CCS SB and City Council Luncheon   2/8/2023

Mr. Morris-Morthberger.

Present.

Here.

Dr. Kraft.

Present.

Ms.

McKeever.

Here.

Yes.

And Ms.

Lawrence.

Yes.

Ms.

Thomas.

Ms.

Thomas, will you roll call of the city council?

Dr. Gurley will now present to the Joint City Council School Board meeting the overview of the

Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the school board, Mr. Mayor, and members of the city council, and all other

All right, so for the purposes of this presentation, I will go over our budget guidance and priorities.

I will talk about our enrollment.

Also, I will highlight our student experiences, and then I will present to you the proposed FY24 budget and its changes.

The statutory requirement

says that I am supposed to put forth the needs-based budget of each school year, and that's what you will see presented this evening.

So I want to start with our budget priorities.

These priorities were developed in collaboration with our school board and our staff members.

You will see that we have placed an emphasis on building foundational skills, supporting our social, emotional, and mental health for our students and staff, and meeting and exceeding competitive staff compensation and benefits.

Here, what you see is how we spend our money in accordance with our strategic plan

What you see is that 64% of our budget is centered around the academic excellence of students.

And that equates to a little over $68 million.

The other areas fall within our safe and supportive schools and organizational supports.

I will now talk about our enrollment.

What you see on this slide is our enrollment.

and it goes back all the way to 2003.

If you look on the far right side of, on the right side of this chart, what you see is that our enrollment for the school year 2020, I'm sorry, for 2022 is almost back at our pre-pandemic levels.

We actually are within 70 students of our peak, which was back in 2017.

when there were 4,561 students.

I do feel inclined to say, you know, I've said a couple of times throughout this budget presentation that I've been very appreciative of how we have worked in collaboration with you all as a city.

I think that we've been very transparent in our communications and you all have been as well.

And I think that one of the things that will

We will need to prioritize in terms of our communication is what happens with housing.

What we know is that there are some housing projects and developments that are happening within the South First Street, within Friendship Court.

And we know that the schools that are currently servicing those housing communities are already, the enrollment at those schools are high.

And we know that that will have implications for how we serve those students.

Dr. Dooley, can I ask you one question?

Absolutely.

You note that the enrollment has recovered almost to the pre-pandemic levels.

What are other school divisions seeing?

Are they seeing the same dip and rise back up?

I will say with some regards, we are a little bit of an anomaly in the sense that not every school division has returned to pre-pandemic levels.

I think what you will see in a few slides is that a lot of our enrollment is now being impacted by our students who are receiving English as a second language services.

Those numbers are driving our enrollment up significantly.

So I know that Charlottesville has welcomed a lot of refugees in the last two or three years.

Yes, sir.

Yes.

So through our collaboration with the IRC, we have welcomed quite a few students.

And we have a couple of slides that are dedicated to that this evening.

So I think you're going to get a lot of your answers there, Mr. Mayor.

All right.

And here's a breakdown of how we are servicing our students.

by grade level, by enrollment level.

And you see, we do service quite a few students at our pre-K level.

And then you see at the elementary on through secondary.

And so that does give us, that did give us a grand total of 4,491 students.

And again, that's getting our numbers back up.

One of the things that we do want to talk about is that our enrollment is changing.

And one of the data points that we've spent a considerable amount of time talking is that we do have to service the needs of our students different.

We have to delineate how we service our students.

And so one of those

delineations is our students that fall into that disadvantage category.

And so what we know is that we have students who are qualifying for Medicaid and that number has increased.

We have our students who require McKinney-Vento

McKinney-Vento is our homeless program and so just as a point of reference that if a student is a Charlottesville student and if for some reason their family is experiencing a need such as they become homeless we have to service those students regardless of where they are we have to transport those students

And so what we see here is that that number is rising.

This school year, we did have to service 56 students.

I'm sorry, we serviced 56 students for the 21-22 school year.

And as of January the 13th, we serviced 96 students, which is an increase.

And a lot of times, these are things that we've not budgeted for.

So when we get a student, we're required by state law to service the student regardless of the need.

And so whether we budget it for that or not, and so we have that number is ticking up

and then we do have students and so as we try to tease out the need one of the things that has kind of clouded that is that we have had the free meals for students and so that's kind of masked our data in terms of who the students are and so that's just something to keep in something to keep in mind and so what you see presented here are the schools who are our CEP schools and those are our schools that we were

I'm providing those free lunches too.

And those schools are Clark, Jackson, Viya, and Johnson, and they received people for COVID.

Yes, sir.

Community Eligibility Program.

Yeah.

So and it's based on, so part of that, if I call correctly, part of that is based on the percentage of need.

So if you meet the eligibility based on the number of students who have the direct need, then that's how we, Mr. Jones, who was our

who is our school nutrition supervisor.

He submits that application based on the school's eligibility.

So this kind of goes to some of the questions that Mayor Snook had.

I want to first bring your attention to the top left where you see June the 11th of 2022 for our school division.

On June the 11th, which was the last day of school, we had 548 students

who were receiving services as a student with English as a second language.

So the students who we were providing tier one, two, level one, two or three supports for.

At the beginning of the school year, we were providing, so over that summer, we had some enrollment.

So at the beginning of the school year, when we did our first snapshot of student enrollment, which was September the 30th, 2022,

That number had risen to 613 students.

And then as of January the 17th of 2023, the number of students that we were providing English as a Second Language services to, that number was 646.

And so that's an increase of 98 students since the end of the last school year.

And so I want to make sure that you understand exactly what that 98 means.

Most certainly that we get ADM for students.

And so as the, as our student enrollment increases, we, you know, sometimes have to get classroom teachers.

But in this, but in the case of our English as a Second Language program, it's kind of twofold.

that when not only does it impact the number of classroom teachers that we need, but this also means that we need teachers to provide those English as a second language services to our students.

And so if you start to look across, if you look across the chart, what you'll see is that, for example, where you see JBES, that's Jackson-Vaya Elementary School,

Jackson Viya increased the number of students requiring ESL students by 23 since last school year and so that's a lot of students requiring services so we have had to do some shifts to ensure that we can support the number of students and so the students range from students who have

know English to students that do have some English.

And so we do have to vary those levels of support.

And so as you look across, you'll even see that the high school, Charlottesville High School went from 131 students requiring ESL services on January, on June the 11th to as of the 17th of January, we have

increased by 52 students.

So the need is significant.

And when we talk about the high school,

One of the questions that occurred during one of the budget sessions is that when we get students in at the high school level, regardless of whether they have any English language proficiency, they are still held to the same accountability standards.

So they're still required to meet the same graduation requirement, even if they have no English.

And so that does pose itself as a barrier and a challenge, but our teachers work really hard

We do have five teachers.

in that area.

So we've seen an increase of about 33% since last June.

And so our coordinator for English language learners, she is projecting an increase of another 100 students over next school year.

And I will tell you that she's been pretty spot on this school year.

And so if you look at that trend, that means we will again be increasing the number of teachers and supports.

Question.

So am I reading it wrong that there were 19 ESL teachers before that addition and it's been flat since then?

So currently there are 19 teachers providing the services to those students, even with the increases.

We did, I think back in November or December, we did add a position there to support the increases.

And I'll talk about in a couple of slides, the ask from the team in terms of adding, but yes, they have been, those 19 teachers are providing the services across our school division.

Anything else related to this slide?

All right.

And so here you see that back during 21, back during 21, 14% of our students were identified as English language learners.

And then as of 20, 10% of those students, that was an increase of about 3% of the students required ESL services.

So I wanna talk about the student experiences.

So we have made it a point as the school board and as a division leadership staff that how do we preserve our students' experiences in this budget?

And so I'm just gonna give you a very high level of what our students are experiencing and how we are trying to preserve those things even with the additional needs.

So we currently are using the science of reading.

So our reading program at all of our elementary schools is based in the science of reading.

So that's engaging our students in research-based instruction.

We have our

math teachers who are going through a math workshop to ensure that there is this continuity of math instruction across our school division.

We are engaging our students in hands-on activities through our science curriculum, and that's the STEM scopes.

We are tiering our supports, so we recognize that our students are coming to us with differentiated needs.

And so we are making sure that we are providing those tiered levels of supports to those students.

Our students are participating in college visits through our First Gens program through our AVID program.

So they're having that experiences.

And then we have our Model Congress at Beaufort and then we're doing the living museums actually bringing the curriculum to life for our students.

We also know that our students need to engage in our instruction, and so we are doing that through our Wild Rock program, ensuring that our students have equitable experiences.

We have an ESL engineering club, so they're doing coding and electronics projects.

This school year, we were able to bring back our Buford, we were able to bring back the Buford football team, and that actually became co-ed.

We had two females on the team this school year,

And then we do have a robust fine arts program.

So lastly, with our student experiences, we know that our students, again, they're coming to us with different needs.

And so we know that we have the Youth Futures Program, and that's being facilitated by our IRC.

And then we have the Buford Eats, which is basically the farm to table.

and then our mental health.

We have placed a huge emphasis over the last few years on mental health.

And so we are ensuring through this budget process that we continue to preserve that.

And so what you see in some of those pictures, we do think that mentoring you see in that picture that we've been trying to meet students where they are.

And we believe that that happens through mentorship

So we have been prioritizing and will continue to prioritize the needs of our students.

It is school mental health professionals.

I don't think we would have enough paper for it though.

All right, so here go our budget changes document.

The first three the first three lines here coincide with the requirement from our governor where we last this school year we were required to provide a five percent pay increase to our SOQ positions and we know that we didn't just do that for the SOQ because we in order for Charlottesville schools of city schools to function we need

to staff beyond the SLQ.

So we did that this school year.

We provided the average of the 5% raise.

And what you see in the first three lines, we are proposing for FY24 that we do the same because it is one of the requirements of the governor's budget to do the 5% raise.

We had some step corrections that needed to happen.

Staff members, not just teachers.

We have some staff members who were frozen.

Their salaries were frozen during the pandemic.

And so we are proposing some changes here to correct that freeze.

Additionally, we do know that we're going to have some rise in healthcare costs.

We had some rise, some increases in our employee assistance programs.

And then lastly, we had some VEC increases.

Down in the reoccurring and non-discretionary costs, I know that one of the things that had come up at previous work sessions was with regards to the people transportation contract.

And I know that both teams, the city schools team, and I know the city government team has been working really closely on that.

So I know that now we did get that down.

We did get that amount down.

I think it's about $36,000 decrease there.

So that number did go down.

And then one of the reoccurring costs that you see, and this is not the cost, this is the amount of the increase here.

What you see is the interpreting cost is going up.

And that's because the number of students and families that we're servicing, that number is going up.

And I can tell you that if we continue, that if that number continues to trend up, even after the next school year, that line item will continue to increase.

and I think that that's all that I wanted to highlight there.

Are there any questions before I move on to the next page?

This is maybe putting you on the spot.

Yes, I do.

And I thought that was in my slide.

It was on one of our last slides.

So we have 42, we have 42 languages spoken right now.

And I think,

Most, the two highest languages spoken are Arabic, Spanish

Yeah.

Yeah.

So those are our number one languages spoken right now.

And it's hard at some, it's hard at times to get interpreting services through there.

So we, we contract that service through, through a language line.

And so that's what we use for some of our interpreting calls and we contract the services to have our documents

translated for our families as well.

And so that really, and that requires a lot on our staff too, because right now we do have a Welcome Center.

We did that this school year.

Dr. Jeannie Fouts is the coordinator for our English Language Learner Services.

Obviously collective bargaining has been passed from the city's end.

We anticipated some administrative positions and cost increases from it.

Yes, so it's not passed yet.

We did the first reading at the board meeting in, this is February?

It's February.

Months is long.

So we did the first reading this month.

We'll do the second reading next month.

We do not have any costs reflected here.

I think that's the part that we've been working through with the CEA.

I don't think that we quite know what it looks like yet.

We have a school board attorney that has been retained specifically for collective bargaining.

And so I think that's the part that we are working through.

Thank you.

No, thank you.

In terms of the request, you see in the far right-hand corner, there's a three.

There is a request for three additional teachers for the English as a Second Language program.

That three most certainly is not reflective of what the 100, they can't handle the whole 100, but we don't expect to have 100 new students at the beginning of the school year.

We do expect that that will happen over the course of the school year.

And one of the things we try to keep a one to 30, we try to keep about a one to 30 ratio in terms of how we support our

students with English as a second language.

We do have a need here for data and digital learning specialists.

We have seen an increase in the state reporting right now that's being handled by one person.

is doing quite a few and when I say quite a few I think it's about we are over 30 state reports as a school division and so she currently handles that so this position is kind of a hybrid someone who can support with doing the role of state reporting but also working alongside teachers on some of our

Data solution programs throughout our school division.

And then we placed an emphasis on graduation.

We are adding a graduation coach.

We do believe that in order for our students to be successful, they need the supports as they transition to ninth graders.

We know that we keep a watch list where we want to support students on the front end and the graduation coach most certainly

can take some of that burden off of school counselors who are taxed and they can provide those what we call tier two and tier three supports in terms of making sure that they reach the finish line which is graduation.

And then we are going to do an administrative cohort.

We are trying to grow our own.

What we found is that we don't have a viable list of like second string candidates as people get new jobs and move on.

We had some difficulties just

Trying to find APs over the course of the summer last year.

So this program is a one year, three semester program.

It's a fall, spring, and then a summer.

And then they will have the administrative endorsement.

So we do want to support our staff through that.

You'll see that there's some materials and supplies to support football.

Again, that's because earlier I said that the football team did return this year, but then it also supports all of our athletic programs over at Beaufort and then our Teacher of the Year program.

In terms of reductions, you see our vacancy savings.

It's like one of those things that's a gift and a curse.

We've had some trouble in certain spaces where we've had some difficulties just attracting teachers to fill some of those positions.

And so that does create this vacancy savings here.

And so some of those positions are being filled by

qualified long term substitutes, but ultimately the goal is we are working with human resources now to get out to job fairs and to get those positions and to get those positions filled.

We are going to eliminate two positions.

No one's losing their job.

These were two positions that were in the budget.

We could not get them filled and they don't have any impact to the actual student experience.

So we're gonna go ahead and remove those positions and that creates the vacancy savings there.

And then lastly, you see that the Teachers for Tomorrow program, we had some money designated for that.

And we are still seeing whether the program will be viable.

And if it is, we can work it into the teacher schedule.

And if it's not, then we will look at something that's high interest for the students as we move forward.

We have state revenue listed here of about $2.5 million.

And that's, of course, the increase.

And that's based on that fall membership data.

And then we had the decreases to the ESSER funds, which I'll talk about in a few slides in the back.

And then the estimated requests that we had from the city of the $4 million.

Any questions with regards to this slide?

Yes.

Yes.

The new FTEs are the three ESL teachers.

So on the... I saw those at the bottom, but those are all for the whole...

Yes, yes.

So this is all the request for the entire school division.

And we'll talk about what that number looks like, what that means for the bottom line.

But yes, this is it.

And we feel that you don't see a lot of ask here.

We want to keep this about the teacher compensation, preserving our students' experience, providing first-class quality education here in Charlottesville City Schools.

Yes, sir.

Great question.

Here, this slide, I know you all have seen on the news, there was an error at the VDOE with regards to the calculation of the basic aid.

And that was due to them not recognizing the grocery tax

hold harmless payments back for the 23 and the 24 year.

So that did create an error for us.

That shortage was about $302,000.

And we are right now just monitoring it closely at the state level to see how they plan to adjust or support localities.

impacted every school division throughout the Commonwealth.

And so right now we're just going to just kind of wait and see what's going to happen.

Hoover and I participated in a webinar, I think that was Monday, or Monday of this week, which feels like last week.

We participated in a webinar, and we thought that they were going to talk about the era for the next school year, and they only talked about FY23.

which was really weird because there was a lot of people on that call and I think we were all waiting to hear the same thing.

I think that they have, they don't have it figured out yet.

Just to be honest, they don't have it figured out yet.

So we, they said play with the calc tool.

I heard that a couple times.

Just play with the calc tool.

See if you find any errors, but right now we don't know what, we do expect to hear something and there's a lot of chatter around the state so everyone's being impacted and we know that there is a, we have heard that there is some surpluses at the state level so hopefully we will hear back about that soon.

You all probably have seen this over the course of over the course of budget presentations over previous years and this is just the school's increases and the city's contributions and of course I think that there was the one year where there was no contribution and that was during the

the pandemic.

And so this is just this just is reflective of your contributions to the city schools.

And again, I think I said this in previous and previous budgets, but we are very appreciative of the city's of the city's contributions to us.

We are most certainly hopefully what you're seeing throughout our budget presentation.

of the public's money and keep it close to students and about the compensation of our teachers

So this is a slide that we have been using and this is really our dependency on the non-reoccurring funds and that's those ESSER funds.

And really we were using the analogy of cooling the thermometer, getting off of that, getting off the dependency of those non-reoccurring funds.

And so with the,

the estimated ask the $4 million that does get us off of that fiscal cliff that we were worried about, that we know people's jobs and programs were attached to those non-reoccurring funds.

Yes.

I wanted it to be clear, but my team said there's actually something in the thermometer and you can't get the, you can't get that out.

So yeah, so we had to leave a little bit in there for the purposes of, yes, yes.

So we did leave that there.

So in terms of your FY24 appropriation, it does, again, remove the federal fund cliffs.

It helps us to stabilize our operation.

It does position the schools to support the critical infrastructure.

And so I know we have our working jointly with the city in terms of how we contribute our funds to our

capital improvement, our capital improvement programs.

And so I think it was just worth noting that here.

And then I think this is about a lastly statement here.

Yep.

So lastly, I think what you want to see here, then kind of going back to what Mr. Pinkston, you know, our change with this school year is $46,000.

You know, the ask, so based on your contribution,

to our budget, this budget change for the upcoming school year.

And I think this number, is this number right?

It changed because of the city.

I told us 166,170.

So I apologize for that.

Yeah, I just thought about that.

New former has calculated.

ESSER, that's the... Federal funding.

Obviously, also the K-Tech acquisition, I assume is the expectation that's about one million a year, you're all at once coming 100% from the school, our city's CIP budget.

Oh, I'm sorry.

OK.

So the question was, what's the question again?

Well, I thought it would just be another expense.

Oh.

No.

Once the purchase is completed, I understand that we can either spend it from the 5.3 outlight, which would come from the CIP, or we could do it 757,000

for a year, for seven years, also could come from CIP.

And we're looking at how we can do that now.

It may make sense to just buy it outright because we would use bond proceeds and our rate of interest rate on proceeds would be very low.

So we haven't decided that yet.

We're still considering that.

So basically we should expect that in our budget work sessions or any kind of request from the world.

Anything that can, it's my presentation if there are no further questions.

My first time doing it in this manner.

Oh, you did great.

Thank you.

We're very grateful for this budget because it's very, it's basically not adding very much except for our need to, which is so great.

It's like not new programming, new programming.

And then of course supporting our teachers and staff.

I just think that's a really good budget that Dr. Gurley has created.

So again, Dr. Gurland, on behalf of the school board, thank you for that presentation.

Great budget.

I have one question.

The number of students at CHS, I thought I had recalled it having been significantly lower.

And I think part of, yep, it's an increase.

And I think part of also what you see is, you know, those English language students are also reflected in that number.

If you look at how many students we've increased just this school year.

So, and you know, a large number of those teachers, as we talked about in the presentation are there at the high school supporting those students.

The growth bubble that started in our elementary schools, there was a disruption and the bubble kind of popped with the pandemic.

But then, and we didn't know how quickly that cohort, if you will, would reassemble and show up on the shores of CHS.

It did.

It's there.

Not really.

The 9th grade cohort, the current 9th grade cohort, is the largest cohort in the building.

I think it's the largest.

Yes, they say it's one of the largest you all have had.

So we did have to, for the current school year, we did place some additional teachers there.

And so we will, and we're continuing to monitor that we've been having meetings to discuss the master's schedule and how we continue to support those students.

But yeah, that ninth grade cohort is a very large cohort.

Could you please, maybe it's

We did not.

After we, I guess after the new conversations with the city team, we didn't update.

We forgot to update that slide.

No.

Yes.

That's the one, this one.

This slide's been updated.

At this time, I think I have a couple of questions I would like to ask.

I'm not sure if it's for me or Snook or Mr. Rogers.

We currently have approximately 10 dedicated transit operators for people with an additional two in training.

You may recall that we did increase the hourly rate for transit operators.

as a way to attract more drivers and to stem the diet of exiting drivers.

And that seems to have had some effect in terms of hiring.

We've hired more people.

Well, currently you have two in trains or I think it's 14.

Yeah.

You have additional two in the pipeline that are awaiting the background checks.

We have four that are in the system that apply and we need to go through that.

So the numbers are starting to come up.

Our advertising campaign you will see started, I believe yesterday.

So you will see a full blanket commercial that will hit all of the networks for the next four months.

Our goal is to get to 30.

That is our working number that provides us with covering all and also giving us

a couple, maybe four drivers for the week.

But that's the goal.

And that's really basically our minimum.

So that we would like to be higher than that, but we understand budgetary issues that everybody has.

All right, thank you.

I had a question.

I took some notes.

The fiscal year contract is about a 12% increase on the current driver pool going up from 12 to 24.

But that number might be off because you added some new ones.

So the city's general fund appropriation is for one year and it expires at the end of the year.

Those unused dollars that are left over roll over and become part of the city surplus and by policy those go to the CIP.

Thank you.

So we are dealing with a lot of concerns about behaviors in our school, which I'm sure you guys heard of in the news.

So we're seeing that lots of them are still over from activities in the community as well.

I think that is certainly a conversation that we should have.

I know we have a new police chief and

He's been out and about and getting involved and engaged in the community and he's very interested in finding ways to make the community feel safer.

Some of the incidents that we're experiencing with young people in the communities

we've got to find a way to get to those kids and help support them and mentor them so that it addresses some of the behaviors that spill over from the streets to the schools.

So we could talk about that and see how we can work together to really focus on the younger ones

What I hear is that people say we don't have enough to do in this community, the young people do.

So we've got to solve that problem and we've got to talk about it.

I'd love for us to engage in some of those conversations.

I think what we're finding is that it's not just the young people.

We've got parents then that are engaging in the same altercations that their children are.

And so we're trying to provide supports in school.

Overwhelmingly, our schools are safe.

Our kids are doing the right thing.

Yeah.

Can I just add to what Ms.

Dooley brought up?

I would echo that I think it's really important for us right now.

And what we're seeing is some behaviors

on the part of some students that are making our schools not safe for the rest of the students.

And so we then are faced with what to do about this should these students just not be in school or what?

So it becomes very difficult for us.

It seems like there are some students that can't function appropriately in a normal school environment.

And those numbers are a little bit higher than they have been in the past.

So I think it is a real struggle for us.

We don't want to abandon the students, but we also

If you abandon the students, the problem goes from the schools to the streets.

And that creates another cycle.

So we want to do things that will save these kids.

And that's where we have to put our hands.

Thank you Miss Dooley for putting this on the radar because I think we need to have

And I think that along the lines of Dr. Kraft, you know, it's really about money and resources because I think that we can, not I think, I know that we can reimagine what's needed for our students

But you do have to have the resources, the funds, to be able to do those things.

Because we are, I think, Mr. Snooks asked about the capacity.

I mean, we are limited by the capacity in that sense in terms of where we can serve these students.

Like right now, I mean, our

Our alternative program is, you know, it's a small building.

And I don't think that every student that displays the behavior should go there.

But it does, we are limited about where we can serve these students and we need to remove them temporarily from the building and

Right.

Absolutely.

To what extent is there a thought that this may be related to, you know, lack of socialization during COVID times?

I just think that we are, that sometimes people don't know how to express their needs.

I think this is a reflection of something that's bigger.

I think it's a school need.

It's a community need.

They're tied to some generational things.

And I just think that we have to help people unlearn some very bad behavior.

But I don't think that this is not a blame this on COVID, no.

I think you're seeing this nationwide.

I think that what we've heard is we've seen this in Charlottesville for decades.

And so I just think that it's, you know, we're just at the point where we stopped talking about it as a school system and as a city, and we just say, we're going to do what we said we're going to do.

And Mayor Smith, just to add kind of to what one has been saying, one of my first experiences when I moved here, kind of these generational things is that

Just when you look at a preschool, here in Charlottesville, I grew up in Arkansas, so I guess the whole state of Title I, everyone goes to preschool.

But here, either you have to, it's like the dichotomy, you have to be able to afford something very nice, or you have to qualify because you don't make enough.

Even with those spaces, it's limited.

And then you have the, so like, there's a segregation that starts in Charlottesville very early on.

and then also on one of the budget points, Dr. Gurley mentioned that we, that the football team came back at Beaufort and you know, we're all learning.

I don't know what I don't know until I realize it, but the amount, Beaufort itself, the school, the amount of resources that the, like if you look at our elementary schools, the resources that we have, then when we get to the upper elementary and the middle school level, the resources that go into those schools right now, Walker,

and Beaufort are both Title I. Everyone gets a free lunch, but they didn't even have a sports team at Beaufort.

You know, meanwhile, if you're in this community, you have resources, you can play in all the leagues, you can do all these things.

And so that's another, like, so if you're a student and you're dealing with all these things at the Buford level, there's no outlet to even play sports or do things like that.

And those are historical things that have happened.

And then when we get to the high school level, we have a plethora of programming, but we've lost some students already before we're even, not lost,

And they're failing their academic subjects.

Well, I don't think all the I'm speaking specifically, you're showing up every day and doing what you're supposed to, even if you need an outlet.

There's no outlet there for you.

And the city does a lot of good programming, but there's some things like that Buford, that situation, that's decades old, that neglect.

No.

They have basketball.

They've had baseball.

They've had wrestling.

They've had a lot.

I mean,

This is the first year they've had football in a long time.

But they've had cheerleading, they've had many other.

My children both play baseball and wrestling at University.

I would just like to add to the conversation that when we are talking about mobilizing the community, it is going to be extremely important that we have those parents at the table

somehow to reach out and embrace those parents because that's the key element that's missing.

We must have the voices of those parents, especially those students who are having difficulties in school with their academics, you know, skipping and fighting.

Those parents need to be at the table.

We have hands and butts about it.

That's where I would also be concerned about the police being like the first kind of way we think about this.

I think we you know there's a lot of social services in our community and while I applaud the police chief for wanting to get in the community and be active here I don't think that is the only

Chair Bryan and others, have you all had an even just brainstorming thoughts about what beginning that conversation could look like?

Is it community forums with the school board and city council reaching out to people more one on one and directly first or

I think if I can, I think it requires us as a think tank to know what we're going to offer people.

I think that they're tired of hearing us talk.

They're tired of hearing us talk.

I mean, they want, when we show up, they want to know that this is going to be available.

I mean, every time a parent meets with me, they say, there's not, there's nothing here for me.

There's nothing here for my child to do.

And I think that when we show up, we have to be able to say that on this date, this will be available.

Because I think that they just keep telling me, you know, they're tired of hearing me talk.

I think to your question, Mr. Payne, like, yes, all of that, right, the forums.

Just one last question, which is a totally different topic, but returning to the collective bargaining.

I guess more just a thought, but you know, as you, as you finalize it, I think it would be great if there is any opportunity for the school to rely on our labor relations administrator position.

Let's talk about that.

I think the starting point really is just raising the visibility of these issues.

I think there are ways of going about it.

But I think having gatherings where people can get together, where parents will be able to come, where we'll be able to come, where some students will be able to come, and other community partners can be there just to begin that.

And I think there are a lot of smart people in Charlottesville who could help us then figure out directions that we need to go to

I just wanted to add that I really appreciate the effort that you guys have the city has made around crossing guards and our walk to school.

issues.

I just feel like I think there's some action stuff that you all have taken.

And I just really appreciate that for our students who are walking to school and, of course, our staff who are working crossing guards.

And so I think that is a huge way that we've been able to collaborate this year and especially very quickly.

So we're still all learning, but I just think it's very important to acknowledge that you guys have really supported us in that.

And I appreciate that.

and also of course with all the CIP asks, just been incredibly grateful for your support for those like transformational projects.

So it's really exciting time for a lot of those projects and that could not have been done without y'all's help and support and collaboration.

So I've sent a couple of chats across to our attendees.

Anybody who would like to make a public comment, we just ask that you raise your hand using the raise hand feature.

I'm going to promote him.

And first name's listed as Sandra.

Sandra, you have three minutes for public comment.

Yes, can you guys hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

Good evening, counselors and members of the board.

My name is Saundra Avalos-Poe.

I'm a community organizer for Charlottesville United for Public Education, championing students and families in Charlottesville.

I'm here to ask for continued and increased financial support of our schools and highlight three of the most important needs that I'm hearing within the community.

The first need that we have had continued

To hear from within the community is reconfiguration.

As part of a former Charlottesville City Schools student, I want to say thank you for your support and in the reconfiguration of Buford and Walker.

This critical transition period for young students deserves this refresh and investment.

Charlottesville United would love to see this project continue to move forward as well as ensuring this project continues to be fully funded.

The second need that we're receiving a lot of input about is safety within our schools.

And it is a topic that we have heard a lot about today.

As we continue to deal with the fallout from COVID and its economic and emotional toll, we've started to see this fallout show up as students acting out in school.

Right now, our schools need extra support to truly ensure all students can heal and thrive.

I ask that we continue to keep safety for our students and our staff as a top priority.

I also wanted to add an additional commentary on that, and that is that I have noticed within the conversation that we've had today that we are really trying to pinpoint and point fingers towards what are the issues that are going on, what is causing this within students.

And I think that a huge part of it has to do with their upbringing,

It has to do with the things that they're living their day-to-day lives, the resources that they either are lacking.

So I think it's really hard to try and say that students are acting out for a specific reason.

I think it's more important to figure out how we can collaborate together to find a solution because these students are top priority for us.

We need to be able to do what needs to be done for them.

And then the last need that we actually have heard of the most is transportation.

Again, thank you guys for having that conversation about transportation today.

Our lack of transportation to schools continues to be a top issue for families.

Charlottesville United has partnered with the Community Solutions Clinic to better understand the problems and possible solutions as we need continued focus on this issue.

Charles United wants to be a partner in ensuring our families and students' voices are heard and addressed and would love to collaborate to ensure our schools and our students have the resources that they need.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Kristen, just say your name.

I don't have any longer children in the schools.

I've got children.

Oh, thanks.

Okay.

So I have both a quick comment and then a question about going back to the budget.

The comment is one of the ideas that I've heard floated around in the community is I love the idea of the school board and the city and even the police talking about what could happen, but I would also love to see those bodies listen and have a community forum where there is no real input from the city or the school board or the police just saying, so you all know your kids best, what's going on?

What could help?

What do you want from us?

and to use that as a basis for the planning for the actions, which is really, I think is absolutely correct.

Talking, talk is cheap, but I think that would help to inform some of that decision making.

So the other question I had was about the data specialists that you're adding, I think a half a data specialist onto the staff.

Is that person a person who could also be responsive to some of the neighborhood based organizations looking at disaggregated data so that they can track progress

No, we have the Office of Strategic Initiatives and so that would fall under, anything community-based would fall under our equity and community engagement.

I would like to reiterate again and thank the city council members and Mr. Rogers for attending tonight's meeting.

We are very grateful as a school board to be able to work and collaborate with you and we are very grateful for all that you do to support the Charleston City Schools and the students

of our school system.

We are certainly ever so grateful.

And thank you again for attending tonight's meeting.