School Board Meeting   10/10/2024

Thank you.

It's five o'clock.

Welcome to our school board meeting this afternoon, today being October 10th, 2024.

So I do want to just welcome you all.

And I would like to ask you all to please join us in a moment of silence.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Ms.

Burns?

Here.

Ms.

Cooper?

Here.

Ms.

Dooley?

Here.

Mr. Morse?

Here.

Ms.

Richardson?

Here.

Ms.

Torres?

Yes, thank you.

Before I call for approval of our proposed agenda I would like to just make a quick announcement.

As we begin tonight's meeting I wanted to acknowledge that we've had some recent losses among our retirees and previous colleagues.

We can't acknowledge every loss, but I do want to take a moment to express appreciation for the late Dr. Vincent Cibarelli, who served as superintendent of our schools from 1982 through 1989.

So on behalf of Charlottesville City Schools, we extend condolences to his family.

and we extend appreciation for his seven years of leadership at Charlottesville City Schools, as well as his larger service to education over five decades.

His inspirational leadership and personal warmth are fondly remembered by his former colleagues on our staff or on the board.

Again, our sympathies are with his family, friends and former colleagues.

Thank you.

Ms.

Dooley and Mr. Morse, thank you.

Any opposed?

Great.

Thank you.

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

And we do open up an opportunity for comments from students first.

So if there are any students who would like to either step forward here in the media center, or if anybody is online, now is an opportunity for you to speak.

And we will have another opportunity later towards the end of the meeting.

And now again, opening up for comments from members of the community.

We do have a couple of names signed up.

So here in the media center, first on our list is Mr. Davis.

Great to see you.

Yeah, so those of you that know me understand my love of the school division.

You know my love of the school.

I've got two kids here at the school proud to have Black Knights.

And the school division has allowed me to build an unconventional program and I appreciate all the support.

that I've had all along the way.

This past weekend, I got to help on now marching band dad.

So I got to help out with cavalcade this weekend.

And it was just a great time seeing lots of people participating in marching band.

A little while later, I'm leaving, cutting out this early to go over to see.

I'm also a choir dad.

So going over to see my daughter performing with Mr. Cooks.

choir and we've got great sports and great all these amazing things going on and I really feel like we should be able to retain so many teachers.

We should have people just like wanting to spend their whole careers here and we're

We're burning through teachers at kind of an alarming rate.

I made a commitment this year to speak to situations or things that I saw that I felt like were pushing teachers away.

And so you'll probably hear me kind of speak on that a little bit because I know you all care about teachers and I know our division wants to move to a place where we're not losing so many teachers.

But the thing I want to speak on tonight is the fact that we don't have any substitutes

really in our division and that's really wearing on our teachers.

I know this is not a surprise, it's not a new topic, but it's one that is exhausting teachers and we really need to look at it.

Last year in November when we did a reset, after the reset, we were able to come up with 20 subs or so and from December until the end of the school year, almost no teachers had to cover classes.

but we're back down to having one or two subs in the building and on a normal day we've got 40 or 50 class periods that have to be covered by teachers and we had a quick little meeting as CEA reps to talk to our teachers and we asked for feedback and a lot of them are just bringing up the fact that they are

It's really hard to be able to focus on the job you're hired to do when you're having to substitute for classes as well in an unexpected way.

There's a lot to say on this and we've been meeting with Dr. Malone and talking about it, but just a couple things to get the conversation going here.

We kind of as teachers feel like we can't, the teachers cannot be expected to be the solution to a bigger system level problem.

This definitely is not just a Mr. Davis problem.

If you talk to any teacher and I highly recommend that you do talk to our teachers at all the buildings because I know it's not just here.

It's something that's at the forefront of everybody's conversation everywhere you go.

So I just ask you all to please make this problem go away on your watch.

Take this on because this is something that is really driving teachers away and we need to look at it.

Thank you.

And next we have Ms.

Hello, thank you so much.

It's nice to see all of you.

Dr. Curley, I'm Jen Horn.

I teach here at CHS, and I'm going to try to abbreviate this so I can fit it all in in time.

Technology in classrooms is having a detrimental effect on learning.

This time, I am not talking about students' personal devices, though those certainly do not help.

I am speaking of staring at a screen

that has become a regular part of our students' day.

The overuse of digital classrooms contributes to absenteeism, to lack of motivation, to the inability to retain knowledge, and to the overall downturn in educational merit and magic.

I have been a teacher for 22 years, 17 of them at CHS.

And in the last five years, teaching has become less fun.

Learning has become less fun.

Ask your teachers, ask your students.

Please do not diminish the word fun.

I mean it as the greatest amount of joy possible in a moment.

And for the human curious creature, education should be fun.

If it makes you more comfortable, substitute engaging.

Those fluent in ed speak love that word.

Teaching has become less engaging.

Learning has become less engaging.

Most importantly, students are clearly articulating their unhappiness with the current state of affairs.

Some quotes from my students.

It's not like things are being taught.

It's like they're being downloaded.

I feel like school used to be about asking questions and looking for answers.

Now it seems like it's about turning on your computer and following directions.

I read this thing where it said that computers were supposed to do the ironing in the laundry so that people could have more time to think.

I think we're learning that it's the opposite.

To walk down the hall and see a classroom full of students like zombies staring at screens is creepy.

You cannot convince me that these are hours of fun.

It's time to get out of the water.

I know COVID threw us all into the digital sea.

but we need to swim only when it suits us.

Here's my confession.

I grew really sad this past summer and I decided that I would come back and have a tech light year.

My students have not been on a computer except to take a maps test and it is joyful.

Kids are always asking me to look at their writing, they talk to each other about writing, they're reading books, they laugh, we go outside.

This wasn't happening last year when the Chromebook interface was between us.

Do I believe we should throw them away?

Of course not.

But we need to use them as a tool for brains that don't need them.

Currently, we treat them as if they were essential.

On a final note, there used to be this line that we had computers for equity.

My brother, confession, teaches at a very ritzy private school.

His private school is getting computers out of the classroom.

There are guest speakers.

There is time outside.

There are all kinds of field trips.

And here's why they do it.

Their goal is to make sure that the students are in control of the world's digital directives rather than merely being directed.

If we want equity, if we believe that real knowledge is power and that education is the great leveler, we must have our kids at CCS have the same level of control.

Thank you.

Anybody else here in the Media Center who would like to make public comment at this time?

Go ahead, please come forward.

Hi, my name is Michelle Yeaton.

Hello Dr. Gurley and school board members and friends out here that I know.

I just want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude to the Charlottesville School District for the incredible care and support that my family has received since they evacuated from Asheville following the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.

My sister, she's sitting right over there, and her two children are now living with us here in Charlottesville until Asheville City Schools is able to open up.

They are waiting on water services to be restored, and an update from yesterday mentions wells being dug, portable bathroom units being considered, and technology hotspots being deployed to the Asheville City Schools sites.

Thanks to the McKinney-Vento Act, my niece and nephew have been warmly welcomed as students and athletes at both Peaford and Charlottesville High School.

This past Monday is when they started.

I don't know how long this will last, but an ambitious timeline of the end of October was set yesterday by Asheville's superintendent.

In the meantime, our family has been overwhelmed by the

By the kindness and generosity of this community, many individuals have gone above and beyond to make sure my niece, Gabby, and my nephew, Henry, feel at home and are cared for.

Several teachers who now have Gabby and Henry in their classrooms have reached out to make sure they're okay and to see if they need anything, as one of your own teachers in this city school system is extremely touching.

I want to especially thank Andy Jones, Jody Miller, Coach Bobko, Coach Smith, Jennifer Horn, Mika Kay, Melanie Key, and numerous others for keeping an extra eye out for them.

Gabby, for instance, was even invited to be part of the UVA volleyball game this past weekend, which made her feel truly included and supported.

Henry is welcome with open arms to the Buford football team this week.

He's actually out there right now practicing.

We all recognize that although temporary, the sense of normalcy and belonging is paramount to mental health and young children.

This morning, I received a lovely handwritten note from Dr. Gurley expressing the support and care for our family.

Thank you, Dr. Gee.

My sister and brother in law can tell you that they are one of thousands of families displaced right now.

We feel how lucky we are to have Charlottesville City Schools as a safe landing place and want to know that you're making a difference.

This sense of belonging and care is something that we will never forget.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who has helped my family during this challenging time.

We may have an online, Ms.

Thomas, if you would like to make public comment now, please raise your hand and I believe Mr. Como will make it happen.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for allowing me to have a few minutes tonight to speak to you.

My name is Laura Mulligan-Thomas.

My address is 1221 Mountford Court.

But for many years, I spent most of my waking hours directing the orchestra at Charlottesville High School, and it felt like I lived there.

I'm now an adjunct professor of music education at James Madison University, and I'm the immediate past president of the Virginia Band and Orchestra Directors Association.

As many of you know, I taught at Charlottesville High School for 40 years, but also at four other schools.

I taught at Walker for a while, Venable, Burley-Marieann, Greenbrier, all beginning fifth grade strings until the program got large enough at Charlottesville High School that I was required to be there full-time.

With the impending grade reconfiguration and all the logistical changes that will bring, I want to urge you all to continue to actively support the Charlottesville City Schools' Instrumental Music program, grades 5 through 12, as boards and central administrations have done for more than half a century.

Our Charlottesville City Schools instrumental program has been the premier program in our region for this long.

Others model the path that we take, the way that we lead, the level of excellence that we achieve.

Alumni of these programs who got their start right here in the fifth grade have performed with world-class orchestras and world-class or world-famous pop stars including Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Dave Matthews, the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift.

Charlottesville high school bands and orchestras have traveled to Europe multiple times to represent our school division and our community in concert and competition.

Conscious decisions at the division level and years of dedication were required to establish and sustain this level of quality.

As an example of the division's continued commitment, many hundreds of instruments were purchased for the Walker fifth and sixth grade program maybe five, six years ago because a second arts elective was made available and the numbers increased exponentially.

So the school division committed many, many tens of thousands of dollars to purchasing wonderful instruments so that every child in the Charlottesville City Schools had an opportunity to participate in band and orchestra at that level.

So I just want to urge you, I know it's budget time and it's time to start looking at decision making for this fifth grade relocation.

And I just want to urge you to involve stakeholders, parents, grandparents, anybody who has some stake in the outcome.

to continue to support this really fine program that is modeled by many other school divisions.

We want to keep the excellence that has been developed over these years and not let it get lost in the shuffle.

Thank you.

All right, anybody else with comment currently?

And again, there will be another opportunity later in the meeting.

So thank you for everybody who came up to share their comments with us.

Hi.

To start off, we, oh, sorry.

During VKT, this past week, we did, or last week, we did aperture testing.

And on this assessment, you answered questions regarding mental health and mental wellness.

I think students like that the school is giving other students the opportunity to answer honestly about these questions.

But students also note that since this test was not anonymous, students will be less likely to answer honestly.

There has been increased comments about BKT.

As we approach the end of the first quarter, I think students are really starting to feel the effect of one BKT.

On the other hand, those students and a lot of students who will now come in early to reassess, but I have also heard of students who are unable to because of transportation issues.

We have noticed the pouches put in classes for phones and I think that is a nice measure instead of the yonder pouches because it allows teachers to decide whether if they'll request students to put their phones in the pouches if they've seen the phone or they decide to do it based off of once you enter the class you put your phone in the pouches so I think that was nice.

and to wrap it up I will touch on fights.

I think last year it felt like there was if there was a fight the whole school would know about it and we would constantly be made aware of the physical altercations that have taken place.

And I think this year it feels completely different.

I think students overall have liked that we are not told about every altercation.

And I think it allows us to be it allows us to remain positively focused on school and ourselves.

Thank you so much.

All right, up first we have Ms.

Raznick, first and second.

Hi, thank you for having me, Madam Chair, Dr. Gurley, members of the board.

I wanted to highlight some of the activities that our schools are engaging in for Disability Awareness Month and Dyslexia Awareness Month.

We are having a principal forum next week to increase the inclusive action planning in our schools.

Our special education advisory committee has created a survey that will be sent out to families to voluntarily opt into some opportunities for community outside of the school.

We're hosting a family make and take night where we'll feed families and provide the opportunity to make some custom visuals for them to use at home.

Our teachers, staff, families are able to participate in a screening of In a Different Key along with the Virginia Institute of Autism at the Paramount, which just highlights the importance of inclusion and making sure students with disabilities and adults with disabilities have access to all spaces.

We've had professional development surrounding inclusion and collaboration.

And then we've been focusing on making sure that students have access to Learning Ally.

A special shout out to Walker, their general education teachers are making sure they're getting signed up so all their students with reading difficulties have access to that phenomenal assistive technology.

And then lastly, Jackson Viya hosted the Charlottesville Cardinals wheelchair basketball team.

So we're just beginning.

There's a lot of time left in October, but we're looking forward to celebrating inclusion and making our schools a better place for students and adults with disabilities.

Yes.

Great.

I'm up next too.

So I wanted to also take an opportunity to recognize Dyslexia Awareness Month.

I just shared a number of things that were related to Dyslexia Awareness Month.

So if you could take the time to look at that.

Yes.

Yes.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Any questions?

Go ahead.

Anybody have any questions for Ms.

Rasling?

I'm up again.

So it's also Bullying Prevention Month.

It's really great that Disability Awareness and Bullying Prevention Month are the same month because the activities we participate in for bullying prevention also increase our inclusion of all people in our schools.

So especially on October 16th, that's Unity Day, our schools are celebrating, so wear orange.

A number of schools will be signing pledges at lunch to stop bullying or prevent bullying.

Walker is participating in Walker Proud Spirit Week, so they're highlighting their school-wide expectations.

I invite you to check out Jackson Viya.

They're celebrating Upstanders, so harnessing the power of peers to prevent bullying.

And Miss Yu is riding around on her kindness bike so definitely check that out too.

And then Buford is engaging in some really excellent SEL lessons, targeting

How we can acknowledge who we are, celebrate our identities and celebrate the identities of everybody.

So all of our schools are participating with spirit weeks and special activities to really highlight the importance of celebrating each other and keeping each other safe.

Yes.

Good.

Any opposed?

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you and good evening.

I would like just the community to recognize that these awards recognize that in addition to the countless meetings you attend here in this room or in the community, the ways you represent us in other spaces or volunteering in our schools, you also undertake training as school board members or as clerk or a superintendent.

And so that's what these awards from the Virginia School Board Association recognize.

And as you'll see on the board, the recognition ranges from 15 hours of credit in the last two years is all the way up to Miss Torres with 84 hours of additional credit.

So we just want to recognize that we know that beyond what we see here in Charlottesville, you all are putting in hours to make sure that we're following best practices and being transparent and having good board practices.

Thank you.

Yes.

Any opposed?

All right.

Next, we will have items for discussion.

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

My name is Dr. Lamont Trotter and I'm excited to present the alternative program for the school year 24-25 school year.

You will find on our first slide our strategic plan as it outlines with priority one, increasing academic achievement with two particular targeted areas.

Alternative programs will maintain a graduation rate that is at or above the state average across all student membership groups and target three where we will increase the number of

Charlottesville high school students enrolled in KTEC by 10% annually.

Our second priority that will be discussed will be to provide a culture of safety and wellness and belonging.

Here, the particular targeted goals are target five, where we will establish a baseline and increase family and student engagement, and target six, where we will maintain strong community partnerships across the division.

At this point, I would like to invite Ms.

Washington to the podium, but prior to her coming, the particular areas that we will discuss tonight as relates to the alternative programming is the overview of our programs, our WALT program, Lugo McGinnis, our night school, as well as various programming options, what the next steps will look like for alternative programming and questions.

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

My name is Michael Washington and I am the counselor for the WALK program.

I transitioned into this role after serving as a CSA during the 2022-2023 school year.

In that position, I forged meaningful connections with our most at-risk youth by building trusting relationships, allowing them to feel seen, heard, and supported as they navigated their challenges and uncertainties in our building.

Today, I will be explaining the WALK program and how we service our students.

WALK stands for Work Achieves Lasting Knowledge and was unknowingly created by a student telling our coordinator, Ms.

Diana Poe, I just want to walk across the graduation stage.

WALK uses the NEA, N-A-E-A, National Alternative Education Association exemplary practices utilizing a 12 to one teacher ratio.

Our smaller classes enable students to receive increased one-on-one attention and direct support.

WALK benefits from donor funding, which allows us to address students' immediate needs, such as food and clothing.

Additionally, WALK has been able to assist students and their families with timely necessities, including household items, increased transportation assistance, and other critical resources.

We want to ensure our students that they don't have to face challenges alone

offering not just resources, but also hope and a sense of community in difficult times.

The WALK staff consists of five full-time employees and one hourly.

Our WALK coordinator and WALK junior-senior teacher are funded locally, while myself, our WALK teacher aide, the WALK freshman-sophomore teacher, we all get paid through private funding.

Last year, during our 2023-2024 school year, WALK was able to serve 116 students, 75 juniors and seniors, and 41 freshmen and sophomore.

Our freshmen and sophomore students are enrolled in a nutrition and wellness class where they engage in cooking activities, explore healthy eating habits, and participate in project-based learning within a dynamic classroom environment.

Our nutrition and wellness class not only teaches students about healthy eating and physical activity, but it also cultivates essential life skills that are crucial for their overall development.

Skills such as goal setting, time management, and critical thinking help students make better choices, not just regarding food, but in all aspects of their lives.

Our juniors and seniors who are at risk of not graduating are participating in a digital learning program called Edgenuity,

with the support of a teacher and an aide to facilitate credit recovery.

WALC has helped over 500 seniors graduate on time since 2008.

Our goal is to ensure that students successfully walk across the graduation stage.

We achieve this by providing support to those who are under-resourced and facing challenges that hinder their academic success.

We strive to be a comprehensive and adaptable partner in addressing the gaps and imbalances that they counter.

Thank you.

You mentioned these 500 students, you also served 114 I think was the last slide last year.

Do you know how many students that you're engaging that that pretends that go on to graduate?

Any other questions?

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Washington.

At LMA, as we kicked off this particular school year, we participated in our teacher pre-week where we had various professional development sessions around mental health, parent engagement, and community engagement, working with students with disabilities, and team building exercises at UVA.

Additionally, over the summer, LMA partnered with Lynchburg City Schools Fort Hill Community School, which is their alternative school, for a day-long professional development session.

This is an ongoing collaboration where our next session is tentatively planned for October 18th.

On this particular slide, LMA at a glance, you will find the highlighted staff that we serve.

Four content teachers, 0.5 special education teacher, one student engagement coordinator,

Our current enrollment is as follows with 35 students.

We have 19 seniors, three juniors, seven sophomores, and six freshmen.

Next slide, please.

Our academy focus is anchored in three particular areas, instruction, student engagement, student wellness and responsibilities.

Under the instruction tab, we continue to foster with ingenuity through face-to-face instruction, providing off-campus learning opportunities as recent as this Monday, where our YPAR students had the opportunity of participating in a forum at

UVA, as well as on October 30th, our science teacher will be taking students back to UVA for some science lab activities and continuous project based opportunities.

Under student engagement, we are kicking off our student leaders opportunity.

This is something new where we want to hear from our students selected by our staff that will participate in our staff meetings, as well as communicate with students about how we can continue to push forward at Lugo McGinnis.

Also, we have our community day experiences that have become very vital.

And in that, Mr. Williams, our Student Engagement Coordinator, has introduced a new concept called Better Together Days.

These particular days are where we engulf with our new Pathway students, our WALC students, and LMA, where we come together to participate in various activities.

and finally our student wellness and responsibilities.

Ms.

LeClair and Ms.

Phelps, our school counselor and school social worker continue to hold meetings with our students as it relates to particular areas of support as well as successes and we are kicking off actually as early as this morning our staff and teacher morning wellness.

Our teachers shared that they would rather not sit in meetings on Tuesday mornings every other week so this week we kicked off with a yoga session that was facilitated by

Dr. D. Next slide, please.

Our strategic alignment, how are we aligning with our division strategic plan?

As it relates to priority one, increasing academic achievement, we have five seniors from cohort 2023 that graduated on time last year.

Equally, we have increased students from LMA that are attending the KTEC course.

We presently have students that are participating in culinary as well as electrician courses.

as relates to priority two, providing a culture of safety, belonging and wellness.

In August, we had a back to school long community engagement where we encouraged all of our community members to come together as well as students past and present.

That turned out to be a great event.

And finally, our Workforce in 100 Black Men initiative.

We continue to participate with our workforce program where students have the opportunity to have onsite interviews as well as job shadowing opportunities.

Next slide, please.

I would like to now transition into our night school program.

We're now entering our second year of night school, where night school serves students who may benefit from credit recovery or need an alternative environment.

This slide explains how night school helps reduce dropout rates by offering targeted support for at-risk students and individualized learning.

Here you will see the various areas in which we support.

We continue to use Edgenuity where we have smaller class sizes.

The alternative learning environment provides students to feel success in second opportunities.

Our ultimate goal is equally to reduce the dropout rate where students have the opportunity to have a traditional day as well as be provided with credit recovery opportunities.

And finally, targeting those students that are at risk by offering additional support services, counseling,

and resources to help students overcome particular challenges.

Next slide, please.

What type of students are we looking for or that can enroll in our night school?

Again, students that may possibly be unsuccessful in the comprehensive setting, students that are facing academic challenges, students that are equally credit deficient and may fall behind due to various reasons and need an opportunity to catch up.

Those that also need personalized learning,

which provide an opportunity for individual spacing for academics.

Seeking a second chance of those students that may have fallen behind or just need particular reinforcement.

And finally, in need of supportive community where we actually rally around and provide particular needs for those students.

Next slide, please.

The hours of operation for our night school program is Monday through Thursday at Lugo McGinnis from 3.45 to 6.45.

Next slide, please.

The goal of Knight School.

Knight School is designed to support students' academic needs through credit recovery, individualized instruction, and experiential learning opportunities.

Here on this slide, you will find our current enrollment of students, as well as our end-of-year transition conversation.

This particular transition conversation occurred with each particular student's family at the table as we looked at two particular pathways for support.

If the student chose to return back to night school, look potentially at being placed in our LUGO day program.

During those transition meetings, we equally looked at the academic courses that each student had and a decision was made.

Next slide, please.

Here you will find our night school staff.

Our night school staff is much different this year than it was last year.

And so we have Ms.

Brown, who is our facilitator.

We have Mr. Chambers, who is our PE teacher.

Mr. Bryant, who is our school counselor.

Mr. Hunter Hall, who's our science teacher.

Ms.

Jensen-Warrell, who's our English teacher.

And Mr. Dominique Williams, who's our parent engagement facilitator.

Next slide, please.

So what's new at night school?

Over the summer, Ms.

Brown and I met with division administration and we began to refine our processes and procedures as it relates to how students are placed in our night school program, as well as what the orientation process looks like with families as they come in.

We have continued the DBT facilitator role that we began last year with Ms.

Phelps.

Mr. Bryant is now holding sessions each Tuesday from four to five with our particular students.

We're eager to kick off our sewing and textile course that will launch on Monday.

And so students have the opportunity to repurpose particular clothing that they like to use with patches and do embroidery and things of that nature as well.

That will occur each Monday from four to five.

We've equally partnered with MEMA, our modern

music program where students have the opportunity to learn music theory, play different instruments, and also develop music at MRC in the upcoming weeks.

As shared earlier, we have our PE and health elective class.

And one thing that we wanted to hone in this year was how we grouped our particular students when those students enrolled in our program.

Last year, we said, you come in and we just put you in a particular space.

But this year, each student has a particular rotation that kind of refrinds how the order and structure of night school went.

And finally, we're always about making sure that students have different exposures.

And so we planned a particular field trips and incentives, the most recent one being students had the opportunity of attending the State Fair on last week.

Next slide, please.

So the three anchor night school focuses are experiential learning, again, where we have the textile course, as well as DBT and KUP that will return this year.

We equally have student engagement, as mentioned before, with MEMA.

Something that we're also beginning is our roundtable townhouse program.

That's where, at the end of the night, we work with our students and we just talk about what went well, what are the issues that may occur during the day, how do we support you during the day when you're at home,

You may want to be at school and measures like that.

And then we continue with the core instruction of edge annuity as well as looking at students that potentially need credit recovery.

Next slide please.

So our October attendance incentive for Lugo Day and our night school is bowl if you roll.

And it's very simple.

Get to school by 9.30.

Come on time and we will pay for you to go bowling as well as your shoe rental on October 29th.

Next slide please.

So our alternative program options, as you can see from Ms.

Washington as well as myself, is how students are placed in the WALT program as well as LMA and our particular night school.

So each student is placed in a particular program, and so ultimately the goal is for us to continue to streamline and support those particular students.

as students transition from the walk to LMA, making sure that Ms.

Washington and Ms.

Phelps are connecting together, making sure that the instruction, if they are on Edgenuity, that those courses and things facilitate right on over and vice versa.

Next slide, please.

So what are the next steps for the alternative programming for our division?

One, we want to make sure that we, the alternative program, WALC, LMA, and Knight School, that we are providing collaboration among one another so that we can continue to streamline those spaces there, as well as working with the division, with professional development opportunities for our alternative teachers, knowing that those spaces look a little bit different than our comprehensive schools.

Continuing to have conversations with Dr. Malone and Dr. Hertz as it relates to our students being afforded the continuous opportunity to attend K-Tech and how that looks as that is aligned with one of our priorities.

And again, making sure that we are streamlining each and every one of our particular documents as it relates to alternative education in one particular location for enrollment, parent information, and things of that space.

Next slide, please.

The teachers at LMA is very helpful and respectful.

They always have good energy, and when you walk in the morning, they greet you.

Last year, I was failing, and now I understand the word better.

Teachers make sure you understand what they are teaching.

If I miss days, they will always help me catch up.

LMA staff will help me build confidence and stand up for myself.

I can be by myself and don't have to put up a front.

Everyone is just themselves.

I've had opportunities for leadership problems.

I had opportunities for leadership roles and to speak up.

The staff and students communicate well.

If we have problems, even if these people aren't necessarily friends, the teachers find ways to make learning interesting.

They do not treat us like alternative or bad kids.

They do stuff for us, make it a place we want to be.

They make it another place to call home.

The teachers are interesting.

They are able to express themselves and help out with girl problems.

They make sure we have access to hygiene items and everything we need, like clothes, food and deodorant, etc.

Also, they make sure everything is okay at home.

I feel like I am safe talking with teachers and my school counselor.

If I have problems to talk about, all the staff have different personalities.

They are helpful.

I can go to anyone.

Everyone is a great listener.

Some staff are more talkative.

And finally, one of our students, Rameez Faulkner, the video that he made called We Made It will be showcased on October 30th at the Violet Theater at 5.30.

And that's just another connection with MIMA and our Lighthouse program.

Ms.

Dooley, I think you had a question.

Yes, I was interested in looking at slide 8, I think.

Had the current enrollment and just seeing how many seniors we have that are going to be graduating at the end of this academic year.

What our plans are for programming moving forward?

Is there a pipeline for additional students that we can be serving at LMA or what does LMA look like?

Yes.

So Ms.

Phelps has began to have individual conversations with each particular senior about the pathway in which they choose to go.

Those particular meetings are then shared with, the outcome of those meetings are shared with parents so that we can begin those spaces.

As early as November, Ms.

Phelps has began to have college visits for these particular students.

Also what we are doing is we're tiering to see which particular students need a little bit more support than others and beginning to really hone in on those group of young people as well.

And so, yes, when we get all 19 that will be a whole new school because I will say that it will turn over.

And so the opportunity will be for us to look at those students in night school that may be able to transition up, but also having conversations with Ms.

Poe and Ms.

along those lines real quickly, sorry.

Remind us again what the capacity is about, 35, 30 to 35?

Yes, ma'am, give or take, yes.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Any other questions, board members, about any of the programs?

If I add all these up total between, well, not counting the walk program, but LMA and then, sorry, night school,

It looks like we're serving 47 students with alternative... Between the two programs, yes sir.

Yeah, again.

And we have 1,200, how many 1,200 students roughly at CHS?

More than that.

Okay.

I'm wondering, and I'm asking some of my

colleagues more than educational experts in this or Dr. Gurley, but we're only offering basically 4% of our students an alternative program.

Is that the norm?

I think between, we do have the benefit of having the WALK program, so I think that that really serves as an intermeter and yes, it serves as this

Conduit between the high school and the alternative program.

So while we would want more students in LMA, well, more students may want to be there, a good starting point can be getting the credits recovered at the high school.

Okay but we are basically at a physical limit that is the limitation it's not the teachers or the staff it is on the

Right.

I mean, yes, based on the building.

I mean, he will get us a 36 slot if we need to.

Indeed.

And if I may, I would dare to say that our program is not a secret anymore.

And so our students are sharing that, hey, I have friends that kind of want to come over here and spaces like that.

So I think as we continue to build out

of what our program would look like, that would build the opportunity to foster new faces within that.

I would dare to say that parents are sharing as well.

One quick testimonial is that when we're now picking up students, either myself or Mr. Williams, our parents are recognizing us in the school car and they're asking, one, how their child is doing, but equally, how can I get my child over there?

And thank you very much.

I think, Dr. Gurley, the WALK program is a nice hybrid.

It sounds like, and I appreciate that, but I mean, I think colleagues, we need to think about, and I think a lot of you are already thinking about this, you know, how do we get more seats for alternative programs for our students who, again, traditional high school experience that we offer at CHS is not working.

Any other questions?

I just had a quick question about my school.

So we have about 13 that are on roster.

And so with us providing transportation, they are, Mr. Wimms and I are adamant about making sure if they've missed about three days consecutively, we are either doing home visits and we're immediately calling.

Ms.

Brown is also instrumental with that.

Thank you for that work.

I think it's important to show the relationship and how you've shifted LMA just in a short period of time from folks looking at it in a negative light, and now everybody wants to go there.

Yes, ma'am.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Big kudos for that.

So help me out because I'm not an educator here necessarily, but I'm curious and there's something else.

There's a connect from a prior comment.

So we've heard ingenuity mentioned a couple of times.

So that's that's an online educational support.

So how much time or just give me a snapshot of what it might look like as far as a student sitting there following, looking at a screen.

So I will highlight Mr. Grady.

He's probably watching during night school.

He is our ingenuity guru.

And so not only are within Mr. Grady's class where he's doing either AFDA algebra one or particular geometry all in three, all in one class with three particular areas.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you, sir.

We appreciate it, Dr. Trotter.

All right.

Up next, we have Ms.

All right.

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

So each year, Virginia public schools receive state accreditation ratings, which are determined by combined achievement rates across various performance measures.

And this evening, I'll provide an overview of the state's current accreditation model, focusing on how schools were evaluated based on academic achievement, student group performance, and student engagement.

So within our strategic plan, student achievement aligns with priority one, which is centered on enhancing academic performance.

This is guided by three key goals and the specific targets and measures that we have established for school and division accountability.

The state accountability system is guided by the standards of accreditation, which assess student performance across multiple school quality indicators.

These indicators provide insight into overall student achievement, achievement gaps, and student engagement.

The 24-25 accreditation results are based on the data from the 23-24 school year.

It's important to note that a school's final performance rating is determined by the current year data unless a three-year average rate is more favorable.

Each school quality indicator is rated at one of three performance levels.

A level one performance meets or exceeds state standards or is making adequate progress.

Level two performance is near the standard or is making sufficient progress.

And level three performance is below the standard.

Under the standards of accreditation, schools earn one of three ratings accredited, accredited with conditions, or accreditation denied.

I am pleased to report that all of our schools are accredited for this school year.

However, we do have two schools that are accredited with conditions due to one or more school quality indicators being rated at a level three.

In alignment with both state and federal requirements, all schools, regardless of their accreditation status or performance level, must develop and implement an improvement plan.

This plan serves as a roadmap outlining the necessary changes to improve student achievement, along with a timeline for implementing these changes.

Division leadership will review these plans, offer feedback, and monitor progress throughout the school year, including our scheduled school success meetings.

So performance levels for academic achievement are determined by combined rates in English and math.

These combined rates account for students who either pass the standards of learning assessments or if they did not pass demonstrated significant growth.

They also include English learners who made progress toward English proficiency.

Science pass rates, however, do not factor in growth.

At the high school level, pass rates in English and math do not include growth, but do account for L progress in English and for students who pass the WorkKeys reading assessment.

Schools that meet or exceed the 75% state benchmark in reading and the 70% benchmark in math and science will earn a level one performance rating.

So performance levels for student engagement are measured by several key indicators.

For high school, this includes the graduation and completion index, four year dropout rate, and the college career and civic readiness index.

And for all schools, chronic absenteeism, which is defined as missing 10% or more of the school year, regardless of the reason.

Schools with absenteeism rates below 15% will receive a level one rating.

So as I mentioned at the last board meeting, this will be the final year under this current accountability system.

Starting next school year, the state will implement a new accountability model where schools' overall performance will be evaluated using an index with weighted components depending on grade level.

These components include mastery, growth, and readiness for elementary and middle schools, and then mastery, graduation, and readiness for high schools.

Alright, so first I would like to start with Buford Middle School and congratulate them for achieving full accreditation status this year.

This marks the first time since 2019 that Buford has been accredited without conditions.

The school made significant improvements in reading, math, and science, along with a remarkable 31% reduction in chronic absenteeism.

In the 22-23 school year, 208 students were chronically absent, but this past year that number dropped to 138, a decrease of 70 students.

When examining the breakdown for each school, the passing column in the table reflects the number of students who successfully passed the test.

Recovery refers to students who did not pass the test in the previous year, but passed the following year after remediation efforts.

and these students are counted twice both in the numerator and the denominator.

Growth accounts for students who did not pass but showed significant improvement and were included in the numerator.

L progress is counted when an English learner fails the test but demonstrates progress towards English proficiency.

So to calculate the combined rate, we add the values in the four columns, passing, recovery, growth, and L progress, and then divide that total by the number of tests, with recovery students counted twice in the denominator.

And for comparison, I have included the combined rates from the previous two years.

Oh, will you go back?

Go back, sorry.

So Beauford Middle School is rated level one for overall performance in both English and math.

For the 23-24 English combined rate, it's important to note that it does not include the eighth grade writing SOL, as this assessment was replaced last year by the integrated reading and writing test, which will be factored into accreditation this year.

Buford's overall English combined rate was an 81%, with 15 additional students passing compared to the previous year.

The school received four R10s, indicating a reduction in the failure rate by 10% or more.

All student groups showed improvement, which raised the English Achievement Gap group from Level 3 to Level 2.

Importantly, both the Black Student Group and Students with Disabilities moved from Level 3 to Level 2.

However, because these two groups remain at Level 2, the overall rating for the English Achievement Gap group is Level 2.

In math, the overall combined pass rate was 82%.

This improvement reflects 25 more students passing and eight additional students demonstrating growth compared to the previous year.

All student groups except English learners improved.

This progress shifted the math achievement gap group from level three to level two.

The Black student group combined pass rate increased and received an R10, reducing the failure rate by more than 10%, with 11 more students passing, elevating their rating from Level 3 to Level 1.

However, the Math Achievement Gap group remains at Level 2 because the Students with Disabilities group is rated at Level 3.

Additionally, the eighth grade science pass rate had a significant increase from 50 to 68% with 59 additional students passing compared to the previous year.

This remarkable improvement earned an R10 elevating the science performance rating from level three to level one.

So now we'll review the elementary schools.

The Burnley Moran Elementary School's accreditation rates continued to exceed state benchmarks, specifically in math, with a 93% combined rate, although there was a decrease in reading performance this past year, dropping from 89 to 84%.

The school also achieved a 17% reduction in chronic absenteeism, with the number of chronically absent students dropping from 32 to 25.

When analyzing the achievement breakdown for our elementary schools, please note that student groups with fewer than 10 students are indicated by a less than symbol and will not be publicly reported to protect student privacy.

Only the overall rates will be shown.

Burnley Moran is rated level one for overall performance in both English and math.

The English achievement gap group is rated level two due to the black student group being rated at a level three.

For math, there was improvement in more than half of the student groups, resulting in a level one rating, an increase from the previous year.

The black student group received an R10 reflection reduction in the failure rate of 10% or more.

Greenbrier Elementary School continues to exceed state benchmarks despite a slight decline in math performance with combined rates of 91% in reading and 90% in math.

Additionally, the school achieved an 11% reduction in chronic absenteeism with the number of chronically absent students decreasing from 26 to 20.

Greenbrier is rated level one for overall performance in both English and math.

The English Achievement Gap Group is rated level two due to two student groups, the Black Student Group and Students with Disabilities both receiving level two ratings.

While there was a slight decline in the overall math combined rate, the school continues to maintain a level one rating for the Math Achievement Gap Group.

Jackson-Vaya Elementary School continues to surpass the state benchmarks, specifically in reading with a combined rate of 90%.

There was a decrease in math performance this past year, dropping from 86 to 83%.

The school also experienced a rise in chronic absenteeism with the number of chronically absent students increasing from 51 to 83.

Jackson-Baya is rated Level 1 for overall performance in both English and math.

The English Achievement Gap Group is also rated Level 1, with notable improvements across multiple student groups, including the Black Student Group and Economically Disadvantaged Group.

The Math Gap Group is rated Level 2 due to the Students with Disabilities Group, which received a Level 3 rating.

Johnson Elementary School accreditation rates continued to surpass state benchmarks as well, especially in math, where the combined rate stands at 85%.

However, reading performance saw a slight decline this past year, decreasing from 87% to 86%.

The school also faced an increase in chronic absenteeism with the number of chronically absent students rising from 50 to 69.

Johnson is rated level one for overall performance in both English and math.

The English and math achievement gap groups are also both rated level one with the math gap group improving from level two to level one this past year.

This improvement reflects significant progress among various student groups, including economically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities.

Summit Elementary School demonstrated significant gains in math, reporting a combined rate of 85%, although there was a decline in reading performance, which dropped from 83% to 75%.

The school made substantial progress in reducing chronic absenteeism with a 30% reduction in the number of chronically absent students, decreasing from 84 to 53, representing a difference of 31 students.

Summit Elementary School is rated level one for overall performance in both English and math.

In reading,

While the school met the 75% state benchmark for overall performance, the achievement gap group is rated level 3 due to the black student group and students with disabilities.

This level 3 rating designates the school as accredited with conditions.

Summit demonstrated solid gains in math.

Nearly all student groups showed improvement, including the black student group with a substantial increase in math performance.

Despite these gains in math, the achievement gap group is rated level two because the students with disabilities group remains at a level three.

While Trailblazer Elementary School continues to exceed state benchmarks, there was a minor decrease in reading performance from 88 to 87%, a more noticeable drop in math from 93% to 86%.

However, the school was able to achieve a reduction in its chronic absenteeism rate from 15% to 14%.

Trailblazer is rated level one for overall performance in English and math.

The English Achievement Gap Group is rated level two because the black student group, despite showing improvement, received a level three rating.

In math, while there was a decline in the overall combined rate, the school continues to maintain a level one rating for the math achievement gap group.

Walker Upper Elementary School achieved considerable progress in reading math and science while also reducing its chronic absenteeism rate by 16%.

The number of chronically absent students dropped from 154 students to 129, a decrease of 25 students.

Walker is rated level one for overall performance in both English and math.

In English, the overall combined pass rate was 79%, with 19 additional students passing compared to the previous year.

Additionally, seven more students demonstrated growth and 14 more English learners made progress.

However, the English Achievement Gap group is rated level three due to the Black Student Group and Students with Disabilities group.

The overall combined rate in math was 73% with 33 additional students passing when compared to the previous year.

Despite these gains, the math gap group is rated level three because of the black student group economically disadvantaged and students with disabilities group are all rated at a level three.

The level three ratings for both English and math achievement gap groups designate the school as accredited with conditions.

And then the fifth grade science pass rate increased from 56 to 66% with 18 additional students passing.

This improvement earned an R10, reducing the failure rate by more than 10%, which raised the science performance rating from level three to level one.

And then last we have Charlottesville High School demonstrated improvement in math and maintained steady progress in science.

However, there was declines in reading and in the college career and civic readiness index.

Although there was a slight decrease in the graduation and completion index, the school achieved a level one rating by exceeding the state benchmark of 88%.

The school also experienced a significant rise in chronic absenteeism, with the number of chronically absent students increasing from 248 to 538, an increase of 290 students.

Charlottesville High School is rated level one for all school quality indicators except for the math achievement gap group.

While the Math Gap Group received a Level 2 rating, primarily due to students with disabilities, the Black Student Group improved its rating from Level 2 to Level 1 this past year, with 29 more students passing as recovery after remediation efforts.

Additionally, the school's overall performance in science retained its Level 1 rating from the previous year.

Okay, so in conclusion, if you'd like to learn more about individual school profiles, I encourage you to visit the Virginia School Quality Profiles page.

This resource provides comprehensive information on student achievement, school readiness, teacher quality, and other important topics for families in the community.

I think we probably do.

So hold on.

Thank you, Ms.

Swift.

Very comprehensive, lots of numbers in here.

And I don't know if you can shed light of this or Dr. Gurleywood, but I'm struck by the amount of absenteeism, especially at some of our schools and that we went up.

And I'm just wondering, do we know why in some of these cases went up?

I mean, we can always look to the bus system wasn't working last for the first two months of last year.

And, but you know, some schools went up, some schools went down.

I think across our school division, I mean, there are a couple of things that we can factor into it in terms of just the importance of getting up and being on time.

Sometimes those seem like some of the more obvious things.

But I think we also have to make sure that we are conveying the same message across our entire

School Division to all of our families, such as when you go on vacation and that's an excused absence, it still affects our chronic absenteeism.

So it's not always specific to a group.

I think sometimes we come across families who think that, you know, my student is doing really well and we're going to take vacation and

We'll recover that information easily.

All of those things impact us.

So yes, some of it is just making sure that we keep in the forefront of our students that, you know, to be present every day, to be on time.

And I think we've talked at length.

with regards to how we are restructuring our attendance model to better address that this school year.

And we've already seen the fruits of that labor.

Yes.

Yeah and I think that that's our our biggest hurdle that we're going to have to get past with our families is they believe that oh I have a note for that or you know we have a legitimate reason and if and as you see if 500 people believe these things to be true it has adverse impact on us particularly as it relates to our

Accreditation and our staff members, our teachers are working hard and diligent every day.

Yes, ma'am.

I believe that was last month or is that this month?

The months run together.

Ms.

Rasnick can talk about, re-talk about it.

That was, I don't know.

We do.

So our schools meet weekly to look at the student attendance data, which is a new frequency.

They did not meet that regularly before.

They look at the students who have accrued a number of absences, and then they look at their risk factors.

So was it one three-day absence because the student was sick?

That's going to provide a very different intervention to like repeated ongoing absences.

And what does that work look like?

And then maybe to speak to the high school,

I think Ms.

Horn spoke to this as well is how do we engage with our students?

How are we getting them here and not just because of behaviors?

I noticed there was some conversation about attendance at the high school that attendance was being looked at.

And if you were not in favorable good standing, perhaps you couldn't attend a football game.

Perhaps you can't attend homecoming.

So at CHS and working with Dr. Malone, he's really focused on attendance being part of his positive school culture plan.

And while there are components of if you don't have good attendance, you may not be able to attend some of those positive activities.

There are more things like having concession tokens when you do attend for having good attendance.

So they're finding that balance of how do we incentivize high school students to come to school, which includes having teachers like Ms.

Horn, who my daughter has and loves, right?

Like having those positive academic and non-academic engagements and those small incentives like the concessions tokens is an example I can think of off the top of my head.

And then reinforcing with individual students who are

have like tier three attendance plans.

Like that's a very different level of support in which

We're going to the home, we're looking at what barriers are in place for those individual students.

Our social workers are following up with their families, with them.

And I think to, you know, to also address, you know, part of what you said to Ms.

Burns in terms of, you know, we have to incentivize students some way.

You know, everyone can't get a participation medal.

And I think that that was what was happening for a while.

And I do think that students

Being able to earn like I'm going to show up every day.

I want to be here because I want to participate in these activities.

I mean, that's just that's a low hanging fruit in terms of incentivizing students.

And then we have to find these other high interest things beyond the games, because we know that the fall will be gone and, you know, basketball season will be here.

So those are low hanging things.

Any other questions?

Data dashboard.

We can go.

Yes.

Go off of that one.

Well, it is so the strategic plan data dashboard is located on our website.

We have it embedded on the strategic plan page.

And on this screen, so this is the homepage of the landing page.

You can click on the buttons below for each priority area, and that'll give you a list of all the targets.

And then there's a menu navigation bar at the top that will allow you to explore each target and measurement.

and the metrics that we have set for those.

Some of the targets when you go through on the navigation bar, some of the targets will have multiple pages because of the number of metrics that we have to measure that target.

So that'll bring you, that's a list of all the targets.

If you go, so Pat, are you controlling that one, Pat?

Yeah, okay.

From the dropdown, yeah.

And so this is so for each target, they'll either be bar graphs and depending on the measurements we have set, it could be kind of a narrative or a different way to show and explain that target.

And then some of the pages at the bottom, we will have a little explanation if there's kind of multiple graphs or explaining.

Like for this one, tiered fidelity inventory, we have an explanation at the bottom for the community to understand what that means and what we're measuring.

And then we have, if you click on priority area one at the

And at the very bottom, we've also included a strategy progress page to let you know kind of where we are in the either planning, implementation or refinement stage.

And so if we're on track making progress or if that area still needs attention.

So we have that for each priority area.

to kind of help hold us accountable and see where we are with these strategies to help us reach our targets.

And if you, when you go to like the charts, if you hover over, it'll give you, cause sometimes if you have too many numbers on the charts, it's a little much, but you can hover over and it'll give you either the count or the percentage.

for those bar graphs.

And this will be updated annually by October.

This will be updated annually by October 1st.

Thank you.

A lot of data there.

It looks like a lot of opportunity to review a lot of things.

I don't think I'm gonna try to unpack it all right now, but I mean for the future, I guess in

So internally for our work, so she, she mainly Ms.

Swift, shows you the chart where we're charting our progress.

So internally in terms of the leadership team, this is what we're using to calibrate our progress.

So whether we are on track, I think that actually came up in one of our meetings.

Do we add to the strategic plan or

and so our response back was like no it's the strategic plan and this is was done by a lot of stakeholders and what we will use this document is to calibrate our work what do we need to go back and retool as we develop our budget where where we need to place our emphasis so yes internally you probably want to use some of this information and say you know I

I may want to tweak my budget priority as a result of looking at this data.

I think we may need to place a greater emphasis in this area versus the area that I had initially looked at.

Thank you.

I know this was a lot of work, you and your team.

Dr. Johnson, I believe you were probably Dr. Hastings.

So thank you all.

I'm sorry.

Can I ask one question for the on track making progress and needs attention kind of like, could you kind of give a definition to that?

Like, I don't, I can't intuitively think of like, what's the difference between on track and making progress?

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I'm looking at like towards the end of it for the priority.

So like, for example, like priority or the screen right here.

Yeah.

Good evening.

We went through a process strategy by strategy to read actually into the strategy language and determine

On track means we're doing the thing that the strategy says we're going to do.

Any other questions?

You good, Mr. Morse?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Up next, we have Dr. Johnson.

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

I'm pleased to be here tonight to provide an overview of the items the Office of Strategic Initiatives will focus on this semester and throughout the school year.

I also want to express my gratitude to everyone involved in the first version of our data dashboard, particularly the team who completed the final rollout, Carolyn Swift, Patrick Moctezuma, and Adam Hastings.

Their skills, leadership, and expertise made the dashboard possible.

The launch of the data dashboard marks the conclusion of our first phase of our equity work, which began in 2019.

It also reminds us of our ongoing efforts needed.

This dashboard reflects our commitments outlined in the strategic plan and will guide our future actions, as Dr. Gurley said.

The strategic plan defines strategies, targets, and metrics that support our mission to create an interconnected, equity-focused school community.

One important measure is found in priority area three, target seven, which tracks the percentage of students who have earned their equity, the percentage of staff who have earned their equity certificate.

Initiated in 2022, this program provides intensive equity-centered professional development aligned with our mission and the Virginia Department of Education's standard six on cultural competency.

Previous topics included identity, implicit bias, and differentiated instruction.

In this new iteration, I will collaborate with our professional learning coordinator and community partners to develop an asynchronous certificate program for our staff.

The Office of Strategic Initiatives will also take the lead on facilitating our school naming committee.

We currently have 28 committee members who will be split into four groups, one for each school.

The Berlin, Moran, and Johnson committees are charged with recommending new names for consideration to the superintendent.

Our naming facilities and grounds policy states that any new name should be in recognition of any entity, quality, or ideal that the school board deems worthy of recognition, purpose, and or the local history or geographic area of that school place.

Based on the recommendation, the superintendent reserves the right to honor that recommendation and submit it to the school board for consideration or decide to do something else.

Likewise, based on the superintendent's recommendation, the school board can vote in a manner they see fit.

Greenbrier and Jackson-Vaya are in the initial stages of the process.

The committee's work will be to begin and complete the process of reviewing the school's name, and if any name changes are indicated, make a recommendation about a new name.

If the committee votes to not change the name, the superintendent, like before, reserves the right to honor that recommendation and submit it to the school board for consideration or decide to do something else.

In turn, the school board can respond as they feel is appropriate.

Committee members will have access to survey data from the community, individual conversations with their networks, and feedback from the community listening session to inform their vote.

Ultimately, the committee members' vote will be based on their own judgment.

For those community members, including staff and students who would like to attend the virtual community listening session, it will be held on Monday, October 14th at 5.30 p.m.

Although flexible, our goal is to have the process for all four schools completed by winter break.

We are excited to announce that as of today, we have 425 individuals who have completed volunteer training and are registered as volunteers for CCS.

This includes community members volunteering as morning greeters, classroom helpers, field trip chaperones, tutors and mentors for our students.

This is the second year of our division level training.

Last year we trained 588 individuals and we are well on our way to meeting and perhaps exceeding the goal this year.

Volunteers are such important members of our team who enrich the experiences of our students and build relationships that transcend beyond the school.

We ask anyone interested in volunteering to go on our website and complete the steps for our virtual volunteer training.

Starting during COVID, we became even more intentional about meeting the needs of our families and community, which led to our response to essential needs events.

Those events soon evolved into our Chris Long Ed Zone closets at elementary schools and hygiene supplies at all other schools, in addition to our food access and school supply initiatives.

We want to continue to meet the needs of our community and feel the next phase of this will be our from A to Z pop-up resource fairs.

Modeled after Martez Tolbert and the Felton Fund's One Stop Shops and in partnership with them and the UVA's Equity Center, our goal is to host up to six pop-up resource fairs in our schools this year.

The purpose of these will be to provide a platform and build a bridge for local organizations, businesses, and community service providers to share information about their resources and services, making it easier for our families to access what they need.

By providing access to resources and information, our hope is that our fairs will empower individuals and create a sense of community and agency.

The first pop-up shop will be held at LMA on October 31st during their student-led Spook the Lawn community event.

Our long-term goal is to have a mobile bus filled with resources that we can take around town to engage with the community and have a true pop-up feel.

Bianca and I have loved every minute of being our small but mighty team.

However, we know in order to continue to grow and engage with our community, the FACE team needs to expand.

There are so many wonderful events and community engagement opportunities that occur in Charlottesville, and we want CCS to be present as often as possible in an impactful way.

Therefore, this year we plan on expanding our team with FACE Ambassadors.

FACE Ambassadors will support us with promoting and enhancing the division's engagement with families in the community.

This year, as a funding contingent division level initiative, we will add up to 10 members to the team who will act as ambassadors to the community.

Ambassadors will attend community events on behalf of CCS and FACE and will set up booths or tables at events with resources as needed.

They will provide outreach and communication by connecting with families and encouraging their participation in school events, programs, and decision-making processes.

The ambassador will also act as a representative and an advocate for CCS, False or Positive Relationships, between families and the school division by gathering feedback and sharing them with the proper channels.

Our main goal is for ambassadors to be community connectors and act as school and community liaisons while having fun and positive interactions.

Ambassadors will be asked to participate in a two-hour onboarding training, attend up to four ambassador meetings a year, and participate in up to six events per calendar year.

Although ambassadors will have, excuse me, altogether, ambassadors will have around 15 to 18 hours of service.

We believe our face ambassadors will be an incredible asset to our work, which we hope will ultimately enhance student success and create an educational community where our learners and their families feel even more supported.

I hope this presentation has given you insight into the activities of our office.

We look forward to all that there is to come.

Thank you, Dr. Johnson.

Any questions for Dr. Johnson?

All right.

Thank you, ma'am.

Up next we have Ms.

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

I'm Rachel Rasnick, Director of Student Services for Charlottesville City Schools.

We are here as a team to share our ongoing work of substance use prevention in Charlottesville City Schools.

This work would not be possible without the leadership and collaboration between our Student Services Department, Region 10, Health and PE, and our community organizations as well.

Jody Murphy sends her apologies.

She can't be here tonight.

I'm going to take her place.

Good evening.

My name is Zarina Burge.

I'm the Director of Prevention Services at Region 10 CSB here in Charlottesville.

We focus on mental health promotion as well as substance use prevention, and we have been partnering with Charlottesville City Schools for many years and almost coming up on 15 years having staff within the school buildings at Buford and CHS.

We wanted to start here with a brief overview of what substance misuse prevention looks like at different levels.

So first is the primary prevention, which is universal strategies that are aimed at reaching youth before substance use is taking place.

This includes education school-wide that educates young people about the risks of substance use, as well as some of the skills that could help them resist substances.

It could also include evidence-based curriculums which are presented to young people and the aim there is to increase protective factors such as identifying and managing emotions or effective communication which might include peer refusal skills as well as to reduce risk factors such as lack of self-control or poor social-emotional skills.

or favorable attitudes or norms around substance use that young people might pick up from others or the community.

Research shows that these strategies are most effective from a young age in order to establish positive and healthy behaviors and norms in a long-term way.

So then there's also secondary prevention where early experimentation might be taking place or students might be identified as having high risk factors, such as maybe associating with the negative peer group or peers who are using substances themselves.

So in those cases, high-risk students or groups would be targeted, and this would include programs such as Teen Intervene, which is an evidence-based substance use assessment and a brief intervention which might be implemented with a young person who maybe gets caught vaping at school, for example.

And then finally there's a tertiary level of prevention, which is an indicated level of prevention.

So this is where a substance use problem is already happening.

And the aim here is to prevent the problem from getting worse by connecting them to needed services or reducing the harm.

So this would include things such as

reducing the amount of substance use or preventing the progression onto harder substances or training staff to use naloxone to reverse an opioid overdose to prevent the worst outcomes of injury or death.

That's a brief overview and how prevention can look very different across different levels.

Good evening.

My name is Emily.

Last spring, all secondary health and PE teachers were in the Botvin life skills curriculum.

So that would be grades 7 through 10 in the health and PE classes.

This is an evidence based curriculum towards substance use prevention.

This curriculum will be implemented this year and all this grade levels to 7, 8, 9, and 10.

In collaboration with Region 10, we have also received funding to facilitate the Too Good for Drugs curriculum in grades five through six.

So that would be at Walker.

We have a prevention specialist that will be teaching the lessons and collaborating with the PE teachers and getting this

implemented in their health and PE classes.

The prevention specialists will also be available to Walker as well as Buford and the high school for additional supports.

It could look like lunch tabling, working with parent resources and awareness.

So that is something that we're going to continue to work on over the next couple of years through that partnership.

Some things that we have been doing that are ongoing are our alcohol awareness education.

We utilize EverFi in ninth grade, and we utilize the alcohol prevention resources through driver education in 10th grade and driver education as well as health.

We are utilizing and have utilized the CATCH curriculum, which is an evidence-based curriculum, which includes nicotine awareness in grades seven and eight.

through their health and PE classes.

Something that has been ongoing over the past six years is the Y Street Youth Led Advocacy Group.

They have two campaigns they focus on.

One of them is increasing water consumption and the other one is reducing nicotine use.

They look different depending on the year and their pain.

Nolia is a member of Y-Street and has participated as a leader for the past several years.

So it is a great group within CHS that spreads awareness and they're working towards reducing nicotine use in teens.

We have also been working in our HPE PLCs to embed the SEL competencies in our PE settings, especially in grades K4.

And the health education standards for grades K12 do include substance use prevention.

So it has been ingrained in our curriculum.

We are in the planning stage of the UME together of a free elementary curriculum.

We're looking to see how that evidence informed program or lessons could look in our K4 setting.

So that's something that's in the planning stage, but that we are exploring more about.

Next slide.

So we have been focusing on professional learning for our health and PE staff as well as our CSAs.

This year, all of our secondary teachers, again, received the professional development training on the Botvin life skills curriculum.

So that was something that has already happened.

We also explored during our August professional learning day

Healthy Futures curriculum, which is an alternative to suspension curriculum, as well as an alternative to suspension program from the Stanford REACH Lab.

So we looked into what that would look like and how many lessons.

And this is really geared towards students that are in their initial stage of use, maybe newly introduced to a substance or newly identified.

We had planned and have rescheduled another professional development opportunity for the same subgroup of staff.

It's called vaping the use of nicotine addiction.

That is going to be led by the UVA Injury Prevention Coordinator and Substance Use in Schools, which we'll look for this fall.

That is also rescheduled for later this year for the identified staff as well.

Okay, I have a question.

I see you have like information or flyers for like fentanyl and SAP.

I was at KTEC and I saw some marketing materials in the bathroom about vaping.

And I'll just be curious to know, with an increase of so many of our children vaping, and they're younger and younger, is it a plan to do a marketing campaign?

within Charlottesville High School or even some of the other schools around the effects of vaping.

Yeah, so we are exploring structured curriculum for younger and younger age groups, like the U and V FAPE-free elementary school curriculum would provide an opportunity to introduce students at an earlier age to some of the avoidance strategies, like knowing what it is so you know how to say no.

And so that's an important part of what we're exploring.

Did that answer your question?

In addition to the professional learning and educational

Primary Prevention Strategies.

We have a number of partnerships that have already been highlighted.

So our partnership with Region 10, both at Walker and CHS, and then our new partnership at Walker.

We're also exploring a partnership with UVA Office of Pain Management and Opioid Stewardship, which would provide us a few different things.

So in the primary prevention arena, it would allow for some family, student,

and staff informational learning sessions.

But they will, as we're looking at what treatment students needs as we've been working with them, they've shared that they can be a way to connect students with more direct treatment and will help us access more community resources as we become more involved with them.

Thank you, Pat.

So one of the things in terms of our partnerships is we do review our referrals to SAP.

And so at this time, the majority of our referrals are self-referrals, which would indicate that that campaigning is working.

Students are self-referring for help.

And we know that motivation to change is a big part of addressing substance use prevention.

So then thinking about our secondary strategies.

So within Charlottesville City Schools, we have a number of direct intervention supports.

So these secondary targeted strategies through Region 10, students can access Teen Intervene, which is a screening, brief intervention, referral to treatment program.

That acronym SBIRT is an evidence-based strategy for intervening with adolescents and adults to prevent substance use.

Additionally, Region 10 is exploring other different expert options to be able to provide a variety for our students.

They're looking at prevention, sport, and or project towards known drug abuse, just so we have a variety of things that can be matched with our students' needs and interests and will be effective with our population.

So our CCS clinicians or school mental health professionals have previewed and are ready to use some additional screening tools.

These screening tools allow them to identify the early risk factors that students are presenting with who are currently getting mental health support from our providers and guides the intervention that may be needed.

We are looking at two different intervention materials that can support our tier three mental health interventionists, provide intervention for substance misuse.

They're very different.

So natural high, which is you can look it up online.

It's a series of

engaging storytellers, talking about their experience.

Our clinicians will be able to select a storyteller that will be relevant to the student that they're working with.

They could implement those materials in a small group or individually.

And then the other thing that we're exploring is brief challenges.

Brief challenges is a screening, brief intervention, refer to treatment program

that really focuses on students' motivation to change as well as providing students with some skills to, I'm gonna look at the exact language because I don't wanna misspeak.

This was one of Jodi's slides.

So, and assist the student in developing effective responses to external pressures.

So how do you deal with when you're surrounded by

what you might be trying to change.

This is not a cheap undertaking, it's not a free opportunity for us, but I was able to collaborate with the deputy city manager and she and her and I were able to talk through what funding sources we may be able to access for that initial training cost.

And then once that initial training cost is covered, we can sustain the ongoing fidelity and renewal costs annually through our budget.

So we're mainly focused on providing that initial training to our CCS clinicians.

You do have to be a master's level clinic, master's level provider.

but our school counselors and our school social workers are masters level providers so they would be able to take part in that training and then implement that.

And then the other thing, Jessica already referred to the alternative to suspension, but one of the things that we're in the planning process of is using those prevention curriculums in response to disciplinary actions.

And we are monitoring the disciplinary incidents and seeing whether the students are being connected with SAP, with mental health providers in the schools.

So we're staying on top of that.

providing feedback when needed.

Some other secondary strategies are around screening.

I mentioned the disciplinary incidents.

We do have the vape detectors.

That is a way to know whether students may need some support.

through our team and then our student self-assessment data.

It clues us into students that may need that additional support.

We use that to guide all of our mental wellness interventions and who may be at risk and need more support.

And then there are the tertiary strategies.

So as Zarina shared, these are harm reduction.

This is treatment.

We did incorporate rapid revive into all of our beginning of the year student health services presentations.

So if you've ever had to go through an EpiPen beginning of the year training, we also did rapid revive.

So our staff, all of our school nurses are trainers, and they've trained our staff

In the unfortunate circumstance, we would have to use it.

We're trained in Eclipse and have Naloxone in all of our schools to be able to do that.

and then we are continuing to refer to community-based treatment.

I'm gonna give Zarina an opportunity to just talk about what is available in the community after I talk about this exciting partnership with El Kil.

So, brief challenges is a short intervention that can be provided.

Seven challenges is a more comprehensive model to address substance misuse.

And so Elk Hill went through the training, has assumed the cost of being trained and the renewal and fidelity costs associated with implementing the program.

But we're partnering with them.

We'll be able to refer students to access that program.

It's not

It is a costly intervention, but we have students that need it.

So that was another thing that I discussed with our deputy city manager.

And we're going to be looking at funding through the Opioid Abatement Authority at the state level for individual students to access through CCS.

And then we'll access non-mandated funds through CSA whenever possible.

Can I ask a quick question about the program?

Is that something they would go to during the day as an alternative to being here or what type of structured program is that?

So it's a combination of group and individual sessions.

And so it would take up a lot of the students' time because it's going to be done through Elk Hill.

It won't be done.

Right now, the plan is not for it to be done at the high school.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Will parents be notified or aware if their child is participating in these programs?

So there's a really long answer to that question.

So we will not disclose substance use to parents if it is disclosed to us during a confidential session.

That can be uncomfortable, but part of the confidentiality of engaging in mental health services, whether it's intervention or treatment, is that the family and the student knows that we don't share information that's divulged in those sessions unless the student is at risk of serious harm.

When we're thinking about substance use, we wouldn't classify substance use as being the risk.

It would be that the student is engaging in it to an extent that they're at risk of losing their life.

But there are a number of ways that families are partnered with through SAP.

Yes.

So for Teen Intervene, for example, which is the brief intervention, we do get parent permission for that program.

It's also considered a voluntary intervention.

So if a student doesn't want to participate in it, it's not enforced.

We never want to force a student to do an intervention they don't want to.

And we do also say,

to parents that what is discussed within those sessions does remain confidential unless there is a safety concern, an immediate safety concern.

Did you want me to talk about also student assistance program?

The nice thing is that it's available to all students.

It doesn't

operate as a medical service like all the other services at Region 10, which require an intake and possibly charges to insurance.

So it is through the contract and our MOU that any student who might be experiencing any kind of problem like conflict with peers can have someone to talk to and work on problem solving and building skills in order to help them cope with everyday challenges of being a young person.

and then just to speak to treatment, substance use, there are limited options for youth in our area and it can be challenging to find a treatment provider.

I know there are certain services like case management at Region 10 which can help navigate but even those who do it professionally are having challenging time.

I know Kerasalis can also help with

making phone calls, finding out who has openings, who has wait lists, but because substance use treatment is very specialized, you need a certain level of training, it can be very challenging to connect with.

UVA psychiatry does have an option for group treatment as well as outpatient and currently there's no residential or inpatient options here for youth in this area.

Young people will have to go out of town for that.

Intensive outpatient is another identified need which does not exist locally.

There is a virtual statewide program available.

Do we know how many students that our current Region 10 workers are working with?

And just to reference some of the services that are available for youth, everywhere is a wait list.

And it's hard to find, you know, you kind of spoke to that it's a high need, but it's hard to find providers that is like doing the work to support teens.

It's a lot of stuff for adults, but it's not a lot of things out there for children.

I don't have the number off the top.

Across Charlottesville City and Albemarle County, over 500 students have engaged in student assistance program services.

We can add that to Ms.

Yeah, we can definitely find that.

At our last fidelity check we had 23 students who had been referred.

Of the students who are self-identifying, are parents notified at all that your child is self-identified?

Best practices as yes, we try to involve parents.

But again, it's it's often a conversation with a young person to try to get them to the point where, hey, I think you really could use a support and the support of families really important.

I think we need to involve your parents.

And Ms.

Rasnick, you're shaking your head.

For seven challenges, we would need parent permission because it's a referral to an outside agency.

But Ms.

Richardson asked about like parent involvement and I guess disclosure of information.

So

So in order for students to start working with one of our clinicians, our school social workers, our school mental health professionals, we do need parent permission, but we're not necessarily going to divulge to the parent that it's because they've self-identified as using substances.

And so we get that permission.

We facilitate that ongoing collaboration with parents.

Our providers are as connected with parents as they can be while respecting the student and encouraging the student to engage with their parents and their support network.

I think one of the things that the research shows is that students are less likely to engage in intervention if they think people like their parents are going to find out.

And so we are walking that fine line of we want to help as many students as possible.

I'll also just add that in the state of Virginia, 14 is the age of consent for young people to seek mental health treatment.

So the last piece, there are two other things that we're considering.

One is having our staff be trained in seven challenges.

That's not in the planning stage, because when we're thinking about considering, we're still really thinking about the pros and cons.

In full transparency, it doesn't seem like it's a viable option for a number of reasons.

There's some real risks with providing substance abuse treatment in schools by school employees.

Some of it is the confidentiality piece.

But we also know that we're addressing those co-occurring problems.

That's our focus.

primary and secondary intervention or prevention and intervention is really important and we want to continue to refer out to community resources even though they are difficult to access so that we can focus on our primary and secondary prevention

And then one of the other things that we are considering is as we increase what our school-based providers do, as we consider them to be providers of screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment programs,

That's going to add more students onto their caseloads and we're considering whether or not we need to request an additional high school clinician, school mental health professional in order to meet our students' needs.

I think overall, when we're thinking about these tertiary strategies, our focus is on intervention and then accessing our community partners for treatment.

We really want to halt the problem before it manifests into that bigger challenge for students while treatment is focused on managing or curing an existing problem or condition.

Thank you for this overview.

I don't know that we've ever received something like this.

And I think I'm not sure what has been in existence well before me, what's newer.

But I think for those of us that have been on the board last year, I mean, there were a number of times where we were sitting trying to provide some interventions and services to kids that we felt were lacking.

And I just feel like we're in a better place to provide supports

for students who are past that initial stage and really need some help.

My other kind of question comment, are coaches and athletic trainers also rapid, revived, trained?

And if not, is it possible?

So I know that anybody who is a CCS staff member got trained, but thinking about Kochis who they may not be.

Thank you very much.

Very informative presentation.

Just an observation, I do think and

Focusing on a tier one and tier two that we can help more own.

And then again, referring out to tertiary is where I would like to see us because we can't do everything.

And I don't think we should, I don't think that's what you're suggesting here, but I want to make sure that clinician is more two and not three, right?

In my mind, if I understand the terminology correctly.

My question is, have we had to use that in our school in the last

So those are two questions.

Have we had scary situations?

Yes.

In our schools, have we had to administer Narcan?

No.

Not to cut you off, but that's what the legislation.

The reason why we have these things are because of the legislations where students have been in schools around the Commonwealth, where they've had to use the Narcan.

So sorry.

So, in general, and

I mean, I'm less worried, let's say, and still concerning, though, that smoking, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana.

But are we seeing in CHS and Walker and Buford in our student population harder stuff, you might say?

And are we having to treat that and engage in that?

Or is that not necessarily the case vis-a-vis, let's say, Albemarle or, again, the rest of the state?

That's a little hard to maybe answer.

More particularly, are we having incidences in our schools of the harder stuff?

I think I'd have to gather more information about the question.

We suspect.

Any other questions, Ms.

Richardson?

Are you pondering down there?

So I was regarding the last bullet point there as far as the request for the additional CCS clinician.

So I love along Ms.

Dooley's line of comments.

I mean, and I think we have in the last year been asking for more, feeling like we needed more, and thus we're here with this presentation.

But as far as adding another clinician, and I think the piece that I kept wondering was to the extent that we can, I need to see some data and numbers for this.

Hopefully those numbers are low, but you know, I mean, that would be, I think the next piece to this, wherever they can be plugged in to kind of help us get a better sense of

I'm sorry.

In regards to that clinician, are you thinking

That is a substance abuse specific clinician?

No.

So if this is the request that is made, then there'll be a number of data sources.

including what our current caseloads are, how many students they're able to support, what the impact of their support is.

As we get more information about our students and what our students' needs are, we know that we could serve more students.

We know that there are students that have needs that

We want to be able to address.

We would not specifically ask for a substance abuse treatment provider.

It would be adding to our team, our strong team of school mental health professionals at CHS who would all be trained in those primary and secondary prevention strategies.

And so instead of having one person focusing on it, we want to be able to equip

all of our providers with the skills.

Any other questions, comments?

Mr. Meyer, please get yourself.

Anybody else?

No, Mr. Morse?

All right.

Thank you very much.

All right.

We will round this evening out with Ms.

Hoover, who will give us 10.5 and 10.6.

Good evening chairperson, Ms.

Ntouros, Dr. Gurley and school board members.

This evening I will update you on the end of the fiscal year 24.

The financial reporting lot ties into their strategic plan through demonstrating fiscal stewardship by timely, accurate, and transparent communication of financial information.

I want to preface this, these numbers are preliminary until we have our official close of the financial records and they are on later this month and next month by our auditors.

Tentatively, we're looking like there will be a surplus of $5.4 million.

The surplus has contributed to us taking our last draw of ESSER III grant funds this spring on eligible expenditures, including personnel calls for instructional assistants, care and safety assistants, and social-emotional counselors.

As you may recall, our General Operating Fund budget for FY24 did not have an ESSER III grant budgeted for ongoing and reoccurring expenses.

By receiving these funds on budgeted eligible expenses, it allowed us to use these funds to support the Beaufort School Construction Project.

The school and the city have a gain share agreement to share operating surplus funds.

The agreement allows for the first $100,000 to be allocated toward or any additional satisfied the school's minimum annual contribution of $200,000 to the school facilities repair fund.

And then anything over the $200,000 is shared equally 50-50 between the schools and the city.

The split of the unaudited $5.4 million is $2.6 million to the schools and the city.

The $2.6 million to the city satisfies our second year commitment of funds to the View for Construction project outlined in the city's CIP budget.

Our share of the gain share will be added to our fund balance.

Just want to remind you the fund balance is one time dollars.

It's accumulation of pluses and minuses from the fiscal year in settlements over decades.

And we've been fortunate the last two years to add a significant amount to our fund balance.

These dollars should only be used to cover unforeseen costs due to enrollment growth, shortfalls in state revenues, or one-time expenses authorized by the school board.

Tonight we're coming to you with a recommendation that we take some of our FY24 gain share and use it towards projects not identified in the city's capital improvement plan.

This is a good opportunity for us to use one-time funding for school infrastructure projects.

Here you see a list of the projects that staff has readily identified.

We renovated our high school track a few years ago and there were no funds budgeted for lighting.

We're estimating to set aside $350,000 to complete the lighting around the track and field.

We want to update our scoreboard at the girls softball field

and this is estimated about 10,000.

At a recent construction project mean the installation of access control for a larger restrooms and vape sensors for all restrooms will be a change order because they were not included in the original school construction project at Buford and we're estimated to set aside 290,000 for this.

and safety and security has a great need for additional access control, rekeying and camera that we would like to set aside $500,000 for it.

This is coming to you as information this month.

We will ask for action next month.

Ms.

Richardson, Ms.

Dooley, any questions?

Ms.

Cooper, Mr. Morse, Ms.

Um, questions on the safety security infrastructure line item, additional access control rekey work cameras.

Is there a plan for where those would go yet or yeah, can we, thank you, Ms.

So you'll get a more detailed update on this next Saturday at the work session.

There'll be a chart, but the Johnson camera work just got completed.

Jackson, most of the elementary schools still need cameras.

That's the bottom line.

When it comes to access control, we still have

Give me a few more campuses I have a list to get those completed.

But even as we complete campuses, as even as we do more campuses, I should say there's some campuses that we've already completed where they want to go back and add another door here, another door there.

and then we expect a recommendation to be forthcoming from the independent audit to move to access control on our inside classroom doors as well.

So there's just quite a bit of access control work that can be done to get us to where we would like to be and so that money won't cover it all but it's a great contribution

We just need to keep going and you'll learn more about all the projects we have scheduled for this year.

But even with what's scheduled for this year, like for example, Burley Moran still won't have cameras at the end of this year.

Thank you, Ms.

Hoover.

A couple questions.

One, going back to the majority of the extra funding, you might say the overture is from the ESSER 3 grant funds?

Yes, sir.

So how much of the $5.4 million was from that?

I don't have like a breakdown.

Yes?

Yes.

Okay.

So this is not city money.

We drew it down on eligible expenditures.

We drew down our federal funds using eligible expenditures that we had budgeted.

OK.

And so we generated this nice surplus being financially good financial stewards.

Correct.

We've had a gain share agreement in place since 1998, where we share 50-50, anything over 200,000.

It's an agreement that the city manager and superintendent made back in 1998.

So no, it's not in city ordinance, but it's an agreement that was made between the two organizations.

Okay.

Gains share agreements aren't necessarily a norm for school divisions.

The school district where I worked at previously didn't have one.

One of the things to keep in mind that is a good thing about a gain share agreement like that

is in the localities, counties, cities, there's always this concern about, well, what if we appropriate more money than they really need?

And with that gain share, hopefully it takes some of that consternation away because there's this knowledge

It's sort of a win-win.

It helps diminish that mindset that you have to just spend because it's like a use it or lose it at the end of the year.

But it also takes the edge off, if you will, for the appropriating local government body because they also know that if there's responsible spending that surplus funds can come back to the general coffer as well.

also when the money does go back it's supposed to go towards the school CIP.

And I echo the same thing because in my previous school division we did not have gain share and so what you do find in those school divisions is that at the end of the year it's spend the money down, spend the money down and I think this does help us to be really good stewards to say everybody will win

It's been instrumental in managing the ESSER money.

And do we get any say in how that money's been used or we just give it back in the city?

That it's in the CIP for schools.

Newford, we've got Walker, right?

I wasn't suggesting we get rid of that necessarily.

I think my interest is that it wasn't that, I mean, we should be

Good stewards of all money, but that we're actually finding federal funds and putting that to good use to then basically give more money back to the city, which is great that there should be prioritizing and giving it to the Charlottesville Middle School.

So love that.

Going down a little bit further then, and so we're getting $2.6 million.

We're getting a new fund balance at the end of June, whatever, July 1st, basically $9.4 million.

OK.

So we would have 8.2 million left in our general fund balance.

The Government Finance Officers Association recommends at least three months of expenditures be set aside for reserves to cover any no flows of money coming into the organization.

There's the CIP, but actually when you look at the CIP, the track lighting, although it was recognized as a need and everybody was talking about how to make it happen, it wasn't on the CIP.

The bathroom features with the access control and the vape, that was an oversight in design that as we're going through the construction process, remember the design for the middle school was back before the pandemic.

and it just wasn't included and so in this case a lot of the things that and then the scoreboard situation the softball field had needed to be brought up to speed or you know we're fortunate that Tom Sox do a lot of extra stuff for the baseball field here softball needed to have more of a lift and we did put that in but the contractor that was in the CIP and addressed under the city's facilities development team

The contractor has been slow to perform.

There have been issues.

And we have repaired the scoreboard recently, but then they cut the line, which made people think it was broken again, that the board was defective.

But that raised another opportunity.

So what I'm saying is a lot of things on that list aren't on the CIP, but their needs that emerge.

And so when you have those the opportunities to address them as they come up, this is a great way to do that because it's one time expenditures and

I think these are all good projects and I want to say that and I support all these and I just recognize for example the track and field lighting is good for us for CHS but it's also very good for the community, right?

Whereas you know some of these are very specific to our needs but others are and you know what I want to see is also the

The city put money into these.

So, you know, it's a back and back, but I just hope everybody recognizes and we'll have to talk to our city council colleagues about how we are also contributing to a lot of things that whether not just our educational system here, and we're taking advantage, they're also providing a lot of public goods for parks and rec, for example, etc.

So just want to voice that.

Thank you very much.

I'm done.

Quickly, I just wanted to say thank you for identifying or Mr. Jones or whoever might have identified the girls softball field scoreboard.

I don't know if there's more that needs to be done over there to kind of spiff it up as far as seating or dugouts.

I'm not sure I need to walk over there.

But I know that I've heard, I've heard about that a lot, you know, and just looking at again, the equity and support for, for girls athletic.

And the dugout work is currently happening.

Yep.

Any other questions?

The next item, and this is another information item, is the budget development calendar for fiscal year 25-26.

The calendar has changed from prior years.

A meeting in December has been put on the calendar with city councilor.

There will be a joint meeting

between the school board and city council on December 19th.

And we'll be sharing with them our budget priorities and a estimated budget, a high level estimated budget with them.

Again, a bulk of our work

will be done in February at the end of January and most of the month of February with the conclusion of the superintendent's proposed budget being voted on at the February 20th at a special meeting and then being presented to city council on March 4th.

Any other questions?

All right, the next item is 11.0, which is the board response to written reports, which includes committee reports from board members and any outcome of student disciplinary matters.

And then we will move on to 12.0, which is our next opportunity for comments from members of the community.

So if there's anybody here in the Media Center who would like to make comment or anybody online.

If you're online, please indicate your desire to make comment by raising your hand or the raise hand icon.

All right, thank you.

And we will now move on to comments from board members.

So I will start down with our student rep.

Regarding attendance at CHS, sorry.

Regarding attendance at CHS for incentives, I think maybe attendance awards could be beneficial.

I think my old school used to have perfect attendance awards, and I know students really wanted to get that.

And I think awards in general are really important, especially as I'm applying to colleges, the awards section, I've heard students

be like, oh, I'm not sure what awards I can add to my profile because maybe the school doesn't offer that many awards.

So it could the attendance awards could be in like stages to maybe like the golden attendance award or the outstanding attendance award if you attend had perfect attendance for maybe three months consecutively.

And then if you have it for all of the school year, then it's like like rankings for your attendance.

I feel like that could be beneficial.

Thank you.

I want to reflect on, I think, Ms.

Horn's screen and technology observation, which had an impact on me also because of my own child.

I had a message from a teacher last week saying that he was not paying attention in class and on a computer program he wasn't supposed to be on a school-issued Chromebook.

So it really struck home and I've had a lot of conversations with teacher friends about this too and I'll also say the BSBA activity which I think I updated a lot of you colleagues on, we had a whole panel on this and a lot of it was about cell phone but screen and screens need to be used appropriately in different classrooms obviously we have to for a CAD class or a CTE class we need to have computers right but there's a lot of other classes which I think Miss Horn was

talking about too, like her class, where you don't need a Chromebook.

And so I guess I'm wondering if there's interest by other colleagues, and we can talk about this, and then you have an update about how are we using technology in our classrooms?

I think it's probably a teacher individual choice.

That's what they talked about at the VSBA panel.

But again, things changed during COVID

Did we change for the good or is this bad?

I know one family that was very involved in the PTO at Jackson Valley who left the district because they were so frustrated with how much time their children were in front of the screens at the school.

So I do think as a topic I would like to dig deeper into.

Thank you.

I think I just wanted to touch on for the community that we still continue to need substitute teachers in our space and what that looks like, specifically with availability to

be in the building and so just encouraging folks to continue to see how you might be of assistance and how you might be able to impact our student learning and allow our teachers an opportunity to meet their needs outside of school hours but still providing structure in the day and so just wanted to

encourage anyone who might be out there thinking about it to apply and become a resource.

Just very quickly, election season, ensure that you vote.

I would say it is your duty to vote.

That is one way that you get your voice across.

Government officials, public servants, we serve the public.

So in order for that to be, to get across, in order for you to be the so-called boss, right?

Ms.

So continuing on a theme tonight, so in our accreditation report and subsequent discussion, we talked a lot about chronic absenteeism, ongoing concerns there.

We also heard from several teachers about the lack of support they feel around substitutes.

But I think it's really important that we highlight the importance of both our students and the adults in our division of coming to school every day, on time, ready to work.

If any teachers are listening, I think you need to hear that the impact of your absences is having a really profound impact on your colleagues.

We can't hire enough substitutes to solve this problem.

In our personnel report tonight, I think we approved 20 new substitutes tonight.

Our HR department every other week is onboarding new subs.

Thank you.

Ms.

I want to say thank you to everyone who presented.

I want to recognize the proactive measures we are using to reduce the fights and promote peaceful interactions with our students.

I was really excited to hear the decrease in our physical conflict that is happening at CHS.

I think that was a real highlight for me, especially having a ninth grade at CHS.

So I'd love to hear things like that.

Thank you.

Just want to thank the board for your engagement and staff.

And thank you for all the presentations tonight.

I do not have anything.

I just want to say thank you to our staff.

Just, you know, we're nearing the end of the, we're ending

We're nearing the end of the first nine weeks, and so I just want to thank everyone for a really, really good start.

I just have enjoyed seeing our students energized, our teachers energized, and so let's just keep uplifting one another.

and as we embark upon the second nine weeks.

And then this is Principal's Month.

There are a couple of Principal's Month.

Thank you, Ms.

Swift.

The numbers.

The number of students.

Thank you, Ms.

Yeah, I feel like, help me everybody, collective memory.

There was something that I think Dr. Gurley pointed to Ms.

I was the only one I had written down.

All right.

No, all right.

We'll try and remember, and I'll send an email if it pops into my head.

Thank you real quickly for upcoming meetings.

We have a meeting October 15th, which is the school board meeting, meeting with our legislators, Senator Deeds and Delegate Kallsen, and that'll happen five o'clock at KTEC.

Again, on the 15th, October 19th, the school board has a board advance at 8.30, and that will be held at Johnson.

Elementary and then on November 7th we have our regularly scheduled meeting five o'clock here.