School Board Meeting   2/2/2023

I'm calling this meeting to order.

The Charlottesville City School Board has convened a closed session on this date in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.

Therefore, be it resolved that the Charlottesville City School Board certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open

Meeting requirements by Virginia Law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification applies.

Mr. Chair, I have another motion.

I move that we decline Albemarle County Public Schools offer to purchase Charlottesville City Schools' interest in KTEC, and that pursuant to the 1969 agreement, we exercise our right to purchase Albemarle County Public Schools' interest for $5,300,000.

All opposed?

Motion passed.

I would like to take a moment to explain the vote that was just taken.

Because it concerns a real estate transaction,

It was discussed in closed session before our meeting.

Based on this vote, Charlottesville City Schools will assume sole ownership of the KTEC or the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center.

This will allow us to ensure students continued access to valuable career and technical education.

part of the city's larger vision for workforce development.

You may recall that in the fall, Albemarle County Public Schools announced their intention to end this 50-year partnership.

In December, we received their formal offer to purchase our one-half interest in KTEC for $5.3 million.

According to the original 1969 partnership agreement, Charlottesville schools then had the option to either sell our half at that price or purchase their half at that price.

So tonight, the Charlottesville City School Board voted to purchase the Albemarle County Public Schools stake at that same price.

Charlottesville City Schools believes that the scale and scope of technical education are best supported by the joint effort of the two school divisions.

To be clear, our first choice was to continue operating jointly.

But after the Albemarle County Public Schools announced their decision to end the partnership, continuing jointly was no longer an option.

and Albemarle County Public Schools has previously made it clear that under its ownership, accommodating city students would not be a priority.

The question for this board was therefore whether to assume ownership of the program and protect Charlottesville students access to these vital opportunities.

And that is what we have decided to do.

I would also like to say that we intend to continue to operate the facility as a regional resource.

There will be many conversations with Albemarle to work out this change in leadership, but we are committed to a smooth transition for KTEC students and staff.

We value this incredible community resource and look forward to continued success

On behalf of the board and Dr. Gurley, I would like to acknowledge that the toll that gun violence is taking in our Charlottesville community.

Sadly, this is not new, but it still needs to be said.

I encourage us all to reflect on what we can do to put an end to this senseless loss of life.

to those especially in our Charlottesville school's family who are grieving loved ones lost to gun violence.

So let's pause for a moment of silence.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Bryant.

Present.

Ms.

Bryson Morsberger.

Present.

Ms.

Dooley.

Here.

Dr. Kraft.

Present.

Ms.

Mr. Morris.

Yes.

Ms.

McKeever.

Here.

And our student rep, Ms.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Second.

I thought we were going to talk about some of these issues, not board response to written reports.

Did we move any of those up into the regular information agenda?

So 10.3.

Now we will have comments from the community and I have a list here in front of me and we will start with Miss Jessica Taylor and then I will pivot to Zoom after everyone has spoken in the room.

Please state your name and your address and please give your comments to three minutes.

Okay.

My name is Jessica Taylor, 1016 Hayrake.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, Dr. Gurley, members of the board.

I've worn this shirt to several board meetings over the past year, but the words speak to a deeper truth tonight.

Being a public school teacher in Charlottesville has taken on a more significant meaning because of what we, the CEA, the educators of this school division and you, the members of the school board and our superintendent have chosen to do.

Being a public school teacher in Charlottesville now means that for the first time in over 40 years, we will have a determining voice in topics that impact the work we do, which in turn directly benefits the children and families of this city.

It means that over the next few years we will show other districts across this Commonwealth just what a commitment to excellence via compromise and collaboration truly looks like.

We have worked hard for this moment and I am proud to have been a part of this process.

I truly believe that the people who do the work in schools and with the children deserve a voice in the development of the rules and processes that govern that work.

It just makes sense and it is long overdue.

I am hopeful that our union brothers and sisters in Albemarle will soon be afforded the same elevation in participation and respect by their employers as we have been here in Charlottesville.

The CEA appreciates and wants to publicly thank the school board and Dr. Gurley for being willing to work with us through some difficult discussions to get to this point.

We particularly want to express gratitude for the press release yesterday in which you have already announced your intent to vote in favor of the collective bargaining resolution at the March meeting.

Over many years, I've had the privilege of educating hundreds of students in this district.

And while each of those children has left their own special imprint on my heart, today marks one of the proudest moments I've had as a Charlottesville City Schools teacher.

Thank you, Ms.

Taylor.

You got the original German, correct Mr. Brian?

We say Konig now, though.

Good evening, my name is David Konig.

I'm a history teacher at Lugo Magenis Academy and parent of two Greenbrier reading stars.

I'm not going to talk about collective bargaining today, maybe just a little bit at the end.

But mostly I want to speak about standardized testing and Max Hill.

Mr. Hill is our science teacher at Lugo.

He's a good old boy from Texarkana, and he's also a good old teacher.

Mr. Hill doesn't seek conflict or controversy.

He is content for the most part to come to school every day and do the challenging work of educating some of our city's toughest students.

He cares deeply about our kids and their future.

I've seen him put his heart and soul into his work on a daily basis.

And for that reason, although Mr. Hill was not someone you would expect to speak out publicly on political issues, on Friday of last week he took a half day of personal leave to drive from his home in Stanton to Richmond to meet with his delegate and others in the Virginia legislature and lobby for changes to the regime of high-stakes standardized testing that has been allowed to continue in this state and this country for too long.

Before we went to Richmond, Mr. Hill spoke with the other Lugo teachers to get our thoughts on the SOLs.

All of us agreed that if we had our way, we would abolish the exams altogether or at least remove them as a graduation requirement.

These tests are a creature of the billionaire funded education reform movement and serve mainly to generate profits for testing and consulting companies.

They are an affront to teacher autonomy, but most insidiously, they continue to be used to rate and shame schools with large numbers of students from marginalized communities and to punish at-risk students like ours at Lugo.

Short of abolishing the SOLs, Mr. Hill asked members of the House of Delegates to at least consider some reforms to the system.

Could the test be designed in a way that would truly test students' knowledge of a course's subject matter, rather than their ability to spot the test author's tricks and clues?

or at the very least, could there be a robust set of practice exam questions so that we could more effectively prepare our students for the exams?

There have not been any questions released from Mr. Hill's biology exam in almost 10 years in the name of test security.

Now while I admire Mr. Hill for putting himself out there to advocate for our students, I also can't help but think that one teacher spending a half day speaking to House of Delegates members is not likely to have much impact, especially when that advocacy conflicts with the preferred policies of the standardized testing industry and the hedge fund backed ed reformers.

It takes more than individual action, it takes collective action to force changes to unjust but entrenched systems.

So in closing, I guess I would like to ask three things of three different groups.

First, to my fellow teachers, let's use our right to collective bargaining, which this board has announced they will recognize next month to advocate for educational justice for our students and to fight against policies that we know are harmful to them.

Let's see this as an opportunity to begin to raise our collective voice and let's organize in any and all ways that we can to challenge injustice in our schools.

Second, to Dr. Gurley and members of this board, you have been leaders in taking strong stands on other policies that threaten to harm our kids.

You have stood up for the rights of transgender students and against the whitewashed history standards that were proposed by the Youngkin administration.

High-stakes standardized testing is harmful to students as well.

Please consider joining with your teachers to speak out on this issue.

Finally, to the other parents who are here tonight or listening in.

My wife Liz and I decided that we would opt our kids out of their SOLs in elementary and middle school because we refuse to participate in a biased and harmful system.

Now a handful of families opting out won't change anything, but an entire community opting out just might.

Let's talk about this in our PTO meetings and our advocacy groups and our neighborhood listservs.

Ms.

Hello, I'm Jen Horne.

I teach English and public speaking at CHS.

And I had a long prepared thing when this whole process started, but today I just want to say thank you.

And I want to say that I am excited about the future of teachers and staff members and through them students.

becoming a more collaborative part of the process here at CCS.

And I also want to thank our CEA leaders, Jessica and Shannon, Dave, the people who have really been at this for 12 months every week.

So thank you and thank you.

And I'm excited.

Ms.

Good evening.

My name is Laura Imani.

I live on Jefferson Park Circle, and I have a fourth grader and a first grader at Jackson-Biah.

I'm here this evening to speak in support of collective bargaining and would like to thank the board for their support.

My children have had amazing teachers at Jackson-Biah, and we love being part of the community there.

However, several of their teachers have moved on from Jackson-Biah.

Retaining good teachers is so important for building our school communities, and I believe collective bargaining is an important step towards improving teacher retention.

Miss Tanisha Hudson.

So first and foremost, Mr. Bryan, thank you so much for your statement.

However, I don't think that we need to just focus on the outside community.

We also need to focus on the school community.

CHS is out of control.

Beaufort ain't too far behind it.

Lisa, while I appreciate you putting your name in the hat for city council, baby, you got to worry about what's going on here.

You all moved extremely fast on a volleyball issue when black girls felt like they were discriminated on by the coach.

But you can't move fast on the conditions that are in the walls of your schools.

The fight that happened last week could have been avoided.

You had staff members that knew about it, that heard stuff.

You have an attendance staff member that lets kids out of school.

I set up my own nephew to go check out of school.

He was able to check out with no issue.

They never once called my sister.

Never once.

I'm even on the list.

They never even called me to say that he could leave.

I did it on purpose.

the HR lady that's doing the investigations.

I don't know what she investigating, if it's that easy for me to find out how simple it is for kids to just walk up out of school.

I don't know what anybody is doing, but I will say this.

Safety is needed and necessary in school.

A six year old shot a teacher.

All those people wearing those red shirts back there have every right to feel the way that they feel walking in here every day to teach.

They feel unsafe.

If you're not trained to break up fights, you shouldn't be standing behind a girl holding her by her neck, letting other people hit her.

You should be trained to be able to stand in between both students that's getting into an altercation or you don't do it at all.

You got people who are not met, trained, breaking up fights.

They shouldn't be breaking up fights, but they are.

And what they're doing is holding one child back while five other kids are able to hit on that child.

It happened last year.

It wasn't right.

It happened again this year, and it wasn't right.

It's not OK.

No matter how y'all paint the picture, here we sitting here having arguments over what to name a school that you didn't agree on.

on what to name a school, you can't even control the school, the conditions of the school.

And while I agree that it needs to be accountability on all sides, parents, students, as well as staff, support staff, and everyone, we do have to start with what you all are enforcing

or choosing to enforce of your staff members.

Because if you're not enforcing them to do their job in this entirety, then a lot of stuff is slipping through the crack and it's not okay.

Number one.

The last thing that I'm going to say is this.

When your staff complains that somebody is not listening, I know my time up.

Give me 10 more seconds.

When your staff is complaining that they're not being heard, you have a problem.

And you have a problem in this school with staff feeling like they're not heard.

You have a problem with staff going to leadership and saying, look, a student just told me they was going to smack the you-know-what out of me.

And nothing is being done.

There's no threat assessments being done.

Parents are not being called.

That's not OK.

Thank you, Ms.

Hi, I'm Shannon Gilliken.

I teach at Jackson Viya and I'm a proud CCS parent of three kids.

Tonight, I do want to take a minute to thank all of our CEA building reps, our amazing president, Jessica Taylor, and the many members who have spent countless hours this past year organizing.

Thank you to everyone who came early, stayed late, spent time having conversations, providing feedback, and helping us best represent staff.

So much of organizing is done behind the scenes, so I want to recognize all the staff that have gone above and beyond to get us here.

I'm really thankful to you, our school board, with your intention to move forward with collective bargaining that will ensure that our staff continue to be supported as we work with our city's most precious resource, our children.

You all know I'm a kindergarten teacher, so I'm going to leave you with a number story.

Ten, the number of months since we proposed our resolution.

Seventy-two, the percent of employees who signed cards authorizing collective bargaining.

987, give or take a few, the number of meetings and emails that got us to tonight.

28, the number of days until your next school board meeting where you approve collective bargaining.

And seven, the number of yes votes I hope to see at that meeting.

Ms.

Hello, I decided this morning to do this.

And as most teachers, I thought I might get a little bit of time today to look over my notes, but I did not.

So I'm going to do my best.

I am very excited about the collective bargaining.

I am actually going to be retiring after many years of teaching this year, but I have seen, I work at Jackson by I'm an ESL teacher there.

In the six years I've been there, I've seen a huge turnover in teachers just at my school.

They have all been fabulous teachers.

And I do feel like they did not feel heard.

They did not feel in control.

There was a lot of fear of speaking out.

And coming from a larger school district, I was very surprised.

And I do feel like one of the issues is that you're in a really nice city that a lot of people want to live in, so you're easily replaced.

But replacing a

experienced teacher is not really benefiting the children or anybody.

So that's just what I have noticed.

Like I said, very excited that we are moving forward to collective bargaining.

I hope that that will really help the teachers, retain teachers in the school system because we deserve it and the kids will benefit from that.

And other thing I'd like to say about the collective bargaining, I think

I think a lot of you know that the teachers are working long days, but today's a great example.

We were all at the school at least at seven o'clock, if not earlier.

Our school had a staff meeting afterwards, very little planning time during the day, and I lived too far away to go home, so I have been here and I'm getting old and it's a long, long day.

and it would be really lovely to know that I had a voice in some of the things that we could control more of what's going on.

Ms.

Good evening, Dr. Gurley, members of the school board and

friends.

My name is Michelle Yeaton, and I live on Cedar Hill Road in the little pocket of the Greenbrier School District behind World Market and Best Buy.

My husband and I have two beautiful children who are here and a son at Buford and a daughter at Walker.

They have spent their whole lives in Charlottesville and have learned from the most loving and knowledgeable teachers the city has to offer.

We are very grateful.

I'm also one of your teachers who recently transferred from a role of being a classroom teacher at Greenbrier Elementary School.

to my dream job as a reading specialist with the newly named Summit Elementary School.

I come to you this evening and talk about three points.

One, on my way to school each morning, I drive by the intersection of East High and Hazel Street, where I see one of our beloved crossing guards, Mr. Kevin Cox.

After the recent heart-stopping news coverage by CBS 19, which showed a SUV barreling through his zone, I stop to chat with Mr. Cox one morning on my way into Summit Elementary School.

He shared with me that several members of the board had read out to him the email when I did that and he was grateful and so am I for that.

So thank you.

My ask is that we find ways to provide consistent and robust help for our crossing guards and ultimately our precious students.

He is one of many outstanding people serving our community in the pouring rain.

On a side note regarding Mr. Kochis, he likes coffee.

So if you ever make the time to visit him in the morning, just a friendly little tip.

As we brainstorm ways to use the grant, I hope that either now or in the near future, we provide an opportunity for our youth to play on a soccer team.

With the current pay to play model in our town, organized soccer is out of reach for many of our most talented players, which often have origins of a rich, diverse cultural background.

By providing our students with a school option to play early, they would have a chance to break into organized upper levels in high school and beyond.

Besides future opportunities, a school-based soccer team would be a giant win for another healthy and vigorous engagement for our students.

And finally, three, I would like to publicly thank our CEA president, Ms.

Jessica Taylor, for her tremendous leadership, as was announced yesterday regarding the commitment from the school board to vote yes for our collective bargaining.

We are overwhelmingly joyful and excited for our next steps.

I am grateful for Jessica, Shannon, Dave, and Becca's energy to focus, to absorb, and navigate on behalf of their friends this past year regarding collective bargaining.

For all the building representatives and folks I'm unaware of, well done and thank you as well.

And for you school board members, thank you for agreeing to stand shoulder to shoulder with us.

I am grateful to you as well.

Thank you.

Ms.

Good evening.

So I have three things I want to talk about.

The first being African American Studies curriculum.

So Governor Ron DeSantis, who is doing absolutely foolish things on the national stage around African American Studies, I think invites us to reflect on our own ways of cultivating that sort of education here locally.

When I was at CHS, which was a very long time ago, we did not have an AP AAS studies course.

I know that there were some conversations about making an honors credit course.

And I believe that those things have been implemented since I've left.

However, I do think it's important for us to think about how we can diversify our syllabi.

And I do remember being in AP Lang and AP Lit.

and not seeing many Black scholars.

So I think it would be great if we would take a look at the list of scholars that were banned from that course by the College Board and maybe implementing them into our English courses here, especially in 10th and 11th and 12th grade.

And I will follow up on that.

Another thing that I wanted to speak about was comprehensive anti-racist policies that cultivate more inclusive classroom environments.

I think that

the fights that we're seeing here at CHS are only, you know, the surface level symptoms of deeper root problems.

So one being the wage gap, another being a lack of representation of black educators here at CHS and across the district.

And I don't think it's very, I don't think it's a pull factor when we see there are some great teachers here who are lobbying

for their right to have agency.

However, I would be remiss if I didn't speak on the ways that black women educators have been historically treated within this district.

And we know that it's not good.

Aside from not being treated well, they're not elevated.

We constantly see black male principals come in as head principals, but not black women.

And I don't think that it's encouraging.

at all for any students who graduate through this district and want to come back.

I've spoken to some of my peers who are now going to be graduating in May, along with myself, and they absolutely will not come back.

despite being excited to teach and wanting to pour back into their community.

So I think it's important for us to think about that.

And lastly, I wanted to talk about how we support Black girls within our district.

I see that we're having haircuts for Black boys.

I see that there are ongoing initiatives every year through Black Male Achievement and through our Youth Opportunities Coordinator in the city.

However, I feel like Black girls are constantly missed.

What can we do about that?

Well, I'm not sure, but we have plenty of professionals here who are paid a great salary

to work on that issue.

So I would like to hold the board and the district more accountable to think about our black girls, because as we see these fights, it's not just black boys.

Gun violence does not only affect black boys and the constant just shadowing of black girls is not helping and it's not going to make our district any better.

Thank you.

Good evening, board members, Dr. Gurley, and Mr. Chair.

My name is Bart Eisley, and I'm an English teacher and football coach at Buford Middle School.

I'm here speaking in support of the addition or the consideration of an addition of $5,000 to the Buford Athletic Department budget.

Providing a place for young athletes to play sports with fewer barriers to entry is instrumental to creating a healthy school environment.

This year at Buford, we had 38 student athletes come out for football, including two female student athletes.

The vast majority stuck with it, despite the fact that football is, without a doubt, hard.

I saw a student from our new Pathways program flourish on the field.

I watched student athletes that struggle in the classroom succeed in practice and in games, helping build confidence that hopefully will eventually carry over into their schoolwork.

With help from an entire community of team moms, assistant coaches, and administrators, we were striving to provide a safe space where student athletes could come together and pursue improvement and success on the field.

We all know the challenges some of our students face, and this is an incredibly important program for keeping kids attending school regularly and opening the door for improvement in all aspects of school life.

For some kids, it was the reason to come to school, and while we want them to come for more than that, football is the kind of opportunity that opens the door for more.

If they're not there, that door simply isn't cracked open.

With the expanded budget, we can do more across the board and athletics at Buford from upgrading safety equipment and training.

For instance, we didn't have a blocking sled this year.

It's hard to teach blocking without a blocking sled.

And that's a critical training tool.

We can also continue to help instill a sense of pride in both the program and the school at large.

We'll do that while building confidence and creating better equipped future scholar athletes here at Charlottesville High.

Thank you.

We have no one else who would like to speak.

Hi, Krista Bennett, I'm a parent of a Jackson Bias student and a CHS student.

As a parent, I just wanted to add another parent voice to say thank you so much for your commitment to pass a resolution for collective bargaining.

As we all know, Virginia ranks 49th in the nation for teacher pay when compared to our average state pay.

And I'm so excited that Charlottesville can be a leader in making change and showing how it's really done.

Hello, my name is Dr. Emily Yen.

I'm a Charlottesville resident.

I live on 506 Ridge Street.

And I wanted to thank you for your commitment to collective bargaining.

And I know this has been a very long process.

And I really appreciate all of your support.

Thank you.

Mr. Cuomo, do we have anyone on Zoom with a hand raised?

A few words real quick.

How y'all doing?

Melvin Grady, Charlottesville resident.

Born and raised here, went to school here in 1986.

I know all you all, I've talked to some of your children and everything else.

I don't normally don't speak like this.

I just work in the trenches and get the work done.

Two things, about three things.

First off, thanks for your commitment to the collective bargaining resolution.

That's happening.

And that means you value teachers.

The brawl, the fighting going on, I saw a video at my school.

I work with Luca McGinnis, by the way, math teacher Luca McGinnis.

A student showed me a student, one student holding a phone, another student like, you ready?

He hit the student, and the fight busted out.

Then he picked him up and said, brush yourself off, and like, you better not say anything.

And like, it's never happened.

In the bathrooms, by the way.

I recommend, for safety-wise, work on the areas where things can happen.

I don't care who's doing it.

As Mr. Hudson said, we've got to work on this healing process.

Parents do a better job, but until they do, students stop fighting, but until they do, we've got to work on the healing process.

It's not just breaking up the fights.

I wish I was here, honestly.

Mr. Pitt, I wish I was here.

just to be around that so I can stop it.

But that won't do it, though.

The kids have a lot of trauma.

They're on their phones.

They're beefing.

You know, they're triggered real quickly.

So I'm not saying, just playing hammer down.

We've got to find a way to deal with the healing, because that's a serious problem.

My daughter's 14 years old.

She lives in North Carolina.

I'm not sure I wanted to be here.

That's scary to say that.

I love Charlottesville.

I've been here for 10 years.

Two dads, Luke McGinnis, going on.

I could be here, by the way, with no problem.

Serious talk, but I can't be everywhere one time.

And I can't say the word I'm not trying to, but trying to do one at a time though.

And one more thing was the $5,000 with Buford.

I coach track at Buford, sometimes by myself.

Y'all give me $500 stipend, you know it's a joke.

It's no big deal because I love the kids.

I was asked by Anna Jones, you're going to come back to do coaching?

I was like, I don't know.

Not the money, but just a time commitment.

Of course I will, for the kids.

I may have like 40 kids come out.

More than football, by the way.

We need some t-shirts just for like track basic stuff.

So I hope you approve the $1000 for the kids that they needed.

And I appreciate the work you're doing.

Thank you, Mr. Rader.

Is there anyone else before I go to Zoom who would like to speak in the audience?

Thank you all.

for taking your time to come out to speak to us tonight.

Next item on the agenda is student and staff recognitions.

Dr. Odi.

Oh, I'm sorry, I jumped over that.

Next item, public comment on the budget.

We'll move to student and staff recognition.

Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Gurley, good evening.

You may recall that at the January board meeting, I mentioned that over the past several years in Virginia, we have celebrated our wonderful principals.

You see them there during Virginia School Principals Appreciation Week, which occurred during the week of January 15th through the 23rd of this year.

Now that we have received Governor Youngkin's proclamation officially recognizing that week as Virginia School Principals Appreciation Week, I wanted to put that proclamation before you.

So if you could put the proclamation up again for us, please.

We'll look at those beautiful principles again in a moment.

Now, while I won't read every word from the proclamation, it is important to note that we have outstanding principals here in Charlottesville City Schools.

As you probably know, a school's success is largely determined by the effectiveness of its principal.

Decades of research has made this clear.

There are five things that I will highlight that effective principals do.

One, they must have instructionally focused interactions with teachers.

Two, they must work to build a productive and positive school climate.

Three, they must facilitate collaboration around instruction and maintain high functioning professional learning communities.

Four, they must strategically manage personnel and resources.

And finally, effective principles must always bring a lens of equity to their work.

And their equity-oriented practices are key in working to close achievement and opportunity gaps.

So if we bring the principals back up again, I hope it's not too much trouble.

We just want to look at them.

Our Charlottesville City Schools principals do all of these things and more.

They inspire students and staff each and every day to be the best that they can be.

So we are excited that they are officially, officially recognized by the governor for all of their hard work.

We absolutely appreciate them.

And here you see them, make sure that you celebrate them, make sure that you thank them because they deserve it.

And I would love to give a big round of applause to our principals for all that they do.

And now I'll continue if that's okay, Mr. Chairman.

I want to take a moment to recognize our amazing school counselors.

Next week, February 6th through the 10th is National School Counseling Week.

This is a time to focus public attention on the unique contribution of school counselors within United States school systems.

sponsored by the American School Counselor Association or ASCA since 2011 highlights the tremendous impact school counselors can have in helping students achieve success and plan for a career.

School counselors serve as a first line of defense in identifying and addressing student social and emotional needs within the school setting.

They have unique training in helping students with social emotional issues that may become barriers to academic success.

One might ask what the most important attributes of a school counselor are.

Topping the list would be empathy, discretion, patience, compassion, and encouragement.

Then come qualities like self-awareness.

Open-mindedness and flexibility.

Our CCS school counselors possess all of those qualities and are so important in shaping the future.

We have a former school counselor before us in our board chair, Mr. Bryant, and he possesses all of those characteristics as well.

Please be sure to celebrate our school counselors next week and every week for all that they do for our students.

Mr. Chairman, board members, and Dr. Gurley, thank you for having me here this evening.

I am here to recognize the people in front of us, our school board.

And again, there is a resolution.

I do encourage folks to read it, but I am not going to read it tonight.

Instead, I'm just going to give a brief listing of a couple of the topics and issues that you all have been working on just this week.

Our state has been considering a history curriculum to which you all, I regret to tell you, unsuccessfully lobbied for a more diverse and inclusive curriculum.

Earlier today, they did decide to advance the other curriculum.

Let me get my list back open again.

The 1% sales tax for school construction.

And again, I regret to tell you that that was tabled in the House, but it is not dead yet.

There's still hope.

But that is another topic this week alone that you have been working on.

The consideration of school names to evaluate whether our schools reflect our current values.

That is another topic that you all have been working on this week.

The acquisition of KTEC to assure career and technical education for our students.

That is a huge issue on which you all have been working this week.

And then I don't know how many folks here are still here to encourage you to finish the job on collective bargaining and to thank you for your commitment.

But that is another huge issue that you all have been working on just this week.

So those are five things.

And I could probably list another five or 15 other things.

But I want to thank you because we see the work you do each and every day.

And now I've got Mr. Bryant on speed dial.

But just a month or two ago, it was Ms.

Torres on speed dial.

And I just appreciate all the work and support that you give to our schools and our community.

Thank you, Ms.

and Ms.

Becker and Ms.

Green are showing you a token of appreciation, a tasty token.

I would like to acknowledge Ms.

Jennifer McKeever.

Please charge it to her head and add to our hearts.

We admitted you out of the picture.

Okay.

Someone acknowledge Ms.

All right.

So we have one more recognition this evening.

Last but certainly not least, we want to take a moment to celebrate our clerk and deputy clerk, Julia Green and Leslie Thacker right there.

These ladies deserve to be recognized and celebrated for the vital role that they play in assisting school board members, the superintendent, and the school community as a whole.

School Board Clerk and Deputy Clerk Appreciation Week is February 13 through the 17th, so

It's coming up soon.

And we certainly want to appreciate, we're going to appreciate them then, but they really deserve to be appreciated every week for all that they do to make schools and our division run smoothly.

Often they are the glue that holds things together.

So we just don't know what we would do without them.

From answering calls from the community,

to directing traffic.

And our ladies have just certainly proven that they are all in for Team CCS.

So please take some time to celebrate them now, but also especially during their special week.

Thank you so much, ladies.

Again, thank you Dr. Olle for those recognitions and we do want to again thank our principals, counselors, school board members, and our clerk and deputy clerk for all the great work that you do and all the wonderful teachers.

I'll move.

All opposed?

All right.

Now we are to our action items.

We do have Dr. Odey who will come up.

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

Good evening again.

Last month, in January, I presented the draft of the revisions for policy IIA and IIAB.

You may recall that I shared that Senate Bill 656 requires that local school boards adopt policies concerning instructional materials with sexually explicit content.

At this point, you have had time to hopefully review the policy revisions that were in green.

If you recall, we adopted them from the VSBA, as you also may recall.

I hope that you've also had an opportunity to review the revised IIA regulations that explain how we will implement the revised policy.

We stand ready to begin implementation once the policy is approved by the board.

I move that we approve adoption of policy IIA and IIB.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

Thank you.

Am I controlling this?

Okay, no, I got it.

Thank you.

All right.

So, members of the board, all those assembled, I will do the first reading.

I will do the highlights of the collective bargaining process.

As well as the collective bargaining resolution and I will begin.

So just a little overview that during this presentation I will discuss the process.

is identified as a bargaining unit.

What is collective bargaining and what does it mean?

What are those topics for bargaining and negotiation?

What does the negotiation process look like?

The funding implications, and then lastly, just the review, what it means when we get to the end of the three years with the review of the resolution.

So really this process, as you heard Ms.

Gilligan say earlier, there were a lot of meetings.

This slide really doesn't do the process any justice.

But from the board's end, they did receive the signature cards from the Education Association.

There were initial meetings between the school board and the CEA reps just talk about the process and just what does this mean long term for our teachers and for the school division.

Our school board became more invested in gaining a better understanding of collective bargaining and the processes.

They did that out of order.

They spent time listening to teachers just about the request and what this meant for them.

There were some follow-up meetings.

The team began the board in collaboration with the teachers, began to formulate some resolutions.

They began to pose ideas and suggestions back and forth.

And then we arrived here this evening for the first reading of the collective bargaining resolution.

And again, this six steps really does the process no justice because there were many hours that were spent on this.

So a bargaining unit, it's a group of employees, and we will talk about who those employees are on the next slide, but it's a group of employees with common or substantially similar employment duties.

There are some license requirements, training, and so the team really just spent a lot of time with who are the bargaining units going to be.

And so here we see, we identified two bargaining units,

So you have licensed personnel.

And so there's some similarities in that group.

Those are people who are required to hold licenses for their positions.

And so that's inclusive of nurses, speech pathologists, teachers, instructional specialists.

And so, and not an exhaustive list.

I probably didn't get all of them, but you see them there.

And the, I also want to make sure I say that the collective bargaining resolution also is uploaded into ESP.

The other group is the instructional support personnel.

And those are the other groups where you don't have, they're not the license, but those include our instructional assistants.

Custodians are in that group.

So inside the resolution, you'll see who makes up the support personnel.

So the collective bargaining, what exactly is it?

It means to perform the mutual obligation by representatives of the school board and the exclusive representative to meet for reasonable times and to negotiate in good faith.

And I believe that's one of the things that we heard our teacher stakeholders and our school boards that we wanted to continue to make sure we're acting in good faith.

bargaining topics you see listed here, wages, hours, scheduling.

And I think what we really learned through this process is like right now we don't know what we don't know.

And so there are some things that teachers have at the top of their list.

And so those things will come forward and they get to have a voice as it relates to those matters.

And those things will be brought forth to our school board for bargaining and negotiation.

and it's important to know that these topics that will be identified will be for the three years, the first three years of the resolution.

So the negotiation, so the negotiation is that each party may bring up to two topics for a total up to four and those topics come from that list that I just presented.

We did talk about funding implications because I know that that was like one of the overarching themes that many of our many of the meetings and so a collective bargaining agreement is subject to sufficient appropriation from our city council and you know if the city council fails to

provide the funds, then we may not be able to implement the things that are being negotiated upon.

And I think one thing that I will say is that I know while that seems scary, we've had a very good relationship with the city.

And so I believe that they've listened to our voices.

They have been very transparent and good partners with us.

And I do anticipate that that will be the case.

as we work through collective bargaining.

And then lastly, just the review of the resolution.

And so as we approach the end of the three years, the school division, the school board does retain the right to come back to this process, determine how did it work?

And then, in fact, whether this process will continue on or whether there are some

Modifications that may need to be made.

That's all of the presentation.

That's the abridged version of a very thoughtful and very long process.

But I do know that we will be better together because of this process.

I'm just going to say thank you Dr. Gurley for your efforts, Ms.

Dooley, Ms.

Torres for your efforts in getting us here along with the CEA and staff that we have.

We're just very grateful to get here.

I'm exceptionally happy when the General Assembly passed this resolution.

I'm sorry, passed the statute that allowed for this sort of collective bargaining.

So this feels like a long time coming, and certainly one of the very few jurisdictions in our state who has taken advantage of it.

I really am so grateful to be on the front edge of this process.

And I look forward to, you know,

Working together to support one another in, of course, the goal of educating all of our students.

And thank you so much, Dr. Hurley, for being willing to continue the negotiation and dialogue as this was not an easy process.

And I know that to get to this point was not always obvious.

And I'm so grateful that we are here.

Ms.

Nothing really substantial besides saying I learned a lot in this process.

I think along with the CEA counterparts in negotiations, and I think there is still a significant amount to learn as we implement this process.

But I'm hopeful that

Mr. Vice Chair, Ms.

You know, I will just say ditto to a lot of what Miss McKeever already said in terms of gratitude and what Miss Dooley said in terms of our learning process.

And, you know, I would say none of us have really had really been here before.

And, you know, while you often see us in these open meetings.

We've spent a lot of time, learning in our closed sessions, as well, and and really trying to get ourselves to understand

this process.

But I think at the heart of it, and I've always been very, very hopeful that we could get to where we are today.

And I think we as the board have really heard the importance of our teachers and our staff feeling like you are valued and you are heard through having a voice in the process.

So I'm also very happy to be here and I've learned a lot and have more to learn.

Thank you.

Yeah, not much left to say that hasn't been said.

But as Miss Dooley said, I just have a lot of gratitude

to have had the opportunity to go through this process because it was really a lot of unknown and it was scary, but to be able to sit in some of the meetings with CEA and to be open and honest, and sometimes there's a little energy in those meetings, but I mean, ultimately, I think we, from the get-go, we knew where we wanted to get.

and as has been alluded there's still a lot in this process once this moves forward that we don't know yet but I trust that the admin team, Dr. Gurley and teachers and everybody will ultimately work together and figure this all out and has been said ultimately you know that the students are the end game in all of this so I want to just say thank you for

allowing me to learn and to grow through this process.

And again, Dr. Gurley, you talk about hitting the ground running.

It was a lot.

And we are so grateful for you to have been through this with us.

Ms.

I don't really have any questions, but I'd just like to say thank you to Dr. Gurley and to the admin and the teachers and members of the board

who've really put in a lot for this.

And I think collective bargaining is one of those things that kind of goes beyond the scope of what we as students really see.

And finally, I would like to say thank you, Dr. Gurley, for leading the way.

Emily, Miss Dooley and Miss Torres for your outstanding work with the CEA and being in everyone negotiating and

Working all the fine details out.

You all did an outstanding job and I do appreciate it.

Thank you so much for your hard work.

And to the CEA, thank you so much for your willingness to sit at the table and listen and fine tune everything.

And we've come to this point as a result of that.

All right, we will now move on to 10.2.

We'll have Amanda Corman.

Good evening, everybody.

Thanks for having me.

I'm glad to be here to talk to you about the next steps we're taking in our strategic plan for our division, 2023 to 2029.

Last I spoke to you in November, we had just opened up a request for proposals to bring in

a consultant to help guide us in this process as we have so much future to plan.

And so I'm glad to introduce you to the group that we'll be working with, which is called Insight Education Group.

We selected Insight Education Group after a competitive process.

We received nine bids.

And just briefly about Insight, they have extensive experience building equity-focused strategic plans in school districts.

in municipalities with some particularities that they share with ours, such as they've done strategic plans in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, North Carolina, which is obviously a university town.

They've done the strategic plans for schools in Roanoke, which is a small city in Virginia like us.

And they have done the strategic plan for the school district in Ferguson, Missouri, which like us has been in the national spotlight for racist violence and has done a lot in response to that to do great work.

Additionally, the Insight Education Group, their consultant staff is all former teachers, school leaders, and school district administrators.

And they are going to guide us through a process of stakeholder engagement, data analysis, plan creation, and implementation planning, including, crucially, tools for progress monitoring, a data dashboard that'll help us into the future over the next five years of this plan.

I want to just tell you a little bit about this is Insights strategic planning framework, which will start to make more sense to all of us as we go through this process together.

But we start with the big picture and then we drill down to the how are we going to make it happen?

It's basically what all you need to know from this slide.

Mission, vision and values down to action steps.

And we're going to be doing that all over the course of the next five months.

The stakeholder engagement piece, I'll just briefly give you an overview of what that's going to look like.

Currently we are forming a steering committee which is a cross-section of stakeholders within a division and external to the division and who will really be helping us to elevate those key ideas.

So that'll be between 20 and 30 people and we're putting that group together now and that group will meet monthly

Our executive leadership team will of course be a crucial part of this.

They will be taking what the steering committee concludes and crafting the plan from that.

And then most crucially, we will be engaging with our entire community through a public survey, which we will be releasing next week, as well as some focus groups of additional groups of people whose voices we'll want to make sure that we hear as we are thinking.

through the future.

And then of course the school board.

You will be providing feedback monthly on what we bring to you and what these three groups at the top are putting together.

And there will be some board workshops and you will of course be asked to approve the plan once we have been through all that process.

For the board, here are your key dates.

So today we are just going over the details.

So February 23rd, this meeting is already on your calendar as budget approval.

I know that meeting is typically very short, but it's probably going to be

Half an hour, less short.

With your gracious acceptance, we'll take a little bit of that time to discuss core values, vision, and mission, and kind of get you up to date about the conversations that we're starting to have this month on those pieces.

And then that May 18th date is a full plan workshop for the school board.

and that is an ad but it is an evening that was already reserved as a part of school board planning and then we would plan to do a first reading at the June 1st meeting and then July obviously there's no school board meeting already planned for July so this is really at your discretion when you'd like to schedule to do a final approval I know we have sometimes in the past done a quick July meeting we could push it till August that's I will leave that to you but just that's the

I don't have questions.

It's ambitious schedule to get this done.

So somebody is going to be working hard.

I think that the phrase hit the ground running was used recently.

Yeah, I think we're hitting it again.

Yes.

I'm excited to be doing this.

Ms.

Mr. Morris.

I just look forward to the process, and thank you for giving us this update in terms of the calendar.

I agree it's an ambitious plan, but I think that's what we're willing to do.

Ms.

McKeever.

All right, next we will have Dr. Odey, 10.3.

She will give us an update as it relates to student behavior and administrative responses.

All right, good evening once again, Mr. Chairman, board members, and Dr. Gurley.

Now I would like to talk with you about student behavior and administrative responses.

In other words, SBAR data.

Next slide, please.

My presentation tonight will include the top five SBAR codes applied

SBAR coded incidents by ethnicity and gender, suspensions by ethnicity and gender, some additional adult responses to student behaviors, supports provided for students, and how we'll move forward.

Next slide, please.

In this table, you will see that BSC, or behaviors of a safety concern, was coded most often.

Specifically, 20 incidences, incidents, excuse me, and 16 occurrences of BSC-17, which is minor physical altercation, no injury, was coded.

This, I'm so sorry, this is for this current year, from August to today.

Well, not today, August to when I prepared this data.

Yeah, first semester and into the second semester.

So you'll see also that 15 incidents and 24 occurrences of BSC-14 fighting, no injury, were recorded.

Behaviors that endanger self and others appears twice here as BESO3, fighting minor injury, has 15 incidents and 21 occurrences, while BESO12, threat to staff, shows as nine incidents and nine occurrences.

Behaviors related to school operations is also in the top five.

BSO3 refused to comply with staff requests, has 11 incidents and nine occurrences.

It's important to know that incidents

are the number of actual events while occurrences include multiple students who may have been involved in the event.

So for instance,

One of the 20 incidents for BSC 17 could have five students involved in it.

Here you will see the SBAR-coded incidents by ethnicity and gender.

You will notice that a majority of our students, excuse me, a majority of our incidents were committed by Black students and male students.

Next slide, please.

Likewise, the suspensions by ethnicity and gender are similar.

These graphs show the short-term and long-term suspensions, and you will see that short-term suspensions have been used the most, and it is mostly, again, Black students.

Next time.

We want to not have data like this.

And so we do try to support students in a variety of ways.

We don't prefer to suspend students.

This list here displays some other responses that adults have had to student behaviors, like

Clarifying the expectation.

Having a conference with a parent.

Proximity.

Oftentimes students will change their behavior if the teacher's standing right next to them.

A loss of a privilege.

Removal of the triggers.

You know, we do ABC reports, antecedents, behavior conflicts, to see what caused a behavior.

So we try to remove triggers if we can.

We do restorative conversations to try to heal, as someone said earlier, to try to move on from whatever the issue is.

We reach, we teach expectations.

Sometimes it's just a break that is needed.

So we absolutely try different things.

We don't just resort to suspension.

but unfortunately, sometimes we do need to suspend.

Next slide, please.

And here are some additional supports that we have provided for students.

It is our goal always to be proactive so that we don't have to be reacting to behaviors and incidents as often

focused on tiered supports.

Tier one is critically important as it is intended to proactively meet students' needs through explicit instruction.

Tier one mental health continues to be an area that our schools are working on refining and getting better at with implementation and fidelity.

Use of school mental health professionals, SMHPs.

The school mental health professionals continue to provide tier two and tier three interventions to students as determined through VTSS teams, Virginia Tiered System of Supports.

The school mental health professionals provide individualized support,

with specific mental health struggles, engagement for chronic absenteeism, grief, loss.

We know that we have some grieving families right now and we support them as best as we can.

Emotional regulation as well as other specifically identified needs.

They provide groups and crisis intervention.

They navigate external community agencies and resources.

And like I said before, restorative practices.

That is a key to moving forward in healing.

and so much more.

Our SMHPs are serving anywhere from 10 to 20 individual students and families each, not including the students in their groups and other crisis, as well as managing other responsibilities.

And you'll see more about our mental health supports in the written report that I submitted as well.

We have care and safety assistance in our schools, in our high school and middle school.

And they're key to building relationships with students, working with them and sometimes deescalating them as needed.

But they're very important in our work.

We just talked about how important our school counselors are just a few moments ago and the support that our students receive from them is so important to helping our students be well and to be able to really reflect on what's going on with them and to resolve situations in a calmer manner.

I've mentioned restorative practices often, but also we have family engagement.

We have home visits and we're supporting administrators and staff.

Our school mental health professionals continue to do all of these pieces of work.

to help our staff, to help our students to be better.

We know that the connection between families and our schools, families and our SMHPs are key to make the needed changes for our students.

And the last thing you see there, certainly not the last of what we do, but you may recall that last year we started with Care Solace, and it's an agency that we have partnered with, so we provide a warm handoff, so to speak, where we are connecting resources.

for our families.

We connect our families with resources outside of our schools, too, because we work really hard.

Our teams work so hard, and we can't do it by ourselves.

Next slide, please.

So moving forward, we're going to continue with our mental wellness supports.

We know, as someone spoke earlier, that there are deep rooted issues that start in the community.

They come into our buildings.

And so we have got to work on healing.

We've got to work with our families.

We've got to work with the community members to solve some of these issues.

Relationship building.

sometimes that's the start of it.

You know, being able to have relationship with teacher and the students, the principal and the students, the CSAs, the mental health professionals, all relationships are so important.

And so we continue to work there within our schools and outside of our schools.

I know for instance, I've signed up to be a mentor to high school students.

So I want to, I'm going to build those relationships and hopefully I can make it.

I want to make a difference.

That's why I'm in this role.

That's why I'm in education to make a difference.

Partnerships with families and community members.

I wish that I could say that we could solve all the problems of the world within our school walls, but we cannot.

And so that's why it's so important for us to be able to communicate.

We have our wonderful family engagement team.

We have got to be able to connect with families, churches, excuse me, churches, community members.

We need to work together to ensure that

Our students, specifically based on these data, are Black students.

Let's say what it is.

Our Black students, our males and our females need our support.

The school, the community, all of us working together.

and we want to make sure that we provide clarity regarding expectations and accountability.

I said earlier, we don't want to suspend, we don't want to remove privileges, we don't want to do all of those things, but we have to hold everyone accountable.

Our students have to be held accountable.

We have high expectations of our students, our staff, ourselves and so

We can clarify what those expectations are.

We have that book, The Student Rights and Responsibilities, that every student has access to.

Every parent has access to.

The expectations are there.

Our policies are there.

We have to make sure that our expectations are high.

for everyone, and we hold ourselves accountable and our students accountable for behaviors that are not acceptable.

Next slide, please.

So that concludes my presentation.

I think I've covered all of those things there.

Thank you, Dr. Odey.

I appreciate you turning around this presentation so quickly.

We do have to report data to the state.

I feel like this is a really good snapshot of what is actually happening in our schools.

So I appreciate the transparency of the data, at least, thus far this year.

It's obviously not what we want it to be and certainly look forward to just kind of ongoing dialogue and action about how to make this better for our students and our staff and our community.

I think it's a really

It's been so enlightening for the board to work completely together on the discipline committee and see the real gaps there are for supporting our students and our community.

Conflicting goals.

We need every student to graduate that supports our community, that supports our our goals.

And of course, that helps the student.

And so when we have to remove somebody from the environment for the safety of the whole school, it is there.

This is a conflict.

And so just to see what is not out there,

to support our students.

It is such a hard thing to consider.

Okay, well they're going to sit at home on their, you know, phone or device all day and that is just not a fun thing to consider for our students.

and so it really I think this board is just working so hard to try to find ways to to kind of provide a safety net for the student who is having to be removed for the school and I think we've done admirable work at Buford and with LMA just with the new success pathways program.

So I'm just really, you know, I just want everybody to know that we're really struggling to not struggling as much as just like wanting to get it right for our community and hopeful that like this is a part of a dialogue rather than like us telling

the community this is what we want or the community telling us this is what we need it's just like more of a you know a problem-solving approach that the whole everybody can come to the table with so I just really appreciate this board for their thoughtfulness in their approach to discipline I think we're going to continue to see as we

are more transparent with our numbers and if we are asking for more accountability from our students that we these numbers may continue to reflect the kind of turmoil that our

Thank you so much for having me.

I think Ms.

Bryant and Mr. Grady just really are speaking, you know, their hearts and I really hear what they're saying.

And I think this board is working diligently to both protect our student body and staff and to have accountability, but with a net to provide for those students eventually graduating.

And because nobody, every student is valued in our community.

Dooley, Mr. Morris.

I don't want to repeat too much of what Mr. McKeever said, but I greatly appreciate the work that the board has done in trying to ensure that our students have the proper channels when we have to take certain actions.

I would also like to speak a little bit in regards to some of the things that the school does and the foundational things that we do.

We are trying to address the issues at hand, but also it does take community partners because we're not the only ones within this.

As we work together, we also must take into account the individual responsibilities, whether that's a student, parent, educators, we all have a part to play in this.

And ultimately, we want everyone to be successful, just as was mentioned.

And a part of that is having safe schools, appropriate behavior.

Ms.

I just wanted to kind of bring up two different things.

You mentioned a lot about accountability for students and I think that's important and I do think part of that is in part of clarity is really making sure students are

aware of the policies that are available to students.

But realistically, students aren't really aware of that.

I think a bigger sign of how the school is going to and the city is going to handle that certain types of behavior and whatnot would be like actual practice in schools, which is what students are experiencing.

And I think there's not enough uniform carry out to speak of these policies.

And I think from my experience and I think other students' experience, there's just

not having uniform enforcement and carry out leaves room for disciplinary discrimination.

And I mean, there's a lot of room for error there, I think.

And I think there needs to be maybe more robust translation of what the policies are to actual practice.

and the second thing is I've also noticed there's a lot of maybe undue burden on counselors and teachers to deal with like a wide array of different problems because all students are in a different place but just having limited resources in that sense I think creates

There's not enough maybe bandwidth to deal with every student's concerns.

Thank you, Ms.

Wong.

Ms.

I'm never not amazed with the wisdom of whatever student is sitting here with us.

So I just want to say thank you for sharing.

And we've had that throughout the years.

And I will look at someone else in our media center.

So thank you to all students who have participated on this board.

I think you said some really, again, just incredible things.

And I think touching on just the student rights and responsibilities and and, you know, even

as a board and one of my colleagues this evening was looking at that and and it's really dense and so yes to have an understanding and the consistency for everybody involved as far as what what is within that student rights and responsibilities and then a point that you made as far as the uniformity of the policies when they're violated and the consequences so

You know that's something that I think we have had conversations about and we as a board are working

behind the scenes to do.

So I do want to acknowledge also Ms.

Hudson, and I think she's departed, but just her concerns that she brought forward.

I want to acknowledge the gravity of the recent conflicts and the incidents that have happened here and within the division and the community, and that we do take that very seriously and to heart

and it would be great if there was an easy answer and it's not and has been said by colleagues that you know we're looking to do as much as we can within the buildings.

Please know Dr. Gurley and your team that we are here to support and you know our family engagement team is wonderful but it's not enough.

I mean we could have

30 of the Johnson and Johnson's, you know, out there doing what they do best.

And we need more of that.

But, you know, whatever we can do to support

the liaison, the communication, the relationships with the school division and those community people that we know we need to partner with and we need to sit with them and listen to them.

And again, it is a lot and we need our teachers to be able to teach, right?

And the students to learn, every single student.

So again,

Yeah, this is something that I'm very concerned about.

And it doesn't make me feel any better to see what the data look like.

And I think we're really struggling.

I think our division has put a lot of resources out there in the schools to try and help.

and I guess one of the questions is how do we know if what we're doing is working or not?

How do we figure that out?

And I don't have the answer to that, but I think we are making a lot of efforts and doing things that seem like the right things to do, but I don't know how to really assess how effective these things are.

Another comment, we talk a lot about community partners and I don't actually know what's happening with community partners.

What's actually going on in the community?

Is there any kind of coordinated effort to deal with

the kinds of issues that are behind the student outbursts that we see in the videos.

What is happening if it isn't a coordinated effort?

Who's gonna lead that effort?

Who's gonna organize in the community so that community partners can actually be effective in addressing some of the issues that do not originate

in the school building, but they come into the school building, they end up there.

So that's a question I have.

And I just think there are some, perhaps some other creative steps that we can think about or people can bring to us ideas for other out of the box steps that can maybe help us see some things that we haven't been seeing.

I know that Zionna Bryant had a meeting, organized a meeting with students for students and what a great idea, you know, so what did the students say?

What did they tell us about this?

We need to hear from some of those things and I'd like to just see more opportunities for students to really come forward and

you know, tell us what their experience is and any ideas that they have for what we can do differently.

So, you know, how does this all this look from the student's point of view, you know.

So those are just my thoughts.

I don't I don't know that I have questions except, you know, like some of those were kind of questions like what are you know, what are the community partners doing?

Who are they?

And are they are we doing anything beyond just saying we need their help?

So anyway, thank you for putting all this together.

Ms.

I also have the privilege, I guess, of being on the discipline committee.

I'd never done it while I'm on the school board.

It was just recently.

And I just remember feeling just completely, just feeling torn.

because there are hard choices and hard decisions.

And I guess the frustration is, and I'll try to make it make sense, is that if you all remember during COVID, you got to be a whole person, right?

If you were working from home, it was okay.

You had a kid at home because your kid is at home with you and everyone's going through the same thing.

And I feel like when it comes to discipline,

People should get to be whole people too.

And we should take all those things into account.

So when you're on the discipline committee and there's obvious trauma, there's obvious outside circumstances, it's hard.

Like I don't, I understand that there are these videos out there and it's like, well, what's happening?

What's going on?

There's a dichotomy where it's like safety, safety, safety, discipline, discipline, discipline.

And then on the other hand, when kids aren't in school and they're suspended and expelled, what happens to them then?

Then, you know, in hindsight is 2020, like, oh, maybe this kid should have been in school.

It's hard to say, it feels almost like throwing someone away, especially when there's all this, you can see the whole person and they've been let down by all these other systems in the school.

They're here eight hours a day or depending on the grade, but you're here and you want to be able to help the students.

And having said all that, the other students who come and teachers should feel safe in the building as well.

So there are hard choices.

And being on that committee feels very much like being a parent where you want to do what's best for all your kids, both your kids, but you also

You want them to be able to function in the world when you're not there to say, hey, you made a mistake.

Let me help you.

So I understand that, you know, there needs to be accountability and consequences.

But I feel like when you look at that die, you know, the chart that you showed and it's like, oh, it's young, it's men, it's young black men, it's young black boys that

A lot of the conditions of your life, if you're a young black man or young black girl in Charlottesville, the conditions of your life are a consequence.

The conditions of your life are what is, you know, that's the account of being black here in Charlottesville.

And so there are problems that we would like to fix.

I don't know how to fix them all, but

to not factor in that violence can touch certain parts of this community and it doesn't make a blip.

But if it happens in another part of the community or on the downtown mall, then it does make a blip and things get solved and people are held to account.

So I feel like

We can talk about the community partners and all these people, but these things are generational and they're heavy and they're deep.

And I don't know, like all the incidents aren't gonna be simple and there might be kids fighting in the hallway and that can happen.

And if they're not fighting in the hallway and they get suspended, there's gonna be something somewhere else as a result of that.

And those are all things that we have to

to think about.

And so I worry about kids in school, I worry about people getting hurt, I worry about teachers and staff, and I worry about those kids when they're not in school.

And, you know, the pendulum swings back and forth.

We got rid of SROs, we went to the CSAs, or yeah, the CSOs, the care assistants, but no matter which way you go, there's gonna be some overflow.

Like it's not, you have to deal with the problems as they come.

to just say there was this fight, we saw it, we probably need SROs again.

It's swinging it back and then we'll get back to, oh, now we're talking about the school to prison pipeline.

It's complicated, it's nuanced, and it's not just a knee-jerk reaction.

You have to take all these factors into consideration.

And so we're accountable to schools.

Everybody needs to be accountable,

they're not easy problems and I don't think anyone has like a quick fix or an answer and so I would just you know if we're all here and we're all being honest and trying our best

We can get somewhere, but as a community, we have to talk about why violence only affects certain areas.

And it matters how you can have such a small black community in Charlottesville that continues to shrink, but is disproportionately affected by violence, suspensions, and expulsions.

Those are big questions that I don't know get solved just by what happens during the school, during the school day.

You know, anybody that wants my cell phone number can have my cell phone number.

It's not my work phone.

It's my personal cell phone number.

So when Miss Hudson stood up there today, she and I have had several conversations.

She's texted me at 4.30 in the morning and we've had conversations at 6.30 in the morning.

I respect anyone who can bring me a problem and give me the solution.

and I think what I heard today from her and from some others is that the high school is out of control and I'm just here to debunk that because as I sit here I see two at least two high school teachers here I see some care safety workers here and I know that these teachers and these staff members are working hard each and every day and

what I'm hearing and the tone is that we're not holding students accountable and we're coddling students and that we're not being consistent when that's absolutely not true.

I think Ms.

Morsberger, she stated everything that I wanted to say.

These kids are me.

But I'm gonna tell you that, yes, I was hired to do a job, but I've been loving kids in the field of education for 21 years.

And I know that in this particular role, what has been asked of me is that I control what happens in the community.

And I'm gonna tell you that I have them for eight hours a day, or if they wanna do extracurricular, however many hours, I can control the time that they're here.

But if the people who we're referring to as our community partners, if the community isn't holding the community accountable, then what do you expect the teacher to do in the school?

What do you expect us to do when the same families are fighting among one another in the community?

I'm perfectly fine with educating in the community.

There are a lot of models where we educate in our community.

I'm fine with doing that.

We beat the pavement.

We're in the community.

But I'm going to tell you, until we're working collaboratively, until someone can come to me and say,

Say I need help.

I'm telling families all the time, tell me what you need help with.

How can I help you solve the problem?

But I'm going to tell you that just as you just said, the problem is not going to be solved in the eight hours that we're here.

And if you want to create this narrative,

that it's about leadership, that it's about what teachers aren't doing, then that's absolutely not true.

I mean, we are putting more black leaders in place.

We did the black men meet up.

We're bringing the faces into the schools.

I mean, but if everyone is not doing the work, if we're not doing the same work at the same time, because if 40 organizations are going to do 40 different things, Charlottesville is going to continue to fail in meeting the needs of brown and black faces because all these nonprofits doing

40 different things.

They're not meeting the needs of students.

We have to have continuity of services and supports within this community.

And so I'm not going to, you've stolen my thunder, but I'm going to tell you that I'm not going to mince my words at all, at all.

that I'm holding students accountable, that my job is every child who walks through this door deserves a free and appropriate public education, and that if children are not going to behave, if they're not going to, if you're not going to come in the building and we're teaching you the skills, I had a parent

that I said, I want to do some restorative things.

I want your child to work with the social emotional counselor.

If you're going to continue to refuse services, then I've done the part that I can do.

And until somebody can show me how to help someone who doesn't want to be helped, because that was the first lesson that I was learned.

You can only help people who want to be helped.

And so I'm never going to give up on a student.

As long as you walk through the doors of the school, you're going to receive help.

And I'm not going to continue to put kids out arbitrarily.

We have a code of conduct.

Our students, for the first time this school year, know what that code of conduct means.

If you're not going to come here and do what is expected of every student here, then I'm not going to mince my words with this one.

And whatever that means, that's what it means.

Thank you, Dr. Pearl.

Not to prolong, but I've been around in this community for as long as I can remember.

I was a part of this school system for 29 years as a teacher and counselor.

and I think the data speaks for itself.

I live in the 10th and Page Street neighborhood.

I lived in public housing.

I know what it's like to struggle.

I worked with most of the kids that I worked with during my 39 years were students who struggled, students who were not always the top in their class, but I persevered.

and I taught them how to respect each other and how to respect themselves.

And I am very disturbed.

I worked with some amazing educators over the years, amazing educators here in Charlottesville High School.

Teachers come to school every day trying to do their best despite the obstacles sometimes that are in front of them.

As the young lady said in a conference, at a VSBA conference, she said, students are going to do two things.

They either are going to unpack that baggage at the door, or they're going to bring it in.

Yes, we want our students to graduate.

I cannot tell you the countless numbers of meetings I had as a counselor here at Charlottesville High School, how I walked these halls looking for students, ensuring that they're going to graduate,

calling those parents, inviting teachers to those senior success meetings, parents who may have had a negative experience while they were in school.

And because of that connection, I was able to connect with them and say, you have to come into this building because your child is at risk of not graduating.

I cannot tell you the number of times that teachers went far beyond the call of duty to ensure that those students graduated with a diploma.

But it's not about graduating.

I'm first gen, the first in my family to go to college.

Neither one of my parents had a high school education, but they instilled the value of education in all seven of us.

And what I'm saying tonight, we have got to look

and hold our students accountable for their behavior.

It is unfair to the other students who come to school every day and do what is asked of them.

But we also want them to graduate too.

It's a balancing act.

It's very difficult when we're in those discipline hearings, trying to figure out how are we going to get these students to the next level.

But it's gonna take a village, as the African proverb says, it takes a village to raise a child.

And this is what is missing.

Yes, we have those community partners who are willing to come to the table, but we have to have the parents and the guardians to come to the table as well.

This is very, very upsetting to me.

retired educator, this is what I'm seeing.

We've got to hold our children accountable.

They cannot disrupt the education of children who are coming to school every day.

Teachers are working, doing their personal best.

Our administrators are working hard.

The counselors are working tirelessly to ensure that our students get the services that they need, the mental health counselors and the school counselors.

So we're doing the best we can.

And for to put the narrative out that the kids are running amok and just running wild, no, that is not true.

We have a few that are disrupting the education of others, and it has to be addressed.

Swift with the bridging the gap update.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, and Dr. Gurley.

The Bridging the Gap Learning Loss Recovery Plan is a critical piece of the Commonwealth of Virginia's effort to restore educational excellence to Virginia's public schools.

The Department of Education wants to better understand and address learning loss and assist school divisions in this work.

So the Bridging the Gap initiative will highlight some of the great programs, intervention strategies, and successes that school divisions are implementing while also supporting more innovative applications of data-driven instruction and increasing the capacity for every school to strengthen their relationships with families.

This approach will provide individualized student data reports so that every kindergarten through eighth grade student, family, and teacher has all of a student's assessment information in an understandable, actionable report.

This information about student proficiency and learning loss empowers these critical stakeholders to make the best decisions to ensure every child is prepared for life.

It will ensure every student who is not on track has a personalized learning plan that commits to a set of actions that teachers, families, and students will take to address learning gaps.

These personalized learning plans will be developed and executed in partnership with the teachers, families, and their students.

It will also provide a comprehensive training to teachers on how to communicate with families and students about where a student is academically and the steps that will be taken together to get a student to grade level proficiency.

So by the time students head back to school in 2023, every student, family, and teacher will have access to these individualized student data reports, personalized learning plans as needed,

and comprehensive teacher training.

So this school year, the Virginia Department of Education will partner with school divisions to pilot the implementation of Bridging the Gap.

And there are 25 partner school divisions across the Commonwealth.

We are one of the 25 school divisions to partner with the VDOE on this project and we have selected Buford Middle School for this pilot.

So in order to better understand and address learning loss and assist school divisions in this work, the pilot is focused on learning what school divisions are already doing in the space of family engagement, data-driven instructional practices, and how underperforming students can be served with instructional best practices.

This pilot year will provide partner school divisions with access to individualized student data reports,

support developing a personalized learning plan model that meets their needs and continual training from the VDOE and its partners.

We will also have the opportunity to share feedback to the VDOE on every aspect of the pilot, including the family-facing and teacher-facing training that will be in development.

So participating divisions will have early access to the state's new analytics platform called VVAS, which stands for Virginia's Visualization and Analytics Solution.

It will implement personalized learning plan to guide the recovery of lost learning and to support that student to be on or above grade level performance.

And divisions will ensure that families have the information they need to advocate for their child's success.

And so in return, school divisions will be asked to provide student data input into VVAS, details about any forms, methods, or tools they currently use to track the interventions and support provided to underperforming students, and access to family information to share training and to collect feedback.

So far, we have participated in a VDOE webinar with the other school divisions that provided an overview of this pilot project.

We have discussed the goals and the components of the pilot with Dr. Gurley and division leads.

We have introduced this pilot program to the Buford leadership team.

We have created a personalized learning plan template for teachers to use with their students.

And we have identified the teachers and students for the pilot at Buford.

And so our next steps will be to attend bridging the gap trainings, which are now starting in March.

This was recently pushed back for division leads, administrators, coaches, specialists, and teachers.

We will provide student data for input into VVAS, our SOLs and map data.

We will implement a personalized learning plan for the identified students and provide continuous support to Buford throughout the pilot process.

We are extremely excited to partner with the VDOE on this journey so that we will be able to innovate in the ways that we engage with our students, their families, and together utilize the best data at improving each student's academic potential.

Thank you.

I wonder, again, I think this, obviously I've been fighting for this for, I don't know, five years.

It feels like progress.

So I'm very grateful.

I do wonder about the, what the state is going to do with this data.

I fear that it will just use it as a hammer.

Like I just have very little faith in the Virginia Department of Education at this point, especially given their actions around curriculum of late.

So I'm very concerned about what they're going to do with the data.

So I think we should be on top of that.

But also, just wondering, you said you're starting in seventh grade, it says it starts in 2022-23.

year and I just wonder if like next year's seventh graders will benefit like how is this you know there is so much that like I know we've been talking about Walker's numbers and so I just wonder like if those kids are coming up from Walker to Buford next year like how are

Right.

So the pilot is at Buford in seventh grade.

We decided one, Buford is our federally identified school.

So we decided to start there and start small in seventh grade.

So our pilot for the 22-23 year

It's just for the seventh graders currently at Buford.

Yes.

Yes.

So next year, so this will be K through eighth grade.

So presumably this time next year, parents will have access to that dashboard and a personally-laced learning.

The pilot really is to give us early access to the VVAS analytics, the data visualization platform.

Okay, great.

Well, that's very exciting.

How is it?

We've attended just a couple overview sessions right now.

And so in March, we are bringing principals with us to Louisa.

They're hosting an in-person VVOS training.

And Miss McKeever, Miss Swift is being really nice.

The DOE is moving really.

We were hoping that this would have gone a little faster.

and so they have had several delays and I mean, they were very energized and there was a lot of synergy at the beginning and now it's moving like snail mail.

I'm very excited about it and I think like to the extent that we create our own infrastructure or that would also be, I mean, I love the idea of the templates and having as much as possible that we can use from the state, but also like,

And being part of the pilot too, we get to give our input into like the personalized learning plan.

So we submitted our template along with the other divisions and so we can see what other divisions are doing.

So then the state will come up with a model.

I hope that it kind of like the vision of it sounds really great.

And as with things that come from the state, I very much worry about what the ground looks like.

Ms.

In a follow up, can we learn more about how teachers are going to be trained?

I'm interested in that and just what the lift is going to be for teachers.

How is the, I guess the template is just in theory right now, we don't have the final version.

How does it compare to, for example, like a map assessment that gives you kind of the next steps for

So it's going to pull all their data.

So we're looking at SOL data, map data, and any division common wide assessments.

We're also in our template, we added like student strengths.

So those strengths that we can build upon and then areas for improvement, and then also action steps.

And what are those instructional strategies that students need in order to meet their goals?

And so they'll have a reading goal and a math goal.

And then also the,

We want to be able to bring the families into because a lot of times we have these conversations and sometimes families aren't always a part of this conversation.

So then they're also signing off on the plan, along with the student agreeing to these goals.

And that's why we are so, we are including growth assessment and then also our division common assessments as well.

I just had a quick question because you were talking about the SOL question and mentioned earlier about opting out.

Do we lose funding if a certain amount of kids opt out of the tests?

Well, what it will ding us on is federal participation.

So that is something that we wouldn't need to talk about and consider.

So Mr. Conning is absolutely correct.

You can opt out.

However, the unintended consequence for the school division is it

impacts our participation rate.

So when your participation rate falls below the 90%, 95%, 95%, then it, it impacts the school division.

So, but I definitely understand why parents make the choice.

Yeah, I think this is a good step and something good for us to be involved in.

I guess my one question is, I mean it sounds like a lot of it is just collecting data and putting it in this template.

So with the pilot, they're looking with all the divisions that are partnering, kind of looking to see what are we doing now?

And then what's working?

And then what are those strategies that then we can share with other divisions moving forward?

What's working?

No, but I think it will be offered.

Like these are some of the best, like in other divisions, these are some of those instructional best practices that are working.

and sharing those resources.

And teachers will have training as well.

We haven't gotten to that part of the pilot yet, but we'll share more information when we get to that point.

Ms.

I have to say, when I looked through this presentation earlier in the week, similar to Ms.

McKeever, there was something that just made

I think that also makes me nervous about it and I can't really put my finger on it.

I think there are a lot of unknowns and I think that also makes me nervous.

I find it intriguing too that there's a Senate bill right now 13291 of Senator McClellan's bills that has to do with a parent data portal requiring the Board of Education to create that so that that information will be available there.

That's potentially what's slowing down or if they're going to integrate these things.

I'm very supportive of us as a division looking to how we can individualize plans and supports for students.

I truly do question how, other than sharing the data with families,

It's having a conversation with them and then what are those next steps?

That just seems so far removed from the video.

That's so hard.

I mean, it's really easy to say, right?

But I also do have concerns and I had written down just the staff training and pulling time away from them when we really need them working with it.

So whether or not, I mean, if this comes to fruition and it's something that everybody in the Commonwealth has to do,

You know, ensuring I would hope that we have more use to, you know, pull the data and to do some of that.

So it's not taking away time from teachers.

But again, so yeah, I just have a lot of questions about it.

And again, it is in the beginning stages.

And like Dr. Gurley mentioned, it has been

pushed back another month because they are working on the analytics system piece.

Ms.

Wong, do you have any questions?

Thank you.

Ms.

Swift, if there are no more questions.

All right, so I am here to present our

fiscal year 2024 board.

Good evening.

I've said that earlier.

All right, so the first thing I want to say is that much of the information that you all have seen here this evening

that you've seen here this evening.

I did on January the 15th, 2023.

So a lot of the information is repetitive.

So I will go through it a little quickly, but most certainly I will go as fast or as slow as you need me to go.

All right.

And that rhymed.

and so we will start with there is the budget guidance and priorities, enrollment, student experiences and the proposed budget for the upcoming school year.

So there is a requirement that the superintendent puts forth a budget each year and we make those changes as necessary and that's the process that we are going through this evening.

Just a reminder that these are our board priorities.

These are the budget priorities.

They've not changed since our last meeting, and you will see that we've focused very intentionally on these throughout this presentation and the budget development.

This is a new slide, so I will make sure that I highlight this, that I want to draw your attention.

Most of our money, 64% of our money is centered around academic excellence.

And this is aligned to our strategic plan.

So I want to make sure that I highlight that this was one of the slides that was new since our last meeting.

So enrollment.

Again, I just want to remind you that if you look in that far right column under 2022, what you'll see is that we are almost back at our pre-pandemic levels for enrollment.

And so we are just a little shy, we're about 70 students shy of our peak.

We have a new slide here based on some of the work from our, based on some of the conversations from our work session.

And so what you see here is how our students are enrolled by level.

So you see how many pre-K students we have elementary, upper elementary.

And so you see, and then in the left-hand column, you see the racial makeup of our students.

So we did add the table on the right-hand side.

I do want to make sure that I highlight, because this is essential to our budget development, our outlook on our students who are receiving English as a second language services.

And so I just want to make sure that I call your attention to

the numbers of students who were enrolled on June the 11th, 2022.

And then how many students down in the yellow box in the division, how many we have now, which is as of, I should say, as of January the 17th, and that number is 646.

So we were up about 98 students.

and I just want to make sure that I also note that Dr. Jeanie Fouts is projecting that over the course of next school year, we will see an increase of about 100 students.

We have another slide that was added since our last budget presentation and this just shows our enrollment from fall of 2021 to the fall of 2022.

And then you see that increase was almost 3%.

There was almost a 3% increase in the students who were needing English as a second language services.

Dr. Odey talked about this at our budget work session and you heard us talk about this in our PTO sessions, the student experience.

This budget focuses on preserving our students' experiences and so what we have previously stated and what you know is that we have worked to facilitate and engage our students in

Very scientific and specific reading experiences.

We have afforded our students hands on and practical experiences in the areas of history, history and science.

And additionally, as we talk about our first generation students and students enrolled in the AVID programs, they have been

I'm doing those college tours.

And this is a continuation of those student experiences.

And many of those things are reflected in co-curricular experiences, as well as athletics and fine arts.

And I think that we have been talking this evening about, we've been talking this evening about student discipline and things, but we know that included in that experience is our need to support the mental health needs of our students and continuing to mentor our students.

Dr. Odie mentioned that she will be mentoring students

I also signed up to mentor students and I think that we've been doing those types of things.

We are all hands on.

We are all in and I think it's vital so that our students see us, not that we are people who are sitting behind desk and we're wearing suits and we live this place that we are doing this work alongside the

and so the proposed budget for 2024.

And what you see here under salary and benefits, we talked about the average of the 5% increase for those various groups.

We talked at length during the budget work session.

about correcting the steps for the people who were frozen during the pandemic.

If you drop down to the non-reoccurring and non-discretionary contracts, we are still working through with our city as we talk about the transportation contract.

and again, I just cannot mention enough about how we are putting, investing the money in our students who are receiving the English Language Learner Services.

So where those interpretation services are needed and those interpretation services and those in the testing, I should say.

We do have the addition of the three positions and that supports how we are prioritizing our efforts here with the English language learners.

We did have some conversation about the graduation coach.

And so I wanna just let you know that I did follow back up with the professional school counselors here at the high school, an amazing group among the amazing groups of

School counselors we met on the 26th.

They saw our work session, so they were ready when I came to the meeting.

They had ideas.

They were ready to take action during that meeting.

They made it very clear.

I made it very clear to them that you all as a board are supportive.

I think they heard that in the presentation.

They know you're supportive and that we are working to just continue to do this work and that what they heard is that

If they felt like they needed another professional school counselor here at the high school, that I was willing to bring that back.

The counselors collectively support a graduation coach.

I didn't add one word there.

I told them, this is your meeting, but they do feel strongly that if the right person is hired, that instead of, I think I used more of the working with the 11th, working with the 12th graders back, they use more of the, we really need someone to be all in to help us with the ninth graders, because that's where we lose them.

And we didn't have that conversation.

And we didn't have that conversation during the work session.

So I was very appreciative that they brought another perspective that

Let's start with ninth graders because there's a list of students that really have that need additional supports when they come over.

And the graduation coach can help to facilitate that.

The graduation coach can help to facilitate the success meetings.

They talked about the number of meetings that need to be held by school counselors and that some of that work, a lot of that work can be done by the graduation coach.

And so here I am,

conveying that to you, that they are in support of that.

Can I interrupt you?

So I'm on board with what they want.

I would love to see what are, like, I want to see a job description and then the accountability piece, you know, so who are they reporting to?

Absolutely.

So they, so I have not had, I know I saw it in my email today from Ms.

Key.

I asked if they would provide, in that meeting, I asked if they would provide the things that need the most attention in the department and that we would use that to create the job description.

But most certainly, since we're adding a new position, I can bring that back to the board.

I can bring that back to you all.

And the other thing is that some of you all have received emails about the athletics.

I know we heard Coach Isley, Mr. Isley, talk about the athletics program over at Beaufort.

What we initially did was there was a request made from Mr. Jones, our student activities director.

There was a request for the addition of the $5,000.

I know that some feel that that's not enough.

And this conversation is not really about whether it's enough or too little.

What I want to say is that there has never been or there will never be a moment where if students have needs with with regards to programs we're providing so if it's athletics programs that we're providing if there's a need that we generally make a way for those things to happen and what we can do is that we collect historical data we look at historical spending and if we what we're finding is that

You know, it requires more money to run these programs because there's this gap, then we can always come back, we can look at how we can appropriate funds differently towards those programs.

But right now, I still support the $5,000.

But I want to let our students and our parents and our coaches know that, I mean, our students will, they're not, there won't be a time where our students need something because it's required of a program that they will go without.

And I think

One of the most recent examples is when we talked about needing the athletics trainer for football.

I mean, that was brought to our attention.

We made it happen.

So we will continue to work in good faith with all of our stakeholders and parents.

And I just want to make sure that you all see that the addition of the state funds, the addition of the $2.5 million and that the request of the $4 million from the city.

In terms of revenue, the Governor's budget was revised to reflect our membership, our ADM membership back in September.

Therefore, we do see the increases, the increase of the $2.5 million, which I spoke about on the last slide.

I know there's been a lot of talk and you've seen this in paper and on our news about the basic aid and the error that was done there.

And so what I want you to know is that right now, everything is fresh.

And so I think there's still a lot of questions and there's still a lot of answers needed.

What we know is that we get emails on Friday evenings.

So we did get an email on Friday from the state

Acknowledging the error that occurred with the CALC tool and that was due to them not recognizing the hold on the grocery tax.

They teach me a lot.

The hold on the grocery, the hold harmless on the grocery tax.

So there is this error.

and that error for us does equate to about $302,000.

We are not making any changes in our budget right now.

We will, again, we'll make a way.

I think there's still a lot of work to be done.

And if we need to do something late, we will most certainly come back to the board.

But right now, our finance team feels very confident that we can pivot if needed.

Here you've seen this slide.

This is just our appropriation, how much money has been given to us by our city.

And again, every time I get to say this, I want to just plug that I personally want to thank how appreciative and I'm very appreciative of how the openness that our city and the transparency that they have when they're working with us.

And I think we've been open and transparent with them about our needs.

And I think that

continues us to support our students.

And what we continue to hear is that our students have needs.

They're coming with experiences and their appropriation allows us to meet the needs of our students because it is not a one size fit all.

News slide, we had a request for the thermometer to come back.

And I said, why is it red in the thermometer?

And I'm reminded that there is still mercury in the thermometer.

You can't drain it totally.

So the thermometer is drained theoretically.

Remember we started and the temperature was all the way up.

We are no longer running the fever.

As long as we have the appropriation of the $4 million,

That will drain the thermometer and we will be cooled.

And so great news.

I just want to reiterate what I just said.

The $4 million does allow us to drain the thermometer.

We are no longer, we don't have that fear of what happens with that fiscal cliff because of not having the funds.

So again, just this allows us to support our students.

And I think what the thing that we've heard most is how we preserve the student experiences and a lot of the student experiences about providing the social emotional workers

Providing our care safety assistance, just having the resources with our family engagement, working with the whole child, our fine arts, our athletics.

All of this happens because of our appropriation and we're very appreciative.

And new slide alert again.

What you see here is that I think we've been very thoughtful.

If you go all the way to the right of this slide, you see that from

the fiscal year 22-23 to our upcoming 23-24 that we really only have a change of $46,000.

And I don't know about you, but that kind of warms my heart because it's a very low number and it's all centered on children and supporting our staff with compensation and where it happens most with our teachers and their salaries.

And there was a question about pre-K and that pre-K line is just that we are now going to track our expenses for pre-K differently.

And so everything that happens with our preschool, with the early childhood special education program and with our VPI programs with the ESSA, we're required to track those funds.

And so now there's just the special revenues for that.

and what's happening next.

So what happens next is we have the joint work session with our city on the eighth.

And then I will, I guess I can kind of say today,

that if we don't have any changes at the state level with regards to our budget and how funds are being allocated that we may request that we just cancel the 16th meeting because we will not have any new information between now and then.

But unless you would like to have a meeting.

Wong, do you have any questions?

Ms.

Torres?

Great job with this budget and I don't have questions.

Ms.

I just have one comment and question and you've already hit on it but I also want to just go back to it because $5,000 is a lot of money but in the world of school budgets I've learned in the last however long I've been on the school board

that you know there's just a lot of money in flux and so I just want to advocate because you know you don't know what you don't know so I don't know about all the athletics at Beaufort and how that feeds into the high school but just to be on the radar for equity we have a plethora of programs at the high school and things that are provided I think I learned recently

that we pay for the AP test for any student who wants to take it.

That's a lot of money and it's not need based.

And so.

You know, to keep equity on the table, I think that the students at Buford deserve that same energy poured into them for like they're not shirts for them, for the like.

It's an equity issue that, you know, they're not getting

what is available, the scope of programs.

Like, you know, we're always talking about these AP classes, who can take them, calculus one, two, three, 14, but kids don't have shirts and $5,000.

It's like, who's going to be the lucky recipient.

So I do want to advocate for Buford to get resources because it seems like they are overlooked.

No, I appreciate that.

I want to make sure that I clarify, too, that it's not just $5,000.

That's an additional $5,000 to the program.

And I think I saw Ms.

Burns right there.

And I think that, again, I'm just going to echo what I hope people already know is that there are funds at the school level in terms of discretionary funds for the principal.

No questions or comments, thank you.

Ms.

Dooley.

Ms.

Thank you so much.

Again, I wanted to also echo the comments related to the $5,000.

I know, you know, Mr. Isley, like he doesn't come to school board meetings, like he's been involved in athletics for so long and teaching in our school division.

And I just like one of the things I do think that required for programs to happen is like, you know, good language, but at the same time, like

I think at the high school people get their warm-up things and they get the thing you know and it's like okay Mr. Grady wants like some warm-up t-shirts or whatever.

I think also we have a lot of coaches who are not teachers so they don't actually know how to access those resources in ways that maybe in-school staff would.

So just kind of

And as a follow up for myself that I will make sure that I work with Mr. Jones and Mr. Andy Jones that also as a part of working with whoever the DSA will be for Buford that those employees that are not, we've talked about the standard for, you know, like the coaching handbook.

So just making sure that everybody that's a coach, whether you're internal or external, you understand the processes.

And we also can use this as the evaluation period because it's looking different.

The leadership is different now.

Well, thank you, Dr. Gurla.

Have you concluded your presentation?

Yes, sir.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

This great budget.

Our next item on the agenda is board response to written reports, and those reports have been duly noted.

So we now will have comments from members of the community.

Hi, good evening.

I am Amanda Burns, Dr. Gurley, Mr. Chair, school board members, and community.

I am the biological mother to Christopher Early, a football player and eighth grade student at Buford Middle School.

But I also had the honor of being the Buford football team mom this past season.

I had AJ, I had Damian, I had Eli, I had Mr. Scott, I had Mari, I had Liam, Mustafa, Brody, Raymond, Rocky,

Torian, Will, Mann, Zaire, Curtis, Devin, Dion, Demir, Chetty, Bright Keys, Hassan, Holden, India, Jamari, Jason, Kyle, Mr. Rapp, Nasir, Mr. Dibble, S.J., Suriel, Ramir, Gabe, Ja, Makai, and Deuce.

Under the direction of our head coach, Mr. Bart Eisele, Coach Byers, Coach Hollywood, and Coach Shifflett.

I'm here today in support of the school budget request in the amount of $5,000 that was requested by Mr. Jones, titled the Middle School Athletic Support and Supplies.

Our students and athletes at Buford Middle School football team deserve better

I'm so thankful for Dr. Gurley's participation and conversations with me over the last year as their mom.

And I can't thank you enough for that and for publicly stating your position.

The uniforms that our children have are hand-me-downs from CHS.

They are not branded Buford.

There are no Buford colors.

The helmets are hand-me-downs from CHS.

Some have CHS branding, some have nothing, but there's no Buford branding.

The feel that Buford that we use for practice was never marked, was never maintained, except once it was aerated during the middle of the season that we had to disrupt practice for.

They competed in four of eight scheduled games and traveled once to a school in Richmond for a scrimmage that was rained out.

We had to cancel the first game because we didn't have enough equipment for everyone and not enough practice time for those who didn't have equipment because we had a coaching change.

They didn't win a single game.

There were a lot of tears, but there are a lot of smiles and laughs

a lot of heavy feelings and a lot of emotions, but also a lot of gratitude and thanks.

There are a lot of band-aids and turf spray and tape and ice, few trips to urgent care, but also there was a lot of dancing and singing and cheering.

And did I mention laughing?

They laugh a lot.

And as a community, we rallied around our student athletes to purchase cleats

We picked up old pads and equipment from a storage locker here at the high school.

We dug through donated pants from the closing of downtown athletics.

Some students ended up providing their own pants as we were not able to outfit everyone in the sizes we needed.

Coach Bart used his connections to get a water cooler, water bottles, and Gatorade for game day.

Loaves and fishes, generous community members and families provided drinks and snacks for every practice, every game, for every player.

That's 17 practices, five game days, times 38 students.

Raising Canes, Plenty Seaville, the Knox family, the Thomas family, the Schiff family, and my family all provided game day meals.

That's four games, one scrimmage,

times 38 students.

Despite the odds, the lack of equity and funding from the district, our young men and women persevered.

They learned the value of showing up after a tough loss, the value of hard work and practice,

They knew they would be fed and heard, but also disciplined.

They knew what was expected of them.

And when those expectations were not met, they were given grace to apologize and to try again.

They learned how to be a team, how to support one another, how to self-regulate and how to communicate in a way that honors who they really are, not who they thought they had to be.

I'm asking that the school board request be supported and to the city at large to make a statement that Buford Athletics, Buford football matters and that those 38 kids matter and the community that supports them matter and for the students that follow.

OK, Zionna Bryant, Charlottesville resident.

So I won't be poetic.

I don't have anything really flowery to say.

But I do want to follow up on a couple of points from the presentation about student behavior and administrative response.

I have a deep respect for our professionals who do work in the district.

But I do want to say, as Dr. Gurley said, he's not going to mince his words.

I'm not going to mince mine either.

An issue is that everyone wants to talk about responsibility, who's responsible, but what are the calls to action?

Right?

Like, we can pass the buck all day.

Oh, community is not doing enough.

Teachers aren't doing enough.

What are the practical asks from the district?

And what are the asks from the community?

And how do we meet in the middle?

If there's no answers, then it's just blame game back and forth.

And we've been doing this for years.

And I'm sure Ms.

McKeever can agree to that because been on the board for a while.

Dr. Kraft can agree to that.

Like, we've had the same conversations and CHS hasn't never

like not had fights.

They've been fighting since my mom was in school.

So that's, it's not new.

But the issue is there aren't any practical conversations I feel that are asking for direct asks.

And I think it was perfect how the coaches came and asked for $5,000.

We have more than enough billionaires and millionaires in this community.

$5,000 is really a drop in the bucket, not just from your budget, but from the community.

So if people need to fundraise, then that's a conversation we can have.

Another point that I have is that as we continue to hear the language of community partners and rapid response, I'm not really seeing it much.

I had a conversation with Ms.

Johnson recently about how people from UVA can show up to support our students.

And she mentioned that there would be a volunteer training.

That information needs to be publicized.

There are parents who are constantly on Facebook talking about how they want to support students and how they want to come into the building.

Do they know the protocol on how to do that?

What can parents actually do?

My mom would be more than happy to come, right?

But the more we continue to say, people aren't showing up, people aren't showing up, well, probably because they don't know how to.

So how do we put out a guide or a handbook as to how community people can show up?

That's what I'm interested in, right?

Okay, then Dr. Kraft and Ms.

Larson-Torres got to the crux of the issue, community partners, stakeholders, but also the deeper systemic issues that exist.

I don't think anyone's asking for the school board to fix the age-old issues of our community.

I think what we're asking for is accountability in terms of new policies, a kind of grading measure of how we're doing with these new policies, and asking for the school board to take a firm stance on what the district represents.

So I think Ms.

Morsberger's point about viewing students as whole people is important.

And addressing the issue of disposability, right?

We can say we're going to hold students accountable all day, but do you hold your alts in the building accountable?

Because if the answer is no, then where's the balance, right?

Again, these are age old issues.

CHS has had fights when I was in high school and before.

But the disconnect is when parents come to the building and feel as if they're not being heard and they don't have access to certain individuals to be able to speak to them.

That is an issue that should be heard, right?

Not understand that everybody is passionate about the work they do.

But at the end of the day, this is a professional space.

We need to remove the feelings and get to the work.

And I'm happy to partner with whoever wants to partner.

I'm happy to do whatever I can.

I held a healing space, as Dr. Kraft mentioned, this past weekend as a rapid response space for students to talk.

We had practitioners, student leaders, we had students, and we had adults come out and talk and share what they want those solutions to be.

And I'm happy to convene more of those spaces.

I met with Jessica Carter today from her sports.

Let's keep doing the work.

But the blaming back and forth, the calling out, the cattiness, the pettiness, and just the all around attitudes from people in the community and people from the district is not going to help.

Hi, John Horn.

I'm not going to be nearly as articulate as I want to be because I'm hungry.

I didn't plan well.

I'm going to try because I think there is an action item.

And it's, gosh, it's been in so many stories and so many things people have talked about.

We need to get phones out of the school.

and that is a harder ask than collective bargaining.

I am unpopular right now, but I've been teaching for 20 years and the phones are a poison.

Mr. Bryant, you talked about students being able to unpack.

A student cannot unpack their trauma when it follows them in their pocket.

The mental health

The poison of students' phones is ubiquitous, and it reaches every student in every class.

I cannot express enough how hard Mr. Pitt works to set daily expectations for phones, how hard teachers work, but like, thank you so much, bandwidth is a thing.

And teachers and administrators are no match, are no match.

for that phone.

It does not help education.

We have laptops.

So the argument that they need communication and connection with the outside world is moot.

They have that.

There is no need.

We could put phones in, we could put special connection zones in schools, but I cannot express enough the filming

A kid who gets in a fight or makes a mistake.

You know, when I made mistakes in high school, like, haha, it was a bad scene for a week, but then it was gone.

Not so for our students.

Those fights follow them, and they follow them to Albemarle and Monticello and Western, to the news.

I teach English here at Shostell High School and then teach the nighttime review newspaper class.

I definitely wasn't prepared to talk today.

I'm wearing my Doofy Bird shirt.

I would not have worn that.

But I just want to echo what Ms.

Horn just said.

Both of us worked tirelessly with teachers to come up with expectations here in the school around cell phones and tried to come up with a plan that kind of worked with what students wanted and what teachers wanted, administrators wanted.

It's not working.

We cannot work around the most addictive device that's ever been created by human beings.

And

it's stealing the joy out of the classroom in a myriad ways from what's happening with fight filming to the mesmerizing gaze of TikTok.

I can't fight it.

I cannot be more interesting.

I cannot make more relevant content for my classes than what they are accessing on their phones.

So we need to have something that happens around that.

And I also just wanted to comment briefly on

and the conversation around discipline.

In having conversations with students around the school, I want to make sure that one thing's not lost in the statistics around black and brown students being involved in these fights.

The vast majority of black and brown students are not involved in fights, the vast majority, and they deserve to go to a school that is safe.

They need to be able to go to the bathroom and know that they can go to the bathroom and not be harassed or walk into a cloud of vape smoke

Hi, I'm Becca Saxe and I'm a parent of a senior at Charlottesville High School this year and we are on Verizon.

So today our entire family lost our cell phones and got to experience what in a way for the day really is like.

and while it was difficult and disconcerting and very weird, it was also kind of liberating and it was wonderful.

And I came by the school around lunchtime because my son had left something in the car and I had no way to text him to say, come down and get it.

And so somebody actually had to go find him.

And that meant that his case manager had an opportunity to check in with him today that he wouldn't have had otherwise.

I also say that it was the adults in the building who also seemed very uncomfortable to not have access to their phones.

When this policy was talked about in the summer, I said what's going to have to happen if it's ever going to happen is that every single person who goes into the building has to put their phone away.

That means when you're in a school building,

Dr. Gurley's phone is away.

School board members' phones are away.

Parents' phones are away.

Everybody has to show that they have respect for what is going on in that building and for the relationships that are getting built in that building and the learning that's happening.

It's a major mental shift, but it is absolutely true that kids have been kids since the dawn of time.

Kids have been fighting since the dawn of time.

I taught at Beaufort in the 90s and early 2000s.

None of what's happening

is new except the intensity of it is exacerbated because of these phones and I have a phone addicted child in my own home as Ms.

Horn will happily attest to and he's probably one of the biggest problems with his phone but it would his entire high school career and middle school career for that matter would have been very different

had there been stricter phone policies.

So I really agree.

I was a little skeptical, but I completely agree at this point, we have to figure out something to do about those phones.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak?

Mr. Cuomo, do we have anyone with a hand raised?

Thank you all for coming forward and speaking this evening.

And I will start with Ms.

I think a lot of what I've been hearing in this meeting is just, it's kind of reminded me about, I mean, at the crux of it is students and administrators and teachers want basically two things, to feel safe and feel respected at school.

And

What does that mean?

So, yeah.

Miss Torres.

I feel like this meeting has been very important.

And I'd like to thank all the people who came and spoke in public comment.

And I think important topics came up.

We have work to do.

Talk about bridging the gaps.

There are a lot of gaps, a lot of kinds of gaps that need to be bridged.

You know, I do feel like at least these things are being said and brought up and brought to us so that we can work on them.

What about doing a little pilot about the phones at the high school, trying a pilot project?

I was recently, I listened to this podcast called The Hidden Brain.

Some of you may know it.

And they had some really, a couple of really good episodes on persuasion.

And what are some of the things that you can do to actually persuade people to do what you want them to do?

So maybe we could put some heads together from some of our teachers and our staff

think about how we could begin to introduce this idea regarding the phones and try something creative and try something new.

So basically that's it.

Thanks everybody for showing up and for speaking.

Ms.

I just wanted to say two things.

The first is to Ms.

Bryant.

Thank you for your comments.

And I want to say what I think that the ask is, is that

There are almost things to be an intake person.

to find out what all the needs are and then match it up with all, like, and then on the other side have the people who are like, this is what I bring to the table and how I can help.

Kind of like how people do campaigns.

And that's kind of what's missing.

Like some of the things you don't hear about until the person comes to the board or there's email, there's just, and it's not an excuse, there's just, you don't know what you don't know, but that's the ask.

I think that the division and, you know, the city kind of like, we need someone to match

people up and to match up resources because right now it is kind of haphazard.

But that's what I think is needed most.

And I appreciate everybody's comments.

And I just want to thank Dr. Gurley.

I just appreciate you.

I know, like, I feel like things come at you hard and fast.

And the division, you know, we have a lot of we have a lot of things going on.

And I feel like you rise to the occasion.

very gracefully and kindly.

And I always say I work in HR.

I do.

I work in HR.

And I've had lots of bosses.

I deal with managers all the time.

And what makes a good manager a good leader is just you treating people like people and being open to solving problems and not thinking you have all the answers.

And I feel like you are a good leader and you're graceful and you're kind.

And I feel like we are lucky to have you here.

And so I just want to thank you.

Ms.

Morris, Ms.

Thank you.

I think primarily I'm just grateful to be in the space where I can hear so many different perspectives trying to do, just trying to listen.

I'm very interested in the idea of revising our phone policy, hearing from teachers and parents.

Ms.

Bryant, if you were to organize a group of students to talk about that specifically, I'm very interested in hearing feedback from students as well.

Pilots serve a purpose, but in this instance, I think if we were to make such a drastic change in firm stance on phones, we have to go all in and be, you know, kind of lockstep in

What our approach is.

And you know, all of this just ties together, right?

So when we're thinking about how much we struggle with our discipline decisions, if we go, you know, no phones, that's going to come back to conversations about what do we do with students who don't buy in and with parents who support their students and not buying in.

and so I'm very interested in this conversation.

I appreciate a substantive solution and attempt that's tackling a problem.

I am addicted to my phone as well.

I could very much would be served well by not having my phone on me all the time.

Ms.

Thank you so much.

I'm just really grateful that you can just tell by the people who make comments how supportive our community is of our students.

So I'm just so grateful, especially like Ms.

Burns, Ms.

Bryant, for your continued engagement.

It means so much to see you here, knowing how busy you are.

So thank you for taking the time and being here.

It means a lot to me that you are here and continue to engage.

So thank you.

And Ms.

Horn and Mr. Jocelyn, my children's favorite teacher.

So thank you so much for you saying something.

And I do think that you guys have spurred us to consider what we should be doing next.

Thank you, Ms.

Cave and board members.

I want to thank everyone who came forth tonight to speak to the board.

It was a lively discussion tonight and it was a learning experience for all of us tonight.

Teachers, I hear you.

I was in your place once upon a time.

You know, are you going to listen to me or are you going to be on your phone while I was doing a counseling session?

So I remember those days.

So that may be something we may need to

look at and study.

Ziona, hopefully you'll lead the charge to engage in some type of discussion with our students and teachers.

And it may have to do a palette.