School Board Work Session   2/7/2024

Good afternoon, good evening.

Welcome to our joint school board city council budget work session.

So I'm glad everybody could make it.

If I may have our clerk call roll for the school board members, please.

Yes, thank you so much.

Second.

Any discussion, questions?

All in favor, please say yes.

Any opposed?

All right.

Thank you.

I'd like to welcome city council and staff and everybody here in Walker.

Good evening.

Hear me OK?

All righty.

Thank you all.

And I think Ms.

Thacker is going to share.

Again, I want to thank everyone for being here this evening for our joint city council school board work session.

For our city council members, a lot of this information our school board has already heard.

But I do want to make sure that I take my time to go through this.

So most certainly if you have questions as I go through the presentation, it probably would be better to ask those questions as we go through it.

And you don't have to wait until the end to ask your questions.

Dr. Gurley, I think we just, for purposes, we probably should vote ourselves in as well.

Absolutely.

Here.

Here.

I think there's a keyboard somewhere that's hooked to that.

Absolutely.

I used to be a technology integrator.

2006 to 2009.

All righty.

So we can get started.

Next slide, please.

So this evening, I will share with you all our budget priorities.

We will also talk about our demographics and enrollment and how that plays a role in our current budget.

We will have some discussions about our local composite index and how that has impacted our budget this school year.

We'll have some discussions about revenues and expenditures and then the changes that we've made to our budget.

Next slide.

So what I have shown here, as many of you all know, we did go through a strategic planning process on last school year.

What you see at the top in the white area are our strategic plan goals.

and then located at the bottom of the screen, those are our budget priorities that were set for this school year.

We arrived at those priorities two ways.

There was a survey sent out back in October, the latter part of September, October, which asked our stakeholders if they wanted to use our strategic plan to drive our budget for this process and overwhelmingly

The respondents said they want the strategic plan to be the guiding principle for our budget.

So what you see as a result of some work between various stakeholders, including staff and school board, the priorities at the bottom were birth.

Those are student achievement, which encompasses literacy, intervention, academic learning.

and KTEC.

Then we have a priority of safety and security, compensation and benefits, and building modernization.

Next.

So this slide here shows our projected enrollment as it relates to the number of general education classrooms at the elementary level.

And then it shows our enrollment changes at the secondary level.

What you see here is that we are projecting that we will have an increase and we will have an increase in the number of students that require and when we say general education students that when we say general education classrooms, I'm sorry, those are classrooms that have 50% or less students who are receiving special education services.

and what you see is that we are expecting an increase of about 69 students across the elementary level, Walker and Buford, you see listed five at Walker, Buford 19 and what we know is that there's some students who come in and out at that level between private schools and then we are expecting an increase in the enrollment of about 25 students as it relates to

as it relates to CHS and LMA.

And then this, we will also put this into perspective as we talk about our L students.

Next slide, please.

Won't spend a lot of time here, but there are a few gray areas that we have here.

And you'll see that that's at Burley Moran, and we have a gray area that's listed over at Venable.

And that gray area is because right now,

Venable, for example.

Typically, we have about three classes per grade level.

If you see there Venable for fourth grade, that class size is low right now.

There are two teachers.

There are two classes for fourth grade.

And so we do know that that could potentially take up.

That could be three, because we are on average.

If you look throughout the slide, they're on average three classes per grade level at the elementary.

We are, so where we are currently, we are much higher than we were pandemic.

So post pandemic, our numbers have ticked way back up.

So we do know that in this budget process, we do need to project about two additional teachers at the, two additional teachers, two additional classrooms at the

Elementary level and right now we just need to build that into the budget and we will move those based on wherever the class sizes tick up.

We have what we call the class size initiatives and so with the class size initiatives from the VDOE we are required to keep our class sizes there's a cap

and so that cap ranges from 19 at some schools to 24 at some of the others and so we will be working with principals throughout we start working with them now and throughout the summer we really would like to in a perfect world have it just have it cleaned up

by the time we get to the end of the summer.

But we know that students are always coming, they come in and out.

And in our case, they come in more so than go out.

And so we are always working just to make sure that we firm up how many classrooms will be needed at each school.

Next slide, please.

So here we have some demographic data that we've been showing with as we've been having our meetings in terms of what the changes in demographics have looked like.

So if you see in June of 2003, we had about 47% of our student population was black.

If you look 20 years later,

June of 2023 that number has decreased.

We've gotten the question over the course of this process with regards to like what do we think is happening and so one of the things that we've heard throughout this process is that you know affordable housing has impacted the number of

of our black families who have been here.

I mean, just so that's been one of the things that has stuck out to people in terms of what's happened over time.

What we do know overall from our demographics data is that we continue to be diverse.

In terms of reporting, there's been some changes in reporting at the

at the VDOE level in terms of we used to report, we used to self-report by one reporting category.

Now our families can select multiple races and ethnicities when they are reporting this data out to the DOE.

The next slide will drill just a little bit deeper.

And this slide is probably the most impactful of the two because it talks about, again, who we are serving.

So if you look at 2003,

Of our black families, 73% of those families, 73% of our black families were captured here.

If you look down at the bottom of that list of our black families in 2003, 68% of those families were economically disadvantaged.

Fast forward to 2023, while the number has decreased to 44.96 of our student population is black, if you look at that bottom table, 86.37% of the students enrolled, that 44%, 86% of our black families report as economically disadvantaged.

And so we get that information from a few different places.

We get it from our students who are receiving some of our government assistance programs, such as SNAP and TANF.

And so it's very important to know on our end, because when we talk about how we work with our students, we work within subgroups.

And one of the subgroups that we spend a lot of time on are our students who are economically disadvantaged in terms of closing the achievement gap for those students.

So Dr. Goodall, I just want to make sure I understand.

If I understand you that you're saying of the African-American families in the city of Charlottesville schools, almost 90% can be identified as economically disadvantaged, almost 90%?

And that's not a designation to be assigned.

That's a sign that is attached to the students through other agencies that make those recommendations.

That's not a designation.

Yeah.

And so as we talk about different demographics and enrollment, we presented this slide to you all last year.

And if you remember, the number was lower.

And now the number is higher.

The number is going to continue to tick higher.

If you look back during the pandemic years, we had about 467 students who were receiving English language learner services.

Fast forward to the winter of 2024, which is right now, we are serving 747 students, almost an increase of 300 students.

And so this is going to be very important because there's a projection, and I realize we didn't include that slide here, but what we are projecting in the spring of 25 is that we will be close to 900 students

We will be close to 900 students that we will be providing English as a Second Language services to.

And if we continue on that trajectory, then that means in about two years, we will be serving probably 1,000 students or more who will be receiving English as a Second Language service.

And so this slide doesn't tell the story.

Absolutely.

So the first thing you want to know is that when we get a student who requires English as a second language services, I've been saying, I've been using the analogy that it's kind of a two for one because that student requires the general education teacher and they also require an EL teacher, English as a second language teacher.

So they're going to be with their general education peers.

but then they also are going to be required to receive English as a second language support and that's for our students who come here with no language so they start as a level one what we call and sometimes they go into sheltered classes where they're receiving supports from someone who's certified in English as a second language

And so they go in that class, but at the elementary school and what we see in our reporting data is that the earlier we get our students, the better they fare in terms of receiving supports from us.

It's because at the elementary level, they are immersed.

It's a challenge still for our teachers because, again,

They're spending a lot, a large portion of their time with their general education teachers, but then they're receiving some push in or pull out supports for English as a second language.

At the secondary level, it's a little bit more complex with regards to

When if a student comes in with no language, they are expected to meet the graduation requirements from day one, even if they have no language.

And so they're required to still have 23 credits to reach graduation.

They are going into their classrooms with their other peers.

One of many things that we do really well at the high school is we place our students in what we call sheltered classrooms where they go into the classrooms with their peers who also require English as a second language support and our teachers are pouring into them and they are trying to get them to a place where they can

meet with mastery but again at the high school level they have to do they have to meet all the graduation requirements even if they don't have the language so it's a task it's a task but they still do everything that their peers do but I think the most important thing and and why you will probably hear me sound like a broken record this evening and why this budget is so important is because

Our students who require EL services not only require a general education teacher, they require EL support.

It is our job to help our students grow in their language development.

And so all of those students, not just the students that enter as level one with no English, but even as they grow and gain some English, we have to help them to exit ESL.

Yes, thank you for pointing that out.

So yes, not just about the level ones.

So this 747 are not just students who have no English.

These are students who range, who are across the spectrum in terms of where they're speaking and reading.

But again, in two years, we could be sitting at about 1,000 students.

So almost.

What's your total?

Oh, I'm 43.

4,300.

So about 20% of our students will be receiving.

And so when we talk about supports, that's just 20.

When we talk about specialized supports, that's 20% receiving L support.

That's not even including students with disabilities, 504.

All right, next slide.

So this slide shows you how we're staffed for ESL teachers at each school.

So the top box shows the enrollment per school.

The bottom box shows the current FTE, full-time equivalent, for English as a second language teachers.

There's a star under VEN, which is Venable.

That's because their enrollment went up and we had to add a half-time teacher there to support the needs in that building.

The state requirement is 50 to 1.

I will tell you in working in various school divisions across this commonwealth that

This model right here of exceeding the state guidelines is the best model because the 1 to 50 is the bare minimum.

If you ask a teacher, the task is still a heavy lift even at 1 to 30.

One teacher for every 30 students who may have some language or no language, it's a task even at the 1 to 30.

And if you notice, at some of our schools, even like a Venable, you know, it's one to 37.

Jackson-Vial, one to 36.

So, still a lot of work there.

Next slide, please.

I've spoken on most of this.

The state ratio is 50 to 1.

We strive for the 30 to 1.

We project that for the 24-25 school year that we're looking at 109 more students who will require EL supports.

and so that is an increase of 47 students and so in the FY24, our current budget, we did budget three FTEs for this school year and we had to do a part-time position this school year

and so in order for us and so in our budget you may see you may not see that the initially the 3.5 because we've been working on the resources that have been provided but what it takes to make the job happen minimally for our standards is three and a half more FTEs to address the increase in enrollment for students who require EL supports it is called.

And so as we've gone through this, I know we've had some discussions and you've seen this around the state in terms of the LCI.

The LCI has been in place for over 50 years.

It does determine our school division's ability to pay.

and it's intended to measure our locality, whether the locality can pay the educational cost, the ability to pay for K-12 education.

And so there are three indicators that you see those indicators there, true market value, adjusted gross income, and taxable sales.

And then there's some revenue indicators such as our ADM and then our population.

Average daily membership.

So that's our student enrollment.

And we're going to have a conversation about it because they look back at our ADM.

It's not our current.

So you asked what's our current enrollment.

which is 4300 and it's not based on that number it's based on a it's based on a two-year look back.

All right.

Am I on the next slide?

Yeah.

So sometime in the first year of the new biennium, so sometime in the first year of the new biennium, we are held, there's a hold harmless.

And so there are bills in the General Assembly for the whole harmless.

And so we're still waiting to see what's going to happen with all of that.

Our LCI has been adjusted at the state level and I think if the next slide probably will do us a little bit more justice in terms of breaking it out in terms of what it looks like.

and so those things are weighted.

Student ADM that Mr. Pinkston just spoke about is weighted the highest and so it has the highest weight and then the next is the true property value and then the Virginia AGI, the population and taxable sales.

I think what we have to remember here is that

What I just said a few moments ago is that this is about a look back.

So the spot where we're weighted the most is the spot that's the least accurate.

So when they take this snapshot, this was during the pandemic, when our enrollment was a lot lower.

And so

And what we do know is that it's based on, it also takes into consideration our number that is factually correct, which is the property value number.

So when they're using that number and they're saying you have the ability to pay,

One of those things is not real time.

One of those things is not accurate and it's the ADM because our number was a lot lower.

So the state is saying you can pay based on that number, but we know that's not the current number of students that we're serving.

Next slide.

This just shows you what the composite index looks like over time.

Everyone's going through this.

There's a lot of school divisions, which you'll see on the upcoming slide, that a lot of localities that are going through this.

But currently, our composite index is saying that Charlottesville City

can pay 77% of what needs to happen for K-12.

And we know that that number is not accurate based on ADM.

So, and these things, they happen on odd year.

It's a lag.

I think this has been kind of- Dr. Gurley, is there any move afoot in the General Assembly to, or with a BDOE to, I mean, this seems like this is an artifact of

the pandemic that should be recognized as such.

I would think there'd be a little asterisk or something in someone's

Ehrlich commissioned a report at the General Assembly's request and they cited the state's funding formula needed to be updated.

Correct.

Is that right?

I think we still have a ways to go, and we have a budget to present to you all.

And so we hope we do benefit from it, but I'm not sure we're going to know anything before the end of the month.

Next slide.

So in Virginia, we have 134 school divisions.

And so right now, 10 divisions sit in that maximum range.

10 school divisions are in that maximum, which is shown there in the far left in the blue.

We have the second highest LCI with the 77%.

And then what you see is that the state average is 40%.

So we are well above the state average.

And there's like only one place that's the lowest.

All right.

And so this slide just shows you how we compare to Albemarle.

They were also impacted by the LCI change, not as significantly as Charlottesville, but they were also impacted.

So what you see here is just, you see our ADM change.

So in 2021, we had a decrease of 229 students due to the pandemic.

And so the number that all of this is being based on is 229 less students.

Next slide.

And so here you see our true value on property, our adjusted gross income and taxable sales.

Can I ask what true value represents?

What is that?

I believe it's tied, when I've looked at this before, I believe it's tied more closely to sales, like they take it more from actual records of sales than from assessments.

I believe that's what the word true comes into.

And I think it's also in that same vein, kind of messaging that what you assess that is not necessarily going to

In a sense it doesn't really matter because we can't argue with it, but it just raised questions.

Yes, the DOE.

Yes.

Primary and secondary sources.

All right.

But it definitely has a meaning of significant value because it changed our LCI significantly.

All right, next slide.

So our state revenues.

So as we presented in January, you see our LCI increased 7.5%.

We were working through our CALC tool.

And so what happened from this whole process is that our overall loss was almost $3 million in state revenue as a result in the change from

The change from the LCI, which means any monies we get from you all, we start by subtracting $2.93 million because that was our loss.

That was our loss.

And I think I'm supposed to say about the grocery tax and COVID, all of these things are included in the poll harmless.

And these were the things that were eliminated.

These were the things that were eliminated.

Next slide, please.

The governor's proposed budget, and so the proposed budget has some technical adjustments related to factors in the funding formula, such as the LCI and ADM.

It estimates projections in the state sales tax.

It has a one time, one percent bonus for SOQ funded positions, standard of quality positions,

So there's this one-time bonus which doesn't factor into our staff's credible compensation.

And then there was a 2% bonus that we were required to administer.

And we did that in January.

We did that in January.

So that also has to be

So that also has to be considered in our budget.

That's a new acronym for me.

I have a whole slide for it.

Standard of quality.

So it's the number of positions that are allotted from the Department of Education.

So they say these are the number of positions you need in order to run your schools, which is a very antiquated model as well.

Great question, though.

Thank you.

Next.

So we've felt that your support is essential in our operations and maintenance of our schools.

And what we do know is a significant portion of our budget, that a significant portion of our budget is due to

What happens now is being impacted by our LCI.

And so this slide shows the 10-year trend in your contributions to the schools.

The red-orange line shows you what that actual increase looks like.

Our 19 and 20 were pre-pandemic, and so you all contributed about 40% of new personal real estate tax.

by an additional 1.1 million, both years post-COVID, there was additional contributions that have been in line with, the contributions were in line with the 40%.

and so we projected to sustain our current operations that we've over time we would continue to need about four million four million new dollars each year and so these things are have been in

in alignment with our Blue Ribbon Commission on Sustainable Schools, which actually went out in 2013.

So it's still relevant.

So it's still relevant today.

Yeah.

Thanks, Arthur.

The orange line says that number is what was projected to be at the start of the budget year, not the actual increase of real and personal property receipts.

Okay, but so when there's like a surplus at the FY 2023, I think there's a $21 million surplus, and the real and personal property tax portion of that was, if I think I see here correctly, $7 million.

OK, so the actual numbers that are real in personal property receipts are actually much more than what these orange numbers are.

Yeah, they increase this.

And for 23, and 22, and 21?

These are all actuals?

So this slide shows a comparison of the school's annual appropriation to the city's overall total operating budget.

So last fiscal year, 23, and the current fiscal year, 24, the school's contribution is 29% of the city's budget.

So the highest point in the last five fiscal years it was 2021 with a percentage of 33%.

And so over the last nine years, the average has been about 31.7%.

All right.

And I think this slide is very important.

And I know that as city council persons, you all have very hard jobs in terms of how you allocate resources to the various departments.

And so this slide actually comes from the auditors of public accounts.

and it shows it's a report for localities and cities for the fiscal year of 2022.

And so the blue bar represents the state average per capita.

And then the gold bar represents Charlottesville City.

And so what we see in this slide is that there are three governmental functions where the state average exceeds education, public safety and public works.

and I think the takeaway is that for me as we look at this is it takes every dollar to make this happen, especially when we're talking, especially as we continue to talk about, we are continuing to get new students.

I know that on the news that talked about that the birth rate decline

decreasing, but we're not being impacted by that, as you can tell, because we continue to get new students.

And we're required to serve those students and serve them well.

And so if we're going to do that, it's going to take a lot of resources.

And I think what you'll see in our, not I think I know, what you'll see in the upcoming slides is that

We continue to make really hard decisions internally in terms of what we cut and what we don't continue to pursue.

But then that starts to set the bar really low.

We're moving the marker down.

And I don't think that that's what you all want, because we know that people buy their homes where they buy their school and they buy their home at the same time.

They buy their school and their home at the same time.

They pick their house because of their schools.

And so it's just going to, I think we're going to have to really turn our attention here if we are going to be the school system of choice.

Next slide.

Just a reminder about our gain-share agreement.

I think you all, I think

Many of you all are aware of the gains sharing agreement.

I know we have new board members and you all have new council.

And so it's just where we, the additional funding from schools are committed in March of 23.

And so I know we had some questions about what happened with some monies.

in terms of back in the spring.

And so we did commit some monies from fund balance to the Buford project for the reconfiguration.

And it's also outlined in the capital improvement plan.

And then we did use our ESSER funding for our divisional instructional technology, social emotional.

So we've been steady trying to offset programming to help out in that area.

And so

We did remit $4.4 million to the city per our gain-sharing agreement because we were offsetting those things with the ESSER, with the ESSER votes.

Next slide.

And so we are a people business in alignment with almost every school division across the Commonwealth.

The large portion of our funds go to salaries and benefits.

Roughly 75% of our overall expenditures go to salary and benefits.

And then the next

Item would be the third thing, third highest thing we spend our money on are those contract services which include our maintenance and transportation.

So the next slide, Ms.

Ocheren had a question about standards of quality.

And so I'm going to draw your attention, Ms.

Ocheren, to the far left column where it says state SOQ FTEs.

So the state says that it takes 326 people, well, 326.45 people to make the school division run.

And what you'll see is that in that next column, we actually have 539 people.

And that's not a want, that's a need.

And for example, if you look at

If you look at the librarian column, according to the SLQ, every school doesn't need a librarian, where we know that that's not accurate.

When we look at school counselors, they only fund, this is what's being funded.

So when they say you have to give a raise for SLQ positions, they're only given a raise for the 326.

What we do is we give a raise to everyone who falls in that group because we don't pick and choose who's an SOQ position and who's not.

So the same thing is we have a lot of conversation nationally, locally about what happens with the social emotional learning of our students.

The state only funds 39, I'm sorry, 13 positions.

We have 18 and that's not including some of our non-licensed positions, SEL positions.

So you see the difference there.

and so you see the how many we are above you see what the state actually gives us so they give us the they're giving us the 4.7 million and that's applied after that's applied after the LCI adjustment

Ironically, the SOQ is just the name of the public that is vocally up-to-date.

No school division in the Commonwealth.

At one time, there was one that was teetering on the edge of the wall.

They were also teetering on the edge of state data.

Even the poorest localities in the Commonwealth cannot operate above.

Any other SLQ questions?

And so I think it's very important that we talk about specialized student support, particularly as we think about how our students moved out of the pandemic and came out of the pandemic.

brought a lot of things with them out of the pandemic in terms of needing social, emotional support, behavioral support.

And so if you look here, the state says that you need three positions per 1,000 students or 12 for 1,300.

And so you see that we have 36.5 positions that

support our students in some capacity as it relates to the social-emotional learning.

And then you see that we exceed that SOQ by 24.5.

And that is inclusive of social workers, psychologists, licensed behavior analysts.

So that list is presented there.

The next slide.

This slide just shows us in terms of compensation where Charlottesville City falls.

In terms of contracts, our contract is a 1,400 hour contract.

So sometimes when people are saying, well, what does the county pay?

What does the county pay?

And with some regards, it's a little apples to oranges because the county

This contract is 1450 hours.

You'll see that Arlington's contract is 1500 hours.

So our contract hours are a lot lower so our teachers work 200 days and 1400 hours.

But regardless, we are still trying to remain competitive.

We did do a little analysis to see what it would look like in those other localities if they were a 1,400-hour contract, which brings their actual rate down in terms of what their contract would be paid out.

But I think at the end of the day, I mean, people are looking at the bottom line.

You know, how much is the job paying?

So right now with our mid-year, with the mid-year raise that we gave in January, step zero, which is on the bachelor's scale, that's $55,000 and it's $39.31 an hour.

The next slide just talks about, we did go through a salary study last school year.

I feel it's very important, and I think collectively we feel that it's very important that we implement that salary study.

We have positions that we really need to fix in order to attract people in those positions, such as custodians and instructional assistants, nutrition workers.

And what's currently happening is there's some compression on those salary scales.

And there's the 1% compression.

We have to give this 1% one-time bonus anyway.

What we would like to try to do is we want it to go towards their creditable compensation.

So we want to, in this current budget, give everyone at least a step.

But we also feel like

that we may be able to implement this small portion of the compensation study.

Right now, we have over 40 pay tables.

What this compensation study does is it puts everybody on a pay table.

So it would give us a few pay tables in the administration in general.

It would create two pay tables for us.

We would address the compression issues that we have.

So that would make the instructional system position more competitive.

It would make the nutrition worker position more competitive.

And it really just brings those positions in line with what's happening at the market.

We picked this part because this part addresses the compensation.

This part addresses the compression.

So there were various scenarios that Evergreen presented to us, and some of them were like

giving people like two and three percent pay increases.

Well, we know with the money that we have, we can't do those things.

So we looked at this and said we have to give a one percent bonus to people.

and I think people will be appreciative of it but I think that people would be more appreciative if we did the step because the step is one and a quarter so we would give them one and a quarter and it would go towards their credible compensation which is their retirement because the bonus that is being proposed by the governor does not go towards people's their retirement and we do hear over and over again that

people's retirement is very important to them.

Yes.

So if I give you a bonus right now, it doesn't go towards your retirement.

If I give you a step, it goes towards your retirement.

And I will tell you that when I first got here, there were people who were frozen.

Some people who may be behind me, they were frozen.

And so that took a lot of work to go through and unfreeze people and get people to the right pay grade.

And I will tell you that nobody wants to work this school year and be on the same step they were next school year.

It just doesn't feel good at all.

So I keep saying credible compensation because I want to make sure that I move people to their next step and make that meaningful.

So not the 1% bonus, the one and a quarter step.

Credit.

It's credit towards their retirement.

Creditable Creditable Creditable

Yes, but I'm also from a rural place.

It may sound like I'm saying credible, like reliable.

That's what I thought you were saying.

I was thinking the alternative is incredible compensation.

Take us two off topic.

This just came to mind because obviously on the city's end, we've done our wage and compensation study, which we're looking at in conjunction with collective bargaining.

Absolutely.

So CEA represents our licensed professional bargaining unit.

And so they are not bargaining for the upcoming contracts for the 24-25 school year.

We will, in the next few weeks, begin the process of sitting at the table together to start working towards what it looks like for the 25-26.

What I will say, and I've shared this at our last meeting, our teacher scale, we do work on, and I guess I'm saying this right, we do work on that every year.

We don't have like 50 pay tables for teachers.

So right now, right now, all of those people that you see listed in general, there's a pay, and if you look in our budget book, there's a pay table for all of those individuals.

One thing that putting them on a unified pay plan does is it gives them an opportunity to look at what longevity looks like if I grow professionally within that particular group.

Our teacher scales, we don't have as many.

We have like a 200 scale for teachers who work 200 days, and then there's a scale for like 220.

210 and 220.

But again, every year when we meet to do budget, we make adjustments.

So those steps get pay increases.

So that part doesn't.

So right now, none of this impacts collective bargaining.

I can't, I honestly can't speak to that because I don't, I mean, I don't know if, I mean, it may be one of the things that advanced forward out of collective bargaining is, you know, relooking at the pay tables, which we would work through together.

Thank you.

Great question.

All right.

We've gotten a lot of questions, and so this is why the next two slides are about our city maintenance contracts and our city transportation contracts.

And so we just are presenting this here because people have asked what's included.

So here presented are the things that are folded into our maintenance contracts.

in terms of HVAC plumbing, facilities of development, parks and rec.

That's how we arrive at that number and we are projecting that increase of 6%.

I think the one, our next slide, is probably the one that we've spent a lot of time, we've gotten a lot of

inquiries related to our transportation contract.

And I think that Mr. Payne has alluded to a little bit of this.

I think some of this is tied to transportation's compensation.

We've not gotten a firm number.

I think Ms.

Powell and staff have worked through what the projected number is.

I think what I realized on yesterday is we

We've put this number forward, actually on Monday, I'm sorry.

It was based on the best information available, but it is somewhat speculative, obviously, until the deal is done, if you will.

And I would just encourage you to reach out to Transit Management to find out what their discussions were to give us a best guess to put in at this time.

But it wasn't a number we came up with on our own.

I'm curious about the top line there because a 25% increase of $975,708 doesn't start from a base of $3 million.

Either the percentage increase is wrong or the $975,708 is wrong.

For $975,708 to be a 25% increase, the base would have to be roughly $4 million.

I got you.

So it's FY24 is 3.9, and then FY25 is 3.9 plus 975?

The current number is 3.9.

Yeah.

And I have a projection of 25%.

If I do 25% on that number, it's $995,620.

So I just increased it based on conversations with Ms.

I'm not quibbling about just a few dollars.

Since we are talking about a budget for FY25, that would seem to be the more relevant number.

That's about right.

That's about right.

That's not right.

I wasn't quibbling between 24.5 and 25.

I was just trying to get at the amount that you are thinking you are going to need for FY 25, which is what we're here to talk about, is 4.9, not 3.9.

Or an increase in non-hertz.

OK, I got you.

Any other transportation related question before we advance forward?

All right, Ms.

Thacker, we can advance.

So we've presented this a couple of different ways.

This is the iteration from January 18, 2024.

and our board asked that they wanted to see the changes as they happen.

So we've color coded for you.

So the document is how we presented it.

What you see is the highlighted, so after, so that you can see the progression.

The yellow are things that we removed in the next version of this document.

Pink are things that we will make some changes to, that you'll see some changes to.

And then the red is where we add it based on some conversations.

So it's a lot, but it'll kind of, it'll get cleaned up in a few slides down the road.

So we started our initial conversation with wanting to give our teachers a step of one,

yeah one point one and a quarter it's supposed to be one and a quarter um one and a quarter and um then they would get two included with their raise they would get a total of about three um three percent

And then the same thing for the administrative administration and the general, there would be an average of 3%.

So in the first version of this that we presented to the board, all of our groups were getting a 3% increase.

You've heard me say a few moments ago that that has since changed.

We also, the white area, I didn't say, the white area is the area where we made no changes.

So we know that we were required to give the 2% increase for teachers and staff this year.

We know that that must be built into the budget for next school year.

And that comes at the cost of about $1.2 million.

So then we made some changes here where we added, we went back so we eliminated those areas in yellow and then we went back and we did a step increase for teachers which is about $567,000 which is 1.25, one and a quarter

And then we did the same thing for our administration and general group, which we would implement through the Evergreen study.

Again, all of this is creditable compensation, so it goes towards their retirement.

And then we've had some changes.

We've had some changes to our health insurance.

We are receiving quotes that it could be an increase of about 7.7%.

And so we've had to make some changes here.

And then as I move down, you see we have the placeholder for the things that we pay to you all.

And then, you see, we've had some other things down at the bottom, some of our communications tools, safety and safety software, things to KTEC.

So Dr. Gerl, before you move on, the health care benefit.

So Ms.

The items that you see in yellow we removed based on the number that we got from the city.

So we couldn't sustain a 901,000 increase in health insurance.

So that's being removed.

And as Dr. Gurley said, we have gotten some additional quotes on our administration piece of our health insurance plan because we're self-insured.

I just wanted to make sure that we were not in effect.

Correct.

And our health insurance rates will have to change.

Premiums that we charge our employees for health insurance.

There will be factors that will have to change.

All right, next slide.

So again, this was the document that was originally presented to our school board.

And so I want to make sure that we keep into perspective that that pink line at the top, so we are building a needs-based budget.

The pink row at the top is taken into consideration our elementary class size growth

and our growth based on our English as a second language population.

And then there are some bubble classes at the high school.

So that far right column where you see the 7.5, that's the number of positions.

We did that based on the 30 to 1 ratio for our English as a second language with our elementary growth.

That's based on their class size initiatives that require us to not exceed 19 in some classes, not exceed 24 in some.

And so we presented that to our school board based on that.

We did have to, if you move down, there's a change based on the money that you all have said that we will be getting.

We will only be able to fund two of those positions.

And that's why that's there, because that's the change.

So there's still 5.5 positions to support our students that are not included in this budget.

As we move down the areas in yellow are things that we had to remove because this was, again, needs-based budget.

These are things that I presented to the school board based on the current needs of our school.

For example,

The first one says, KTEC Special Education, we are required to provide special education supports to our students based on the number that we will be getting from the city.

We are not able to include a special education teacher for KTEC.

Some of these things we, and I can point some of those things out, some of these things we may be able to use grant funds, but keep in mind that it is never a good practice to build people into grants because you're just creating a cliff for yourself.

So for the CHS attendance specialists, that is something that we could potentially fold into the all-in grant from the Virginia Department of Education, which would allow us to have someone who's in our community.

And it's a bad name.

Ms.

Burns pointed that out.

It's a bad name because it sounds like a clerical person, but it's actually someone who's a liaison, who's going out into the community, who's

meeting with our families, figuring out why our students aren't coming to school, what wraparound supports and things need to be in place for them, building relationships with families to say, hey, we appreciate you.

Can you get to school?

So we're not able to build that into our current budget.

We may be able to use all in funds to do that.

But again,

When it works really well, we would be sitting back here having a conversation about how can we sustain this in the upcoming year in FY26, which we know would be very difficult.

I do.

You said that we're required to have special ed teacher at KTEC, but we can't put one there.

That question sounded scary that I meant it.

Well, I mean, it's just not a I mean, I know it'd be good to have that somewhere in the world, someone probably turns up somewhere in the world, someone probably turns a blind eye.

But I mean, it's just not who we are.

If there's somebody that comes and says like, hey, you missed this.

And then what happens?

No, no, I think that's a great question because, you know, at the end of the day, we're tasked with still providing that service.

Students with disabilities have individualized education plans.

And so they're required by law to receive those supports.

So we're going to have to figure that out.

And I think one thing that I've learned in this process is that we figure it out, but then nobody

So, Councilor Oshun, I mean, that was a question that I asked immediately when this came back to us because, and as Dr. Gurley said, and he's already been meeting with Ms.

Raznick, you know, we will figure it out.

We're already working on plans.

We have limited number of people that are providing services to our students within the buildings, you know, within Charlottesville City School buildings, and then to have to take or figure out

how we stretch somebody else to provide those services to our students who are in KTEC.

I mean, so it's accommodations, it's testing, it's all kinds of things.

So it really does require somebody onsite.

And that's, again, you're gonna hear me say this later probably, but I mean, this is equity.

I mean, this is what these students need.

by state based on their IEPs and 504s, they require those services.

So your question is kind of a big one.

No, no, no, no.

And I didn't interpret it that way.

I mean, that's a great question.

One thing I will say is that there's not one want on that list.

All of these things are needs.

In terms of, I know you all, I've heard from counselors over the course of the year in terms of how we support teachers and the site-based substitutes.

I just had a conversation, I'm sure she doesn't mind, but I just had a conversation with Ms.

Espo.

She works in this building.

And she's like, hey, I saw

Oh, hey.

So, you know, she had a conversation with me at the job there on Saturday.

She said, hey, I saw that the site-based subs were in yellow.

And she said, what does that mean?

And I said, it means you won't have a person who, if someone's absent, then they cover that class.

And she said, well, that's going to become me.

I'm going to have to cover the class.

That means students, if she covers the class, that means students don't get gifted supports.

So there's these trickle.

And we found that the site-based substitutes have worked.

I mean, we've tried to tweak compensation for substitutes, but knowing that there's someone who shows up in the building

and they can be deployed into spaces really is one of the things that teachers said that they value.

And so I really don't see that as a want.

I mean, it's a true need.

And I was glad that she pulled me to the side and had that conversation with me.

Again, a great point to all of those points.

Through the years for anybody who has paid attention, parents, teachers, staff, I mean, we have really struggled with having enough substitutes in the buildings.

And if you are keeping up with the challenges of our staff and our teachers in the building, it is doing just what Dr. Gurley stated.

It's taking

folks who are should be reading specialists are literally literacy specialists and and they're covering classes our our gifted resource teacher folks I mean so it's pulling people that are supposed to be providing specific interventions and they're covering classes and so through the years we have as a board worked really hard to try and figure out how to

get substitutes, attract substitutes, pay substitutes, provide stipends and different incentives for teachers who are taking on and covering these classes when we don't have people in the buildings.

And we've worked really, really hard the last year or two to try and identify and hire

site-based substitutes.

Listening to teachers' feedback, especially in the last year and trying to really value their voice and what they wanted and what would make a difference for them was to be able to bring, you know, minimally this number of teachers

into our division so that they can do the work that they're supposed to be doing and to lighten that load.

So a little bit of redundancy, but I mean, it was us listening to what our teachers needed.

So again, retention and really respecting what they needed.

Yep.

And so as I move down, so I want you to just for perspective, we have been talking with the principal leadership team in terms of what is differentiated staffing looks like.

And so what I'm presenting to you this afternoon that these are all the things that I presented to the school board.

They all don't look the same.

This isn't me saying every school needs the same thing.

So if you look at the next couple of lines, you see that I requested that another reading specialist and math specialist be placed at Walker, another reading specialist and math interventionist be placed here, a reading and a math specialist be placed at Beaufort, and then lastly, a math specialist be placed at Clark.

and those are all teaching positions.

And the reason why I did that is because Clark, Clark, Walker and Buford are level three schools, meaning that there are students, remember at the beginning when I talked about economically disadvantaged, there are students in these subgroups

that are not meeting the benchmark.

They need something different.

As Ms.

Torres just said, this budget is an equity model in terms of how we staff.

Everyone can't get the same thing.

And I had that conversation with the principals.

You don't see the same thing for all the elementary schools.

And I know that that's a little different and that may not feel good to people, but this is what's right for kids.

because we know that, again, back to what she said, if the teacher, if the reading specialist needs to sub at Clark, then students aren't getting services.

And so that's why you see that delineated there for those three schools.

And so in some cases, so for Clark, for example, there already are two reading specialists there and one math specialist.

This is a very small, random question.

Absolutely.

So the specialist holds an endorsement.

And so the reading specialist has gone through a reading specialist program.

And so they have taken a test.

They, I always say in my previous life, they diagnose and treat, they work, they provide those, a lot of those tier three interventions, the most intensive.

When you talk about like what a reading interventionist is, that just may be a master teacher who's very good at providing interventions for reading.

They may have gone through like some research-based

The number at the bottom, total increase expenditures, and then I guess that's the full-time equivalent, 30.5.

So none of them are.

These all are brand new, with the exception of the site-based substitutes because they're in terminal positions.

Yeah, we only have three of them.

We have three of them.

Now, the night school is currently funded by local money, which we've figured out a way to make that happen this year.

But if you don't fund it, then technically it's not there.

I mean, we would have to figure out a way to make it work.

And so if I keep saying we have to figure out a way to make it work, there's not enough money.

OK, so practically, if you've got what, three site-based substitutes right now?

Yes.

So we're talking about not adding 27.5 people?

And are there now anybody, is there anybody now in the top category of teachers, enrollment, growth, elementary, and or a second language?

So they are positions we would be adding, but the 0.5 is the 0.5 position is, yeah, we would be adding, someone's in that position.

Yeah, someone's in the 0.5 position that we had to add, but it's not budgeted.

The position at Venable that we added this year, we had to add that based on growth.

That was not built into the budget.

However many we've got in that, and I know it was on a prior slide and I just can't get back to it right now, but there are some people in that category already

And you would like to be able to add seven and a half more to the budget.

But under this proposal, you would be adding only two more to the budget.

And aren't the current site-based subs, aren't those vacancy savings?

Yeah.

And ESSER funds, which we don't have after September.

Even just kind of ballpark numbers, what is the, because on the city on our end, particularly since the pandemic, we've had a large amount of vacancies that haven't been able to be filled, probably because our pay is not competitive, among other reasons.

What is the scale of the number of vacancies that you currently have?

What dollar amount that is?

And kind of how are you projecting that rate?

Are you thinking that rate over time is going down?

Ms.

Lewis, she's pulling it up now.

We keep a spreadsheet of the number of vacant positions.

Many of those vacant positions are some of those hard to staff nationally positions, such as special education.

26 and a half positions are currently vacant.

And that's across various roles from teaching to instructional assistant.

I think like you, like the city, our instructional assistant pay table is not strong.

It's not competitive at all.

That's one of the benefits of implementing the Evergreen

compensation study because it does bring them to market.

It reduces that compression.

So that's across the teacher, CSA, our care safety assistance.

Yeah, follow up on that.

And I don't know if this is a little off topic, but I'm curious about it with the growing need for ESL teachers.

What has your experience been?

I know we have a school population where there's a growing number of students whose first language may be Farsi, African languages where the

I'm guessing just the talent pool of people with that skill in terms of the pipeline of workers may be smaller.

What have you found in terms of your ability to just find talent to fill some of these ESL positions?

Well, the good thing is the teachers don't have to have any background in that language.

And so we did a school success meeting last week, and I actually had the opportunity to do a classroom observation in one of our sheltered EL classes.

And you have students of all languages in that one class.

It's about the pedagogy.

It's about what their specific skills that the students are learning in order to develop the language.

So, this is not, these aren't positions that are language, a specific language, it's not specific to a certain language.

Ms.

No, it was that one.

Thank you.

And so night school is listed there, you know, increasing.

We have some special education, you see stipends for special education teachers, sorry, special education instructional assistants.

And so we have some special education assistants that their duties look a lot different than other IAs.

For example, they're doing a lot of toileting.

They're doing a lot of feeding and changing and lifting of students.

That role, the role of a special education IA, those IAs look a lot different than the IAs in the general education classroom, which also sometimes makes it very hard to staff those positions.

There are a lot of turnover there.

Ms.

It's $1,000.

One of the things that I definitely don't want before we go on I don't want to kind of I don't want to skim over it is that we will need to evaluate our current elementary student attendance zones.

I think for obvious reasons.

We've had a lot of growth.

and some of our elementary zones.

Some of those schools are bursting at the seams.

You know that many of these buildings, they're approaching 100 years.

They weren't built for this size furniture, this number of bodies.

And so we will need to work with a consultant to look at our attendance zones.

Again,

If we build it, they come.

And I think that's what we're seeing.

Before everybody said another thing.

I can assure you that I don't want to do this.

Yeah, I mean, we're reaching some very tough spots and it's my understanding that many of our communities are doubling and tripling in size and the schools don't have the capacity for it.

Yeah, I was really surprised to see Clark at

like almost I think 252 and I recall it was below 200 for a few years when I was on school board.

Yeah.

It's only going to get bigger and, you know, the thing that we cannot shy away from is it does not, you know, I think it is a great thing that we are providing the space for people to live.

But I think the unintended consequence is, I don't know if all the players sat at the table and said, what does this do to the school?

Because the school, once that's done, Clark does not have the capacity to hold all of that.

And that's not to scare anyone.

It's a reality.

Ms.

So I've been meeting with NDS monthly for the past year or so.

I'm glad we finally were able to get that going.

And they are aware that we have asked Weldon Cooper Center to update the yield rates.

And then we're going to be sending those over to NDS.

They have the old yield rates that we worked with Weldon Cooper Center to develop for us.

But basically, the yield rates say what they

Tell is okay for a single family home, a town home or an apartment.

This is the average number of students you can expect to come out of those types of developments.

So hopefully that'll be a useful tool for NDS and the planning, all those involved with planning the city moving forward.

So they had yield rates that were done back in, I want to say 2014, that the school system went to Weldon Cooper to get and NDS has had that for some time.

But now we are actually

This is supposed to help us better prepare and plan because it's really challenging.

No one wants to see modular units having to be heavily used or used for a long period of time.

The last time anything happened that significantly impacted us, and it was an impact for years, was when the

The high rise UVA student housing went up on West Main Street.

No one realized the impact that was going to have on the schools because what it did is it freed up single family home stock within the city limits.

And if you look back at our growth records, which aren't part of this presentation, but we were one of the fastest growing school systems in the state until just before the pandemic, when the impacts of that kind of leveled off.

and then now you know there's a lot of things underway with the new developments and the redevelopments of existing affordable housing properties and then the potential up zoning and by the way Weldon Cooper is really having to think hard I think about what the up zoning piece could mean so I think the more meaningful work that they're doing for us now will be around just what's happening with the redevelopment that's right in front of us with kindlewood and south first street

and those efforts.

But Clark is basically sits on a postage stamp.

So even if you want to put modulars there, you can't.

There's no good place to put modulars on the Clark campus.

Yeah, I think that we're definitely growing as a community because our system is growing.

I know the county is growing, and I believe that during one of the presentations that we got, we learned that Charlottesville in this area has one of the highest private school enrollment in the state as well.

Yeah, I think the thing just to keep in mind in regards to the budget is as we have more deeply affordable housing, we have more people come to our city.

And if they're in the category of our L students, our L population, then we have we still have this twofold of the L teacher as well as the core subject teacher.

Our next slide just shows you the breakdown of what we just talked about, the decrease in the state revenue, that one-time bonus, which we've removed, the fund balance.

In order to make some of these things work, we would have to tap into fund balance.

and which we know we don't want to do because it just creates the cliff for us the next time that we come back to the table.

And then that takes into consideration the $6 million that you all are advancing forward.

The next slide just shows what this looks like.

So we just went through two slides and we were able to get everything that we can make work on one slide.

So this is what we would be advancing forward.

So we started with

All the positions, and now this is what we are left with.

The 2% raise, which we must do, the step increase for the teachers, and then the implementation of the pay table from Evergreen.

You see the city contracts.

And then for the only teaching positions we would be advancing for would be the two positions, and this is our budget.

So this is what we're left with, with the $6 million that you're providing us.

Dr. Gurley, on the slide before that, you had shown a use of fund balance of $772,832.

About $4 million.

And is that just from accumulated money savings every year, bit by bit?

No, there's no other source.

I mean, one of the things that I've been conscious of at the council level is that we have a number of sort of institutional policies of wanting to have a reserve of so much of a percent and

and some of those are based on a lot of caution and some of them are based on things like what the bond rating agencies tell us we need to be doing and things like that.

Is there any sort of a standard or a

Well, our standard would be the GFOA, the General Finance Officers Association's best practice would be to at least have 12 to 15% of your budget expenditures and reserves.

We only have four.

Thank you.

All right.

So the previous slide, I just want to make sure that this is where we landed based on the $6 million, two positions for enrollment.

And that's an and or, elementary or ESL.

All right, next slide.

And this is just a breakdown, one more time, of how we make it happen.

And I think I'm supposed to say on this, those essential actions, those steps for teachers, those are the essential actions there.

And based on getting $6 million, we would have to tap into fund balance.

Next, sorry.

And so as we move forward, the one time we would need to leverage fund balance for the salary actions.

So for some of the salary actions, the step, again, is creditable compensation.

And then I think that's pretty good on this slide.

You can read the rest of it.

Next, this is just our change over the years.

And I think you have to keep in mind, as we talk about that special revenue, you see that increase there.

And that's K-Tech.

So I think that's a little bit.

That change looks like it's huge there, but that's because we're bringing another school online.

So that's what pushed that special revenue up.

We didn't get another funding source from anywhere.

We brought K-Tech online.

So the monies that come with K-Tech to run K-Tech goes into that.

So Carl Perkins, the Carl Perkins Fund, which covers the equipment and things of that nature.

and the Albemarle tuition.

All of those things go into the special revenue adult fees.

And remember, we had given you a really large number initially, Mayor Snook, about how much it would take to run KTEC.

And we did get that number down based on

working through Albemarle with the MOU and the slot agreement.

So that did come down.

KTEC is a city school now.

So at the request of our board, they just said at our work session the last time, what would it look like if we got $3 million, if we got $3 million more to the six that you're providing?

And this is what it would look like if we could have $3 million additional dollars.

We could do more work with the insurance and again,

We are really trying to absorb as much of that cost, knowing that some of the cost is still transferred to the employee.

So we could do more work with the insurance.

We put that right at the top.

We could put those positions back for student enrollment.

We changed the special education teacher to a special education IA.

And I've had some conversations with Dr. Helts.

We may be able to tweak some things so that we remain in compliance.

We remain in compliance with providing students with their support.

So we may be able to do some work there.

The site-based substitutes, what we did, remember that was 12.

We have pulled that back to, that's three, that's three.

One at Walker, one at Beaufort, one at CHS.

Currently we, with ESSER funds, we were using, we had two at Walker, two at Beaufort, and two at the high school.

So it still would, it would still be a reduction, but we are only putting one at those schools.

We did put in the reading specialist back, the interventionist back, the night school costs.

Tuition reimbursement, one thing that we are hearing, currently, we only reimburse $500 a year for teachers to take courses.

A course costs more than $500.

So we're only reimbursing $500.

And then we also, there's some labor negotiation things that we have to factor in.

And so that's what $3 million more would do for us.

Thank you, Dr. Gurley, and he was he was

Kind of nice and soft in the sense that he said the school board wanted to show you what three more million dollars might look like.

He and his staff worked extremely hard to bring us what he did last week.

And I have to say, if any of you tuned in, I mean that the board was really passionate and really not

comfortable with what he brought based on what you saw before, based on equity, based on it being a needs-based budget, based on what our students need, based on what we as elected officials stood up and said that we believe in,

and based on coming to you humbly and knowing that you all ran and have constituents and knowing that you have to, you know, budget for the entire city, but that we are a subset of what you take care of, you know, that our families, parents, students are your constituents.

Some of our students

Our voting age.

So, I mean, this is really, we're in a tough spot.

And as Dr. Gurley stated, I think you can see this isn't just wants.

This is based on what our students need.

This is addressing learning loss.

This is addressing and putting in place positions and staff that can support students

in areas where we as a community for years have been looking at data and wanting to know why certain sub subgroups aren't reading or aren't performing at different levels.

This is what we're addressing.

So this is equity.

And so we are coming to you and we asked Dr. Gurley to please

Bring this back because we need to be able to move forward minimally.

And again, this isn't even what he had asked for initially.

He did scale this back.

So we are humbly coming to you, as we always have to do every year.

And we are grateful for the supports that you have continued to provide the Charlottesville City Schools and this community.

But we really need you to

Hopefully talk a little bit more right now and amongst yourself obviously moving forward and how you can help us do more of this on this slide right here.

I do have one question about this slide.

I'm curious that it looks like the the base pay or the the amount that you're you're allocating for a specialist interventionist here is about $7,000 less per

Sorry, what's VRS?

So Virginia retirement system.

Based on the way that they're separating rates.

Yeah, I appreciate the presentation and the slides.

Ms.

Torres, your comments, certainly appreciate them and respect them.

One of the things that is always interesting as we go through this every year is that our schools do so much more than just provide education.

They provide a home for students.

They provide a way for them to be integrated from one culture into another culture.

They provide poverty relief, a whole range of things.

And so, and I think the fact that Charlottesville has been an

will be, all of us are committed to.

I know the notion of Charlottesville being a welcoming community.

One of the things that that impacts directly is refugees.

And so, you know, I appreciate everything that's been shared.

I appreciate the hard work that's gone on into putting this together, the thoughtfulness of this is what we, you know,

Want and need I guess can be relative terms.

We started at one point, you dialed it back, and now you've come up with another sort of proposal.

I'm not prepared to speak personally about a funding decision because this directly impacts taxation and all other things that I'm still thinking through.

Did you want to respond?

Okay.

Sorry, I was a little bit late.

I came right from work as soon as I could, but I was watching.

I was listening over Zoom while I was on my way here.

But a note, I had a question kind of far back closer to the beginning of the slideshow was the demographic slide shows us percentages, but not hard numbers.

Absolutely.

We can use our school quality profile.

That has hard numbers.

Mayor Wade, I also want to just make sure that you know that we have public comments.

Yeah, when did you want the?

You know, so I think I mean we definitely can continue to have conversation or take your questions or comments, but we have several people I believe signed up here in the room and then we may have some on zoom.

So I believe.

If Leslie just shows that last thought, the next steps.

Yep, there we have it.

So there still may be some changes to the budget.

We do have a work session that's coming up next week back in the same space.

Hopefully we'll have some more information to make some more decisions.

If I could just make one comment in response to something Miss Torres said a few minutes ago.

City Council has made no decisions.

We have not talked with one another.

When you said you wanted us to talk some more with one another, we haven't talked at all yet.

We haven't seen the city manager's budget.

This is the first time in the last couple of days we've had some solid information from you all.

But I make this point largely because we're getting so many comments for emails from people who want us to reconsider our decision

And we haven't made a decision yet.

Based on, I'm sorry.

So if that's the perception that's out there, the budget that was presented to us was based on what Dr. Gurley was given.

from the city.

And so that's where we're starting.

That's where the adjustments were made from.

And we will first deal with the budget the day after the last meeting that is shown on the looking ahead slide.

Is it possible, and I'm going to play new to the community, because I think I had this question when I first got here.

Is it possible for this process to change?

And I guess that's probably where we have to work as a staff.

It just feels like, I don't know.

I'm going to speak on behalf of the staff.

I ask a lot of them.

And many of them, just like you all, miss time with their families.

We work at the pleasure of the board.

And we work to serve this community.

And I just feel like we could make better decisions if we

If we knew what the number was, it just feels like we spent a lot of time on this exercise.

And as you see, if you go back to when we first started, I mean, there's a meeting every week.

And these folks have families.

It's funny you mention that because Sam and I met in Chrissy.

a couple of days ago.

Maybe it was yesterday.

Was it yesterday?

Yeah.

And I said, it seems like we're making these decisions a lot sooner.

So because we need to determine what the mix, we have certain levers and things that we

can use to address our budget.

And so it's something that we can look at.

Of course, we have a hard deadline.

Is it April we have to approve it by?

So we have to factor that in.

And we know we need your numbers, but we have to advertise by a certain date.

So anyway, we can't do that.

We're not going to do that right now.

So Madam Chair, what is your pleasure is your meeting.

So you can hear from your.

other school board members, and we can reserve our comments to after we hear from the public.

There we go.

Thank you, sir.

I, you know, it's up to you all.

I mean, I know that we've got a lot of people in the room.

So I would really like to honor the fact that yeah, that they are here.

Because I think we will have an opportunity next week again to end.

So anyway, I would say let's go on to public comment if you're ready for that.

So I will go ahead and let's let's start with those of you who are in the room.

And I believe there was a signup sheet.

Ms.

Sacker will, I don't know, either bring that to me or, and I do, all of you who are here, I do want to express our gratitude for you being here.

So first on our list we have Christine Esposito, Ms.

Espo.

Good evening, Mayor Wade, School Board Chair Torres, Dr. Gurley, and members of the City Council and School Board.

My name is Christina Esposito.

I live in the city and have worked for Charlottesville City Schools for 24 years.

I am a gifted resource teacher here at Walker, and though I would be hard pressed to find a single thing being removed from Dr. Gurley's original budget frivolous, I'm here to explain the absolute vital necessity of site-based subs for each of the schools in the city.

Since returning to in-person instruction, Walker has struggled to implement the new gifted model that was adopted just prior to the pandemic.

One of the biggest reasons for this is subbing.

In the past, prior to enrichment being put into the master schedule, gifted teachers were the first to be pulled for both daily and long-term subbing.

The gifted model requires consistency and trust that we'll be there when we say we'll be there.

Neither of those things are possible when we are subbing at a moment's notice.

Without site subs, it is unlikely Walker will be able to implement the gifted program as GRTs are likely to become de facto site subs.

As a GRT, the most visible aspect of my job is the enrichment lessons I teach each week, but they are not where I make the most impact.

It is the time spent in PLCs with my colleagues helping to refine and create curriculum that challenges all students.

It is time spent creating and refining activities, scaffolds, and challenges for all students where I currently have the most impact.

Though even with two site subs, I've been pulled from PLC meetings on multiple occasions to cover classes.

When I am pulled to sub for a class, none of the work I have committed to doing for teachers magically disappears.

Those hours are added to the 50-plus hours a week I am already working.

My impact would be greater if I could schedule lessons that involved modeling lessons or co-teaching with my fellow ELA teachers.

The magic we could work with two adults in the room would make a huge difference.

But because even with two site subs I can be pulled to cover a class at any time, I am not scheduled to teach my own classes.

That is just not tenable at this time.

The knock-on effects of not having site subs means GRTs, reading specialists, math specialists, coaches, classroom teachers, admin, and even central office will not be able to do their jobs effectively as they will likely be subbing.

This is at a time when we are seeing significant increases in the number of students in need of significant intervention.

Lest you think this is strictly a secondary problem, it is not.

I worked at Johnson for the last eight years.

Prior to the pandemic, we would have to pull instructional assistance now and again to be substitutes, very often for the teacher in their classroom.

These days, instructional assistants are being pulled multiple times a week, meaning classroom teachers cannot count on having their assistance on any given day,

which greatly impacts their ability to work with small groups of students.

Some weeks, IAs are subbing more than they are doing their actual jobs.

Lastly, but very importantly, site-based subs get to know the children in our schools.

The children know them.

These relationships keep students in class who might otherwise act out or try to show off for an adult they don't know.

I know it is unfair to ask you to make up for shortfalls caused by the state, but here we are.

Schools are continually asked to do more with less.

We are hanging on by fraying threads.

As I look at Dr. Gurley's budget requests, I see nothing we don't desperately need.

Again, it is acronym based.

What is PLC?

Good evening.

My name is Heather Blakely.

I'm a sixth grade teacher here at Walker Upper Elementary.

I have 14 years of teaching experience and just moved here from Utah.

I have various positions, including a reading interventionist and an English teacher.

Specialists and interventionists are vital to our schools.

They are an important component to our district strategic plan.

We are still seeing the effects of the pandemic on both reading and math.

Currently in the sixth grade, we have about 300 students.

Of those 300, there are roughly 50 students scoring in the well below grade level in reading and are unable to receive services from a reading specialist or interventionist.

This is due to our reading specialist and interventionist already being at the capacity with the amount of students who are well below grade level in reading.

Students who start in our ESL program and graduate out of it, then go to them to help them get back up to grade level.

Teachers are doing their best to pick up the slack and provide necessary and targeted interventions during our class time, but we don't have the time, program materials, training, specialized expertise, et cetera, to effectively reach these students and close the gap.

Teachers also do not have the time, training, or resources to plan for effective tier two interventions.

While teachers are highly educated, there is a special understanding and knowledge that comes from our specialists.

They have been through various trainings and degrees, they have tricks up their sleeve, can help diagnose any student gaps in what they are, and help teachers with referrals when we are all at a loss.

They also provide teachers with knowledge for their classroom setting.

By capping or removing specialists in either both math or reading, we are doing a disservice to our students.

Data is still showing gaps that stem from COVID years, and we are working as hard as we can to plug these holes as quickly and efficiently as possible.

But it's unrealistic to expect teachers to be able to teach current content, work with students who are struggling to read and work at grade level, grade, analyze and understand data from both district mandated assessments and assignments as well as classroom ones,

Thank you.

Ms.

Hello, my name is Jessica Taylor.

I'm a reading specialist at Clark, but I'm actually going to be reading a statement from Shannon Gilliken, who is a kindergarten teacher at Jackson-Biah.

Dear school board and members of city council, I regret that I cannot be here tonight as we have sick kids at home, but I wanted to offer my thoughts about the current budget.

As a veteran teacher, I've been asked many times over the years what would really move the needle and make a difference for our students.

My first answer is always having their basic needs met.

My second is that more reading and math specialists and special education professionals would make a huge difference.

These experts help us accommodate students with many needs, drill down into data and the why behind our students' successes or failures, and they provide much needed extra instruction.

If you look at the highlighted positions removed from the current budget, you will see math and reading specialists and special education professionals.

Do you want to help move the needle?

This is what we need.

In addition, I am so proud of the work that is being done at CHS and so grateful for Mr. Leatherwood and the staff there.

They want to keep moving in the right direction and the attendance position as well as additional CSAs are part of that plan.

We don't just need the rallying of support last November.

We need ongoing funding and commitment to the success of our schools.

Thank you.

Ms.

Good evening, everybody.

I'm Sabra Timmons, and I'm one of two full-time Jackson Viya ESL teachers serving 73 identified English learners.

La ciudad de Charlottesville, atenido un compremiso de tener como 30 alumnos por cada maestro.

Y como tal vez, ustedes han escuchado nosotros a cementado mucho el nivel de los alumnos que nosotros

I'm sorry I started that way, but I wanted to give everybody a reminder a little bit, if you don't speak Spanish, of how it feels maybe to sit in a classroom when you don't understand a lot about what's going on.

I have always appreciated that Charlottesville City has committed to keeping a ratio of one teacher, ESL teacher, per every 30 students.

And as you probably heard, you already have heard I was here, experienced incredible growth in our English language learners in recent years.

In addition to these high numbers, we're also receiving a lot of students recently who have very low or no English.

And in addition, receiving students who have coming from experiences and countries where they've experienced a lot of trauma.

This year alone, we had a kindergarten arrive who had escaped the Taliban.

flew to Brazil, traveled through the jungles with her parents and her younger sister, escaped leopards, made it through Central America and Mexico and arrived at our doors.

We had a 10-year-old coming from Honduras who watched a man get stabbed on the way coming up with a coyote.

So it is not just the language that these children need.

We budget for a certain amount of ESL teachers, but along the way in the school year, we always surpass that.

It's been my experience being a teacher here.

For example, we started in the school year at Jackson Bio with two full-time teachers, and we now have the numbers for two and a half.

I understand that we're asking for 3.5 additional ESL teaching positions for the coming school year.

And that's what the current numbers and projection, but I can guess that we probably once we have those, we are also going to be adding an addition onto that.

Not having the staff to support in our schools,

will have negative effect not only on our classroom teachers who are under tremendous pressure as it is, but added pressure of trying to serve these students need without support.

Also the students themselves and our native English speakers who will have to wait because the classroom teachers will have to serve the needs of these students that are coming in.

I appreciate your time and all your efforts for all that you do for our kids.

Thank you.

Hello school board members and city council.

My name is Deborah Hartline, 1517 Antoinette Avenue.

Dr. Gurley, thank you for your recognition tonight of the duties of LEAP IAs.

Based on the budget presentation that Dr. Gurley gave at last week's school board meeting, I am here tonight to ask you to fully fund the special education assistance stipend.

I have been an instructional assistant in LEAP, formerly known as Functional Skills for the past 15 years.

The acronym of LEAP stands for Life Skills Education and Adaptive Curriculum Program.

The LEAP program serves students with multiple disabilities, both physical and intellectual, many of whom are not able to carry out their daily hygiene and feeding tasks.

Currently, the LEAP program at the elementary level is housed entirely at Jacksonville and includes almost 30 students.

In addition to helping our lead teachers with academic, social, and vocational education, WE-IAs also assist our students with feeding, toileting, and self-care tasks.

While this is hardly a glamorous aspect of our jobs, it is one we take very seriously.

We want to make sure our students are comfortable, of course, but it is actually a much larger health and safety issue.

Some students who are immobile and in wheelchairs are much more likely to develop sores and kidney infections, and they need to be transferred, checked, changed, monitored, and documented multiple times per day per student.

This takes time, strength, and agility, and yes, it can be messy.

There's also an important social component.

LEAP students are self-contained within our classrooms for parts of the day, but do spend

time with their peers in general education as well.

When our students are clean and fresh is much more normalizing and makes their peers see them as someone a lot like themselves.

This attitude of inclusion is vital for all of our school community and broadens the worldview of everyone involved.

We are experts at using our limited resources to create magic, but should be recognized and compensated for these extra duties.

We do them because we love our students and we want them to feel safe and healthy.

But we need you to understand that the scope of our daily work is not just sitting around a table working on academics.

We know that this stipend is a token and a gesture of appreciation.

It's to show assistance that we are seeing in a space that is often overlooked, doing work that people don't always want to discuss, to make our disabled students' lives more comfortable so that they can be the best they can be.

You can make this happen.

Thank you very much.

Good evening members of city council and school board.

My name is Raul Arbelize.

I'm a parent of, well, now graduate of Charlottesville City School System and a 10th grader that has been all the way through the school system.

I am also president of the Black Knight Athletic Club, which is the athletic booster organization for Charlottesville High School.

We have been around for two years now.

We're working on our second year.

And so I'd like to present comments both

personally and on behalf of the Black Knight Athletic Club.

As a parent of a student within our school system and president of the Black Knight Athletic Club, I'm grateful for the opportunity to address you today.

First, I want to express BKAC's, that's the Black Knight Athletic Club, full support for the school system's request for the $9 million shown in tonight's presentation by Dr. Gurley.

Investing in our educational institutions is paramount for the betterment of our community and the future of our children.

Furthermore, I am pleased to inform you that BKAC is actively engaged in fundraising efforts to add lights to the CHS Curtis Elder Track and Field Complex.

This initiative is in line with the school system's strategic plan, which prioritizes social, emotional, and physical wellness, fosters community cohesion, and ensures a safe environment for our students.

The estimated project cost stands at approximately $375,000, and we are seeking the city's support in the amount of $200,000 as a one-time discretionary allocation.

With this crucial funding, BKAC will be empowered to spearhead the remaining fundraising efforts.

It is important to recognize that supporting this project will have a direct and positive impact on Charlottesville high school students, athletic teams, and the broader Charlottesville community at large.

I sincerely thank you for your attention on this matter and urge your thoughtful consideration of our request.

Thank you.

Is there anybody else here?

In the room that would like to come up and make public comment.

OK, we will turn to those who might be online and I believe if you will raise your hand.

We will identify you and get you set up

Okay.

I really wanted to come in person, but I've been sick these past couple days.

If someone could just let me know when my time's up, there isn't a timer on the screen.

I just want to say real quick that

Some of these things that are highlighted in the other that are going to be cut are very much needed.

Well, all of the things are.

But I can personally speak to a couple of these things.

Teachers at CHS, and I'm sure at other schools, are tired.

We are feeling fatigue.

And

something that is really adding to that drain because you know it's just the regular life of a teacher is already it's a joke that we we do too much unpaid overtime we we wear too many hats we don't do all that but now we're having to deal with not having enough subs the quality of instruction

is directly related to how many subs we have.

If we are subbing for another teacher who's out for legitimate reasons, they're sick, they need to take care of themselves, that's cutting out our planning time.

That's cutting out our feedback and grading time for students.

I was subbing for another teacher long-term

for a couple months, and my PLC for world history, PLC, that's where we get together, we talk about how are we going to improve our classes, how are we going to meet different needs.

Well, that PLC met after school.

So that's unpaid overtime right there.

Just to give you one example.

and that was not affecting just me, but all the other teachers in my PLC who kindly decided to meet so that I could work with them during that time.

I also want to talk about how when I tried to get other people to come to this meeting, they said, no, I'm not gonna come.

I'm quitting.

I'm going into another field.

No, I'm going to another school.

No, I'm not going because they do this every year.

They want us to do a little song and dance, tell a couple sob stories, and then they'll give us half of what we need.

Oh, I see there is a little thing that shows me my time and it's almost up.

Thank you hope you feel better.

Next we have Laura.

Yes, it's Laura Sergani.

You did a great job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I urge you to approve this budget.

I'm also coming to you as a community member, as a parent of two students who attended Charlottesville City Schools and a CHS student who is finishing high school this year.

and also as a support staff member in Charlottesville City Schools and an education researcher.

And I'm commenting to address the potential changes to some school safety policies at CHS and how they pertain to the budget.

I just want to remind us of the promises we made in 2020 regarding school safety policies and how they pertain to this budget.

Metal detectors, taking students' phones and policing in the form of youth resource officers in our schools, are all research proven strategies that create an atmosphere of fear and distrust among our staff, our students and families.

These policies are carceral, they're not educational, and they hinder our educational goals for our students.

They threaten our students' mental health and wellbeing, and they weaken our community and our sense of belonging.

Funding should be used for expanding evidence-based measures that support student mental health and build meaningful community.

Research shows that there are

plenty of strategies that can work, including expanding professional development.

And I say this as a person who needs that expanded professional development for all our existing staff, especially support staff to strengthen the effective use of social emotional learning strategies, to increase positive behavioral supports and culturally relevant teaching practices.

We also need to expand our staffing

especially to have specialized staff who are trained in restorative justice practices and culturally responsive pedagogy and also strengthen our family and community engagement.

and we should be recruiting within our community.

I know that that was one of the goals of our safety policy and we need to be reaching out more to community.

We also need more on-site professionals to support our staff and to facilitate collaboration with families and students to develop meaningful strategies for supporting students' social and emotional needs.

and moreover, we need to be expanding our collaboration with students at CHS and within all our schools in a youth participatory action research model that would utilize students' insights to create safer and more supportive school policies.

It's time to make good on our promises of 2020 and put money into meaningful solutions that strengthen our school communities.

Thank you.

All right, and next, anybody else like to make public comment online?

If you would like to raise your hand and we can.

All right, anybody else here in the room?

Hi, my name is Amy Gardner.

I have a son at CHS, 11th grade, city council and school board.

Hello, thank you all for all your work.

I attended the school board meeting last week.

I have to say I was very impressed with Dr. Gurley's needs-based budget.

I think he's responding directly to all of the problems that CHS in particular has been having, and I'm sure we see this across the other schools as well.

My comment's pretty simple.

It seems to me that if you don't address some of these things now when these kids are in school, you're going to get to address them later when they graduate or they don't graduate.

So do you want to deal with it now or do you want to kick the can down the road and deal with it later?

Seems pretty simple to me.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

All right.

Okay, there's one hand online, I believe.

Yes, thank you.

I'm Ang Khan, city of Charlottesville resident.

I would like to say that the

instead of youth resource officers, I would suggest providing funding for additional training as Laura suggested previously.

I find it disappointing just at the least that CCS is considering putting more emphasis on criminalizing city youth instead of researching and providing solutions that are effective in supporting youth who may be experiencing challenges

with interpersonal relationships and emotional regulation and so on.

Listening to the comments, it seems as though there's a lot more areas where this funding would be beneficial.

And also, I want to say that there's a vast difference between punishment and accountability

No matter the age of the individual.

So please take that into consideration.

Thank you.

All right, anybody else?

All right, I do want to thank you all very much for your time this evening for engaging with us and listening.

Yes, I just want to chime in.

I thought that this meeting was very helpful to hear from the public.

We've been hearing the emails via email from citizens.

And as we are out and about, at least I have, I heard it.

I attended the Rose Hill Neighborhood Association meeting last night.

And the school system came up in positive light and the needs for it.

So I've been hearing in a lot of different light

venues and as you know I was on the school board for 16 years and you know as I was talking I almost want to kind of squeeze in there with y'all because I understand where you're coming from and I did, I've been in your positions

for 16 times.

Being in a position where you have a need, but you have no ability to live it taxes, you have to come to counsel.

And when I was there, I had no thought that I would be on this end now as one of the final decision makers in that.

But this has been very helpful for, I think, all of us.

And what we're going to do now, we're going to go back,

I think that the information that you presented, particularly for students that are most in need, I pulled up a quote that I had from my school board days, but I keep it with me because it's about working with children in poverty and how they have a greater need for love, how they have a greater need for trust and safety and security.

and our students, I mean our staff and our parents, they do that in abundance in our system, but I know that those numbers have increased.

I can tell you that we have already had the discussion a lot and figuring out how we can

narrow that gap.

I appreciate the accommodations that you've made from your original $12 million.

I know that now we just have hard work to do because we have not been taken care of for the city, you know, our other employees.

We have collective bargaining.

We have class and compensation.

We have been people leaving the city for the last several years because we haven't been paying them.

I mean, I'm talking about all the other workers.

And so we have a lot

We had a lot of money left, but we have more needs, and so we just have some tough decisions.

That's just the bottom line.

I have no magic answers for you all this evening other than we're going to have to go back.

We have a lot of discussion, a lot of meetings, but I can assure you that

We appreciate the work that the school system does.

We understand the importance.

I think it's Dr. Gurley said it that when they come to a city finding a place to live, they're buying their school as well as their home.

And I think that that's very important thing to note.

And so that's what I can give you at this point, Madam Chair, is that we've heard it.

We've heard the public.

And now we just we have some

some work to do.

All right.

Thank you very much.

I just have one thing.

While we were sitting here, I was made aware that we have March 4th as the date to bring forth our budget, and that's a holiday for you.

That's a holiday for the city.

So we will need to, I think, we'll need to find a new date.

Oh, it's the 5th.

Thank you.

So just a quick reminder, the school board does have a work session next Thursday at 5 o'clock right back here so that we can continue to talk about this.

And then potentially February 22nd, we will hear the final proposed superintendent's budget.

And then we will see you all again on March 5th.

So if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

And thank you very much.

And I will call the meeting adjourned.

Thank you.