School Board Meeting   6/27/2023

Miss Dooley, thumbs up if you can hear me.

Miss McKeever, thumbs up if you can hear us.

Great.

We are live just because I needed to make that happen.

And it's 459.

Good afternoon, everyone.

It's June 27, 2023, and I call this meeting to order.

Do we have a motion at this time to grant access to our school board meeting?

Dr. Kraft, Ms.

Emily Dooley, and Ms.

Jennifer McKeever.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

The ayes have it.

Next I'd like to have a moment of silence.

Yes, sir.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

McKeever?

Here.

Ms.

Do I have a motion to adopt for approval of the agenda?

So moved.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

All opposed?

We now have comments from the community.

And I would like to start with Miss Christine Esposito.

I live in the city and I have for the last eight years been a gifted specialist at Johnson Elementary.

On the morning of June 3rd, I posted on Facebook about how happy I was to work at Johnson.

I recounted a moment I witnessed during the school-wide morning meeting the day before that reminded me why it is so important for all families to be represented and celebrated in our schools.

It was one of those moments in your life where if you had ever been uncertain about the beauty and power of love, those doubts would have vanished forever.

Imagine my horror, and quite frankly, the horror of most of the Johnson School staff on Monday morning to find that video of our students was beginning to circulate, not to celebrate the fact that our fourth grade students planned and executed a school-wide morning meeting on their own, one that focused on getting ready for summer, for acknowledging and celebrating Pride Month, as we acknowledge and celebrate many different cultural months throughout the year, but instead use that video to attack the Johnson community and to put our community in danger.

There's room for disagreement on many issues, but we will not debate the inherent right of the LGBTQ community to exist, to be accepted, to be loved, and to thrive within our schools.

Public schools are for the public, the whole public.

When one group's views require the marginalization, othering, or outright erasure of members of our community, they do not belong in public school.

Over the last few years, we've seen what happens when schools are singled out as they work to ensure that every student and every family feels seen and included in our communities.

Anyone who took even a moment to think about the current environment surrounding these issues would not have recorded or released that video because they'd have understood they were putting our students and the wider community at risk.

They'd have remembered what it was like to be the focal point of an entire country because outside hate groups brought violence to our community as we tried to right the wrongs in our community's history.

They'd have thought better of scoring points on the backs of our students.

They didn't.

Quite simply, the person who recorded that video has forfeited their right to belong to the Johnson community.

Thank you, Ms.

Is there anyone in the Zoom room?

Same thing.

I'll just ask if you're in the attendees gallery and you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand or

Our next item on the agenda is the adoption of the consent agenda.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Motion passed.

Next on the agenda, action items.

I think Ms.

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

I move that we

Can I ask a point of clarification?

The name change will not change until, can you just remind me of the timing please?

So the recommendation was that the name change take place when the

The seventh and eighth graders move into the new building.

I guess my point of clarification, just Buford will remain until we're just, yeah, just so we're all on the same page.

The other point of clarification that I would just like to mention is there's a process we're going to be going through with the state.

with regard to recognizing the new grade configuration and renaming all of those things.

So we have direction or suggestion from BMDO.

We will also be going through this process with VDOE in conjunction with the new grade configuration and so forth.

So they may weigh in, and that could also tweak the timeline.

But to your point, it's not happening immediately.

But what is happening immediately is the design work and other work

What I was saying, if I may address the audience, is that the name change doesn't go into effect immediately.

It does inform design decisions and design work that is happening through the summer and into the fall in particular.

Some of the procurement then also associated with the design, those things are happening within the next

six to 12 months that that work begins.

As far as the actual changing of the name, what Ms.

Dooley was referring to is that it doesn't happen next school year on the first day of school.

This coming school year, it is still Buford Middle School because there is a recommendation that the name change coincide with when the

Seventh and eighth graders move into the new newly constructed building.

We will also be working with VDOE as required to inform that to file paperwork about the how the grade levels are going to change and all of that.

And with the new building and they require certain paperwork, they may weigh in on the timing of when that change actually goes into effect.

I just wanted to add that as a school board and school division, our commitment is to no longer name schools after people.

And so this is in keeping with that as well.

But as a reminder, we no longer are moving in the direction of naming schools after people.

Miss Torres.

and Ms.

Morris.

So we have a first and second.

Okay, all in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

So the ayes have it, 7-0.

Let's change the name of Buford Middle School to Charlottesville Middle School.

Next on the agenda is Dr. Odie.

At the June 1st school board meeting, Ms.

Swift brought to you and presented the policy updates at that time.

Any discussion?

All opposed?

So the ayes have it.

Next, Ms.

Good evening, Mr. Bryan and Dr. Gurley and school board members.

I'm here to ask for a technical budget amendment on the FY2024 budget.

As you may recall, when we were going through the budget development for 2024, we included the preschool program.

That preschool program was for the regular three and four year olds.

And as we were going forth, I realized that the preschool program needed to be consolidated into our regular program because they are an intricate part of that.

So I'm asking the school board to

approve a technical budget amendment transferring $1,236,962 from the general fund to the special revenue fund.

This does not change our bottom line.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

The ayes have it.

Thank you Ms.

The next item that you have in front of us is as we are planning and our fiscal year end and projecting how our fiscal year end is going to look for 2023

We are anticipating having a surplus.

That surplus is based on us drawing down more SR3 funding than what we have budget.

This is anticipation of what we're hearing coming out of the federal government of them pulling back those funds if they're not obligated and convert.

And the other,

and then our unfilled vacancy savings.

So one of the items that we would like to do is, again, we want to transfer money from the general fund to the special revenue fund to cover for another year of our social emotional learner counselors.

This will, if you recall,

We did the exact same transfer last year for this program.

So taking last year's set aside, and if the board approves this year's set aside, we will have set aside or accumulate a million dollars to keep this program going through fiscal year 2026.

Ms.

Yeah, thank you.

So just a little explanation, if you don't mind, or I have a couple questions.

So we, based on the report that we received,

I'm looking at about $4 million.

So and again, if you could review for us and the public how that works.

So how much goes to the city?

The surplus that we have at the end of the fiscal year

The first 100,000 comes back to the schools and then anything over that is split 50-50.

How much goes to the city?

I said about 1.9 million out of that 4 million.

If you recall from the CIP process, we made verbal agreements that whatever we have at our fiscal year end,

So we have a verbal request and did we get a verbal confirmation back?

I mean, is that, yeah.

So Michael Goddard in Facilities Development and I have started this conversation and he and I will be starting the summer preparing the next round of the CIP work that you all review.

You know, we go through that CIP process every fall.

And so this conversation, you know, we were where we were kind of working towards the middle school until now.

Thankfully, gotten over that hump.

And so now we know what our next hill is to climb, if you will, I think everyone's aware of that we don't have anything beyond the verbal conversations at this point.

But this next round of CIP work that we're looking that we're starting now, and we'll be presenting around mid September, October timeframe, I believe is when that meeting occurs.

That's when we come together again in earnest with city council represented, you know, other city leaders, board representation, and we start to hone in in a more solid way on those plans.

I appreciate that and I know that you know some of the counselors you know went on record and saying that it was they felt it was really important that we start to even create you know a pre preschool tip holding they or whatever we want to call it so I you know I plan to continue to bring that up I was really excited to hear them say that

and just planning, but trying to not be where we were in the last year of having to really work hard and work well with council to figure all of that out.

I feel like we have great precedence from our recent successes working together on how to do this.

And we're all looking for we're all thinking ahead.

being forward thinking about making the best use we can out of our resources.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

And then I was just curious, I'm sorry, Mr. Bryant.

So we're funding for another year for the S for the social emotional positions.

Can we fund beyond that?

Or can we only do a year at a time?

Well, our plan is to at some point, bring them back into the general fund.

Right.

Right.

Ms.

Morsberger.

Ms.

Dooley.

Any questions?

Okay.

Dr. Kraft.

Ms.

OK, thank you.

So we have a first and second, so we're ready for the vote.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Motion passed, 7-0.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next item on the agenda is items for discussion.

Now, 2023-2028 strategic plan, Ms.

Good evening, Mr. Bryant, school board members, Dr. Gurley.

We are pleased to be giving you an introduction today to what is really kind of the first reading of the full strategic plan.

I have shown you various parts and pieces.

You have had work sessions.

We've had the steering committee working all the way through.

The executive leadership team has been working all the way through.

But when we met in June, we were still doing a lot of detail work.

on the on the small details about the specific metrics, the specific strategies, things like that.

We do not intend to go through and discuss this line by line with you tonight.

We don't think that's a good use of your time or or this evening's time.

But what we'd like to do is just give you an introduction to the booklet to how that's organized and invite you to read it over the next couple of weeks through July 11.

and you can email any final changes, suggestions, edits to us at that point.

Then we will review that, give it back to the designer, get a fresh copy back to you.

I think the goal is to get it back to you by July 24th so that you'll have the final refinements in place well before the vote on August 1st.

So with that speaking, I'm just going to jump into this process.

Here's the timeline.

We've pretty much stuck to it.

I think by shifting this first reading from the beginning of the month till now, we may be behind by a few weeks, but still we've pretty much stuck to the timeline.

We have done the various engagement that we promised to do.

Some of these slides should look very familiar by now.

Here's where we start to get to some new or slightly revised things.

Here is the current cover.

and all those words where you see draft plan right there, that is one way that you can access the full plan for you and anyone else who is hoping to look into it more carefully and submit feedback.

Here is the revised mission vision and values.

It's not very changed from what we have been showing for the last perhaps month or so.

Same thing, the portrait of a graduate is not very changed from what we have shown.

But we appreciate the small edits that people have been passing along.

These four big priority areas are, I think, unchanged from what we have shown.

And again, from there, we start getting into the smaller details, and that's what we've really been kind of hashing out in the last month or so.

So with that in mind, I'm going to invite Dr. Odey up to speak about priority one and associated goals.

And again, we're not going to dive deeply here.

We're just offering you an introduction and an invitation.

And I can speak with personal experience that when I looked deeply into one of these first ones, I found a metric that didn't match up with its thing.

So you're still going to find small things like that.

All right, well, good evening again.

I'm going to start it with our first priority and the associated goals, as Ms.

Chuck said.

So here you see our first priority is to increase academic achievement.

The three goals are shown here.

All CCS learners will graduate equipped with a plan for the future.

Also, our CCS learners will have access to rigorous

inclusive and relevant learning experiences.

And did I skip one?

All right.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right, so next slide.

As Ms.

Schuck said, we're gonna just give you a sampling.

Our presentation is organized by the targets and the measurements, the strategies and the key performance indicators.

So here, you'll see the first one, maintaining the graduation rate that is at or above the state average across all student membership groups.

So we want to do that.

And of course, the measurement is going to be the actual graduation rate.

And then we want to have 100% of our students who will be equipped with a post-secondary plan.

So you see four things that we'll be using there to help us to measure that we're actually doing that work.

We want to increase the number of CHS students

enrolled at KTEC by 10% annually.

And of course, we'll be looking at that enrollment as we go along through the years.

And then as far as our AP and dual enrollment courses, we wanna make sure that the completion of those courses, it matches the demographics of our enrollment here at CCS.

Did you turn this on, Pat?

You have to push the button.

Thanks.

So again, just to clarify, there are not merely four target areas in this section.

I'm so sorry.

As a reminder, these are just four of the samples.

As you look further into the presentation, you'll see that there are many more targets and measurements that you will want you to take a look at over these next several weeks.

We're just giving you a little bite of it today.

So if you go on to the next slide here, we have the strategies.

And if you were to have that lined up with the targets and measurements, you'll see that the strategies that we have there match the targets that we had before you.

So the color coding there, also just look over at the right at the implementation plan, you'll see that we have

That yellow color or orange, whichever you want to call it, is sort of the planning.

The blue is for the implementation and the purple is for the refinement.

Some of the strategies that you'll see as you're looking at the plan, we're already working on those.

So we're already in implementation.

Some of them, we're going to be starting that work.

So we'll start the planning part.

So that that's there for you to see.

I'm not going to read that word for word if that's okay with you.

And so I'll go on to priority two, which is to provide a culture of safety, wellness, and belonging.

And so we've got those three goals there before you that align with this priority.

We want to make sure that our kids are safe.

We're going to support social, emotional, and physical wellness.

We're going to foster a sense of community, and we're going to promote a safe and positive learning environment for our students.

Again, we've got a sampling of the targets, three here that for your viewing enjoyment and the measurements that go with it.

All schools in the division will demonstrate annual improvement on the implementation of tiered and tiered supports.

As you know, we utilize

MTSS, you've heard us say VTSS or CTSS before.

We're really focusing on multi-tiered systems of supports.

And there are the measurements beside it there.

The next one here, all schools will demonstrate improvement on students' social-emotional learning data.

And so we do several measurements there.

The DESA mini, the DESA assessment, the RethinkEd data, all of those measurements there we would use for that.

And then the third sample that we have for you today, schools will demonstrate annual progress towards serving meals.

Now, this really falls in operations and school nutrition.

So free meals, we're looking healthy meals, locally sourced meals, all of that.

And so there are some measurements to the right there to help us know if we're meeting that target.

Next slide.

So again, these strategies here align with those targets there.

And you can see again, the color coded section.

And if you notice here, we're already in the implementation stage for each of these.

There's no planning, there's no orange on these samples here.

So we'll go right on into implementing over the next two, three, four years, and then to refinement after that.

And I think that's all for me.

And I'm going to turn it over to Ms.

Good evening, board chair and members of the board.

So the third priority is to focus on our support for staff.

Staff is always going to be a priority for the school division.

But as we go through the goals, one of the goals is that CCS will recruit and retain licensed and properly endorsed staff.

And then all of our staff will engage in meaningful, relevant, timely

professional development.

And then the third would be that we're actually going to recruit and retain teachers of color.

And then we want our staff, we want them to know that we value their voice.

So those are our focus areas.

One of the targets, as you know, is going to be that we're going to be fully staffed.

We just had a conversation about staffing.

Our goal is to get staffing at 100% by September 1st.

And we want to do that each year.

Some of the measurements are going to be that we measure how many vacancies we have and how quickly we're able to fill those.

And then we're also going to measure to make sure that they're properly endorsed.

Most of the other targets will center around having the right people in the right place, giving them the right professional development.

And then we're going to continue to grow staff internally too.

So we're going to identify cohorts of people who can move into leadership or move from an instructional assistant to a teacher so we can grow our own.

Next slide.

As you can see for the implementation or planning stages, we need to establish a new, more robust recruitment plan.

So we're going to plan through that, making sure that we have partnerships with schools and colleges and communities that we're attending, HBCU universities when we're doing our recruitment plan, as well as community colleges to make sure that we're

We're putting Charlottesville out there and securing the best people for the job.

And then we're going to continue to follow up and make sure that we're supporting the staff once we get them on board.

So we're going to constantly be collecting data about their instructional practices.

What are the needs in the building?

So for priority area four, we have our goals associated with ensuring effective and efficient operations.

These are all areas that I'm personally very excited and passionate about.

And there's a lot of exciting work going on here.

We have the modernization of our facilities.

We have the ongoing work to improve our efficiencies and continue to upgrade not just the overall facilities, but the important systems and equipment within our facilities.

We need to continue our work to promote sustainability and environmental awareness.

And then in all things, we must demonstrate fiscal stewardship.

So again, this is a sampling of our targets.

First, we have the annual work to continue doing the modernization projects that we've identified.

It was really a sort of a big shift, a watershed moment.

Some of you were on the board when this happened.

But when we moved our CIP beyond just being capital maintenance, and we started actually doing capital improvements.

That was a big improvement and a big shift.

Ms.

McKeever was on the CIP committee at that time, so was Ned Mickey.

And so I just want to take a moment and reflect on where we've been, where we were really just doing a lot of capital maintenance, and now we are actually doing modernizations and we need to continue that work and be vigilant with that.

KTEC, bringing that into our portfolio as an entirely owned entity of Charlottesville City is some other exciting work that we're doing.

And we're addressing that over the course of this transition year so that that particular target will be fully accomplished when we take ownership on July 1 of 2024.

And then the target three here is about another topic that's near and dear to many of our hearts are

transportation system and making sure that we continue to make improvements in that so that we eliminate the waitlist for any student who wants transportation that does not live inside of the family responsibility or walk zones.

And then beyond that just continuing to partner with the city where we've done some good work, but there's a lot more to do to improve bike and pedestrian infrastructure and also the CAT system and these are things that not just don't just benefit our school students, but they really benefit the entire community so it's a lot of exciting work to be done there.

For the targets, these are, again, the sampling of the strategies.

I will tell you that one of my areas for edit is to go back through some of these P's versus I's because I debate with myself, are we still in the P or are we really in the I?

So that is our little sampling and I hope it gives you a sense of how the book is organized and what you'll find when you do a deep dive.

So our next step is for you all for the steering committee and for the interested public to do an independent review of it to to submit any edits suggestions refinements, we really are in the refining stage, not the

generate new ideas or kind of turn it all upside down on its head.

But further refinements to get us in a place that we feel really good about.

You can email that to me or to Amanda.

I guess we put Amanda.

Amanda must have changed my email address to take that off of my plate.

But we'll put you can email it to Amanda by July 11 so that we can get that turned around internally and then resubmitted out to Insight and their designer.

And so they can really start building out the remaining pieces, the digital dashboard that will help people understand where we are in making progress towards these items and other elements like that that are the final pieces of this.

Then our goal is to post it out for you to have one final review to say, yes, that thing that I wanted to get fixed, did it get fixed by July 24th?

And then your vote will occur in the August 3rd meeting.

And then around that same time in early August as we do staff development, as we open up our schools, we will really start rolling this out for our staff and to help the community understand what the work is in front of us.

I believe the last slide is the familiar Q&A.

So if you have any questions for me or any of my colleagues, virtually anybody has some goals or strategies here, we could speak to them.

Thank you for the presentation.

That is exactly right.

Dr. Gurley, Denise Johnson, James Randall, he came into town this past week.

And we sat down and looked at all the feedback from the steering committee at the last ones.

And folks had emailed us some separate things, mainly from the steering committee.

So we just went through those line by line by line to make suggestions where we could, to make fixes and edits where we could.

That's exactly right.

Okay.

All right.

Ms.

My only comment is that I think it's coming together nicely.

A few short Saturdays ago, I feel like I was a little bit of a negative Nelly and I was like, metrics!

Overall, I feel pretty good about the process as well as the product that we have in front of us.

I will send a few couple of comments and questions, but otherwise I feel good about it.

Ms.

I'm good.

Thank you.

I'm overall just really

Pleased and impressed with this.

This is my second strategic plan since I've been on the board.

And they're quite different.

And this one, I think, is very strong on accountability, which I think will be a lot of work.

But I think it's excellent.

And I did have a question.

So should I not ask the question now?

send the question to... Go ahead.

Okay.

This goes back to, I guess, priority to the culture of safety, et cetera, and target to, and that has to do with the social-emotional learning, improvement on social-emotional learning.

And I see

the various measures that are being used to assess this, but I don't actually understand what's being assessed.

I think Dr. Odey could probably speak to this better than I could.

I just don't know what are the criteria that we're looking for

Good evening, Dr. Kraft.

Good evening.

These assessments are assessments that are provided for students to complete regarding how they feel, what they're experiencing emotionally, socially.

Also, their teachers complete assessments so that we can know exactly how we can support the students.

So we have the DESA,

Many that's used in elementary, the Rethink Ed, I think is used in secondary schools, but they're assessments really to find out how students are feeling and what teachers are seeing with students.

Emotionally and behaviorally?

Yes.

And I think also I want to jump in there too.

If you, for example, if you look at the strategies, if you look at the strategies

Just take number three for an example.

Ensure the mental health, social and family support services are available.

So these are going to be the things that will help us arrive at that goal that you had the question about.

So these are just some of them.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I did find a typo, and I will send it to Amanda.

Thank you, Dr. Kraft.

Ms.

I have no question.

Right.

Thank you.

It's a great document.

Thank you.

I'm still reading and absorbing.

So thank you ladies and the Strategic Plan Committee for all your hard work.

Thank you.

So Dr. Odo, you're up again.

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

As you know, we were tasked with bringing together a cell phone use committee, a student cell phone use committee, to create a plan for student cell phone use in our schools, specifically Buford and CHS, where we have more challenges with student cell phone use.

Next slide, please.

Tonight I will share with you our wonderful committee members' names.

Several of them are here tonight.

Our committees work thus far, the considerations that we had as we had our discussions and meetings, anticipated outcomes, and next steps.

Next slide, please.

On this slide, you see our committee names.

As we wanted to have a variety of voices represented, here you'll see that we have students, we have teachers, we have administrators, and we had two school board members, Ms.

Torres and Dr. Kraft, that participated in our committee.

Lots of committed people.

And I will say that I included anybody that came at least one time to a meeting.

And we had several meetings.

So again, some of our members, if you would raise your hand if you're on the cell phone committee.

And we've got, I think, three of them here tonight.

Three of our parents and two of our teachers here tonight.

So thank you so much for coming.

Next slide, please.

Our committee met five times together on those dates.

We discussed challenges with students' cell phone use.

I really just wanted to hear from teachers and parents and students about what they were seeing, what they were experiencing.

with student cell phone use.

We discussed what had worked in some classes.

Some teachers had more success than others with cell phone use.

We reviewed some articles of student cell phone solutions around the state and the nation, and we shared some possible plans during this time together, hoping to resolve our problem, those plans.

Next slide, please.

Some considerations that we had are shown here.

We considered continuing what we've already been doing, but with more consistency from staff.

What we heard from students is that there was, you know, some things were a little bit more loose in some classes than others.

And, you know, students really thrive on consistency.

So that was a consideration.

We talked about continuing with the daily reminders and announcements.

The students and teachers all here, Mr. Pitt, come on the announcements each day with reminders about cell phones and other things.

So we talked about that.

We talked about using pencil boxes for phone storage in classrooms.

That was something that was implemented some in some classes this year, and it has worked in some

But we did talk about that, continuing that.

We even looked into something called yonder pouches.

These are pouches that are used often in concerts or

places where you go for presentations from famous people that don't want you recording their shows.

So they ask you to put your phone in these pouches and they're then secured and you can't get in it unless you have a very powerful magnet to open it up.

So we concerted that.

And that was a discussion of having the cell phones in those pouches all day and the students

not having access to their phone all day.

And then we discussed whether or not there would be cell phone breaks in class or not.

We talked about cell phone zones and what those zones would be.

And we talked about allowing phone usage during the hallways and in cafeteria at lunchtime.

Next slide, please.

Other considerations are here.

For instance, the committee felt strongly that our students need a phone etiquette session.

You know, we had a wonderful Herbie Hancock assembly and some students were on their phone during the Herbie Hancock assembly.

So, you know, even though it wasn't instruction, maybe we need some phone etiquette about when is appropriate and when it's just not appropriate to use phones.

We talked about incentives for compliance.

Kids, students work for incentives.

Engaging class lessons.

Some of the students, I specifically remember students in one of his classes where the teacher keeps his attention with the engagement and fun.

He has no desire to be on his phone.

So we talked about what can we do to make sure our classes are constantly engaged and meaningful for students.

We are planning to do a summer communication campaign because we feel like parents and students need to hear about this.

throughout the summer so that they are ready when we come back in the fall with our new procedures.

And we talked about cell phone addiction.

It's a sort of taboo.

People don't want to talk about that this could be a cell phone addiction.

But we had some really good conversations about that.

After all of these considerations and conversations that we had, we have a plan that the team has created.

And so we talked a lot about this plan.

The teachers came with a draft and we talked through it several times and talked about some tweaks and what we needed to do.

And so

We landed at a place.

I sent the plan out.

I made a couple of other tweaks because we were stuck on a couple of things.

We were stuck.

And so I made a couple of small, what I think are small changes.

I sent the plan to the team on June 15th, and I haven't heard anything back from anyone.

I asked for responses or questions.

I haven't heard anything.

I'm hoping that that means that the small changes that are made are acceptable.

Please, Leslie.

So we have the first column.

and that shows the procedures that we would put in place.

The second column is the rationale, the why.

People want to know why we're doing things.

So we wanted to be clear with that.

And the third column has the interventions that we would use.

So first looking at the procedures, our committee decided that we would have no cell phones or smart devices in

instructional spaces at any time during the day.

That means we decided that there are no cell phone breaks in class.

If we're not having cell phones in instructional spaces, then we would not say, okay, take five minutes to go and be on your phone.

Students will put their phone and their AirPods because we know that phones are not the only thing that distract kids, the devices, the Apple Watch, the AirPods.

Those things would go in a pencil box or a pouch at the beginning of class.

Class, by the way,

is only between 45 minutes and 90 minutes, I believe.

90 minutes is the longest that a class is.

So the phone would be in the pencil box or the pouch for the class session and it would remain there throughout the class.

And they would be able to take their phone out when the bell rings and use it in the hallways.

and at lunchtime if they choose to, if they choose to.

The pencil boxes which are going to be purchased for every classroom would remain in the classroom so that each class could use those pencil boxes.

We don't need the kids.

They don't want to walk around carrying pencil boxes all day.

The rationale, if we go over to the second column, the rationale is there, cell phones impede the learning of the student and of others.

And we really, our first meeting, I think, or the second, we talked about, do cell phones distract students?

And the answer is yes.

It was a resounding yes that they are distracting.

So that's why we've put those procedures in place.

And the interventions are there.

So this is where there's some slight changes.

So the first intervention is a student reminder.

The teacher reminds the student put the phone away.

Or we're going to have cell phone, no cell phones or cell phone free zone.

We're going to create signs in every classroom.

has a sign.

The teacher can just point to the sign and say, this is a cell phone.

Don't forget, this is a cell phone free zone.

So that's the reminder, the first intervention.

Second is a student conference, the student and the teacher.

If the student has the phone again, the student and the teacher have a conference.

And that's where the change is because there were

There was discussion in our team about the second intervention being too stringent because at first it was the third intervention where the administrator or the CSA comes up, it's the student and or the phone, but that was moved to step three.

We hope we don't have to get to that if we have the student reminder, the conference and the parent

More of the parent contact by the teacher.

Those are teacher managed behaviors, the first and second.

And then if we get to the third intervention, then that's when the teacher calls for an administrator or a CSA to come to remove the phone and or the student if that's a challenge, but hopefully the phone for the day to the office where it stays in the office all day.

If the administrator or the CSA is not immediately accessible, our wonderful committee suggested having the teachers on duty where they would escort a student to the administrator to take the phone to the office.

The fourth intervention, if this is continually happening, then we involve the school counselor and the student and the parent again for conferences, talk about what's going on here, that we know that this procedure is what we're doing school-wide, so why do we continue to have this issue?

And then the fifth is where the administrator is more fully involved with the student and the parent.

There's a conference and there is where the student and the parent get the warning that next time your phone is being pouched.

And so we're purchasing, our plan is to purchase a number of pouches to be able to use for any instance where a student gets to intervention number six.

And so if that is the case,

After they've been warned that the next time you have a phone out in an instructional space, it's going to be pouched.

Then they will get a pouch.

When they come to school, the phone will be placed in a pouch and it's not accessible to them.

The student carries the pouch with them.

They have it, but they can't get it opened until the end of the day.

Next slide.

So here you see a little bit more about the etiquette training.

We're still working on who's going to provide that etiquette training, but we do want to talk with students about appropriate times to use a phone when it's not

and how to, appropriate things to do with phones, just reminders about appropriate things to do with phones and what is inappropriate like recording a fight.

So we just want to do some reminders with things like that, sending inappropriate texts to students.

This is some etiquette training that we want to do with our students and the rationale so the students will understand the appropriate use of cell phones

even outside of instructional spaces.

And then the last thing here in this chart is that all teachers would attend a collaborative conversation led by our committee members and the admin that speaks to the expectations and accountability for the implementation of the cell phone procedures.

So again, consistency is what we need.

Teacher A can't say, I'm gonna let you have a cell phone break, when the procedure is that we're not using cell phones in instructional spaces.

our amazing committee says we're going to hold our colleagues accountable we're going to help them understand we are all in this together and it's not going to be easy we know that but nothing great comes from things that are easy there is a little bit of blood sweat and tears that have to happen for that greatness to happen so the rationale behind the

Collaborative conversations so that teachers can feel equipped and well informed.

And I might add, supported by their colleagues, supported by their administrators.

This is what we're doing with that.

Next slide, please.

Anticipated outcomes.

So I'm gonna look at this as sort of an if then sort of statements, but we're looking at with then.

So with implementation of the cell phone plan and all staff are on board with the committee helping to onboard staff and hold them accountable and hold themselves accountable.

and with strong communication to families and with consistency from staff and with the etiquette training for students and with teachers attending that collaborative session held by team members and with patience.

We gotta pack a little patience.

With all of those, understanding that it may not be easy but it will be worth it,

Next slide.

With all of those, then student cell phone use during instructional time will no longer be an issue.

Teachers will be able to focus more on fun and engaging teaching and learning.

and student engagement will increase and student achievement will increase.

That's the if-then or with-then that we're looking for with our anticipated outcomes.

Next slide please.

So with our next steps we need to roll out our plans.

But our committee is here.

Some of them are here because I said I'm presenting our plan to the board on the 27th.

So here goes.

Our next steps are to do our summer communication.

The team wants to go out into the communities, not just send an email, not just send a text.

we need to reach out and touch families.

And we've got our supervisor of equity and family engagement involved with this process and we're gonna get out there and talk to families about what our plan is.

Also sharing it on social media as often as we can throughout the summer in the ways that kids and families see it.

I put things on Twitter.

I don't know if they see my Twitter, but they have other ways that other social media that they see and we need to reach them.

We're going to be purchasing pencil boxes for the phone storage.

purchasing a small number, as I mentioned, of the yonder pouches so that we can have those in case, and we hope we don't get there, but in case we get to step six with any students.

Our student cell phone etiquette session, we've got to plan those.

The collaborative conversation with team members, we've got to plan that.

We have teachers on the committee that said, I'll work on the scripts.

I'll work on that.

Some talking points for teachers.

Ms.

Chuck is going to help with the phone free zone signs.

And there was a request and we've got to bring this back to the table.

There was a request for additional technology, additional Chromebooks.

and I talked to Mr. Cuomo a bit, but we still need to continue that discussion about what that will look like because what we don't want to happen is for students to say, I didn't bring my Chromebook, I have to use my phone.

So again, this is what I've covered today.

This is our plan.

I'm going to start with the ladies online.

I don't at this time.

Thank you.

I will reserve my comments for the

All right.

Thank you.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I have many, many thoughts.

I won't say them all, but first thing I'd like to thank Dr. Odey for your work in trying to shepherd this process along.

It has not been easy.

It isn't easy.

and you've really tried to include a lot of voices in this process and I really appreciate how you've done that.

This is, to me, I think a really hard thing for us to try to do and to figure out how to do it right.

So I guess I would just say now,

that I worry that we will still have a heavy impact on teachers, on trying to track all of the different steps, like is this student in step three or four?

I think there's a lot of things that will need to be worked out and that may not work very well.

I don't know.

I guess I would say that my psychologist heart is like going, no, just keep them out of school.

What I'd like to say, I'd like to see in the sessions for students that it's not just about etiquette, that it is about helping them truly understand the deeply detrimental effect

of these devices on them.

And I'd like for us to find a way to do that and really try to get through to them.

So, and I'm glad to help with that in any way.

So to me, I think that's an essential part is to help students really see this in a different way in order to bring them along and have them really embrace

The purpose behind this.

Thank you.

Ms.

Bleh, cell phones are just this ongoing struggle.

I share concerns about the capacity of staff and teachers and admin to manage this process.

I know that we're having these conversations and trying to implement this policy as a means of maximizing instruction and I fear

that it may have the opposite result of teachers and administrators spending a lot of time engaging with students about cell phones instead of instruction.

I am interested to see how this plays out.

I am supportive of this work.

I would love to have more conversation about actually doing away with cell phones completely in our school buildings.

I'm not sure that that was one of the considerations that had significant consideration in this go round.

I'm not sure what else I have to add.

I appreciate the committee's work.

Yeah.

Thank you, Mr. Dooley.

I do have one question, a little bit for clarification.

In terms of the interventions,

Are we looking at those to be tracked like per day or per class?

How are we looking at that?

We did have discussion about that and how it could be challenging for teachers.

I think we landed that it would be cumulative.

Do you all agree, team members?

Maybe we didn't land.

on that, but we did have discussions about where we would go with that.

Because at step three, the phone is gone to the office.

So that's not going to happen anymore in that day for that child.

So they won't go beyond step three in any day.

So it can't be in one day.

So it is something we have to talk about, what that's gonna look like with teachers.

Yeah, I think, and I guess it also depends on how it's tracked and coming from the classroom, I've seen very similar thing when we're implementing our cell phone policy, like a teacher can give a reminder and have that conference in one class and then the next class,

The new teacher, the new period doesn't know what took place in the previous class.

That's a good point.

Okay, Ms.

I just wanted to echo quickly what my colleagues have already said.

I feel like it's a lot on the teachers and it's a lot of tracking.

And I don't know how it plays out in the classroom with the teacher's time, but I also feel like maybe I'm a lone voice here, but maybe there needs to be less steps to the phone getting taken away, like a warning.

And then I feel like

There's a lot of, like Mr. Morse was saying, like, oh, I know I can take it out at least two times before, you know, and then I can go to my next class.

I feel like, I feel like it needs to, the phone, the consequences for not having the phone for the day maybe need to be a little quicker so that

I feel like if you lose your phone one day, I feel like you'll think twice.

Like, I just feel like it's a lot on the teachers.

And if we're trying to like, we're trying to help the kids to see like, if you can't even, like, if I give you a warning, you've already taken it out, you got a warning, just these phones are, they're addictive.

And so this is really about us, you know, looking out for you and your education in the classroom.

But I think it might need to be a shorter,

Ms.

Thank you.

Also want to just, this is a tough one.

And being part or in the room, at least for part of this work, just want to acknowledge the fact that I think we did a nice job recognizing different voices, different opinions, bringing in the students and the parents who also had different opinions of,

which direction this should go.

So I do want to just kind of give ourselves a pat on the back for going through that but I also feel like at some points and at some time we've brought people to the table, we've heard the whys, we've given people an opportunity to talk and we as a division

And we as leaders sometimes need to just explain why we're going to make a decision and not everybody might be happy with that.

And I think that's where I

was that when I walked into the room, as far as hearing and concerns from lots of different people and observing what cell phones can do to people and to institutions and trying to get work done or being distractions.

And it was apparent and evident in some of the discussions that we heard during that committee work, you could see

The people were really going to struggle to not have those devices.

So we all know that I do, you know, and looking at the interventions and understanding that we needed to kind of realign those a little bit.

I mean, some of that, in my opinion, it doesn't make sense as far as how it might flow within a classroom, as far as reminder, you know, and then the next.

I guess I have questions because then the second intervention says we're going to have a conference.

but you can't really disrupt or have that conference before we get to number three.

And if you've got that third warning, I mean, maybe we're calling the CSA or we're calling admin or I'm calling my coworker who happens to be free that period to come and get that.

But then we're gonna also then have intervention too because we've already jumped to number three in a day.

So, I mean, I think there's a lot of these things and we knew this during the work that we kind of,

We gave each other grace and had lots of conversations but we really didn't have enough time to flush this out I think to figure this out and maybe that's okay but again I felt like we wanted to be somewhere where we were going to be able to really support this

you know out of the gate and and there's a lot of things that I know people have said they're willing to work on but it's a lot you know and we're already asking so so much of our teachers we're already asking so so much of of Mr. Pitt and his team there's already other things going on in the hallways that need to be managed and and I trust that

You know, things are going to change and every year things are going to get better.

But now to add this on, I mean, I have concerns and I'm just being upfront here with my concerns and the work that we did.

You know, it is a different era, but this is school, you know, and we are charged with with trying to educate, not trying, but educating these students and we need we need them engaged and working with the teachers.

And that's why the teachers are here.

and as much as I applaud the teachers who had different opinions of how they wanted to roll this out and the work that you all did outside of the committee.

I know you all met and I know you tried to come up with a plan that would work but it really doesn't feel that much different than what we had hoped to roll out last year other than this is like now it's in the public and now it's before the board.

I want our teachers to teach.

And this is just a lot, you know, and not that these things aren't good things to happen and, you know, the student education, you know, and having the conversations with staff coming in.

But I think it's just a lot to even ask to roll out in the next month before school starts.

It's a lot.

You know, I mean, how many pencil boxes do we still need to order?

Are they going to be here or are they going to be late?

We don't know.

We don't know what the supply chain, it's probably different this year than it was last year.

You know, can we order X amount of pouches with the devices to unlock them or is it a, you know, we got to purchase so many?

I don't know.

How much is a fair amount of time to reevaluate if this is what we want to go?

And I'm not saying I don't honor what the teachers brought, but I feel like similar to what Ms.

Morsberger said, I think we can get to a step where we just have to shut it down a little bit quicker.

I mean, how much disruption is it going to cause in a classroom for

You know me as a teacher as opposed to somebody else.

I don't know, but I know that my comfort level with that disruption and you know what I need to get done in a classroom might be very different than than somebody else.

So those are questions that I have and comments that I have.

I was very honored to be in that room and to listen again.

I think we did a great job listening and I want it to be successful.

Thank you, Ms.

If you notice, I'm sitting up in my seat.

because I'm going to put on my teacher slash counselor hat.

And this is a great start, this policy in terms of the committee really thanking you all for the great work.

But as an educator, I would be very, very upset if I'm trying to teach or if I'm counseling a student in my office that a student is sitting there on the cell phone

According to the anticipated outcomes, it says student engagement will increase.

Student achievement will increase.

Students are not engaged because they are focused and glued to those cell phones.

The steps probably need to be lessened a little bit, not that we're trying to be punitive, not that we're

are asking, and that may be a conversation later on to get rid of cell phones completely.

But we already, we've already been doing it for years.

When they do standardized tests, there are no cell phones.

There's no rebellion against students when they're doing SOLs, when they're doing AP testing.

The first thing we do, for those of us who are leading the test or proctoring the test, we collect cell phones.

and they're in that testing room four hours, testing, morning and afternoon.

There has never been an issue with students giving up their cell phones when they are taking an AP test.

So we're already doing some of that.

So we have to find a fine medium in terms of, because teachers need to have that respect.

They cannot teach when students are engaged on cell phones.

And I'm speaking from the voice of experience, having taught,

Well, more so in counseling because that was the high school level.

When students come in and you're having a conversation with a student and they're on a cell phone, that to me, they're not engaged.

So if we are working toward these ultimate outcomes of increasing achievement and engaging our students, we have to come to a consensus about the cell phones.

I like the idea of the pouches because

You're just simply 45 minutes to 90 minutes, they're simply putting their phones away.

Then they collect those phones after class and off they go to the next class.

But during that instructional time, they need to be engaged in learning.

And if this continues, it's gonna show up later on.

We continue to allow students to be engaged in those cell phones during class time.

And I think it's unfair to the teachers

that they have to compete, as Ms.

Horn said, with those cell phones.

So this is a good start.

And I think we've done outreach with the parents, and we had a very diverse group of people on that committee.

It's now time to act, to implement a policy.

And I know these teachers, because I've worked with them.

They're great teachers, and they're going to rise to the occasion.

so that all students will be actively engaged in learning.

And this is important that we come to a consensus with this policy and maybe tweak some of those steps.

I do want to thank the committee for the hard work.

And I know that Ms.

Horn and Mr. Jocelyn were two of our pioneers in terms of getting this work together week after week, just hearing the plight of teachers and what they're experiencing.

I think that as I am just jotting and just what's happening here is that we all agree that

We value teachers.

Teachers can work anywhere.

So let's make this environment conducive for them.

And we all agree that we want to put students first.

And I think the difficult part here is we all at the end of the day want the room to be cell phone free and so that learning can happen.

I think the difficult part in all of this is the outcome.

The outcome is the problem here.

And really what this comes down to for me is that, you know, teachers want planning periods, so you don't want to go and pick up cell phones.

I want to plan during my designated planning period.

As the administrator, I want to be in classrooms, providing feedback, meeting with parents when needed,

So everyone has time that they really don't want to have encumbered with a cell phone.

And what has been happening is we have been trying to enforce parts of this.

So I think this, as it's been said this evening, that this is heading in the right direction.

It's ultimately what we have to agree on is when we get to the place of there's no cell phones that we all are saying the same thing.

And this is not about the board.

This is about teachers.

This is about students.

It's that we want the same things.

And I think what we hear over and over, I think we even had someone in the chat as we've been sitting here.

who are disagreeing even with what's happening here because they feel like students need phones.

And this is what I spend a lot of my time with, trying to convince people why the phone needs to be away.

The administrators, I mean, they're limited in numbers, more students than administrators.

So it's like putting out that fire of

getting the phone put away, and what do you do with students who are not complying?

And I think that as I think about some of the conversations that I've had, we know who was impacted by this.

We know that the discipline was not consistent, that more black and brown students were overrepresented in the discipline of the cell phones, and they weren't disciplined at the same rate as their

non-black and brown peers.

So it's where we have to arrive is how we handle the student.

Because really, I mean, what happens is the removal of a student because of the phone.

And then there are all these unintended consequences, disproportionality by disability, by race, by gender.

and the list goes on.

So we just have to take this opportunity to build the capacity in our families to do that outreach.

And maybe where we land is, this is a no cell phone building, but regardless of what the plan looks like, there's going to be a lot of work.

And we have to all agree on that, that even if we say there are no cell phones,

There are going to still be a lot of steps in between for someone.

And so we have to help educate people on the front end that this is what's coming for your child.

We have to all stand in it together that this will be the outcome.

But regardless of which way we go, and I am perfectly fine with it being no phones,

The steps part will not change.

There will still be a lot of steps for someone and, you know, you know, don't want to be the teacher, of course, but we will now have a different expectation for the administrator, the CSAs.

And so I just think that we will get there.

This is the roadmap.

And ultimately, if we pull the data and it's not working, then we can pivot.

If it's working, then great.

But it's still going to be a lot of work for people.

And it's about relationship building.

It's about how we intervene with students who don't respond to the expectations in the building.

So in a perfect world, we would send messages on a pigeon, and we can only do that from outside when school is not going.

But right now, we're going to work with the cards we've been dealt.

Mr. Chairman, if I may.

I am happy to convene the committee again or at least who's available I know people will be on vacation to tweak to look back at those interventions to minimize those as best as we can, or go back to what it was before.

but I would like to share one piece of good news.

Our Summer Academy Administrator, Miss Yumiko Webb-Jordan is implementing the plan in our CHS Summer Academy right now.

I know we're only on day four, but she said it's working.

The kids are responding.

So it's a smaller scale.

So I don't want to get too overly enthusiastic or excited about it, but it is working as of these four days.

But I'll reach back out to the committee and see who we can get back together.

I know that we were waiting for tonight.

Didn't want to purchase yonder pouches, pencil boxes until we present it tonight to make sure that the board was okay with us moving forward with the plan.

Thank you.

I think Ms.

Thank you so much.

I feel like we got to a place where I feel comfortable.

So thank you very much to the committee and of course to all the board with their great comments.

One more comment.

Yes, I would just be remiss if I didn't add because we're talking about no cell phones and cell phones in the classroom that there are students for which they will have to have their cell phones.

There's a young student in my life who was diagnosed with type one diabetes, so she has to have it to monitor her insulin levels.

Thank you, Ms.

Morsberger and thank you, Ms.

McKeever.

Are there any other comments on the cell phone?

Okay, the next item on the agenda is another opportunity for community members to make comments.

So I guess I'll start with the Zoom room.

There was someone who sent an email who wished to make public comment via Zoom, so I'll just ask that person if they still wish to make those comments, if they could hit the thumbs up button on their page or send a chat so that we can promote you to a talking host position.

All right, thank you.

Is there anyone here in the room that would like to come forth and speak at this time?

Ms.

Jennifer Horn, 700 Druid Avenue.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the cell phone initiative and for everyone seeming to understand the weight of it.

And for how so many people said like, oh, more on our teachers.

That was just really nice to hear as a teacher.

So thank you.

Now I'm gonna say something totally different.

It's about the strategic plan.

I also had the privilege of being on that fantastic committee.

And a note that I've given, but because there were so many people and I think I was just waiting too long.

So I would love just to say, I'll write it in the notes, but only one place in the entire strategic plan does it mention our unleveled classes.

We started unleveling 14 years ago, I think.

And when we first started, there was so much training involved.

Teachers had to go to UVA and train.

We had regular meetings and regular training.

And what's happened is more of our classes and more of our disciplines have unleveled, but the training has gone away.

And I think it should be a part of our strategic plan.

I mean, it's one of our greatest equity initiatives.

And it's so important and it's a beautiful thing.

But it's really hard for a teacher who's never done it before to come in and have this incredibly varied class in front of them and not have the training to deal with it well.

So I would just love for that to become a part of our strategic plan more explicitly and less like under the covers.

But thank you so much for everything.

Thank you, Ms.

Horn.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak at this time?

Well, thank you so much.

We now will have comments from the board.

And I'll start with Mr. Morse.

No comments from me.

Thank you.

Morsberger.

Ms.

Thank you, sir.

Just want to say thank you to everybody again for all their work.

Thank you, Ms.

Horn, I saw Mr. Diggin, Ms.

Brown, anybody else who's taken time today, Ms.

Raznik, to show up and to be here for this and also want to acknowledge the comment made at our first public comment opportunity.

And I just want to say that I'm proud

to be on this board.

I'm proud to be a part of Charlottesville City Schools School Board.

I am proud that we as a division value and embrace diversity, period.

Thank you, Ms.

Torres.

Ms.

McIver?

Well, I continue just to be so appreciative and amazed by our staff and our teachers, all of our staff, our administrative staff, our leadership team.

And I, too, am very proud to be a member of this board and this school division.

Thank you, Dr. Pratt.

Ms.

McKeever?

I think you're muted.

All right, thank you.

Ms.

My only comment is to just make a connection.

I'm kind of going along with our discussion about cell phones and how this evolves, but also the new communication system that we had a presentation about, I think, earlier this month.

and that I think there's some opportunities with this new communication system to address some of the concerns that exist, I think particularly amongst parents in their ability to receive information, especially in cases of emergency or just kind of high stress moments.

I think I don't want to lose, I guess, that component that I think we are taking some proactive steps

to enhance and improve what I think we already have.

Great communication.

Thank you, Ms.

Chuck.

I can't see you here on my screen.

Thank you, Ms.

Dooley.

And I would also like to add that I like to think

everyone for their hard work on the various committees from the Cellphone Strategic Plan Committee.

Also, I want to thank my fellow board members for all the hard work that we do every day, every month when we come together.

And Dr. Gurley, always thank you for your wonderful insight in terms of how we are moving, we're going to move this school system forward.

And I also want to thank the parents

for their input and the community members.

We cannot, we all have to collaborate and work together and that's so important.

So thank you.

I will keep mine brief.

I just want to thank all of my, all the people that I work with, all of this work

I, too, want to just kind of

Echo what was said this evening by Miss Espo.

I had the opportunity to sit down with five Johnson parents, five Johnson families today with regards to the matter that took place.

And, you know, I would not be here if

I didn't think that this community would accept me as who I am.

And that is why I'm here.

And so my priority is to keep our students safe.

And I just, you know, I just want to apologize to our families because it just feels like, you know, I have a part in that and keeping our children safe and to know that

Someone compromised our safety.

It's very saddening.

But I will continue to fight the good fight, keep our children safe, and make sure that everyone feels seen and heard.

Because that truly is what Charlottesville, it's what it means to me, feel seen, heard, and included.

And so I appreciate that.

And I just appreciate everyone for, this is the last school board meeting of the

22, 23 school year.

And so I just thank all everyone for their hard work.

Ms.

Green, Ms.

Thacker.

And so have a great summer if you get one.

So we now have work session wrap up by Ms.

Lewis.

Nothing?

Okay.

Well,

The announcement for upcoming meetings, I guess that will be August 3rd here at Charlottesville High School meeting, you're soon at 5 p.m.

And before I adjourn the meeting, I want to wish each and every one of you all a safe and happy summer.

So is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

The ayes have it.