School Board Meeting   9/5/2024

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'd like to welcome you to our Charlottesville City School Board meeting today being September 5th, 2024.

So again, thank you to everybody who is here with us.

And if I can ask everybody to please join us in a moment of silence.

Thank you very much.

And next, if we can ask everybody to please stand and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you so much.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Miss Burns.

Here.

Miss Cooper.

Miss Dooley.

Mr. Meyer.

Sorry.

Miss Richardson.

Here.

And Miss Albiora.

Second.

Oh, first.

So Ms.

Richardson and then Ms.

Dooley.

Thank you.

And now is our first opportunity for comments from members of the community.

We designate this first time for any students who would like to approach the podium or if anybody happens to be connected via Zoom, you're welcome to make comments.

Now we do have a second opportunity for comments towards the end of the meeting.

And we will move to comments from other members of the community.

If there's anybody here in the media center who would like to make comments, you may approach the podium.

And if anybody online would like to make comments, what you would do is raise your hand to indicate that.

All right, thank you.

This next section on our agenda is 7.0, and this is designated, and I do want to, and we'll talk about this in a little bit, but we do have our first school, our student rep here joining us, Ms.

Oviora, correct?

joining us.

So this time in the agenda is designated for you if you wanted to just report out or make some comments on behalf of yourself or students.

And you may not be ready for that today.

For the two BKTs, some students have found it unproductive if one of them is already designated for the emotional learning.

Some students have found it a bit uncomfortable or maybe not the right environment to talk about certain things in a classroom that isn't the best place for them to talk about.

emotional learning and things cater towards that.

Some teachers have mentioned that maybe they don't feel trained in the right way to handle what some students would say during these discussions.

Students also are not in favor of being unable to leave BKT during the first BKTs out of the two for the week.

And that for the second BKT, you have to wait 10 minutes until you're able to go off to a teacher's classroom, because this would only need 30 minutes for students to get help on things that we had an hour to do last year during the one BKT a week.

Some students aren't a fan of the fifth period every day because on block day students can focus their time outside of class just for that set of classes rather than every day it's fifth period to focus on.

Another thing was the water fountains.

Some students believe that the water fountain filters should be prioritized a little bit more.

Increased maintenance for when the water fountain is red to have it hopefully fixed in time for it to be green so then students don't have to go to a different one.

Some fountains also don't have a filter, which makes students hesitant to using that fountain, since they're unable to see what the filter status is on for that one.

Regarding bathroom passes, regarding passes in general, some students think it's good in deterring students from going to the bathroom, but then using it to walk around the hallway, so it's been good in keeping students in class.

Some students have said that they dislike during lunch that they have to get a pass to go to the athletic trainer and students are unable to schedule their own passes if they'd like to go to a teacher during a certain time and then some teachers are unable to see what passes have already been sent out to that student.

For the lunches, the third line by the snack bar has been great in helping reduce the lunch traffic.

Some students have mentioned that the lunches are unevenly distributed for the senior class, at least specifically.

A majority of the students who are seniors have first lunch, which make other seniors feel excluded when they are in the second lunch line, second lunch group.

And on the topic of lunches, some seniors were wondering about what the senior lunches would look like this year if we would be able to leave campus to go to get lunch.

And the last thing I have is recycling.

With the Green Bacon Club, students in that club are responsible for maintaining the recycling in the school.

and they feel that the responsibility shouldn't be entirely on the students.

With the turnover of the club next year, it is looking like it wouldn't have as many students.

So this club might not be around forever, but the recycling, maintaining that would be difficult if the club isn't still around.

So if we could distribute the responsibility, not just on the students, but also on

and other people who are able to.

You were prepared.

So thank you so much.

We appreciate all those points.

Great points.

And I'm sure lots of people were taking notes.

And I do see Dr. Malone in the house here.

Yeah, you can't hide back there, sir.

All right, so thank you.

Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Gurley, good evening.

We are thrilled this evening to celebrate our inaugural Longwood cohort.

These dedicated CCS teachers successfully completed Longwood University's Ed leadership program, earning a valuable endorsement in educational leadership.

The skills they gain through this program will equip them to create, evaluate, and improve educational programs, mentor and guide others, and take on leadership roles within our schools and division.

Each member of this cohort has demonstrated their commitment to professional growth by completing the required coursework and achieving a passing score on the SLLA, which is an end of program assessment for school leadership.

I think it stands for school leadership licensure assessment.

This accomplishment qualifies them for the administration and supervision 3K through 12 endorsement.

To support our teachers in this endeavor, the division assisted with tuition for the fall 23 start date, and classes were conveniently held right here in Charlottesville at Walker-Upper Elementary School.

At this time, I'll call each member's name so they can come up, and hopefully Ms.

Chuck is in the area and we can get a group picture of them.

Some of them have told me that they will not be able to be here tonight, but I'll still call all names.

in alphabetical order, Elizabeth Bohannon, Latoya Brown, Maylise Croci.

Oh yes, come right on in here in the middle.

Melanie Johnson, who's not gonna be here tonight, but deserves a round of applause as well.

Andy Jones, Elena Kay, I don't want to torture her last name, it's a beautiful last name.

Alexis Mason, Cicely Shelton, who also shared that she would not be here tonight.

and Tiffany Stauffer who also shared that she would not be here tonight.

So this is a part of our great group and we are so very fortunate to have another group of leaders joining the ranks.

We hope that we will be able to usher them into some of our next leadership roles in the division.

Congratulations.

We would love for the chair and vice chair and Dr. Gurley to come up and get in a picture with them.

Also have Dr. Odie with the recognition of our student reps.

Right.

Thank you again, Madam Chair, members of the board and Dr. Gurley.

If I may, I'd like Dr. Malone to join me at the podium.

I thought I saw you there, sir.

Hi and welcome.

We're going to welcome our student representatives at this time and we hope that we'll be able to take a photo of the three of them with those same three great folks from our school board again.

So I informally introduced two of our student reps at our last board meeting.

and now I'm honored to formally introduce all three tonight.

First up, and I'll ask the student reps to come up and do the same as our staff did.

I'll be introducing them.

I've asked each of them to share a little bit of information about themselves, so I'll read that as they're coming up.

We'll get a picture right here in the middle.

So our first student rep, alphabetically, is Anya Pludok.

Anya is a member of the National Honor Society at CHS.

She has founded a crochet club at the school where she instructs peers in the craft and offers assistance to experience crocheters.

A varsity soccer player during her freshman year, Anya has been a member of the varsity tennis team since her sophomore year.

Professionally, she is a local musician currently recording an album at the Music Resource Center.

Recently certified in studio engineering with a paid internship at the same location, Anya is eager to contribute to school board meetings as a representative of the student body.

Let's give her another round of applause.

and stay right there, next we have Nulia Obiora.

Nulia is a dedicated student leader involved in numerous school activities.

She spent the previous summer as a Bank of America student leader intern at the United Way of Greater Charlottesville.

as a founder and president of the UNICEF Club, co-president of Culture to Culture, and a member of the Y Street leadership team and link crew, Nulia actively participates in various programs.

A varsity track and field athlete, she was awarded MVP last year.

Committed to volunteering, youth advocacy and civic engagement, Nulia is grateful for her selection as a student representative.

Nulia, as you can see from her preparation today, she will serve for the first three months as our student rep.

Let's give Nulia another round of applause.

And our third representative is Harper Ulrich

Harper is a class of 2026 student at CHS, deeply involved in both academic and extracurricular activities.

Last year, she initiated the Black Knight Mentors Program in conjunction with Mr. Towler, matching high school students with mentors in all six CCS elementary schools.

Harper volunteers at her former elementary school Jackson via

Beyond academics, she is an avid equestrian competing along the East Coast.

As a track athlete at CHS and a French club member, Harper has a strong academic focus, earning the seal of biliteracy with special recognition from her French teacher, Miss Pritchard.

Miss Pritchard, so sorry.

Let's give Harper another round of applause.

and I probably failed to mention that Anya and Nulia are both seniors this year, correct?

Class of 2025 and Harper's class of 2026.

So Dr. Malone joined the group.

Let's get a picture.

Congratulations again.

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Gurley.

I'm delighted to just give a brief rundown of our Shannon grant winners.

And first of all, I just want to say thank you to the Edgar and Eleanor Shannon Foundation for Excellence in Public Education in Charlottesville Albemarle.

Both the Shannons were involved in education their entire lives and have really left a legacy for our teachers in the area.

Leslie, if you don't mind, thank you.

So, just left to right, I'm not going to read everything, but you will see that at Johnson, at Greenbrier, at Jackson Viya, and at Walker, there will be impactful grants in everything from social-emotional learning and re-regulation to fully accessible, like adapted toys, so that all students can play with those toys, from math to English acquisition.

So congratulations to each of these teachers.

I find it also beautiful that most of them are really collaborative.

You can see the two teachers in the frame.

And I think that also speaks to the nature of really that these gifts are just really impact a lot of students and a lot of staffs.

So thanks.

Thanks at all.

All right, our next agenda item is our consent agenda, I believe.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, thank you.

And then our next item is 10.0 is an action item.

And I'll just go ahead and announce that Ms.

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Gurley.

I'm really just here this evening to answer any questions you may have from the presentation that was given at the last meeting.

Some supplemental information was provided to you all as requested regarding what other school districts in Virginia do with non-resident tuition programs, so you have that information for reference, and it was also posted to the agenda item for public reference as well.

When the item was brought forward last month for consideration, it was really in the spirit of getting back on track with what was before the pandemic and making sure that whatever decisions are made with regard to tuition increases, that families are well notified of such pending changes and they know what our plans are.

Any questions from anybody?

All right.

Any questions or comments?

All in favor, please say yes.

Yes.

Any opposed?

There we go.

All right.

Now it's time for our items for discussion.

Up first, we have Dr. Malone with the CHS update.

Is he?

Good evening, Madam Chair, school board members, Dr. Gurley.

I'm Anna Eisley.

I'm thrilled to share with you an update on our professional learning here in CCS.

In this presentation, I'll share our alignment to the strategic plan, our PL priorities and plan for 24-25, as well as an update on PL that's already happened this summer and here at the start of school.

So staff support goal two that's up there, all CCS staff will engage in meaningful, relevant, timely, and personalized professional learning.

Really illustrates our clear connection to the strategic plan and goals and commitment to that meaningful, relevant PL for our staff.

Professional learning is evident throughout the strategic plan but a few specific places you'll see it is in strategy four which when we're talking about designing and securing PL that addresses the instructional needs of staff and strengthens the equitable teaching practices as well as the targets four and six

relating to staff who report that PL is effective or highly effective and the goal of having licensed employees obtain leadership certifications, which you just saw earlier tonight.

On the green note, you will see on this slide the priorities for the 24-25 school year, which are evident in the strategic plan.

So this year we really focused on content knowledge and pedagogy.

That's the specific knowledge of the content areas that teachers are teaching or job specific professional learning.

Literacy through the Virginia Literacy Act, the BLA, we know there's a lot of

A lot of professional learning related to that for our staff.

Differentiation is a continuation.

We really focused on that last year, and that's obviously in the strategic plan.

You're going to hear me talk about SIOP.

That's the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol.

SIOP is a framework, it's an instructional framework for helping students achieve academic standards while they also learn English and refine English.

So that's something you're going to hear me, it's in the strategic plan and you'll hear me talk about that tonight.

Also Equitable Greeting, you're going to hear me talk about that, and the MTSS domains.

And we also are incorporating a component called What I Need or WIN for short, which is where teachers and staff are able to make some selections on professional learning that they feel like they need as well.

As I share about the 24-25 PL priorities and work, I want to start with what actually has already taken place this summer.

We were thrilled and super excited to offer the elementary core course responsive classroom here in CCS, which when you do that, you have 30 seats for teachers and staff to attend.

We filled ours up, which we were super excited about.

It's a four day training.

And you're going to see, you see the picture there of all the people

who were in attendance.

Our group included classroom teachers, specials teachers, specialists, admin, social workers, some central office staff, and IAs.

And 100% of the attendees who completed the survey rated this experience extremely effective, relevant, and useful.

So that was really exciting.

That was a four-day, all-day training.

We also had a few teachers do an online middle school version of that as well.

And we also offered mentor training again to continue to grow our pool of mentors who support novice teachers.

So we were excited to have that this summer as well.

This summer, we also had leadership opportunities, our Leadership Advance Conference.

At that, we focused on, that was our building and division admin leaders.

They got to hear a presentation on equitable grading from Crescendo.

Crescendo is Joe Feldman, who's the author of Grading for Equity.

It's his sort of group.

And so we had a representative from Crescendo sharing with us about equitable grading and our instructional coaches also got that training as well.

And then we also had professional learning on documentation for our leaders also.

And our reading specialists and administrators all completed their VLA requirements attending the Institute for Admin for administrators and the specialists completing their requirements.

And here's a picture.

You can see some of our cohort that you saw earlier that were recognized that was that they're in that group that was after their last class of their cohort.

This year for new educator orientation, we had a slightly new format.

We had a two-day orientation.

And day one was all about getting to know CCS.

So new staff engaged in a session on our equity work here.

They took a tour of the city of Charlottesville and our schools.

And on day two, they concentrated on their job-specific learning and knowledge and tools that they'll need for their specific role.

On a scale of one to four, you'll hear me say this a couple of times, but on a scale of one to four with four being extremely effective, relevant and useful.

And one being not, um, the survey respondents who gave feedback on new educator gave an average score of 3.56 on the new educator experience.

So we felt great about that.

You can see some of the other, they had a fair where they got to know the programs, MTSS, PowerSchool, those types of sessions.

And there's some photos of them, our group of new teachers and staff.

Also during pre-week in our schools, staff engaged in professional learning and collaboration relevant and specific to their particular site.

They also received PL and equitable grading.

So we did the leadership one over the summer and then we put together with Dr. Johnson's leadership a common presentation for all

of our schools to present during free week and they reviewed the procedures for equitable grading.

They also had safety and MTSS trainings and professional learning.

We learned how to give the VALS, which is the new version of PALS.

So lots of work happening during pre-week.

this year.

And of course, the Palooza.

We had the PL Palooza this year, which many of you were, I think, came to the opening for.

And so it was a very exciting day, as it always is.

We have two division PL days remaining, September 27th, which will be here soon, and February 7th,

You can see our priorities that were on the strategic plan slide.

You can see many of those represented here as part of our division professional learning days.

We got very positive feedback on the Palooza, also the same scale one to four with four being extremely effective and one being not.

Our respondents, we did feedback on individual sessions instead of kind of a day as a whole.

to get more specific feedback.

And we had an average score of 3.63 on that day with 91% of the responses being a three or four.

So we felt really, really good about that feedback.

We also have 300, there's a little note there, 300 of our CCS staff are enrolled in VLA courses for the Virginia Literacy Act, it's over 300.

Ongoing professional learning.

We have PL that happens throughout the year.

I think I shared something similar last year.

So we have school based professional learning that's really site specific that instructional coaches, specialists, leaders, admin are leading in their buildings.

Of course, professional learning communities where our teams, grade level teams, content teams meet.

and engage in very meaningful work and collaboration together.

As I just said, we have over 300 staff enrolled in VLA coursework and all teaching staff are going to receive PSYOP instruction or PSYOP-PL this year.

The intro sessions have already happened in schools and this is kind of laying the groundwork and looking at our English learners within specific buildings and giving some background knowledge.

They will all have sessions in September and February and then continuing on into next year as well.

Ten of our instructional coaches are fully PSYOP trained and able to lead those sessions.

MTSS has a PL plan too, so those are being carried out over the different domains and schools as well.

Offering individualized and ongoing support, we have instructional coaches and mentors.

Mentors work with one to two novice teachers to support their professional growth.

Coaches work with novice teachers and provide graduated support for teachers in their second and third years and those that are new to Charlottesville City Schools.

They also support teams through PLCs and team collaboration and work.

They deliver school and division PL.

This can happen through coaching cycles, observations, feedback, co-teaching, modeling.

and through individual coaching.

I mentioned that 10 of them are SIOP trained and able to carry out that work this year, aligning with our strategic plan.

We're also partnering our elementary schools this year.

So we have partnership schools between the elementary schools to provide additional instructional support, instructional coach support to our schools with the greatest need and a differentiated model this year.

And I'm excited to share this project.

This is a new project we're going to launch this fall.

It's called Snapshots.

So last year, throughout the year, the second half of the year, and then even the very beginning of this school year, we've been developing a video based library of evidence based practices, instructional practices that we use here in CCS.

and it's intended to be a resource to help clarify what some of these elements or practices look like for teachers.

It's housed in Canvas and so we've been capturing video clips like five minutes edited down there five minutes or less across classrooms to highlight these practices.

So they kind of fall in three big categories, evidence-based instructional practices, content-specific models like in math and literacy, and then classroom structures and routines.

And so the clips are really short, they're under five minutes, they allow staff or anyone who watches it in our division to see the practice in action, and then there's an accompanying

teacher interview video for just a couple minutes where they talk about the how and the why the practice how they implement it or set it up or why they do it so you can see a couple screenshots here of what it looks like on the Canvas page and there's a picture of one of our teachers giving in her interview so there's tons of topics starting and ending the class routines

morning meetings, learning targets.

There's a whole bunch of different math fluency, reading fluency.

There's a whole bunch of different sort of categories within those big umbrellas.

We had a soft launch of this already and we're wrapping up the video work this month and should be fully live right after that.

All right, I hope you enjoyed seeing a glimpse into our professional learning work here in CCS and the alignment to the strategic plan.

Ms.

No, I don't know what our budget was for inflatable costumes at the PL Palooza, but I support it fully.

Very good dance moves, everyone.

Yeah, so we sort of worked up a system to be able to a matrix sort of to quantify the need, knowing sort of that some sites had more novice teachers and new teachers than others or new to us teachers.

And so we were able to sort of create a system to quantify that, like if, you know,

If you're a brand new teacher and you're new to us, this.

If the school's an improvement, that's sort of an additional piece.

And so we looked and we had a few schools that didn't exhibit as great of a need and three that had stronger needs.

So we're working to have, we've partnered up those coaches.

And so the coaches at the schools that didn't have as much need based on that metric, they're still serving them, but they're spending

Some additional time in the other schools just to provide more support knowing that they're not There's a greater need and so coach is we're working that sort of laying that out this year and and working through that model to see how it's best working.

In fact, we have a check-in coming up soon, but I think it's great because it's giving

They're still in their building, the original building, but we're also looking at how we can add additional support knowing that, you know, this work of doing coaching cycles with individual teachers, if you have, you know,

I did hear a lot of really great feedback from the teachers that I engage with just about the PL and everything that was provided.

There was some feedback, though, that they wish they had a little bit more time to prepare their classrooms, that they just didn't feel like there was enough time dedicated to really doing that within their hours, that it was really

Yeah, so we have, I think that'll come up in conversation around the calendar this year.

Obviously, like the last two years, the calendar has been set, and we had two division days.

We actually, because there were so many

pieces like equitable grading that we wanted done in schools and the VALS training and different things, safety and that kind of thing.

We didn't have two division days, even though there was division, the second day was in the schools so that they could do that work then.

But the rest of the pre-week is sort of just site-based, you know, it's determined at the schools.

So the one day during August,

that like the Palooza Day is the one day that we're doing that.

And then again, like I said, the second day was in the schools.

So I think that's something important we need to think about as we move forward.

I know, too, another factor could be that our new teachers, you know, typically the new teacher orientation is three days.

It was two this year.

Thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

So I was curious real quick about snapshots.

So it sounds like a great resource.

I didn't know if that was.

So how are you going to track like who's using it or accessing it?

I mean, I can see where it would be a real nice tool for the newer teachers, but there's probably some benefits for our veterans.

I mean, we can always learn something.

Didn't know if there was incentives, you know, or department.

Yeah well right now initially we're thinking about you know it could be a great tool for coaches to when they're working individually with teachers like it presents a way to kind of get a glimpse in a classroom and be looking at something together and talking about it just like you would a peer observation but these videos have been narrowed down to like the specific sort of bite-sized practice which is nice because that's

that helps create a clear next step of something that you're working on but it also could be something that teachers look at individually on their own or even as a team if there's a goal or something that they're trying to do a specialist could use it if they're trying to explain what you know a foundational skill instructional delivery looks like in reading they could pull up one of the videos and show it so there's a lot of possibilities in Canvas you can track

the users, like you can see who all is using it, who's added the course.

So it's like a self-enroll course.

Cool.

Sounds like a lot of good work.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you sir.

Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Gurley, thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak about our structures that we have at Charlottesville High School as we have finished 15 days of the school year so far.

This update is consistent with our priorities for all CCS learners graduating equipped with a plan for the future and promoting a safe and positive learning environment.

As I think about some of these structures, I think my process has been to sort of look at a bigger picture and working our way from the school structure and then working way down into the classroom setting and in the relationships between the teacher and the student.

There's a couple of guiding questions that inform some of my thinking and the conversations that we're having around cell phones and the hall passes.

To what extent are they supporting a safe environment, and to what extent are they helping to engage the learner and the teacher in a positive experience?

My focus is obviously maintaining and setting high expectations, being consistent with the expectations that we're setting forth and holding ourselves accountable and having a way to monitor what our accountability actually looks like.

So I think in part this update includes some of those features.

I think the main one is around cell phones and cell phone usage.

Oh, forgive me first.

Prioritizing engagement, I think this is yes.

Cell phone policy, managing building entry and exit, I'll update on that.

The new renovations to our bathroom in B Commons and then improving the hallway environment using our securely hall pass system.

Thank you, Leslie.

So 15 days down, 16 days I think completed so far.

As it relates to the cell phone usage,

What I'd like to make sure that I say at the outset of this is that this is largely based on somewhat anecdotal and informal feedback and perception.

I don't want to misrepresent our teachers' experience with cell phones or even our students' experience around our cell phone work.

I'm going to frame it that from my vantage point, we're largely seeing success with

the off and away expectation that exists and defining success by students' level of responsiveness to putting their devices off and away, the impact that phones might be having in the classroom.

But I also want to acknowledge that there's variability about a teacher's experience with Off and Away in the classrooms, that there's still some, I think, acquisition of confidence in engaging students and helping to be consistent in meeting that expectation.

But again, from my perspective of being around the building and hallways and

public places during lunchtimes is that yes, we will see phones on occasion and yes, when we ask students to put devices away, they do it.

I'd say it's compliance because it is an expectation that to what extent do they

acknowledge that this should be an expectation, but is absolute, I would say, responsiveness and thoughtfulness in those exchanges.

The students have met that expectation for the most part in a way that I am certainly pleased with.

Every morning, as it relates to cell phones during the morning announcements, we make a point of expressing that expectation.

We reiterate it both as the bell sounds to begin the transition from our commons areas to their classrooms.

They'll hear me say the reminder about being off and away, and then when I get on the announcements to address

the CHS community, they'll hear that the expectation is off in a way.

And I say that with the intention of that is essentially a first warning or first indicator of our expectation.

It's repeated daily so that when a teacher is engaging or another staff member is engaging with the student about the expectation that that would be the second time or more.

We do have, there are confiscations of cell phones.

I think we're probably averaging maybe six to eight cell phones a day are being asked.

They're an issue.

And so a CSA or an admin is being called.

Usually, I think for the most part, in that experience, the student will provide their device to an admin or CSA.

We then have that phone taken down and stays in the main office for the rest of the day.

We've added a feature so that we understand the frequency that that might be happening.

So we keep a log of the incidents that that might be happening and at what period and in what setting is that taking place.

So we're monitoring that.

And again, students are responsive to that.

And it has largely been, in that interaction, I think, a positive conversation and an opportunity to reset behavior and reset expectations.

In any of the instances where a phone's confiscated, that's a conversation and a follow-up with that family as well.

And again, I would say that as it relates to that experience, so looking at it from the vantage point that I have,

I think there's success, but it's definitely going to be a work in progress still with phones.

And again, depending on a teacher's experience, a teacher's expectation, I mean, we certainly have a range of experiences at Charlottesville High School, and teachers who would prefer that screens in general are not a feature of their instructional practice.

And so they would prioritize the sort of analog and pencil paper and some of the more

I have a question.

Do we have any designated times or areas where they can use their phone or is it just completely off and away?

Yeah, the expectation is off and away.

I think an area that we're continuing to refine, we're framing it as bell to bell instruction.

And it's consistent with some of the guidance that came from the governor as well.

So that that bell to bell essentially is when the when the day begins to the day in.

So for us, it's about nine o'clock to four o'clock.

We're wanting to be intentional about monitoring when the students are arriving.

So even before 9 o'clock, they're hearing the messaging about off and away then.

Sure.

Okay.

Thank you.

Is there guidance or a plan in place if that student remains a habitual offender?

What does that look like?

Or have we crossed that threshold where maybe a student may not have their phone on campus any longer?

That is a step in our process.

So that is that certainly is a feature of our continuum.

I don't believe we have had any student yet where we've had to specifically address that.

I do think from the admin perspective, that is a next step of making sure that are we being real clear about who we know might be someone who is repeating this behavior, and that if so, we need to be intentional about scaling up what that responsiveness might look like.

When phones are confiscated, yes.

Great.

Sure.

We have added an improved exterior door access, a fob control feature to Charlottesville High School.

If doors are opened or propped without a fob, there's an alarm.

It's a pretty healthy alarm that kind of sounds within the range of where that door is.

We also get email notifications.

The administrators in our CSAs get email notifications if a door has been breached without the FOB entry, and the incidents that that has happened for the most part have been, for example,

was removing an insect from an area in A Commons.

And as I was doing it, I just went out the door and the alarm sound went off and was an alert to the classrooms that were nearby.

So the alarm issues that we have confronted, one, we know they're effective.

They're comprehensive.

Our CSAs are highly responsive to those areas just to reassure that there is no concern.

For the most part, it's usually adult or staff error when it goes off.

And then a quick reset with the FOB tends to take care of it.

We have had, I think, very few.

By few, I mean less than three times where a student has left.

And it's, one, I think we've

An adult has been in close enough proximity to be able to see and engage and understand what was happening that has sounded the alarm.

And so we've addressed, we've responded and addressed that.

We've had zero incidents where there's been anybody coming from the outside into Charlottesville High School.

So I think they're a highly effective feature that has strongly contributed to

our accountability about students and being in the right places at the right time.

So I'm grateful for the FOB access control work that's there.

And then our visitor management system, that's successful.

It's managed really well by the thoughtful main office staff.

Ms.

Robinson and Ms.

Gore who were at the front and they're able to monitor that as they warmly engage our community and families that are coming through.

There are three outstanding locations that I would suspect are going to be done before this month is up.

I don't know.

One is just right by the main office, and it's not necessarily a high traffic area.

The other two are over in our C hallway.

And so we're fortunate there's staff that are right there near that location.

And one of them is near Peter Davis's room, who's constantly in and out by the garden anyway.

So that's a pretty well monitored space, but there are still three that need to be configured.

And I think the timeline is the end of the month.

The securely passed system.

Absolutely saying from the staff perspective that this is a success and is working well.

There are areas of refinement I think that we're still working on as a staff, sort of as we align what we're comfortable with in terms of the

the pass limit, the amount of time that is dedicated for a student to be in transition from one location to another.

We're still figuring out how it's pretty dynamic system where you can set appointment passes and you can feature the pass system for early releases or for different features and we're still working on exactly how that works.

For example, I think it came up earlier about being able to access

Ms.

Matheny, the athletic trainer during lunches.

So in practice, we want to make sure that's engaged.

And then we also want to make sure that we're, and from Ms.

Matheny's perspective, that she's also able to set the passes in a way that gives students that opportunity.

And we think we have a way, we're working with Securely to figure out a way, an issue like that where students can be, can self-manage the pass.

and therefore can go to Ms.

Matheny and it kind of, I think, is going to be able to mediate some of the concerns about access to her during lunches specifically.

So there are some areas that we're refining as just a feature of us becoming familiar with it.

It's an area that we want to develop a work group around, to play around with it, to continue

As you're continuing to build it out, is there a way that if a child student has a standing doctor's appointment or standing I know some have mentors or visitors that come in during BKT that those can be put in and how is it communicated maybe how to get those put in that way there's no delay given that there are shorter time now?

Yes.

So the answer to the question is yes.

And I think to the question, the appointment pass feature allows for us in advance, for example, to plan.

And so if a family, for example, were to call and say that Justin is going to be having a doctor's appointment next Tuesday at 10 o'clock, we could immediately put in a pass for next Tuesday at 10 o'clock that then is set for Justin to go down to check out at that point.

The passes are seen by all staff, so all staff can access either their individual classes or toggle to be able to see the entire dashboard.

The appointment pass feature is also going to feature into our Black Nighttime, for example.

We are, yesterday would have been the first day of the year, be our third BKT on that Wednesday, where we permitted students to go from their BKT to another destination where that receiving teacher is generating the pass for Justin to go to get some, maybe some math instructional support during the BKT time.

Technically, yes.

Thank you.

Do we need to move about?

is able to communicate that Justin is needed to see me during this BKT time.

It does work such that Amanda is the BKT teacher, Justin is the teacher that wants to see Dr. Gurley, that we can set that you see it, I see it, and then being in communication with the student, that part should be clear.

It could still be an area of refinement.

I think with all of these systems, one of the action steps that we took when we were adopting it was

simulating it as if we were students so that we had some perspective taking about how that might look.

I still think that's probably an area, like what our teachers are doing is they're getting behind the student's Chromebook and they're kind of doing it together to feel, how could we do this better or be more responsive?

So we still need to get, I think, some input on that.

and along the lines in terms of some of the concerns that our student raised, I shared with her when I got up, that I think if she sets a time to meet with you, because some of those things are schedule related, I think that you along with the administrative team can help to refine some of those things too, so that students understand the why.

I think that's probably a little bit of it.

Like when we talk about why 10 minutes and then go to the class,

I think helping to so that you all understand the why behind that.

So setting up a time for you all to meet for sure.

And so that you can we can be more responsive and they just understand our procedures.

Yeah, that that that absolutely is is important and necessary, I think.

And I will say, at least as of as it related to yesterday in particular.

So I had I was sort of like nail biting a bit about the Wednesday BKT when

We just had 1,400 kids move, and then 10 minutes later, we're going to have how many more move again.

It's like, well, let me get this 1,400 first into their space.

And we wondered, is 10 minutes still enough?

But I have heard, both from staff and students, that time is precious.

And we want to do things well, and we want to do things right, and not be the thing that contributes to more stressors or turmoil.

So being super intentional about that.

But I absolutely believe we'll be

We're really doing well in following a lot of these processes and procedures.

And I think the next part about making sure that students have the time that they need during BKT, I think we're getting to a place where, man, it looks like we're doing this well, we're doing this right.

That means we have trust and we have the time to be able to extend that out.

Any other questions?

Ms.

Obiora, has everything been addressed?

I mean, do you have any questions about this?

I'll just send out the video.

So those are our renovated bathrooms in B Commons.

They're finished.

I think that they're actively being used.

I think they look fantastic.

I think some of the feedback from students has been that they're a bit narrow.

And I think that takes some getting used to.

The paint color is everyone's preference.

And it's dimly lit.

But I think in terms of a space to have discretion and privacy and for us to be mindful about students being in the right places at the right time, I think we're finding success.

And visually, I think we're all set.

Any other questions?

Okay, thank you.

Um, I just have one quick question.

I know we had received, I think some feedback or an email maybe from Mayor Wade about water.

Was that the water quality?

And I know that Miss Powell had addressed it, but just along those lines.

So if you can address or talk a little bit and Miss Powell, if you need to jump up, that's fine.

Sure, I'll speak to my own experience and I think as it relates even prior to Mr. Wade's communication that I think it came up in actually a pre-week staff event about the specific water in the sea hallway and it became sort of like a marker of like we need to make sure

We all want to be drinking filtered water, and we want to be seeing green on the bottle fillers that have filters that we can see.

Those need to be green.

So our action internally has been work order, work order.

When we see it needs to be done, we're putting them in.

If we see one's out of order,

our practices to put in a work order.

I think some of it was with the construction that the water needed to be shut down and then when water comes back through, it turns back on rather, it does generate bubbles and I think it can give the appearance of something and I think largely, and Ms.

Powell can speak to this, I do think that it is

Goodwater and filtered water, but we would agree.

And as we see that there needs to be a filter change or as we see that there is a concern around any of our water stations, we're putting in work orders for them.

And I apologize to board members.

That may not have gone to the entire board.

So I think that was an email that was generated.

I don't even remember.

It was an email that said there's great success at Charlottesville High School.

Absolutely, yes sir.

We are really, really proud of the work that's happening.

And then was like, now we've got to do something about the water.

So remind me, I know that the post COVID or when students started coming back and we had changed the access to water and do all of the water stations, are they all filtered now?

So what I don't know, what I can say is there are two different types of bottle fillers.

One is a push button and it's associated to the actual water fountain.

And I don't know if behind the scenes it is filtered,

And then we have others that actually have the light indicator and the number of how much water has been distributed.

So on those with the indicator, we know when a filter need exists.

That's fine.

And Ms.

So just in general, with regard to water quality, there are two different types of testing that has to be done based using a prescribed testing program.

One is lead and then the other one is escaping me.

But the maintenance team does all these tests.

They document them.

They have to be prepared to be audited.

I do understand the concerns about the color of the water sometimes and there are two different causes of that.

One is when the water is shut off and then it comes back on.

We certainly experienced that in our in our own building at the division administration office.

We have one bottle filler and forever I was like when is this water ever going to clear?

But you know we would ask and we were always told it's it's safe it's safe it's just the coloration is off.

The other thing that can drive temporary discoloration in the water is a similar thing to what you may experience at home when you replace your fridge filter.

And if you don't, while the water's cycling, if it doesn't cycle enough, it'll sometimes be a little gray until it's run through a certain number of times.

All that to say, if the board would like, I think, probably a written update on what the water testing procedures are and what's tested when and all that, I'll be happy to get that from our maintenance colleagues and send that along.

and then you asked about air quality.

All of the building system filtration replacements are still happening on the schedule that we established during COVID.

The individual room level filters, there's an indicator light based on runtime when those filters need to be replaced and the city still provides those filters.

Thank you.

We're talking about filtering the city's tap water?

Yeah?

Okay.

I mean, it's treated water that we're concerned about filtering further?

I'm not interested in that.

Yeah.

No, it was just an FYI and a question and the appropriate people responded to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I, it only popped into my head because water was brought up, I think from our student rep.

Good water.

Right.

And there's no color.

We just drink tap water.

It's delicious.

And I've had that water, too.

Which I drink at home as well.

Such good water.

All right.

Sorry, I don't really have a question, but observation.

Thank you very much for this, I think, very

Extensive presentation was things that I was hoping to hear.

From what I can tell, I think the direction of the school is going in the right direction.

I look at the data point that we have later on in our meeting agenda here where we're looking at enrollment.

Enrollment is up.

And so these are all things, and especially I am concerned about the cell phone usage and the proponent of away all day.

and from bell to bell.

And so I'm very happy to hear and see in the detail and presentation here on how it's being implemented.

My understanding is probably there's always going to be some kids who decide to not follow the rules.

But from what you described, I'm very impressed with the kind of the how you've handled it so far and I think will evolve it.

Thank you, Mr. Meyer.

Me again.

Hello, Dr. Malone.

Hi.

A question about, I know beginning of the year, we're just getting everybody back together.

I wonder about any physical altercations that you might be able to share with us and maybe how those have been handled.

So yes, we have had some physical altercations and by some I would say, I believe, definably three.

They have been promptly responded to with zero injury.

and I would say in at least two out of three of those circumstances there was already either a familial or communal connection that actually I would say in three out of three where almost immediately there was a natural within that relationship a level of of a restorative practice.

So yes, we've had physical altercations.

And by that, when I say physical altercations, it's not just pushing where someone was trying to hit somebody else.

It was mutual.

I'd say there's been three.

They have been, again, promptly responded to.

And then so their disruption to our

our other routines or even its location, I think that if those events are going to happen, they happen at times and places to really kind of limit the impact that it was going to have on other things.

I do want to note that even around cell phones, and this to me is an important thing to note about the responsiveness from students and my own sense of their success or any success that I would refer to comes largely from my perception of what I'm seeing from students.

which is thoughtfulness, a willingness to engage.

There's a language that our students are able to communicate to us in a way that's just very reassuring.

And that lends itself to, I think, a lot of the experiences that I'm perceiving, at least in seeing at Charlottesville High School, that I think our students are

They have acquired knowledge and skills over time, due in large part, I think, to the work that our elementary schools have done to this point.

So I'm hopeful, at least.

I say that to be, that is my, I believe that to be the case.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

And I think just

being mindful and aware and appreciate your staff for quickly responding and handling that accordingly.

And I hope that that's heard and appreciated.

And just that we're holding folks accountable, our students accountable for their behaviors and what that looks like and not letting things sit and fester.

Me too, thank you.

And I would like to acknowledge Mr. Byers is here.

He is our lead CSA.

And I think his responsiveness and his team's responsiveness and presence and capacity with relationships has been just really significant in holding all of us, setting a standard that we want to hold ourselves to and certainly being accountable.

And that absolutely carries through with how our staff is engaging with CHS.

Since you took the opportunity to mention I had seen him here I also wanted to extend some gratitude and again a shout out to staff and their flexibility because I believe he is also helping out in the mornings

at Burnley Moran as far as safety and the crossing guard need there.

So sir, thank you so much for helping out because I stood out there one morning and definitely there's a need.

So we appreciate you and everybody else.

But again, it's a test to just how everybody jumps in and helps out.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chris.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

All right, so good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Gurley.

On August 20th, the student achievement results for the 23-24 school year were released, highlighting the annual pass rates on the standards of learning assessments.

Tonight, I will provide an overview of the results, starting with overall performance in reading and math.

Then we'll examine the pass rates at grades three through eight and at the high school level.

Additionally, I will discuss the strategies outlined in our strategic plan that we are implementing to enhance student achievement and ensure comprehensive support for all learners.

So priority one of our strategic plan sets targets for reading and math achievement with the SOL pass rate as one of the key measures.

For reading, the target is to increase achievement to at least 75% across all student groups, and that's the state benchmark.

In math, the target is to increase achievement to at least 70% across all student groups.

And annually, our goal is to reduce the failure rate by 10% or more for our black and brown students and students with disabilities.

But before we discuss the reading and math performance, I would like to review how the VDOE presents state assessment results.

Assessment results are reported within the state accreditation system as a pass rate or a combined rate, and within the federal accountability system as a pass rate, and then also separately as an annual pass rate.

So annual pass rates include the number of students who pass the state assessment divided by the total number of tests taken.

So these rates do not include growth or any other adjustments such as substitute tests like the WorkKeys assessment, nor does it include recovery tests or L progress, et cetera.

Accreditation rates, which we will share in October, are reported by school and are measured using a combined rate, which includes students who passed the SOL or fell the SOL but showed significant growth or L's that show progress towards English proficiency.

Federal rates are similar to the state annual pass rates, except for a few minor adjustments are taken into account.

The high school rate is based on the testing results of the 12th grade cohort.

Quick update!

On August 29th, the Virginia Board of Education voted to transform the state's confusing accreditation system to have a clear accountability model through the new school performance and support framework.

This model will go into effect next school year using the 24-25 assessment results.

But more of that to come.

All right, so first, we'll review the overall performance in reading and math for all students, which includes grades three through 12.

So the division's overall pass rate for reading was a 65%, maintaining our progress from the previous year, and similar to the state's trend for the last three years.

Since the 2021 school year, when we returned from school closures, we have seen an 8% increase in overall reading performance.

In math, we achieved a 63% pass rate, which is a 5% increase from the 22-23 school year compared to the state's increase of 2.8%.

And we've had a 50% increase in overall math performance since the 2021 school year compared to the state's growth of 31% since school closures.

And as this trend continues, we will meet and exceed the state's benchmark of 70%.

All right, now we'll take a look at the pass rates in grades three through eight.

Overall, grades three through eight reading and math continue to show improvement since school closures.

Specifically, reading scores have increased by 14.3% since 2021, and with a 3.2 increase over the past year, compared to the state's growth of 1.4%.

Most of our student groups had significant declines in reading due to school closures.

And while grades 3 through 8 reading scores overall have improved from last year, gaps remain among our student groups.

But we stay focused and committed to improvement.

With increased intervention supports, staff collaboration, and science-based literacy training, we are observing encouraging progress.

Since school closures, pass rates among Black students have improved by 27%, outpacing the state's progress of 14%.

Pass rates among Hispanic students have increased by 11%, compared to the state's improvement of 10%.

And within one year pass rates among black students increased by 3% while the state's progress was less than 2% and pass rates among Hispanic students increased by 2% while the state maintained progress.

So while we did see a slight decrease in pass rates among English learners and economically disadvantaged students this past year, L's have improved by 43% and economically disadvantaged students have improved by 11% since the 2021 school year.

Students with disabilities maintain their reading progress from the previous year, but have increased by 23% since school closures.

With evidence-based literacy instruction and fostering a supportive learning environment for all students, we will drive further progress in closing the gap among our student groups, and we will surpass pre-pandemic averages in the near future.

All right, so grades three through eight math continues to show improvement since school closures.

Our overall pass rate was 59%, a 5.4% increase over the past year, compared to the state's growth of 1.5%.

And since 2021, pass rates have improved by 48%.

Now, although we trail the state's average of 66%, we are trending in a positive direction and will continue to see these improvements as we engage students in the learning process and provide an environment that encourages active participation and connects math to real world experiences.

We know that math saw the most devastating declines in achievement after school closures, significantly impacting students of color, students with disabilities, and our economically disadvantaged students.

However, with tiered supports, targeted remediation efforts, and implementation of evidence-based practices, we continue to see improvements.

Since 2021, pass rates among our Black students have improved by over 100%, and 88% among our Hispanic students.

And within one year, math scores improved across all student groups, with pass rates increasing the most among our Black students by 15%, compared to the state's increase of only 6%.

English learners and economically disadvantaged students continue to show year-to-year progress in math, with both student groups increasing by 9% within one year.

Since 2021, pass rates among ELLs have improved by over 100%, and economically disadvantaged students have improved by 85%.

Even though our students with disabilities show a decline from the previous year, their scores have increased by 47% since the 2021 school year.

Now, we will continue to utilize evidence-based resources to enhance Tier 1 instruction, provide interventions that address individual learning needs, and offer extended learning opportunities before and after school, ensuring that every student has the support necessary to succeed.

And with these efforts, student outcomes will keep progressing, leading to higher achievement levels and a greater overall success for all students.

And now we're going to look at high school pass rates.

So high school reading is only tested in one grade, usually grade 11, but sometimes we may have students take it in 10th or 12th grade, depending on the situation.

Last year, the high school had a 71% pass rate in reading, which is a decrease from the previous year.

But one thing to note is that this pass rate does not include students who passed the WorkKeys reading assessment or ELLs that showed progress towards English proficiency.

That information will be released later this month, and we will share it with you in October.

It was mentioned at the news release on August 20th that across the state, high school students are demonstrating a loss in reading and that the VDOE is working on a plan to ensure further declines do not occur.

Our division leadership is collaborating with teachers to address this and the department will soon utilize the fall map results to identify students' needs and develop action steps.

So overall high school math pass rate was an 80%, which is a slight decrease from the previous year.

But since 2021, high school math has improved by 57%.

And for the last three years, we continue to exceed the state's benchmark of 70%.

And to break down math by end-of-course tests, in Algebra I, the pass rate was 81%, slightly down from the previous year, but still well above the state benchmark of 70%.

In geometry, we had a 90% pass rate, which is a significant increase from the previous year's 78% pass rate, and well above the statewide average of 80%.

We had a 95% pass rate in Algebra II, which surpasses the state's average of 86%.

High school math performance continues to highlight the positive outcomes of standards-based grading and equitable grading practices.

So moving forward, we will use our strategic plan as a roadmap to increase academic achievement and hold ourselves accountable to our vision.

Starting with priority one, we will continue to increase academic achievement by ensuring all learners have access to challenging,

inclusive and relevant learning experiences including differentiated instruction, equitable resources, and engaging curricula as well as providing specially designed instruction and supports for students with disabilities and our English language learners.

As Ms.

Raznick shared last month, every year we refine our tiered systems of supports by using data to align supports targeted to students' needs, monitor intervention fidelity, and evaluate effectiveness at multiple levels.

Priority two, we are dedicated to addressing chronic absenteeism.

After ramping up our efforts last year, most of our schools experienced a decline in absenteeism rates.

However, to further reduce chronic absenteeism, we have set clear expectations and procedures for schools and staff to ensure attendance data is accurate, and we will continue to enhance student support services

specifically in mental health and wellness and strengthen our communication with families.

Because we know that regular attendance in school is an essential factor for academic success.

And then for priority three, we will support our staff through ongoing professional learning opportunities.

As Dr. Isley shared earlier, we will continue to design and secure professional learning opportunities that address the needs of our staff and strengthen equitable teaching practices in areas such as differentiation, culturally responsive teaching, as well as co-teaching and structured teaching to ensure support for our students with disabilities and our English language learners.

So now, later this month, the Virginia Department of Education will release the accreditation ratings for each school in our division.

These ratings consider SOL pass rates and the academic growth students have shown throughout the year.

We anticipate that seven of our nine schools will be fully accredited and two will be accredited with conditions.

This is an improvement from the 22-23 school year.

We will provide a detailed report on these ratings in October, along with a preview of our strategic plan data dashboard.

And there will also be a literacy update and an ESL update in November.

And with that, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Miss Swift, very dense, a lot of percentages in there and on some of those slides in talking about different types of percentages on the slide.

When we look at this data overall, and us vis-a-vis the state, and consider our socio-economic and demographic data, how do we compare to this state?

And that you might not be able to answer that question.

What I'm looking at is, is there a way to adjust our pass rates to based on our basically socioeconomic kind of makeup to make it a apples to apples comparison, let's say, vis-a-vis what that state pass looks like?

Or am I missing the boat here completely?

But we're considering, let's say, the state average on free school lunches, for example, and the percentage of total students from a state perspective that receive free school lunch versus our population and that being an indicator of also potentially impacting student results, I guess.

Okay, sorry.

Thank you for that question.

Second is slide 16.

Struck me and that's the one unfortunately where I think we saw a 10 point reduction in reading pass rates.

And my assumption is that's a lot of the kids that were impacted from COVID in late elementary, early middle school that are now in the high school

and they're not passing their reading tests.

I would.

Yes, absolutely.

And it's also, so you're going to, we're going to see three different pass rates come from the state.

And so this one is based on mostly grade 11.

So last year students, so now our seniors, but grade 11 that this is that pass rate.

Our federal pass rate is actually higher.

It's around 80%, but that's based on the 12th grade cohort, so the cohort that just graduated.

And then you're going to see the accreditation pass rate, which we'll present in October, which is actually higher than this as well, almost 80%, which includes students.

So if a student failed the EOC reading test, but then they took the WorkKeys assessment and passed, that is not reflected in this data.

So we will actually get better data

Yes, because this is unadjusted.

There are no, so like transfer students that come in mid-year, they're counted in here, you know, L's.

So in high school, all L's have to take the EOC reading, whether you're a level one or level four.

And so that's also reflected in here.

And so, as you know, our L population has increased dramatically over the past few years.

The 22, 23, 81% pass rate is the same set of kids, right?

No, it's still not great, yes.

And we have recognized that and we, leadership is working to address that, absolutely, yes.

There is a decline, but then you're also still there's other rates where there are adjustments that are going to come out that I'll present in October.

So you may have a question, well, why is it seventy one and now it's seventy eight or it's an eighty.

So, as that relates to the conversation around COVID, I mean, so if this is an 11th grade cohort, I mean, so four years, let's just say seventh graders, right?

So, I mean, they shouldn't

I mean, they should have been flagged, you know, I mean, as struggling or having challenges with literacy.

So I don't, I don't know if anybody's digging into that, or Miss Riedel is looking at and I know she's not here right now.

Yes, I know that the English department and Ms.

Riedl, and then we also just hired a new secondary literacy specialist, and she'll be working with grades six through 12, having those conversations.

It's also, I'll share next month too, that the chronic absenteeism rate at the high school increased from 26 to 40%.

So now how many of those were in this grade to take that test?

And then just regarding VLA, I mean, that really is looking at that Virginia Literacy Act.

Through eighth grade.

But then there's also, so for our reading specialists in 9-12, our SPED teachers and our ESL teachers are required to take modules.

And then it's highly recommended or encouraged that our teachers, our 9-12 teachers, English teachers,

But how that would get great.

And I support all of that.

Always.

But wondering, like, what are we using from that to catch these students like at ninth grade?

No, I absolutely agree.

We, we're actually starting next week.

It's going to, the fall MAP window opens.

And so that really gives us some good information on all our students.

So we'll be taking it 9-12.

and so teachers will work in PLCs to identify student needs and then kind of develop some some plans and action steps based on that information.

And I do know that they have really worked to tighten and they I know Miss Riedel worked last year finding some reading intervention resources for at the high school level to kind of incorporate along with the tier one instruction aligned with tier one instruction.

But yes, we, we did notice that this stood.

I mean, we still have a lot of work to do in all areas, obviously.

And as we've had conversations, as we've had conversations in some of our debriefing meetings,

You know, one thing that I always say is that particularly at the 11th grade, it's about test taking.

It's not always about whether the student, you know, I know sometimes the concern is whether students can read and reading on grade level.

And some of those things, yes, you know, may exist, generally speaking.

But it's about test taking conditions and how the student arrives on that day when they take that test.

And then what we see is that we give them the WorkKeys reading assessment, they pass it.

So the ability to read and take a test is there.

It's just not always there on the day when they need to take it on the SOL day.

So those types of things do factor in.

and so yes there was a decline this school year and so you know we have an awesome literacy coordinator and a specialist now we're building a program and we'll use those those indicators those map assessments and things to help drive the interventions and supports here at the high school and those things will happen in BKT and Dr. Odey always reminds me that

You know, we're using those intervention funds right at the beginning of the school year.

So we're not waiting to support students.

So a lot is being done and will be done to address the needs of our students.

And then see Miss Mason here, who's working with coaching our teachers.

I hesitate to even ask for this for more numbers on a slide, but it may be helpful to see some of the actual raw numbers of the denominators, just in terms of number of students, like what is the increase in the total number of students in this cohort versus the last cohort that were not successful on the end-of-course exam?

Just because when we're looking at percentages,

like how many kids are we actually talking about who are not meeting this test with success?

And Mr. Cuomo, I don't know if you can hear that ringing, but if there's anything we can do to address it.

Yeah, I think I can.

No, you're right.

Test anxiety, I think

could account for a few points.

I cannot see test anxiety accounting for that many points.

I don't know.

Or how they show up that day or taking of a test.

That's a huge number.

That feels like a really big number.

These are the students, I know Ms.

Cooper has talked about this in the past, that these are the students who are about to graduate and enter the workforce and need to fill out job applications and cannot read to fill out a job application and cannot

navigate themselves into the world.

And so I am very interested in learning what an actual plan is, when it will be put in place, how it is put in place, because we don't have time.

These children don't have time.

They're about to graduate and go into the world.

And as Dr. Gurley often says, the most important day is the day after graduation.

And

It is critical that these students are ready for that day after graduation.

So I'll be interested to hear what we're doing and hopefully it is quickly.

Any other questions, comments?

Thank you, and I look forward to more.

All right.

Had to toggle back, but I'm sure it's Kim Powell.

Good evening.

So this presentation, just as an opportunity to ground everyone in what our numbers are looking like overall and then more specifically with our class sizes.

So as of August the 28th.

This is a snapshot of just

The what I call raw enrollment numbers.

It's one of the technical terms for this is responsible and serving to clarify our actual total enrollment is bigger is bigger than this, but there are students that we are responsible for that we don't serve because they go to specific alternative programs that are outside the school division not operated by CCS.

So here you can see the numbers by grade, by school, and the totals as of the 10 day was 4,446 or 45 students.

Sorry, I'm testing my vision a little bit here.

So taking that total and looking at where we landed class size wise, first, I want to explain on this slide, we're going to look at elementaries, specifically K4,

The first column shows our prescribed K-3 class size reduction targets.

These are targets set by the state, and they're driven by our disadvantaged student population at schools.

So it's not something that we set at the Charlottesville city level.

We have one school with the kindergarten grade level, Burling Moran, that is clearly over the target and we are in the, you may recall during budget time, there are open positions to address enrollment where most needed.

One of those positions, so it wasn't an addition, it was not an additional FTE, but one of those positions has been assigned to Burling Moran and the HR team is in the process of

collaborating with Burley Moran to support them and get that position filled.

So you can see that all the other numbers are in alignment with the targets and the technical calculation.

I just want people to understand if you see a number that's cutting it close and you're worried about it, understand that when it comes time for the official calculations, they also take into account

your PE teacher, if they're serving four grades, 25% of that FTE counts towards each grade.

So there's a little bit of wiggle room, although we certainly want our class sizes to be favorable and as small as fiscally responsibly possible.

So now looking at Walker, Buford, and CHS, this shows you where we are with our average class sizes for each of the core content areas and then what the maximums were.

Again, all of this data was pulled on August the 28th.

And so these numbers are all within our tolerances or ranges, both what the state prescribes and with what we want to see in general.

For smaller is always better.

I do want to make sure everyone's aware that when you see larger class sizes, they are almost always there in your advanced class sections where there are fewer sections, and they'll push the boundaries for some of those AP classes or whatever to let more kiddos in.

So where you see larger numbers, that's typically what it is.

So where are we this year in comparison to last year?

And I thank Mr. Meyers for asking for this information because it was an oversight on my part not to include it in the original release of the presentation.

So when you look at our 10-day for this year, which was on August 27th,

and the 10th day last year, which was September 6th.

And I had to look at this twice.

We actually are exactly the same.

Interestingly, when you look at comparing August 27th with August 27th last year, we're actually up 25 students, but that's apples and oranges because it reflects a different point in ramping up the school year.

But you can see by school, some schools are up, some schools are down, but it's,

you know pretty typical to what we see.

Thank you, Ms.

Powell.

Jackson Viya,

really high on the largest elementary school now?

Is there a cap?

So every building has a cap, if you will, a functional capacity.

There's a maximum capacity that's like purely numerical for any facility, but then there's what's called a functional capacity, which is more of where you want to be to be able to run your programs without strain or disruption.

Jackson Via has been tracking as one of our faster growing schools

since we did the capacity study actually back in the around 2012 to 2015.

And not in here, I didn't ask for it, but what what are our lower capacity

Elementary schools at the moment.

I'm looking at that.

Yeah.

So Greenbrier and Burley Moran both were the top two schools where in the as we've looked at it in years past, like they had some more capacity that we could

You know, potentially add classes if we needed to.

This is something that I've not looked at in depth for this year, current utilizations and so forth.

We've looked at this before for reconfiguration, right?

So you have to look at what it's going to look like when we trade out preschool classrooms for fifth grade classrooms, but

you know yes in general Greenbrier which used to be our school that was year after year when I first got here busting at the seams and it's I think it's a situation where that neighborhood is those kids are all just now older and the neighborhood that hasn't like entirely turned over because and that'll be things that the

rezoning project will also help us to better understand.

But it's really interesting how Greenbrier has changed just in the 10 years I've been here with being the school that was always busting at the seams to the point where we had to add those modular units out back to accommodate the preschool classrooms that were there.

And now, you know, we don't need those.

Any other questions, anybody?

Okay, so next agenda item is about rezoning.

I actually don't remember planning this order, but it's perfect.

So

This first slide is just a visual for the public to understand our six current elementary school zones.

I grabbed this image off the web.

I'm not even sure if it's completely technically correct to reflect some of the things.

I think it does look like that little weirdness between Burleigh Moran and the Trailblazer District is correct on there.

Regardless, there are six elementary school zones and take note that summit in that lighter beige color near the bottom right, one of our smaller school zones geographically.

It's also, I call it our school on a postage stamp.

If you look at a campus map of it, there's just no room to expand it really in limited green space.

Jackson-Baya also the district is not as large as some of the other districts and that's the light blue one and then you come around to Johnson and then the pink area that kind of where UVA kind of weaves in and out is the trailblazer zone.

Greenbrier is shown in yellow and has that weird break with the park and then you've got the green area which is pretty large and that's Burnley Moran.

So why do we need to consider rezoning?

The number one thing that's going on is the affordable housing development and redevelopment work that's been a long time coming in the city and there's actual traction and things are happening.

And South First Street phase two, which we've had our eye on for a while, will add net additional units.

And at first we were concerned that it was going to be during the 25-26 school year, but my most recent conversations with CRHA

gave me a huge sigh of relief because they now don't expect net additional units to come online until around July, summer of 2026, which buys us another school year.

to have solutions in place.

And when I talk about net additional units, what I'm talking about is these very exciting redevelopment and expansion projects in these neighborhoods.

There's only so much land in our 10 square miles.

So they are tearing down some number of units, reconstructing or building new units.

Sometimes they're not one for one.

They may be different, like apartments in some cases are going in where there were townhomes, things like that.

and then so they're expanding housing while they're redeveloping those facilities and those homes and it's really exciting.

So when this work first begins, it's not something that you have to respond to immediately because it takes some time for that process to get to the point where there's actually a net addition of new additional units coming online above the number of units that were already there when they started the process.

This is not a comprehensive list, but you see South First Street, which impacts Jackson-Biah based on our current zoning.

You see Kindlewood, which is in the Summit Zone, based on current zoning.

Sixth Street, also in the Summit Zone.

and then further out there's West Haven.

But in talking with Piedmont Housing about Kindlewood, there's actually a project that could impact us even more significantly sooner than later, which is there's work pending on the former MACA property.

I didn't know, that wasn't on my radar.

So it's been really good to talk more with Piedmont Housing and CRHA more regularly to really make sure we have a full lens on everything that's in progress and possibly getting underway.

Okay, so that's thing one.

That's the reason we need to talk about rezoning.

The next thing that's driving this conversation is UVA student housing policies are changing.

As we understand it, it has come to our attention that the university is planning to require all second-year students to live in campus housing, and they have started some work with some new construction already in progress, if I understand it correctly, to work towards this goal of changing their policy for second-year student housing.

The thing that triggered the capacity study that we talked about earlier between 2012 to 2015-1617 was when we wrapped up that study.

It was when those high-rise student houses went up, the big high-rise student housing apartment buildings on West Main.

No one who thought about that happening or heard about it would have thought, oh, that's going to impact the schools.

But it significantly impacted our schools because as students moved out of single family home stock in and around the university into those high rise

apartment buildings, it freed up single family home stock in the city which families moved into.

It freed up those houses and it drove us to have about a nine percent increase in our student population from 2012 to 2020.

And so this pending policy change with having the second year students live on grounds, we don't know exactly how that's going to impact us, but it's something we definitely need to keep an eye on.

And then last but not least is the city up zoning that has now been approved, which allows for up to three units of housing, three housing units to go on lots that were previously zoned for single family units in certain areas of the city.

So these are all really exciting, interesting things, but they're changes that we need to get ahead of.

And here's why.

Near term, so the conversation, you know, why now?

The near term affordable housing developments that we are very aware of, the zones that they will impact based on our current zoning are currently Jackson-Vaya and Summit, most likely.

Neither of those schools, those are really the only two schools that we're not sitting on a site plan for where we would put modular units in the event that we need to quickly add classrooms, and here's why.

Summit, there's just not a good place to put a modular unit.

They have just that one green space in front of the steps there in front of the office.

I don't think anyone wants to see modular units go on that green space.

I don't even know that we could, to be honest.

It hasn't even been entertained.

Then there's Jackson-Vaya.

Jackson-Vaya has green space in the back.

Now the playgrounds are back there, but it's not that Jackson-Vaya has more land.

But when we pursued a site plan for Jackson-Vaya for where a couple few modular units could go if we needed to, what we ran into is there was going to be a need to put a very expensive fire road around to access the rear of the property.

and that stalled out that work and it just stopped.

Michael Goddard and I worked on that together.

And when Ed Gillespie was here and he was here when he actually commissioned that first work with Weldon Cooper that identified why that growth was happening between 2012 and 2018, he came to me, he was like, what do you do?

And in rural communities, one, you have more land options to address issues, but you put modulars out and you figure it out.

And I think the thing I want everyone to understand is that's not necessarily a luxury we have.

We don't, no one likes modulars.

No one wants to see them in the front yard at Jackson Via there in the bus lane.

So we just, I just want everyone to be aware.

We don't have that option that school districts typically reach for to buy time, even though that's still not an option anyone loves, but that's what's typically done is you put modulars out and figure it out.

But so I just wanted folks to understand that.

What's been done so far?

The 2017 capacity study work that VMDO did is actually still intact.

We've not expanded any of our elementary schools.

We've done modernization projects.

But our elementary school footprints have not changed.

And so that work is still useful for us.

That was a good investment.

In 2023, I was able to get monthly meetings going with city neighborhood development services.

And that has been helpful to start this dialogue because I think they understand and appreciate now that we all need to be preparing for this as a community.

And then

from, I initiated work with Weldon Cooper last summer and they completed it this past July to update our housing yield rates.

And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that on the next slide to explain to folks what housing yield rates are.

And then more recently, we had started conversations well before this year with CRHA and Piedmont Housing, but I now have a quarterly meeting with CRHA and we're starting to have those conversations more regularly.

There's an exciting organizational and some system changes with people transportation that actually plays into this as well.

I'll talk about this more in the transportation update but the data that's in the VersaTrans system that does the bus routing and GIS information in general is critical in this process of rezoning and so that some change organizational changes we're working on with our city partners are really going to support this process well.

And then last but not least, there was an RFP put out in July for a consultant to support us in this whole process.

So what are housing student yield rates?

Another term is student generation rates.

You may also hear that.

These are the rates that are used to forecast how many students are expected to be generated per 100 units for different types of housing.

The different types at the highest level fall into three categories.

Apartments, single family homes, single family attached, which are your town homes.

Our rate of student yield rates are between 14 to 30 students generated for the school system per 100 housing units but it is very dependent on the type of housing and what zone or area it's in and this latest round of work that Weldon Cooper did for us proved out that the yield rates are significantly higher coming if the house is you know affordable housing public housing section 8 homes so

They kind of affirmed through their work what we sort of already knew and were concerned about, but we've got a whole report on that now.

And that will be shared as part of this process going forward.

I'd rather have consultants and other folks talk about those details than me.

So key considerations for this rezoning process.

We want to maximize walkability.

Let us pray.

Those are sort of the guiding principles.

They weren't in any particular order, but those are things we definitely want to keep in mind to guide our work.

So how does this process work?

Key components of this.

First, there's a staff work group comprised of myself, transportation, as I mentioned earlier,

technology.

The student information system and Pat's team definitely have to feed this process.

Community relations, of course, is a big part of driving this forward.

And then our equity inclusion family engagement team is also part of this.

So that's sort of the staff work group that's feeding a lot of data and information into the process.

Then there's the superintendent's advisory committee for rezoning.

The role of this group is to review the overall process, the initial rezoning options that the consultant brings forward from our data, and the plan for community engagement.

And that superintendent's advisory committee consists of our elementary PTA leadership from all six schools.

The CEA, we want representation from that group up to three people.

Two board members we would like to have as part of this and then this, of course, the staff work group that is feeding all the data into the process would also be part of this advisory committee.

So you have the staff work group.

the Superintendent's Advisory Committee.

And last but not least, the focus of all this is the community outreach and feedback, which will consist of in-person meetings, Zoom meetings.

There's gonna be a rezoning webpage that's fully fleshed out and used as a constant way to do outreach and also to get survey information back from the community.

And there will be at least one public hearing.

So timeline for all this work.

The consultant will have initial set of rezoning scenarios from our data ready by October and at that point they'll be the first meeting of the superintendent's advisory committee so that would be in October.

In November there'll be public presentations like we talked about with all the involving all the elementaries and then also a survey that goes out through the website.

By January we should be looking at refined options for review and discussion.

Then in February, if all stays on track, there would be board action on a final recommendation.

To be clear, we don't anticipate needing to implement whatever is decided to be the best way forward until having an efficacy of August of 2026, which is great because it also coincides with the return of fifth graders to the elementary school.

So we can really look at the situation holistically.

Having it line up with reconfiguration like that and the grade reconfiguration is a really good thing.

So near-term next steps, presently working to finalize the contract with our selected consultant.

That's not quite done, so that's why we're not talking about who it is yet, but we're very pleased with the partner we've chosen for this work.

We have to finalize the process within the actual timeline.

I mean, what I've shared with you is a really good overview, but there'll, of course, need to be specific dates attached to all of that work.

and then we are still consolidating data and sending it to the consultants and reviewing some of it together and just working to make sure that the data that underpins all of this is as good and as detailed as it can be.

Start down to my right.

Anybody have questions down to the right?

I like the ambitious timeline.

I hope the people that are listening, members of the public, the media in the room are also paying attention to that ambitious timeline.

I don't think this is going to be divisive.

I think there's a clear process here and I hope people take the opportunity to engage in that process and allow us to make a decision along this timeline because I think that's important and it makes sense.

Ms.

So in summary, and I believe I'm not, I don't want to speak out of turn if it's not up there already.

I know Amanda Corman with Beth's team asked me for that study.

It may even already be out on the website available for the public again.

kind of brought that forward, but they're essentially from a, if we need to, that study does not address rezoning.

I want to be clear what that study, as far as it addressed, it talks about school capacity.

And what it did is it was like, if you need to expand capacity because of growth, there essentially were two options laid out.

One was to take three of our elementary schools that are most conducive to expansion.

And I'm really afraid to say which three they are, but I can guarantee you one of them is not Summit.

And I don't think it was Jackson-Baya.

I want to say it was Burnley-Moran.

Maybe Johnson.

I can't remember if the other one, probably not Trailblazer, maybe it was Greenbrier.

But that's all in the study, which will be pushed out for everyone to look at again.

But basically, the options are the suggestions were take three of the current six elementary schools and you expand three of them to be what would be considered more typical or normal sized.

which would mean you're supporting instead of populations of 250 to the lower 300s, you're looking at 450 up to 600, which is a more typically sized elementary school for some of the schools in the city.

That was one option.

The other option that was entertained is just looking at

the Walker campus where the preschool center will be constructed, that property where Crow Pool is and then it connects on into the park, there was some discussion of whether a new school could be built on that campus that would be a seventh elementary school if there was an aversion to having different sized elementary schools within the city.

At the highest level

And there were no deep discussions about it.

Those were things that were trotted out because, again, unfortunately, we don't have green space.

Now, we did acquire KTEC, which has green space, and it's just outside.

It's contingent to the city.

Yeah I just I mean I feel like they did such a nice job with the renderings of that and even some pricing which I know is not would not hold today necessarily but it just to kind of get everybody up to speed as far as what each individual school could look like.

I'm actually wondering, since Amanda asked for it, we, you know, we haven't been, we didn't want to push any website without starting to have public conversations again, but we had already started that work.

Amanda had asked for it.

So, Ms.

Corman had asked for it.

And then, sorry, I didn't mean to jump.

I think, I don't know.

But anyway, the question about Jackson Viya.

I mean, I remember the conversation about just the barriers and the challenges as far as putting modulars there.

Well, I've just keep bringing it up because I'm worried.

And I'm like most people when I'm worried, I just keep bringing it up.

and Mike Goddard is a great partner in our work and so I know he's been kicking it around to see what else is possible but I don't know in this moment what the solution is but I know that this you know I feel like the city is certainly going to want to work with us to figure things out if that becomes a necessity but what I also want to say is again the goal in rezoning is hopefully we don't we may not have easy options to put modulars

you know, where we believe the biggest impacts are going to be initially.

You know, hopefully the getting on this rezoning process now, you know, heads us off ever needing to purchase modulars.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

I think for board members, if anybody has an interest in being on that advisory committee, if you'll just reach out to me and we'll kind of look at the who and ideally, I'd love to get one from each cohort, but we'll see who has an interest in the time.

I think that'll be forthcoming probably by next week.

We know the timeframes, we haven't set the actual dates, but I think it's possible to get dates out there within the next week.

Oh, you're asking about timing.

Yeah, specifics.

Well, because we are, it's gonna need to be something that's after school hours because we've got CEA representatives, hopefully, you know, as part of this.

Okay, middle school project update.

Sorry, it's a little weird to be up here for so many.

Do you want me to just go continue?

Is that okay?

Right, great.

So this is actually a really, I think, a fun update.

So this is where we were the last time I gave you an update, which was the end of February.

And still a lot more dirt than walls.

and here we are as of August 28th.

So again, oopsies, hold on.

I got so excited.

February.

Now, I love this.

Really quickly, all the structural steel for the new buildings is in place.

All the concrete floor slabs for the new buildings are in place.

Exterior sheathing is in process.

Exterior brickwork, which that's gonna really start to make it look more like the end product.

That's starting this month.

roof installation well on its way.

The geothermal wells, which I talked a lot about in the early updates, finally are done.

And then as far as the rest of the site work, we are in negotiations for when half of the new field will be turned over to Parks and Rec for maintenance and be available then to be used.

But there's still a little bit of ramp work and stuff right around that field, so we're not quite ready.

The city's not quite ready to assume

I'll show some of this later but interior wall framing is complete in buildings A and B and then beyond the walls there's a ton of mechanical electrical and plumbing work that's either close to completion

or done, and then wherever the work has been done and it's been inspected, the sheetrock is actually going in now.

So we have sheetrock going in in some areas, metal staircase, one of the staircases is being installed, some utility work, there's a lot going on.

It's great to see the progress.

Beginning with the end in mind, this is where we're heading.

This is an overview of the new Charlottesville Middle School campus.

This view is just to remind everybody kind of what's where at a high level.

So the performing arts space is still the performing arts space, but it'll be renovated.

And then the current A building, if you will,

That will be like the eighth grade area and that core engineering lab area is still in that space.

So that will serve multiple grade levels.

But then the sixth graders have their own sort of building, if you will, in the end product.

And on the lower level of that is the studio arts, which again, so there are components that serve the whole school.

So if the engineering piece remains in the eighth grade, the studio arts are in the lower level of the sixth grade building and then the seventh grade building, the lower level of that has the fitness studios and that building connects to the new gym.

So what I'm going to do is kind of take you all around the building for folks to see what they can't necessarily see from where you can stand right now.

And I want to remind everyone, you know, this is a occupied construction two phase project.

The peach color buildings and these letters are not I've noted are old building letters and that sort of grayish font.

But the new building letters are shown in the darker font and it goes left to right.

A, B, C, D, E, F. That's the way it'll land.

So A building, B building and C building.

A building is the new gym for reference.

All right, so this is standing below, this view is if you're standing below the porch off of the current B for middle school dining area.

And so to the left is the gym and looking straight ahead, you're looking at what will be the seventh grade building when everything is done.

The lower in the bottom lower right is like a little diagram to show people where you're sort of where you're standing when you're looking at each of these images.

And then this is looking at the gym, the back corner of the gym.

And this is the building that seventh grade wing, if you will, the lower level of this is where the fitness studios are going to be.

and then coming up the hill, you can still see that seventh grade building, building B, but what's in the forefront is building C and you're looking right at the lower level, you're looking at those new studio art rooms with the terraces where people, lots of big windows in daylight and that's the sixth grade classrooms above that when this is all done.

And then this view shows you coming all the way up and you can see where

We're back at the bus loop and you're looking at that building C. Building C, when this is done, when you go up there, the entrance, the main office entrance and the main administrative suite is right there up to your right coming into building C.

Okay, so this is looking inside the construction, and you can again see all that structural steel, the floors, and what you see when you look at these images, and I just couldn't get over it, almost every, it's just windows, windows everywhere.

When you look at that, those pictures, none of those windows are the same.

It's everywhere.

It is such a difference from the environment that they have now.

and even when you're in like the interior of the building on even a lower level you can still just see the light that's going to be coming in here you can see where these big interior glass walls are going to be they have pull curtains if needed for privacy but the whole idea is to you know open up the learning environment and we're we're excited for what this is going to that's what this is going to provide for our students and for the staff

So, friendly reminder, we are still in phase one of this project, which was scheduled to go from mid-June of 2023, I guess it was, all the way through next summer, 2025.

And then phase two officially starts not next summer, which is summer 2025, and it takes us to the completion of the project, which is August of 2026.

interim space planning for phase one, sorry, for phase two is already been in progress.

And so we're making plans for what it looks like for the interim year, which is next year.

So in summary, for this school year, there are no significant changes from current operating conditions for this whole school year.

Next school year, what I call the interim school year is where it's gonna be a little more interesting.

There'll be a new traffic pattern.

We expect we'll have the whole new bus loop that goes around the whole campus and comes out behind Boys and Girls Club.

That should be in place.

And we're still in discussions about what's going to go where as far as bus traffic versus car traffic, because we're going to pick up some parking, but we're also going to lose quite a bit of parking during that interim time.

We're working through what that's going to look like and how that will all be managed.

The first semester of next school year, seventh and eighth grade move into the new buildings.

Some spaces in the new buildings will be used differently for the center room year for performing arts and engineering because, you know, the choir and the band and orchestra, they they won't have access to their auditorium building.

So that means fitness studios are likely going to not be available as fitness studios in the interim year.

They're likely going to be used for performing arts.

And then we have regular science classrooms that, just like the health and PE staff had to adapt for how they have handled health and PE last year and this year, science teachers, Dr. Coffey is working to prepare for what engineering looks like when you don't have access to the full engineering area that they have now with all that equipment.

They will make a good plan for that.

The urban gardening class is another one.

We've identified a space for that because there's no garden space.

Next year, you know, now they're in the interim garden space behind the Performing Arts Center.

Next year, there's no outdoor space available for them and they're aware of that and we're making plans with them accordingly.

While the current A and B buildings are not available, the main building and the auditorium building, the D building classroom, we still have that for the first semester.

That's why it's got a single slash through it.

What's going to happen in that space for the first semester is that's going to be where we handle nutrition services.

There's going to be cold food prep and serving.

in that space for the first semester.

Hot food will be prepped offsite and delivered, the same thing that we do now for Jackson-Vaya.

That's always been the case at Jackson-Vaya.

Students will be dining in the D Building classrooms during that time period.

And when that building's not in use for lunch, so outside of lunchtimes, those are gonna be like reservable meeting or breakout spaces.

After winter break next year, this is all next year,

The D Building, we have to give that up because they've got to start getting ready for the garden area and all that that goes there.

But we are making a trade because they're going to get our new kitchen and the dining commons will be available.

for us in the D building area.

So literally trading spaces.

I think that's the name of a DIY show, but we are literally going to be trading spaces.

So the interim this year, no significant changes in our operations from what students and families experienced last year.

Next year, it's going to be an interesting interim year, but we're excited and we're going to be so close to that final product and there'll be more information to come as those plans are truly finalized.

This is an infographic that actually doesn't seem as necessary now as it did when we embarked on these conversations because it's so close now.

I think families can figure it out.

But just a friendly reminder, the current fourth graders, they will be the first cohort that goes into Charlottesville Middle School for sixth grade.

And Charlottesville Middle School will open in August of 2026.

And there is always more information available.

Periodically, we're posting updates and so forth.

Any questions?

So the reason, Beth Chuck's gonna chuckle at this because she wants me to put that on the slide.

I feel like the budget story with this project is always gonna be the story for the city to tell and not us because I don't manage the project.

And I ask that because we haven't had major change orders.

We're not giving up anything that we thought we were getting at the beginning or anything like that.

Nothing major has changed or anything like that because of

This is a very exciting, great presentation.

Transportation update.

I appreciate Beth and her team.

They put that in colors because they want it to pop.

It is nice.

We have 15 pupil drivers, four and a half relief drivers, two of which are CCS staff.

Relief drivers are not available to drive every tier.

They have limited availability.

So for example,

Some of our employees, if they're elementary, they may only drive a route for their school, that type of thing.

And there are three leads in addition to the 15 people drivers.

Unfortunately, there have been two resignations since the start of school, but we do have one driver in the hiring process who, with giving notice at their prior position, is scheduled to start training in the middle of this month.

So, not exactly where we want to be, but some progress there.

I'd like to thank everyone for their patience as we've had quite a few new drivers.

We've had some start of school delays, primarily because of driver illnesses.

They all work together.

If you've ever been to the bus yard, they're all together in the same area and some illnesses have gone through the team and really made for some hard days.

There have been some days where we had no one in dispatch because every lead, every supervisor is out driving routes.

Some rerouting work is in progress this week and families will get their notifications on Friday, just like they normally would.

Because, and this is typical, we are rebalancing the routes based on actual ridership numbers and bus capacities.

There were some walker buses that were a little on the crowded side.

There were some other buses that were running too light.

and there was an opportunity to consolidate routes that would take some pressure off this driver course since we've lost some drivers.

So Renee Duvall has been working hard and quickly to get that done.

And also there was one GIS boundary issue when some new housing units came online.

The system in error picked them up as not being in the walk zone when they should have been.

So there were about five families that we had to tell, sorry, but with this rerouting

You can't have bus service when the rest of your neighborhood doesn't have bus service.

So we're handling that.

But that's sort of where we are by the numbers.

And then looking ahead, I touched on this earlier.

We're very excited.

I'm very grateful to Deputy City Manager James Frias for his help in having conversations about how we can work

Thank you for having me.

That position is actually going to come out of the contract and come over as a city schools employee.

Effective October 1st is what we're working for.

This was really important for a lot of reasons and we're working with the city to determine what the refund should be on the contract because now we're going to pick that position up for the rest of the year.

And in conjunction with this, we're pulling the VersaTrans system over so that instead of that system being a city IT responsibility, it's so integral to what we do.

And there are features of that software that we recognize we haven't been using, some of which were actually already included in the system, some of which we'd like to add on.

But so grateful to Pat and his team for their willingness to also support this transition.

I'm very excited for what this move is going to mean for just our continued improvement of people transportation.

In the big picture, we are in year three of our new approach to school transportation, and we remain solution-oriented.

Recent examples, partnering with other organizations like City of Promise to help build

family agency and support school attendance, partnering with the city.

This is a big one that we started from year one.

We started out looking to improve bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

And this list is just a snapshot of the most recent bike and pedestrian improvement projects that have been done around the city.

And there's always more work in progress.

This is one of those things truly were never done.

Every month we meet, we're always talking about the next thing and the next thing.

So I think that's just been a really great

thing for the city to come out of all this.

We are definitely still not alone in the transportation struggles.

We learn from other communities and other communities learn from us.

We'd mentioned, you know, last year that other places that have reached out to us were Raleigh, North Carolina, and Winchester, Virginia, and we shared with them some of the things we were doing.

our own communications team presented at a national conference regarding how we handle the transportation crisis and then our city safe routes team we knew they were part of national conversations because of the other communities that reached out to us but at this point Kyle Rodland is being asked to speak at national conferences about what we've the changes we've made and one of those is the National Association of City Transportation Officials that's NACTO and that was in Florida in May he was he was a presenter there and then

He's actually been asked to speak with the Virginia Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, so the State Advisory Committee has tapped Kyle to be part of that work.

And so, again, we're not alone.

And we are always hiring.

Of course, for my part, the crossing guards, they are CCS employees.

Starting rate is $16 an hour.

There are also volunteer opportunities.

Substitutes are probably our biggest challenge.

Similar to what I was describing with the buses, we have some days where Julia Green, who's not here tonight, but Ms.

Green is out a lot covering, and I've been out some, and so you know we're scraping the bottom of the barrel.

And so that's just the reality, but we make sure that we cover everything we can every day.

And then the regular and relief bus drivers, those are people who are interested in that, please go to the city's website and we're grateful for anyone who's interested there.

I think that's the last slide.

It is.

Thank you, Kim, and very extensive.

So what I will say is that the pupil transportation, I was so impressed with this, they reached out to us before we even asked.

And as they looked at the driver core heading into the year, they offered restoration of the elementary

after school activity bus support, and they officially added another bus for like Buford Athletics or added a fourth day.

I mean, they offered things before we even asked.

I'm like, this is great, because they were looking to fully utilize the drivers.

As we've had the illnesses, I mean, that's, it's been a challenge.

And Buford has had so much interest in athletics, which is great, but it stretched the capacity even with the additional

After School Bus.

So we're working through those challenges and we've made it work.

So like the day-to-day extras, if you will, nothing's been pulled back that was offered and the principals were advised about all this at one of the principals meetings.

I think it was in July because I shared it with Dr. Gurley to share with the principals.

So none of that's been pulled back, but it's been a struggle with these absences.

And then when it comes to field trips, to my knowledge, no field trips have been denied because of capacity.

Now, we are implementing some new processes around field trips, and we're continuing to improve those things.

But I do not believe anything has been denied as far as field trips up to this point.

But certainly, we are hiring.

There are unfilled FTEs in our contract for bus drivers.

I believe our contract calls for at least

20 or 21 or whatever you saw at 14, like six bus drivers would make a world of difference.

Any other questions?

so somehow somewhere correct yeah volunteers we primarily had been looking for that for the walking groups and that type of thing and so yes there is a process and city of promise is actually more taking the lead on that now so we would probably direct people who are interested in walking as a

You know, as a volunteer opportunity, walking with students in certain neighborhoods, in certain areas, we would probably direct them to City Promise at this point.

All of our crossing guards are paid crossing guards, but we would use them as subs, but we would train you and pay you and you'd go through our hiring process as a crossing guard that would work in a signed post or even, sorry,

or even periodically substitute.

I guess I'm not a volunteer, cross and grow.

So yeah, I mean, that was a little bit of my question too, but specific to just in general, I mean, and I learned this last night listening that they're level one, level two volunteers.

So there are training, and if you look on the Charlottesville City Schools site, there's like a volunteer training video.

Anyway, I was gonna go do it just to do it and see what it was like, but to throw my name in there officially as a volunteer for some of those substitute needs.

Did want to just take a minute since you talked about volunteer needs just to kind of blast that out in the meeting here that people who are interested even to come in to schools to volunteer, you need to go through this training.

Do you have another presentation?

Are you sure?

Appreciate all of that.

All right, the next one, the next thing is the legislative updates and I'll turn that over to Ms.

Okay, so this is an opportunity and usually it's done a little bit differently but Mr. Morris and Dr. Gurley and I talked a little bit about it but it's an opportunity for school board members to kind of just

take voice and share what some of your concerns might be, whether there's legislation that's been in the works, whether it's something that VSBA has kind of had queued up, but then looking at the opportunity for us to sit with Senator Deeds and our legislator, Kallsen.

So it's an opportunity again for us to kind of just talk through things.

There was a form that we could include or put things on, but I know that this is new for lots of us, but it's just an opportunity for us publicly to talk a little bit about what is concerning to us or what's on our radar and that we want to talk about.

So I'm going to turn it over.

I had put a couple of things on there.

But if anybody has anything that they would like to just talk about and we can make sure that we add it to that Google Doc when and if it comes back up.

I know that and I don't remember I didn't look at the final version of it, but I know that one thing that I put on I'll just start start the conversation here was to continue to just elevate and make sure that everybody has the one cent sales tax.

The legislation I don't know if I would imagine that's being proposed again.

I don't know who the patrons of that are, but that was something that was passed by both the Senate and the House last year.

And that was the first time that that had happened, but it was vetoed by the governor.

So we want to make sure that both of our representatives are aware that that's a priority for us, if that's the will of the board.

So that was one thing that I had put on there.

I'm trying to look.

Mr. Meyer, did you put something on there?

Yeah, it was related to that.

I mean, it would be great to see that again.

I mean, in general, I would like to see our school board have more, for lack of a term, ability to raise revenue ourselves, so either taxing authority or something like that.

Do I think the reality of that actually happening is very, very slim, but, you know,

the rest of the country, not the rest of the country, but many other places in the country, you know, the school board can raise its own money through bonds and whatnot and so on for retinum.

So I think I put something like that.

Now, I'm looking forward to the I think there's a training from the SBA on September 19th that a number of us are going to.

So I will learn more about that.

But I was there that my basic concerns were more about how do we.

How do we be empowered with more fiscal, basically,

the ability to raise more revenue ourselves.

I wanted to talk more with our preschool team about the funding mechanism for threes and fours to see if that's something that needs some legislative action.

In light of current events, as recently as yesterday, any support that we can have for increased gun safety measures statewide would be something that I would wholeheartedly support.

Chair, one more.

There was, I remember there was the Joint Legislative Review Committee last year came out with analysis basically of how messed up the black box kind of funding is and how it needs to be adjusted at the state level.

And that's not something necessarily we can control, but again,

I think VDOE and the governor's office of controls and so I think there was the call and my other ask is that they implement the recommendations of that report which would make it basically adjust the standards of quality away from kind of the messed up very low ratios that no one follows where you're supposed to have like one ESL teacher per every 50 ESL kids or something like that that no one utilizes to something that's actually more realistic and is representative of

our district, and Emily Ellis.

So that was the other point I had.

Along those lines, and I don't know, I don't think it came through the JLARC, but I know that Delegate Hudson had had emailed me a year or so ago that I was interested in prioritizing somehow, and I think

Oh gosh, if it was Senator, I'm drawing a blank on the name.

Standards of measure, but basically looked at the physical measures and quality of actual physical school buildings.

So making sure, and I know that I think that was accepted.

I don't know if it's been implemented yet, but I did want to at least get that on our list to talk to Senator Deeds and Ms.

Carlson about that.

and then along the lines of our ELL students.

And I know this was changed.

I believe I saw something in an article this morning about how we're gonna report or what the requirements are for our ELL students.

They don't have to take the test for so many years currently, but that time is being shortened, I believe.

I'm seeing heads nodding.

Yeah, so I guess just to what extent, and I would love for Dr. Fouts or whoever can help us be able to speak to the Senator and any legislation that might assist our students in testing and just how that impacts us, but more importantly, them,

as individuals and them not feeling like they're getting binged for coming into a school district and them being tested or not doing well and how that might impact the school division.

Two of the things that I had have already been spoken about.

I remember what Miss Dooley said about the preschool three and four year olds of not separating that funding but combining it so that we have flexibility there.

Same thing with the 1% sales tax as well.

One of the things that I thought about, Mr. Meyer, you could probably speak to this better than I could, but the sustainability with Dominion Energy of not being able to put, you know, X amount of power onto the grid.

I thought that would be a good thing that we should take upon, or we should take up considering that as a public institution, this is our way of making sure that we can

We are shrinking our carbon footprint but also ensuring that we can provide more services in terms of electricity to the to the rest of the public that might not have an opportunity for renewable energy.

The other thing I thought about and kind of we touched upon a little bit today and I'm going to clarify something what I believe

Dr. Gurley was referring to and you can tell me if I'm putting words into your mouth.

You were referring to testing and I think what you were referring to is that there at times can be like a cultural difference when it comes to testing and I think one of the things that as a school board we should consider as a legislative priority is trying to get more flexibility from the states particularly maybe SOLs

of how we assess our students.

Testing is only one level of assessment.

Anybody else have some questions?

And if you think of things, I think at this point, so this is kind of our initial conversation around this, but

One other item I wanted to mention.

So, and then just keep in mind everybody too, when we're bringing these things in, you'll hear this at the VSBA, the legislative advocacy or conference that

We want to make sure that we're making it clear that we want funding to go along with this.

So that, which I know seems, you know, common sense, but a lot of times things are mandated and it's up to the schools to have to pay for these things.

So keep that in mind.

And then I think my wording, and I didn't say it real well, was just fair assessments for our EL students.

So just making sure that the legislation is really looking at that to support our students.

And we are, we've been, you know, seeing a big increase and we know that in that population of our students.

Anything else at this point?

Okay.

So I think if anybody has afterthoughts, just send emails and we can make a list or add it to the list.

So I think that wraps up that part of our agenda.

And the next part is 12.0, which is board response to written reports, which included advisory committees to the school board, staffing report, and any committee reports that school board members

included.

And then we're now moving to 13.0, which is our second opportunity from members of the community.

Excuse me, Chair.

Just on.

I would like to reflect on the 12.2, the 2024-2025 staff room report, which was a written report.

I believe it is available in the agenda.

I hope it is.

But again, it was very interesting to see

the diversity of our workforce and in some cases the lack of diversity in our workforce split out among all the different positions and again throughout the different schools we have.

I want to commend the administration and the HR team.

Again, our retention rate went up.

I think there was a lot of concern at the end of the year that we would see a loss of a lot of teachers maybe potentially here at CHS and that did not occur.

I do think, again, Dr. Gurley and his team is doing a good job in putting the structures in place, the HR policies in place, et cetera, again, to support our staff.

And we're seeing those results.

And again, I think building a culture that our staff, I think, are invested in.

And again, we're seeing more and more folks stay, which makes it a lot easier for everybody to do their jobs.

And I think ultimately will result in better results for our students.

I just wanted to give that report a shout out.

I think it's an important one that we didn't get a presentation on, but I do hope the public is made aware of and takes a look at.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Anybody?

Okay, so comments from members of the community.

This is the second opportunity here at the Media Center or if

Anybody online has a desire to make a comment, now is your opportunity.

And you can always email us if you have any concerns as well.

All right, next would be then comments from the board.

And again, I will start down to my right.

I think I just wrote down that it's always exciting and I enjoy hearing the updates.

What's going on with the construction with Buford and our middle schools and just that was like my highlight tonight.

Thank you, Ms.

Dooley.

Ms.

Cooper.

I just want to thank all of CCS staff for the hard work and providing the information that we've requested.

I also wanted to share some information as I'm a part of the Public Education Foundation, and it's a grant opportunity for teachers and classrooms through the Public Education Foundation of Charlottesville and Albemarle.

This information will be sent out either this week or the beginning of next week with information for teachers and classrooms to be able to apply the deadline for the grant.

to submit the application is due by October 31st, 2024.

This is an opportunity to get a mini grant starting at $499 to up to $4,500.

So I would hope that some of our teachers at CCS take advantage of this opportunity and apply as this could be a great opportunity to engage with your classroom

Thank you.

Mr. Morris, Ms.

Thanks colleagues, and I will be brief.

One, I want to reiterate, I like what we're doing in CHS with the so-called away and all-day policy.

I want to thank the board for last year, I think instituting that policy.

and while I think there's been bumps in the road, I think we're starting to see the results in it now and a more fuller implementation of that, I think we'll see better results at CHS.

So thank you to Dr. Malona and his team and the rest of the administration, but I do hope to see that continue to be focused on and I think it will, again, improve a lot of results in a lot of different areas of our operations.

Second, and again, colleagues, just kind of signaling out there to what I'm thinking about.

It doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to go, but

I do know we'll be reviewing our schedule, the school schedule going up, going forward.

And I wonder, colleagues, if that's going to be an opportunity to think about how we adjust that to get better school results, rather than keep on doing what we're maybe doing currently.

Is there a way that we can schedule the school year better to get better results in the future?

And so anyways, I wanted to just let you all know that's what I'm thinking and

and maybe we might do something with that.

And finally, I do hope to hear in the near future more about the additional, I think, tutoring funding that was made available last year from the state and how we're going to, the administration's going to be implementing that this coming year.

I think we've, I'm not going to rely only on the results we just saw today, but there's obviously a lot of need, I think, in our schools, still a lot of learning loss.

And then I'm hoping that

to see that implemented in a very robust, full way this year to ensure that the students who need help are getting it and that we're utilizing those funds as soon as possible.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Ms.

Obiora, any closing comments?

Well, thank you for joining us this evening.

Madam Chair, may I make one more comment or one comment quickly?

Earlier today we had a great, I guess reintroduction to our school board reps.

And I would also like to ask our board members to reconsider

how our policy for school board reps to actually strengthen those.

I think the bios that we heard today are excellent through young women, and I think we can really utilize their voice and their expertise

So although they can't vote, they can help craft policy that would be effective for them.

This is taking place in other school districts, and I have some information from last year's VSBA that I'm happy to provide to you all.

But I think it would be very valuable to our school board reps, not only now, but in the future, to find ways to strengthen their voice and really engaging in our board meetings.

You know, even the student report, I think is excellent and has been utilized very well in terms of how school board reps are engaging with their peers and then bringing it back to us.

But think about how much more powerful that could be if the three of them are getting together, working with school administration to come up with a policy at the end of the school year and providing that to us.

So I have some resources that I will be happy to share with you.

Thank you.

I always get excited when I hear you talk about that.

So thanks for bringing it up again.

I just have a couple of announcements.

I just, one, want to start with by acknowledging the events from yesterday.

I cannot imagine how the school community and the families

are navigating that unimaginable loss when you send your student to school and you expect them to come back.

And I just want to acknowledge what Miss Dooley said earlier, that it is about legislation and gun control and all of those things.

and just acknowledging that there were a lot of educators on yesterday who kept students safe.

And so I just want to thank our staff members for what they do daily because it's heavy.

It's heavy on those days and then the next day when you have to come in a space knowing that someone in the world

was doing what they love.

And this day is not the same for them.

And so I just want to start by saying that here in Charlottesville City Schools, we do acknowledge what happened.

And then we just stand with their family.

We just also want to make an announcement that on September the 19th.

There's a fireside chat that's being hosted by the First Lady of Virginia.

She will be hosting the

She will be hosting the author of The Anxious Generation, which is the book we've referenced a couple of times about the cell phones and social media.

So she will be hosting the author and that will be streamed to public schools around the Commonwealth.

We will be putting out information.

Ms.

Chuck and Ms.

Corman have already reached out to

our PTOs about how we can collaborate on this event and just want to let our families and community know that there will be more information that will be released with regards to how we can host that.

And there are a lot of things.

I know it's still the beginning of the month, but it's kind of last minute.

So I want to acknowledge that there are things that are going on within our schools on that day.

So I know that there will be people who want to participate, who may not, because I know that there are things that are already scheduled.

But we still are going to host it for those who are available and interested, and there will be more information forthcoming.

And that is all I have.

Thank you all for it.

Thank you.

Let's see, work session wrap up, Ms.

A couple of things.

So regarding the CHS English plan, we'll have that literacy update along with Stacy Riedel's update in November.

And then we'll also because there's also an ESL update during that time.

Great, thank you.

Upcoming meetings.

October 10th we have a school board meeting and then October 19th we have a school board advance which will be 8 30 and right now it looks like it's at Johnson Elementary.

So those are our next meetings and if there's nothing else I'm going to adjourn the meeting.