Central Virginia
Albemarle County
School Board Business Meeting 8/10/2023
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School Board Business Meeting
8/10/2023
Call to Order (5:15)
Convene into Closed Meeting
Closed Meeting Motion Assignment and Resignation-Legal Counsel 8-10-23.pdf
Call Meeting Back to Order (6:30)
Closed Meeting Certification
Roll Call
Pledge of Allegiance
Moment of Silence
Approval of Agenda
Approval of Consent Agenda
Approval of the Minutes
June 8, 2023 Minutes.pdf
July 24, 2023 Minutes.pdf
INFORMATION ONLY: Architectural Selection for Southern Feeder Pattern Elementary School
SFP ES List of Firms Submitting Proposals.pdf
High School Center II - Application for Zoning Map Amendment
FINAL_23-08.07_HSC II_Zoning Map Amendment Application.pdf
For Action: Policy Review and Revision
For Action Summary 8-10-23.pdf
GCDB (1).pdf
Equity Policy Checklist GCDB.pdf
GCNA.pdf
Equity Policy Checklist GCNA.pdf
GCQA.pdf
Equity Policy Checklist GCQA.pdf
GCQD 7.3.23.pdf
Equity Policy Checklist GCQD.pdf
GCS Internships.pdf
Equity Policy Checklist GCS.pdf
For Information: Policy Review and Revisions
For Information 8.10.23.pdf
GD 8.4.23.pdf
Equity Policy Checklist GD.pdf
Adoption of middle and high school instructional resources.
ELA Books for SB Review- August 10.pdf
School-Based Health Workforce Grant FY23
School Health Workforce Grant FY23 8-10-23.pdf
School Crisis Management Plan
Exemption from Compulsory Attendance
Religious Exemption
Religious Exemption
Religious Exemption
Religious Exemption
Personnel Action
Summary of Board Actions for Meeting Date 8.10.23.pdf
BP Totals for Meeting Date 8.10.23.pdf
Personnel Action - Athletic Coaches
BP Data 8.10.23.pdf
School Naming Review
Shool Name Review Update - Final.pptx
Spotlight on Education
Sustainability Program Update + ACES Annual Report - Lindsay Snoddy (7:31-8:00)
Fall 2023 Redistricting Study Proposed Scope - Rosalyn Schmitt (8:00-8:15)
Fall 2023 Redisticting Study Scope.pdf
Proposed Redistricting Study Fall 2023 _ August 10.pdf
Other Business by Board Members/Superintendent
Closed Meeting - if needed
Closed Meeting Certification - if needed
CLOSED MEETING CERTIFICATION.pdf
SPEAKER_00
00:00:00
will allow the Equity Center and ACPS to pursue a joint research agenda that addresses inequalities around local youth outcomes while also strengthening relationships between UVA, ACPS, and community partners for future research practice collaborations.
00:00:18
Together we will design research questions, conduct research projects relevant to the needs of students and their families, and provide research-based findings that can be translated into district policies and practices that bring equitable opportunities to ACPS students.
00:00:38
Research will be conducted through the Equity Center's Star Hill Pathways program, which is free, a year-round college and career readiness program for Albemarle County and Charlottesville City youth in grades 7 through 12.
00:00:54
Polited in 2021 and launched in 2022, Star Heel Pathways is distinguished by its utilization of hands-on career pathway exploration through partnerships with community-based organizations, business leaders, and UVA faculty in career fields including environmental science, astronomy,
00:01:17
kinesiology, nursing, anesthesiology, game design, cybersecurity, and manufacturing.
00:01:26
As part of the grant, the division was granted a mid-career professional to work in the division with the support of UVA.
00:01:34
Dr. Russell Carlock works within the Office of Community Engagement and is the bridge between ACPS and UVA.
00:01:43
He will translate the findings from the research on Star Hill Pathways to devise instructional and professional development resources that meet the specific needs of the division related to increasing college and career readiness for middle and high schoolers.
00:02:00
Ultimately, this position supports the division in developing an infrastructure to use research evidence to influence classroom interventions and practice.
00:02:11
Star Heel Pathways program directly aligns with the work of the division around career learning centers and supports students early by providing relevant, engaging learning experiences in which to identify their passions, life passions, career interests, and the skills and training that empower success.
00:02:33
This evening, we have with us Dr. Ben Allen, the executive director of the University of Virginia's Equity Center,
00:02:40
and Dr. Russell Carlock, Equity Educational Data Scientist, and then a few special guests as well to tell you more about the program and research.
00:02:52
Thank you.
SPEAKER_12
00:03:01
Good evening, thank you Dr. Kaiser.
00:03:04
So it's my pleasure to share a little bit about my role in collaborating with the Equity Center at the University of Virginia and the promising program of Star Hill Pathways.
00:03:11
I had the opportunity to first learn about this program and witness it as the assistant principal at Jackson P. Burley Middle School where many of our students participated and over this last summer in my new role I got to see firsthand the positive impact that this program was having
00:03:25
for our students as they had the opportunity to choose their own pathway in terms of their career interests and really take agency over their own goals and interests in this important time in their lives.
00:03:38
I saw our students firsthand engaging in real-world activities with people who are at the University of Virginia and researchers and perhaps one of the most exciting examples of the work that they're doing
00:03:50
was a counselor who is a second year nursing student at the University of Virginia who works at Martha Jefferson Hospital as a nursing aide every weekend.
00:03:59
And this student went to Monticello High School and lives and grew up in the Southwood community.
00:04:07
And so this is an example of a student who is at the University of Virginia, highly successful, who is from our community and can show students firsthand exactly what the pathway might be for them to take
00:04:20
that kind of a career if they choose to do it.
00:04:22
These are the kinds of opportunities that our students are having in this program.
00:04:26
In my role as Equity Data Scientist, I've gotten the opportunity already to work with researchers from UVA around program evaluation of the Star Hill Pathways program and in learning how to bring some of these practices into our school division to better understand exactly what's working for our students, what's not, and how to translate what we find out works
00:04:45
across our school division to positively support our students.
00:04:50
What's most important for me is that you hear from our students tonight, so first I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Ben Allen from the Equity Center at the University of Virginia to tell you a little bit more about the program and then he will be introducing our student representatives.
00:05:03
Thank you.
SPEAKER_25
00:05:10
Good evening.
00:05:11
I'm going to be brief because Rusty and Daphne did such a wonderful job of explaining the program and the partnership.
00:05:17
The only thing that I will fill in the gap is the involvement of the University of Virginia.
00:05:21
And so the Equity Center was established four years ago as a leverage piece of how do you work with the University of Virginia and leverage its resources with the local community.
00:05:31
without duplicating it.
00:05:32
And so one of the exciting things about this is really being able to tie into the strategic planning, the initiatives of the school district and youth serving organizations in the area as a way to knit these pieces together as opposed to working in silos, which often happens in this space.
00:05:46
And so I'm truly appreciative of the support from the school district.
00:05:51
There are many staff, teachers, former students that have been involved in this programming.
00:05:56
One of the biggest pushes over the summer was the partnership we have with transportation.
00:06:01
of being able to transport all of our kids from their homes to the programming which is why we had a 90% attendance rate.
00:06:08
And so those types of partnerships pieces is really being able to have this village mentality to support students that are in our community that we're all working with.
00:06:17
The research aspects of it that Dr. Carlock just spoke of is also the piece of how can we take this as a model and use it to inform and collaborate on practices at the school district level.
00:06:29
And so it is truly my honor, you don't want to hear from me because I'm not that interesting, but there are two students here, two of our scholars,
00:06:36
that I'm very proud of and I first met when I worked at Mountain View Elementary.
00:06:40
These are former Colts, Jordan Spencer and Zulipena, who are going to come up and tell us a little bit about as the student, which I think is the most important piece about their experiences in this program.
SPEAKER_11
00:07:01
Good evening.
00:07:02
My name is Jordan Spencer.
00:07:04
I am a rising eighth grader at Jackson P. Burley.
00:07:07
Star Hill has helped me understand pathways to success and has also allowed me to expand my vision around opportunities for different careers.
00:07:16
Over the past few summers, I've taken classes in culinary, filmmaking, and science and data sports.
00:07:22
As a young black male, Star Hill has helped me look at all my future careers and realize that anything is possible.
00:07:31
Thank you.
SPEAKER_14
00:07:46
Good evening, my name is Zuli Pena and I'm a rising ninth grader at Monticello High School and at Star Hill Pathways it really helped me with medicine because when I want to be an adult I want to be a neurosurgeon and my two pathways at Star Hill were computer science and health and medical science.
00:08:11
In computer science we had learned a lot of coding basics and we got to explore new areas of Virginia which I didn't know of.
00:08:22
And in my health and medical science program we got to label some parts of the hearts and it really like boosted up my confidence in doing medicine because I just out of the blue I just wanted to be a surgeon but I did not really know that much about it.
00:08:41
and now that Star Hill Pathways just really helped me in learning more things and now I feel more like more smarter about medicine so and overall Star Hill is a really nice program I would recommend it to other people and my community thank you
SPEAKER_25
00:09:15
and I believe that is it pending any questions.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:09:21
Dr. Allen, this is what a three-year program?
00:09:24
You have funding for three years on this program and how many students will that encourage?
SPEAKER_25
00:09:31
We have funding for 10 years.
00:09:34
Oh, outstanding.
00:09:35
This is just one of the funding streams.
00:09:37
The grant is one of the funding streams to fund the research arm of this.
00:09:41
We currently support 143 Albemarle County students.
00:09:46
One student was in the city and just moved to the county over the summer.
00:09:50
But we onboard about 50 to 100 students each year.
00:09:54
And so if you can imagine, as these kids grow older, they'll be in this cohort model until they matriculate to post-secondary success.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:10:01
I know this is probably a dumb question.
00:10:05
I know that we have AVID programs for our middle school kids in some of our schools.
00:10:09
How is this differentiated from that?
SPEAKER_25
00:10:12
One of the pieces is leveraging the cost.
00:10:16
And so it's at zero cost.
00:10:17
So kids don't have to worry about fundraising for trips.
00:10:19
They don't have to worry about fundraising for different things with their families.
00:10:24
So that's one piece of it.
00:10:25
But actually, a lot of the programming is trying to combine with what's happening in AVID.
00:10:29
And so when we recruit students, we recruit from the AVID classrooms.
00:10:32
We work with AVID teachers and administrators at each school to do that programming as well.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:10:38
Thank you.
SPEAKER_10
00:10:44
It looks like Jordan had to step out but I just wanted to congratulate Zuli for your nice words there and I think this is a wonderful program and thank you very much for your work with that Dr. Allen.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:11:05
Just one more question.
00:11:06
In terms of the data collection, how are you going to measure program success?
00:11:12
I mean, we have testimonials certainly from our students, but are we going to see Ms. Pena as a neurosurgeon?
SPEAKER_25
00:11:21
Hopefully, if that's what her passion is.
00:11:23
So there's longitudinal program success, and we're defining success as matriculation to a student's option, four-year institution, two-year, you know, straight into the workforce.
00:11:34
And really what we're trying to do is break down the barriers that prevent kids from having that choice.
00:11:38
On the short term, we have a data sharing agreement with the district and Rusty's position as well.
00:11:43
that is really helping to facilitate intermittently how students are doing from everything that we measure as educators in terms of student achievement, student well-being.
00:11:52
The testimonials, obviously you just heard here tonight, we run focus groups, we run single interviews, we interview parents, we interview counselors and so we are triangulating all that data.
00:12:01
That's why
00:12:02
This grant truly is funding the research arm of this necessary to really have evidence of this is what we're espousing we're saying that we're doing, but also ensuring that we have the results to it and we're using continuous improvement science in order to make tweaks and change course as possible with our partners.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:12:21
Sounds great, thank you.
Graham Paige
00:12:24
Okay, I do have one question for Judy, I think.
00:12:28
Okay, Judy, I think you mentioned that you wanted to go into the field of medicine.
00:12:31
What other classes or what other programs did you take besides computer science that sort of helped to make that decision or either to reinforce that decision?
SPEAKER_13
00:12:48
It just helped me stick to it because I learned a lot of interesting facts in medicine
SPEAKER_25
00:13:18
And one of the pieces to add to that is the Health and Medical Science Pathway that's part of the summer is actually taught by Jeremy Jove who is a teacher at Monticello High School who runs the Health and Medical Science Pathway.
00:13:42
The intent of this is to bridge what students are doing outside of school to what is happening with career learning communities so they see this as one continuous activity.
00:13:51
Thanks.
SPEAKER_10
00:13:55
Thank you so much, Dr. Allen.
00:13:57
Thank you, Ben.
SPEAKER_25
00:13:57
Thank you.
SPEAKER_10
00:13:57
We don't have any other announcements.
00:14:05
Nope.
00:14:05
Next we have public comment.
00:14:07
Graham?
Graham Paige
00:14:08
Thank you, Chair Lee.
00:14:12
First, our guidelines for public comment.
00:14:15
We invite and actively seek the public's input in matters relevant to school board governance and provide time in our business meetings to hear from our residents and community members.
00:14:25
During public comment, we expect respectful and on-topic comments.
00:14:30
Disruptive behavior from speakers or from members of the public in attendance will not be tolerated.
00:14:36
Anyone who willfully disrupts this meeting in a manner that prevents or interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting may be ejected by the chair.
00:14:45
Individuals and organizations wishing to speak during public comment must sign in with the clerk.
00:14:52
Sign in is available online beginning at 9 a.m. on the Monday of the meeting week until 3.30 p.m. on the day of the meeting.
00:15:00
Public testimony guidelines are as follows.
00:15:03
We are asking the speakers to please state your name and your address or your voting district.
00:15:09
Address comments to the school board as a whole.
00:15:12
Limit comments to those matters that are relevant to school board governance or school division operations.
00:15:18
Give written statements and other supporting materials to the clerk.
00:15:22
If you are unable to complete the presentation in the time allotted, a copy of supporting materials will be provided to school board members.
00:15:31
Because of the number of speakers that we have tonight, two minutes will be allowed for each presenter to speak.
00:15:38
A color coded light system is used to time presentations.
00:15:42
The yellow light means the speaker is one minute into the presentation and the red light means the speaker is at the two minute limit of the presentation and must wrap up.
00:15:52
In order to maintain respect for all points of view, the school board requests no clapping, booing, or any other audible form of support or non-support to be used.
00:16:03
If members of the public wish to show their support for a speaker, they may stand or raise their hands.
00:16:08
Debate and dialogue with the school board are not allowed.
00:16:13
Our first three speakers for tonight, Allison Spillman, Kelly Washington, and Gina Morris.
Allison Spillman
00:16:32
Good evening.
00:16:33
I'm Allison Spillman.
00:16:34
I live in Whitehall.
00:16:36
I have five kids in ACPS, and I'm also a candidate for the At-Large School Board seat.
00:16:42
I came to speak tonight about the current issues facing school transportation for ACPS students and the hardship it is creating on many ACPS families.
00:16:50
I firmly believe that 100% of students should get transportation services provided by ACPS.
00:16:56
Our kids can't learn if they're not in school.
00:16:58
Given the shortage of licensed bus drivers, we must get creative on solutions.
00:17:03
I'm a solutions-oriented candidate and I have a few ideas.
00:17:06
First we must implement some immediate fixes to ensure that all kids arrive at school on time and ready to learn.
00:17:12
ACPS should open school facilities earlier, keep them open later, and provide supervision, activity, and meals to accommodate working parents.
00:17:19
ACPS should also expand EDEP to serve more families and consider temporarily subsidizing after-school care through community organizations until a sustainable solution is in place.
00:17:30
In addition, ACPS should explore using non-school bus vehicles such as passenger vans that do not require a commercial driver's license to transport students.
00:17:39
I urge senior administrators to pitch in during this time of need by getting their CDL licenses and driving school buses until bus drivers are hired.
00:17:47
Ultimately this problem will only get worse if we don't find a solution to hire and retain more bus drivers.
00:17:53
I know of several bus drivers who last year went to the transportation office to offer solutions and were told thanks, but no thanks.
00:18:00
In 2021, Chesterfield County was in a similar situation as ACPS, but by mid-2022,
00:18:05
They'd hired over 200 drivers, eliminated all their double-back routes, and had an on-time success rate of nearly 100%.
00:18:14
How did they do that?
00:18:15
They thought outside the box.
00:18:16
They increased drivers' pay to a living wage.
00:18:19
They talked to the drivers and got a better understanding to the barriers to entry and then eliminated them.
00:18:25
They paid bonuses not just upon hiring but throughout the year, and they dealt with student behavior issues on the buses head-on.
00:18:31
We can solve this problem by listening to our bus drivers, there's a bunch of them here tonight, and parents, and getting creative with solutions.
Graham Paige
00:18:38
Thank you.
SPEAKER_06
00:18:59
My name is Kelly Washington.
00:19:01
I live in the Rio district in Deerwood.
00:19:05
I'm a former school bus driver for Albemarle County and the parent of three children at ACPS.
00:19:11
I want to make something clear before I start.
00:19:13
I'm not here to talk to any of you.
00:19:14
You haven't been listening to us.
00:19:16
I'm here to talk to the parents.
00:19:17
I'm here to talk to the other school bus drivers and anybody online that wants to hear exactly how we need to fix this problem.
00:19:23
I'm going to tell you the truth.
00:19:26
In 2018, ACPS had 164 bus routes, which was about 80 drivers.
00:19:32
I've asked and gotten no information about how many drivers they actually have, but when they tell you 17 drivers short, it's a lot more than that because they cut so many routes, even though our county has grown immensely.
00:19:45
In the email I received notifying me that two of my children will not have a bus service this year,
00:19:50
They said, and I quote, we work to prioritize bus routes that serve high percentages of students most at risk of lower academic achievement, including special education students, students from economically disadvantaged households, and English learners.
00:20:04
Sure they did.
00:20:05
A quick look on social media can tell us that they prioritize students that live closest to the schools.
00:20:10
Every route dropped on the north side, including my neighborhood, has a minimum of a 15-minute drive to school.
00:20:17
It's obvious and obvious it honestly makes more sense because it's easier to get more kids to school faster that way.
00:20:24
Why lie to us?
00:20:25
Just tell us that you cut the people that were further than the circle that you drew around the school.
00:20:31
And let's not forget that this statement sets students up for discrimination just for being bus drivers.
00:20:37
They're putting this problem in our hands, telling us we need to carpool and deal with transportation problems ourselves.
00:20:42
Fine.
00:20:43
Let's fix it.
00:20:44
You want to know what to do?
00:20:45
Talk to your bus drivers.
00:20:47
Talk to the former and current bus drivers.
00:20:49
Find out why they left and find out why they're not here.
00:20:52
Matt Haast won't listen to him.
00:20:53
I asked him to talk to me when I worked there.
00:20:55
Many other bus drivers have asked and nobody, I've never spoken to myself.
00:21:04
I'm organizing a meeting at Woodbrooke Elementary.
00:21:08
You can keep beeping, I don't care.
00:21:11
We're having a meeting at Woodbrooke.
Graham Paige
00:21:19
Thank you.
00:21:22
Gino Morris.
00:21:28
Is Ms. Morris here?
00:21:32
Alright, moving right along, Cara Sullivan.
00:21:38
Cara?
SPEAKER_22
00:21:49
I'm Kira Sullivan in the Whitehall District.
00:21:59
I live way out in Free Union almost to the Greene County line so just thought it was important tonight to give the perspective of the really rural families that are being affected by this and just really wanted
00:22:13
Just really wanted to put into perspective what it means for the rural families, because I do think it's a really unique situation that we're in.
00:22:19
Doing the math using today's gas prices, if I take my son to school and pick him up every day for a month, it'll cost me just over $300.
00:22:28
So for the hardworking families in Albemarle County who live in the country, that's just, they're living close to the bone.
00:22:36
And for some of us, that's enough to break us.
00:22:39
It's a really significant financial commitment.
00:22:41
Not to mention, I think for some people who live closer to school who also don't understand this, door to door from my home to Henley will take me 35 minutes, but in the mornings with the traffic circle and the drop off, it's at least a 90 minute commitment, usually closer to about two hours.
00:22:59
completely unsustainable, which of course means that you can't hold down a job.
00:23:04
I would not be able to sustain my small business.
00:23:08
Certainly wouldn't be able to serve enough clients or offer enough classes to keep that going.
00:23:13
It would be financially really, really quite a hardship on the rural families that are already struggling.
00:23:20
I think also speaking to that may be more important.
00:23:23
Those students are ones that you don't want to disadvantage any further.
00:23:27
I think these are kids that
00:23:29
Sometimes you're looking at a lower SES.
00:23:31
You're looking at kids who are struggling with slower internet.
00:23:33
They are already disadvantaged when it comes to doing classwork.
00:23:37
They're socially isolated because they're already missing opportunities because of that.
00:23:42
COVID hit them harder because we live so far away.
00:23:44
We were so isolated.
00:23:45
And I think it's really important to consider that these students that are being discriminated against can't handle another hardship like this.
00:23:54
I think it would be really, really detrimental
00:23:58
to do this, and I think I work with moms, and I know that we would do anything for our kids that was possible, but we can't do this.
Graham Paige
00:24:08
Thank you.
00:24:11
Our next three speakers, Megan Knapp, Daflesha Curry, and Jen Turner-Moren.
SPEAKER_16
00:24:30
Hello.
00:24:31
Can you hear me?
00:24:33
My name is Megan Knapp.
00:24:34
I'm a parent in the Scottsville district.
00:24:36
I have two children in ACPS, one at Monticello High School and one at Walden Middle School.
00:24:41
We live in Mill Creek South off Avon Street extended.
00:24:44
As you may have guessed, I'm here to discuss a lack of bus transportation for the upcoming school year.
00:24:49
I hope my personal testimony can help motivate leadership to continue efforts to solve the transportation issue.
00:24:56
In the 731 email,
00:24:58
I'm going to read the bolded section.
00:25:01
Despite our ongoing improvement efforts we regret we will be unable to provide bus transportation to every student in our school system who needs it.
00:25:08
If you registered, blah blah blah.
00:25:10
I naively believed they were referring to the expanded walk zones mentioned above.
00:25:14
I never imagined it would mean no transportation offered.
00:25:18
I imagined two possible scenarios.
00:25:19
One, my high schooler would have to walk to Monticello, approximately two miles.
00:25:24
Seems doable.
00:25:25
Second, my middle schooler would have to walk to the intersection with the main road, Avon Street extended, to make the bus route shorter so the bus could pick up all the kids from the neighborhood at one time.
00:25:35
Done on Monday, we learned our middle schooler and many of our neighbors have no bus.
00:25:39
I can only think of three possible solutions.
00:25:42
One, walking.
00:25:43
It's six miles, windy road, 55 miles per hour most of the way.
00:25:48
Very skinny.
00:25:49
No sidewalks, no shoulders.
00:25:50
But there are several crosses to mark the deaths on Route 20.
00:25:54
Second option, drive twice a day.
00:25:56
We are lucky ones.
00:25:57
We have two adults in our house, we have two cars.
00:26:00
That's not the case for everyone.
00:26:01
We both work.
00:26:02
Again, we are lucky to have some flexibility in our schedules, but we still need to work.
00:26:06
9.30 to 3.30 is not a full work day.
00:26:09
Last year, the bus service home was very unreliable, so I often drove home.
00:26:13
I often had to take work calls while driving and in the pickup line.
00:26:17
Always hands-free, don't worry.
00:26:19
Third option, carpool.
00:26:21
Clearly the best solution of those available, sharing the time commitment, but it requires a certain level of trust.
00:26:27
We moved here to this area from the Midwest three years ago, mid-pandemic.
00:26:31
I don't know a lot of the parents of the friends of my kids.
00:26:33
I don't know them as well as I'd like to.
00:26:36
My one kid has significant anxiety and is not comfortable with strangers or kids that she doesn't know very well, and there's a lot of juggling of after-school activities.
00:26:43
Max kids' person, which means my 12-year-old would be in the front seat.
Graham Paige
00:26:56
Ms. Knapp, you could give your comments to the clerk.
00:27:02
All right, Ms. Curry.
SPEAKER_01
00:27:07
Hi, I am Dave Alicia Curry.
00:27:09
I live in the Samuel Miller district.
00:27:12
I have three kids currently in ACPS, and I'm an employee of ACPS.
00:27:18
I cannot afford to take my kids to school.
00:27:20
Yes, true, granted, my kids do have a bus to get to school.
00:27:24
But there's other parents out here that are frustrated, that can't even get their kids to school because they have to work.
00:27:31
I can't even drive my kids to school because I took on a new job.
00:27:34
So I'm asking that you guys revamp, relook at it, to be able to get these kids to school.
00:27:40
They need a way.
00:27:41
We are working parents.
00:27:43
Some parents are even single parents and can't even take their kids to school because they've got to work.
00:27:48
And another thing is that our kids are going to be the ones to suffer because they can't get to school.
00:27:56
If we can't get them to school, where are they going to go?
00:27:59
The school is going to call us and say, where's your kid at?
00:28:02
Because we can't get them there.
00:28:04
No bus.
00:28:06
We can't do this to our kids.
00:28:08
Please relook at your agenda so we can be able to get our kids to school.
00:28:15
I'm just asking for you guys to listen to us as parents because there's no other way that half of us can get our kids to school.
00:28:24
I have my husband, he took on a new job, so there's no way that he can be able to take our kids to school if we did not have a bus.
00:28:32
I've emphasized for some of these parents that do not have a bus to take their kids to school.
00:28:39
So as some of these bus drivers, I was a transportation assistant on a bus.
00:28:46
but you have bus drivers that are telling you clearly what the issue is, please listen to us.
00:28:53
Please listen to us as parents and as employees.
00:28:58
Thank you.
Graham Paige
00:29:01
Is Mrs. Warren, Turner Warren here yet?
00:29:09
Okay, if not, moving right along.
00:29:12
Laurie Tamburino.
SPEAKER_18
00:29:16
That is our Zoom.
00:29:18
We're in our Zoom.
Graham Paige
00:29:21
OK, yeah, right.
00:29:22
So all of our other speakers are Zoom.
00:29:26
Is she ready?
SPEAKER_18
00:29:28
Lori Tamburini.
00:29:44
Ms. Tamburino.
00:29:54
Can you hear us?
00:29:55
Ms. Tamburino, can you hear us?
SPEAKER_13
00:30:11
I think it's my turn to speak.
SPEAKER_15
00:30:20
Good evening, my name is Laurie Tamburino.
00:30:23
I'm the parent of a rising seventh grader at Walton Middle School and I wanted to speak this evening about the bus driver shortage situation and the impact that it's having on our community.
00:30:37
I think that everyone's well aware that this is a problem and that it is causing
00:30:42
A problem for the families of approximately 900 students in the district.
00:30:49
I have four solutions that I would like to propose this evening.
00:30:53
I will be emailing these to the school board members and to Mr. Haas after the meeting.
00:31:01
So you'll have those to be able to reference.
00:31:04
Number one, open the library and cafeteria 90 minutes before the start of school at all middle schools and elementary schools and keep them open 90 minutes after the end of school and then incentivize current teaching staff to earn overtime pay for supervision shifts as well as have central staffing cover a minimum of three shifts per week at an elementary school.
00:31:33
Number two,
00:31:34
Any buses that are slated to pick up high school students living within two miles of Monticello or Albemarle High Schools have their routes reconfigured to transport middle school students.
00:31:48
Any federally protected high school students in the affected regions that need transportation would then get transported by non-CDL requiring county vehicles.
00:32:00
Number three, recruit parent volunteers to pass background checks and driving record screening to cover shifts driving non-
00:32:10
CDL County vehicles to transport their ACPS student as well as other ACPS student living geographically nearby.
00:32:19
Number four, modify bus driver positions to be 12-month employees and have the option for shifts in a school during the day to equal full time.
00:32:30
And finally, number five,
00:32:32
Until all bus driver positions are filled, require all Central's office staff to immediately earn their CDL and start transporting students.
00:32:42
Thank you and have a good evening.
Graham Paige
00:32:44
Thank you.
00:32:44
Thank you.
00:32:44
Thank you.
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00:32:51
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00:32:51
Thank you.
Graham Paige
00:32:51
Thank you.
00:32:52
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00:32:52
Thank you.
00:32:52
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00:32:52
Thank you.
00:32:53
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Thank you.
Graham Paige
00:32:54
Thank you.
00:32:54
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00:32:54
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00:32:55
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Thank you.
SPEAKER_23
00:32:57
Thank you.
00:32:58
Thank you.
00:32:58
Thank you.
00:32:58
Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
SPEAKER_23
00:32:59
Thank you.
00:32:59
Thank you.
00:33:00
Thank you.
00:33:00
Thank you.
00:33:00
Thank you.
00:33:00
Thank you
SPEAKER_23
00:33:01
My name is Nathan Alderman.
00:33:03
I'm a parent of a second grader and a rising kindergartener at Crozet Elementary.
00:33:09
I'd like to voice my support for the board's current policy regarding transgender students.
00:33:14
It seems much more comprehensive and much kinder than the governor's recently issued model policy.
00:33:19
State law requires the model policy to spring from evidence-based best practices.
00:33:24
It does not.
00:33:25
It cites no medical evidence, only a court case to justify that it can do what it aims to do.
00:33:30
Reading through the state's model policy, I was struck by its hollowness.
00:33:34
It centers parents like me and its concerns.
00:33:36
The children about whom it ought to care are an afterthought.
00:33:40
ACPS's policy, in contrast, focuses on students' care and well-being.
00:33:44
I remain impressed by the consideration it shows for students and parents of all stripes.
00:33:49
and I appreciate the careful balance it strikes between respecting parents' rights and protecting students' safety.
00:33:55
Trans kids are just kids, same as any others in our schools.
00:33:59
They're not a distraction whose simple presence harms others.
00:34:02
I'm glad ACPS and its policies understand that, and I strongly support the board and the district remaining firm in their pursuit of every student's wellbeing.
00:34:10
Thank you very much.
Graham Paige
00:34:15
All of our other speakers are on Zoom.
00:34:18
I don't see Catherine Peters on the screen yet.
00:34:24
Or Chrissy Knight.
00:34:26
I think Chrissy's right there.
00:34:27
Oh okay, sorry about that.
00:34:28
Ms. Knight, you're next.
SPEAKER_08
00:34:29
Hi, my name is Chrissy Knight and I hope it's my turn to speak.
00:34:33
The live is not lining up with the Zoom.
00:34:36
I am a mother of two students, one at Henley and one at Western, and I understand Albemarle is having trouble finding bus drivers, but I would like to know what Albemarle County's plan is for pick up and drop off.
00:34:49
Our roads in Crozet can barely handle the traffic now and I'm curious to how that's going to be.
00:34:56
We currently live over 20 minutes away and I totally agree with several speakers in regards to the bus drivers.
00:35:04
I feel like the furthest kids that live the furthest away were shafted from the buses and I'm curious to why they haven't considered maybe doing multiple runs.
00:35:16
and having these bus drivers run an earlier route and a later route or have dedicated bus stops to where multiple kids can get on at one time, send them to school, come back, grab another set of kids and take them to school.
00:35:32
Multiple times, our teenagers have had to be at home by themselves due to work schedules.
00:35:38
This is going to be a huge financial impact, like other families have mentioned, with the time off work, the gas, the maintenance.
00:35:45
And we're really wondering what is the root cause of this?
00:35:49
Have you looked at why bus drivers have left in the past?
00:35:52
From what I'm hearing, it's the supervision, it's all of the
00:35:55
the paperwork that they have to fill out, the COVID vaccines, the benefits.
00:36:01
We're now paying five cent tax for bags.
00:36:04
Why can't that money go toward bus drivers?
00:36:07
And I was also told by the email that I could look at an alternate route and apply for it.
00:36:14
And there's no instructions of what alternate route would actually have a bus seat for my two children.
00:36:20
I am battling breast cancer so it's going to be a real struggle for me this year in order to get my child to school and drive them.
00:36:29
It's going to be, you know, over 20 minutes one way because that's on a day with no school.
00:36:38
So when you add all of the traffic factors and sitting in the two pickup lines, half of my day is gone from just sitting there.
00:36:47
I'm also wondering if they looked at other means of transportation for other Albemarle high schools that currently have public transportation, whether or not they could use the Jaunt system or other CAT resources.
Graham Paige
00:37:01
Ms. Knight, your time is up.
00:37:05
You can email us your comments if you haven't finished, but your amount of time, a lot of time is up.
00:37:11
So thank you for your comments.
00:37:17
All right, next, Catherine Peters.
SPEAKER_18
00:37:21
We don't have any more speakers.
00:37:23
We don't have any more speakers.
00:37:25
Do you want to identify himself?
Graham Paige
00:37:30
OK, nobody else?
00:37:31
All right.
00:37:33
Going back again to Ms. Warren, is she here?
00:37:39
OK, if not, that ends our public comment.
SPEAKER_10
00:37:43
Thanks very much, Mr.
00:37:44
Page.
00:37:46
Next we have school board or superintendent business.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
00:37:51
So I have two pieces of business.
00:37:55
One would be to get a hiring update from Dr. Kaiser.
00:37:59
And then after that, we'll get a transportation update from Rosalind Schmidt.
SPEAKER_17
00:38:05
Good evening board members, I'm Claire Kaiser, assistant superintendent.
00:38:08
Tonight I'm actually going to share two updates.
00:38:10
One is about our new teacher academy that we are having this week and then I'll give a brief hiring update.
00:38:18
Beginning on Tuesday of this week we welcome close to 215 new teachers to Albemarle County Public Schools.
00:38:24
Through New Teacher Academy, they begin to build relationships with each other, meeting others from their own school and from across the division.
00:38:31
And during the four days of New Teacher Academy, they spend time in their schools, they learn about their students and the school itself, and they spend time in their classrooms as they orient themselves to their new jobs.
00:38:41
During the division days, which have been held over at Lakeside Middle School, they learned about our resources and about the supports that exist for them as new teachers in Albemarle County.
00:38:51
They've also spent time working on engaging instructional strategies with Dr. Dan Mulligan, an educational consultant from Creative Flexibility.
00:39:00
Tomorrow we will close out New Teacher Academy with Dr. Shawn Woodley, a motivational speaker who will focus on the importance of knowing each student to keep them engaged in their learning.
00:39:10
I would like to thank Ms. Kallsen for her opening remarks to the group on Tuesday and to Dr. Acuff for joining us for the opening session.
00:39:17
And I'd also like to thank our members of the Departments of Professional Learning, Instruction, School and Community Engagement, Technology and Human Resources for their collaboration and leadership in making this a success.
00:39:30
Now I'm going to switch to a status update for hiring.
00:39:33
So you know, this is just a brief update.
00:39:36
In the September meeting, the human resources team will be here to share a more in-depth analysis and update for the hiring for the school year.
00:39:46
While hiring continues to be a challenge across all areas, it is evident that we continue to be able to recruit and hire even in the wake of national employee shortages in many different areas.
00:39:57
As I shared, we hired 215 teachers to date.
00:40:00
As of this morning, we have about 30 teachers to hire.
00:40:04
This means that we have a teacher fill rate of about 98%, or you could look at it as a vacancy rate of 2%.
00:40:11
While this is comparable to where we started this school year last year, we are committed to not taking our foot off the gas.
00:40:17
Our goal is to be 100% hired.
00:40:20
We continue to focus on diversifying our teaching staff.
00:40:24
Of our hires to date, of our teacher hires, about 25% are teachers of color.
00:40:30
I'm also pleased to share that at this moment in time, we know that these numbers continue to shift and change, but at this moment we have only one unfilled special education teaching vacancy.
00:40:41
As you may remember, across the school division last year we had a number of unfilled positions, especially in special education, throughout the school year.
00:40:48
And that caused an additional strain on our teachers and support staff.
00:40:52
When the HR team shares our formal hiring report, you will hear about some of the efforts that have gone into making this feasible.
00:40:59
It truly is an area to celebrate.
00:41:02
And last Friday, the Human Resources held a recruitment fair as we continue to work to fill non-teaching vacancies as well.
00:41:08
We had 49 attendees and continued to see applications come in from that event for positions across many areas to include school-based support positions, EDEP, building services, child nutrition,
00:41:21
transportation and other support areas.
00:41:24
While I know transportation in particular continues to be a concern, I am pleased to share that we have been able to make job offers to four drivers who we met at that recruitment fair who are now going through the training process.
00:41:37
We know that each time we are able to hire anybody across the division, it really does help to reduce the stress and strain and burden
00:41:44
on our other employees.
00:41:46
Like with the teachers, we are committed to continuing our recruitment efforts as we work to fill all of our support positions.
00:41:53
And more to come in the September meeting.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
00:41:58
Thank you Dr. Kaiser.
00:42:00
Ms. Schmidt?
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:42:10
Good evening.
00:42:11
I'm Rosalind Schmidt, Chief Operating Officer.
00:42:13
I have two updates.
00:42:14
One's brief.
00:42:14
First, last week the Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance that will allow speed cameras in school zones.
00:42:21
The police are planning a pilot of this program along Hydraulic Road in front of Albemarle High School.
00:42:27
We are grateful for the Board of Supervisors and the police's support in improving the safety of our students and staff.
00:42:33
So more information will be shared as that project progresses.
00:42:37
Second, I would like to provide an update on transportation.
00:42:40
As we continue to experience a bus driver shortage, we have spent the last several months on various strategies that would put us in a much better position than we started last year.
00:42:49
We have actively recruited and currently have the highest salary in the region for bus drivers.
00:42:54
We created an eight-hour position, advertised for aids to monitor students and support our drivers, and we attempted to recruit from existing non-driving staff.
00:43:03
We've increased walk zones.
00:43:04
We've increased stacked routes.
00:43:06
We've consolidated bus stops to maximize resources.
00:43:10
We required registration for transportation and did not automatically roll over requests from last year.
00:43:15
These efforts have yielded some results, so I want to focus on the positive first.
00:43:20
We currently are able to serve about 8,600 students, or about 90% of students who registered for transportation.
00:43:28
Their route assignments will be available tomorrow, and that message will be to those families tomorrow.
00:43:33
We prioritize routes with higher percentage of students at risk of lower academic achievement.
00:43:39
And we now have a flex driver pool which will serve short-term absences.
00:43:43
This did not exist last year and will greatly stabilize service and impact to drivers in schools.
00:43:49
Last year we were challenged by late buses, calling families in the morning about delays, double-backs, split runs, and changing schedules strained our families, our drivers, and our school staff.
00:44:00
This should be mitigated this year.
00:44:02
Unfortunately, as you heard from public comment, it's not all good news.
00:44:06
Despite all efforts, we still need 12 drivers and we notified families of nearly 1,000 students that we did not have a driver at this time.
00:44:14
We understand the incredible impact this has on these families.
00:44:17
We've heard from many of them and are actively working on any solutions within our control.
00:44:22
First, I'm grateful to our school principals who are thinking creatively and trying to staff early drop-offs.
00:44:29
to accommodate working families.
00:44:31
We are working with families if they want to pursue an alternate stop on a route that does have capacity.
00:44:37
Once the school year starts, we will be actively monitoring ridership and consolidating routes where possible.
00:44:42
Last year, our average daily ridership was less than 6,000 students.
00:44:47
That means there's a huge gap between those that registered and those who actually ride.
00:44:51
So we will continue to emphasize the message to all our families that if you do not need transportation, please contact the school.
00:44:59
Lastly and most importantly, we are continuing to hire drivers and I'm pleased to say we're seeing progress there.
00:45:04
As Dr. Kaiser mentioned, we hosted a job fair last week and at this point we're able to hire at least four applicants and there's more in the pipeline from that event alone.
00:45:13
As a reminder, once a new hire passes background checks and other hiring requirements, training takes anywhere from six to twelve weeks.
00:45:21
The other good news on the hiring front is we are seeing an increase in applicants that have CDLs already, which helps that training timeline.
00:45:28
We talk a lot about our competitive starting wage, but the other change this board made was to move drivers to a step scale, and that means the driver's pay is commiserate with the number of CDL driving experiences.
00:45:40
So national norms like the yellow transportation shutting down is starting to see more CDL drivers in the applicant pool.
00:45:47
Again, we appreciate everyone's patience and partnership as we navigate these challenging times and we will continue to provide the board regular updates as I know this topic is important to you.
00:45:57
Thank you.
SPEAKER_05
00:45:59
Can we ask questions on that update?
00:46:04
I guess I could start.
00:46:06
You said you're working on parents getting alternate routes and we heard in a comment that, can you talk about what that process means?
00:46:13
They would be able to get to like the nearest bus route that's
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:46:17
Correct, so we have maximizes where we can as much kids on buses but with our rural routes there is capacity right because there's distance and so it has to be alignment of a couple things but if there's a stop where there is capacity and the parent can get them to that stop we could put them on the bus but that is going to require some back and forth with that parent to determine what areas they can do and if there's capacity.
SPEAKER_05
00:46:43
Did you take into account distance when deciding which routes?
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:46:47
So distance was taken into account when we did the stacked routes, right?
00:46:50
But distance was not taken into account when we decided to open routes.
SPEAKER_05
00:46:56
OK, distance to me seems important just because it changes so drastically the commitment or the experience for the parent who's bringing their child to school.
00:47:09
So I guess that's worth noting.
00:47:14
I guess one thing I want to note to the public because there's probably a lot of people paying attention right now is that people who are signing up for bus routes that don't plan on using them
00:47:30
It's causing problems and havoc for everyone.
00:47:33
So we know that up to what, 10 or 30% of parents don't end up using bus routes.
00:47:41
We made it so you had to opt in and we ended up with the same amount of people signing up to put their kids on buses.
00:47:46
So we can anticipate that we have a lot of people who aren't using buses who have signed up and are making it very difficult.
00:47:55
I just are.
00:47:57
The other thing that I would ask then of us, because what I'm worried about is we hear from the people that know how to get to a school board meeting, know how to advocate for themselves, but I have to imagine there's tons of one-off cases like the woman who has breast cancer.
00:48:12
who can't make it.
00:48:13
So I guess my follow up, just because it is so concerning to me on this issue that there are potentially students that will not be able to get to school.
00:48:22
That we, the families that do not have, that we know do not have bus routes, that we reach out to them and figure out how are they planning to get their child to school.
00:48:32
Like almost each and every one of them.
00:48:34
Do you have a solution?
00:48:36
Can you make it?
00:48:37
How long can you make it?
00:48:40
I feel like we've required people to reach out last year.
00:48:44
That was one of our strategies is double checking with everyone.
00:48:47
Do you actually plan on using the bus?
00:48:49
So I think at least some kind of follow-up call so that we can try to catch people who weren't at the meeting here, who might not have a solution, who might not even have read that email, to be honest, because we don't all read our emails.
00:49:01
I don't know.
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:49:03
That's something we can partner with our schools in doing.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
00:49:07
We're currently partnering with schools now to do that.
SPEAKER_05
00:49:12
And then my last thing, I'm sorry, this has been an issue for me.
00:49:15
I mean, because I've been driving, I've driven my kids to school the whole time because we don't have consistent access to a bus and I'm lucky that I'm able to do it.
00:49:27
I would just push, I appreciate the update.
00:49:31
I know we put in a lot of efforts and I'm deeply appreciative of that.
00:49:36
I would push them that we need to do even more right now.
00:49:39
I'd be curious about contract buses.
00:49:41
I know at our school board conventions, there's tons of organizations.
00:49:44
I know they're costly, but sometimes things take precedence.
00:49:48
So I would wonder about those organizations.
00:49:51
And remember, Rosalind, I know you probably have looked into so much of this, so I'm sorry, other than to say that we have to keep pushing them.
00:50:00
and I'm hopeful in three weeks when a whole bunch of people drop off the bus list because I know that's a change we made is that we will drop you off the bus list if you're not using that hopefully these parents can gain access to a bus but in the meantime if we could please check in on them.
Graham Paige
00:50:14
Okay I have a question about one of our parents mentioned that the instructions
00:50:20
where they would be signing up for alternate rights as these are very misleading and not there at all.
00:50:26
Is there any way that we could sort of rectify that?
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:50:28
Yeah, I made a note on that and we'll work with the Transportation Department to improve that process.
Graham Paige
00:50:33
Okay.
00:50:33
And then my other question, someone also mentioned
00:50:38
that maybe our bus drivers that we may not be receiving enough input from them but the ones who have left when do they do an exit interview and if so does that give us access as to maybe what might be a possible problem I don't have the specifics on exit interviews but yes we do use exit interviews as as as any employees leave I can get that information okay thank you
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:51:06
Ms. Schmidt?
00:51:08
You can't get away that quick.
00:51:11
Did we keep data last year about absenteeism and the impact of bus ridership or access to school in terms of absenteeism and who's not able to show up?
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:51:27
And if we didn't, let's do it.
00:51:31
Yes, we do monitor absenteeism.
00:51:34
That is a great concern right now and a great effort and initiatives around absenteeism.
00:51:39
That's one of the reasons we prioritize routes with higher, what we call gap one students.
00:51:45
We did not track the connection between absenteeism and transportation, and we will absolutely do that, yes.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:51:50
Thank you.
Graham Paige
00:51:52
Okay, now I have one other question too.
00:51:54
This may not even be a problem, but for the people who we do give CDL training to,
00:52:00
Do we have any way of finding out how many of those people stay with us, or how many of them take the training and then decide to go to greener pastures?
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:52:08
Yes, I'm sure.
00:52:09
I don't have the data on me, but yes, we do have the data around how many complete training.
SPEAKER_04
00:52:15
OK. And these bus driver positions, my understanding is that they receive benefits, full benefits, health and dental?
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:52:22
They have received full-time benefits, health, dental, and retirement as well.
SPEAKER_04
00:52:29
OK.
00:52:31
Regarding having the schools open early and late for early arrivals and late arrivals, do the schools have a budget for this or does it come out of their general budget?
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:52:41
They will receive budget for it, not only staffing but materials and snacks.
SPEAKER_04
00:52:47
So that's in addition to what they would regularly have?
00:52:50
Correct.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:52:55
Just one more.
00:52:57
How long last year did it shake out in terms of the riders versus the parents who had signed their kids up but didn't use the bus?
00:53:07
Was that resolved like after a month or did it take longer?
Rosalyn Schmitt
00:53:12
We had a hard time tracking that, so we have to put different systems in place.
00:53:17
Unfortunately, we were relying on the schools, and they had different processes, so we're improving that processes.
00:53:24
We did not have a good grasp on the timing of that.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
00:53:27
So just to clarify, we're not relying on the schools anymore to withdraw students from the bus.
00:53:33
When they have 10 consecutive days, they will be automatically withdrawn at the transportation office.
00:53:39
So that'll be the difference between last year and this year and in previous years.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:53:43
So the driver would be keeping that data?
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
00:53:45
The driver would keep the data.
00:53:46
They have a manifest and they take attendance.
SPEAKER_05
00:53:50
I have one last comment.
00:53:52
It's just
00:53:53
I know we've given raises, and I guess I would just throw to Dr. Haas that that's something we should still be considering because if you look at how many applicants we have, clearly we're not paying enough.
00:54:06
I mean, to me, sorry, not clearly, but it seems like certainly it's not a compelling number to get people to actually apply, and so although we're the leader in the region,
00:54:14
It seems to me that'd still be on the table.
00:54:16
I know we've done the compensation studies and we're trying to stay within a bracket, but there's certainly, I believe, special circumstances where if we really are not recruiting enough people, I imagine we'd want a higher pay, even if it's a bonus structure that would allow it just to help fill the gap in our time of need, I guess.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
00:54:40
I want to again come back to what Ms. Schmidt said earlier.
00:54:43
The board took a big swing getting to the top of the market and then also building in that pay scale.
00:54:50
The other piece around that was the retention of the current bus drivers getting on a scale and then knowing they're going up based on years of experience and can be hired into our system based on years of experience rather than just coming straight into a pay grade.
00:55:07
I agree we have to keep monitoring
00:55:10
Hey, as an incentive to bring on bus drivers, I certainly agree with that.
00:55:14
And I think that with the budget process kicking off, you know, again, even though we don't have a budget yet from the state, we will start looking at that again.
00:55:25
And we're going to need to keep looking at things like incentives.
00:55:28
The other piece is having bus assistance.
00:55:33
You know, it's not common having that for routes that are where the bus driver has to do a little more work around student management, things like that.
00:55:43
That's a big deal.
00:55:45
And I know it's like a relative to years past, like maybe
00:55:51
15 years ago, we actually have had a little spike in applicants based on the national CDL transportation organization closing.
00:56:02
I think, as Rosalind said, during the job fair that we had last Friday, we had, I think it was nine applicants, nine or ten, and several of them already have CDLs, so that's a big head start in that process.
00:56:28
Regret the situation that we're in.
00:56:30
I would rather see something different.
00:56:33
And I certainly feel for the families that are impacted.
00:56:38
I want to say repeat, you know, I want to repeat what Ms. Causton said earlier.
00:56:42
If you signed up for a bus and you don't need it, you need to go back and change that.
00:56:48
Because the families that don't have transportation right now are being directly impacted by decisions that people are making and they know they're not going to ride the bus.
00:56:57
It would just take a thousand people to do it, or maybe a couple thousand out of the probably close to four thousand that signed up for bus transportation that won't be using it.
00:57:08
So if you don't think changing your decision will make a difference, it will.
00:57:12
And we still have time before school starts to start having that impact.
SPEAKER_10
00:57:19
But is there something more proactive that we can be doing with that?
00:57:25
I mean, I realize that the schools were not taking people off the rolls, but we have that historic manifest data, right?
00:57:32
So are we going back to those families?
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
00:57:35
We have not gone back to families to say, what we did was clear the decks.
00:57:40
We just cleared it.
00:57:41
In years past, they would also roll over people that were just on the manifest before.
00:57:47
So they may have been someone that never rode the bus, but the school never took them off because they call home and the parent says, oh, can you please keep them on there?
00:57:55
And at the school level, they would keep them on there.
00:57:57
And then they would roll into the next year.
00:58:00
So we cleared the decks this year thinking,
00:58:03
You know, we'll start out at zero, and if you want to ride the bus, tell us you want a bus.
00:58:06
And you would think that with all the information that's out there about bus driver shortages nationally, statewide, that everyone would give it a second thought.
00:58:16
That didn't happen.
00:58:17
Now, we need people to re-evaluate that, because as you could hear, there are people really suffering great hardships because of lots of people just looking for a backup for the first few days of school.
SPEAKER_10
00:58:32
Well I think, you know, parents, I certainly do this, even though I'm on the school board, I'm just like head down.
00:58:38
I'm just trying to, you know, get my kid through.
00:58:41
Absolutely.
00:58:42
But I'm just saying, like, I don't know if people necessarily understand that impact, and I wonder if we can give them a chance to do that.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
00:58:51
I think we need to push out proactive communication now to say that.
00:58:56
And I did hear from a few board members today making that suggestion.
00:59:00
and I think that we should take action on it and really have a campaign around that because I don't think anybody means to disadvantage another family by doing that.
00:59:12
Who would do that, right?
00:59:15
So I think if they were more aware of what the impact is that they would probably turn that decision around.
00:59:21
But we need to get out there and put that out there.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
00:59:24
It's also the case that if you say my child is not riding the bus, you can later say, starting in October, they're going to have to use the bus.
00:59:34
You don't opt out forever, but you permit a more refined
00:59:40
I know we've talked about having some smaller buses that didn't require CDL training.
00:59:55
A, do we have any?
00:59:57
I think we have a few.
00:59:58
And could that alleviate some of the issues in the very rural areas?
01:00:04
You know, rather than having parents have to negotiate where to pick them up, if they could pick them up and then maybe drop them at a central spot?
01:00:12
I don't know.
Rosalyn Schmitt
01:00:13
We're just throwing stuff up.
01:00:15
No, I appreciate it.
01:00:15
Well, keep coming.
01:00:17
We'll explore them all.
01:00:19
We do have what they call Type A buses which don't require a CDL.
01:00:22
We've been using those on more sped routes because those are typically less number of kids.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
01:00:30
And the other piece I heard was vans.
01:00:32
Every middle and elementary school has vans that we purchased with pandemic relief funding so that students would get extra support to get to school and get home so they're getting extra time and support.
01:00:46
I'm trying to think.
01:00:46
Pretty much everything we heard tonight, we've already done or tried.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:00:50
Right, right.
01:00:52
You know, the bonuses, the pay.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
01:00:54
We don't remember this now, but during the pandemic and after that, we did retention bonuses, hiring bonuses.
01:01:02
We're the school system that spearheaded lobbying to the state to make six hour drivers eligible for Virginia retirement system.
01:01:11
We successfully lobbied the state last year to change the retirement rules so that retired drivers could come out of retirement sooner and still earn full-time benefits.
01:01:21
And I would also add that every school system around us is dealing with this.
01:01:28
There is some false advertising.
01:01:30
We could say now, if we just staff the routes that we have, that we're 100% staffed.
01:01:35
We could do that anytime we want.
01:01:38
We're never going to say we're 100% staffed because we are not back to the levels where we were, I would say, in 2010.
01:01:46
So what we want to do is get the 12 drivers we need so we can cut all the extra double backs, all the other issues that we've been having.
01:01:55
But if we get those 12 drivers, and I believe we will at some point in this year, there will be no mission accomplished banner because it has been a declining service across the country because it is a challenging job.
01:02:12
and we haven't respected the rate of pay that people deserve for it, especially requiring a licensure.
01:02:19
So I come back to what Ms. Carlson said earlier, which is we've got to keep looking at the pay.
01:02:24
Because you have to have a license to be a bus driver, just like you do to do any other profession.
01:02:30
And they've got all their negotiation behind them and all their traffic in front of them.
01:02:35
And we need to respect that.
01:02:37
Again, coming back to what the board did, you did that.
01:02:40
But I think we can keep trying to do more.
SPEAKER_05
01:02:46
What about the contract buses or some kind of procurement, some kind of agreement with outside buses?
Rosalyn Schmitt
01:02:54
We explored third party transport.
01:02:57
We will use some and have used some in the past for our longer sped routes.
01:03:03
We're going out of district.
01:03:04
We will be using that in certain instances this year.
01:03:08
A larger third party, we'll continue to explore.
01:03:11
It did not fit easily within our system, right?
01:03:15
And we thought there would be more of a risk of losing drivers doing that than actually gaining, like we wouldn't do any gain to that.
01:03:22
We'll continue to explore it.
01:03:24
It just was not an obvious solution.
01:03:26
We haven't found it yet.
SPEAKER_05
01:03:28
What does continue to explore mean?
Rosalyn Schmitt
01:03:31
So we did one active procurement on it.
01:03:33
I think we're going to try again.
SPEAKER_05
01:03:34
You did do a procurement?
01:03:35
Yep.
Rosalyn Schmitt
01:03:35
Okay.
01:03:35
Had some responses, evaluated the cost and how it would integrate within our system.
01:03:42
A lot of divisions that do that outsource the whole thing.
01:03:47
I don't think that's a good solution for this district.
01:03:49
We have a lot of drivers.
01:03:51
I know we don't have enough, but we have a lot.
01:03:53
And so trying to integrate a contract service with ours is challenging.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
01:03:57
and you don't get to a situation where you just say oh you're providing drivers and they hop on our buses and communicate with our transportation department and follow the same policies.
01:04:07
One of the biggest sticking points for us is they
01:04:09
essentially would set up their own transportation department and we'd have no purview over it.
01:04:14
And I, for me, I kind of balked at that because I feel like our students, they're in our care.
01:04:19
I didn't necessarily feel like having, you know, 15 drivers come in from Texas that don't know anything about Albemarle County or not Texas in particular, but any place, New Jersey, any place.
01:04:34
So we,
01:04:35
And on top of that, it was crazy expensive.
01:04:38
So in my mind, you did the smarter of the options, which is pay our bus drivers more.
01:04:44
And that was a big expense.
01:04:47
But we're going to keep looking at it.
01:04:48
We're going to keep putting out procurement because this is a long-term issue and we need long-term solutions.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:04:55
It would be a lovely school year not to have to talk about transportation at the beginning.
SPEAKER_05
01:05:01
I know, and I'm appreciative of the fact that
01:05:05
We talked a lot about being just letting parents know the truth of what the situation was because I feel like
01:05:12
parents really got blindsided last year unintentionally.
01:05:16
So I can appreciate we're doing that, but I can say that it's also, you know, it's shocking as a board member as well, because it feels like last year we were pretending we had bus service we really didn't have, which was resulting in students arriving hours late every day, affecting their educational experience significantly.
01:05:36
Late buses impacting parents hard.
01:05:39
and now we're in this new model which is we're going to have a better bus service experience, but we're just leaving kind of to the wind 900 kids.
01:05:50
However, I can appreciate that the reality is that that will squeeze out
01:05:55
the people who can make it work but that's why for me I just want to reiterate reaching out to each one of those and see like because some people cannot make that work and I do think I never wanted to imply that we don't we shouldn't provide transportation for the student so that they can get to school.
01:06:10
Does that make sense?
01:06:12
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_10
01:06:15
Ms. Schmidt, how are are the schools going to be communicating with parents about the possibility of early drop-off and late pickup?
Rosalyn Schmitt
01:06:24
Yes, I appreciate their support.
01:06:26
I also want to be sensitive that they have their own staffing challenges and will do their best to staff.
01:06:31
You know, you're tapping the same groups of people, so I don't want to make any promises or set unrealistic expectations, but the schools are the ones that are leading that.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
01:06:41
And I just would add, too, I know we like to throw in central staff, central staff should do this, central staff should do that.
01:06:47
Our central staff are the ones that go out and staff that time when the schools don't have people doing it.
01:06:53
Our central staff got substitute in classrooms.
01:06:56
When teachers are out, when they don't have substitutes, they substitute for principals.
01:07:01
They go out and they help out when there's no before school supervision, after school supervision.
01:07:07
So I just want to be clear that this is not an ivory tower where we don't go out and join in.
01:07:13
We get emails from principals every morning about who can come out and cover the work and help out.
01:07:20
So that will continue and we enjoy it because we get to spend time with kids.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:07:31
Thank you.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
01:07:32
Thank you very, very much, Ms. Schmidt.
SPEAKER_10
01:07:39
Any other school boarders who can sign up for this part of that?
SPEAKER_05
01:07:43
No, but as much, Ms. Snoddy, I'm so excited about the ACES presentation.
01:07:49
I'm trying to make it, but I'm holding back my cough, and I think I'm going to go home, and unfortunately I will just have to watch it, but thank you.
SPEAKER_10
01:08:05
So next on our school division business we have 9.1 our sustainability program update and ACES annual report with Lindsay Snoddy.
01:08:13
Thank you.
SPEAKER_26
01:08:19
Good evening.
01:08:20
Thank you for having us today.
01:08:27
I'm Lindsay Snoddy, Director of Building Services.
01:08:29
I'm joined this evening by John Coles, our Environmental Program Manager, and Christine Putnam, who is an ACES member and also the chair of the SWAC committee with the county that's the Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee.
01:08:42
So we're happy to have some other faces today to help share some of this great news and work that ACES has been doing.
01:08:50
So we wanted to start this evening by going back a little bit and going to where we started as a division with environmental efforts and sustainability efforts.
01:08:58
Very first out of the gate was the energy efficient construction policy back in 1993, so one that goes way back and we're actually proposing some changes to that.
01:09:07
This evening there's an attachment to the agenda item to now call that the sustainable building policy and we'll go into more detail later in the presentation.
01:09:15
In 2006 we started an environmental management system and the environmental management policy and then in 2009 an energy management and conservation policy.
01:09:24
The board in 2018 passed a clean energy resolution.
01:09:31
And we've had a lot of successes in recycling and composting, but you will hear later in the presentation about some additional improvements we'd like to keep making to that process.
01:09:40
We've had an integrated pest management program for over a decade.
01:09:44
We did in 2019, or actually beginning before then, we did an energy performance contract to replace all the fluorescent lighting throughout our schools and upgrade LED lighting, and also at that time upgraded to high efficiency plumbing fixtures throughout the division.
01:09:58
We've earned multiple US DOE green ribbon awards, that's national recognition, for individual schools and as a district in 2017.
01:10:06
And our staff has served on the county's climate action planning collaboration teams as the county put their plan together, their climate action plan, so we were part of that process as that evolved.
01:10:17
We have solar PV installations at many schools, you'll see them listed there, and we're hoping to also expand that in the future.
01:10:26
As a lot of the board members know, we've received grants for four electric school buses, and the county's climate action plan was adopted back in October 2020.
01:10:34
In February 2020, the board was considering having a committee like the ACES committee, and we looked at that framework back in February 2020, but it took a back seat because of COVID.
01:10:45
So we came back and finalized that charter in December of 2021.
01:10:50
and ACES committee meetings have occurred through 2022 and through 2023.
01:10:54
And we're here tonight to present also the first annual ACES report to show our progress and what we've been working on as a committee.
01:11:04
So the ACES focus areas have been, it follows the county's climate action plan focus areas.
01:11:10
Transportation and land use, buildings and renewables, sustainable materials management,
01:11:14
Landscape, Natural Resources, and Agriculture.
01:11:17
And then we've also added the Curriculum Integration of Climate Action, which is very important to us as a school division.
01:11:24
So I will now have John Coles come up.
01:11:25
He's going to introduce some of the dashboards he's been working on that are amazing and go through some other topics.
SPEAKER_20
01:11:35
Thank you, Lindsay.
01:11:37
Good evening.
01:11:39
So as Lindsay said, as we got together and started meeting, one of the first needs that was identified by the ACES committee was a way to visualize energy usage and associated carbon emissions data to identify areas for improvement, establish baselines, and track the success of ACES goals.
01:12:01
I developed these dashboards to meet this need.
01:12:04
These dashboards are public facing on the ACES website.
01:12:07
They bolster transparency and support the ACEs goal of curriculum integration.
01:12:12
And now we'll exit out of the PowerPoint.
01:12:14
I'll do a quick demo of the dashboards.
01:12:26
So on the main page of the dashboards, we have previews for energy, water, and emissions.
01:12:34
And you can see when we click through them,
01:12:35
It changes and shows by year or takes a moment to gather all the data for it.
01:12:41
But I would like to highlight something on the emissions page if it loads with any speed.
01:12:50
Which it may not.
01:12:58
So Lindsay mentioned school board policy FEH, which sets goals for climate for carbon emissions for 2030 and 2045.
01:13:08
And this orange line, this orange bar on this graph, represents 2020 when our school division was shut down.
01:13:14
And we did achieve that goal in 2020.
01:13:16
And so our mission is to find a way to achieve that goal when our schools are not shut down.
01:13:25
And then we get into the individual reports.
01:13:27
Each report is available in a dark mode and a light mode.
01:13:32
And like we saw before, these are taking a long time to load.
01:13:35
So I'll discuss some of the features.
01:13:36
And if it loads, we'll continue.
01:13:38
And if it doesn't, we will move on.
01:13:41
So we can filter by schools, by facility type, elementary, middle, high, and administrative.
01:13:48
And then we can adjust by year.
01:13:54
I think this chart down here at the bottom, if you can see where my pointer is, highlights one of the challenges that we're facing is that we're adding a lot of square footage as a school district and we have to find ways to keep our energy usage and carbon emissions low and continue to reduce as we try to achieve our 2030 and 2045 carbon emissions goals.
01:14:18
You can see here
01:14:21
that the past two years largely because of increased ventilation to mitigate the COVID issues.
01:14:28
We've had some increased usage, but we were hoping that we'll start to see some improvements in that.
01:14:33
I'll move on to the water dashboard and see if that one will load with any reasonable amount of time.
01:14:49
It appears not.
01:14:50
So we'll go back to the PowerPoint.
01:15:02
A little over a year ago, the new solar arrays at Red Hill and Scottsville Elementary School went online.
01:15:08
Because ACPS owns these solar arrays outright, we also own the renewable energy credits, also known as RECs.
01:15:17
A renewable energy credit embodies the greenness, the renewable zero carbon emissionsness of a megawatt hour of renewable energy.
01:15:26
There's a market for RECs.
01:15:27
A lot of people want to purchase these so that they can claim those green, renewable benefits.
01:15:32
And so we were faced with the decision whether to monetize these RECs or whether to retain them.
01:15:38
If we keep them, we can retain all of that benefit, and if we sell them, we can get money which we can potentially use for other projects.
01:15:47
So the committee really spent a good bit of time focusing on this issue, and we brought in some industry experts to give us some guidance.
01:15:56
And after all of the input we got, the committee felt that retaining the RECs would be critical in achieving future net zero goals.
01:16:06
So as a result, I can proudly tell you that to date, these systems have offset approximately 280 tons of carbon for ACPS.
01:16:15
As Lindsay mentioned, we are making plans for an additional solar power purchase agreement and have goals to offset approximately 25% of the school divisions
01:16:26
grid purchase electricity needs.
01:16:28
We hope that when we come back to report to you again next year we'll have more updates on that.
01:16:36
I'm excited to tell you about our new sustainable construction policy that we've overhauled from the energy efficient construction policy that Lindsay mentioned.
01:16:45
This is a huge step towards achieving the division's climate goals and reducing the impact that the built environment has on the natural environment.
01:16:53
The policy has several components which we'll delve into.
01:16:56
In 2021, the Virginia legislature passed House Bill 2001, also known as the High Performance Building Act.
01:17:03
The law requires that all new government-owned buildings be certified by one of three accreditation standards, LEED, Green Globes, or V's.
01:17:14
The proposed policy complies and exceeds the minimum requirements of the state high performance building policy and prescribes the methodology by which project teams will pick the best certifications data for their project.
01:17:27
Policy also sets net-zero ready as a sustainable construction goal for all new construction projects greater than 20,000 square feet, meaning that emissions from any non-renewable purchased energy will be able to be offset by on-site solar.
01:17:42
Policy also states that rooftops will be designed to maximize solar arrays, and it will prioritize the elimination of fossil fuels in our construction.
01:17:49
To put all of this into tangible context, the new addition at Crozet Elementary School would have met all of these requirements.
01:17:58
The project architects indicate that the addition would likely have achieved a lead silver had we gone through the reading process, and the first year's data indicates that the addition is net zero without the addition of solar panels.
01:18:10
This is in large part thanks to the geothermal system that was installed at Crozet Elementary School.
01:18:15
Division-wide geothermal heat pumps will be an integral part of reducing our overall energy level and achieving the goals of the Climate Action Plan and School Board Policy FEH.
01:18:25
As a division, we have tasked ourselves with the challenge of reducing carbon emissions while adding square footage.
01:18:30
This policy is a critical tool in achieving that goal.
01:18:35
To achieve the 2030 and 2045 climate action goals while continuing to add square footage, we need to ensure that new buildings will not move us further away from that goal.
01:18:47
Another initiative from ACES that we wanted to highlight is conservation mowing, which is another term for mowing reduction.
01:18:54
Presently, approximately 190 acres of non-athletic field grass is being mowed regularly.
01:19:00
That equates to a lot of fuel, a lot of carbon emissions, a lot of noise, increased stormwater runoff, and loss of habitat for birds and pollinators.
01:19:08
So ACES developed a goal to reduce mowing of these non-athletic fields by 15% this year,
01:19:14
and an additional 5% of the remainder each year thereafter.
01:19:19
We prioritized steep slopes as limiting mowing of these have the co-benefit of reduced mower rollover risk.
01:19:27
We then targeted other infrequently used areas.
01:19:32
Though these areas are unmowed, that does not mean that they are unmanaged.
01:19:36
Crisp lines are maintained between mowed and unmowed grass.
01:19:40
Mowed buffer strips are maintained around roads, sidewalks, and parking areas.
01:19:43
And signs will be used to promote information about the program.
01:19:48
Building Services grounds crew began conservation mowing this past month.
01:19:53
And we are actually achieving about 40 acres of conservation mowing this first year, which equates to about 20%.
01:20:00
So we've exceeded the goal that ACES set.
01:20:03
Next, Christine Putnam is going to take over and talk about some of the ways
01:20:07
ACES has been working to bring sustainability into the classroom.
SPEAKER_21
01:20:10
Thank you.
01:20:19
Thank you for having me.
01:20:21
I'm really excited to talk to you about composting in the schools.
01:20:25
And this relates to, I'm really excited to say that last year we had five schools where the students were actually composting, collecting their food scraps and food waste, and it was composted by black bear composting, which is really exciting.
01:20:46
I want to just focus and highlight on Greer Elementary School and so there the Piedmont Master Gardeners have helped create a gardening program so they provide a monthly program for every first and third grade student and there's a wonderful garden where they learn how to grow vegetables, learn about plant development
01:21:16
to taste the vegetables and to learn about
01:21:18
composting and building soils.
01:21:20
So this is where we were able to begin one of the composting programs that was especially impactful.
01:21:27
In fact, with the help with one of my SWAC colleagues, over the course of three months only, they collected 3.8 tons of food waste, which is pretty amazing in a very short amount of time.
01:21:44
So really excited to see this happening in the schools.
01:21:48
and the ACES committee has set some possible goals for next year and one of those include making sure that the food scraps are collected in the back of the house which would be the school cafeteria and so we hope that every single school will participate in that program.
01:22:08
Many of them did last year but we hope to have 100% participation there and we are hoping as well in addition
01:22:16
that we have at least every single elementary school will participate on some level.
01:22:22
Maybe it's just a single grade in the lunchroom so that we're actually getting students involved in separating their lunch waste and making sure the food scraps go into the composting bin.
01:22:35
We're also hoping to pilot a program where the students will actually use metal silverware.
01:22:44
Right now it's all plastic silverware and it all gets thrown in the garbage.
01:22:50
So I hope that we can return so that we're not normalizing this idea of throwing all of this, all your silverware in the garbage all the time.
01:22:59
We're also hoping to set a goal to reduce paper usage and also look at making sure that paper that is being used has recycled content in it.
01:23:12
I'm going to go away from composting and talk about the meaningful watershed experiences.
01:23:22
I'm a master naturalist, so I had the opportunity to go to Camp Albemarle and work with some of these students, and it's a great experience.
01:23:32
So every fourth grader and sixth grader is able to go out to either Camp Albemarle or one of the other county parks.
01:23:43
do a survey of the benthic organisms, so get in the creek, take a nature walk, play a game, and really learn about the connection that they have with the watershed.
01:23:55
and also every fourth grader received the climate action kit.
01:23:59
And you can see these students in this picture here, how excited they are to take that kit.
01:24:04
They can take it home with lots of activities that connect with how they can save energy in their own homes.
01:24:12
So very exciting.
01:24:15
And in addition to that, I think this is really important, this idea we have these wonderful solar arrays and having the students have an opportunity to participate in the installation of the arrays.
01:24:30
And then going forward, this idea of having the school itself act as a teaching tool.
01:24:38
So using the building, the solar arrays are on the building,
01:24:43
bringing that down into the classroom, into the hallways so the students understand the connection that's happening there.
SPEAKER_15
01:24:50
So thank you.
SPEAKER_26
01:24:58
All right, some more good news we'd like to share.
01:25:01
Some of you might be aware that Albemarle County Schools was awarded one of the 25 awards for the energy class prize.
01:25:08
What that gives us is $100,000 to focus on some energy saving projects, and it gives us a year access to different training resources through the US Department of Energy.
01:25:17
So we're going to take advantage of that, train our staff, train
01:25:21
people like John in a lot of training and also get to people like our custodians with different training methodologies through this grant opportunity and then we'll be able to use that money to look at different projects to implement.
01:25:33
At the end of our first year of this there's an opportunity to get an additional $50,000 if we've done the program requirements which we will so we're excited to get that money at the end as well.
01:25:42
Some other plans for this prize money are implementing sustainability liaison stipend positions at each school location.
01:25:49
Part of our challenge that we've had in the past with things like the composting and recycling programs is
01:25:54
You can see that the schools that have a site-based champion do a lot better than the other schools.
01:25:58
So having that site-based champion just to get the kids energized, to help push out the messaging around composting and why it's important, why we do it, where does your compost go, how does it come back to the school in a finished compost form.
01:26:10
So we're excited to have this funding to do that for this next fiscal year.
01:26:14
So we'll probably have those advertised in the next few weeks and we're looking to get those filled pretty soon so we can have goals for each liaison at each school.
01:26:22
We'll be looking at energy reduction projects and then a next step for the ACES committee is looking at electrification master planning and what that might mean for our school division because that is you know with four electric buses it's not that difficult to plan around them but when you're talking about an electric fleet and looking at our fleet vehicles and other departments what does that look like for us as a division.
01:26:45
Not so good news.
01:26:45
We applied for another grant, the US DOE Renew America Schools.
01:26:49
This one we asked for a lot more money.
01:26:51
We asked for $15 million to do a geothermal project that would encompass Monticello High School, Mountain View Elementary, and also the New Southern Feeder Pattern Elementary School.
01:27:01
So it'd be like a net zero campus was what we were going for with this.
01:27:05
We got a lot of positive comments during the review process, but we did not end up getting this funding.
01:27:11
So plans going forward is how do we do this project at Monticello with geothermal that we've developed and how do we do it at other schools going forward.
01:27:19
So we're working with long range planners because Monticello is an immediate, we have that funding now to do an HVAC upgrade project.
01:27:25
So that's an immediate opportunity that we don't want to miss is trying to secure some additional funding to allow us to add geothermal to that project.
01:27:33
So we'll be coming forward with some more recommendations through the LRPAC in October.
01:27:39
And then, of course, this grant funding, if the application becomes available, again, we'll continue to look for opportunities to get funding for projects like this.
01:27:48
So looking ahead, some goals that we discussed with ACES, Christine touched on some of these.
01:27:53
A big one is going to be our sustainable design of new schools.
01:27:57
John mentioned, you know, as we add new square footage, we still have the same goal in the County Climate Action Plan.
01:28:02
We need to get to net zero.
01:28:04
So we're looking, when we add square footage, we need to make sure we're doing it in the best, most efficient way possible.
01:28:09
So looking at High School Center 2 and elementary, the Southern Feeder Pattern Elementary School will really be honing in on this with our architects.
01:28:17
and our design teams.
01:28:19
We're looking at a large-scale solar PPA project.
01:28:21
We've been through the PPA process before, so we're pretty good at it from going through it one round.
01:28:26
Things have changed a bit with the Inflation Reduction Act and different changes in rate structures.
01:28:32
But looking at the, for those who don't know what a solar PPA is, a third party owns and installs those systems on our school, they maintain them, and then we agree to purchase the electricity that's generated from them.
01:28:45
We'll look to expand our cafeteria composting, our recycling and waste reduction programs.
01:28:50
And as we mentioned before, the electrification master planning is also a goal.
01:28:55
And looking at additional alternative fuel vehicles to add to our fleet.
01:29:01
So that is the end of what we wanted to present.
01:29:04
As an attachment to the board's agenda item, there is the full annual report that you'll see.
01:29:08
A lot of great work went into that.
01:29:10
Thank you to John Coles for doing that.
01:29:13
He's a master with grant applications and annual report graphics and formatting, so we appreciate having him.
01:29:19
And we're open to any questions that you might have.
SPEAKER_04
01:29:23
Thank you.
01:29:24
This is a minor one, but I noticed that the members, page three on your report, there are some blank spots.
01:29:32
I wonder if we need to fill those.
01:29:34
It's under the superintendent appointees, and what do we need to fill?
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
01:29:38
I've got two student candidates I'm looking at and we're advertising for a staff candidate.
SPEAKER_04
01:29:46
I was really concerned about getting the student candidate on.
SPEAKER_26
01:29:49
We did have a student rep who was a senior when the committee was initiated and then she was really gung-ho about participating in college but it didn't work out as well when we went to in-person meetings so we were looking to fill that.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:30:03
We still have one student.
SPEAKER_26
01:30:04
We do have one who's actually a board rep, yeah.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:30:08
I just wanted to say thank you for this presentation.
01:30:10
I'm the board's liaison on this committee and I think the committee's done a lot.
01:30:17
I say we, I mean I'm there, but it's Lindsay and John and the members of the committee.
01:30:22
I mean the impetus for this to begin with was
01:30:26
just generally climate change and sustainability, but particularly when the county passed their climate action plan, we're the biggest entity in the county.
01:30:38
So how are we going to do our part?
01:30:41
And as Lindsay pointed out, ACPS was already doing a lot of incredible innovative things.
01:30:47
And this just puts a conceptual frame across all the various landscaping, transportation, buildings.
01:30:55
and adds, I think, the educational part of it that we've had incredible volunteers helping us.
01:31:03
I think we have a lot of community support for that.
01:31:06
And I think we're also going to be pushing more into the classroom in terms of education about environment.
01:31:13
But it's been a great experience and thank you.
01:31:18
One thing that's too bad is that the dashboards that John developed that didn't load very well are really amazing and you can compare, you know, how is Greer doing versus, you know, Holly Meade.
01:31:33
You can have real live, you know, daily, well I don't know how frequently they're updated, but you can really compare what your school looks like in terms of energy use and
01:31:43
consumption and he's done an extraordinary job and that's it.
01:31:51
Thank you for your support.
SPEAKER_09
01:31:52
I just had one question that I was going to ask that you just touched on, Dr. Acuff.
01:31:57
How often is the dashboard updated?
01:32:00
Is it daily?
01:32:01
Is it weekly?
01:32:02
Is it monthly?
SPEAKER_20
01:32:04
Right now it is monthly.
01:32:07
One of the things that I'm kind of trying to figure out is if we add in a partial of a year, it will look like that year's got much less usage than the other year, so how to
01:32:19
Thank you.
01:32:25
Any other questions?
Graham Paige
01:32:49
Okay, I have sort of one off-the-wall question, I guess.
01:32:52
With the reduction in cutting the grass, have the county considered bringing in goats to, you know, take care of any of those places?
SPEAKER_26
01:33:06
We brought in goats once to Burley, and it worked really well.
01:33:10
And I think they brought them back to Washington Park on the city side.
01:33:13
We don't need, well, we're not mowing as much.
01:33:16
I don't know if we look to goats to, we're looking like maybe bush hogging, you know, a couple times a year where we're having the longer grass areas.
01:33:24
I don't know.
01:33:25
It's something we could consider.
SPEAKER_04
01:33:26
We could develop a vet science program out of that too.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:33:28
There you go.
01:33:29
I like it.
01:33:30
Well, we were also talking about maybe natural grasses and more pollinator, you know, plant material that would benefit that whole environment more so than goats.
SPEAKER_10
01:33:44
I wanted to thank you very much for all this work and presenting it especially for the dashboards as has been mentioned because I think it's really important to look at this information and I saw that coming up there would be like waste dashboards and things like that and I was just wondering if we have a baseline like
01:34:04
if there's been any kind of audit or baseline because, Ms. Putnam, when you were talking about naturalizing or normalizing usage of metal, you know, instead of plastic and things like that.
01:34:16
And I don't know what every school does, and I just didn't know if we have a sense of what schools are doing in terms of, especially like cafeteria waste.
01:34:27
Are we using compostable plates?
01:34:30
I have no idea.
01:34:31
And if it's just a site-based decision or anything like that.
01:34:35
So I would really be interested in that.
SPEAKER_20
01:34:38
So in the cafeterias, Child Nutrition Services has been very, they're on board with all of this too.
01:34:46
And almost all of the products that are being used with the exception of, like Christine said, the silverware.
01:34:53
are compostable.
01:34:53
Some of them are a little confusing, especially to students and adults alike because they look like plastic, but they are compostable.
01:35:00
But yes, almost everything that's being served on is either reusable or compostable, and we're really pushing for as much reusable as we can do.
01:35:09
We do get good reports back from our composting, how much compost we're generating.
01:35:16
We don't get any good information or data from our trash or recycling.
01:35:22
And so I think what we're going to need to do there, and one of the things, like Christine mentioned with the paper, is we're going to have to really look at how much we're buying rather than how much we're throwing away.
SPEAKER_10
01:35:31
Yeah.
01:35:33
Yeah, once we have a sense of that, I'd really be interested in that and how we can reduce that.
01:35:38
So thank you very much.
01:35:42
Any other questions?
01:35:45
Thank you very much, Lindsay, John, and Christine.
01:36:05
Next up, we have Rosalind Schmidt with the Fall 2023 Redistricting Study Proposed Scope.
Rosalyn Schmitt
01:36:16
Rosalind Schmidt, Chief Operating Officer.
01:36:19
This time I'll be talking about the proposed redistricting study.
01:36:22
We presented this last meeting for information, so tonight it is before you for action.
01:36:27
As a reminder, redistricting advisory committees are governed by school board policy FB.
01:36:33
There is an enclosure to this agenda item that has the full scope and timelines and details.
01:36:39
That's the attachment we're asking for approval on.
01:36:41
I have a link to the previous presentation and so I just wanted to highlight the
01:36:48
The large topics.
01:36:50
First, the primary objectives.
01:36:51
This was presented, I have no changes tonight.
01:36:55
Again, the primary objective of this study is to recommend a two-phased approach to creating new boundaries in the northern feeder pattern.
01:37:02
We're trying to address some immediate overcrowding issues, but think about the long-term plans and what that boundary looks like for that new school.
01:37:10
And that will inform what the short-term moves are.
01:37:14
The proposed committee composition, it is a large committee, but we feel like it's important to have representation from all impacted schools.
01:37:21
So we have representation from elementary schools, middle schools, and then two additional representatives as required per policy.
01:37:32
Lastly, as a reminder, the timeline.
01:37:35
We started this conversation in July.
01:37:36
If you approve it tonight, we would begin advertising shortly.
01:37:40
The committee would begin in the mid to end of September and hopefully be back to you in February with the recommendation from the superintendent.
01:37:51
And again, if you approve those recommendations, they would go into effect next school year.
01:37:57
The last two pieces I had was there was some additional information requested specifically around high schools.
01:38:03
As drafted, the study did not include high schools, but Ms. Lee wanted to have a conversation around some data, and the question was around
01:38:12
We had shared some capacity information that didn't include the trailers or mobile classrooms at the three high schools.
01:38:19
And so this data presents what it would look like with trailers.
01:38:22
So the table on the left compares our building capacity when we don't factor in trailers and compares it against our enrollment projections in the next five years and the next ten years.
01:38:33
So I'll just read across.
01:38:34
So Albemarle High School has a capacity of 1,727 students.
01:38:40
in five years.
01:38:41
We project that to be 1961, so that's a deficit of seats of 234 seats.
01:38:49
The table on the right is the same data, but if you factor in trailers.
01:38:54
Currently we have 16 at Albemarle, eight at Monticello, and eight at Western.
01:38:59
A couple notes on this data.
01:39:00
This data is from the fall.
01:39:02
We updated our enrollment projections each
01:39:05
annually, and so this is a little bit of lagging data.
01:39:09
Looking at some preliminary enrollment numbers, all high school enrollment numbers seem to be up at this point, with Albemarle already breaking 2,000.
01:39:16
And then the other thing I'll mention around this data is it does not factor in Center 2, which will hopefully be online in about two years, and that will provide 400 additional seats, which is not illustrated in these numbers.
01:39:33
As some history, the last time redistricting was studied for high schools was back in 2015.
01:39:40
The board did not approve the recommendation, but here were the details, and at that time these areas
01:39:45
had 214 Albemarle students.
01:39:48
Last year, there were 216 Albemarle students living in those areas.
01:39:52
And I included that attachment item from 2015 with the full committee report.
01:39:58
So that's just the highlights.
01:40:01
That is all the information I had.
01:40:04
I'll open it up for questions and discussion and, again, action if the board desires.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:40:13
This is not substantive, it's procedural.
01:40:17
With as many members of the redistricting committee that you're hoping for, is that realistic in terms of how quickly we can fill those spots?
Rosalyn Schmitt
01:40:31
We will engage with our Department of Community Engagement.
01:40:36
I think there's a lot of interest out there.
01:40:38
So I think the challenge is going to be a diverse representation that represents special populations, special needs.
01:40:46
So I think there will have to be some proactive outreach.
01:40:49
We do acknowledge that it's a significant time commitment for families, but I hope they feel like the work is worthwhile.
01:40:56
It's some in-depth and important work.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:41:00
Thank you.
SPEAKER_10
01:41:06
I wanted to open the conversation to the board about the possible inclusion of high schools as part of it.
01:41:13
I didn't know if anyone had any thoughts about adding that at this time.
01:41:24
Well, about studying that as part of this redistricting study.
01:41:34
Ms. Jerry, could you put those high school numbers back?
SPEAKER_09
01:41:41
I see what you're saying with that at the same time.
01:41:46
Well, I want to think that through.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:41:57
My sense would be to push pause to see what impact Center 2 has and plan to do one shortly after that.
01:42:10
or shortly, a couple years after that.
01:42:12
I guess I was part of the last high school redistricting effort where, although we very much thanked the, you know, the redistricting committee, we did not adopt the recommendation to move students to Monticello.
01:42:31
And I'm not sure we're quite ready to tackle that again.
Graham Paige
01:42:41
I agree with Kate and I think we should wait until we see the possible effects of Senator
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:42:53
I'd love to hear your argument in favor, Ms. Lee.
SPEAKER_10
01:42:59
After I saw these numbers, I don't have the same strong desire to add high schools to the redistricting study.
01:43:07
It's sort of in the middle, with the trailers, and Center 2 were sort of
01:43:13
Just with the trailers, we're sort of in the middle, right?
01:43:16
So we can make it to about, I don't know, maybe seven years?
01:43:20
I'm just thinking that math through with them with Center 2.
01:43:24
I agree that we'll see what it does.
01:43:28
So I think it's okay.
01:43:29
I would agree with that.
01:43:31
But I just wanted to make sure we had the conversation.
01:43:38
And then, Ms. Schmidt, you were talking about making sure that special populations were involved in there.
01:43:44
So I know that we've had some discussion about special ed and then also English learners as part of that.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:43:56
Do we need a motion?
SPEAKER_10
01:43:57
I think we need a motion.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:44:01
Oh.
01:44:02
I move that we adopt the redistricting plan as presented by Ms. Schmidt.
SPEAKER_04
01:44:11
Second.
SPEAKER_10
01:44:14
Do we need further discussion or can we take a roll?
01:44:19
Ms. Thompson, could we have a roll call on that?
SPEAKER_18
01:44:26
Ms. Osborne?
SPEAKER_04
01:44:27
Yes.
SPEAKER_18
01:44:28
Mr.
01:44:28
Page?
01:44:29
Yes.
01:44:29
Dr. Acuff?
01:44:31
Yes.
01:44:31
Mr. Ocaro.
01:44:33
Yes.
01:44:33
Dr. Berlin is absent.
01:44:35
Ms. Kallsen is absent.
01:44:37
Chair Lee.
SPEAKER_10
01:44:38
Yes.
SPEAKER_18
01:44:39
So moved.
SPEAKER_10
01:44:42
Great.
01:44:42
Thank you very much, Ms. Schmidt.
01:44:43
Thank you.
Matthew Haas
Superintendent
01:44:44
Thank you, Rosalind.
SPEAKER_10
01:44:47
Next, we move to other business by board members or superintendent.
Graham Paige
01:44:50
OK.
01:44:51
I have one other item for other business.
01:44:55
I plan on running or seeking the position of chair of the central regional division for the Virginia School Board Association.
01:45:06
And in order to qualify for that, the board has to vote to show that they approve, that we have discussed this and that you approve of me running.
01:45:16
So that's what I would like for the board to do this evening.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:45:22
I move that we nominate Graham Page as the chair of what this district's?
01:45:30
Central Virginia Regional District of, yeah.
SPEAKER_17
01:45:35
Second.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:45:37
Sorry for the sloppy motion, Graham.
SPEAKER_10
01:45:41
Can we have a roll call vote on that, Christine?
SPEAKER_18
01:45:45
Was that a second by Mr. O'Carroll?
01:45:49
And that was a motion for
01:45:51
for him to run as the chair, correct.
01:45:57
Ms. Osborne?
01:45:58
Yes.
01:45:59
Mr.
01:46:00
Page?
01:46:00
Yes.
01:46:01
Dr. Acuff?
01:46:02
Yes.
01:46:02
Mr. Alcaro?
01:46:03
Yes.
01:46:05
Chair Lee?
01:46:06
Yes.
01:46:06
So moved.
SPEAKER_10
01:46:08
Congratulations, Graham.
01:46:09
Good luck.
01:46:10
Thank you.
01:46:11
Any other business?
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:46:13
Just to report, last week, Supervisor Diane McKeel and I, along with Lindsay Snoddy and some others, met with representatives of the Ben Hare Foundation, which is very interested in putting a swimming pool on the Lambs Lane campus.
01:46:34
the logistics of which before we move everything around is challenging but they're very focused on making sure our students know how to swim and they would do it for the for you know our donation our location of about an acre's worth of property and so we're still in conversations with them but it would be it's not a competition pool for like the swim team it's really to have
01:47:04
Access for all kids to learn how to swim.
01:47:09
I'll keep you posted.
SPEAKER_10
01:47:14
Alright, thanks very much.
Kate Acuff
Member, School Board
01:47:17
This meeting is adjourned.