School Board Meeting: April 20, 2021

001Good evening I would like to call to order the regular meeting of the Newport News school board for tuesday april 20th 2021 on behalf of the members of the school board and the superintendent I welcome each of you watching a quorum is present to transact the business of the school division the covid 19 pandemic has had an unprecedented effect on all of us we are all adapting to this new way of conducting business and the school board is as well personal barriers are installed between members of the board and our staff and visitors are masked and socially distanced in the auditorium in compliance with the governor's orders during this evening's meeting some of our participants will join us in person and others will join us virtually including Ms. Vice Chairman Surles-Law we are taking these

002steps 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 the invocation and pledge of the flag here to do the honors is ms francis miller pta president at denbigh high school ms francis good evening tonight I'd like to share an inspirational quote by james e faust if there were no night we would not appreciate the day nor could we see the stars and the vastness of the heavens we must partake of the bitter with the sweet there is a divine purpose in the adversities we encounter every day they prepare they purge they purify and thus they bless can we all stand for the pledge please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the

003republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you ms francis the next item on tonight's agenda is school board recognitions Dr. Parker that's Mr. Chairman this evening we are very pleased to recognize some music students we are going to recognize our all virginia music students and I will turn it over to mrs price for acknowledgements good evening you I have the pleasure of recognizing this month's school board honorees who are some very gifted musicians our honorees this evening are among the best high school vocalists in the state and have earned the all virginia distinction to reach this accomplishment high school students must audition and earn a top place in a district event which makes them eligible to audition for an all-virginia ensemble Newport News public schools

004is proud to recognize six students tonight who have earned this honor as I call your name would you please come forward named to the all virginia chorus from warwick high school natalia brown italian he's named as a soprano two delegate also from warwick high school josiah delsario reynold base 2 delegate and rounding out the team from warwick abigail goyet soprano one delegate from woodside high school skye carter alto 2 alto 2 delegate also lyric ellis alto 1 delegate and lynesia walls alto 2 delegate auditions for the all virginia course were held in february the repertoire was where er you walk these vocalists were evaluated on vocal quality intonation rhythmic accuracy interpretation diction and sight reading and they excelled they'll be joining the rest of the members of the all virginia chorus for a virtual event

005scheduled for april 23rd and 24th so again we want to wish all of them congratulations on being named to the all virginia chorus please join me in one more round of applause we'd like to get a picture of you but before we do that I'd like to ask your family members that are joining you tonight and your school family would you please stand to be recognized thank you thank you thank you for joining us we appreciate your support ... yes thank you thank you okay congratulations again thank you and we know you'll have a wonderful performance this weekend the school board will take about a seven minute break so that our honorees and their guests may leave if you choose to do so during this time our viewing audience will have an opportunity to view

006this month's school board spotlight so we'll stand in recess for about seven minutes thank you during virginia agriculture literacy week some special guests help students at watkins early childhood center learn more about healthy eating during a visit to hampton roads virginia first lady pamela northam and virginia's chief diversity officer dr janice underwood visited the pre-kindergarten students at watkins principal sue waxman newport news superintendent dr george parker along with school leaders and local elected officials greeted the ladies who wanted to personally thank educators for their hard work adapting to new styles of teaching and the child nutrition services team for keeping students fed throughout this pandemic mrs northam and dr underwood brought along the virginia agriculture in the classroom 2021 book of the year how did that get in my lunchbox by chris butterworth which they

007enjoyed reading to different classrooms first lady norgam a former science educator herself also visited with dual language immersion students through zoom during their virtual class time in each classroom students enjoyed talking about where their food comes from and sharing some of their favorite breakfast foods that keep them fueled for a day of learning whether student athletes are spiking sprinting shooting cheering hiking or driving high school athletics are back even though fall sports arrived a season late the simple joy of playing sports is a welcome return to some normalcy for high school athletes for almost a year virginia high school league athletics have been shut down in Newport News public schools due to the global coronavirus pandemic but this winter fall sports were opened back up with students participating in sideline cheer cross country field hockey

008football golf and volleyball starting in february student athletes in these six varsity sports began conditioning and practicing for a short but welcomed season of peninsula competition for coaches and athletic directors this type of season offered a new realm of daily obstacles to overcome rescheduling games when teams were forced to quarantine finding enough athletes for some sports having the proper personal protective equipment social distancing when possible limiting the number of spectators at games sanitizing surfaces and gear constantly traveling safely on buses and daily screenings are just a few of the hurdles each school managed but the benefits for students far outweigh the logistical complications students have been able to play the sports they love be around their friends and teammates and get out of their house for some much-needed physical activity essentially student athletes have had

009a chance to enjoy being a teenager again with huge paybacks physically and mentally it also gave seniors another shot at securing valuable athletic scholarships or being recruited to play sports at the collegiate level and even with less practices to prepare and fewer games to compete in high school student athletes are simply having fun and enjoying the experience with their teams and coaches to coincide with youth art month in march virtual art exhibits were peppered across social media showcasing artwork from our amazing student artists at all grade levels and since our talented art teachers are so influential in guiding students on their artistic journeys every day these educators were able to assemble an impressive virtual showcase of their own amazing masterpieces shared on the nnps website and across social media the art teachers virtual art show

010is aptly titled practicing what we teach from several schools and representing all grades this virtual exhibit revealed our art teachers exceptional talents while displaying a range of styles techniques and media colorful paintings charcoal portraits digital designs breathtaking photos gorgeous pottery and abstract mixed media are just a sampling of the masterpieces our teachers passionately created while viewing the online slideshow it's evident why these instructors chose their calling to teach art to our students and why so many talented artists enjoy growing through the arts in Newport News public schools virtual learning is a new experience for all of us while students families and teachers have been navigating the unfamiliar landscape of a global pandemic for over a year one certainty is how important self-care is for physical emotional spiritual and mental health to effectively teach and take

011care of our students and children parents caregivers and educators must first take care of their own health and well-being this is why self-care isn't a selfish act but a necessary process that benefits all families to cope with pandemic fatigue there's a range of active self-care practices that can help reduce stress and brighten your day outside of work try limiting your screen time cut back on browsing social media and reduce your news intake instead spend this time taking a short walk draw or paint cook a new recipe play a musical instrument or learn a fun skill since humans are social creatures by nature stay connected safely with friends and loved ones actually use your phone to call a friend write a letter or find a church to connect with others and if you need professional help

012many employers including Newport News public schools offer counseling and other services to assist families by taking care of ourselves we can effectively take care of each other and navigate our way through this pandemic together welcome back we hope you enjoyed this month's school board spotlight during our regular board meetings we provide a time for the public to address the board these opportunities are scheduled in the early part of our agenda as well as also towards the end of the meeting the school board recognizes that during the pandemic 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 the meeting to be included in the official meeting record for those of you joining

013us in person the board considers this an opportunity to listen to your comments please understand that we will consider your concerns and get back with you at a later time we ask that you comply with our three minute time limit as you begin your comments a green light at the far in here will come on the yellow light signals that you have 30 seconds remaining and a red light in the beep indicates that your time is up as your name is called please come forward and I do have two cards this evening first card is miss karen williams oh good evening Dr. Parker Mr. Brown Mrs. Surles-Law and board members my name is karen williams and I'm here this evening to propose the name of my late husband Dr william b williams or billy for

014consideration in the renaming of dozier middle school I have already completed the online nomination form but for the benefit of anyone who may not have known or worked with Bill I wanted to familiarize you with his qualifications for this honor bill was a Newport News native and following his graduation from Newport News high school he went on to earn an undergraduate degree and eventually was awarded a doctorate from the college of William and Mary in middle school education he was hired by Newport News public schools following college graduation as a teacher at hidenwood elementary he moved to warwick high school in 1963 as a teacher and later guidance counselor in 1970 bill was appointed to the first of his four elementary principalships at the former parkview elementary school his last school was george j mcintosh

015where he was the first principal in 1977 he became director of instructional services and later director of middle school curriculum and instructional planning he retired from Newport News public schools in 1991 after 29 and a half years of service in the late 1970s my husband was tasked by dr don roberts with coordinating and implementing a middle school plan in Newport News to accomplish this goal he collaborated with various educational consultants to prepare a staff development program for middle school personnel and with consultants and Newport News instructional supervisors to develop the core curriculum for grades six through eight along with the newly appointed middle school administrators bill met with architects to modify and update the buildings chosen to be converted to middle schools and in the case of gildersleeve the design of the new school he

016worked closely with principals and assistant principals on staff development for the new middle school faculties following the successful opening of middle schools in Newport News he consulted with other school districts on their middle school program in particular in kansas and texas and in in 2012 on the 30th anniversary of the middle schools in Newport News dr ashby kilgore and the Newport News schools board formally recognized him as the architect of middle schools in Newport News board members my husband was a passionate educator and student advocate inside and outside the classroom as the architect of middle schools in Newport News I believe and hope you will also that he is an ideal candidate for this honor thank you very much for your attention and if you have any things that you would like to address to

017me please feel free I happen to bring along his certificate with me and back there there's a big book with his educational plan in service plan thank you thank you thank you Ms williams all right next card I have is uh from mr dave dewiki thank you Mr. Chairman and board for allowing a parent to provide some feedback in these difficult times my name is dave dewicki and I'm a parent of two freshmen at warwick high school this year and I have a couple observations and a request for the board for us virtual learning is not working out for our girls their grades are still very good but their depth of understanding of the subject matter is not what it has been with in school learning in the past and also they've lost motivation and

018enjoyment of school and their mental health has deteriorated we're now doing hybrid in school two days a week two days a week in virtual two days this is an improvement over all virtual however the requirement for simultaneous in-class and hybrid instruction that's currently implemented is taking away from in-class learning we believe that the most effective approach for our kids we back to school full-time with no simultaneous in-school and virtual learning separate those roles if both are necessary I think it'd be better for the students as well as the burden on the teachers and our request for the school board is to clearly define what the intentions are for the fall before the end of this school year if possible and parents need this information so we can plan for our children's future educational future and

019with that I thank the board thank you mr dewiki thank you all for your comments this evening we're now going to move on to section three the consent agenda which includes item 3.01 minutes from the regular session on march 23 2021 3.02 minutes from the work session on march 9th 2021 3.03 minutes from the public hearing on march 16 2021. 3.04 uh financial reports including the revenue report for march 2021 the expense report for march 2021 and the child nutrition services report for march 2021 3.05 the personnel report at this time they have a motion to approve the consent agenda Mr. Chairman I make a motion obviously Surles-Law coming in remotely to make motion to accept the consent agenda as presented thank you madam vice chair is there a second second second invite mr harris

020any discussion madam clerk would you please call the role or Mr. Eley? For. Mr. Harris? For. Mr. Hunter? Gary Hunter - for. Ms. Surles-Law? Lisa Surles-Law for. Mrs. Aman? for Mr. Brown? For. motion carry 7-0 all right thank you the next item on our agenda is section four our action items the first is uh item 4.01 the special education annual plan and Dr. Parker I believe we have a presentation before we vote on that plan yes Mr. Chairman that presentation was provided to the board at the march meeting by dr mitchell and who can standing by for any questions that the board may have regarding special education annual plan uh we look forward to the board entertaining a vote at this time regarding that that plan all right thank you are there any are there

021any questions regarding the special education plan this time with that may I have a motion to adopt the special education annual plan Mr. Chairman our mood will adopt the special education plan as we had thank you mr harris is there a second a second all right second about dr best all right uh any further discussion madam clerk would you please call the roll dr best for mr eley? for mr harris for Mr. Hunter Gary hunter for Mrs. Surles-Law? For. Mrs. Aman? For. Mr. Brown for motion carry 7-0 thank you the next item is item 4.02 which is our proposed uh 2021-22 school calendar uh Dr. Parker do you have any comments uh yes Mr. Chairman uh at last uh month's meeting we uh the board uh passed a uh approval for a post labor day

022school start uh we asked for the board's patient and uh allowing us allowing us to go back and look at some specific calendar days to include items such as professional development for teachers in the uh approved calendar and we are coming back tonight for your consideration and approval of the 20 20 21 22 calendar Mrs. Brooks will walk through the calendar with the board in the community and and ask for your support and approval thank you thank you good evening Mr. Chairman madam vice chairman members of the board and Dr. Parker it's my pleasure to share with you the proposed dates for professional learning opportunities for our staff members based on the post labor day calendar that you approved at your march 23rd meeting okay I'll just wait a few minutes no not at all

023thank you the proposed professional learning days that were were initially determined by our teaching and learning team and then we share the proposed dates with our school calendar committee which includes representatives from our academic services department our support services and our parents and then we also share the proposed dates with our principals and teachers to principals and teachers to get their input so the dates that i'm sharing with you this evening represents all of the feedback that we obtain through that process the first professional learning opportunity work will occur on friday october 1st which will be a half day dismissal for students with independent learning for students in the afternoon while teachers are participating in professional development now while tuesday november 2nd is an election day and students do not report it is also the

024end of the first marking period so we are proposing that it be a teacher work day in the morning with professional development in the afternoon and wednesday december 15th will be a half day dismissal for students with independent learning for students in the afternoon while teachers are participating in professional development now as we enter 2022 friday january 28th is the end of the first semester and will continue to be a full day of professional development which is consistent with our neighboring school divisions on the peninsula in february wednesday the 16th will be a half day dismissal for students with independent learning for students in the afternoon while teachers will be participating in professional development and throughout the month of march teachers will have various opportunities for synchronous and asynchronous professional development so that we may

025maximize instructional time for students particularly as we approach the sol testing period and other assessments now after collaborating with academic services and human resources to determine these states and after receiving input from our stakeholders particularly our teachers and principals they all felt very strongly about maintaining the integrity of 180 and personal instructional days for students on the calendar which will help us address student learning loss due to the pandemic now the designated days will also allow us to provide additional time for eureka math coaching intensive literacy training and cultural competence training that is being required by the state for all teachers and licensed administrators beginning in the fall of 2021 and just as we provide various learning opportunities or virtual learning opportunities for our students we will leverage our virtual learning environment to provide synchronous

026and asynchronous learning opportunities for our staff and now I'll share just a few highlights from the 2021 calendar in general as a reminder the calendar schedules time for family conferences during each semester and I hope everyone enjoyed the two-week winter break this year because across the region we will be observing a two-week winter break again next school year beginning on monday december 20th and continuing through friday december 31st with schools and offices reopening on monday january 3rd of 2022 and the month of january also includes i think we're a slight ahead the month of january also includes the dr king holiday and in february schools and offices will be closed again an observance of president's day I think we're frozen but I'll continue to talk about the calendar I also wanted to mention that the

027calendar includes enough instructional hours to cover up to three days that we can use to make up any time loss due to inclement weather and dangerous road conditions and you may recall that we will be able to count inclement weather days next year as unscheduled virtual learning days as a result of new legislation that was recently passed by the general assembly and throughout the peninsula spring break will be the first monday through friday and april with the break being april 4th through the 8th of 2022. and lastly we are including the tentative graduation ceremony days for our seniors which will be saturday and sunday june 11th and 12th I was going to leave you with a visual representation of the calendar and there it is and it includes a chart of the instructional days per

028marking period our report card issue dates our half day dismissals and notations of the days when schools are not in session so in terms of next steps we're requesting approval of the proposed calendar for next school year this evening with the designated professional learning days and once approved we will publicize the calendar through our school newsletters or electronic communications such as newslines and board briefs and on our school websites and the school divisions webpage so this concludes my report this evening i'll be happy to answer your questions thank you thank you miss brooks at this time do we have a motion to approve the school calendar mr chairman gary hunter i make a motion to approve the proposed 2021 2022 school calendar okay uh thank you uh Mr. Hunter is there a second second thank

029you mr ealy all right uh time for discussion is there any questions about the the calendar before we call the role thank you madam clerk would you please call the roll for mr eley for mr harris for Mr. Hunter gary hunter for Mrs. Surles-Law? for Surles-Law for mrs aman for Mr. Brown for motion carry seven zero all right thank you uh the next item our agenda is 4.03 I believe we have a health insurance credit resolution uh on the agenda tonight Dr. Parker uh thank you Mr. Chairman and uh mrs hopps our director of human resources has a very short presentation to share with you regarding this healthcare credit resolution and we're asking for the board to consider uh their support of this resolution this evening good evening everyone um thank you for the few

030moments just to um share the um background and and the basis for the resolution that we're asking you to approve this evening um first of all I want to clarify make sure everybody's on the same page with me we're talking about a healthcare benefit that the virginia retirement system is offering so we're not talking about health care credit the new produce public schools offers their employees but this is part of the vrs program that we're referring to okay so um the way the vrs approaches this is they they break up into a couple of different groups of employees and the first group that they've served the longest is what they call their professional staff and so those are your teachers your administrators other professionals instructional assistants security officers and the credit that has been placed

031for them for a very long time is four dollars per year of service each month for 12 months so if I retire at this point I have 30 years of service and so I would receive a credit of 120 a month for 12 months towards my health care expenses when I retire so that's the way that works okay go ahead michelle now um the um just giving you a little bit more background in 2000 before 2009 um the big group of our support staff our transportation our plant services our cns employees they were all serviced in the city retirement system or what we call nerf let may remember that that acronym after 2009 that that plan was closed to our employees and anyone hired at 2009 forward was placed in the vrs system now when

032this group of employees of ours started in the vrs program at that point there was no health care credit provided to the support staff group as a benefit well in 2015 vrs did make the offer to school divisions to change that and to basically provide a dollar fifty per year of service for 12 months each month as a health care credit to this particular group the board that was in place at that point approved that resolution and very quickly jumped on wanting to provide that benefit to our staff um and of course for them unfortunately that meant a dollar fifty if they had served 30 years of service which was only 45 dollars of credit each month towards health care what we have now is the opportunity to increase that so vrs has notified us

033that we have the ability to decide that we want to increase that from a dollar fifty to two dollars and fifty cents um per service year service per month for our support staff group as well and so that is the opportunity that's before us and is what is written in the the resolution that we're asking you to approve this evening the estimated cost at this point is fourteen thousand dollars more than what we're paying right now and I'll remind you that number's not very big and that's because at this point not all of our support staff in those areas are in vrs we still have a good group of them that are still in the city retirement and in fact specifically our numbers are there still 343 of our support staff members that are in

034the city retirement with 585 in vrs so when at some point in this future we will have some increases to this cost however we're going to have some increase anyway because as turnover would happen we would have new employees that replaced those that retired out of the city retirement plan come in under vrs so we would automatically have to pay more for that for the new employees this increases just a slightly bit more but if the rate were to stay the same and that when we got to the point in which all of our employees were under vrs we're only talking about an estimate of about 42 000 a year for this benefit so certainly what we think and that includes the full 250. so certainly what we think is a is a worthwhile benefit

035to provide to our employees okay and then of course as we said at the beginning our next steps are to ask you to approve the resolution that's before you this evening and then what we will begin july 1st we will starting free that increased payment to vrs each month for the employees that we have in those groups that are in the vrs system okay somebody having quote questions better all right uh so at this time can we have the resolution um pulled up on screen the pdf all right so there is the uh resolution in front of you which is also included in your board packets uh I have a motion to improve to approve the health insurance credit resolution you can go ahead Mr. Hunter no go ahead ladies before men Mr. Chairman I

036make a motion to approve the vrs health insurance credit resolution as presented thank you madam vice chair uh Mr. Hunter would you like a second oh yes uh gary hunter I second that thank you Mr. Hunter all right any questions all right there there being none madam clerk would you please call the roll Dr. Best? For. Mr. Eley? For. Mr. Harris? For. Mr. Hunter gary hunter for Mrs. Surles-Law? Lisa Surles-Law for. mrs Aman for Mr. Brown for motion carry 7-0 thank you all right now we'll move on to section 5 which is our reports and information section and 5.01 is the return to learn thank you mr chairman uh monthly we have been bringing back a report to the board on our return to learn planning as it progresses through as we progress through the

037school year this month being no different we will provide an update for the board and community on uh on some recent changes and progress towards providing a quality instruction to work for students uh we'll start off with Ms. Roaseau uh who will give the standard safety uh update and uh she will hand it off to instruction and then we also have some good news some graduation information and some uh in athletics so a little bit more information that we'll share this evening for the board so I will turn it over to Ms. Roaseau uh to start it off um Ms. Roaseau if are you joining us this evening hey dr Parker I'm here thank you ma'am you can't see me but I'm here good evening Chairman Brown, Vice-chair Surles-Law, members of the board as Dr.

038Parker said we are going to start our return to learn update for you this evening as we have in the past with an update brief update on our covid data so uh the slide that we have up shows the new indicators and thresholds we shared with you last month uh that the cdc has developed for um reporting community threat transmission of covid 19. um the case rate and positivity rate are the same data points we've been using the entire time to track our progress in containing the virus but they are now presented in a seven day base on seven-day basis instead of the previous 14-day basis so the chart that you see on the left is updated on a weekly basis you can see that this was a 410 so they're not quite weekly but

039that's the most recent information on the website uh as of today um and this data helps us determine what strategies are recommended for mitigation and particularly distancing in our classrooms is impacted by this you can see there are four levels of transmission low moderate substantial and high and as you can see unfortunately Newport News is still in a high level of transmission the chart on the right is vdh data and that is updated on a daily basis not quite daily because this is 419 I pulled this yesterday they do have 420 uh today but um anyway uh you can see that it's presented on a daily rate basis so the case rate is 22.3 is contrasted with the weekly data 152.8 on the left for the cdc information but they both basically say the same

040thing the case rate you see is trending down decreasing and the case rate 11.3 is shown on this slide this is from yesterday as fluctuating because it was decreasing for only 13 days today it is shown as decreasing because it went down again um yesterday and so it's been going down for 14 days and once the direction is set for 14 days it is determined to either be increasing or decreasing rather than fluctuating so uh but the data is generally saying about the same thing as you would expect that it would so for the moment we are still in high transmission um so if you could go to the next slide these are the thresholds for uh transmission as I mentioned low moderate substantial and high and again if you can see that cases over

041100 are high transmission which is where we are we're at 152 and uh positivity rates over 10 are high and since we are 11.9 or 11.3 depending on which chart you use uh we're also still high in case rate so um we do hope to report to you at some point in the future that we are uh trending uh further down and we're gonna get below the high level of transmission but we are not there quite yet and then just also update you briefly on vaccinations this is really a better news I think um approximately 85 percent of new public school staff have chosen to receive the vaccination for Covid 19. 98 of those that have opted to receive the vaccination have received at least their first dose already we think uh we've been seeing

042some positive results from that as uh staff members are identified as close contacts if they have uh been vaccinated completely vaccinated received both of their vaccines and have passed two weeks beyond their second one they do not have to quarantine when they're identified as a close contact unless they have symptoms and so we've seen many of our staff now who have been identified as close contact but have not had to step away from the workplace so that's been a good result of the vaccinations and certainly what we hope to see also another big step for virginia and really I think for all states in the nation all of our health districts in virginia have moved into phase two as a sunday which opens the eligibility for covert vaccines to anyone ages 16 and older as

043you know they're still working on vaccine trials for children but for individuals aged 16 and older they're eligible now to get a covid vaccine so that's really good news and we hope that those who are so inclined will take advantage of that and I'm going to pass it on now to Dr Manglicmot to update you on what's going on with regard to teaching and learning vice chair Surles-Law members of the board Dr. Parker you know kind of funny it's great to be here this evening pleasure to see you all again um I grabbed and put my presentation in this folder right here which I had to giggle to myself because it says ridiculously good ideas and that is where our presentation sits tonight so I am here to just give you a few updates on

044some instructional decisions that we have made for quarter four in our instructional program with teaching and learning um the first one I'm really excited to share with you we have an elementary reading intervention program taking place we looked at our quarter three pals data and our reading inventory data for all k through five and as expected we saw that there was a gap in learning for our earliest learners and so what we did is we decided and I say we and that's not appropriate at all I really need to give credit where credit is due which is our director of elementary instruction lori wall sitting back there and her elementary literacy team really developed this plan and I really think it's going to make huge gains for students in Newport News what they have decided

045based on the data is that they were going to take all resources that were in the k through 5 elementary arena and funnel it to k through 2 because that's where we're seeing the largest gap in learning what they did they kind of took like a three-step approach and I don't know if step is the appropriate word but the first thing they did is look at the curriculum and the pacing for our tier one instruction so tier one instruction basically is your whole whole class your classroom instruction at the bottom level and what they decided to do is kind of revise it to really look at what were the the identified palp decision data points where we had to focus instruction and so they looked at phonemic awareness they looked at phonics and handwriting and

046reading application and they developed eight weeks now it's a team of three they developed eight weeks of lesson plans for all k-2 teachers that are focusing focusing on those data points for students and our teachers are really excited and they i've heard feedback telling me how great these lessons are so really giving them kudos and then these these lesson plans are really geared towards small group instruction and not whole group instruction the second thing that they've developed is um all tier two again tier two you have classroom instruction all kids and then kids that aren't getting classroom instruction move on to tier two so all tier two intervention services that are provided by our reading specialist by our interventionist by our tutors that are generally k through five we've moved them all to k through

047two so they are supporting classrooms in k through two right now the next thing that they did is that our pals identified hybrid students will be given an additional hour of reading instruction why that is they're following the newcomer schedule so ever all students that are in instruction right now they will leave at the dismissal time and these students will stay an hour later and this is where they get intensive reading instruction from the reading specialist the interventionist and the tutors so in our title two schools that means that we can serve up to 12 students in our non-title one schools they can serve up to six and if there's an additional tutor they can serve six more so we're really excited about this plan we're hoping that we see gains and instruction whereas normally

048with just regular instruction we might not see the same amount of gains the next instructional decision is is exciting and I know for parents and for students as well we know that the cdc has kind of provided us some flexibility in social distancing especially at the elementary levels and so prior to the cdc releasing this this or allowing us flexibility we had a waiting list at the elementary schools we could not get everyone in who wanted to come hybrid because of social distancing and now because they've released it we can allow more students in 20 out of 29 of our elementary schools do not have a waiting list like right now and they're able to maintain six feet distancing but nine had a waiting list and we were able to take those students off the

049waiting list as of april 20th there are no students on the waiting list to return to hybrid instruction at the elementary school so just to see what we can fluctuate between six and up to three feet you know like we we if we need to we can go five feet we can do four feet so the next slide shows you the nine classrooms or the nine schools and the number of classrooms that are affected and how close they have to move so at general stanford you can see they're at three feet apart but then other schools are at four feet apart this right here is a total of um 27 out of 605 elementary classrooms so that's only four percent of our classroom populations that are affected and have to move less than six feet

050apart this particular slide I know that our parents will be really really excited about and students too at the um the high school level and the middle school level who really feel like they need more than two days of in-person instruction so the cdc guidance right now in current metrics secondary schools have to say six feet social distancing but we've made a decision as a division that we can allow our students that are um going two days a week to move four days a week based on our attendance data now some classes that's not going to work out some classes are at full capacity so we have a process in place for all elementary or all secondary schools and parents or students can request to move to four days of in-person instruction and what's going

051to happen principals are going to review with their teams and they will determine if they have capacity limits and confirm or deny if the student or can return to four days of instruction and on the next slide um the process that we have in place you can see it's a kind of a tiered approach we're looking at our vulnerability index so if you request and you're on the vulnerability index that gives you a higher criteria students that are at risk for course failure have another priority and then of course any family request if we can meet the the six feet social distancing requirement our final date for families to adjust this is really important for our families at home who are listening in the final date to adjust this learning preference is going to be

052may 5th so just please make note and plan accordingly so that summarizes some of the ridiculously good ideas that we have going on in teaching and learning um we have lots of great things going on in the division but those are the major highlights all right yes um that's great that parents will have the option now to go from two days to four days how will we determine which kids will be able to go from two to four days will it be the kids that are most need with the lowest gpa or yeah that's exactly it's that the the tiered approach so the teams are going to look together they're going to come together and it's going to be those students on the vulnerability index especially those that are at risk for failure and then

053all others as you know numbers are are low across the division and we feel like we can accommodate most of the requests but there are some classrooms that are at full capacity right now and so it just depends on the student's schedule and how we have to tier the request thank you you're welcome all right thank you mr lee other questions yes dr best um eight weeks has the eight weeks begun for the the eight weeks of prepared um yes that eight weeks have begun the um may third starts the extra hour after school and who who does the extra hour is it reading specialist the reading specialist interventionist and the kindergarten if there are kindergarten tutors they will be there as well okay thank you you're welcome yes miss amen um yeah uh and

054I like these are a lot of good ideas and i'm encouraged and excited to hear about the key to two and the focus on that um students in grades three through five that might be having challenges with reading and that sort of thing what are we doing for them to make sure they don't fall further behind you know I have mrs wall here and I want her to come on up and speak to that because she really is the the mastermind behind this plan and I want her to be able to speak to that i figured you might ask that question and so we certainly didn't forget our three five learners and we've been working with our our teachers in grades with your five to provide them differentiated small group instruction support as well when

055you look at our three five data our students in three five are even if they are are struggling in the area of reading they're still on the trajectory of moving forward where some of our pre-k through two students they were flat lining and not moving at all and so some of the pieces that we have in place already for three through five we're continuing and then working with the reading specialist and teachers looking at just what we need to kind of just differentiate for our kids with some of those foundational skills they're already embedded into the curriculum that answer questions yeah thank you we haven't forgotten them thank you other questions all right well thank you Dr. Manglicmot for those uh ridiculously good ideas Chairman Brown, Vice-chair Surles-Law, members of our school board and Dr.

056Parker I am not mike nichols I am Dr felicia barnett executive director of secondary school leadership but in collaboration with mr mike nichols our supervisor for youth development I am pleased to bring to you an update on some of our spring sports um for this upcoming season and inform you of the mitigation strategies we have in place for our spring sports program our varsity spring sports began on monday april 12th however our jv sports have been suspended for the spring season baseball outdoor track soccer softball and tennis begin practicing on april 12th and april 26 is the first contest date for each sport with the exception of tennis and the first contest date for tennis is april 21st our state competitions for sports will end throughout the month of june and spectators at our games

057must wear masks and maintain a physical distance of 10 feet on our next slide i'd like to share some of our mitigation strategies and process all student athletes must take a health screening questionnaire before reporting to practice or to a game if they answer yes to any of the questions they will not be allowed to practice or compete and they must return home they'll also be questioned as they report to teams for practice once they're checked in our process and allowed to practice they must maintain their mask and our athletic department has provided each school with an ample supply additionally for the athletes and coaches to periodically clean their hands and equipment we've also provided hand sanitizer masks paper towels and disinfectants to clean the equipment each school has also presented a practice plan to

058include the athletic check-in procedures their pod makeup mitigation procedures and guidelines our mitigation strategies are to include no shared water bottles or shared athletic towels or clothing or shoes also coaches are required to wear face coverings at all times and our athletes must wear a face covering before and after workouts a coach's meeting was held earlier this year led by mr mike nichols with our coaches athletic directors and trainers to discuss the mitigation strategies and each school's athletic director also meets with their coaches to discuss their school specifically and how they will implement their plan once the teams are selected the coach and athletic director further discuss mitigation strategies with players and their family members and also located on the website is a student questionnaire and assumption of risk waiver i'll be happy to entertain

059any questions at this time around our athletic program any questions all right thank you dr barnett you're welcome and now I am pleased to announce our plans for this year's graduation to celebrate the class of 2021 our graduations are scheduled between the dates of june 7th and june 11 to be held at todd stadium the current restrictions outlined by our governor place a limit of 30 capacity or 5 000 in an outdoor venue whichever is the lesser so to be able to hold it at todd stadium we can accommodate approximately 32 of visitors during the graduation ceremonies our graduates will receive approximately six tickets and we're excited that we are able to continue with our traditional seated graduation ceremony as we have had in the past at the Hampton coliseum but this year it will

060be held outdoors all guests will maintain a six foot physical distance and wear masks listed on the screen at this time are graduation dates and times along with alternative dates for rain we are working diligently with our high schools to provide a memorable experience for our students and celebrate their achievements our school division will continue to post updates for our graduation on our Newport News public schools website as well as each school will share information about graduation and senior activities to their students and families at this time if you have any questions about our graduation plans I'll be happy to answer them yes mr Eley please go ahead so you say each family will have six tickets is that correct each student will be provided approximately six tickets for the ceremony and I know um

061where earlier today a parent called me about the the time I know some parents called dr best do as well is there a reason why that they're um during the week versus the weekend well traditionally when we're at the hampton college coliseum we're able to host our ceremonies throughout the weekend but because we are having outdoor ceremonies to take into consideration possibly weather um and the arrangement of our traffic coming off of warwick and just the organization of the program it's best suited that we're able to do one school per day and we certainly wanted to host it in the morning time where hopefully because we're in june the weather is a bit cooler um so that we can have our seated ceremony at 10 a.m each day for each school and then have the

062opportunity if which we hope there was rain that we could accommodate that school the following day in the afternoon so a big factor was so families would know because I know families asked me to ask dr best where I have to take off take off for work during the day so one main reasons traffic and well we wanted to be able to accommodate our family since it is an outdoor ceremony um and we're having it at todd stadium and it is a seated ceremony that will last approximately an hour and we wanted to host that ceremony in the morning hours where we think it might be cooler for our guests and then just organizing a school each day may make it a smoother transition for each graduation we also wanted to reserve the afternoon time

063so that in case it rains during that scheduled morning time we could then move this the alternate day to the next day in the afternoon for that school in case families may have guests coming from out of town those guests may not have to stay as long they can go to the ceremony the very next day so we we did take into consideration knowing even last year we had our ceremony during the week and families may have to take off and and we we understand that challenge but we're really trying to work to make sure that we can accommodate as many as possible thank you so much you're welcome thank you mr eley other questions all right thank you dr barnett so Mr. Chairman that there was uh one area that that we needed to

064speak about was is next year and we we while we've been given monthly updates on our return to learn planning uh we want to uh ease the uh concerns of our community and make sure that they are aware that we are thinking about next year uh if we are planning for next year we are continuing to monitor the cdc guidelines and vdh and our governor's restrictions in order to make to make future determinations it's our um it's our intention to be in school five days a week next year start starting the school year um now there are there are several things that we will logistical things and uh and requirements that we will have to maneuver we'll have to maneuver three-foot separations whether that will be minimized we'll have to maneuver whether there any other

065cdc uh guidance or guidelines that come out we will definitely be closely monitoring the vaccination schedule we believe that students will start being vaccinated some somewhere in the fall we don't know where that will be and then we also have to plan uh our virtual academy out so that we can accommodate students virtually but our goal is to have students in school five days a week uh with this minimal um um in-person and virtual continuous teach uh consistent teaching at the I think i'm saying that right teachers teaching virtual and in person at the same time um as minimal as possible now we will obviously provide parents with guidance families with guidance as far as how to enroll their students for next year and what setting will be best best and appropriate for their child

066more information will come out but it is our intention and to intent to have five full days of instruction for students next year and will we will be monitored working with the state guidelines and with the cdc to make sure that we are meeting all safety requirements as we plan to do so so that being said Mr. Chairman I just want to make sure that that gets out in the public that is said officially that that is our intent and our goal we will do everything possible to make that happen for our community thank you Dr. Parker all right with that we'll move on to item 5.02 which is our pta annual report good evening um Chairman Brown, Vice chair Surles-Law, and board members and Dr. Parker thank you all for having me this evening

067I am lou manor I am the president for Newport News council pta the purpose of this presentation is to give updates on all the great things that pta has been doing despite the challenges that we've had to endure during this pandemic pta Newport News council pta is made up of four of our officers um myself our treasurer Ms bertha thompson who's actually here today our vice president Ms cecilia flores and Ms our secretary Ms charla clark we are a partnership between parents and educators who strive to enhance student learning and enrich the lives of the students within the schools the pta is also a forum of for parents to obtain knowledge and voice their opinions about what is happening in our schools pt addresses issues that are important to parents students and public school administrators

068we fight for full funding quality teachers and the capability to drive for schools to draw to thrive sorry all right what are some of the advantages for joining pta there there are so many advantages for joining pta let's start with connecting we all know that networking is a key tool that allows us to access opportunities that we now we may not be able to locate on our own as an association dedicated to speaking for every child with one voice we are deeply committed to furthering diversity equity and inclusion across America we believe every child has a right to a high quality education to achieve this we have been committed to building a strong community and providing opportunities for our children to realize their full potential through special programs inclusive school-wide initiatives and pta makes a

069true impact on every student currently we have 30 active pta slash ptsa units which is absolutely great considering this past year I some of our ptas have not been able to operate and that is due to the additional responsibility that the pandemic has endured on them however we stand ready to work with them as we rebuild our ptas to achieve a hundred percent school participation community involvement we actually have been very active in the community the council of ptas has partnered with boats on bikes to support reading throughout the school year many local units address the challenges of the pandemic by providing gift cards hosting food drives and providing safe grab bags for our students and staff those grab bags consisted of sanitizers school supplies and disposable masks sorry I'm gonna get to it today

070all right our very own vice president Ms flores has been one of our strongest liaison as we continue to address the needs of our esl's families we share their concerns directly to our educators and collaborate with them on ways to address their needs all right our high school ptsa joined together and hosted a membership scholarship drive the purpose of this was to raise money so that we were able to give one student from each of our high school a 500 scholarship we had the pleasure and the support of our virginia state pta president Ms donna colombo to stop by our drive and join each ptsa joining the pta opens so many doors of opportunities to collaborate with our educators we participate with Newport News public schools for our teacher of of the day teacher for

071the day I apologize we currently serve on nnps education foundation the health advisory committee and the superintendent's advisory budget committee many of you have met some of our pta leaders at the school board meetings they've provided their invocation and pledge here are a few of our programs that we sponsor on a local unit the theme this year for our reflection was I matter because the theme for our citizenship essay was how can we stand together when we are so far apart the deadline for our school our scholarships and our volunteer of the year ended this past sunday april 18th we will be presenting those recipients at the next school board meeting on may 18th this year pta celebrated so many highlights from local state and national level virginia pta inducted our first african-american virginia pta

072president Ms pamela crone Ms croom is a native of Hampton and has over 30 years of service with us ms kroom serves now as our 45th virginia state pta president we also was acknowledged for our dembe ptsa having to increase their membership for over 100 percent for the school year 2019-2020 Newport News oh I'm sorry we had the pleasure of having our very own ptsa student member and your school board representative mr jordan moody to give opening remarks to our annual meeting we have now come to the end of the presentation on behalf of Newport News council pta we like to thank you for all of your support and I would also like to thank all of our local units for all the hard work that they continue to put in thank you any questions

073any questions all right well thank president maynard on behalf of the school board we thank you for being a valued partner and for all the hard work that the pta does in our community thank you well now we'll have item 5.03 which is our preschool update and thank you Mr. Chairman uh we are in for a treat this evening we very rarely get a chance to talk about preschool and uh this this evening we're bringing a uh update and report to the board uh presenting this evening our Ms anne marie hannahan our pre-k specialist and ms janine bryant our special education supervisor who will be presenting the PEEP program and they have some important information to share with the board and community regarding the great work happening at the preschool level thank you Dr. Parker

074good evening Chairman Brown, Vice-chair Surles-Law, board members and Dr. Parker my name is anne-marie hanrahan I am the preschool instructional specialist within the curriculum and development department and I'm also the vpi coordinator for Newport News public schools i am here to give you an update on the preschool planning process for the upcoming 2021-22 school year as you know preschool and early childhood has had a long successful history in Newport News for much of that history our program has focused on serving as many four-year-olds as possible specifically those most at risk with the lens of improving school readiness while our program continues to focus on school readiness recent shifts in virginia have provided the opportunity to make a shift in Newport News in recent years our governor has been a strong advocate for increasing and improving

075early childhood experiences governor northam and the virginia department of ed have implemented several initiatives under their program for building a unified early childhood system some of these initiatives include new standards which will be implemented next school year these virginia early learning and development standards or the ELDs are birth to five-year-old standards and look at the developmental progression of a child across his or her early years another exciting initiative is providing vpi funding for our for existing preschool programs such as ours to include and serve three-year-old students our program currently only serves four-year-olds however we are excited to share that we are in the very early stages of planning for expanding to include three-year-olds in future school years because of this shift a natural next step was for us to consider officially changing our name from

076first step to Newport News public schools preschool this rebranding provides continuity and builds community across the division aligns with the department of Ed verbiage and allows future three-year-old expansion to be included in our preschool program because of this shift to a birth to five focus and as we continue to ensure our program is about prevention and readiness the preschool program has been working to bridge our early childhood supports in a variety of ways in the 1920 school year we adopted and implemented a new curriculum the creative curriculum this curriculum has a strong focus on learning through play and inquiry and will be able to expand to be used with three-year-olds during the pandemic we have been able to provide our families with resources and support with ready rosie which is a family engagement tool that

077connects to our curriculum and supports families even beyond the preschool years additionally we have strengthened our collaborative partnerships specifically those with uva the uva castle department and virginia quality focusing on improving teacher-student interactions and building capacity through teacher professional development as we began to look towards the next preschool year the 21-22 school year with the governor's initiative as a driving force we established these two focal points as our guiding north stars in the planning process number one ensuring our program has the capacity to serve as many at-risk preschool-aged children as possible with the goal of expanding our program to include three-year-olds in the future and two maximizing our preschool funding which as you know comes from a variety of sources the virginia preschool initiative grant the vpi grant the title one grant and the Newport

078News operating budget all of these together will help us to provide high quality equitable access to our youngest learners in Newport News with our two major focal points in mind we convened a preschool planning committee to assist in some preschool planning conversations and some decision making process you can see that we invited representation from a variety of departments across the division to provide insight and expertise concerning some key preschool decisions that would help us in our planning preparations this committee worked together to determine what our next steps could and should be to help our program on our journey to increasing access for more children given the renewed focus on increasing this access to at-risk students and supporting families in need we began to explore the possibility of transitioning the six preschool classrooms currently at lee

079hall early childhood center lee hall early has previously served the majority of our military families with preschool-aged children in Newport News this transition out of lee hall would allow us the opportunity to provide targeted support specifically to our military families on for eustis additionally because the goal of the governor and the department of ed's initiatives is to increase access transitioning out of lee hall early would also allow us to focus more heavily on the strength of our early childhood centers if any of you have had the privilege of visiting one of our early childhood centers you know these centers are uniquely special communities which offer a warm and welcoming experience for our Newport News preschool students as we look to expand and include three-year-olds in the future this will give us the opportunity to build

080our community our early childhood communities further and strengthen the connection between the three and four-year-old experience as part of the planning process for transitioning the lee hall early classes we considered staffing transportation building capacity community response and impact future expansion of preschool early childhood initiatives and funding in making the final recommendation with these considerations in mind we recommended to Dr. Parker that the best option moving into the next year was to move most of the lee hall early classrooms to denby early childhood center but also open two classrooms at general stanford elementary school as i outlined opening two classrooms at general stanford will allow Newport News to provide specific support to our military families on fort eustis by allowing their preschool students to attend school on base with their k-5 siblings additionally these moves will

081allow our program to ensure we have the established building community and space capacity to expand our program in the coming years here you can see the proximity between where lee hall early is located in relation to where these six classrooms will be relocated so just down the road just down warwick boulevard to denby early childhood center as well as nearby at general stanford which is on fort eustis here you can see all of the early childhood sites for the current school year on the left and then the adjustment that will be made for the upcoming school year on the right through our current enrollment process as families are invited to register their child for our preschool program they will be notified which of the four early childhood sites their child will attend here you can

082see the projected student enrollment numbers for the 21-22 school year these are the total number of students we are working to enroll per early childhood site and finally this is the timeline for the updates I have outlined you can see our planning process began in january the lee hall early staff as well as all Newport News preschool staff was notified of these changes in february and we began accepting preschool applications last month through our new online application we are looking forward to registering our preschool students in the coming weeks and these students who will begin preschool in the fall will be our class of 2035. no how does that make you feel thank you for your time this evening i am now going to turn the presentation over to dr bryant to discuss early childhood

083special education updates and we will both be available at the unhappy to answer any questions you may have at the end thank you wow 35. good evening Chairman Brown, Vice-chair Surles-Law, board members and Dr. Parker my name is janiece bryant and I am the preschool special education supervisor within the student advancement department this evening you will be provided an update on the program for educating exceptional preschoolers for the upcoming 21-22 school year known as PEEP the process we engaged in to identify increased opportunities for students and staff as well as the stakeholders involved in the process will be reviewed the focus will primarily be on the changes that impact students and staff at the gatewood peep center and the plan for next school year newpert news public school is proud of our preschool special education

084program which is known as the program for educating exceptional preschoolers peep as you know the focus is on serving two to five-year-olds with special needs currently we have 15 different sites which serve our little ones with 35 classrooms 74 wonderful staff and a total of 290 students the focus is to improve student and school readiness and independent skills to enable our students to be better equipped for kindergarten just a little bit about the gatewood center generally gatewood serves students with intensive medical needs and two nurses were on hand to ... manage those medical needs such as tube feedings etc over the years the center expanded to include students who lived near gatewood and has also been used as an overflow location when the other sites were full students with medical conditions have also been assigned

085to other sites serving peep students beginning the 21 22 school year peep students will no longer attend school at the gatewood site but instead attend other school sites here is a breakdown of the staff at gatewood hr will work with staff and departments for placement the assessment team will be reassigned to a school they currently support all support multiple schools the assessment team includes a school social worker school psychologist and a speech and language pathologist after a review of the program we recommended to Dr. Parker that we transition the classes students and staff from the gatewood center to schools closer to the students home when possible this change would allow more students to attend schools closer to their homes interact more with typically developing peers and provide increased options for staff to engage in additional

086learning opportunities such as collaboration with general education teachers this shift would also likely have a positive impact on two of the special education indicators monitored by the virginia department of education there are several positive reasons to transitioning the gatewood classrooms students will be able to attend a school closer to their home and families can share a sense of community it is important to note that the students will continue to receive the same services they currently receive at the gatewood center per their individual iep such as occupational therapy physical therapy speech language services and any specialized equipment the transition will have positive impacts on two state indicators six which is the preschool least restrictive environment and indicator seven which looks at improvement in certain developmental areas the transition will allow students to be in a building

087and have the opportunity to be closer to same age typically developing peers whereas at gatewood this was not a possibility since they were connected to a high school wing looking at indicator 6 which is the preschool least restrictive environment the u.s office of special education programs known as osep require states to report the percentage of children three to five years of age who attend a regular early childhood program and receive the majority of special education and related services in the regular early childhood program and a separate special education class separate school or residential facility gatewood is considered a separate facility indicator 7 looks at progress in the areas of positive social emotional skills including social relationships the acquisition and use of knowledge and skills including early language communication and early literacy and finally the use

088of appropriate behavior to meet their needs taking a look at what this will look like on the left of the slide are the schools where our preschool self-contained students currently attend please note that gatewood is in red as we will no longer use that site for self-contained preschool there are currently 76 students being served at gatewood either face-to-face or virtually 45 are moving on to other special education programs and the remaining 31 students would be assigned to the schools on the left of the slide and to the additional sites on the right which includes watkins early childhood center and heisenwood based on the map you can see where gatewood is located which is considered midtown and see the additional new locations will be hydenwood and watkins which are also considered midtown we collaborated with the

089following division stakeholders in discussion regarding the change in location of classes to gather their insight and to discuss the impact on each department the feedback culminated in the option we are presenting to you today as you can see representation was included from various departments across the division you can see some of the communication that has and will occur among stakeholders some of the timelines presented by anne marie apply to the pete program as well such as communicating the updates with the Newport News community this concludes my presentation and we are happy to answer any questions you may have thank you for your time thank you questions all right thank you Dr. Parker no questions at this time thank you for the presentation thank you all right then we will now move on to item 5.04

090which is our school renaming recommendations and thank you Mr. Chairman um our staff mr wright uh little tracy brooks and team are here to present the uh the recommendations this evening that uh that have made it to my desk and will be presented to the board this evening for the public we're providing some context leading up to this point so that those who are joining us who may not have been in the initial stages of this process uh will have a full understanding of what how what it took to bring us to the to tonight's presentation so at this time i'll turn it over to mr wright uh to begin the presentation thank you good evening Chairman Brown, Vice-chair Surles-Law, board members and Dr. Parker this evening we are pleased to offer an update on

091the school renaming process special assistant to the superintendent tracy brooks our director of community relations michelle price director of legal services lynn wallin and I serve as the planning team for this process and we have the pleasure of serving with dedicated members of the diversity inclusion task force we're also pleased to have two of those members with us this evening former school board member dad holloman and also city of Newport News historic site coordinator mary kaya seljuk I got it right yes you will hear from them later in the presentation i will begin with some background most of which you're familiar with during the summer of 2020 the school board asked the superintendent to take a look at the topic that you see here on the screen which school names potentially do not reflect the

092current nnps values of inclusion and diversity the planning group conducted some initial research and identified several school names that may have warranted further study then we placed those names into three tiers during the august school board meeting we presented our research and the tiers to our school board on september 15th the school board voted to proceed with the renaming of the schools in tier one epps elementary school lee hall elementary school nelson elementary school and dozier middle school we will take a few minutes to review our approach to the school board renaming process following the school board vote on the schools in tier one Dr. Parker created our diversity and inclusion task force to guide this process the task force held its first meeting in november and we quickly jumped into the important work of

093draftings a school renaming process the criteria and we presented that to our school board and superintendent and community after your approval of the new naming and renaming policy which i'll get to in a moment the task force begin working collaboratively to develop a process to solicit names from the community review nominations and then narrow the list for consideration and again this evening we will provide those recommendations to you by way of our superintendent okay presented here are the dedicated members of the diversity inclusion task force consisting of eight members of the community our executive directors and director of school leadership the principals from the tier 1 schools and the task force planning team I shared with you earlier we certainly appreciate the great work of this team and there's more to come we still have

094work to do with the schools that are in tier two and tier three as I mentioned in february the school board voted on a revised policy for the naming facilities based on the tassle's recommendation that's policy ff thank you for that approval that policy also noted criteria and the process we would use the task force wanted to make sure that our school communities including our students and the community at large they were invited and they were involved in this nomination process so the task force worked with our community relations relations team and developed a communications timeline to promote the school nomination process the task force begins soliciting nominations for the four schools on march 11th that process continued through march 24th a press release was distributed and the information was included in the school division

095and city newsletters the renaming process was advertised in the newspaper and also on social media emails were distributed to targeted groups to include the Newport News education foundation members of the superintendent's roundtable all employees parents guardians and of course most important our students each of our school principals also develop the process to to solicit their students input student voice as you know is very important to us the call for input on the renaming process was also covered by the local tv news teams now i'd like to give you an overview of the nomination results we received 230 nominations amongst the four schools the above charts represent the number of named suggestions or nominations that we receive for each of the four schools this is a breakdown of the nominator's connection to Newport News public schools

09640 of our submissions came from employees 26 from parents guardians and 25 percent from members of the community the student percentage included here only reflects students who submitted a nomination online each of our school principals again with their own nomination process to ensure student input and we want to thank our principals for that at this time i'm pleased to introduce to you members of our task force that join us today I did you know introduce them to you and give you their names but I want to ask mr holloman to come up and he will take us through the next steps of our presentation chairman brown vice chair charles law members of the board and Dr. Parker good evening it's a pleasure to be with you this evening and it's been a pleasure to work

097with the diversity inclusion task force on this renaming process the task force began this important work back in november and as mr wright shared with you our first order of business was to review the school renaming policy and make recommendations to the superintendent we also developed a process to solicit names for the four schools and tier one that you voted to rename a subcommittee was designated to develop a procedure and timeline to receive community staff parent and student input in this process our task was to present the nominations to the superintendent three for each school so before you you have the list of the top nominations for each school the names before you receive two or more nominations each school principal also developed a process to gather input and we have included the top student

098nominations for each school as well so the next the first the next live excuse me shows the top nominations for epps elementary school we received several nominations for lucas creek which is also a top pick from the students at f's elementary school beechmont came in second with five nominations while stony run was second choice among the students a little bit about each of these um three nominations lucas creek was named for the creek near the school at one time this creek formed the northern boundary of the mennonite colony this name was used by the mennonites to describe the waterway as early as 1897 when they first settled in warwick county lucas was likely a family name there are several lucas families referenced in the warrior county census records of the 18th and 19th centuries our

099research was not able to determine which lucas family was the namesake for the local body of water beechmont is an area of the city of Newport News it is a housing community developed by knights brothers in the early 1960s for families in the upper end of ward county beechmont estates is the part that is closest to works boulevard where beechmont drive is located the knights brothers established in 1958 were one of several mennonite real estate developers who created suburban bedroom communities in warwick county glad I lost the following this thing because I can't hardly see it it really kind of blurred a little bit I was worried about that nonetheless stony run is a body of water near the school it is also the name of a housing community shopping center and city owned athletic

100complex next we have the top choices for lee hall richard and mildred loving received six nominations and was also the top choice of lee hall students richard and mildred loving were virginia natives who fought for their love and for the right to be married their supreme court case struck down state laws banning interracial marriage in the united states the plaintiffs in the case were the lovings a white man and black woman whose marriage was deemed illegal according to virginia state law catherine johnson received five community nominations catherine johnson was an african-american mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics at nasa were critical to the success of the first and subsequent u.s crewed spaceships space flights her career at nasa spanned 33 years and she and her colleagues at nasa were featured in the recent movie hidden

101figures engineers academy was the second most favorite name for lee hall students engineers academy was nominated by a student in honor of the school's engineering spirit and the fact that our students learn from their mistakes and keep on trying just like real world engineers engineers is also the school's mascot the next slide reflects the top nominations for nelson beechwood elementary received six community nominations and it was also the top student selection beechwood is a housing complex in beechmont the beechwood manor community was started in 1972 with the construction of the first homes by colony real estate no wood or norwood meadows came in second among nelson students the name received two community nominations as well it is a neighborhood in the denbigh area of the city where the school is located norwood meadows is a

102seasoned community in the denbigh area of the city the community was built around the mid-1980s nelson students also the nelson mascot is a knight noble would represent knightly characteristics and noble was the third selection for this school a third nomination rather and finally the next slide is for dojo middle school the top nominations for dozier were ella fitzgerald industrial park and katherine johnson we received 12 nominations for ella fitzgerald and it was the first student choice ella fitzgerald was a famous and influential jazz singer from newport news who had an enormous impact on the music industry as a woman of color she is considered an icon the students think she is a great role model as well the second student choice is industrial park which is the street where does middle school is located we

103also receive summer community nominations for katherine johnson who I spoke about earlier thank you for this opportunity to assist with your school renaming process and I turn the presentation over to Dr. Parker and I would like to thank mr holliman for uh and and all all of our task force members for uh being for really leading this work moving forward over the time and we know there was just a little thing called a pandemic taking place over the course of the year so you know we we we obviously had some time where we were distracted but as you can see the night tonight there was a group who really stayed focused on the matter at hand and that matter was bringing forward some recommendations to the board for the renaming of these schools so after

104meeting with them to review their work and to uh review the context of their recommendations uh I centered on four four recommendations and I'll read those out uh in no unnecessary order epsilon memory stony run elementary was my first choice and recommendation to the board lee hall elementary was renamed catherine johnson eller minner elementary nelson elementary renamed to no wood meadows elementary and dozier middle school renamed to ella fitzgerald middle school in reviewing those the recommendations from the task force there were such things as that I wanted to make sure like i think number one choice for epps elementary uh was a creek who we could not determine the origin of the name that which family it was named after I didn't want to leave any uncertainty there um looking at the geographic locations where

105one of the schools was actually located in the no wood letters metals community that was that was that was an easier fit for the name of that elementary school and then there were just compelling reasons to support the name recognition names which were which were which were names that were recommended for multiple schools in the selection process um so these are my recommendations to the board Mr. Chairman and at this point in the process as we had discussed my recommendations this evening do not necessarily have to be the final naming of names of these schools it is now the board's process and uh with that being said the board will will have uh um the opportunity over the next month to deliberate on the rec superintendent's recommendations and if you need further context we are

106now here to advise the board as best possible and give you the information any information that you may need to make to make a determination at the may board meeting and whatever that process Mr. Chairman would be we'll be happy to to uh facilitate and assist the board and uh in that process um the question came up is once the schools are named uh we will immediately begin planning for changes to signage we will use some of in the year funding to support the naming of signage and it will be a phased process over the next two years as we change the signage to to those schools and make the adjustments necessary our task force will continue to be and start as as as directed by the board to continue to vet the tier twos

107and tier three schools that were identified at the beginning of the year so we anticipate this obviously will not be the last um presentation or recommendation we bring to the board as we review those those schools in tier two and tier three so at this time mr wright and team and myself we stand ready for any questions that the board may have all right thank you Dr. Parker questions from the board all right no questions no questions at this time as Dr. Parker mentioned we will deliberate on this matter and uh take this issue up for action at our may board meeting all right thank you Dr. Parker and the task force for all of your your hard work uh we'll move on then to the next item on our agenda which is 5.05 the

108attendance report 5.06 the membership report 5.07 the construction report board members you have copies of those reports in your packets are there any questions on those reports all right hearing no no questions and we'll move on to item 5.08 which is comments by the superintendent Dr. Parker please stay away and thank you Mr. Chairman uh really pleased with the work of some of our staff of our staff and uh and uh the presenters this evening uh it's a lot of work to to come to prepare for a board meeting and as you can see there's a lot of innovation and great work taking place we had our workshop session this morning this afternoon with uh summer programming and we're looking forward to having a great summer session this year that will provide a lot of

109support to our students so i'd like to say start off by saying thank you to my staff for all of the hard work that's taking place on a daily basis I want to begin my remarks tonight by thanking the budget committee uh mrs rousseau ms minto the budget office staff and our senior staff team for your leadership and support during our budget development process i will continue to work in collaboration at this point with city council to ensure that our school division has the financial resources to ensure that all of our students graduate college career and citizen ready two of our in recognitions two of our student artists earned accolades in the virginia school boards association's tidewater regional art contest we'd like to recognize those students sarah zane from crittenden middle school placed first in

110her division and tina wynn gwen from woodside high school earned third place for the high school level competition the winning artwork will be featured in the vspa website spotlighted during the vsba annual conference convention and featured in vspa publications throughout the year congratulations to sarah and tina I'd also like to mention that this is national autism uh awareness month and Newport News public schools has a wide range of resources and support and to advance all students so i'd like to thank our special education teachers for supporting our students and our children with autism we're pleased to announce that the city has awarded quinn evans the contract for designing huntington middle school and and also the design of the southeast community resource area which will be the campus that huntington middle school will be located on

111one moving forward we look forward to meeting with the representatives from quinn evans in early may as we begin to work with them to plan for the reopening of huntington middle school in august of 2024 and finally tomorrow is administrative professionals day and I want to take a moment to thank all of our office professionals uh administrative assistants secretaries and office assistants for uh office assistance for in the school division that work diligently every day there will be a lot of food around the place tomorrow and around our school division thanking these great workers the backbones of our school division so thanks for your hard work and dedication to our staff students and families and that concludes my remarks tonight Mr. Chairman thank you Dr. Parker then we'll move on to item six which is

112another opportunity to hear from the public uh matt o'clock do we have any cards all right do we have any cards seeing there's no cards and we will now move on to uh matters by the school board then mr moody please start us off tonight and don't leave out the big news of your big news big good news for yourself well good evening I want to begin by thanking our student leaders as this is a student leaders week I want to thank our student leaders first newport news public schools for the ability and the access that you give students to be able to lead in various capacities and I'm grateful even that you all have opted and seen at best fit to choose a student representative to sit on this very school board that is

113a vital an important piece of leadership so I want to thank you thank all of the student leaders out there for all that you do for your tireless work to make your school community the best they can possibly be I want to also in the last eight weeks now school I know you're ready for summer break student family teachers and staff but I want to thank you all you know for all that you all have done and all that you're going to continue to do but I want to tell you to just keep on going just a little bit longer and then once the pollen and rain has gone away a summer will be here we'll be able to go on the beach and do the things that we want to do so just keep

114on keeping on I'm I am excited I don't know if I'm supposed to say this but you you let me just say this um I am humbled to say that I am the wayne dr wayne lett recipient and right does mean that I do receive ten thousand dollars over the course of the four years of breaking down into 2500 each year and that does mean that I will be returning back to Newport News public schools for at least three years to serve as a teacher so I'm very honored we're so very proud of you and uh you're a real hero we look forward to all the contributions uh that uh you're gonna read for our community thank you uh ms aman sure um thank you Chairman Brown and congratulations mr moody again um I have

115the privilege of attending education foundation meetings uh board meetings each month so we had a bit of a preview to some of that so congratulations um and I just want to say you know it's it's exciting and encouraging to see hear or see and hear all that's going on we've got graduation plans I'm looking forward to next year it's encouraging to see uh to see us kind of mobilizing resources to come around students those that have had some especially the early learners um a little more assistance to uh get the get their growth and in reading and literacy and I think just an encouragement and reminder to parents keep your eyes and ears on your inboxes and information our work session was wonderful on the summer plans so I think there'll be a lot of

116good information coming out there and opportunities that you'll want to jump on as soon as you as soon as you hear the choices so thank you ms aman all right uh dr best good evening um first I would like to thank all the staff for the wonderful reports it was a lot of good information tonight and some wonderful things are happening in Newport News so thank you for your continuous hard work I would like to take a minute to acknowledge that this is also I believe is professional librarian month or but I just want our librarians and media specialists to know that we appreciate all that you do and that you are very very um vital part of our school division i'm an avid reader and librarians were always some of my most favorite people

117in the building so I want you to know we thank you for all that you do and I also like to acknowledge the administrative professionals of course you guys are the ones that keep everything going so thank you to the administrative professionals i'm very happy about what's happening with huntington middle school my other southeast um partner over there he can tell you that we can't go to piggly wiggly we can't go to the hair shop we can't go anywhere where someone is not asking us what is happening with huntington so it makes me very happy to say that progress is being made and that a sign will be going up very very soon at the huntington site I'm announcing a 2024 targeted date for um opening so I'm very happy about that and so the

118last thing that I like to say upon whether or not to say this but of course if I'm probably not supposed to say it then my mind will tell me to say it so I'm going to say it so there has been some conversation around proms for students and as you all know because of what's going on with covid 19 school divisions are unable to have proms we just cannot accommodate proms but there has been some talk throughout communities that different parents are having proms for various groups of children and of course parents we can't tell you what to do in your home on your time with your money and so we're not trying to do that but what I am asking people is just to kind of keep it in mind because we don't

119want it to become a have versus a have not type of thing some people in the community have reached out and said that they're willing to to do some things to help some of those that are less fortunate so there's a possibility that mr eley and I think I can go ahead and pull you know say we talked briefly about it um that if needed we're not going to spearhead anything and nothing is going to be done on behalf of the school division but we are community workers and there may be some efforts to pull a couple of things together to help some of those that may not be able to um afford it so I just encourage everyone to keep that in mind um when you're doing some of the wonderful things for students

120um at the um end of the year thank you and those are my reminders all right thank you dr best all right mr eley thank you um I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff for all the amazing reports that y'all presented to us today I know it took a lot of hard work and a lot of detail goes in to planning these long reports to make sure the community know as well as the board and the superintendent know what's going on and we I appreciate that I also like to thank the teachers y'all have been y'all are really the the rock that's keeping the school division going I definitely know it's hard work um been with being out a whole year coming back to school to teach doing a pandemic

121is my hat's off to you the teachers the staff the janitors been working around the clock to make sure the schools are clean so I want to definitely thank the teachers and the entire staff of Newport News public school system for making sure our children are safe and making sure the staff is safe at the same time congratulations mr moody um your amazing guy we look nothing but for greatness out of you we look forward to have you come to Newport News public school system and one day you might be the next superintendent so that's um that's definitely um my honor for you to receive the the dr wayne lett award also I'm excited about the preschool plans I've early prevention is the best you know and I think that's good also excited about what

122Dr. Parker said about hopefully next year our plans is to get all kids back into school everybody know I was the advocate stay home stay home stay home stay home stay home but after riding around town exercising in the morning seeing little johnny little michael just running around like he'd been outside for like four hours now I know he's supposed to be in class so me being a school police patrol with going about my duties I say these kids really belong in school because um they're not getting too much of an education you got some parents who make sure their kids getting the best education you got some parents who say little michael go outside and play so we definitely need to make sure that kids are in school next year I think that's the

123best place for them and with all the mitigations that the school system have put in place as far as teachers getting vaccinated who wanted to get vaccinated as far as ... with the social distancing of the boards Newport News has done a great job even with talking with other school board members across the united states that you meet at different conferences they say wow Newport News y'all very aggressive and making sure your students your teachers and staff are safe so I definitely feel like you know it's the time even talking with teachers um a lot of them were kind of afraid to go in the classroom but now we have that conversation with just like this was the best thing ever feels so good to be back to have some normalcy to it so I

124we will get through this I do understand some teachers have underlying conditions in newport news public school system and human resources has been very common in making sure if you have underlying conditions that your doctor have sent you notes and hey you virtual but those there has been a lot of teachers have expressed interest who want to come back into school and we all know that's what's best for kids and we're in this position it's not what's best for us it's what's best for children because they are our future and that's all I got to say thanks all right thank you mr eley all right mr harris uh thank you Mr. Chairman Mr. Chairman I would like to thank you first for allowing us to speak I was joking them earlier it's been a while

125right okay I think they know this too yeah but anyway first I would like to thank all of the students in school for this last year because it has truly been a test of of their character and their will um you know this is one of the points in time in in their life where they will be able to look back and see a bookmark and they will have a couple more as they go through life but this is probably most of them first one where they've you know met some meta challenge and uh and most have exceeded that challenge mr moody uh you know congratulations to you on your accomplishments and and i'm not not just doing it for what you have accomplished but for what you will accomplish uh you know you're one

126of those individuals you can't quite put your finger on it but you have a special quality of many special qualities um so you know I know you're gonna do great things in this world and you know it's a great testament to you your family uh the community and to the Newport News public school system so really appreciate all your work um also to the staff administrators Dr. Parker this has been a bookmarking you all's uh careers as well um you know the first time I went to combat it was one of those things where you you know you you see it on the movies and you you know but until you're actually in it when you under truly understand what uh dealing with issues are and and and that those decisions that one or group

127of you all make really has an effect on all and so i think you guys have uh been steadfast you have been solid in your approach uh and your decision-making processes and and you can see it now so I really appreciate that Dr. Parker uh thank thank you for all your effort and your staff also I want to thank all of my school board counterparts over the last five six months we went through a lot of training together we've learned a lot about each other and I think we truly understand what it means to be prepared to provide policies and procedures you know this is what this is why dr parker hire staff members uh to do the hard work and again just being in training with each one of you i've learned a lot

128about everyone here you know their decision-making process and I can truly say that you know this is a winning team we are free to disagree with one another we not just disagree but we also provide uh solutions uh to one another if if they're the issue so I just want to applaud you all for that and thank you for all the support uh thank you Mr. Chairman i said all right thank you mr harris all right Mr. Hunter uh thank you mr uh chairman and uh i'll ditto mr harris comments as well about uh working with this particular board it's been a pleasure over the last uh uh a few months man during this time it's we've become and we've grown a lot closer together so there's great things happening in Newport News public schools

129and mr moody congratulations I as well i'm part of the Newport News education foundation so you know I get you know I was kind of prepared for that and we made a very a very very good choice and uh huntington uh I guess I could say I was one of those who who led the way to getting a new huntington and now the sign's going to come up you know here shortly and i'm going to have a big smile on my face and so when that first dirt is turned i'll be there and hopefully when the ribbon is cut i'll be there as well so huntington it shall rise again now again I want to thank all of the teachers and counselors and the cafeteria workers the bus drivers for your you know un relentless

130uh effort to uh making sure that our kids got the best education they could on this unprecedented time and i'm i'm so the report I heard during the work session about our summer an amount of funds that we're actually putting in to uh catch up and i'm not sure if you ever could catch up you know tom waits for no one so once someone says how do you make up time you know for a year we don't really make it up we just we we you know you we too you know we find a way not necessarily making up but we find another way to learn and so we'll never make up that particular time but we can you know imagine think outside the box which I heard today and then we can we can't

131make makeup but we can definitely catch up you can't make up time but you can just catch up you know so we do that in relay races you may be behind but you depending on what leg you run you know you pass that baton off and before you know it we're right back in front again i believe this school division has the leadership Dr. Parker and the team and all of the teachers that are out there and the principals and the bus drivers the cafeteria workers and most importantly our students we have the will we have the knowledge and I know we have the fortitude that makes us Newport News proud that's it I look forward to our future all right thank you Mr. Hunter madam vice chair well thank you Mr. Chairman um well

132we have learned so much um between this time last year and this year and it was really evident in tonight's um presentations that's off to dr carter and his team um i just heard the joy and the excitement in the presentations tonight uh you know we've had to hear the hard stuff and that's been a challenge for his team to have to come to the podium and share and tonight was there was a little bit of a flip on that um we heard positive things about going to middle school we heard about this a preschool program um the r2l report was great and to forward it into the students getting back in school five days a week when we come back in the fall we've heard great things about our summer plans and all of

133this uh is capable and possible because of us moving um to one to one because there's elements of that where we're going to have to remain virtual and where we're going to have to rely on that foundational quick ground work that we had to lay so hands off to um chris jenkins and his team for showing us the path to what we need to be doing in this space and allowing us to be able to make some of the decisions that we made tonight i want to say that it was really great to attend the national school board association sometimes you feel like um our workshops this past past month um sometimes you feel like you're making these decisions for your district alone um that your district is so incredibly unique and it is however

134the challenges remain for all districts across the nation and it was really a joy to hear other school boards talking about what their challenges have been what they have done to answer the call and it was nice to be in some of those meetings and be able to share best practices that we're doing the result through public schools and finally mr moon congratulations so your passion is the kind that we need back here in Newport News so i'm so glad you're going to be coming back so thank you so much all right thank you madam vice chair all right so i'll attempt to be brief and just echo some of the comments that were already made but as well a little bit of housekeeping we'll see each other very shortly here in a week because

135we have our next joint meeting with city council where we'll be able to discuss the southeast community and huntington middle school so that's going to be happening next week april 27th so look forward to seeing you all your smiling faces uh here shortly again uh and I'll just share that um I saw a site that uh you know last month here at todd stadium that you know really brought a lot of emotions out of me which was seeing um warwick and woodside as we you know came to the board meeting as it pulled in they were out in the field warming up and I was in such um shock because through this year it's been such a challenging year I was in shock and and all that I said oh no that's that's just some

136kids they're just practicing yeah that's not really a game and then as I got closer I saw wait there's a team with that uniform another team with another uniform they're on different sides of the field these they're going to play tonight and I was just in such um such shock and it was so uh so you know heartwarming you know mr eley and dr best after the meeting said hey let's go over there and take a look over there check out the game and I didn't want to at the time I said no I'm going to get back in my car because I don't want to be over there standing up on the field crying who is this who is this crazy person over here todd stadium standing here crying called the police on me

137so um because it was just so um emotional and and such a um a wonderful sight to see something that I you know thought maybe I was never going to see again through this pandemic it's been so hard you know young people being able to participate in the extracurricular activities being a part of the community really getting into engaged with one another and we don't know how much you know we miss that so much uh we heard tonight we're gonna we were you know we have the bold leadership and the vision to bring it forward next year we're planning to bring everybody back to school five days a week we're gonna have a you know we're planning to have a regular um school year um that's that's our that's our plan so you know I

138want to echo that and just let the whole community know that that's the plan now the only thing that I can see right now that can hurt that plan is if the community doesn't do its part so if there's one message I just want to leave everyone with tonight is please go get your vaccination this week you got the the alert I got it on my phone as well everyone got the alert everyone's 16 years and older you can go get the vaccine the thing that's going to allow us to have that five days a week school next year get everybody playing football and baseball and soccer and doing volleyball and everything music and everything else we talk about summer institute for the arts all the things that we really want to see our young

139people doing what's going to enable that is folks going out and getting that vaccine because when you get that vaccine then we're going to be able in our in our community here in Newport News uh be uh you know vaccinating against these these different variants and be able to keep our schools open because that's what's that through this time here that's what has kept our staff in school it's what's been able to keep our schools open is that our staff has been vaccinated so please everyone you know within the sound of my voice the one thing you can do even if you don't have kids in school to do your part in our city go get the vaccination because doing so is going to allow us to have the kind of school year that our

140that our seniors deserve you know i think about mr moody uh we we talk we talk about it you know so proud of you um the seniors haven't had the year that they deserve because we've been in this quarantine so let's have next year let's have the year that the seniors really deserve and and let them get through their full slate of activities so with that that's all I have for tonight we stand adjourned.