School Board Meeting   1/5/2023

January 5th, 2023 school board meeting to order.

We welcome everyone here this evening.

Thank you so much for coming.

Thank you.

Yes, Dr. Odey.

Ms.

Bryson Morsberger.

Here.

Ms.

Dooley.

Here.

Ms.

McKeever.

Here.

Mr. Morris.

Here.

Ms.

And our student rep, Vivian Wong.

All right, thank you, Madam Clerk.

The first order of business this evening, since this is our first meeting of the year, is to elect the school board chair.

Thank you.

Do we have a motion?

I'm going to second that nomination.

Thank you.

We have a motion and we have a second.

Properly seconded.

Thank you.

Ms.

Ms.

Dooley?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeever?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

Okay, I think we have a new board chair and I will turn the gavel over to Mr. Bryant.

No, we'll stay here.

Okay.

In accordance with school board policy, BCA school board organizational meeting, the school board will elect a vice chair of the board.

I need a motion from the board to elect the vice chair.

Yes, I move Mr. Dom Morse for Vice Chair, please.

First, second.

Also, all in favor of Dom Morse being elected as Vice Chair, raise your hand.

Motion passed.

At this time, I'd like to recommend Ms.

Julia Green as clerk and Ms.

All in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passed.

Now the next item on our agenda is student and staff recognitions.

Ms.

Beth Chuck, would you come forward?

Oh, I'm sorry, I jumped one.

My apologies.

So moved.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

Motion passed.

Next item on the agenda, student and staff recognitions.

Ms.

Beth Chuck, would you come forward?

to introduce someone who probably needs no introduction.

I would like to introduce to you the CHS athletic director, Andy Jones.

He's a long time familiar face to most of us as an instructional coach, as a basketball coach, as a manager of the Buford athletic program.

And we are so happy to have him as CHS athletic director.

Thank you, Ms.

Chuck.

Good evening, Dr. Gurley.

Mr. Chair, members of the board, it's an honor to serve as the CHS director of student activities, and I'm excited to be here tonight as we honor Preston Burton, coach Joshua Grady, and the members of the CHS golf team.

I'll keep my remarks brief, even though their accomplishments are many.

First, the team.

They placed fourth in states, which is the second best finish in school history, and they won the school's first regional championship.

Team members are Preston Burton,

Leo Caffarillo, Ben Ewing, Graham Morrison, Landon Reibel, and Griffin Waltz.

Well done, boys.

Next, the coach.

We'll have him come on up.

Coach Josh O'Grady.

Aside from his work as a history teacher at CHS, Coach O'Grady has provided excellent coaching and leadership

for a number of extraordinary teams and golfers over the years, several of which have gone on to play at the collegiate level.

Coach O'Grady brings leadership, but most importantly, he brings a positive energy that encourages his players to have a love for the sport.

Thank you, Coach O'Grady.

And finally, please congratulate your Virginia class three state champion, Preston Burton.

Preston will be playing golf for William and Mary next year.

Preston was a four-time all-district first team member, two-time district player of the year, two-time regional player of the year, and two-time all-state honoree.

At CHS, he holds the school's record for lowest round, most wins in a career, most wins in a season, and the longest winning streak.

Did I mention that he is our first time state champion in the history of Charlottesville High School?

I couldn't be more proud of these athletes, their student athletes and their coach for how they've represented our school and our community.

They represent everything that we like about our Charlottesville athletics, and we are proud to call them Black Knights.

Go Black Knights.

Thank you, Mr. Jones and Josh and the whole golf team.

Congratulations.

Does anybody have any comments?

Our next item on the agenda will be recognition from Ms.

Good evening, everyone.

We are recognizing Ms.

Sherry Eubanks this evening as she has retired effective this month after over 30 years of service to the students of Charlottesville.

Sherry has worked for the city in pupil transportation in various roles for 30 plus years.

I believe the exact number is 34, 34 years.

And we do have, I'd like to point out, we do have Mr. Juwan Lee here this evening.

He's the assistant director for operations for CAT, and he's been a great partner in this work as well.

Thank you for being here.

Sherry has dedicated her entire career to the transportation of our students,

and to borrow a quote from one of my CCS colleagues, it has truly been a work of heart.

This is evident when you listen to Sherry in this ad that we're gonna do here in a moment.

This was something that she did as part of the city's efforts to recruit drivers.

I think that most people start off needing the job, but then love the job and love the kids.

We're the first person in the school system that the children see in the morning.

So the impact that we make on them when they first step on that bus can set the tone for their entire day.

More and more parents have to work multiple jobs, and so having many school bus drivers, not just your bare minimum, but having many so that we have more time to pay attention to the individual needs of each child.

The relationship we have built with CCS, we are looking for fun, energetic folks to come in and really want to be with kids.

Shameless plug, we are still recruiting and hiring bus drivers.

Sherry, if you'll join me up here, please.

We have a big thank you card.

It's actually a booklet that Amanda and Beth helped me put together.

You'll see when you have a chance to read through this that a variety of people from all kinds of different roles, people who are currently with CCS, people who are no longer with CCS, they've written some really beautiful notes of appreciation and congratulations for you in here.

And because this booklet's at least 10 pages long, unfortunately, I can't read them all, but I will just read

Dear Sherry, what a long, strange trip it's been.

It seems like this to me, and I've only been on this trip working with you since June of 2020 after Jim Henderson retired.

I can only imagine what it has been like for you working with city transit in our schools for over 30 years.

Working with you through the pandemic, I was amazed to understand the depth of knowledge that you have about this city and its people, especially our students, many of whom you have been transporting for generations.

Of course, your depth of knowledge and experience will be greatly missed, but your care for our students, especially those with special needs,

and your commitment and dedication to the safe transport of all students every day will be missed even more.

Thank you for being available literally 24-7, 365, without fail.

Thank you for every transportation crisis and unsolvable problem that you somehow resolved and all the problems you solved that we didn't even know that you solved.

Above all, and I mean this, above all, thank you for delaying your retirement.

Thank you for staying when we needed you most.

This booklet is a compilation of thank you notes and well wishes from just some of the CCS staff who have worked with you over the years.

Some people may retire and wonder if what they did made a difference.

You should never have any doubt about that.

But if you ever do, this is just a snapshot of reminders that you made a big difference for the students of Charlottesville.

On behalf of a very grateful school division and the many students you have served in so many ways for so many years, we wish you nothing but the best for your retirement.

and to go with this big thank you booklet, we do have a token of appreciation, small one, since we couldn't get you, we couldn't get you, we know you like to travel and we couldn't get you a big yellow to go off and do your traveling in, but we did get a little yellow for you.

Thank you.

I appreciate you having me here and for the recognition 34 years long time with a lot of kids.

I've watched them grow up and I've watched them go off.

Nice story.

I pulled up one day to a restaurant

ordered the food and this kid comes to, well, what I thought was a kid came to the window and she was like, Cher, you were my bus driver.

And I was like, yeah, I was.

And I was like, what was your name again?

And she told me her name and she was like, you were the best bus driver I ever had.

And I said, oh, that's great.

I said, what are you doing now?

And she said, oh, I'm actually a student at UVA.

And that was probably, you know, 15, 20 years ago.

Um, but that just shows you that kids know,

who their bus drivers are.

And so bus drivers are important.

And I appreciate the fact that you all recognize them as being a part of your, you know, your job on a day-to-day basis.

And it's all about them.

It's all about the kids.

And like I said, the, you know, the kids were the first person they see in the morning and that sets their day.

So hopefully you guys get a whole lot of bus drivers to come in the door.

The ad hasn't done too much.

Yes, thanks again Miss Eubanks.

Do we have any comments from the board?

Thank you again for your service and enjoy your retirement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.

Good evening.

I want to welcome all of our amazing Teachers of the Year and their families here tonight.

Thank you so much for coming.

It's such a special moment to be surrounded by such greatness this evening.

So I'd like to start by telling you all a bit about the Mary V. Bicovaris Virginia Teacher of the Year program.

All public and accredited non-public schools are invited to participate in this program.

This award honors teachers who represent the best in teaching in the Commonwealth of Virginia and across the nation.

To qualify for this award, candidates should possess a current renewable Virginia teacher teaching license with an endorsement in the teaching assignment.

Candidates should be teachers who are exceptionally skilled and dedicated and who are planning to continue in an active teaching status.

Candidates should play active and meaningful roles in their communities as well as in their schools.

and the program is open to all teachers, including school librarians, technology specialists, school counselors, reading specialists and more.

This year, we are adding Charlottesville City Schools to the list of school divisions who are recognizing stellar teachers in this way.

Please note, participating in the Mary V by Covarius Virginia Teacher of the Year program,

does not end our participation in the Golden Apple Award program.

This just gives our amazing teachers an opportunity to not only be recognized locally, but we could have a teacher to possibly be recognized in the region, in the state, or even nationally.

Tonight we will be recognizing the Teachers of the Year for each of our schools.

These teachers were nominated and selected at the school level by their colleagues.

Ms.

Lewis standing there.

Thank you, Ms.

Lewis.

She and I have been working with a committee of five Charlottesville City Schools staff members who reviewed essay submissions by each candidate in order to identify a division Teacher of the Year.

Before we call our teachers of the year forward, I'd like to take a moment to thank the principals and administrators who helped to make this process go smoothly.

And I'd like to call each committee member to stand up as I call your name, just to show how much you have helped to review packets and to help this process go well.

Dr. Tanya Coffey, if you're here, please stand.

Dr. Jill Dahl.

There she is.

Jessica Ford.

I think she's out today.

And Dr. Justin Malone.

All right, let's just please give them a round of applause.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your already busy schedules to review essays and provide feedback about these wonderful candidates.

And now we will call each of our school level teachers of the year forward.

Each of them will receive a plaque and a small monetary gift.

After we have finished calling everyone, I'll ask that all of you come up in front of the dais to take a picture, a group picture, holding your plaques.

So if you will go over to Miss Lewis when I call your name to receive your plaque, then go be seated, and then we'll get everybody to come back up again for a photo.

From Burnley Moran, we have Joan Evans, pre-K.

From Clark, Kaitlyn Natale, second grade.

From Greenbrier, Sarah Scavone, third grade.

From Jackson Viya, Heather Grundon, speech language pathologist.

From Johnson, Christy Hartwell, kindergarten.

From Venable, Charlene Adney, second grade.

From Walker, Amy Wiskirk, math teacher, sixth grade.

From Beaufort, Patricia Luke, special education.

From Charlottesville High School, Pamela Brown, special education.

All right, so congratulations to all of you.

Congratulations!

Now, as I mentioned, our committee was charged with using a rubric to score the essays that were submitted by the candidates.

There were some wonderful essays that were submitted, and I know it was quite challenging for our committee to choose between the essays.

And this was a blind scoring.

There were no names on these essays.

It was redacted, so very fair process.

After compiling the scores, we do have a division teacher of the year that we will be announcing tonight.

That teacher is Venable's Charlene Abney.

Please come forward.

Please come forward, Ms.

Abney.

We're going to get another picture.

Give them one more big round of applause.

and congratulations to Ms.

Abney as our first Charlottesville City Schools Division Teacher of the Year.

Thank you again to our principals and to family members who have come out this evening.

The next item on the agenda is the

Comments from members of the community.

Charlottesville City School Board welcomes comments from members of the community.

Speakers are encouraged to keep their comments to three minutes.

So I will start with folks in the audience.

Good afternoon.

Good evening, Dr. Odey, Mr. Bryant, and all of the school board members and everyone else assembled.

I am here to say congratulations.

Mr. Bryant and I have been friends for more than two weeks, for more than two minutes and two seconds.

But when I was appointed chair, it was a heartfelt congratulations.

It is something that will continue to help you grow and develop.

And you along with your other fellow board members will continue to follow the mission and vision for CCS and move this forward.

Robert's Rules of Order, the latest revised edition.

Come forward, Mr. Brion.

Francis Patterson Bryant.

I am the baby brother of the board chair, James Bryant, and he has known me for 61 years.

I and my wife, Sabrina Bryant, is here.

We would like to offer our congratulations on you and the Charlottesville School Board for your upcoming school session.

And we wish and we pray nothing but the best for the Charlottesville School Board.

We hope and we pray that the endeavors that you all embark on this school year in the coming years

but we're nothing but putting the children first.

Congratulations once again to all the teachers who became teachers of the year.

Do we have anyone else who would like to speak?

Please come forward and state your name.

Hi, my name is Leyla Singletary and I'm a ninth grade student at Charlottesville High School.

Recently, I've been given two opportunities, one for the drive for STEM scholarship award in which I was awarded a laptop.

And most recently, I've been awarded the opportunity to attend the National Youth Leadership Forum Law NCSI.

I'm coming to the school board tonight to ask for your help to invest in my future.

This will financially support my career in law.

The overall cost is 4K and although my family and I consider a GoFundMe, we aren't comfortable with such a public platform.

My hope is that

My hope is that the school board and city of Charlottesville will see the importance invested in a brilliant young black woman future like myself.

Often I hear of you all discussing breaking down barriers for students of color and my own hope that you can help break down this barrier for me and help my dream come true.

Thank you.

Do we have any other persons in the audience?

Ms.

Next item on the agenda is some public comment for the 2023-24 budget.

Charleson School Board welcomes comments from the members of the community.

Do we have anyone online?

The next item on the agenda.

is the adoption of the consent agenda.

Is there a second?

All in favor, aye.

All opposed?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board.

Good evening again.

Last month, staff presented the draft 23-24 program of studies.

After some discussion, it is our plan to keep AP Physics C in the program of studies rather than to retire it, but also add AP Physics 2 so that we can address the access and equity issues that were raised.

We will need to look at the CHS semester schedule to determine if staff schedules can handle both courses.

We also will be ensuring that we communicate to our counselors, students, and families that courses will not make if the enrollment in a course is too low.

Regarding AP Pre-Calculus,

We will also be moving forward with adding AP Pre-Calculus as previously requested at this point.

We will also be reviewing enrollment and staffing to ensure that this class can make.

You may recall that we were hoping to add real estate as a CTE option.

At this time, we are not going to move forward with this course as we have received updated information regarding licensure requirements.

We do hope to add it at a later date when we have staff who hold the appropriate credentials to teach it.

Lastly, CCS staff have been updating course codes throughout the month, so you'll see those changes as well.

These changes are all reflected in the updated program of studies in ESB.

So at this time, I need a motion from the board to approve the program of studies for the 2023-24 school year.

Yes, I will move that we approve the program of studies for the 2023-24 academic year.

Second.

I have some comments to make related to the Physics C, Physics 2, and again, a precalculus.

One thing is after reviewing my own, like the UVA admissions criteria, it's very clear that Physics 2 does not actually transfer as a AP, like one credit transfers as a lab if you pass the AP Physics 2 exam.

not the whole class.

You still have to take physics two at UVA.

You don't have to take the lab, which is actually the fun part.

But so I just want to be very clear.

This is my last program of study, Lord willing.

And I just I feel very strongly that we're watering down without that doesn't actually support our students.

I think

A superior, again I'm not an educator, but I do think Physics C can be split into two semesters or courses.

There are alternatives, but physics without calculus is meaningless.

and AP Physics II, I think, merely enriches AP without actually serving our students.

If we had a meaningful physics DE or a really great physics II class,

It doesn't matter, you know, I don't think it needs to be an AP one to really generate the love of physics.

So I just feel like we're continuing to support AP without actually any meaningful under-foundation for it.

While we could do really interesting things with

AP Physics C that could support increasing equity in physics.

And that is why I will not be supporting this course of study.

Again, I think a lot of the questions I have about Buford algebra and the AP emphasis is what is problematic to me.

I was concerned about what is the rationale for adding another Physics II class in between the AP Physics I and AP Physics C. OK, OK.

At the last board meeting in December we shared, staff shared concerns about access for many students and so that's why

AP Physics 2 is added because the calculus piece is not required and so more students who would not be able to access AP Physics would be able to with AP Physics 2.

Okay, thank you for clarifying.

Ms.

Morrison-Burger.

Ms.

Torres.

Mr. Morris, Dr. Kraft, Ms.

Dooley.

So I've already said I need a motion from the board.

We've done that.

So it's now time for the vote.

Motion passed.

The next item on the agenda is approval of the 23-24 school calendar.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In December, we also presented and recommended to you a draft of the 2023-24 school calendar draft number 1C.

As mentioned before, we worked with a committee composed of teachers, parents, administrators, and central office staff and initially shared a different calendar with the community for review and comment.

After a split decision on that draft, which was draft number 1A, we decided to recommend a more traditional calendar that is very similar to our current calendar.

We shared this new draft, draft number 1C, with the community after the December board meeting and have received feedback on it as well.

The majority are in favor of draft number 1C, about 63.4%.

Others are still very interested in the elements that were presented in draft number 1A.

This confirms the need to continue to work with the calendar committee to gather more data about a calendar such as draft number 1A and determine if it is something we would consider for 2024-2025.

We will plan to bring a draft of a calendar such as this for 2024-2025 to the board in April.

That being said, at this time, we do ask that you approve draft number 1C as the calendar for 2023-2024.

Board members, I need a motion from the board to

I so move.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Discussion?

Questions?

I'll start with Ms.

Dooley.

I think, you know, considering there was an interest in 1A and the fact that we are going to bring a draft similar to that, and I feel like change is hard, right?

And I think we learned a lesson in the sense that maybe we didn't speak to the wise or the reasons behind these changes.

And I think having the conversation up front will be helpful, but also sometimes we need to just kind of dig in and make the changes.

If there are some, you know,

and people can adjust.

So I just want to say thank you to the committee because I know there's a lot of work and discussion and it's difficult with neighboring school divisions and all of that.

I just wanted to say as I feel like this is like not something that we've talked about in the past.

Obviously, this is a fine calendar.

But I do think the two so many families who are divorced have share the kind of the winter holiday.

So like one parent gets one week and then the other parent gets the other week.

And so having both holidays in the second week, I think is super problematic for parents or children who are into

into households.

So like you could usually use split the holidays, but then if both holidays are in the second week, then the one parent gets that.

So anyway, I'm not proposing any change.

I just in the future, I think it's okay to start the vacation on the 20th and

and then go back on the Wednesday the 3rd or something like that as a kind of way to just incorporate what we know to be a very significant portion of our students that split their holidays amongst their parents.

Any other comments?

of, excuse me, recommending the 2023-24 school calendar.

Opposed?

Motion passed.

The next item on the agenda will be from Dr. Baptist.

Excuse me, please.

Here to report on activities that have occurred since the December meeting regarding the naming of facilities and with recommendation.

We don't have any new information regarding the recommendation for Venable to be renamed as Trailblazers Elementary.

For Clark, there have been quite a few discussions since we had our last meeting.

At the last meeting here, the board recommended that we encourage community to send emails to the board with their thoughts on this particular process.

While the committee did not see, I think I saw two emails, the board received quite a few emails.

And from what I'm told,

from the particular emails that you received, seven were more for the friendship name and 13 were more for summit.

Don't have all of the comments within that, but that's what I was told from the emails.

Next, Ms.

Slacker.

Dr. Kraft did ask that we get the committee together again since there was some discussion with only a small vote difference

between the names to see if the Clark staff or the Clark, excuse me, if the committee wanted to affirm that friendship was really what we wanted.

We had the committee meeting.

The committee suggested that we survey the Clark staff to see their feelings on the topic.

And that was done shortly before the Christmas break.

The survey had two main takeaways from it.

When we had the question about which was more

and the liking friendship versus summit.

Overwhelmingly, the Clark staff preferred summit over friendship.

I think only one person from the Clark staff said that summit was their preferred name.

We had a it was a range, but there was only one who on the loved it versus hated it loved friendship versus the summit name.

And then we had a question in there about whether they thought the board should

vote on this in January, February, or slow the process down.

And some of the Clark staff, a little over a majority of the staff, preferred that we slow the process down rather than voting in January or February.

So that was the feedback that we got from the, I don't have to excuse me.

I don't know what I've got.

It's not COVID, it's not the flu, but I don't know what it is.

So coming from the committee, we do ask that the board consider approving the renaming of Venable to Trailblazers Elementary, and to review the updated information regarding Clark, and then either vote on one of the options that we have, or give more guidance of how you would want the community to go next, and we will follow whatever direction.

Also following this,

It's with the information that I shared with you back in October.

We will be beginning the process with the next two schools, which will be Burnley, Moran and Johnson.

We do have a committee meeting scheduled for next week to start that process and we'll have a survey very similar process to what we've done.

We'll be looking at the timeline to see whether we need to extend the timeline more than we have thought or if the timeline is okay.

and for the committee and all the groups that we will be working with to decide whether, one, names need to be changed.

They decide that names don't need to be changed for some of the schools.

And if so, then go through the process for the name change.

So again, back to the recommendation.

First, I think we, because there are two things, an action item and a recommendation.

So I'll start with Miss Dooley.

Do you have any comments in regards to the recommendation?

Do we have a second?

I'm sorry.

I have something to say.

I think the word named Trailblazers is kind of dumb to you.

So I just want you to think I'm going to vote against it.

It's fine for you all to support it.

I'm sorry that you disagree with me about that.

I totally disagree with you.

I just think that it last conversation was such a show somehow.

So it was hung up on it was so stark in Clark.

And so I just feel like this process has been

is that all the, like you should just be on the committees because you didn't like the way the students voted.

It seems like to me, the community voice doesn't really matter unless they agree with what you think.

No one has a problem with trailblazers as much as the compounded problem you had with the connotation behind friendship that you wouldn't say was negative, but you wouldn't say what it was.

So we're spending a lot of time on your particular things that you don't like,

We're about to vote on something and you can't just disagree.

You call it dumb.

That's disrespectful to everyone involved in the process.

And if you were this into the names, you could have been on the committee.

But it's a waste of everyone's time for them to work and get to this point.

And then you just like the process doesn't matter because you don't like the name.

You don't like any of the names.

I just don't think that it's reasonable for me to be sitting here and personally attacked for this, my opinion, stating during, you know, what I believe to be a democratic process and which I disagree with.

And it's very personal.

I mean we know that there are a lot of emotions and a lot of thoughts around this and I think there's been a lot of time vested in it and I guess what I had hoped to share tonight is

And without having to say we need to restart this, but I think where we've been hung up on is the process and trying to come up with the best process and ensuring

that the process is consistent.

And it's been a little challenging because we have made some tweaks to the process after initiating this.

And I think that that makes it harder.

For me personally, what I had hoped and what I would love for the community and the students and the teachers and everybody to hear

And what I thought would be a nice way to do this is, you know, a committee develops a process and the data that we are asking for, whether it's a student survey, a teacher survey, a community survey, that everybody up front is aware that those are data points that will be considered, brought to the board for consideration, but ultimately,

You know, it's not the results of necessarily the staff survey or student survey or community survey necessarily that is going to indicate or dictate what the name would be or just, I'm losing my word right now, but that that would be data brought to us.

And then I think as, you know, colleagues in previous meetings have said that ultimately it is a decision that the board would

would come to and make because it is within our purview.

And I feel like it's just gotten a little muddy and not intentionally, but I feel like to say we're gonna use a process for one school and then a previous school where it feels like we might have a solid name chosen wasn't the same process, but then what do we do going forward?

I'll just quickly speak on the name Trailblazer itself.

Again, there's a lot of emotion in regards to some of the names of the schools and some of the recommendations for the names.

I just want to take a moment to honor those that integrated the schools, even though that some of them had their own recommendation.

I do feel like this is a fair kind of compromise in terms of honoring them, but not directly naming it after people.

Those are my comments.

Well,

I guess I would say this process is really complicated and fraught with a lot of

of opinions and emotion from the community.

And so, you know, we as a committee, I think we're doing our best.

But I think, you know, when you start with, you know, you start somewhere, and you do the best process that, you know, that you, you know, that you think you have at the time, but then it, you know, as I think we saw with

Clark, we needed to maybe adjust the process more.

And I think that will be incorporated going forward.

The committee does need to really think about this and make sure that we have a process that allows us to collect clear data.

and to have steps in the process that are laid out and that are clear enough as to how do we

How do we wind up at a decision?

With that, I guess I would say that from everything that I've seen, the venerable name Trailblazers has elicited a positive reaction from the majority of the feedback that we've gotten.

I think with Clark, we're sort of getting there.

But the question is, do we want to go ahead tonight and vote on a name or do we want to maybe give it a little bit more time?

The committee is meeting on Monday and it might be wise to just postpone that a month.

I don't know what other feedback we would be getting now about Clark, but I think that's something for the committee to talk about.

when we meet.

Well, all in favor of changing the name Venable to Trailblazers,

Say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Motion passed.

And you said, Dr. Baptist, you will deal with the recommendation.

What we've asked is that you review the updated information and either vote or tell us what you would like us to do next.

So if you aren't planning to vote tonight, I hear maybe come back in another month.

What else?

We've talked to the staff.

We've talked with students.

We've done the survey.

We've done a community forum.

What other information would the board want in order to vote?

And we're happy to do whatever.

OK, we'll start over with Ms.

I feel like we actually have tons of information from Clark.

In fact, I feel a lot better about where we are with Clark in terms of where we are naming wise as opposed to Venable.

I feel like the process has been, because it was expanded and to have some community input, it really does feel like there is

But I just feel like there needs to be leadership on the committee that actually communicates with this board on a regular basis and

the community.

I mean, just getting students of input is I think not enough.

And I hope that moving forward we get more, just get more input and more creative names.

And that's all I have to say.

I'm comfortable either way moving forward with Clark.

I would ask what other information the board would

I'm sorry, I did not hear that you made a motion, I apologize.

For summit?

Yeah, for summit.

Just to answer your question, Dr. Bactus, I think community input and staff input is like a minimal level of not just the committee level and not just the students.

I think we need a broader discussion at each school.

No, and that's what I said.

I feel much more comfortable about where we are with Clark.

And I'm not necessarily hearing everything.

I thought I had heard that she wanted more leadership from the committee with more communication.

And so I'm just asking, is there more information or what information

is has been helpful.

I don't know.

And that was going to be my question to our fellow committee members, board members.

You know, if this were to be delayed, I mean, what what else would we be bringing back?

I mean, we could prolong this forever if someone's not happy with the first two names.

So I'm just not sure unless you all had some thoughts on that or if anybody has heard specifically

You know, from a fair amount of staff who had that desire to prolong it or to slow it down.

I've heard feedback from a fair amount of staff that they didn't feel that

As a Clark student, it's very easy to feel that your voice doesn't matter because we were willing to vote on the name that Venable students voted for.

But somehow Clark students, their voice and the thing that they voted on under the same process doesn't matter or doesn't count.

And so that was the feedback I heard for this particular thing.

And

these things can go on forever and so we did get however many emails about renaming it Summit but did we add the people who said don't change the name because then are we at a majority because that was how it started when we were like oh friendship doesn't work and so yes that it can go on forever but it shouldn't feel like in the community that if you're if the thing you pick isn't we don't say hey come join a committee

put in this work and then at the end after you do it we're going to criticize everything that you did and after having spent no time on the committee or doing any of the work

And it's obvious that it's not about the, some things are not about the process.

Some things are just about individual opinions of the board members.

And if that was the case, we did not need to have a committee or a community panel the way that we establish it, because it put a lot of weight on the people on that panel, the community members involved.

the people who were the original ones to desegregate the schools they participated on those committees and these were hard decisions and I think to just kind of shoo that away because a few personal preferences on the board don't like it to start this because we can bring up any topic on the board and say if you don't like it email us and we'll get 13 emails to support whatever it is

And so I just feel like whatever process we go forward, if someone doesn't like it, we're going to end up right back here.

And so I just don't like the tone it sets that send this one back, but don't send that one back.

like we're okay with this name, even though some people on the board think it's dumb.

So this whole process and how we as a board, the committee has done a great job and they've reported to us, but I don't think as a board, we've communicated effectively to what we need if there's such an issue at the end for some people.

I think I was just going to clarify what I understood.

Your question was moving forward because we had the motion in the second for summit.

So moving forward, Dr. Baptist, you're hoping that you wanted to know if what the process we use for Clark

Right.

Yeah, can I just ask, Dr. Baptist, did we get any more detail about why the staff wanted to slow this process down?

I appreciate several comments that have been made.

There were 33 that preferred friendship, 28 summit, 15 write-ins.

And so the majority of students preferred not friendship.

So did they prefer summit?

No, I'll give you that, but they did not prefer friendship.

And so with the additional data points that we have, I'm not, I agree with Ms.

Torres.

So being that we have a first and second motion, I guess we can go to the vote.

Ms.

Miss Dooley?

Yes.

Dr. Kraft?

Yes.

Miss McKeever?

Yes.

The motion passed.

Thank you all for your discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just again, moving forward, and again, I'm reflecting on some of the emails that I've responded to from community members about this.

I just wanted to make sure that I feel like, you know, one example of an email was

really just had no idea about the process I think that the committee went through and didn't probably have access to what was discussed and evaluated as far as the historical background to the name.

So I mean I think if you were to look at individual emails and just the differences and

asking, you know, why are we changing it?

I think that I don't know if we can do that better, but there were several emails that had that component to it.

They didn't really understand the history to start with.

I would hope as we move forward that we will make it clear with the subsequent schools that are being

evaluated for name change that, you know, we're really, really clear in what the voices and the data mean, you know, that they are just that, that they are not the deciding factor going forward.

And I think that that

created some confusion and none of us want anybody to feel like their voice doesn't matter.

It does, but it may not be the deciding factor.

So I'm just asking if we can make sure somehow when that's conveyed at each individual school that that can be a little bit more clear.

I think we can always strive to do a better job with that.

I will say that Miss Chuck has done

of Yeoman's job of keeping up with information and having it on our website since committee was formed back in 2020.

Every time we've met, she's included notes from the meeting.

Mr. Varner's research has been on our website the entire time when we did the survey that was mentioned several times, the community forum.

So information's been there.

I admit there are things on websites I don't always see.

And then I'm like, how did this happen?

I didn't know anything about it.

Yeah, I appreciate all that.

And that was not to discount the work that has been done.

Yeah.

And we all have different access points and availability to access information.

So thank you.

Even though we voted on this issue, I forgot to ask Ms.

Wong if she has anything to add to the conversation.

Well, I'm wondering whether the board would like monthly updates from this committee.

I think that'd be a great idea, especially, I think that when it comes to the board is when the community learns.

We can do that.

And then for the public who may be listening this evening, I do encourage people to look for on our website, the naming of facilities.

You can find the information that the research that's been done.

You can see the information from, um,

the various meetings that we've had.

When we have a survey that is listed on the front page of our website.

Next item on our agenda is items for discussion.

Ms.

Dr. Odey and school board members.

This evening, I'll be presenting to you an update on the 2024 budget development process.

This evening, I will go over our budget priorities, the governor's proposed budget, and the ARPA ESSER spending plan.

This is just a reminder of the budget priorities that was presented at the last school board meeting.

The governor released his proposed budget on December 15th.

VDOE released the superintendent's memo on the 16th.

And the takeaway is this is the second year

of the 2022-24 Bi-Am budget.

The Bi-Am budget included a 10% salary action for SOQ positions, which is broken down into 5% for 2023 and 5% for 2024.

And then that was the baseline budget.

And then the proposed budget has technical adjustments and proposals.

The main technical adjustment was the adjusted daily membership and which is better known as ADM.

The ADM for March 31st and September 30th came at higher than what they had anticipated.

So they have revised the ADM, which in effect changed all of our budget revenue numbers that ADM is calculated on.

They also revised the estimated projections for state sales tax.

And all this compilates into an increase of about $2.5 million for us due to enrollment growth.

The governor's proposed budget had two additional proposals.

One is this one-time 1% retention bonus.

And this bonus is for staff that was employed starting in September, sorry, during the school year of 2023.

And that stays with us through fiscal year 2024.

And

Hold on.

Yes.

And VDOE is calculated in their tool A $6,000, which if this goes through, it'll be a bigger impact for us.

The second proposal was a teacher performance bonuses.

And again, we don't know where these proposals stand.

So that's exactly what they are.

They're being put forth.

for the General Assembly to go forward with.

This one is a bonus of $5,000 per individual would be awarded to the top performing teachers identified by VDOE.

And so we'll continue to watch these two proposals as we go through the budget process.

And then lastly,

Before the winter break, staff had to complete an ARPA ESSER template that was released by VDOE and it is posted on our website, so we would like for you to check it out and provide us any feedback on that.

and this is our budget calendar for January.

Our next board work session will be Thursday, January 19th.

We'll present the superintendents on changes from the FY23 budget to the FY24 budget.

Yeah, I thought that we were having a meeting with city council, a joint meeting.

That will be at the end of January 1st of February.

OK.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

We come together as a board.

It's on February 8th.

February 8th.

Thank you, Ms.

Bryant.

Any other questions?

Torres?

Any news on that front?

Appreciate that.

I think that's great to continue.

It's a good partnership.

Any other questions for Ms.

Thank you Ms.

Hoover.

Next on our agenda is Ms.

Lewis.

Lewis with our recruitment plan.

Good evening, Board Chair Bryant, members of the board, and Dr. Odey.

This evening, I'll provide a human resource update that is focused on recruitment.

When considering recruitment, it was important to examine hiring and retention practices.

And this evening, I'll briefly share the 22-23 staffing trends, the plan for recruitment, and measures taken for retention for staff.

During the 22-23 hiring season, the division hired 146 individuals in various positions, including teachers, custodians, administrators, and instructional assistants.

This year, we also hired nurses and school secretaries, which are typically positions that are filled and remain filled for extended periods of time.

So the division experience

changes in many areas of our employees as they evaluated their personal goals and made changes accordingly.

This graph will show you that the diversity of the persons hired this year is approximately 27%.

39 of the individuals we hired were persons of color.

Next slide.

This graph is a summary of the higher demographics specific to our teaching population.

As a point of clarity, our teaching staff includes any teacher, counselor, and specialists along in this group.

So the diversity of our teaching staff that we hired this year was only 13%.

We hired three African-American teachers, one Asian teacher, one native Hawaiian teacher, and three teachers with mixed heritage.

Now this slide shows you the years of experience.

The average years of experience of the individuals that we hired this year is approximately seven years of experience.

The division hired 57 individuals with zero to five years of experience, six teachers that were

that have 6-10 years of experience, 8 teachers with 11-15 years of experience and 8 teachers with 16-20 years of experience and 4 teachers 21-25 years of experience and 2 that had over 26 years of experience.

20 of the teachers that are in the 0-5 years of experience are experiencing teaching for their first time.

Seventeen of these individuals were in the division as student teachers last year and performed well enough to be extended the offers being a teacher.

Two of the individuals of the 20 were instructional assistants for us in the past and have been promoted to teacher as they completed their teaching program.

This is the second year the division has hired instructional assistants that have become teachers.

Two instructional assistants last year became teachers, and then two instructional assistants became teachers this season.

When considering where to recruit, it was important to examine where the new hires had completed their most recent college experience.

Largely, the new hires are Virginia College graduates.

Approximately 67% of them, or 63 individuals, are Virginia graduates at their highest level of study.

And largely they came from the University of Virginia, followed by James Madison University.

So as we began to develop the recruitment plan, it was important to focus efforts largely on Virginia colleges and universities and recognize that

It's possible that we're going to get one to three candidates at each one of those fairs just because the climate is so competitive.

For the first time since I've been in Human Resources, the school division opened the school year with a number of positions that were not filled.

Largely, these positions were in special education or secondary English.

And then we also had some openings as instructional assistants.

So two of the main focuses for the recruitment plan is to one, fill high needs areas, and two, to diversify our staff.

As I mentioned, special education and English teachers are going to be a priority this year.

We're also going to focus on secondary math and science.

There is a need for us to have a nursing or nurses pool of candidates as well and instructional assistants.

The second tier of our recruitment plan will be to solicit a diverse student teacher population.

and we're going to have recruitment fairs that go to historically bad colleges and we're also going to have recruitment fairs that happen at our community colleges.

One is coming up at Piedmont Virginia Community College.

It's important for us to include our administrators in the recruitment plan and our staff as well.

Last year, the division hosted its first job fair here at Charlottesville High School in February and it was very successful.

We hired 13 staff members from that event and we couldn't have had that function without the help of the administrators and division leaders.

So we are planning that recruitment fair again this year and it's tentatively scheduled for February the 26th.

around the same date that we had last year.

We're working through the logistics and the management and the marketing plan right now.

In addition to that, we're going to be integrating the use of college and university placements with student teachers.

And currently we have 55 student teachers or interns this semester.

So hopefully a percentage of them will be placed within the school division.

In October, the HR team grew when we hired Jeff Ernie as the latest team member for our team.

And he has a wealth of knowledge and expertise working with career services.

And we're going to lean into that career services expertise and add the integration of Virginia CareerWorks and College Readiness.

This map will show you that we're going to be moving around a little bit.

In the past two years or past three years we've had less face-to-face interactions and more virtual experiences but this year we plan to have face-to-face recruitment fairs and we'll start with Virginia Commonwealth University, Norfolk State, Hampton University, Christopher Newport, William & Mary, Longwood, George Mason, JMU, UVA, and PVCC.

and there are some other entities depicted there.

According to the new benchmark data from SHRM, the Society of Human Resource Management, the average cost per hire is nearly $4,700.

It's important for us to let that amount sit there for just a moment because the division hired 146 individuals this past season.

So it's really critically important for us to focus on retention because this is just the initial cost of bringing someone on board according to SHERB analysis.

It doesn't even take into account the additional support and mentoring that is done by all the other professionals as they transition into Charlottesville City Schools.

So retention is going to be a priority.

We're very fortunate that the division has always had an extensive, robust benefits package and this year was expanded to include a high deductible health plan.

We also have extended professional development opportunities for individuals.

So there's a graduate leadership cohort, the opportunities for teachers to become administrators with the support of the division.

There's also an opportunity for instructional assistants to become teachers with a collaboration that we have with James Madison University.

We're just providing professional learning opportunities for people to grow within the division.

We're also doing a pilot integration of a 30, 60, 90 check-ins with new hires to give us a better understanding of what we are doing well and what we're not doing so well.

And hopefully this will give us the real-time feedback that's needed and the opportunity for us to make adjustments.

That's all the data that I have today.

You're shaking it up, sir.

Yeah, thank you for all of that.

So exciting to hear and I apologize because I don't remember and I know this is kind of your first year doing this.

What prior data look like as far as comparison like with our diversity numbers and hires?

Do you happen to know like last year?

Two years ago, we had a really strong class of diversity.

But last year, the numbers are very similar to what it was.

Yeah, I just didn't know.

I mean, I'm sure this has affected everybody on all levels.

That would be a great question.

I can certainly review data that I have available to me from last year that was shared.

We definitely have two years worth of data but I do know just from being here and four years ago there was a tremendous push

Yeah, I do recall that and I don't, I'm not trying to make more work for you to go back but maybe just going forward if we can have numbers to compare.

And then you mentioned mentoring and that's so important, I feel.

Have we changed or can you describe a little bit about what mentoring looks like for new hires?

So there's a structure that was set up that allows each one that is a new hire is assigned a mentor that's a veteran teacher with at least three years of experience within the division.

and they're partnered up in the first semester of the school year so that they can work together throughout the school year.

They have regular conversations with each other and actual support.

That person typically is in the building.

And then the 30, 60, 90 check-ins, is that from HR?

That's from HR.

It could be a phone or it could be a Zoom or face-to-face.

So one, it's just changing the culture when an HR person comes to the building that they don't always see it as, oh my God, someone's in trouble.

So if it's more of a check-in and it's a casual conversation, it makes it a little easier and we're welcomed in the building.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for this.

And please let us know if there's anything we can do to support you.

Thank you.

You know, that's appreciate the focus on the retention.

Thank you again for all of this information.

I was wondering, in terms of the hiring of teachers of color, I was wondering if, you know, how do I put this, you know, if there were many more offers that were declined

I can tell you there was some persons of color that declined offers with our school division.

Yes, I can confirm that.

Do you know why?

Well, those individuals are getting multiple offers and are picking the one that best suits their personal convictions.

So even during the job fair, we extended early intents to two individuals during the job fair in February, and we were made aware in May.

I'm going to pursue another adventure.

So we are making the effort.

And we're working with JMU, which has the largest, JMU is known for having the largest diverse teacher population across the state.

So we're working closely with them.

Thank you.

I'm interested in results from exit surveys on staff who have departed the division.

If there's any consistency and feedback for those that have chosen to leave CCS.

I do have staff data, but I don't have extensive, I'm afraid I did not review that today.

We do collect the staff data and according to the parameters that the state provides, the person will let us know if they're going into education in another school division.

If they're leaving because of too much responsibility or accountability and or lack of structure.

So all of that is in there.

And is there anything that's less formal through the state?

So one, we want to do that process because it's required with our data collection with the state.

So we ask teachers to do that on top of that.

But if they do have a conversation with administration, they do have those conversations in advance.

And then they can also schedule a meeting with HR for exit interview.

That's not formal to I'm sorry, I couldn't understand the last part.

They can schedule an interview with HR to let us know when they're exiting that we don't have to use the formal process.

We do have the same number of questions that we're going to ask just so that we're consistent, but it's a less state-driven document.

Not everybody takes advantage of that.

opportunity.

So we send out, when they have their separation letter, acknowledged letter, we send out the URL that allows them to go online and complete that exit survey to let us know and provide us the data.

I think that moving forward, that might be an interesting data point for us to

Okay.

Ms.

I had a question about the initial breakdown of diversity among instructors.

Does that include like temporary staff?

It does not.

Okay, okay.

For like teachers and assistants?

No, these are strictly salary and boys that are hired into a full-time position.

So when we started the school year, there were at least six positions that were unfilled.

Okay, thank you.

I also had a question about, do you have any idea of the retention rate for

I think annually there is a report that we do as far as retention rates.

I can look that report up.

It happens in it's late in the year that they ask for retention rates, but I can look that report up.

That report has a summary of

Yeah, I was just I mean, I was just asking because I was I wondered if that had any.

Thing any insightful data about like.

I can tell you largely our instructional assistants are more diverse than our teaching staff.

Those individuals may not have a college background that the requirement asked them to have at least one year of college or 60

between one and two years of college, 30 to 60 credits.

So those individuals come to us.

Largely, the 30, 60, 90 conversations we're having with instructional assistants results in them saying the pay is challenging for them to continue to stay employed at that level.

My questions have been asked.

Real quick, on her point, Ms.

Lewis, I was just curious, I know that we had the opportunity to attend the AATF, African American Teaching Fellows, function earlier in the year.

And if we are at all talking about that or making sure that the IAs or anybody who might be interested in needing some support and wanting to continue with their degree or their education,

I mean, I think it would be, I think it would be important for us to make sure that they know that program is out there.

And we can talk about this later.

Absolutely.

We recommend it.

Quanta Dennis was an instructional assistant.

He's now a student teacher at Burley-Marin Elementary School.

He started out as an instructional assistant with us, joined

teach American History Fellows.

He's going through his graduate program right now, and hopefully he'll be placed at our school.

Any other questions for Ms.

Lewis?

Comments?

Thank you so much, Ms.

Lewis, for sharing.

Next on our agenda is Dr. Odie.

A recent Senate Bill 656 requires that local school boards adopt policies concerning instructional materials with sexually explicit content.

This policy governs instructional materials that a teacher uses for classroom instruction or that a student selects for classroom projects.

A committee of Charlottesville City Schools staff, including librarians, teachers, coordinators, and principals worked together to review our current policies, policy IIA regarding instructional materials and policy IIAB regarding supplemental materials to determine revisions needed to meet the requirements of Senate Bill 656.

You'll notice that these revisions there on your screen track almost verbatim from the VSBA policies that we use here in Charlottesville City Schools.

The areas in green, that's the new additions that we have to policy IIA.

I know you've had time to review it, but some key points included in the additions to IIA include having processes in place for identifying instructional material that includes sexually explicit content prior to the start of each school year.

Notifying parents at least 30 days prior to the use of any instructional materials with sexually explicit content.

Providing alternative instructional material and related academic activities to any student whose parent requests that the student be provided with such instructional material and or activities.

And making these materials available for parent review on our website.

You'll notice there that various specific definitions are also included in the new portion of IIA down towards the bottom.

One small but important change from the VSBA policy that we included is we added the words or gender identity in the last sentence of the definition of sexually explicit content.

It reads specifically,

Instructional materials shall not be designated as sexually explicit based solely on the sexual orientation or gender identity of the characters they are in.

Again, we added or gender identity.

Cross references and code references have also been updated, as you can see at the bottom of the policy.

Now, revised policy IIAB has only one small change.

If we scroll there, you'll see that in green, just one sentence regarding teachers referring to policy IIA.

The committee worked to update the regulations as well, specifically how we will roll out this policy.

Specifically, we have included sharing this revised policy, including those definitions.

It's key that we know those definitions.

They will help us as far as identifying the materials.

So we are planning to share this revised policy with staff at the beginning of the year.

But truly, once this policy is voted on, it goes into effect immediately.

So we will need to do that work in sharing this revised policy with staff immediately so that all are ready.

We want them to be able to identify any materials with sexually explicit content based on the guidance there within.

You will see that we have included several ways that parents will be notified.

Parent notifications through student handbooks, through syllabi, our Canvas learning management system, and or standalone letters, and even parent teacher conferences.

We can have those conversations there as well.

We plan to inform parents when students are required to select texts for independent reading or research so they can review their child's chosen resources and discuss their options.

It is recommended that the school board consider this revised policy and that we schedule it for a second reading and adoption at the school board's next meeting.

And as I said, once the revised policy is approved, we will implement it immediately as the law requires.

Senate Bill 656 actually stated that it was to be implemented by January 1st.

We did not meet that deadline, but as we wanted to spend more time

adequate time ensuring it was well prepared, well written, comprehensive.

That's why we're presenting it now.

We've also, because we delayed our presentation to the board, we've been able to see how other divisions have been rolling out their process and their policies during this time as well.

wanted to tell you a little bit about, you'll see if you've been following the news, I see it every day, especially in December, different divisions rolling out their policy, sharing it with their board and having the board act upon it.

And they've been doing this in different manners, some using the VDOE model policy verbatim, some creating a completely new policy.

We already had policy IIA in place.

It was a tiny little policy on instructional materials.

And so all of that green that we've added is what the VSBA has recommended.

And as we have had success using VSBA policies in the past, that's what we are continuing in this manner.

And I will add one more thing.

Well, a couple more things.

From the school Senate Bill 656, one thing that it says there specifically that I want to stress here is that this policy shall not be construed as requiring or providing for the censoring of books in the division's elementary and secondary schools.

So we are not going to censor library books.

I think that is important to share tonight.

So as we move forward with implementing working through our regulations that we have provided that we're going to be sharing with our staff working with our coordinators are planning to review curriculum review books.

We want to bring our coaches, our administrators.

Some of them were already on this committee.

They are ready for this work.

We want to make sure that we utilize these key people in reviewing and identifying materials with sexually explicit content.

So we'll have this information available as Senate Bill 656 does require.

So at this time, this is just information tonight.

But again, we do ask that you consider our revised policy as written, and then be ready for possibly a second reading at the next school board meeting so we can vote to implement it and move forward.

I'll start with Ms.

No questions at this time.

Yes, they are.

So did you have an opportunity to look at some of the other division policies and what those look like?

What I've seen is those definitions are in there.

It comes straight from code.

And there's a new code that Senate Bill 656 enacted, which was 22.1, 16.8.

So all of that just really is making it clear to us what the expectations were.

I've reviewed

I reviewed Albemarle, Henrico, Chesterfield, Fairfax, a few others just to see.

It was really helpful to see where people were landing with this policy.

I think that what we have is very comparable.

Again, some completed

Very brand new policies, brand new policies.

What we have opted to do is just to add on to what we already have as an existing policy and just make the revision.

And it works, it seems to work for us.

No, I think this looks very well thought out and comprehensive and yeah, so I thank you for the work that went into this.

So we've started this process and if you'd noticed the regulations.

So the, the policy says the superintendent needs to have a process for this for parental notification a process for identifying.

So what we did.

We wanted to get that work started because, again, once you all approve, it needs to be implemented.

So the committee, that's really, certainly we work together on the policy, but our major work was getting those regulations in place.

And so what you have before you are the way that we're going to implement the policy.

We're going to continue to work.

Our work, the committee work is not finished yet, but we have a very solid starting point.

making sure that our teachers and our staff have this knowledge, have this information before them, having the coordinators go through curriculum, making sure that we have all of this on our website.

The syllabus is very, that's easy for high school, but we don't have syllabi for elementary and Walker and Buford.

And will that be, I guess, will we be able to review the processes that are established before we vote to approve this policy?

So that's what the regulations are.

That's the process.

Let me just pull this up here.

If you look at what we have the first bullet

That's our process of making sure teachers are informed, sharing this with them.

One of the principals that was on the committee said ideally it would be teacher work.

You know, you share the new policies, make sure everybody is abreast of everything they need to do, reviewing any materials.

We can't share, we don't want to move forward with these things until it's approved.

But the next year, we already know the next bullet.

We already know this is how we're going to notify families.

The requirement was to develop a process to notify families.

Those are our processes right there.

We're going to notify them through handbooks, syllabi, Canvas, letters.

That's our process.

We're going to make sure that they know that they can ask for an alternative lesson.

And they can change their mind.

That's another thing.

Let's imagine a parent doesn't ask for an alternative lesson.

The child goes home and says, hey, I learned this today.

Parent can say,

Pause, I'm going to change my mind and that's okay.

We want to make sure that parents feel supported in what they'd like for their students.

And then we already know that we're going to put it on our website.

So again, those are the processes.

Now we just have to do the work.

We have to compile the list.

Make sure the syllabi have the items on there.

Make sure the coordinators are reviewing.

But this is the process in the regulations.

Is there something else, Ms.

Dooley, that you were hoping to see?

Are there any other questions?

Thank you so much.

All of your hard work, working on those policies.

Thank you.

I was just gonna say I know that you mentioned that we missed the January deadline.

So is this coming back to us before the February meeting?

What is the will of the board?

We do meet again on the 19th.

Certainly, you can vote on it then, but that's more budget.

Or we can wait till February.

We didn't meet that deadline, and I think we're going to be OK.

Again, we just wanted to make sure that it was comprehensive and well-written.

No, Dr. Gurley and I do not believe there's a penalty.

No, I think that's fine.

And I apologize, Mr. Bryant.

I think when Dr. Gurley had mentioned this when we met, and I don't remember if we talked about it in the agenda meeting, we weren't sure if we needed to rush it.

All right.

Well, thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Our next item on the agenda is Ms.

Good evening school board chair, school board members, and Dr. Odey.

Good evening also to any community members watching with us or attending tonight.

My name is Bianca Johnson.

I am a family engagement coordinator for CCS.

half of the face team or the family and community engagement team.

You'll hear that acting in a few times tonight.

Thank you for having me present this update.

Before I get started, I was asked to share this announcement with the board and anyone listening this evening.

With the generous support of the community, the House of Cut's Barber Studio in partnership with 100 Black Men of Central Virginia have been offering free haircuts for CHS students.

They just received a donation so that now Buford students can receive haircuts as well.

The first round of 50 Cuts was funded by the Walker Buford PTO.

Portico Church, and Mount Sinai First African Baptist Church.

Students or their family members can schedule through the Creator Booking app found on your app store, or they encourage students to walk in.

Students need to bring their student ID or show proof of attendance by PowerSchool.

And of course, parking is limited.

It's $3 an hour in the garage.

So I just wanted to make that known to you all.

We can go to the next slide.

I want to introduce you all to the idea and definition of community schools.

According to the National Education Association, community schools are public schools that provide services and support that fit each neighborhood needs created and run by the people who know our children best all working together.

The six pillars of community schools are a strong and proven curriculum, high quality teaching, inclusive leadership, positive behavior practices, family and community partnerships, and community support services.

I'll spend my time tonight talking about the work that FACE does in the last two pillars, family and community partnerships and community support services.

We all know that one of the barriers that our students face can be hunger, roost, staff feedback.

Another snack drive was organized for our students.

From October 24 to November 18, we received around 100 boxes of snacks for students that were divided based on need.

We received a very generous donation from Loaves and Fishes to help support the drive as well as many family and community donations as well.

We also hosted a coat drive from October 31st until December 9th for students to receive coats, and you'll hear a little bit more about that later.

In the height of the pandemic, FACE was tasked with organizing a way for families to receive essential supplies.

You all know this as the response to essential needs events, where some of you all volunteer your time to give out coats, school supplies, food, and more.

All of this made possible through Charlottesville Community Partners volunteers and CCS staff, of course.

These began in November of 2020, and the last was in December of 2021.

While I believe that this met a need for the current time, a recurring question I always had was, how can we meet this need on an ongoing basis?

As we begin talks of the evolution of the response to REN, or response to essential needs, last year's update talked about what we wanted to bring to CCS and we heard from the partners about the plan to put everything in motion.

This year's update is what is now up and running at CCS.

Thanks to our partnership with the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, who's here with us this evening, I'm happy to announce that our pilot food program, Buford Eats, is now up and running.

Members from the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank here with us to talk about our partnership to get Buford Eats up and running, and I'll let them introduce themselves.

You will also hear from the lead point person of the team, Ms.

Good evening, everybody.

My name is Zach Nissen.

I'm with the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

Just a little bit about the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

And we have these lovely fact sheets at the end over there for folks that would like to know.

We work in 25 counties and eight cities in the Blue Ridge area in western and central Virginia.

We have over 400 partner sites, whether those are soup kitchens, feeding programs, churches, or school partners.

Out of the Charlottesville office, where a lot of the folks here tonight are from,

We have roughly 90 partner agencies and program sites.

And we're super excited that Buford Eats is one of our newest.

And I'll hand that over to Ms.

Good evening, school board chair, members of the board and Dr. Odi.

My name is Sheena Washington.

I am the school registrar at Buford Middle School.

I also work as the lead point person for Buford Eats.

Buford Eats is a space for everyone to access groceries and food.

We are a team of six familiar faces that meet often to brainstorm the best way to get food to our Buford students.

Our meetings became more frequent during the summer as we figured out who would be on the team and how the program should run.

Our model is very similar to the other food market programs that the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank runs with the addition of what we call pop-ups, which is where we set up tables with fresh produce and staple boxes at events like open houses, book giveaways, and sport games.

At these events, anyone that visits the table can grab any food item they want, and we only need a few questions answered.

How many people are in your household?

How many are over 18?

And how many over 60?

We now also have a biweekly distribution running for families to access food.

The student or parent can sign up for the biweekly distribution using our Google form.

As of today, we have 34 families registered for our ongoing food service.

Families have the option to send the food home by their students.

Are there any questions?

So today, not including these 34 families that will get their pick up, I think that's the week after.

So we've served over 400 children just in the last six months in 200 families.

That's almost just shy of 3,000 pounds of food that's roughly 2,500 meals.

And again, we are just getting started.

We're super excited to kind of use this community school model.

For years, food banks have sort of operated on a build it and they will come, but what about things that are already there that people are already going to that are serving their community?

So again, we're really excited to partner with the folks at Buford and they pour their heart and soul out of what they do into it.

And to that end, we would encourage you all to come if you want to reach out to Bianca or Ms.

Washington to volunteer, to help them bag, to pack groceries, or to come to one of our pop-ups.

We're going to be at the basketball game next week.

It's a doubleheader.

So please come by.

All right, again, I cannot tell you what this partnership means to me.

This food bank also works with us to provide Thanksgiving, winter, and spring baked boxes for our students and families.

We've also worked together for the school food drive the last two years, and we plan to continue that this year.

While I help coordinating these efforts, these are the folks on the ground that really work hard to make this happen.

Thank you guys again for your support with everything.

Another continuation of our RA-ing events was figuring out a way for families to access essential items.

And so last year you all heard from Kim Packet, the development manager from the Chris Long Foundation, about their efforts to start closets with us and calling it EdZone.

Through donors, the foundation raised enough money for all six elementary schools to have a closet in the building.

We had our official EdZone launch for the closets in November at Venable Elementary.

All six closets are up and running for students and families to access.

We aim to provide these resources for families while still protecting their dignity.

If a student or family needs something from the closet, they can make the request known to the school mental health professionals, and that's our school counselors or social workers.

From there, our mental health professionals will gather the items the family has, the option to, of course, send the items home with the student.

They can come pick them up or they can have them delivered.

EdZone also graciously covered coats for our elementary students as well.

Community partners and donors such as the Greenbrier Neighborhood Association and the Emergency Food Network have contributed to make sure that Walker, Buford, and CHS also have equitable access to free and essential items.

Our coach drive that I mentioned earlier gave us hundreds of coats for the secondary students as well.

And on this last slide, you're going to see more of our partnerships and supports.

We're also exploring a long-term partnership with the Emergency Food Bank to provide break bags and ongoing access to food.

For winter break, they donated 225 feed bags for our students and families.

FACES offered two professional development activities, opportunities for staff, and we continue to provide monthly workshops for families, both virtually and in the community as well.

So we've been working hard to build and sustain our relationship with community members, partners, and organizations to remove barriers and provide better access to our students and families as needed.

Again, none of these things are possible.

without the monetary support, the volunteer support, the word of mouth support from this division and community.

So thank you to everyone that helps us make this happen.

And thank you all the board for supporting all of our face efforts, supporting our vision and our students and families.

Our collaborative efforts are the true example of us being better together.

Any additional questions for Ms.

Johnson?

Great job that your team, amazing job your team are doing.

You're doing a good work for our community.

Yes, I did.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next item on the agenda is the school board committee reports.

I think it's been duly noted and recorded with the clerk of the board.

Now we have another opportunity for comments from members of the community.

The Charleston City School Board welcome comments from members of the community.

Speakers are encouraged to keep their comments to three minutes.

We do have somebody.

I've just promoted them to be able to speak.

Greetings and good evening, everyone, old friends and family.

I just wanted to greet you from Washington, D.C.

and join in the congratulations of our new school board chair, Mr. James Bryant.

Mr. Bryant, I've known you for

over 20 years and I am grateful for your support, care, and contributions and service that you have made to Charlottesville City Schools.

in a number of different capacities.

And so I just want to congratulate you again, send you well wishes and just encourage you to continue to lead with grace, pride, and love.

To the rest of you, thank you so much for the opportunity and congratulations also to Ms.

Johnson and Ms.

Lewis for your presentations this evening.

So that's it.

Next person, Ms.

No other comments from the community?

Now board members will have an opportunity to make comments.

And I'll start over in the corner, Ms.

Ms.

I just wanted to add a few things for follow up when we were talking about the retention of the staff and all those things.

If we could, I've gotten questions about, I wrote a note, teachers and their

Overloads and how the compensation works for the overloads and is it included in the contracts, if I could ask that for a follow-up at a later time.

The overloads, when the teachers take the overloads, when they're compensated and if it's included in their contract, how does that portion work?

And that was, you know, that just for follow up when they, you know, when we get to the end of the meeting.

So, but thank you for the presentation.

And then the other item that I wanted to come back to I still I know we've belabored the point, but

the same one when we talked about the AP classes and I just wanted to put my thoughts out there.

I guess I was frustrated with the naming process or the renaming process because you know for so long the schools have been named after very problematic people in the case of Venable in particular

and then the idea that the school might share the same name as a public housing complex seemed to be you know like a bridge too far or would have a connotation even though you know it was never followed up exactly what that connotation means it's kind of frustrating that you know

That's the bridge too far, but not the status quo of how things were when, you know, these names are completely OK.

And it's problematic, in my opinion, that a school that serves a majority white population got to pick their name.

And I just that was my my last thought and comment about the process.

My only comments are congratulations to you, sir.

And congratulations to you.

And that's it.

After the new year, a lot of people reset.

And I think for the board, for the school division,

I hope that everyone took a moment to kind of reset for themselves and restore themselves for the journey that continues ahead.

I hope that the remainder of the school year leads us to growing closer together and having honest conversations but also being able to work together strongly.

I would like to take a moment to thank and express appreciation to our outgoing chair, Lisa Torres.

who has done an incredible job, just such heavy lifting with such weighty items and things that we had to do, picking a superintendent, we're entering into collective bargaining, we're doing a reconfiguration process on top of everything else that goes on all the time.

I know how much work you put into this and I know how much heart you put into this.

You put all of yourself into this role and checking in with us all the time and just trying to manage us like herding cats or something.

And I just want to express my appreciation for all of that that you've given to all of us over the last couple of years.

Thank you, Dr. Kraft.

Ms.

Well, I would be remiss if I did not introduce our new student board rep, Ms.

Wong, Vivian Wong.

Also, Lisa, I'd like to also extend my congrats to you for doing a great job as the chair, the board, doing some trying times.

So thank you so much for your service.

Thank you.

I also want to thank

my fellow board members for your support.

I'm very honored and very blessed.

You know I love history.

50 years ago, during those turbulent times of racial unrest at Lane High School, my godfather, the late Reverend Henry Mitchell, sat in this chair as the chair of the school board in 1972.

I've heard very grateful I stand on his shoulders and the shoulders of many others in my community who poured into me.

Dom and I are products of the Charlottesville City Schools.

Our backgrounds are similar, but I am ever so grateful for all of your support and I don't take it lightly.

I wanted to share my vision of the school board and some of it

has already been mentioned tonight, where I would like to see us go.

I spent 29 years in the Charlottesville Public Schools as a substitute teacher, a homebound teacher, a music educator, and a high school counselor, 29 of my 45 years of service.

I'm hoping that we will continue to do the great work of continuing to refine our equity and diversity policy.

It is extremely important because sometimes equity and diversity does not always mean inclusion.

So I know under the leadership of Ms.

Johnson, we will continue to perfect that policy that Mrs. Nazir was so passionate about.

Also, when teachers are leaving in droves all across the country, what will we look like 20 years from now when teachers, young people are not going into education?

What do we do as a school system?

How do we continue to hire, not only hire, but retain a diverse workforce that is reflective of our student body?

My vision, I'm hoping that we can start growing our own.

Some type of teacher academy where we can encourage young people to go into education.

Being that, and you were right there, they're all over the place.

They're shopping here and there.

And that's the fact that they wanna be educators.

They wanna be committed to teaching children.

That is what I'm hoping that we can continue to refine that process.

Getting them here, retaining them here,

and that they are reflective of our students.

Also, as a teacher, the foundation starts at the elementary pre-K kindergarten.

I am hoping we must continue to focus on student achievement.

We got our last data report.

Dr. Gurley said, this is the data.

We own this, and we're going to have to continue to work.

And I'm not saying the teachers are not, they're doing an amazing job.

I was in a workshop at the VSBA conference, Dr. Kraft and I was in the mental health workshop.

One of the things that stood out to me most was she said, she said, when students arrive at the door, they're going to either leave that baggage there or they're going to bring it in with them.

So teachers are doing an amazing job of working with our children.

We have a very diverse population of children in the Charleston City Schools.

I taught many of them.

And we have to continue to work on closing, as my professor would say, that opportunity gap so that all students will feel welcomed, valued, and connected in our school community.

This is important to me.

When I think about, and I've worked six years at the community college as an academic coach, and I see our children that have graduated from Charlottesville High School and other area schools, and they're not quite understanding the rigor, what it requires to be a college student.

That's my job to get them acclimated.

A lot of them make that transition very well.

Others kind of struggle along the way.

And I strongly believe that it is important for our students to graduate from Charlottesville High School with a college plan.

Not only, college is not for everyone, but the college plan, the military, perhaps technical school, and workforce readiness skills.

so that they can be productive citizens in our community.

We've got to work on those students who may not want to go to college, but have other options.

That's important to me, not just getting them out of high school with a diploma, but also working with those students to have Plan B when they graduate.

And as all of us are, we're excited.

Hopefully, we're reconfiguration.

I dream of that middle school.

And as Dom would say, it's not about the building.

It's about the learning that will go on in that school.

I just can't wait till that shovel goes in the ground and they start constructing Buford.

And also phase two with the little ones.

coming down the pike, and maybe you all can get out of Central Office and you all are crammed up in there, but that is my vision.

There are a lot of other things that I think is important, but those are the things I wanna, that's my vision of what for the Charlottesville City Schools.

And again, thank you all for your support.

Thank you.

And we'll have comments from the superintendent.

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish students, staff, families, and community partners a happy new year.

We are so excited to be back to school and ready to continue the important work.

I thank you for that vision.

We are ready to take on that challenge, to continue the work that we're doing, and hopefully that restful winter break got everybody ready so that we can move forward

and just continue to ensure that there's exciting and engaging teaching and learning happening in our schools.

I also want to just congratulate again all of our school-based Teachers of the Year and our Charlottesville City Schools Division Teacher of the Year, Charlene Abney.

We're so proud of each of them and we're honored to just work alongside them.

I also just want to take an opportunity to thank all of the people that helped to make our reception

a success you know working behind the scenes and I know that Miss Lewis and I worked really closely together but it wasn't just us we had Leslie Thacker, we had Julia and you know there were there were and we had Ashley who came over and set everything up today.

Jenny played a small part there were lots of people that that really worked to make today

A success for our Teachers of the Year.

So thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone.

One thing I want to add, I learned just before coming to the meeting that we need to congratulate the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

They are celebrating 10 years.

So that's a big celebration.

We just want to thank this wonderful organization for all of the important work that is done there and their partnership with our schools.

We wish for them many more years of celebration.

And over the past several years, a week in January has been observed as Virginia Principal Appreciation Week.

Though we have not yet received the official certificate of recognition from the governor, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our wonderful principals for all they are doing.

Well, all they have done, all they are doing, and all they will do, continue to do for our outstanding students, staff, and community.

Their leadership really does matter.

So thank you to our wonderful principals.

And then I'll just end with a congratulations to our new board chair, Mr. Bryant.

Congratulations again.

And our vice chair, Mr. Morris, we're so excited about all that you're going to do continuing with the great work that's already been laid forth.

And thank you to Ms.

Torres for all of your leadership in this past year.

Now we'll have work session wrap up by Ms.

Thank you guys saw my name on there and the wrap up has quite a few tasks for me.

But Ms.

Stacker did send out a report that was done in September.

So I will make sure I add any more detail.

One follow-up thing you have is you would like more very clear data from the naming committee made available to everyone, historical data, why the change of the name is occurring, data reports explicitly and transparently.

You would like monthly updates about the naming committee throughout the process so that you're well informed.

There was a question to have the comparison data diversity trends to 21-22 to 21-23, retention data for instructional assistants, an update on exit survey data, an update on the 30-60-90 pilot program, what the results are and if we'll use it in the future, and information about compensation for teachers teaching overloads or extra section.

Thank you, Ms.

Sorry.

I just wanted to, one more thing I'd like to add as part of my comments for the SEAC committee, the Special Education Advisory Committee.

The next meeting is on January 18th at 5.30 p.m.

Final item on our agenda for the evening is future meetings, board meetings, upcoming meetings for the board.

On January 19th, we will be having a school board budget work session at five o'clock here in the media center, CHS.

On February 2nd, we have a school board meeting at five o'clock.

February the 8th, the Charleston City School Board and the Charleston City Council budget work session will be at five o'clock.

Location to be announced.

February 16th, the Charleston City School Board budget work session will be at five here in the Media Center at Charleston High School.

And on February 23rd, we will have another budget approval meeting here in the media center at Charlottesville High School.