School Board Meeting: October 19, 2021

001[Music] well good evening I would like to call to order the regular meeting of the newport news school board for tuesday october the 19th 2021 on behalf of the members of the board and the superintendent I welcome each of you present and watching a quorum is present to transact the business of the school division mr harris wanted to inform everyone that he was unable to make it tonight due to his military temporary military duties uh and we do have a board member who wishes to participate in our meeting electronically as indicated in board policy bee electronic participation in meetings from remote location the board member must be pre must make such a request cite the reason for remote attendance and the board must approve the request by majority vote of the members present school board

002member terry best has made such a request and we would like to uh give dr best a chance to hear from her now dr best thank you mr chair I'm respectfully making a request to participate in the meeting remotely due to the fact that i am currently medically quarantined thank you dr best any questions from the board there they're being not is there a motion uh to allow dr best to participate remotely yes mr chairman i make a motion that we have dr best join us remotely for this meeting is there a second second second by mr hunter thank you mr hunter any further discussion there being none matter clerk would you please call the roll hunter for mrs rule's law or mrs amen or mr ely mr brown four motion carry five zero all

003right as well um our student representative uh miss patterson has asked to be excused from tonight's meeting she is attending a volleyball game which is uh some important business to be sure so we wish uh her and woodside team uh godspeed on their game all right with the covet 19 pandemic and now the delta variant they continue to affect how we conduct our business personal barriers are installed between members of the board and our staff and visitors are mashed and socially distanced here in the auditorium and in our overflow areas we're taking these steps to ensure the health and well-being of our staff and the public we value and appreciate your partnership we will begin tonight's meeting with invocation and pledge to the flag here to do honors are two students from gildersleeve middle school

004hazel benoit and chase murray please come forward first hazel please come forward and deliver the invocation good evening chairman brown dr parker and school board members I'm hazel benoit and I'm an 8th grade student at gildersleeve middle school tonight i'd like to share with you a piece I wrote inspired by our school motto soar soar dream make your goals work for them learn what you can at any given moment so that one day you'll be there soaring high above the clouds wings outstretched looking at how far you made it from the ground after falling down countless times after feeling like you can't do it but you've made it past that these wings that you've earned have been built from strenuous days and dark nights these wings their hard work and determination they have been built

005from the ground up soar proudly and inspire those around you too as well thank you [Applause] murray would you please come forward tell us a little bit about yourself and then lead us in the pledge good evening members of the school board I am chase murray an 8th grader at ghetto sleep middle school I am an honorable tag student I am a member of six mount zion [ __ ] baptist temple I am the president of the um I'm sorry I'm the president of the youth council for baptist temple and I am i have been to male minority meeting before and i've been to talk to you guys before and please join me in the pledge of allegiance thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the

006republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you for your time thank you thank you you all did a wonderful job uh supporting hazel and chase tonight are members of their school of their family and their school family I would like to give them an opportunity now to stand and be recognized [Applause] the board appreciates the encouragement you have given these students and we thank you for bringing them here to tonight's meeting all right the next item on on tonight's agenda are going to be our school board recognitions and dr parker I believe we have a few so let's check we have a few recognitions we'll start with our um communications awards yes yes sir we're going to change the water up a little bit good

007evening it's always a pleasure to share good news maintaining open communication and keeping our community informed are two important objectives of newport news public schools strategic plan journey 2025. our first honorees this evening are responsible for ensuring that our community is well informed each year the national school public relations association recognizes outstanding education communications through its publications and digital media excellence awards program during this year's awards program our community relations team received eight awards the return to learn weekly earned an award of excellence for internal newsletters the journey 2025 booklet won an award of merit in branding and packaging the nnps heroes column published in the oyster pointer earned an award of merit in writing the return to learn plan handbook earned an award of merit our website earned an award of merit and in

008social media the teacher of the year campaign earned an award of excellence and our facebook live events and the black history campaign earned awards of merit so please join me this evening and congratulation the members of the community relations team heading that team is michelle price our director of community relations [Applause] the whole pack [Laughter] leading the team also miss kelly slusher coordinator of community relations and graphic design [Applause] laura jennings coordinator of web services [Applause] carrie albertson community relations specialist and writer [Applause] matt thomas our web applications developer [Applause] and christine rock our web content developer who was unable to join us this evening this dynamic team supports all schools and offices and has been instrumental in keeping our family staff and the community informed they're responsible for coordinating and managing the school divisions

009communications marketing and public relations efforts so thank you again and congratulations [Applause] i think thank you again and I appreciate my colleague for filling in for me this evening i have the honor of presenting the next recognition training and development are top priorities for the newport news school board as part of its collective effort to maintain effective leadership the school board has participated in numerous development programs conferences and workshops through the virginia school boards association and the national school boards association this evening our own school board members are receiving their own awards for their dedication to advancing their expertise from the virginia school boards association the vsba academy provides training and effective leadership and governance to school board members and support staff each year vspa recognizes board members for their dedication to improving their skills

010through conferences on leadership school laws strategic planning and legislative issues each of the persons being recognized this evening has received a certificate from the vsba these awards honor their participation in the academy's programs for the past two years chairman douglas brown vice chairman cyril's law and dr terry bass earned the award of honor board member gary hunter earned the award of excellence board members john ely and marvin harris earned the award of achievement and rebecca amen is acknowledged for her participation let's give our board members a round of applause each of these dedicated public servants have received their certificates and distinctive lapel pins to symbolize their commitment to effective school board governance through participation in the academy so on behalf of the students staff and citizens of newport news we thank you for your dedication

011and leadership of this school division and congratulate you on your rewards [Applause] thank you and again congratulations uh to all of tonight's honorees at this time we'll take a five-minute break so that our honorees and their families may leave they choose to do so during this time our viewing audience will have an opportunity to view this month's school board spotlight so we'll stand in recess for about five minutes thank you [Music] even through a global pandemic and unique learning situations the 2021 senior class rose above these challenges to reach a monumental milestone the class of 2021 increased newport news public schools graduation rate to 94.5 significant growth from 72.9 percent in in the same 15-year time span the dropout rate decreased from 12 percent to only 1.4 percent this places nnps's on-time graduation rate above

012the state average of 93 percent and the dropout rate below the commonwealth's average of 4.3 percent a closer look at the numbers shows that every student subgroup in newport news including ethnic groups students with disabilities economically disadvantaged students and english learners is better than the state average in both graduation and dropout rates and almost half of the 2021 graduating class went above and beyond with 45 of graduating seniors earning an advanced diploma so what's the secret to success for newport news public schools since 2008 educators have implemented a national award-winning dropout prevention and recovery program combine this with online courses summer learning opportunities community mentors dedicated graduation coaches and college credit courses and you have a recipe for continued improvements as more students graduate college career and citizen ready in newport news public schools just

013a day after fear gripped heritage high and huntington middle schools a community came together to blanket the schools students and educators with prayer and love following the traumatic shooting last monday the southeast community coalition a unified network of churches and pastors organized a community prayer event in front of the school a caring community of school staff students families city officials elected leaders and first responders gathered outside to allow faith and unity to triumph over fear and violence together a community prayed for healing safety in our schools guidance for our leaders strength for our educators and the resiliency to overcome this tragic incident heritage principal dr erling hunter thanked the community for their outpouring of support and asked them to continue caring for the students staff and families as they cope with the psychological aftermath with

014huntington middle school housed in the same building principal ebony griffin who is a heritage graduate herself fully realized that it will take a village of community partners and dedicated parents to support and care for our students moving forward already newport news public schools has established a support hotline for anyone affected to receive counseling and advice from trained specialists while pastors and community leaders offered prayers covering a myriad of needs one singular theme consistently shine through we as a community must love our young people unconditionally fiercely and intentional [Music] every extra effort is a benefit for our students in newport news public schools extra time for reading extra help devoted to individual students or extra supplies to enhance classroom instruction parents and community members can help supply that extra bit by financially aiding our schools through

015simple everyday errands when you're out shopping keep your eyes open for box tops for education products use the boxtops app to scan your store receipt and instantly add cash to your children's school it's that easy and a huge benefit for our schools to receive extra funding and supplies and while you're shopping don't forget to use your reward cards in a smart way your food lion mvp card harris teeter's vic card the kroger plus card and other reward programs can be linked directly to the school of your choice so when you buy everyday products you're supporting your child's school to link your reward card visit the store's customer service desk for more information another way to support education is through donorschoose.org which continues to be a wonderful online resource to directly equip classroom instruction just like

016the name implies generous donors get to choose specifically which projects to fund simply visit donorschoose.org and type in newport news public schools or a specific school in the search bar to find a project that needs financial support donors can fund an entire project or part of a project and can clearly see where every dime is spent with your monetary donation our hard-working and dedicated teachers can successfully provide creative and meaningful instruction to all students parents make sure you pay attention to important dates when they're sent home with your child and then help spread the word anyone can attend spirit nights at local restaurants where a percentage of the purchases go back to the school plus they're fun events for the whole family and you can help your school form a strong parent-teacher relationship by joining

017your local pta membership fees alone can help a school with budget needs and some schools even offer rewards for joining the pta ptas are instrumental at organizing many fundraising efforts along with seasonal options such as t-shirt sales or holiday craft fairs supporting your school is easy a little bit of extra effort goes a long way to help ensure that our children have the best education possible with the global pandemic forcing newport news students to experience over a year of adjusted learning at home virtually and through hybrid instruction the summer of 2021 was a wonderful chance for many students to get back in the classroom for valuable in-person teaching 3719 elementary and middle school students spent five weeks this past summer learning exploring and creating in a safe setting the summer program for arts recreation and

018knowledge better known as spark allowed rising kindergarten through 8th grade students to focus on literacy and mathematics while exploring a number of enrichment opportunities in stem fine arts physical education and other exciting subjects for students attending spark at 10 schools across the city transportation to and from each site was provided daily each school also offered free breakfast and lunch to fuel a full day of learning elementary age students spent part of the day building literacy skills through number talks interactive reading activities and collaborative writing groups the other part of the day was focused on experiencing mathematics and science through hands-on stem activities that made learning come alive for middle school students attending spark the morning classes focused on core instruction in literacy and math while the afternoon was devoted to expanding students life experiences through

019enrichment activities in the arts physical education engineering and robotics each week students rotated to a new enrichment activity allowing them to dive into five different learning themes during the summer community partners such as jefferson lab visited the classroom to bring a professional perspective to the themed experiences and students moved beyond the classroom walls for excursions to various parks on the peninsula enjoying physical education activities in the great outdoors in all grades spark also offered focused instruction to students with disabilities and english language learners ensuring all students had access to the knowledge and skills needed to succeed after a tumultuous year brought on by covett restrictions thousands of newport news public school students who participated in spark received the necessary instruction to keep them on pace to advance to the next grade spark provided students with

020additional classroom lessons to ensure mastery in necessary virginia standards of learning kept students engaged through creative enrichment activities and helped prepare students to transition smoothly to the next grade as they stay on track to graduate college career and citizen ready we are honored tonight to have a former school board member uh and present house of delegates member uh shelley simons in the audience with us and we have uh dr vince bertram for president ceo of project lead the way who uh we're honored to have him present an award to delegate simon's here tonight so uh dr bertram the floor is yours thank you first chairman brown and dr parker and to each member of the school board thank you for the opportunity to be here as a former urban school superintendent and a member of

021the indiana state board of education I greatly admire and appreciate all the work you do and so thank you for that thank you for all you do for our children and teachers across the district you know and projectly the way is the nation's leading provider of stem education computer science biomedical science and engineering and for the past 25 years we have grown to serve nearly 15 000 schools across the u.s millions of children we're proud to be in your school district but I'm also here today and honored to present a special award the pltw legislator of the year award acknowledges and recognizes community leaders in our network of schools who are providing real-world transformative learning experience to ensure students in our schools have the skills they need to thrive throughout their lives and to be

022able to take the jobs that are available in our economy and to grow our communities our regions and our states we also know the legislators play a critical role in making our work easier within our schools and creating the policies that allow us to meet the needs of our children so we think about pre-k 12 educational landscape across the u.s obviously we know things have changed dramatically that's imperative that those who are responsible for making our walls and creating opportunities that prepare students are also recognized with that in mind i'm very excited and proud on behalf of everyone at project lead the way in our thousands of schools to present delegate shelly simons with the plcw legislator of the year award [Applause] school board member community leader of the passion for excellence in education she

023supports the advancement of stem curriculum and active voice of education reform she served in so many different roles and leadership providing the leadership we need to advance this work so shelley we thank you on behalf of all of us at pfw for your commitment to education the great work you do your passion for the needs of our children so with that I'd like to present this award to you wow thank you so much [Applause] and I i wouldn't be so passionate about stem education at the state level if it weren't for my fellow former school board members and the administration of newport news public schools i feel like you you all have been the thought leaders in virginia on stem education the incubator for all kinds of great ideas and please know that I'm up

024in richmond making sure that the policy of the state of virginia matches our aspirations for stem for our kids so thank you [Applause] thank you for coming yes sir all right well during our regular meetings we provide time for the public to address the board these opportunities are scheduled an early part of our agenda and also towards the end of the meeting the school board recognizes that during the pandemics some members of the public may not be able to join us in person as advertised citizens may submit comments via a web form email or voicemail up to 30 minutes prior to a start time of our meeting to be included in the official meeting record for those of you joining us in person the board considers this an opportunity to listen to your comments and

025not respond please understand that we will consider your concerns and get back to you at a later time as you come up we ask that you comply with our three minute time limit once you begin your comments a green light will come on at the end of the day it's over here a yellow light signals that you have 30 seconds remaining and a red light indicates that your time is up as your name is called please come forward and the first card I have tonight is carrie woolen or carrie nolan good evening mr chairman dr parker and members of the board my name is carrie nolan I am a fourth grade teacher here in newport news I come before you tonight to ask that the board consider implementing virtual wednesdays or half day wednesdays for

026the teachers i'm sure I speak for a lot of my fellow colleagues when I say we are getting better out already and it is only october the workload being placed upon us is tremendous we are working well past our contracted hours some examples are late bus duties conferences sst paperwork grading and planning we simply do not have enough time for all of this that is expected of us i realize there are teacher bus driver and substitute shortages but something needs to be done i'm afraid if something is not done the situation of shortages may become worse other districts throughout the commonwealth of virginia have already instituted some of these changes why can't we if you are unable to grant this request at least consider giving us some type of compensation for the extra hours that

027we work beyond our contract hours thank you for your time [Applause] mr nolan next card I have is pam hall good evening my name is pam hall on behalf of the huntington high school alumni association executive board we ask you to stand by your word to keep huntington middle school in its current location and reject the proposal to swap the land with the city thank you thank you miss hole next part I have is uh miss janine basemore good evening i'm danny basemore and most of you are familiar huntington middle school doors are shuttered boarded windows and doors all boarded up the students who had dreams of careers in the arts and the telecommunications are either scattered over the city or being educated in what will become inadequate space in the corridor of heritage high

028school i'm here to remind you that for 10 years this school board has sought funding from the city council for huntington middle school and over and over again being denied while funding is in the cip my opinion is that city officials have required you to agree with a plan for the taking of school property in order to receive funding from the city to rebuild huntington middle school reject the plan they wanted to do away with huntington middle school altogether this is a statement that was not made by any one of you but instead the board has some thinking to do about immediate food solutions but the long-range solution is to work with the city for facility on the huntington site that is a school and or community center with classes athletic fields and other communities

029services named for huntington so there was a systemic plan to do away with huntington forever but thanks to most of you huntington is alive but it's not well thank you thanks to you you made a commitment to replace huntington in the current location remember this document some members find some of you were not here tonight I ask you to honor your signature I ask you to honor your word the city has presented you with a clan that replaces huntington middle school with a recreation center and other resource buildings and moves huntington to lesser space on 28th street the mayor says it's a done deal we say it's not we have been disenfranchised enough ignored enough our community is not an agreement with the plan that the city has presented your funding requests for huntington have

030been denied for years city knows that there is no that there is a need for huntington the feasibility study said so they will continue to delay but ladies and gentlemen do not accept the plan that has been presented honor your commitment we ask that you reject the plan guess what huntington should rise again at 341 orchid avenue i thank you for your time [Applause] next card I have is margaret keator good evening I'm so happy to be with you and to sense the commitment from the community to new produce public schools even though individuals don't always agree with the final decisions of the school board the fact that community communities are here speaking to you and expressing their concerns and giving you input i taught in newport news schools schools many many years ago for

031about 10 years my daughter graduated in 2001 and one of my grandsons graduated in 2018. i had not planned to be to attend school board meetings again I thought I was a grandmother and i was done but I had looked across the state and looked within our own community and realized that all voices need to be heard here um and I just wanted you to know that i truly believe that free public education quality education that is offered by newport news public schools and most of the schools in virginia is a critical part of democracy and we must talk to each other kindly i'm trying to get my heart around something called loving kindness and I just wanted to bring that to you out here tonight i'll be back I probably won't speak again but

032I just want you to know that i support newport's public schools taxpayer my husband said my husband said why are you going to the school board meeting you know we don't have any children there and i've had him on his arm and I said it's probably a doctor coming out of here that's going to look after me in about 10 years and it's probably a nurse a nurse aide that's going to look after me uh and my great-grandchildren are going to need some care from this school system so that's why I'm here so thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you ms keator next card I have is bethany stevenson i'm sorry and uh she just spoke uh miss mary vos bethany stephenson's here okay thank you for letting me speak had a

033little bit of a difficult time getting up here i'm not able to wear a mask and I made that clear and I was met with a lot of difficulty like some of your staff telling me that your policy is that masks are required and there's no exceptions and that's just unacceptable that's not accommodating and whether you know regardless of what you think about masks they are a medical tool and this is my body and no one has the right to force me to do something to my body whether it's a mask or a shot or anything it's my body so i came here tonight to speak on behalf of newport news paris for freedom this past week we witnessed people from all different professions take a stand against medical tyranny and government overreach millions of

034people being fired and forced to quit for not compromising their personal sovereignty body autonomy and god-given rights support paycheck imagine having to choose between protecting your family and providing for your family we cannot guarantee one single person who has received this injection of gene therapy that we are foolishly calling a vaccine will not experience reactions injuries or deaths when clinical trials or clinical trials are currently not going until 2023 and all we have is anecdotal evidence that is worth listening to we should be listening to people and their stories of their real-life experiences people are being hurt and killed by this shot and that is undeniable breakthrough infections are incredibly common and natural immunity proves time and time again to be stronger than synthetic temporary immunity provided with the mrna in therapy we all listened

035to the president's appeal this last week claiming that parents can sleep easier knowing their kids are protected soon when they shot what is approved for the age group 5 to 11. what he doesn't realize is we are not losing sleep over this we are not afraid we are not anxiously awaiting a shock that doesn't protect anyone to be pumped into our healthy children potentially creating problems where none exists the current brutality rate for children under 18 is 0.00 the cdc's on data shows there has been a total of 513 deaths for children under 18 since this started we should be thrilled and thankful that children are seemingly unaffected by this virus and stop projecting adults irrational fears and public health rules on them that are psychologically abusive and teaching them to be afraid of everything

036our kids are scared they're scared of their friends they're scared of the air they're scared of germs they're scared of everything and we're not allowing them to play or be healthy by sheltering and sanitizing everything in sight our children we are doing our uh great disservice to our children under the guise of their safety and it is madness we anticipate there will be pressure on you to require this for students when it gets approved and we know you are in difficult positions and no matter what you do there will be people upset thank i'm sorry your your time has expired oh do you go ahead if you want if you have your last sentence go ahead and say your last okay thank you I just wanted to wrap it up with um you i'm sorry

037I lost my place you you have an opportunity here to stand on the right side of history and I just encourage you to do that and thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is miss mary boss hello I'm mary boss I'm an nnps teacher parent and graduate I'm also a proud member of vcore which is a progressive per-labor caucus of the bda first of all I'd like to express solidarity with heritage high and huntington middle students families and staff after the recent shooting today my comments are focused on the increasing number of school boards across virginia that have recently voted to give their employees additional planning time through a combination of virtual days such as virtual wednesdays early dismissal days such as half day wednesdays or shortened school days in order to

038support overworked teachers and staff who are working long past our contract hours often as a result of school division under staffing and additional expectations on educators during the coveted 19 pandemic the educator shortage is at an all-time high as is teacher and staff burnout and school workers are putting in longer hours than before while working on the front line of a global pandemic for many of us frontline working conditions means hundreds of people packed into buildings that are often not adequately ventilated not through fault of y'all but just from under funding and then also we're serving students who often don't wear their masks correctly and due to the school worker shortage we're working longer hours with less planning time as many of us are covering additional duties like late bus dismissal and serving as a

039substitute teacher to all are part of a classroom when our co-workers are out sick amid the substitute teacher shortage this year many nnps workers are also completing mandatory trainings with two to three hours of coursework per week many of these professional developments are very valuable instructionally I'm in a really great letters training as a elementary teacher it is two to three hours of work each week you know in addition to all our other duties um additional virtual days half days off or short in school day would give teachers and staff sufficient time to complete these important trainings in intense working conditions like these teachers and staff deserve additional unencumbered time to plan hold parent conferences and catch up on paperwork by the way all the options I mentioned do fully comply with sb 1303 which

040is the school reopening bill here are some excerpts from news articles from virginia districts across the state that are already giving their teachers and staff some much needed additional planning time students within roanoke county public schools will begin to have one early dismissal or closed day each week beginning october 15th the move is meant to allow teachers time for planning for differentiated learning and remediation contacting parents working with individual students and offsetting time spent covering for other teachers due to a lack of substitutes starting in october harrisonburg city public school students will have their school days shortened by one hour after a unanimous unanimous vote by the school board their chief academic officer said the shortened school day addresses current challenges the division is facing like increasing coveted 19 cases among teachers thank you for

041your time please consider giving some teachers some unencumbered planning time thank you very much thank you ms boss next speaker is valerie fashion uh good evening um mr chairman brown and mr parker and board members my name is valerie fashion and I'm here today speaking today as an advocate for my grandson and the thousands of newport news public school students that are being left behind educationally because of the reading spelling and math curriculums currently being used students are struggling on the elementary middle and high school levels elementary students are not given any spelling words to study yet they are required to pass a pals spelling test with words they have not studied cannot pronounce or have not seen in their lifetime the eureka math curriculum equates mathematical concepts to stories and focuses on the process

042instead of the answer math is about getting the correct answer math answers have to be exact how do you focus on the process when working in a bank a grocery store or for nasa these businesses require you to be exact dealing with money and solving scientific problems the book and the movie hidden figure shows catherine johnson working on mathematical equations trying to figure out an exact outcome she focused on getting an exact answer thousands of students in elementary middle and high school can reproduce public schools are below the grade level many students do not know their last name they can't write their last name and they ask why they have to write their last they're not on the reading level they can't spell sight words correctly someone can't count money they don't know their multiplication

043tables their handwriting is unreadable they can't sign their name recursive and they cannot tell time use the regular clock how can the students do division problems and fractions if they don't know the modification table also clinical race theory is not being told in any public schools in the united states or virginia you cannot teach what you don't know critical race theory is only tone in law schools this is a method of study for legal scholars critical race theory was a movement initially started at harvard university under professor derek bell in the 1980s other than a few months ago no one ever heard of critical race theory before was brought up as a political issue stop playing around with this non-issue and focus and concentrate on educating our students it is our responsibility to prepare them

044for the future what happened to the textbooks everybody's just using a bunch of papers education is the new currency of the 21st century how will the newport news school district address the below grade level issues of our students what are the guidelines for helping the students get on grade level the curriculum committee should involve your school teachers and select a user-friendly curriculum for our students housing eureka curriculum uh offer thank you for your time thank you mr speaker is james lovett um good afternoon school board and um dr parker and two members uh I like to take my mask down because sometimes my words don't come on clear with this mask okay I have uh two issues that I want to speak to the school board about one issue is about rejecting the plan which

045is played by the city council to put uh hazard middle school mcqueen and orchid avenue I hope you guys reject that um the other thing is uh I spoke to you all a couple months ago about um using the gymnasium in the elementary schools uh when I was coming up back in the 60s we uh used a magruder recreation center which was a grueler uh gymnasium but they called it the recreation center okay and the city got involved they paid people to work the uh the recreation center okay and it helped a lot of us getting in trouble you know we played basketball volleyball you know any type of indoor sports activities uh arts and crafts one of my friends uh joe joe um last name but joe his wife worked at arts and crafts

046uh at uh magruder recreation center um i reject the plan which the city council has opposed to you all for placing huntington middle school on 28th street norfolk avenue hunter middle school should be torn down and revealed a 34-1 orchid evidence um is there anything in the works or on your agenda to help decrease crime in the southeast community district which the school board can get involved in if not I'm a question that stem academy and achieve a dream elementary school booker t elementary john marshall and newsome park elementary schools gymnasium be utilized in the afternoon from 4 30 p.m to 7 30 p.m as an outlet for the young teenagers to participate in the recreational activities in arts and crafts back in the day former magruder elementary school was known as magruder recreation center

047that uh recreation center kept many young teenagers in that part of the southeast community from getting into trouble with the law the project could be in conjunction with the new canoes city council parks and recreation department please consider this proposal thank you mr lovely thank you madam clerk I believe that was my last card are there any additional cards? all right there being no additional cards we do have another opportunity near the end of our meeting for the public to address the board again we want to thank you for your comments this evening we will now move on to section 3 the consent agenda which includes 3.01 minutes from the work session on september 21 21 september 21 2021 3.02 minutes from the regular session meeting on september 21 2021 3.03 minutes from the special

048meeting on september 21 2020 2021 3.04 special closed session on october 5th 2021 3.05 special meeting october 5th 2021. 3.06 financial reports including the revenue report for september 2021 the expense report for september 2021 child nutrition reports for september 2021. 3.07 the personnel report 3.08 budget transfer 3.09 appointments of agents of the board at this time may have a motion to approve the consent agenda as read yes mr chairman I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented thank you madam vice chair is there a second second second by mr hunter any discussion there being non-medical clerk would you please call the roll or mrs cyril's law for this is eamonn or dr best or mr ely for mr brown for motion carry 6-0 and we did have uh the superintendent make a

049personnel recommendation this evening and so I do have a motion tonight to approve this personal recommendation uh yes we do um we have a motion to approve the superintendent's personnel recommendation for ms monique hampton for newport news education foundation director thank you matter is there a second sector second by mr ely any discussion there being none out of corporate please call them mr hunter four mrs earl's law for mrs amen or dr best or mr ely or mr brown or motion carry 6-0 all right so uh mr chairman I'd like to introduce monique hampton that's the newport news uh education foundation director incoming monique would you please stand and welcome this evening and welcome to the newport news uh family here i'll read your bio and then if you have any family or friends here

050you can introduce them as well ms hampton has a bachelor's degree of science from virginia state university and continuing education studies in leadership and organizational behaviors and economics from grand canyon university mrs hammond worked as the development assistant for health sciences health sciences advancement philanthropy in san san diego california the associate director of donor relations and stewardship for depaul university in chicago illinois and she currently is the founder and consultant for hope urban gardens project the brain child organization simply justice for the states of arizona georgia maryland illinois california and virginia so she is a very busy lady and has started her own philanthropic endeavors and we welcome her to the newport news family at this time so ms hampton welcome aboard and uh let's give her a round of applause at this time if

051you've brought any family or friends you'd like to introduce please do so at this time you're welcome do it from there man we can hear good evening everyone thank you so much for having me and my family here today I am here with my lovely ... hampton she actually has been responsible for my foundation and creating a space where education has always been the most important priority in our family all the way from the lunchroom to the boardroom she was involved in my education from k through 12 and beyond and she's here for me today as I move my career to the space that is truly um important and special to me which is connecting partnering with students families and the community and I hope to become advocates for our students in school and and

052more importantly to connect the business community and the families who are responsible for hurting our children through their education process and i couldn't be more happy and more honored to be the foundation director because it is my passion to be able to create funds to create programs and to steward our students and our families and our community in their in our students education career I know one thing that really captivated me when I had a chance to meet with dr parker and the wonderful individuals within the education foundation and on the school board it was their passion for partnering with and connecting people and our students in the new parking school district don't deserve anything but the best they may not know how to get to their dreams they may not know who can help

053them but they know what it is they know what it is that drives them in their education and it's our job and our duty to be able to help steward them and hurt them through that process to get them involved with the community that they one day will be a part of a productive part of and to make sure that they're involved in their education in a way that helps them grow helps them partner with not only their peers but helps them connect with the community that they will become a part of and the strategic plan that dr partner put together that states that the big vision and the mission is to make the students career ready citizen ready and and and college ready I think is and it's a wonderful vision um it's one

054that i caught immediately when I read it it's one that connected to me personally when i had the chance to hear about it from the board and the education foundation and the work that the foundation does really truly just makes my heart beat so it's my it's my goal to make sure that it makes everyone involved with all of our students here in newport news that makes their heart beat as well and it helps them create the best outcomes that they can and it helps us to be able to have all the resources to make sure that they do so so thank you for having me thank you for appointing me I am honored to be here and I can't wait to get started and do the work and I'm sure you will because you

055have a great uh great background we're looking forward to the work in your capacity as the director and our education foundation needs innovation and a shot in the arm to get us going so thank you for joining our team and thank you for coming this evening absolutely thank you and that that concludes the appointments for this evening thank you the next item on our agenda is now section 4 which brings us to our action items uh the first is 4.01 our proposed capital improvement plan uh dr parker you have a presentation mr chairman mr sorenson we'll come back up he uh presented the capital budget to the board at the last board meeting and uh he will be here to answer any questions the board may have prior to considering a vote of approval thank

056you dr parker good afternoon good evening rather mr brown members of the board I am going to walk through the 2023 cip it is the same plan that you saw previously as dr parker pointed out just want to walk there real quick because we are asking for your approval on it this evening so this is the worksheet that uh hopefully looks familiar to you um so let me walk through this real quick so in the left-hand column is the project type with a project name and then there are five years working from left to right 23 through 27. those are the fiscal years and there's a dollar amount representing the estimated cost of each project going across five years of course it is a five year plan uh 2023 the first year is the only

057year in which the city will appropriate funds for projects so if I could just walk down that rather quickly and of course I'll answer any questions you guys have the top third of the worksheet is really what we call our capital maintenance projects hvac roof projects and paving through the course of five years there are six hvac projects nine roofing projects and seven paving projects over five years we're requesting fifty point two are estimating fifty point two million dollars and in the first years twelve point five million dollars in the middle the next third if you will is our renovation replacement section learning cottage replacement i'll come back to that in in just a minute there's 3.6 million dollars over five years so i'm slow down for a second talk about warwick high school and

058denver high school so warwick high school was built in 1968 the enemy was built in 1965. and earlier versions of the cip that we presented to you we had funding back up on the hvac line and the roofing or replacement line for both of those schools for warwick for the two system replacements we had about 19 million dollars we had about 17 million dollars for hvac and roof of replacements in denver so again that was earlier uh cfp versions for this version we're actually approval tonight instead of sinking a substantial amount of money just two systems for older buildings we really want a more comprehensive approach so for warwick high school we're asking for 52.8 million dollars it's 2.8 million dollars and 23 for the design and then 50 for the construction so that 50

059million dollars again instead of we will address roof and hvac and that needs to be done but we also could look at technology systems safety systems electrical plumbing lots of different systems in those schools it will also give us flexibility to prioritize what we want to want to work on to possibly address the facade external side of those buildings maybe touch them in instructional space maybe as an instructional space but again that 50 million dollars for warwick gives us a lot more flexibility it meets our immediate needs of roofing hvac but also we can put money into it and extend the life of those buildings substantially same story for denbigh uh that's a little further down the road in 2026 we're asking for 2.8 million dollars for design and 48 for construction but it's the

060same story it gives us flexibility to address different systems and perhaps the facade and structural space in denver high school as well so I can move down two lines for the buildings in our cip the building section we're asking for 157.4 million dollars over five years and again the first year is 15.3 million dollars not to be excluded from all this talk a lot about buildings but our bus replacements we have a great bus replacement program typically fund about 2 million dollars for bus replacements every year and working across we're asking 14.7 million dollars over five years 2.9 in the first year i will add that we're expecting about 31 buses next month from our fy21 cip and uh so we're really excited to get those in and add to the fleet so going through

061I do want to add the work session there was a request that we make a note that huntington middle school is funded in the city cip indeed it is it's in the cip that the city council approved last month that's why it's not in our budget it's 40 million dollars and also riverside elementary school in earlier editions there was about 5.9 million dollars for of renovation we've taken that out and get redirected some money back towards these renovations i said I'd come back to learning cottage replacements and I will now since we took the money off of the renovation riverside we added six hundred thousand dollars to replace the trailers there in 2026. so that's the cip over five years it's 172.1 million dollars and the first year is 18.2 million dollars and that's before

062we unite for your consideration and just want to walk through the next steps again that's the budget for you tonight there are scheduled uh meetings on the city side the city manager will recommend her cip november 9th then there are different work sessions throughout the winter and into january city council may have four work sessions they may improve it earlier that's really up to them the information that they get and what they're comfortable with when they're comfortable taking action and then at the work session we hear from cooperative strategies we are ongoing working on a long-range facilities master plan all of our facilities so that is the cip and the timeline and I will be glad to attempt to answer any questions you all have thank you mr sorensen so at this time i may

063I have a motion to approve the cip uh yes mr chairman I have a motion to approve the proposed capital improvement plan budget as presented thank you matter of fact second second for mr hunter all right at this time are there any questions from board members prior to uh voting i have just a comment yes yes ma'am uh the comment that I just want to give is thank you all um dr parker and your team for the work that you put in to um present the um cip and also to retool it I think it was retooled very realistically for what we have in front of us and I think it's a it's a nice plan moving forward as we're looking at the schools in our district who need that the attention so thank you

064for that yes yes ms um could you just remind us of we switched on the riverside from the addition to the learning cottages was there a population shift change that drove that or there was there was not a population change it was really looking at our available resources and the needs of our facilities and prioritizing our resources with those needs so we put we kind of put some money in the renovations of the high schools and we thought we could accomplish the same at riverside by replacing the lowering colleges at a cheaper cost in the edition and yeah in addition it still will probably still be needed um in the future and hopefully the master plan that's being developed will outline where to prioritize that we knew that the systems for these buildings that uh

065that we're talking about are though that work is coming up and it just uh it just doesn't make sense to replace a roof and hvac system in a building that needs to be renovated um because you're extending the life of the facility for 30 for 30 years and if cis to other systems need to be upgraded and you're just putting a roof and an hvac in and not improving the instructional space not removing portables putting a new facade to modernize the facility new technology um we're not necessarily uh being best stewards of taxpayer dollars in my opinion so the thought is those are more urgent they have more time is of the essence than that any other any other questions any further discussion are there any amount of clerks please call the roll or mrs

066sSurles-Law or mrs aman or dr best for mr eley for mr brown for motion carry 6-0 all right now we'll move on to section 5 which is our reports and information 5.01 is our monthly school update dr parker thank you mr chairman uh this evening I have uh several staff who will uh come come forward for the uh monthly update uh on our schools uh this evening as typical and and um and has become customary we'll start off with our covet related data and then move into some instructional information that we'd like to share we also have some new information we're going to be sharing with the community tonight um that that will be in this presentation and we'll be in for future communications uh moving forward after this board meeting so at this time

067I will turn it over to staff to begin the presentation I believe uh mrs carlson is uh kicking us off with covet metrics uh mrs carson are you with with us carl yes I'm here okay um we'll turn the podium over you ma'am okay thank you good evening everyone uh thank you for attending uh as you can see our transmission rate for newport news is still in the highest uh transmission level we have 172 cases per 100 000 people with a positivity rate of 7.3 percent uh someone this week had asked me what the positivity rate means and that is the percentage of all covid tests performed that are actually positive and as you can see on the chart we really want to be lower than 5 we're getting there our cases have been going

068down as you can tell on the map there are parts of virginia that are in substantial which of course you know we would rather be moderate or low but there are areas that show hope and again our cases are going down next slide please so currently we have uh 1 249 students who are out on quarantine or isolation and we have 34 staff members uh you know our number for students of course is higher than staff because of the amount of students 12 and under who have not been able to be vaccinated yet next slide please uh one thing that the division is going to participate in is the vista program uh vista stands for virginia school screening testing for assurance we're going uh we we have applied to participate we're waiting to be matched

069up with a vendor uh the vendors are going to come into the schools and do pooled testing of any student or staff member with a signed consent form who's agreed to participate in this with the idea of identifying asymptomatic covid cases to help contain outbreaks this will be one additional mitigation strategy that we will be using uh combining that with our masking vaccinations and physical distancing we plan to start using it in our high impact schools and we would like to also test students involved in extracurricular activities and events such as students who are participating in sports students who are in band chorus show choir things like that again any student or staff member may opt into the program we will have a consent form that will be going home with all students and again

070it will be voluntary with the completed consent form uh next slide please so again like I said this will be done with vendors that will be matched to newport news by the virginia department of health the virginia department of education is partnering with vdh and part of that will be to provide funding for us to purchase supplies that we would need and to hire additional staffing to assist with this we are looking to hire a testing coordinator to assist with managing this in our schools and we will provide the criteria for student testing which I had mentioned earlier coordination of the consent forms will offer a space for testing we will continue to implement the mitigation guidance and we will report positive tests as necessary another important part of this of course will be contact

071tracing that is currently taking place in all of our buildings by our nurses our clinic assistants and by our health services contact tracers who have been hired to assist us with this important task next slide please like I said vendors will do the coveted testing for us the swab test will be submitted as a pool what that means is that there will be a pool of students and or staff that may consist of 10 tests that will be submitted together and that tool will be tested if the pool test comes back negative nothing else needs to take place however if one if the pool excuse me tests positive then either each participant will be retested or I learned today depending on what vendor we use and what lab runs the tests for us they may

072be able to use the pooled samples to identify the individual person who tested positive and if when that occurs like I said those result results will be reported and contact tracing will take place next slide please uh this is something new that I think hopefully will make quite a few people happy starting immediately tomorrow newport news will shorten its quarantined protocol for unvaccinated students and staff from 14 days to 10 days so how that is going to affect all of us is anyone who has been identified as a close contact of a positive covid case will now quarantine for 10 days or if a person has been tested for excuse me for covid they will remain home waiting for that test result to come back and of course they will isolate for 10 days still

073and like I said unvaccinated individuals will quarantine for 10 days anyone vaccinated doesn't consider fully vaccinated does not have to quarantine and anyone who has tested positive within the last 90 days also would not have to quarantine according to the cdc guidance another thing that has recently changed with the cdc is anyone who is considered a close contact isn't whether vaccinated or unvaccinated is encouraged and recommended to receive a covid test at day five to seven after their last exposure to the positive person next slide please that's the end of my presentation does anyone have any questions mr ethan I have one question sure turn around test for the testing oh the turnaround time uh for is 24 hours thank you you're welcome thank you for your presentation quick question um I got a couple

074calls from a couple parents over the top of the school being open saying that their children were quarantined and then took the test and the tests come back negative but they still required to quarantine for a total of 10 days and the parents stated to me that the children knew if they went to the nurse with these complaints that they would be sitting home for quarantine and she said she found out she had four kids home in all negative tests in the school say they can come back to after their quarantine period was over well if if it's somebody if it's a student that has been telling who is symptomatic for covid19 then and they do not have a known exposure that student may receive a negative test or an alternative diagnosis from their medical

075provider and they may return to school again that's someone who may have provided based on one or two symptoms now for quarantining we have changed that from 14 days to 10 days and we're not offering the option of testing out of quarantine and that is confusing to people but again if if it's a child who has covid-like symptoms without a known exposure they may return with a negative test or with an alternative diagnosis from their medical provider thank you so much you're welcome so I'm just trying to get my arms around these these two so if you are close contact you cannot test out of quarantine even if you get a negative test five to seven days after your exposure correct correct no we we are not doing that at this time but if you

076were symptomatic and sent home you could come back with a negative test correct okay the reason behind that is the the science on being a close contact and quarantining 14 days which was what we had been doing prior to starting tomorrow is when a person could then test positives for uh covid and the fourth I and I know it's confusing the 14 days being longer than how long a person who actually has covid has to stay out but it's based on the incubation time and again when somebody could then test positive for covid and we have had that happen okay um and then my other question going back to the group testing the pool testing um it almost it seems redundant I don't know if any student would want to be tested twice two days

077apart um is there any way we can def can request or get with a partner to you know if they're pulling ten tests to identify it so we don't have to put the kids through two sets of tests or what would cause us to do a pooled test the pool testing is what the vista program is offering for uh schools in virginia to offer covid testing if it's a more cost effective manner at running the tests it's more cost effective to run one large pool then again and I'm not sure what the number of tests will be included in a pool I think it's 15. people can run one then to run 10. yeah I think it's 15 at a pool okay thank you and and and and just so just be aware the um

078there are stipulations to receiving the funding from vista for this one is we have to do the uh consent to the pool testing and the other is diagnostic testing of some of some nature so you have to have those two you have to submit because you can't say oh well we'll take your money but we'll just do this that we actually have to participate fully in the program uh to receive the funding that's available to us to be assigned a vendor the funding necessary to hire staff to run the testing program those types of things so is that something that the opt-in will be once and it's good for the year or can parents if they choose to pull the kids out of the consent how will that work uh the testing coordinator will ultimately

079be over the whole program however each school nurse will be involved in it and assisting with the consent form so if a parent notified the school nurse and said i no longer want nancy to participate in the pool of testing than that consent would be pulled and nancy wouldn't wouldn't participate in the pool testing any longer and uh the uh the other news that we wanted to share just uh just once um i know everyone's anxiously awaiting the approval of testing for um vaccinations for students 5 ages 5 through 11. I just received a report from the vdh yesterday that by the end of the month or early november they expect to have that um emergency authorization through so we should be hearing information uh no later in early november about uh getting up and

080running with with some level of vaccinations for ages five through eleven so that time is coming soon um again this testing program here is for asymptomatic folks and even vaccinated individuals who are asymptomatic maybe maybe um may test positive so that we believe that pool testing will allow us to maintain a safer environment it's just another mitigation strategy to ensure that we can maintain a healthy environment um it's very important at the elementary levels right now that we do some some something like this because they don't have any access to a vaccine and do we envision this being like a one and done are they gonna like if you would if you consent to the pool are you looking at doing it like every week or every other week what's the commitment there yeah we

081would determine our pools and the idea is to test weekly in order to capture someone who could possibly be asymptomatic okay and will that be made clear yeah in the concern once we have a vendor once we have the vendor assigned we have to develop an mou with that vendor where we'll put in the details of what our testing program will entail and what our communication plan will be so right now we're waiting for that vendor to be assigned and then we'll be in the development stage for the mlu um so with this new testing process children that don't have access to health care if their parents want to get contested when the school system being able to what that parent may be saying hey I want to get my child tested well they definitely

082would have access through this program to some level of testing depending on whether it's pool testing or diagnostic um so I guess how we develop the mou and what's the availability of test kits um which is something else this program provides they provide individual test kits that you can take home uh we're waiting for our first supply of those so this question is yes because we'll have to test we'll have tests access to healthcare so I want to make sure just because I don't have insurance right don't have that access if I feel like my child is supposed to go there they still have the ability to still get tested right then and then you know they're not put off to the side my second question is they're possible that we can get a some

083data on how many schools have their current team as far as the schools we have how many schools have quarantined from highest levels to lowest level possible we uh we have that because we looked at this before moving to 10 days we looked at our region regional school divisions because they're working with some of the same health departments and some all health departments are not the same so I mean they're across the state they have their own localities after health departments some are sticking very sternly with the 14 days which is which is the which is the optimal and then some have relaxed the 10 based on cdc guidance no no my question was can I get a list of as far as our schools we have in our division which schools have quarantined the

084most from just going on the demographics like say for instance um discovery stem compared to denbigh early childhood the school comparison yes school comparisons of what schools have quarantined I think we we have that data on our correctness products yeah we have that data okay absolutely thank you so much you're welcome any other questions all right I'll just make one um one comment just for the parents that have contacted me the the nuance point of symptom called symptomatic covid as you described that I get it within five or seven days negative testing come back to school versus contact tracing covid quarantine I'm at home for 10 days regardless that that nuance is lost on at least the parents that have contacted me and been complaining that's been one of the number one complaints is that

085I don't understand I got a negative test why can't my kid come back to school so just if there's posters or something we can change on the website an orientation we can give to parents to help them understand this difference that that would cut down on probably cut down a number of the complaints that we're getting right now I agree it is it is confusing so I do agree all right thank you you're welcome so the next item we'll move on with our academic and I think we have an assessment update with dr mclemont oh I'm sorry dr gerald's here good evening um cheer around Surles-Law board members dr parker and our employees community thanks for the opportunity to share updates related to our newport news public schools assessment plan and I would like to

086start our presentation this evening by reviewing the us department of education accountability in the virginia department of education accreditation timelines that you have seen previously in previous presentations due to the impact of extended school closure adjustments were made to the federal accountability and state of accreditation measures state accreditation was waived for the 2021 and 2021-2022 school years due to extended school closure state accreditation resumes in the 2022-2023 school year and this accreditation is based on school quality data measures that are gathered during this current school year this information the information gathered during the previous school year 2020 sorry all the 20s get me every time 2020 2021 school year serves as a baseline for our work moving forward and was not used to calculate accreditation for the current school year which was waived by the

087virginia department of education this data will be used moving forward as a baseline for our work and will also be used for calculating growth in accreditation measures thank you our focus remains on providing each learner with quality instruction that is informed by timely and relevant data quite simply put we're focused on student growth the virginia department of education is requiring the administration of the student growth assessment for students in grades three through eight pals for students in grades k through two and vkrp for our kindergarten learners newport news public schools is supporting the identification of unfinished learning through diagnostic assessments such as the reading inventory which measures students reading ability and development while the math inventory will be used to measure what students are ready to learn during their mathematics instruction though there is expertise

088in assessment and data at the division and state level level nothing can replace the expertise of our instructional staff that works with learners daily in gathering data that is formative in nature to inform their work we will work to combine the data points to identify supports and resources necessary to address unfinished learning and the disproportionate impact of school closure on our most vulnerable learners nnps has committed to keeping instructional time our priority and is in the process of administering assessments for the first marking period sorry the first marking theory of the 21-22 school year is well underway and we're in the process of analyzing the data that will be used to inform our work and our community the calendar presented outlines the required assessments for the first marking period i would like to take time

089to thank the newport news public schools assessment committee this group committed to the challenging work of developing a balanced assessment plan that places value on diagnostic informative assessments over repeated summative assessments much like we visit the doctor diagnostic assessments provide relevant data along the way to inform instructional decisions distribution of supports and allocation of resources next with our assessment window closing in the coming weeks you can expect a report on our progress at the next board meeting and the mid-year update on our strategic plan journey 2025. thank you for allowing me to provide you with a brief overview of our work thus far and I'm happy to take any questions that you may have at this time or receive any feedback you might have regarding our plan thus far all right any questions all right

090thank you dr darrell thank you mr chairman as part of our update for the board in the community this evening we've had several meetings on school re-entry planning and safety planning for heritage high school and huntington middle school so tonight we'll just go ahead and brief the board and the community on our updated plan and activities related to the re-entry of students and staff to to both of those schools and with us is dr barnett and dr blowe to provide that update good evening chairman brown madame vice chair searles law members of the school board dr parker and the newport news public school community we like to provide several updates to you regarding the huntington middle school and heritage high school re-entry safety plan as previously shared various division school and community stakeholders have collaborated

091over the past few weeks to develop a re-entry safety plan and proposed timeline for return for the huntington and heritage school communities the following components are included in the plan six security officers are assigned to heritage high school and one security officer is in place for huntington middle school additionally a dedicated newport news police department school resource officer is assigned to the heritage and huntington campus upon student return there will be increased safety searches with metal detection as well as safety drills conducted on the campus staff will be provided the opportunity to participate in a series of safety trainings including the citizen response to active shooter events training as well as safe school emergency situation modules each school's administration team in collaboration with professional school counselors and student support specialists will facilitate student town halls

092and morning meetings to review safety procedures anonymous reporting tools and provide students opportunity for discussion and input finally all staff and student wellness supports will continue to be provided through the newport news public schools office of student advancement and now at this time dr eleanor blowe will share our proposed timeline for return good evening displayed on the screen is the timeline for re-entry of heritage and huntington staff and students following our previous school board meeting the fall sports did resume and other activities such as band when the students returned for these activities we did have members of the student advancement crisis team present to support our students as they returned for these activities on october the 11th faculty meetings were held with both heritage and huntington staff members to inform them of their return to

093in-building teaching beginning on october the 14th again members of the student advancement crisis team were present to provide supports for our staff members as they re-acclimated to being back in the building on the campus today october 19th the final final plan is being released with a follow-up virtual town hall meeting to be held tomorrow evening october 20th at 6 30 pm to view the town hall meeting heritage and huntington families should check their email as they have received the link via email or they can go to the heritage or huntington websites and in the news and announcement section there is a link to join the town hall meeting there will be dr parker along with other guests will be present for this town hall meeting prior to students returning to school each school will host

094a family open house scheduled for october 21st for huntington and october 25th for heritage as outlined in the re-entry safety plan we have staggered the return of students to the building with huntington students returning for full-day in-person instruction beginning on october 25th and heritage students will return for full day in-person instruction beginning on october 27th again we would like to take this opportunity to thank all who worked with us to develop and implement this re-entry plan for heritage in huntington this is the work of several departments in newport news public schools the news police department and the newport news emergency operations management center we are appreciative of their assistance and work for newport news public schools and we look forward to the return of our heritage and huntington students for in-person learning thank you are

095there any questions yes miss aman um if anyone cannot make the virtual town hall on the 20th will that be recorded so they can watch it later like if they're working tomorrow evening or something it is a webinar so yes we can record it yes mr eley thank you so much great presentation um if a child is traumatized from the events that happened at heritage high school and plan to not attend what would be the options for that child well what we we do have in place various supports provided by our student advancement system so our first response will be to make sure that we're providing those supports for mental wellness for that student and his or her family we will look at each individual case but it is our goal to have our students

096return back and we hope that through our open houses and our opportunities for families to talk with teachers and with the administration there that they will feel safe and comfortable to return back we put a lot of work into making sure that we have everything prepared for our students for in-person learning but we have a variety of supports not only for staff and for students so that would be our first option to try to support that student through some mental and social emotional wellness support but there are options for that for that child if they choose I've experienced a ps pstd I can't go back to school right now they've been seeing therapists so there are options for that child if you had that level of um concern with that we were treated within like

097any other student who has a um anxiety issue in our schools and then there and we do have students who have anxiety problems those types of things obviously the first job is to make sure that our our mental health support is offered the second would be a student support team meeting would probably be held with the family and then also we would we would also encourage that family to seek some medical support or get a medical diagnosis for that anxiety which would allow us to provide something like home-based services so there's a process for getting to that level of service um and if we have any students who who meet that standard then we would definitely provide the supports necessary I just want to make sure we that it's clear that it is an option

098I know it's not for every child but like I said I was at the reason why I asked that question was at the grocery store two days ago my lady grandmother came up to me saying my daughter experienced the ptsd I actually did you call the hotline we have wraparound services 24 hours we're partnering with csb so she said I don't know I said well you know talk with your school approximately your school administrators and then make the best decision for you I said but I can't answer that question so that's what I wanted to actually hear tonight just because she said she'd be watching would there be options for her child so thank you so much dr parker for the presentation all right any other questions all right thank you thank you thank you

099so that concludes the report for this evening okay so that will move us on to 5.02 which is our new revised policies and procedures thank you good evening mr chairman banner vice chairman members of board dr parker it's a pleasure to share highlights from five new and revised policies and procedures with you this evening as you know one of the major roles and I'd better wait for my support one of the major roles of the school board is to set the policy direction for the school division so we're fortunate to have two board members on the policy committee dr best and mrs aman along with a principal from each level administrators from the department of teaching and learning in the office of school leadership a teacher to attorneys and myself as the policy administrator this

100evening I'd like to share new and revised policies and procedures for review in two groups first are the policies that we are developing to support best practices in the school division and second are those that are required by new state legislation and as most of you are aware we typically begin each policy year by revising our current policies or developing new ones to ensure that we meet the most recent mandates this first group of policies are not required by law but work to support best practices in the school division they include a proposed revision to our current student safety policy and a new procedure that describes our layered approach to school safety a new policy and procedure on cyber security which is very timely since october is cyber security awareness month and revision star policies

101and procedures regarding the rent the rental of school facilities and grounds along with the use of todd stadium now at your special meeting a couple of weeks ago I share revisions that we are proposing to our current policy on student safety to reinforce our commitment to maintain a safe environment every day for our students throughout the school division so we are revising our current policy on student safety to add the school divisions multi-faceted layer approach that involves developing appropriate relationships within buildings and among staff and students ensuring consistent behavioral expectations from students by consistently applying the student code of conduct developing well-structured staff student and family reporting mechanisms controlling and monitoring building access using various safety drills required by state law and maintaining a safe physical environment at all of our schools now this layered

102approach to school safety forms the new procedure to the policy as a framework for school division and community resources working systematically to create positive school environments to support student well-being to prevent school violence and to protect the school community through effective security measures and preparedness planning now the layers in the framework will be reviewed each year and updated as needed to reflect lessons learned and best practices research from other school divisions particularly in our surrounding communities the new procedure pulls all of our safety measures together in one place and begins by re-referencing the crisis management plan for each school and our division-wide emergency operations plan the school plans serve as an operating guide for a wide range of emergencies and responses that are specific to each school's unique characteristics the plans are audited and practiced

103throughout the school year the new procedure also acknowledges that there are internal processes and guidance documents throughout the school division that work to implement the 12 components or layers of our school safety framework the framework is the major focus of the procedure which includes a summary of each of the 12 measures that are deployed in our schools and here is a visual representation of the school safety framework that was shared with your special meeting earlier this month it involves a layered network of safety measures that work together to ensure student safety at all of our schools and dr parker spoke to each of these 12 components at your last meeting so to briefly summarize the framework consists of student behavior expectations student adult relationships anonymous reporting safety drills and procedures controlled building access physical school

104security video surveillance visitor access control random and required searches social media monitoring and community reporting and communications we know that no one safety measure is capable of maintaining a safe school environment for a sustained period of time so a focus on consistency and training is necessary to ensure effectiveness over time which is a part of the school safety network as well and again a summary of each component is provided in the procedure and lastly the student safety policy was updated to require the superintendent to post the procedure or safety framework annually and to allow the community the opportunity to review the document and to provide input our next policy addresses cyber security and as I mentioned earlier the timing was perfect to propose a new policy and procedure given that october is cyber security awareness

105month the policy focuses on the school division's commitment to protect the school division's digital assets such as our network our computers our data and staff and student privacy against growing security threats through a comprehensive and robust cyber security program adopting a policy would also address concerns that are raised by our auditors and insurance underwriters who encouraged us to have a division-wide policy to protect our digital systems and resources now the cyber security procedure works to pro protect our digital programs by leveraging widely accepted and efficient security practices that include first designating an information security officer to develop maintain and manage the school division cyber security program second establish user account access requirements for staff and students through password management and a multi-step login process to ensure that individuals are authorized users third developing and implementing

106data privacy standards for storing sensitive information fourth formalizing incidents response plans to protect against the loss of confidential information or school division intellectual property and last implementing school division best practices to advance their staff awareness and training programs around basic data security practices now the key change to our next policy which is on the community use of school facility moves the management of school building rentals from the business office to the office of school leadership so our principals can play a larger role in the initial vetting process we also took the opportunity to review the rental fee schedule which did not have a fee listed for using school grounds and fields so we added a fee that was aligned to the rental of the todd stadium grounds that was already in place and lastly to

107make the rental documents more reader friendly we move the fee schedule from the policies procedure to form a new exhibit now while the application form torrent taught stadium or the surrounding grounds will continue to be obtained by the office of athletics and driver education for their initial review the office of school leadership will now manage that approval process as well so we revise the policy and procedure to reflect that change and our last policy this evening that we will reviewing is on the prohibition of abusive work environments and we are revising the policy as a result of recent state legislation you may recall that a couple of years ago the school board adopted a policy that prohibits abusive work environments and supports productive and positive work environments for all staff the state code recently required

108school divisions to add four definitions to their current policy so to comply we revised our policy to add the four required definitions and we took those directly from the state code and they are regarding abuse of conduct abuse of work environment physical harm and psychological harm so as I conclude my report this evening I just wanted to revisit our timeline for implementing the five-year review of our 11 policy chapters that contain over 400 policies many of which also have implementing procedures and exhibits so as we continue to develop or update the policies that may be required by state and federal law or those that support the school divisions best practices we will also initiate the review of our next policy chapter which will be on instruction so in terms of our next steps the new

109and revised policies will come before the school board for action at your november 16th meeting and once approved the new and revised policies procedures and exhibits will be posted on school division websites and disseminated to all schools and public libraries so this concludes my report this evening I will be happy to answer your questions thank you all right any questions at this time all right thank you mr thanks thank you and now we'll move on to item 5.04 our bullying prevention month update oh sorry 5.03 our school renaming update not to be not to be forgotten no it's okay I'll keep my uh report down to about an hour good evening chairman brown vice chair charles law board members and dr parker this evening on behalf of the planning team I will present an update

110on our school renaming process special assistant to the superintendent tracy brooks our director of community relations michelle price director of legal services len wallen and I serve on the planning team for this process and we've had the pleasure of serving with our dedicated members of the diversity and inclusion task force around this work you know during the summer of 2020 the school board asked the superintendent to take a look at this topic which school names potentially do not reflect the current nps values of inclusion and diversity the planning group conducted some research and identified several names that warranted further study then we placed our school these school names and schools into tiers during the august 2020 school board meeting we presented our research and the tiers on september 15th the school board voted to proceed

111with renaming schools in tier one you can see the schools here they've been renamed epes nelson lee hall and dozier middle school following the school board vote on the tier one schools dr parker created a community-based task force to guide the renaming process the task force held his first meeting in november and quickly jumped into the important work of drafting school renaming criteria that was presented to the superintendent and school board after your approval of the new naming and renaming policy the task was worked collaboratively to develop a process to solicit school names from the community review the nominations and narrow the list of suggested names during the meeting in may of 2021 the school board voted to approve the superintendent's recommendations and you can see the name changes here epps elementary school is now

112stony run elementary lee hall elementary school is now katherine johnson elementary nelson elementary school is now norwood meadows elementary and dozier middle school is now ella fitzgerald middle school so we've been busy our staff in our plant services and community relations departments work with our sign vendors to design and update school marquees and the cast aluminum letters on our school buildings you can see pictures here our school administrators also work with plant services to update and replace all of all the other references of the former names to include murals benches and other signage throughout the building and and that all happened at the beginning of the year and happened close to the end of september actually school leaders are working with their communities and a lot of this has been completed you can see that

113we have some new logos here on the screen and we've also worked to make sure letterhead envelopes printed materials and websites have been updated also we've had a number of ribbon cutting ceremonies and uh one of the most recent ceremonies uh to unveil a new mascot was the ella fitzgerald jazz I thought that was very neat and exciting and actually uh board chairman brown mentioned that he was able to see that and take a part in that so to update you on our task force subcommittee recommendation our most recent recommendation I have our historian here mrs mary kay from the city of newport news historical site will present a new and additional research because we have recommended we are recommending excuse me moving john marshall early learning center into tier two mary kay good I

114think we all know who john marshall was - the third chief justice of the united states a lot of the newport news schools were named for well-known u.s citizens presidents primarily marshall is an exception so I'm not going to go through all the whys and wherefores of his degrees and what he did with his life but I'm going to address specifically his views on slavery because that is the issue at hand marshall believed that slavery was an evil and he opposed slave trade however he owned slaves most of his life and he had reservations about large-scale emancipation in part because he feared that a large number of free blacks might rise up in revolution with that in mind marshall favored instead sending free blacks to africa and he founded the virginia chapter of the american

115colonization society to further that goal during the 1790s he was involved in a few cases in which he represented slaves pro bono often trying to win the freedom of mixed-race individuals in fact in one case robert pleasants who he represented was to emancipate about 400 slaves marshall won the case but the court's holding was later reversed in 1825 as chief justice marshall wrote an opinion in the case of the captured slave ship antelope in which he acknowledged that slavery was against national law natural law but upheld the continued enslavement of approximately one third of the ship's cargo although the remainder were to be sent to liberia in his last will and testament marshall gave his elderly man-servant the choice either of freedom and travel to liberia or continued enslavement under his choice of marshall's children

116and that was a question of that particularly interested me and I could not find out what this particular individual decided to do in any case marshall's biographer john richard paul wrote that marshall owned between 16 and seven household slaves at various points in his life they declined as he aged research by another historian paul frenkelman however reveals that marshall may have owned hundreds of slaves engaging in the buying and selling of slaves throughout his life and this particular individual also suggested that marshall's substantive slave holdings may have influenced him to render judicial decisions in ... in favor of slave holders any questions on the board all right thank you thank you mary kay for the history behind the former chief justice john marshall and our so our next steps are we will be engaging our

117full diversity inclusion task force on the review process that we we have in place and then we will be coming back with a recommendation for our superintendent dr george parker on how to move forward with john marshall early childhood in addition we will continue to do the work some of what we've done the past year and a half regards to schools in tier two and tier three so thank you for allowing us to provide an update and if there are any questions I'll be happy to answer any of those right now all right any other questions on the board all right I'll just ask one question which is uh once the committee finishes his work when what's the anticipated time that the committee will come back to the board to make a presentation well we'll

118definitely in in planning for november I'll touch base with dr parker on our reports how many reports we have you know we're very particular about uh respecting everyone's time so we'll leave that up to dr parker based on that so either november or maybe december okay okay all right thank you so much thank you mr wright all right now we're on to 5.04 bullying prevention month good evening good evening to you chairman brown vice chair of mrs surles law board members dr parker and to all of our wonderful students staff and families that are watching tonight as you know great things are always happening in newport news public schools youth development tonight I have the privilege of providing to you the annual update on bullying prevention efforts across our school division and the community oh

119I guess I should play thank you thank you we'll start tonight by reflecting on our intentional and proactive approach to positive youth development and how it supports the newport news public schools journey 2025 strategic plan next I will provide a brief update on our stand campaign and finally we will review the newport news public schools bullying prevention interventions and protocols it's always good to start with the end in mind the newport news public schools journey 2025 strategic plan includes strategic supports that are closely aligned with our youth development work especially in the areas of student success student and staff wellness and enhanced partnerships I would like to take a few minutes just to highlight how an intentional focus in these three areas really guides our work including in the area of bullying prevention so while

120we have the systems and processes in place to respond to bullying our proactive positive youth development strategies which are designed to promote positive experiences relationships and environments for all of our students remains our primary offensive strategy for discouraging bullying and harassing behaviors in our school community an integral part of the newport news public schools journey 2025 strategic plan is the profile of a learner which envisions that every newport news public school student becomes an emotionally intelligent academically prepared leader who is also a resilient equity-minded and reflective innovator positive youth development strategies that intentionally build skills and traits in students like resilience positive identity and self-regulation which create opportunities for students to lead serve and contribute that work to ensure that every student has at least one healthy relationship with a nurturing adult and also strategies

121that make our schools emotionally and socially safe and which foster belong in membership advance our efforts to ensure that students embody the profile of a learner in other words positive youth development produces the profile of a learner and positive youth development continues to be our proactive approach to preventing bullying and harassing behaviors in newport news public schools as you may know the month of october is stan month which is also recognized as national and world bullying prevention month I'm excited to point out that this is the fifth year of the newport news public schools stand campaign so over the past five years the stand campaign has focused on empowering students to lead the bullying prevention efforts in newport news public schools and all there is although there is a special emphasis on bullying prevention in

122the month of october focused awareness activities that promote kindness community and student belonging and membership are conducted daily in our schools throughout the year our students staff and the community continually work together to increase awareness about the kind of school community we want to have the number of schools that now apply each year for the coveted stand award has grown tremendously with many schools committing to a continuous year-round focus on stand principles sand also engages community partners who create extraordinary leadership and service opportunities which build skills in our students and I wanted to point out that ms hampton was one of our guest speakers for our women in stem night so good to see you welcome to newport news public schools even in the midst of school closings our schools continue to offer virtual clubs

123and activities as well as a daily focus on social and emotional learning strategies designed to help students develop and maintain positive relationships it's important to point out that our department has accomplished none of these things alone in addition to our students our youth development leads activities and athletic directors school leaders and other school staff have made positive youth development a priority and I personally am grateful for that other newport news public schools departments such as student advancement and even some of our community partners stand with us regularly in creating opportunities for youth development focused staff development we are also very fortunate to have a number of community partners who work with us to increase opportunities for students to improve our skills as youth developers and to extend the reach of our youth development work beyond

124our school walls the cnu center for community engagement continually partners with us to connect cnu students with volunteer opportunities in our schools and the university of virginia youth next center to promote effective youth development meets with us regularly to keep us abreast of the most current research and evidence-based positive youth development strategies over the summer we partnered with a number of youth serving newport news organizations such as newport news parks and recreation the boys and girls club and the newport news police department community youth outreach department to form the newport news youth collective and we're really excited about this group the purpose of the group is really to assign our work to align our work as youth developers to synchronize our calendars and to make to be better advocates for students to empower them and

125to meet the needs of all youth who live in the city of newport news and as always a number of our churches and other faith-based organizations consistently support our youth development efforts because of this support we are able to offer the experiences you can find outlined in the 2021-2022 stand calendar which is available on the newport news public schools bullying prevention webpage we encourage all students families and the community to participate in the remaining recognition activities although we have a continual focus on creating positive culture in our schools when bullying does occur our school staff follows a standard resolution process whenever we receive a report of bullying our bullying reporting and resolution flow chart provides clarity for all stakeholders on how to process a report of bullying behavior when a report of bullying is received

126our practice is that the parent or guardian of all students involved are contacted and an investigation is done often what is reported is a form of conflict that cannot be categorized as bullying bullying by definition is an offense that is one aggressive and unwanted two repeated over time and three occurs when there is a real or perceived power imbalance such as height size popularity socioeconomic status so we often have to review these characteristics of bullying to help students parents and others differentiate between what is bullying versus a matter of conflict between students for example a student may be teased in class one day by another student these students have never had a problem but one of them goes home and tells the parent that he was bullied the parent makes a report we take the

127report and investigate it determine if it was bullying and then the designated school administrator makes a decision about how to proceed if it is not bullying the administrator will determine what the necessary step should be to address the conflict which may or may not result in discipline if it is bullying a discipline referral is created and we follow division policy if it is a crime we contact law enforcement if not we determine the appropriate action for that situation both parents are always included in the effort to resolve the issue there thereafter all involved students are subsequently contacted to ensure that the bullying report has been resolved in addition to informing staff each year students and families receive information about bullying interventions and prevention protocols in the student rights and responsibilities handbook which includes definitions examples

128and ways to report bullying students families staff and the community can report bullying harassment and other serious concerns anonymously 24 days a week seven days a week via web form email phone or text message in addition to reporting systems there are multiple ways in which we gain insight including student surveys and informal feedback this chart shows the the three-year trend of the total number of bullying incidents reported in our student information system as you can see there has been a consistent decline in bullying reports from 89 incidents in 1819 to 35 during the 1920 school year and I should point out that that the 1920 counts are reflect only 119 days of reporting and then finally just one report in the student information system for the past year the national center of education statistics reported

129a six percent reduction over the past 10 years in bullying in the percentage of 12 to 18 year old students who reported bullying in school so with the closing of schools and 100 of students attending school online some were concerned that reports of cyber bullying would increase but several national studies have demonstrated demonstrated that that actually has not been the case these graphics also show the number of reports of bullying by type that have been captured in our student information system and in keeping with national trends the highest percent of reported bullying is consistently among middle school students which is why we have such great empowerment programs and social emotional learning opportunities for our students at the middle school level before I close and receive any questions you may have I would like to invite

130you to participate in a very special stand month closing activity on friday october 29th we invite all school board members to join other community partners and other special guests for stand together in read day you'll have an opportunity to read specially selected books on bullying positive identity and community to our students in grades k through 12. really k through 5. we will definitely follow up with you and hope that your schedule will allow you to join us that concludes my report for this evening I want to thank you for your time and I welcome any questions that you may have any questions from the board all right thank you thank you and now we will move on to 5.05 the attendance report 5.06 the membership report 5.07 construction report or members you've received copies of

131these reports are there any questions the superintendent okay hearing none then we're on a 5.08 comments by the superintendent dr parker thank you mr chairman I'll start by thanking our staff for uh such a wonderful job they um pulling reports we all know how the year can get busy but they really get put a lot of attention to detail to the information that they share with the board and community so I'd like to start with by thanking them for that um and thanking our speakers who came in this evening to share information and their thoughts around our education for our students um one of the things that things that was brought forward brought to my attention recently when speaking to a former superintendent a long-standing superintendent was that uh no matter what the meetings are

132interviews he likes to he always look for for individuals to speak to students and if students were not at the forefront of conversation sometimes especially in public education uh sometimes we may be um a little astray in in our thinking so I know we have a lot of business items on the agenda and we think about a lot of things but I just want to mention it on the dais that we we commit ourselves to making sure that the decisions we make are in the best interest of students and and I always ask my staff to make to reflect on that as we move forward with anything that we do so this evening I'd like to also acknowledge the work of our student advance our student youth development team for the for always putting the

133work of students and encouraging the student culture to be alive in newport news in such a wonderful way whether it's bullying whether it's student health and other assets of aspects of their lives we want to make sure our students are first and foremost in our decision making so with that being said I'll share a few comments mr chairman and I just want to make sure I did say students tonight on the diets and I'm going to make that a a habit moving forward I will start my comments by sharing some good news this evening I won newport news public schools on-time graduation rate increased to 94.5 with the class of 2021 and that's uh continues to be higher than the state average and we obviously owe that work to a lot of individuals in our

134school division who are working with our students the class of 2021 faced the unexpected closure of schools during their junior year and successfully adapted to virtual and hybrid learning in their senior year to complete their graduation requirements we're proud of the class of 2021 we missed them already and our graduates are a testament to the hard work dedication and perseverance of our students so congratulations to our students and the newport news team newport news public schools was recently awarded a 1.6 million dollar grant from the department of defense education activity the grant will expand our dual language immersion program to the to students at denby early childhood center and katherine johnson elementary school students in the program will be taught english and spanish in their content areas the grant gives us the opportunity to add

135dual language classes in the northern end of our city and dual immersion instruction is currently offered at watkins early childhood center saunders elementary and gildersleeve middle school this month is national principles appreciation month and on behalf of newport news I'd like to thank our principals and assistant principals for their commitment to to students and staff as a former principal myself I know firsthand how challenging and rewarding the job of being a principal uh can be so special thanks to our principals for the for the work that they do and our system principles for the work they do in our school division october is also disability history and awareness month throughout the school division we're encouraging and celebrating the contributions in history of people with disabilities and increasing public awareness and rights of people with disabilities

136please visit our website for a variety of resources to celebrate and recognize disability history and awareness month this is a national school bus safety week and tomorrow a school bus transf and tomorrow is school bus transportation employees appreciation day and we can also say that after this the start of this year that we need to thank every transportation person we find uh and and future transportation person we find uh with the uh shortage of bus drivers that we have so we really appreciate the hard work our drivers have done and uh and also the work of the the leadership in transportation and smoothing out some of our transportation routes since the start of the school year I want to acknowledge and thank the professional dedicated staff and in our transportation department uh they support our

137students in a unique way and in our school division as a whole and finally I'd like to remind all students and parents that schools will be closed for students on tuesday november 2nd our teachers and staff have been working tirelessly over the past several weeks and as a small gesture of appreciation I'm designating november 2nd as an e-commute day for our employees on that day um as we know their uh that is an election day so they can get out and vote and also uh commute electronically so please enjoy the work from home on that day and take the opportunity to vote if you um if you haven't done so already and mr chairman that concludes my reports for this evening all right thank you dr parker we'll now move on item six which is

138another opportunity to hear from the public uh madam clerk do we have any cards no sir all right there being no cards then our next board meeting is november 16th you all have a great night [Music]