okay. Um for your three new sites, are those going to be Can you tell us where those are going to be? Um the way that we are organizing it is to look at the entire city and make sure that every zone is covered. Um we do have an application submitted for a permit in um the Indian River neighborhood in partnership with a local church uh which is wonderful adding another partner to the table. Um we are looking at one of our other sites and have some additional forms submitted to increase our certificate of occupancy to use one of our um own YMCA locations uh in closer to the oceanfront area. And then we are also looking to expand in the Salem
029area to add additional classrooms so that we can get lower than age three and get into that zero to three space. Okay. And just so you're aware, I am an early childhood educator. I actually conduct observations and I have been into the YMCA's to do class observations in your pre-K classrooms. You guys always do an excellent job. So I want to comment and commend you on the work that you do with our early um childhood youth in within our city. I'm really glad to hear that you guys are expanding to include some of our earliest learners um and how important that is for our um community and also that knowing the quality that you guys provide. Virginia um as a state if the for the public they have um a program called Virginia Quality Birth
030to Five which is what I work on and that is to promote high quality learning for our earliest um children in our community. And so to hear that you guys are doing that, but I also want to tell you how much I appreciate giving um priority to our staff. I know that child care is such a huge huge issue for a lot of families in our area and having this um these programs where we can offer this to our staff and that they're not going to have to worry about getting a spot or jockeying for position because you guys will give them priority is so appreciated. um and that they know that their children will be in a quality program that is safe. Um also we do offer preschool at our own schools, but it
031is a title one program. So yours then would be something that would be accessible to all of our staff. Correct. That's right. So I just want to say thank you so much as well as thank all of you for um our secondary um programs and for our after school. my own kids would go to after school as well. And so I just know how uh much quality you guys put into these programs and I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And I just have one quick question too. Um with the secondary programs, how do our middle schoolers and high schoolers find out like about the entrepreneur, the teen media studio over there at Williams Farm, which is fantastic, and the volunteer hours? That's how do they how do the students actually find out about them?
032um we conduct lunch and learn um opportunities at each school. So we work with the principles and schedule time in the schools where we do applications with the students because they actually become City of Virginia Beach employees. And so that application process can be kind of daunting. So we go into the school, we work with them, um and then we do the application with them. Um and so we go into each high school in Virginia Beach. Okay, great. Thank you. And of course the learn to swim program that our second graders do that's been here a long time and it it is just a great program. Um Dr. Robertson. Yes. So uh thank you vice chair memes. I just want to take a moment to thank Harry and Tiffany with parks and recck Jamie Seth
033and Ameilia with YMCA. Um you know Mr. Cummings uh took took a comment I was going to make and he's correct. It takes a village to raise a child. I just returned from the state superintendent conference and there were three vendors at the conference that um developed the programs that we we don't have to pay for because we have willing partners in both parks and wreck and YMCA to provide these opportunities for our children. And what I appreciate most about those these two entities is they don't compete with each other. they compete for excellence for our entire city which is a unique thing that occurs within the two groups. So I have to applaud them because it's only making it more beneficial to us and and Mr. Cummings and and Miss Rogers asked good questions.
034How do we get this information out? I just want to remind everyone we're still in the infancy stage. I would say we're crawling right now. Uh it was three years ago when I took a learning walk with uh a a delegate and a member of parks and wreck and we talked about retention of title one staff and as an incentive we would find a way to get them child care and and then from there all of a sudden things have accelerated to what is occurring right now. So we'll continue to put the word out to everyone. We learned a lot of lessons from families and and staff. Uh when we offered these child care options um you know those of you if you recall when you had to find child care, you wanted to find
035child care close to your home or on the way to your work and u there there were not enough locations to meet everybody's need across the city. Well, now we're looking to expand locations so we can serve more families. So, I'm excited about where we're going and there is no way we would be there without the leadership of that group because they are extraordinary. So, thank you Miss Felton. Thank you, Vice Chair. Um, this question is going to park and Rex and I just talk talk with Mr. Young a minute. Uh, I had technical difficulties. I was I thought I was punched in asking questions but it came through. Um, before I was a school board member, I was a park and rec commissioner for a while and I really enjoyed my stay while I
036was there as well. What I would like to say to you and Miss Tiffany that I am godly proud that you're continuing the path of the program that we had while I was on the board and like you extended them a lot. Um, I'm more interested in the rise summer enhancement program. When I first attended one of those, I was blown away at what you were doing and how much you was putting into those programs for the students. And here you say you're only serving uh title one students at that time and we have 12 title one schools. Correct. I believe it's 14. 14. Okay. 14. Need to update our website then. I want to count 12. So anyway, with that said, I am proud that you're doing it as well, but are there any
037future uh engagement because when you said financial needs and and what parents need are there future engagement reaching beyond title ones, are we looking at that as well, bringing in the students? Uh well, for the for the summer, uh for students across the the division who are who meet those financial requirements are able to enroll. So it doesn't in the summer we don't just serve title one. Okay. Um students. Okay. Great. Thank you. Also student on the swim. Thank you for the information. Uh you say you're serving 1400 Yes. students. Oh, we've come a long ways. My goodness. Uh I just like to say that Vice Mayor Mary Wilson implemented that program. And are we still getting those backings from Virginia Foundation? Are they still working with you? Is that the foundation that was buying
038the Virginia Beach uh Parks and Recreation Foundation? Yes. Yes. That was giving the students the life jackets and all the other amenities that they needed. I believe so. I'll have to double check on that though. Thank you. At one time you were doing that as well. I'm glad that it's still in place. Um and I'm going in a minute because I wanted to say something to you and Miss Cwell and Miss Scott about these programs. And I heard what Superintendent Don Robertson said, but still we're missing some of our babies in this this phenomenal these phenomenal programs and I want more information engagement. Are you uh susceptible coming to communities to community um programs like we have every summer? We have two big ones that take place right in the heart of SeaTac. So, are
039you at liberty to come to those? Can you come to those as well? Absolutely. We'll we'll be well represented if invited. Okay. Right. So, that that's what it's all about being invited. Okay. You you got me. I got you on. You're invited. So, uh thank you. So, Miss Cwell, uh couple of questions to you as well. Thank you for your presentation. All you were great and I'm just excited especially the programs you still have and you're still going. Especially the male youth leaders in action. I used to come there and watch the students how they act and how they became uh peers for the undergraduates and teaching them. They were also good at when the students went on um field trips they were there participating in as well. My question to you is the summer
040youth educa employment uh opportunity is that still handled through the talent bank the pro No, that's part of the youth opportunities office. Um, so the summer youth employment program, we accept the applications. This summer we had 617 applicants from Virginia Beach schools, um, who want a job with the city. Um, and so we accept those applications. We also partner with various city departments to find placement. Um we are running at around 18 different departments where students can be placed and we place them based on their areas of interest, their potential career path um and also um based on accessibility for transportation. Um and so we have a a team a small team but a team that works to interview every student um place every student who completes the application process. We also work with private
041companies who we will, you know, vet and then we send students to those companies again because we want to be able to expand the offerings so that we can try to hit every um potential job that students want. So my question to you Miss Cwell and uh I hope you can answer it way I'm see I hope you understand how I'm seeing this. It's eight week eight weeks program as well right? Yes. So, do our job need out seed the volunteer work jobs that we can give our students? We have more applicants than we have jobs. We have more applicants than we have jobs. So, are we still vetting trying to get that turned around? So, what we what we typically do um the applicants we work with our applicants to finish the application process.
042So once they apply they have to also submit two letters of recommendation um like from a teacher, a counselor, a neighbor um and then they have to provide proof of residency usually through their report card as a Virginia Beach. I know this is a great program. I know some of the students that went through the program and they see that did really well and they did get hired uh permanent through the city after seeing the works that they do. So, you know, I would tell you this is a good place to add do a op ad to tell them that we need more participant to job to open up to our students because that is a problem. If you had over 600 students to apply, I know all of them could not get a job.
043So, so yes, so we're actively now seeking to find additional partners. Um the city budget allows us to hire a certain number and then we look for private partners who hire the additional number but um we are also working with our students to actually finish the application process because they will apply but they don't necessarily turn in a recommendation or um they might not sign up for an interview. So, it's a whole process that we're trying to work them through so that they can not just apply, but actually make it through the entire process. If they make it through the entire process, we will find them a job. So, we don't have kids who go through the whole process and then we say, "Well, I'm sorry, but we don't have a position for you. We
044will find them a job either with with the city or with the private company." Great. That sounds wonderful. I like that as well because they're learning skills how to apply and how to do resumes and how to apply the self as for uh equal opportunity uh employment but I do hope that we can get to a place where you will have you have to shut your doors to people that are coming in and say we offering a job to our students so you can uh push them back. Thank you. That is great. P uh parks after dark um thank you. I want to say thank you for select uh celebrating our communities and doing that. I've gone to several of those and been really good and you guys will go when it's raining as a
045rainstorm. You're still out there doing those works and I've um I have visit uh plenty of those and thank you for continuing the works that you're doing. You have not pulled back. You're still doing your adding. Thank you Park and Recreation. I appreciate it. One more question uh chair uh for YMCA. Miss Scott asked a quick question. Thank you too for what you're doing. Uh this is great work especially for the community and our students. Um other than you're going through the schools, do you also come out to communities if you're invited? Yes, you got it. If we're invited, we do everything we can to be. I'm inviting you. I have two big ones I want you to come to. I'm inviting you and I will be calling you. If you need my email at
046sharon.feltonvschools.com, email me and say when you're going to I want to stay contact with you. I've already given it out to Mr. Young as well. I'd like to ask you too, you talked about the entrepreneurship program that you have. Awesome. So, do you collaborate with Kinsville or do you have any interaction with Kinsville Entrepreneur Business Academy at all? Seth is um a he said he graduated from uh Chemsville, but he also graduated from leaders club and YMCA programs and he leads them for the association. So, I'm going to let him answer that. Okay. Thanks, Billy. Um we are in works of doing that. So, I we know that Kinsville High School has entrepreneurship academy. Um, and so we've actually been talking about the next steps to expand that offering to them as well. I know
047we talked about it, it was ninth and tth grade, trying to get them rocking and rolling with that so that they can continue that with the academy. So yes, thank you so much. Um, if you have an opportunity, I'm going to invite you as well get an opportunity to come to the entrepreneur shock tank presentation. Awesome. Absolutely. It it is awesome. I would invite you to come to that as well and see exactly what our students are doing and maybe we could collaborate with our uh entrepreneurship. I just want to say to all of you, your pre presentation was awesome. I do appreciate it and especially when you say that you're trying to reach out to the community. I'm going to help you do that as well. I want to make sure you get there
048and make sure you meet these other individual. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you. All right. I don't see anybody else. Madame Clerk, we're okay. All right. Thank you, Miss Church, and everybody else who presented. Um, appreciate it. All right. Next, we will welcome the director of instructional technology, Dr. Goldberg, for the AI update. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Brown, Vice Chair Williams, Dr. Robertson, and school board members. My name is Ryan Goldberg, and I serve as our division's director of instructional technology for the Department of Teaching and Learning. Joining me this afternoon are also my instructional technology coordinators. I will provide our second update on our journey with artificial intelligence, which I will refer to as AI, for the second half of the school year. We will begin with an overview
049of our AI integration covering professional learning timelines and current implementation. We will walk through usage data, share stakeholder input, and close with next steps. This slide has been shared before, but it is our professional learning statement. I will pause to give you a moment to review. For the 2025 2026 school year, VBCPS advocates for the selective and intentional use of AI, prioritizing its integration only when it clearly enhances learning and supports academic standards. Our focus remains on sound instruction, ensuring that technology serves to spark creative thinking rather than reduce critical thinking. opportunities essential for student mastery. Our decision-making is guided by the White House executive order and guidelines from the governor for AI integration. On November 25th, the school board was provided the first AI update which included this progress timeline. As a reminder, all
050staff completed a series of professional development sessions focused on AI literacy, safety, and ethical implementation throughout the school year. High school students were introduced to technology responsibilities and granted access to Google Gemini, our approved generative AI tool, starting November 5th. Throughout the winter and into the spring, we have continued with a purposeful integration of AI. As you can see from this implementation timeline on the slide, we have created a professional learning partnership with AJ Giuliani, a leading voice in the field of AI and student engagement. Mr. Dr. Juliani's work focuses on assisting districts with AI fluency where students and staff don't just know about the tools but instead use them intentionally to enhance highle critical thinking and creative problem solving. We have also completed the third professional learning turnkey for each level, analyze stakeholder engagement,
051including teachers and parents and partnered with several department of teaching and learning teams to analyze AI integration across all content areas. Finally, we have analyzed staff feedback for high school and are providing optional ongoing training for high school teachers. This slide is going to highlight some of the work that we've done. I'll take a moment to explain each picture. Image one highlights our collaboration with our AI consultant, Mr. Giuliani. In image two, high school teachers are reinforcing clear expectations for students by using the AI usage levels framework to guide responsible use and to clarify expectations. Image three reflects our ongoing commitment to community engagement as we share BBCPS AI overview presentations at PTA meetings to build parent understanding and transparency. Image four shows one of our turnkey trainings designed to build AI literacy for all
052instructional staff. This particular image shows an activity including a scenario that prompts ethical decision-making when using AI. In image five, department of teaching and learning teams are providing targeted professional learning, highlighting here through an AI demo slam where gifted resource teachers showcase best practices for teacher efficiency and classroom integration at the high school level. Finally, image six captures our teacher assembly on March 26th where representatives from every school came together to engage in meaningful dialogue and provide feedback around our AI implementation plan. We have continued with our professional learning for AI across all levels. In high school, students began engaging with Gemini on November 5th and all staff participated in their third professional learning session. This session focused on effective prompting prompt templates and providing our teachers with time to complete an immersive design experience
053with an upcoming standard at their own content level. For elementary and middle school, we have completed both the professional learnings number two and number three with a focus on effective prompting, ethical considerations with scenario-based learning and training on notebook LM and Gemini Gem Storybook. These are both tools that will support teachers and efficiency and uplifting our tier one instruction at the elementary and middle school level. Just a reminder, a turnkey presentation is a professional learning session that we designed in department of teaching and learning and then provided to our instructional technology specialists and library media specialists to ensure our presentation is delivered without change and provides a consistent message throughout that delivery at school levels. Now I'll share some information with you on next steps. We are partnering at the state level in AI part
054two into the classroom with Virginia Association of School Superintendent. This gives us the opportunity to collaborate and reflect on AI implementation across different districts. Based on feedback from high school teachers, we have created sailing into AI, an optional professional learning series for high school teachers. These sessions will be offered in a variety of different formats with teachers having the opportunity to dive deeper into Notebook LM and using AI as a tool to support their own efficiency. Notebook LM is a secure Google Workspace for education service that provides high schoolers with cited information strictly from teacher approved materials. It ensures enterprisegrade privacy by never using student data for AI training or human review. Students can safely use the tool to generate personalized study guides, quizzes, and audio summaries for upcoming finals and AP exams. High school
055students will have access to this to prepare for the end of first, excuse me, the end of semester, not first semester. Let's not go back. First semester assessments and AP exams. We are also excited to share that securely, which is our student safety and device management platform, has released a chat monitoring feature in the spring that allows teachers and administrators to have viewing access to all student prompts and AI responses. In continuing with our purposeful and slow implementation plan, we plan to train administrators and teachers and then release this feature for the 2026 2027 school year. We will now transition into analyzing our current AI usage trends for both teachers and students. The slide on the screen compares instructional staff data from the 2024 2025 school year to our current data from the 2025 2026
056school year through March 24th. Notably, you're going to see a significant increase in in our staff engagement with Google Gemini. Google Gemini remains our preferred and supported instructional tool. I will pause for a moment to allow you to review these growth metrics. Our instructional staff and administrators are using a variety of approved tools to support effective AI integration. The applications on the screen are a few of our most highly accessed tools. You will also find a handout in your packet that provides more details on the applications widely used across our division. You will notice on the screen that there are several tools approved for using AI to provide feedback. We emphasize that the responsibility for evaluating student progress rests solely with the teacher. The use of AI generated grades is strictly prohibited. When a school
057chooses to utilize approved AI tools for feedback, the Department of Teaching and Learning in collaboration with the Department of School Leadership requires teachers to follow specific guidance to ensure academic integrity and instructional quality. Educators must carefully evaluate these tools to guarantee that all feedback is accurate, actionable, and align with established standards. Furthermore, teachers are required to review and verify AI generated comments before sharing them with students. This slide shows high school student usage of Gemini from January 28th through March 24th. This is going to include 39 school days. You will note that 69% of our high school students have engaged in some form of usage with Google Gemini with approximately 46% being light users, 21% being regular users, and 2% being power users. I will give you a moment to review the side. We have
058gathered feedback from various sources including professional learning session exit tickets and a recent teacher assembly. Instructional staff identified several key drivers in their ability to leverage AI for product productivity and instructional design. Notably, teachers highly value the collaborative support provided by instructional technology specialists, library media specialists, and their own peer colleagues. Additionally, staff cited the scaffolded training, specifically sessions focused on effective prompting and peer-to-peer sharing as essential to their growth. By streamlining tasks such as drafting report card comments and aligning standards, AI is enabling teachers to work smarter. While these successes provide a strong foundation, we are identifying key areas where we can additionally support and further streamline AI integration across the district. Currently, the primary focus is navigating the expanding landscape of new platforms. As staff aim to move past the initial resource overload
059towards identifying which tools are best towards specific task to facilitate this, providing dedicated professional windows for exploration will be essential as time still remains a barrier for our teachers and a successful adoption. In particular, you'll note we have high school feedback at the bottom. High school teachers have shared some specific feedback regarding the integration of AI into student learning experiences. They shared the importance of ensuring that AI serves to enrich rather than diminish the educational experience, prioritizing the instructional designs that value the process over the product, and fostering critical thinking and the defense of one's reasoning through reflection and productive struggle. Teachers at the high school level are continuing to focus on that product, the excuse me, the process over the product. Building an AI ready district requires a partnership with our families. This year,
060we attended 15 PTA meetings to further explain AI in our school division and showcase our VBCPS digital literacy site. We broke down the specific usage expectations and guardrails for each grade level, turning these sessions into a two-way conversation. This outreach allowed us to answer critical questions and gather highlevel community feedback needed to shape a responsible, innovative food future for our students. Community members expressed appreciation for the opportunity to provide input and requested a clear roadmap for future AI integration. To maintain the momentum, they emphasize the need for consistent ongoing communication across multiple channels. This slide provides a brief overview of our next steps for the continued implementation of AI for the 2026 2027 school year. For all levels, we recommend the selection of an instructional platform that will allow levels to have different access. In
061our elementary schools, our strategy remains consistent. We are prioritizing teacher efficiency and capacity. AI will continue to be a behind-the-scenes tool for lesson planning and differentiation for our teachers. Students at this level will not engage in generative AI models. However, in middle school, we will make a shift in implementation. We are moving from a teacher only use to introducing students to the selected instructional platform. Instead of providing them access to Gemini, we plan to select an instructional platform that has a walled garden. This means that students aren't just playing with AI. They are using a specific teacher vetted tool in a secured environment. We will introduce middle school teachers and students to similar guardrails and provide essential training. Finally, at the high school level, we will continue with our current plan and our current existing
062guardrails. We will continue to reinforce ethical standards and purposeful technology integration. Thank you for allowing us to join you this afternoon for an update in our journey with AI. We thank you for your attention and we are ready for any questions you have at this time. Thank you Dr. Goldberg. Okay, Miss Rogers. Hi, thank you so much for this presentation. I fully admit that I am very cautious when it comes to AI in our classrooms and so um I'm I've got questions. Um I'm really glad to hear that you guys um discussed with the community about your specific guardrails for each level. Um when I asked about guardrails, I didn't get a really clear picture of that when we first discussed this. So can you discuss the guardrails for each level now because that is
063something I'm highly interested in. Sure. guardrails for students. Yes. Yes. So, elementary and middle school currently do not have access to a generative AI model. Um, at high school, our students are accessing Gemini and they also have access to a couple of other approved tools. You saw like the approved list of tools through our approved approved applications. So, if an application needs to be approved, they would go through our approval process, which is a very strenuous process. It goes through department of technology and department of teaching and learning. In particular for Gemini, we have taken a very very strict approach to our guardrails. So our high school students only have access during the instructional day when they're at home and they have access to our approved devices. They will not have access to Gemini. Those
064pieces are turned off. Other approved generative AI other excuse me not approved other generative large language models such as chat GPT etc are not approved on our devices. they would not have access to those. We also have, if you remember at my first session, November 25th, I shared with you guys with the kind of the stoplight image where it's level zero, level one, and level two. So, whenever a teacher is providing a student access to a an activity or an assignment, they would note whether that assignment what level it is. We've actually in our trainings had them put like an image as an example of what level level zero level one level two and they share those with the students. The teacher the students are aware of what the teachers expectations are. So if they
065level zero as an example would be no AI allow whatsoever. Level one is a step by step where they have a little bit more access still teacher guided and level two is a very also teacher guided but they have a little bit more time to work through the process. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um my other concern is from slide 11. Um you have on slide 11 your light users, your regular users and your power users. Um but my concern is that 2% of power users. Um I am highly concerned that we are giving access to middle schoolers who have less impulse control and that we will have a lot of power users. It would be my preference to allow us to have further guard rails so we don't have power users. If students are
066using these AI um platforms to have more than a thousand um prompts per per you know 39 school days in a month. Are we using it as a tool or are we using it as a toy? And so that's my concern. And if we are going to then take that we have 2% at the high school level are we going to increase with students who don't have that ability to control their impulses. And so instead of I think powering through into middle school should we not refine what we're doing at the high school first? That is my question. And I don't know if that's something, you know, I don't expect an answer, but I'm I'm just saying is that that 2% of users can be those students who we are already struggling to get them
067to stay on task to do their work and then we're giving them a tool that's allowing them to do, oh, hey, we got all of these prompts we can use and there's there's no guardrails as to the amount of usage. Does that make sense? And so that's a concern for me. But if our high schoolers are already having a 2% of misusage, what will it be at the middle school level? So that's that's my concern. So I think I have some answers for you. Okay. Um kind of twofold. Let's talk about high school first. So your high school year, your power users that are that 2%, we have analyzed some of the data and I want to note you to where it says the average prompts. It's including reprompts. So for those of you who
068have access like chatbt or Gemini or whatever large language model you're choosing to use and you're asking questions that's going to include however many times that you're reprompting when we actually have analyzed some of these students because we have the ability through Google Vault just to see if there's any concerns right so with Mr. Den's team and my team if there is a student who is doing a absurdly large number of prompts we do have the accessibility to see what they're prompting to make sure they're on task right and actually when we have analyzed it students are just reprompting many many times to get to the correct what they need for the assignment and so you would actually we were actually pleasantly surprised by the reprompting and how savvy the students are when they're working
069towards the assignment so that's the piece about the high school piece what I want to draw your attention to is for the middle school middle school will not have access to Gemini So we are thinking about recommending some form of an instructional platform and there's many out there okay there's magic school there's school AI there's Brisk and those like I mentioned are more of a walled garden where what will happen is there is a teacher platform they can view everything the student is doing and as the student is prompting and responding they can see that the programs that we've demoed also have the capability of turning as an example red to alert a teacher on their dashboard similar to like a securely when a student is not doing the appropriate thing. So, it's much more
070secure and much different than Gemini and the access if that makes sense. That does make sense. Okay. And then then the other thing I want to talk about with my concern is I've I've spoken to a lot of high schoolers because I have a high schooler and and and a lot of students are concerned about the um environmental usage. when we have students who are using um AI obviously that requires resources and they are concerned about this and that and that they even students themselves are saying I don't want to use too much AI because I am concerned about the environmental piece. How are we addressing that? Yeah, I think that's a great question and that's actually something we talked to Mr. Giuliani a lot about too because that's something that nationwide people are having
071questions about. Um, one of the things that we talk to students about is we don't one, we don't make them use it if they don't want to. Um, we ask them that they work with their administrator and they work with their principal or their teacher to work out what's best for that student. We do keep in mind that, you know, if you are having an assignment that uses AI, it could take you much longer to do that task if you were to do it without AI, per se. Um, but we do also have conversations and we're training and talking to our teachers about if a student doesn't want to use AI as an example in the instructional lens, they're also using it every day in their other lives, too. So, we try to have those
072conversations like, you know, are you using it on Netflix, Amazon Prime, in Google when you're using to get from place to place. So, just explaining those pieces as well to educate everyone. All right, Dr. Green. Thank you. Uh Dr. Goldberg, I'm glad to see that we have integrated securely into the use of um AI and I hope our community recognizes the value of that and in other capacities. I know when I was employed for the with the school division, how in some instances it even saved lives. uh get that midnight call about someone uh with securely and I understand if you cannot answer because I'm not trying to uh expose any security secrets or or practices we may have. Um how often um will alerts be generated? like is it every time someone staff or
073student uses AI or I know with some of the mental health pieces that we follow that there are some triggers. Uh so are you able or Mr. Den looks like he's going to answer he's approaching the podium. Good afternoon everybody. So uh the trigger is that point at which uh the human review on it says that there is risk of eminent action right so when it reaches that point is when our uh our folks the mental health folks that we work with they'll get involved in that particular situation. So outside of the mental health rim, are there other triggers or other uh topics or areas that may trigger u an alert from securely? It self harm, mental health, those are broadly the areas that there's obviously a lot of things that are inappropriate in there
074topics, things like that would Okay. Yeah. All right. How often will the reports be generated with usage in terms of what may be considered um risky behaviors? So I'm not sure what uh what you mean by reports are generated. Well, when the alerts would securely the reports sometimes that are generated, how often would it be gener? Well, I don't have numbers right off the top of my head for you, but every time something happens. every single time something happens. Yes. Actions are taken. Right. All right. Thank you. Sure. And I think um Dr. Green just um note that this that is a very new feature that has just been released. Right. So that's why we're recommending to share that at next school year and not immediately start with it right now because we need to
075do our research and train our teachers effectively on it since it is a new component of securely and our high school teachers do. They use securely a lot. You can see it in their classrooms. they have it up and they're monitoring securely. Same with elementary, right? Across all levels, teachers are using securely, but we want to make sure that we're providing adequate training to make sure they're monitoring the Gemini prompts effectively. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Ken. I can only ask my question from a generational point of view. So from a generational point of view, I have a mindset that basically says if you are younger than me, you are more advanced technologically than I ever will be. Using that as a reference point, since all of our students are younger than us as teachers or
076administrators, have you discovered difficulties for their greater degree of advancement technologically than even the school system is presenting from an instructional point of view? Are there difficulties and discoveries that in some respects you didn't even see coming because this AI world is still so incredibly new and fastm moving? What difficulties has the process of introducing this to the school system and the instructional process? What difficulties have you encountered that you might not have seen coming? It's a great question and I agree. Um our students are very savvy. they they're they know things more than than some of us even do now, right? I think, you know, one of the big topics of conversation around AI that you see in the news is cheating. Um, one of the things that we talk a lot about with
077our ITs's and our LMS's and our teachers and we have those meetings is that, you know, cheating existed before AI came around and it's going to exist moving forward. But having conversations about how we're being proactive and how we're teaching our students the ethics around AI is the most important piece. So, that's what we're working on now. Um in regards to the other part of your question talking about difficulties, you know, our team looking at the applications that our staff divisionwide are using and trying to stay on top of that is very difficult. So we the the ever rapid changing landscape of AI is so quickly evolving that it is difficult for us to stay on top of what applications people are using and approving them or not approving them because of how quickly it's
078coming. Um, I was just at an IT meeting yesterday and they asked me about what three applications that I didn't even know what two of them were. Um, and I try to stay on top of all of them, but that's how quickly things are coming up and we have these experts in the field. So, trying to stay on top of that is has been a very large challenge. Do you have enhanced trepidations about introducing this to the middle school students in November as you're planning to do? So, to be transparent, I feel very confident in our current rollout plan. I think our team has done a really nice job in our implementation and the slow features that we've taken. I feel confident in some of the demos that we've done with the instructional platforms. We're
079working through getting some stakeholder feedback now around those platforms and then making that selection. I do think in partnership with the rest of the department of teaching and learning and having partnership with the rest of our directors in that and collaborating together will make it an effective roll out. You'll be in my prayers. If I can add piggyback on Mr. Ken's question. It's it's interesting, Mr. Ken, because today in Rowan Oak, there was a session on AI in the classroom part two, and one of the prompts was to the audience um of superintendent, what what are some of the difficulties that were unexpected that you were encountering in your journey so far? And they they talked about the the pace. They talked about that some kids were were uh very hesitant to engage. Um some
080kids were worried about the environmental factors that were already mentioned. Um teachers are still getting their handle on it. So it's a it is a very good question and what I'm confident about when Dr. Goldberg says she's she's she's confident in the plan is the team has been really cautiously strategic in in what what they're doing and because they're sharing with 90 other school divisions through this this professional learning experience that they're in. They're they're benefiting from the best thinking from 90 different school divisions. And so I'm excited about that. But to your point, we we are our our uh what would you what would you say? Our uh antennas are up to be careful that we don't we don't take any missteps. Interesting. Vice Chair Williams, uh Miss Chair Brown has her hand up
081and her hand went up after Mr. Cummings. All right. Thank you, Mr. Bowensteel. Yes. Um, I remember last July at our schoolboard retreat, we spent a lot of time on the AI subject. I do support AI, but I also appreciate Miss Rogers and her concerns and cautiousness to this. Um, at this point, I really don't feel comfortable moving this into middle school. And mainly what I want to know is this going to be something that's going to be approved by the school board or is this something that you have already decided on doing November 4th? Yes. So that's a good question. So our plan is being presented to you tonight that this is our plan to move forward next year. We'll have another discussion during the retreat on uh on AI for the the last
082quarter of the year. Um, and of course, you know, the board will have an opportunity to weigh in, but but this is the plan that we're recommending. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. Yeah, first and foremost, I really appreciate the stakeholder feedback that you all to were proactive in in getting from parents and attending 15 PTA meetings. Um, I don't know if this is not a mandate by any way, shape or medium or form, but if there's any summary info things that we could read as a board, that'd be fantastic. If not, it's to it's fine as well. Um, I just be would be curious to know what, you know, the community was saying in a more in-depth fashion um, and some of the concerns from the from our PTA parents who are so active and
083involved with with our students on a day-to-day basis. And he said a few things that caught my ear. And so I'm trying to just seek clarification just for myself. So I have this list that was handed to us, the AI usage data, teacher admin applications. Are all these vendors that we have contracts with or these tools that folks are using? I'm trying to understand the list I'm looking at right now. No. Yeah, great question. I took the slide of the mostused applications and just gave you a summary of each of those descriptions of each of those applications, excuse me. Some of them we do have a partnership with, some of them they're using the free version. So, as an example, you see Gemini. Gemini comes with our Google Workspace for educators that we pay for
084and that's through that. All of those pieces are through Google. Um, a lot of the other ones, Brisk, Canva, ChatgBT, most of them are ones that are they're using the free versions, which is what I mentioned to Mr. Halen is that there's many applications out there that there's free versions and teachers are using. These are all approved. So I think with like and I know that we probably have policies in place and I'm just trying to process and just get clarification, but I'm always weary of the free AI services and data protection um and how they utilize, you know, the information uploaded for training when we're in this evaluation process. Do we have policy what related to staff and utilization of like some of these tools? Because I see some of them on here and
085I know chat GBT is one of those ones that you know doesn't if you're using the free version it's not a closed off system. What do we have current policy from an employer perspective on or do we just follow the data protection guidelines that we probably have? Yeah. Like walk me through what that part aspect. Good afternoon Mr. Cummings. So uh we do have security policies on the use of all of these various tools. So for example uh the guidance that Dr. Goldberg and her team would provide for a free tool is create a worksheet about the American flag, right? No student information, no private uh uh information of any kind goes into that free tool in order to be able to use it. However, for those instances where we may be providing a tool
086any type of sensitive information, we want to make sure that that is only used with tools that we have DPAs or digital privacy agreements in place for. Perfect. So, that's that's the general guidance that we provide to staff in using uh all of these variety of tools that keep showing up every week. Yeah. So we just have to be careful. But that is the general guidance that's provided. Tools when they are to a point that they're going to be used in our environment on a regular basis to support teachers to support staff uh they are vetted and we do go ahead and we get a DPA digital privacy agreement with those companies to make sure that any information that is put into those tools is uh more secure than free tools. Yeah, perfect. that I
087was just trying to make sure I understand the list I'm looking at and you know when I see free tools and just trying to gain clarity and so I look at some of these programs and I feel like might be helpful for me and perhaps my board members is just kind of being able to dive in a little bit to some of the programs that that are here. Um, you know, I read something about diffit that allows in intriguing to me tailored differential learning that creates multiple versions of assignments tailored to different learning needs and generating a range of activities like comprehension questions, vocabulary exercises like help me just understand like how does this what does this look like on boots on the ground in a classroom? Yeah. And I think to Mr. Den's point,
088a lot of these applications are using for instructional purposes only. So, it's tools that they're using to increase or leverage their tier one instruction. Okay? So, as an example, if you take diff, which any of these tools can do the same thing with taking a leveled a level text, there may be a text provided on a certain Lexile level. Let's just say at the elementary level, at a certain Lexile level that they want to analyze and they want to, let's say you were providing it to fourth graders, not all fourth graders are reading on the same reading level. Let's say you have an ESL student who's reading on a different level. You could put that information in. Again, no student identifiable data. You'll put that in with the text and ask it to provide it
089to you on whatever Lexile level of that said student. Or you could even say of the WEDA level, which is the assessment that gives you the ESL level and then it would provide you another level assess text, excuse me, based on that student's level. So how's the output of that evaluated to ensure that the the output of the AI is actually accurate with providing that the the information and I I only ask this because you know I work with AI every single day and we have an internal joke with co-pilot how it constantly lies to you about how to do things in Microsoft and how how can its own product not know how to do something. Um, and so that's always like kind of in the back of my mind. And I think that we
090probably for those of us who use this understand that like this is not an authoritative absolute type thing. So help me understand a little bit just like you know if this is being used in the classroom the accuracy of output and and whatnot because I see this as like guidance right like I think this is good in that aspect but I'm just kind of curious to know a little more about that. It's great point and it's what a lot of our professional learning has circ has um circled around is that exactly. So we f we have focused a lot with teachers around hallucinations which is what you're talking about. Hallucinations in case you're not familiar is exactly what Mr. Cummings is saying where your AI output has some sort of falsity or something not correct
091in it. We've emphasized with our teachers the need that they if they're going to use an AI application to provide some form of something different, in this case a level text, that they are responsible for vetting that resource that's provided. So they would need to read through it. I'll give you a prime example. In one of our turnkeys for elementary, we showed them one of our scenario based that I mentioned in my presentation was we showed them an output that we had turned out based on a it was a fourth grade standard I believe around social studies and we asked for a map of Virginia and it was a beautiful map that came up that teachers if they didn't look at it carefully will be like oh that's so beautiful I'm going to put it
092in my presentation but everything on the map of Virginia was incorrect and that's the point where we're making yes that one was very exaggerated so we could show teachers but that's the point that we've been trying to highlight in our presentations and in our trainings that the teachers have to vet those materials that are provided in the outputs. Okay, great. I think that's kind of summarizes all my immediate questions and thoughts. Personally, you know, I think I would love to be able to and this could be something to figure out later. Just kind of have a more walkthrough of some of the programs that are, you know, that I don't see on a day-to-day basis. like the magic school. I tried to go on there and the website, but they want my email address and
093that's not, you know, I got enough spam. Let's be real. Don't need someone else emailing me. But I I would I think I'd appreciate a more in depth just like this is how it's being utilized. Um, you know, I when I think about prompting and AI, at the heart of it is teaching our students to form deep questions to find answers. And that in itself is a is a great educational experience. You know, can you describe the context of the problem that you're trying to solve to maximize that output of AI and for that subgroup of people who hone in on that skill? You know, I think there's great rewards in the professional sector for that for that segment of people who understand and leverage and how to see and you know, think through problem
094solving in depth and and utilizing the tools. So, I do definitely see value in the prompt engineering that's being uh you know that we're teaching our students and I applaud your efforts in working through with that. Um I think that's all that's on my mind right now, but I might come back and have a question. That's fine. Okay, Chair Brown, you're next. Thanks. Um so on slide seven um I think it was you mentioned notebook LM as a study partner. Um can you tell me more what that looks like in practice? Yes. So Notebook LM is a tool that our teachers have been trained on and they currently have access. So our students would be able to use it as an example. They could take a course study guide or they could take a material
095provided by their teacher and notebook out. They could input that information into notebook LM and it has the capability to to turn out whatever the students may may want. They could turn out a podcast for them as a study partner. It could turn out flashcards. It could turn out qu practice quizzes for them. There really are a lot of opportunities. It turns it can um provide you outputs of a slide deck if you wanted to review. It's just a way that they could review and practice preparing for AP exams and end of the year assessments. Okay. Um, and you know, I've heard about Notebook LM and how useful it is, but I also think that it has the potential to inadvertently turn coursework into independent study. And so my my next question is how the
096division is going to know and ensure that classes are not being turned into independent study utilizing this. I think in regards to a student using notebook LM it's going to come back to the teacher monitoring it. So we provided training around notebook LM. We've provided ample training to our ITS's and LMS's around notebook LM. We are not saying that use of it is mandatory. We're just providing it as an optional tool for our students to use moving forward as that form of a study partner. Emphasis on that notebook LM would continue to have the same guard rails that our Gemini has. So it would only be accessible to our students during the instructional day where they would be monitored by a teacher who's given them approval to use it. Okay. But what what I'm asking
097is is how our division is going to provide oversight that coursework isn't inadvertedly turning into independent study. Miss Brown, I'll take that. Our current practice is we conduct teacher observations and evaluation on a consistent basis to evaluate any level of instruction that they're giving to students. um courses are not identified as an independent study course and and generally speaking. So our typical practice is continual observation of teacher practices and feedback on those practices. Um I think that's the best way I can answer what you're asking around an independent study course. Okay. Thank you. Um so I do think that there's a recognition from the board and I don't want to speak for anyone um the fact that AI is here and um there's also some recognition about concerns surrounding the impact of AI um and
098we are in adapt adapting. Um, however, when I voted on this policy in September, my understanding and the communicated and expressed intentions were that this would be limited to high school. And that was central to my support for that policy at that time. Um, if I would have known that implementation into middle school would have been included at this particular time only seven months later, I would not have supported that policy. Um, I did review the federal and state guidance. Uh, the White House executive order established a task force so far has created training resources but not a mandate. Um, and the Department of Education's guidelines are not requirements and does not spell out specific grade levels. Um, so I'm unclear and I feel like we're kind of jumping ahead of these frameworks and these
099task force and order um, executive orders. Um, and I I recognize it's new. Um, but I feel like, you know, even in some statements, and I I do appreciate the work of staff on this, and I recognize, you know, that it has some some solutions for our students and our staff, but I I feel like for middle school especially, you know, we're flying blind, and I don't want to use our students as guinea pigs. Um, so with that, I I have a question um for Miss Lanetti. Um, Miss Lanetti, what would the board need to do from a process standpoint? Um, if the will of the board were not to utilize AI in middle schools at this time, you'd either have to redo a policy or put a resolution or policy would probably be the
100more uh direct way to inform the school division how you want them to proceed. So, we'd have to take this back to policy review to take a look at it. So, the board wouldn't just be able to ask the superintendent to change the regulation. You could um you could ask them to come back with the recommendation or you can draft what you want yourself. Either way would work. Okay. Thank you. All right, colleagues, we are running out of time. I'm going to ask Dr. Goldberg to come back um because we have three um three speakers in the queue that haven't spoken and then I sense that a couple had additional questions as well. So that um my suggestion is to add this on information and just to just to stick around so that we can
101answer everybody's questions. So we'll make an amendment to the agenda and um finish this during information. All right. So, we are now recessed for a break and we will see everybody at six o'clock for the formal meeting. Thank you.