School Board Meeting   11/7/2024

Oh, look at those cheeks.

Good afternoon.

Good evening, everybody.

Thank you for joining us.

Today is November 7th, 2024.

We welcome everybody and thank you for your patience as we all made our way upstairs.

If you will now please join me and us in a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Ms.

Burns?

Here.

Ms.

Cooper?

Ms.

Dooley?

Here.

Mr. Meyer?

Here.

Ms.

Richardson?

And Ms.

Yes, thank you so much.

Second.

Any discussion or questions?

Any opposed?

Great, thank you.

Shymora Cooper declared that I have personal interest in a transaction of Charlottesville City Public Schools for the reason set for below.

I believe I participate in the deliberation and voting of the transaction as permitted by Virginia Code Section 2.1-3112B1 and 2.4-311H specifically.

This transaction in which I intend to participate in deliberation regarding the vote of the Charlottesville City School Board operating budget for the 24-25 and 25-26 fiscal year, which includes pay to my daughter.

My personal interest in the transaction stems from my daughter employed by the Charlottesville City School Board as a Care and Safety Assistant, CSA,

By the way of my association with my daughter, I am a member of a group of three or more, all employees of the school board, the members of which are affected by the budget deliberation and approval, and I am able to participate in the budget deliberation and vote fairly objectively in all public interests.

I ask that this statement be mandated with the minutes of the Charlottesville City School Board.

It is my intention to orally disclose the existence of the intent during the meeting of the Charlottesville City School Board at which 2025 and 2026 operating budget is discussed and ask that each

such disclose be recorded in its respective meeting minutes.

This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years.

Thank you.

All right, next item on our agenda is the first opportunity for comments from members of the community and we designate the first slot or times for comments from any of our students that may be present.

So if there's anybody in the Media Center or online that's a student and would like to make comment, now is your opportunity and we welcome you.

Please walk up to the podium here.

Hi, that's really loud.

Hi, my name is Elle Polifka, and I am a senior at Charlottesville High School.

I'm here to advocate for the preservation of instrumental music education in fifth grade when the schools reconfigure in 2026.

For the past six years, I have had the privilege to be a member of the Charlottesville City Schools Orchestra program.

From the very first day I arrived at Walker in the middle of my fifth grade year, the orchestra became my safe place.

I had just moved from Colorado and I didn't know anyone, but I immediately felt at home in orchestra class and ever since, I have looked forward to that class every day.

My parents are musicians, so I've had the unique and wonderful experience of being surrounded by music since birth.

I've also had the privilege of taking private music lessons since a young age.

In the orchestra I came from in Colorado and, indeed, in every other school and youth orchestra I have played in, most if not all of the other members have had a similar early start.

Except in CCS, that is.

Most of my peers here in the CHSO started their instrument in fifth grade at Walker.

It is incredible to see the dozens of students who in just a few short years go from not knowing how to even hold their instrument properly to playing professional repertoire in music festivals all over the world.

Every year of learning counts, and I've seen that firsthand not only in going through the program myself, but also in my TA position in the Concert Orchestra at CHS.

As a teaching assistant, my primary role has been to provide additional help and instruction for students who have missed a year of orchestra.

With a little extra individual work, these students are able to eventually catch up to their peers, but it is very apparent that it takes time to get an orchestra to the caliber of ours.

If every student were to have a year less of experience with their instrument, our program would look very different.

I want every kid in Charlotte Soul City schools to have the opportunity to reach this level of excellence like so many other students before them and not just in the musical category.

Our orchestra and band programs build community like nothing else.

I think I speak for just about all of us when I say that the orchestra is like a family.

The act of creating music together is such a beautiful and unifying thing and I hope this privilege to learn and play music can be extended to all of the students of Charlotte Soul City for years to come.

There are many challenges to developing a plan of this size and scope, but I am confident that with creativity and hard work, we can come up with a solution to maintain what makes our music programs and our schools so unique and successful.

Thank you.

Do we have any other students who would like to make a comment?

Hello.

Thank you.

My name is Sydney Rasmussen.

I'm a sophomore here at CHS, and I'm also a member of CHSO Orchestra.

For me, music has always played a very large portion in who I am.

And even before I played an instrument, I was on stage doing dance from the age of three.

While I may not dance anymore, I do still play my instrument, and I have since fourth grade.

While it's not the fifth grade that many people here start with, having even that extra two years or whatever has made an impact in how I've played.

Furthermore, my brother also plays instrument, yet he's only in third grade, and he would absolutely love to be able to play his instrument in a band, because he plays drums, in fifth grade.

and it is something that he is extremely passionate about and he absolutely loves.

Having the experience from a younger age, playing an instrument up on a stage has made a drastic impact I know in my ability to speak in front of people or be in front of people in general.

Whether that's dancing on a stage,

playing an instrument or speaking in front of people as I am now.

Any other students?

If there's somebody, yep, come on up.

Yeah, just state your name and you have three minutes.

Oh, hi.

My name is Xavier.

and I would like the band to keep on going because, oh, that's not how you spell my name.

Anyway, I would like the band to keep on going because I have a little brother and he's gonna be one of the people that go to fifth grade at elementary school.

So I would like him to play an instrument just like I do.

Thank you.

All right, anybody else student wise?

I think I see a hand on online there, potentially.

So is that a student?

I'm sorry.

I don't know if that's a student.

No.

All right.

Thank you to all those students for your comment.

We appreciate you.

So we'll move to go ahead.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Carlia Swanson.

I'm a fourth year PhD candidate at the University of Virginia.

I'm also Miss Virginia 2024, and I'll be competing in the Miss America pageant in December.

And one thing that I championed as Miss Virginia is the ability for music to connect and unite audiences.

And one moment that I contribute to my success now is participating in the band in the fifth grade constantly.

Being a new student at schools, music helped me connect with other children that were just like me.

They helped me grow musically, socially, and academically.

At that age, I learned discipline and responsibility.

It was no longer just about myself, but it was about how I could contribute to those teams of musicians.

And lastly, I gained confidence in my abilities, all things that helped me as Miss Virginia.

It's proven that students that participate in music at a young age, they have higher attendance rates, higher standardized testing scores, all things that we need in school.

So I come here today to encourage you to keep band in fifth grade.

I think there were a couple of other people online.

Are either of you interested in providing public comment right now?

Yeah.

Appreciate you being here.

Anybody here in the media center?

We do have a list.

I guess I'll go ahead and read.

We've got Jean Chase.

I believe you're first on the list, please.

Welcome.

Welcome to our meeting.

Thank you.

My name is Jean Chase, and I retired from public education after 40 years, 14 of which were in the Charlottesville City Schools at Greenbrier.

And I have seen over the years with my students that the music program that has been offered over at least 50 years that I'm aware of is invaluable.

The young people that use it for their own personal use, whether it was a band instrument, an orchestra instrument, or in the chorus, is just a phenomenal experience and it is a life experience.

I've had young people continue to make it a profession on the national stage

and I will not mention their names at this time, but I will ask you to look at the two pieces that I have asked to be put on your desk.

One of which is the Kant poem, and that is invaluable.

And by December the 5th, I'd like you all to have memorized that.

Kant is a word that is faux to ambition.

an enemy ambush to shatter your will.

Its foe is forever a man with a mission or woman and bows but to courage and patience and skill.

So whatever the goal in life you are seeking, answer the demon, I can't with I will.

and I thank you for your time and attention and I'm speaking on behalf of the music programs not being fractionalized but remain in the elementary schools as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

I think next on the list that I'm looking at is, well,

I don't know.

I'm going to let you introduce yourself, David McCormick.

Go ahead.

That's not who's on my list, but that's okay.

We may have had, we may have had on my written list, just somebody else.

That's okay.

Welcome.

Thank you.

My name is David McCormick and I am a product of the Charlottesville city schools.

I hope that some of you will recognize my name.

I wrote a letter a couple of weeks ago to you.

Um,

I'm a product specifically of the orchestra program in the Charlottesville City Schools.

I started in fifth grade, and I am now a professional musician.

I am in a New York-based medieval ensemble called Alchemy.

We're most famous for the video game soundtrack of Pentamet that won a BAFTA award.

I am the artistic director of Early Music Access Project, which is local here and engages with local history along with local music.

And I am the executive director of a national service organization, Early Music America, and a professional violinist.

I owe so much of my success to Laura Thomas, to the Charlottesville High School Orchestra, but also to the fact that I started in fifth grade.

It makes a huge difference.

And I want to speak to you about specifically my experience and how I know that it makes a difference.

Thanks to Laura Thomas, I was inspired to become a public school educator.

I taught orchestra for four years in Prince William County Schools, and in my national position, I see the landscape nationally of where orchestras are.

And you can tell a difference in the orchestra programs that start in fifth grade, fourth grade, sixth grade, whatever the grade of the start is, that affects the outcome at the high school level.

There are very few exceptions to the level of excellence based on the start grade.

So I'd really encourage you to think about that.

This is something that makes the Charlottesville High School Orchestra extremely special.

I've been all over our country.

I've heard a lot of different orchestras.

It's really different here.

It's really different.

I also want to speak to you as a national administrator.

I have to make really tough decisions every day about budget and logistics, and I know those are the two things that you all are thinking about with this decision.

I have a policy at my organization.

We don't cut programs that are working.

We figure out a way.

We cut programs that aren't working, and we look for ways to cut budgets

that are not about programs, but programs that are working stay.

We'll go with Ms.

Welcome.

Hello.

Thank you, Dr. Gurley, board division members.

TTYTP.

TTYTP.

As a profession, education is lacking in some areas, but acronyms is not one of those.

So here's a new one that I would love for our division leadership, coordinators, administrators, directors, board members to have on their desks, TTYTP.

Talk to your teachers, please.

I know that it is budget season, and before you make decisions, TTYTP.

TTYTP will help you avoid buying testing software, smart boards, prefab online literacy tests, helpful apps, and many other things that do not really help our students.

Instead, TTYTP will give you an idea of where money might best serve our students, where it might advance their learning, experience, critical thinking, joy, listening ability, mental and physical health, community and collaboration skills.

There are a million metaphors running through my head, but since it is game day,

Those who are working for our students in the aforementioned divisional capacities are the owners and general managers of an amazing football team.

You have the appreciated and giant jobs of managing the money, the stadium, the publicity, the player contracts and agents, and you must hire excellent coaches.

Your teachers are those coaches, and the students are the players.

The owners and GMs do many important jobs, but they do not call plays, and they do not design routes.

They do not run practices towards ensuring cohesiveness of their teams.

That's the coach's job.

These are the teacher's jobs.

I ask that you put value in our ability to know what our students, our teams, need.

I ask that you understand that our experience in the classroom is a necessary part of any learning decision making.

And that being proactive in communicating with teachers during this budget season and beyond

will be the best play that you can make for our students.

Hello, members of the board.

My name is Jacob Beckham.

I've lived in Charlottesville since 2019, and I hope for my son to one day attend school here.

I'm here today to speak about the proposed rezoning.

The concept of school zones is a relic of segregation and racism that does not and has arguably never served the communities they exist in.

As the school board deliberates rezoning, its elementary schools, or as the school board deliberates rezoning its elementary schools,

could serve as an opportunity to instead abolish the use of school zones entirely.

In lieu of school zones, there are many opportunities to reevaluate the needs of the city students and families.

One such opportunity that could open doors for myriad more opportunities in the future is repurposing the building of Charlottesville High School into Charlottesville Elementary School.

Nearly all classrooms at CHS are empty twice per day.

The building could easily accommodate all elementary age students in the district and the infrastructure that supports CHS would require minimal renovation to accommodate younger students.

In place of a single high school, the current elementary school buildings could be converted into magnet high schools.

For example, there could be an art school, a business school, one for STEM, one for trades, or any other idea we come up with.

This would allow many more high school students to walk to school rather than having younger children doing it.

As for zoning, some school districts throughout the country, Providence, Rhode Island to name one, abolished school zones and now allows families to choose which high schools their children attend anywhere in the city.

This would also allow many different learning opportunities and environments for our high school students to grow and thrive in.

Another opportunity, as it concerns music,

would allow for a consolidated elementary music program to continue to support all students at this age.

I implore you to think beyond the traditional structure of school zones that traditionally have not served our students.

And no matter what shape they take, will not serve them in the future.

We might have, is there a Sydney?

Is it Robinson?

She already spoke.

Sorry.

All right.

Is there anybody else here in the media center?

Please?

Yes.

Hello, my name is Karen Honeycutt.

Thank you for hearing me today.

I emailed this to some of you, but I don't know about all of you, and I'm going to read it now because it's important.

Thank you for listening.

I am writing as a very concerned parent of two Charlottesville City Schools students.

both of whom are currently coming up through the band slash chorus and theater programs, both of whom started in band with Mr. D and Mrs. Allen in fifth grade and both of whom fell in love with band in fifth grade.

They were each so excited to go to the Choose Your Instrument event that was held for rising fifth graders and they both chose the clarinet and they both still play the clarinet.

One is a senior who marches with the CHS Marching Knights

as the bass clarinet section leader and plays clarinet, bass clarinet, and contrabass clarinet in concert band under Jason Hackworth.

She also sings in Mr. Koch's highest choir, sings in the parish choir at St.

Paul's Memorial Church, and participates in musical theater ensemble with Mr. Becker.

All of that love of music starting with the wide eyes of a rising fifth grader.

The other, an eighth grader, playing clarinet at Buford Middle School under Mr. Logan's brilliant direction and shining.

She is also singing in the Buford chorus and performing lead roles with the Buford Theater program under Paula Chanda and is a strong leader in the Junior Choir at St.

Paul's.

And again, that strong musical foundation started with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a rising fifth grader.

They both take band very seriously and they both love it.

And that love started early enough that they were not already lost to their phones and the peer pressure to be cool and apathetic.

As a parent, I can firsthand tell you the difference between the enthusiasm and innocence and excitement of a rising fifth grader and the preteen angst and lethargy of a rising screen-aged sixth grader.

We have to reach and hook these kids when they are still wide-eyed enthusiasts.

If we wait until their 10- and 11-year-old preteens, we're going to lose many of them.

And the middle and ultimately high school programs, which we are wanting to see grow and thrive, not only for our kids, but for our grants and our awards and our outreach and our bragging rights and our draw, will suffer greatly.

But most importantly, our kids will suffer without ever even knowing what they've missed.

Languishing.

Our teens and preteens, post-COVID especially, are struggling.

Giving them music in that crucial year of hormone changes and social changes throws them a life preserver.

They have instant gratification, stress relief, pride in their results, an opportunity to shine at a really otherwise awkward time in their bodies and minds, and very importantly, maybe most importantly, these music classes give them a family.

Fifth grade is the crucial time to save these kids.

Get them excited, engage them, help them create something of which they can be so proud.

That's what we all want.

That's why we're here.

Please do not, do not, do not take away the opportunity for our fifth graders to make music, to create, to breathe and slow down and to feel accepted and part of something incredible.

I don't know if you've attended a fifth grade music concert, but I have and it is a most beautiful and inspiring and delightful and moving experience.

Those kids are beaming and so are their teachers and their families.

We would be doing an embarrassing disservice to our children, the school system, and our community if we cut the programs from fifth grade.

It is simply unacceptable.

I should also mention that I came up through CCS music programs beginning with flute in fifth grade and continuing into playing flute, piccolo, and bassoon at CHS, marching as a piccolo section leader under the direction of Vince Tornello.

I also sang in the CHS chorus and performed musical theater in the area as a teenager.

Miss Honeycutt, you're over time.

We cannot take all of this away from our schools, our families, our community, and most importantly, our kids.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening, Superintendent.

My name is Bellamy Brown.

I hadn't intended to speak today.

I plan to come back December 5th.

But like our last guest, I am a product of Charlottesville City Schools, came into the band in the fifth grade, was also part of Vince Tornello's award winning Marching Knights here at CHS.

I've also had the privilege of being a substitute in

a couple of the schools within the district, Walker being one of them and Bad being one of the classes that I was in.

In that experience, I saw the relationships that were there between the students, myself being both in band and in athletics.

I know that not all students get both.

and if you don't have athletics there to be able to build those relationships and you do have band and orchestra, that's one way to help mitigate against some of the emotional and social challenges that our kids are growing up with today.

I know that there are capital constraints, human resources constraints, capacity constraints, but I would urge you to strongly look at some alternative options before deciding that this is the sole route that our district should go.

Good evening.

My name is Claire Lias, and I attended Charlottesville City Schools for my entire education.

When I was in fourth grade, a group of high school students who are part of the band and orchestra programs came to our classrooms to show and play us their various instruments with the ideas and inspirations and hopes of the arts programs that we could attend when going to Walker in the fifth grade the following year.

I fell in love with the violin instantly.

And although my mom loved the cello and tried to pressure me, so I entered Walker and Fifth Grade Orchestra with a violin by my side.

Of course, I didn't know this at the time, but eventually in high school, this program saved my life.

I had a pretty miserable middle school and high school experience, my target of bullying, all around meanness, and experimenting with drugs and alcohol in my early teens, but I always had the music in me.

Knowing I could walk into orchestra every day or every other day and play what I could not fathom or speak was a great release of emotion I don't think anything else can provide.

students from all cliques and all walks of life, excuse me I've lost my place, coming together for the same love of music was a relief not only to me but others as well I'm sure.

It became my only motivation to show up through the years and in my later years in high school the only class I would attend while depression grabbed my every ounce of my happiness and suicidal ideations rattled around in my head.

It was a pure form of emotional release you simply cannot get anywhere else.

I ended up somehow graduating with a 3.4 GPA and a member of the National Honor Society because of the music and because of Polly Seibert, David Brubaker, and Laura Thomas and their equal dedication to the music, the program, and the students.

It may seem like a small cut, a minor decision, to end the fifth-grade programs in orchestra and band, but without it, the future levels of these programs will suffer.

At my time at CHS, we received countless accolades and awards, winning every competition we showed up for, because we could perform at a level that other programs could not because we started so young.

You may think, well, starting in sixth grade won't affect anything.

It's only a year, and it's possible you could be right.

But once you begin to crack a foundation, how long will it be before you go back to add another crack?

The reason these programs perform so well at the high school level is because of the beginning, because most programs don't start so early.

Young minds are so much more adaptable to learning new things, especially language and music, and can begin to form connections to a deeper understanding of emotional states because of it.

I might be the only one to tell you my story today, but I guarantee you I'm not the only one to claim it.

I am 37 years old now, and although my violin sits silently in a corner of my bedroom, it carried me through the hardest years of my life, all because of a seemingly small choice my little mind made in fourth grade.

I implore you to reconsider this decision, for there may be more, many more little me's.

Hi, I'm Barbara Gerung, G-E-H-R-U-N-G.

I'm a parent at Charlottesville City Schools, and I'm also here to talk about the orchestra program.

I've sent a letter to many of you, and I will try to read it here and maybe add some other notes.

I must quite frankly say the note we received yesterday for Parents Square was like a punch to the gut in addition to the news we received on Tuesday night.

I think our country and our children are in dire need to be able to harmonize with each other whatever their personal situation is and that's just what they're doing in an orchestral instrumental program.

and of course also in choir, but learning an instrument is a privilege and those of us who are relatively well off afford our children that privilege but I know there are many families who cannot afford this and the program we have here at Charlottesville City Schools, having children learn music with an instrument in fifth grade is invaluable.

You already have the investment in the instruments.

So please continue to actually expand it to fourth grade.

My children, my daughter went to private school starting in second grade because she struggled in public school in first grade in a school where they learn an instrument starting in third grade.

Last year became the concert master of the concert orchestra.

She is both in Mr. Koch's Charlottesville Singers.

She is a member of String Ensemble Now and

being the transition to our schools into the orchestra.

The orchestra made her transition into public school amazing and so much different again after all the difficulties she had had when she was a little child.

And I think every child deserves that opportunity.

Thank you so much.

Good evening.

I wrote this talk to text on my drive here.

So bear with me if I've got to stumble a little bit, but I hope the message comes out the same.

I'm very fortunate that I have an incredible friend who I went through the orchestra program with who just spoke right before the woman before me.

and she reminded me this was happening today and I threw everything on and came out the door to get here.

So I wrote a little something.

I was also in the music program starting in the fifth grade, and I remember the very special day when the students came in and showed us their instruments in our fourth grade class.

It was like the world had opened up, that the limitations of our education had been expanded.

I remember my first day at Walker, and I was so thrilled because I was walking to school with my mom's violin that she had had when she was a little girl when she was my age.

The teachers and the conductors who believed in me along the way gave me the confidence in a time that was so transitory, where some children are going through puberty and I was not, but you're still sensing that what was young behind you and what is older in front of you, and that none of it was going to be the same, and none of it was familiar.

But there was magic, learning to play an instrument, a sense of pride that I had never known before,

they gave me the confidence to navigate these things and a community to participate in.

I also started having suicidal ideation when I was 12 and making it to the art classes of school and music classes of school for the main reason that I was able to carry on.

I am now a professional jazz singer and have sung in some of the biggest stages in Charlottesville in front of hundreds of people

And I must say that if I hadn't have had such an impactful experience through the arts program of the Charlottesville City Schools beginning at such a young age, I might not be everything I am today.

School is not just plugging numbers and learning facts and storing history in our minds for testing later.

It's the exploration of knowledge and of creative thinking and the delight of learning.

When you take away the arts at such a young age, you might as well take away recess from kindergartners, which is proven to help the mental health of children and it is essential.

Otherwise, all we are left with is facts and numbers and the ability to perform without the love of performance.

Please reconsider cutting the funding to the fifth grade music program as it has changed my life and so many others for the better.

Good evening.

My name is Peter Davis.

I'm a teacher here at Charlottesville High School.

School board members, it's always great to see you, Dr. Gurley.

Fantastic to be here.

I had prepared what I wanted to say tonight before I knew everybody was going to be here.

This is great.

I've been kind of on a journey the last two or so years of just trying to come to as many school board meetings as I can and just listen and participate when I felt like I needed to.

And I wanted to make an observation.

And I think that this kind of really

It's amazing that all these people were sharing what they were sharing.

Because what I would love to see happen at school board meetings, which I think would transform a lot of what we do, we're at section 7.2 of the agenda right now, which is comments from the members of community.

If we could slide in a 7.3 and get board comments in response to members of the community, I think that would

from this side of the microphone makes such a huge difference because we prepare these speeches and some of these were very heartfelt.

Ms.

Torres, you give us a very warm thank you, but that's all we get to hear.

We come and we do these

you know speeches or whatever we prepared and it's just kind of a you know thank you and we go sit down and the next topic could be completely something different and the only way we really know if anything was heard was you know if we stick around for a couple hours till the very end when you get a chance to give comments so I think from our side of the microphone it would be great like this would just be awesome if

7.3 was you all just had a few minutes just to kind of respond.

Yeah, we hear you.

We understand we're working on this.

Even if you don't have an answer, that's great.

But I think you would see a lot more people coming and participating, which would make it a much more rich and meaningful time.

Maybe we could shave back a few minutes on some of the other reports and things like that if the meetings were going too long.

I don't know.

But I just think that you would definitely get a lot more students because I know as a student, it's got to be very intimidating to come up here.

I would just love to ask that from our side of things.

Mr. Davis, thank you.

And that is sincere.

And we have heard that and I'm not going to go rogue here, but it is just for your all's sake.

I mean, we do appreciate and we understand.

I understand from a student perspective and even from a parent or an adult in the community to carve out this time.

and to craft your statement and put your heart out there sometimes.

I hear you, this board hears you and we do appreciate that.

It's tough in the sense of being able

to respond beyond acknowledgement.

I will just if you'll allow me to quickly.

I mean, there has been a lot of email in response specifically to the music program.

We don't know anything yet as a board.

We are we are listening.

We are receiving emails.

I'm responding to emails.

So we appreciate and a lot of actually I'm looking

I don't know that there's any parents at this point who actually have students who have gone through orchestra.

Okay, I stand corrected, Ms.

Cooper does.

So we do appreciate that and we do know the value of this program, but we are, as I have stated in my response, we are receiving our first kind of update and report next month.

So, and that will be at a public meeting.

as far as what is being proposed in the committees regarding reconfiguration.

So I'm going to respond to that and again heartfelt and very sincerely do thank each and every one of you who takes the time to make comment and please know that via email as well you're always welcome to follow up with us and get a response.

I'm Victoria Hamilton.

I'm not a great public speaker.

I might get emotional.

Thank you.

I have a daughter who went through the Charlottesville City, well, both of my kids went through the Charlottesville City School of Systems.

My daughter started orchestra late.

She wanted to start when she found the viola in fourth grade.

That wasn't in her cards.

She started in eighth grade.

phenomenally with an opportunity to be one of two students that Mr. Brubaker offered to take in.

There was no junior orchestra.

She moved on to Laura Thomas's class.

I attended every single trip.

She was in choir.

She was in orchestra.

She later went into musical theater.

I can tell you

that these students on their trips, the relationships that they have because of their love and experience that they have in the orchestra and in all of the performing arts is unparalleled.

They, like others have said, these students at the age of 10

they're not afraid or intimidated to be wrong.

They're not afraid or intimidated to try something that's different, but they are excited by the joy that it gives them and the connections that they have with their friends.

And those connections are outside of the classroom, they're outside of the building and they're outside of the numbers that you guys are calculating what that value of joy and enrichment offers.

They're not all going to be STEM students.

They're not all going to be athletes.

But I guarantee you that music and art will enrich their STEM and their athletes and all of the other academics that they have available to them.

And they will carry those arts with them throughout all of their life.

How many of us in this room use trig every day?

Who does?

I don't.

When I'm out there maybe deciding where I'm going to plant a tree, ooh, maybe, but not.

But in my head, I'm singing a song.

I'm making up something.

My daughter does the same.

I think all of our kids in orchestra, how many?

I know right now Emily Thomas is also doing things with her music.

She's got students that are doing things that they've never done before.

Recording, editing, mixing things.

All of this

is inspired when these kids are in fifth grade.

They have that opportunity to strike a match and light a fire that they will carry forever.

Anybody else care to make comment?

Great, thank you.

And there will be another opportunity towards the end of the meeting.

So we appreciate each of you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

The first comment I would like to talk about is BKT.

I think it's still a concern for a lot of students, especially with the Tuesday BKT being dedicated for SEL learning.

And I was wondering if for clubs that want to have meetings during BKT, if we could allow them to meet during Tuesday BKTs and somehow integrate SEL learning with those club meetings.

That way, students who want to attend

Crochet Club or ESL peer tutoring can still go without having to miss the only BKT where they're allowed to leave the class.

Next, I'd like to talk about phone collections.

I've heard a lot of comments about phone collections that have happened recently.

I think a lot of students find it more of a distraction to have the SCAs come into class, especially during classes where there have been testing.

Since I found that very distracting.

I was next to a student who was concentrated on their work but they happened to have their phone on their desk and when they had it taken away I saw that they were upset and they commented that they feel more distracted now than when they were focused on the work because all they could think about was that their phone was just confiscated.

Also for another student who

needed their phone to measure their insulin.

They had their phone taken away and they were definitely upset with that.

And I feel like there should be a better way to do phone collections in consideration with students with 504 plans who need their phones.

And I've heard this cause a lot of anxiety for some of those students.

Additionally, I think

I've heard that the atrium now has a lot of congestion because a lot of the students are going to retrieve their phones and this affects not just those students who have their phone taken away but the students that didn't have theirs and this has caused some longer bus waits.

And lastly, I'd like to talk about the school lunches.

One comment I heard is that a student unfortunately received a milk that was several months expired.

So students are just wondering if we could ensure that the school milk is checked regularly because that student checked and saw that it was months expired, but they didn't know.

They wouldn't have known unless they checked themselves.

and then also for students who have dietary restrictions, I feel as though they have talked a lot about there's not been a lot of variety in food options, specifically for people who are vegan, vegetarian, or can only eat halal meat.

I know that they serve halal hot dogs, but those are only served once in a while and we do have a high Muslim population at our school.

So it's definitely concerning to hear that some students

We have Ms.

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

So the National Association of School Psychologists has designated, designated November 11 through the 15th for National School Psychology Week.

This is an annual opportunity to recognize how school psychologists partner with stakeholders and apply their expertise to the benefit of our youth.

Our five school psychologists are an essential part of our school mental health professional team.

Next week they'll be providing information to schools, teachers, members of the community about how their role can benefit staff and students through services and consultation.

And nothing can really highlight the breadth of the school psychology role as the goals that they individually and collectively set for themselves this year.

So this year,

This is a team of five people, but they are working on applying database decision making to intensifying intervention for English language learners.

They have the goal of developing clinical supervision skills, expanding the repertoire of evaluation materials that are culturally responsive and appropriate for the youth that we serve, developing more robust MTSS systems and expanding their individual counseling skills.

I believe we do this as an action item for resolution.

No, it says info action.

Sorry.

Can I get a motion for that, please?

So moved.

Ms.

Cooper, thank you.

Sorry about that.

Any questions, concerns, comments?

All right.

All in favor, please say yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Good evening, everyone.

For those that I have not connected with, my name is Bianca Johnson.

I'm the Family Engagement Coordinator here at Charlottesville City Schools.

Can you guys hear me okay?

November is Family Engagement Month.

As we know, this is a shared responsibility between our schools, students, families, and the community we live in.

These ongoing collaborations, conversations, and action continue to play a role in our students' success both academically and personally.

Thank you to all the folks in our buildings that continue to go the extra mile to make sure that our students and families are served, supported, connected, and taken care of.

Today I want to highlight the community partnerships that allow me to support the division-wide family engagement daily.

These partnerships and collaborations allow us to focus on meeting the basic needs of our students and families.

In alignment with our strategic plan, this falls under priority two, provide a culture of safety and belonging, target six, maintain strong community partnerships across the division, and strategy 12.

Enhance partnerships with community organizations to help supplement school-based programs and services available to students, families, and staff.

So we had a social just a minute ago with our partners.

They had to get home to their families, but I will share a little bit of the initiatives that we have.

And so we'll start with EdZone in collaboration with the Chris Long Foundation.

EdZone provides what we call EdZone Closets in all of our elementary schools so that our students can have access to essential things like soap, toothpaste, laundry, detergent, and so much more.

These closets are free and are ran by our EdZone champions in each of our buildings that support receiving orders and fulfilling them.

Thank you to the Foundation Executive Director and the Director of Marketing and Communications, Nancy Hopkins and Kane Turner.

And thank you to our EdZone Champions, Tracy Hardley from Burley Moran, Alyssa Drolshagan from Greenbriar, Miles Croci from Johnson, Gabby Moore from Summit, Denise Mowry from Trailblazer, and Lily Brookman from Jackson Viya.

Another partner we'll highlight is Seville Sock Love.

That's a nonprofit that donates Bombas socks to our EdZone closets.

This supplemental support helps offset purchasing costs and allows students to access socks as needed.

Thank you to Ms.

Caroline Simpson and her daughters Lindsay and Lily who started Seville Sock Love.

And next is Emergency Food Network.

They're what I like to call our supplemental partnership and their support allows us to provide equitable support of hygiene items to our secondary schools.

Emergency Food Network also supports us with food bags during Thanksgiving, winter and spring break.

Thank you to Deanna Fisher of the Emergency Food Network.

And next is the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, who continue to provide food support to us in a variety of ways.

Our local food bank also provides boxes of shelf-stable food during breaks, especially during the summer.

Thank you to Colleen Berger for your collaboration and support, as well as Nelda Litwiller, who couldn't be with us tonight.

The Food Bank also collaborates to support Buford Eats.

And Buford Eats is one of our distribution sites under the Good Food School Market Program that allows free distribution of free produce and shelf-stable food internally to our middle school students.

And that team works hard to set up pop-up style events during and after school to make sure our students and families are fed.

Tara Johnson, one of Buford's social workers, runs this team.

Thank you all for allowing me to acknowledge these folks for Family Engagement Month.

And when I come back to present in January, I'll take a deeper dive with data and impact reports of the work of these community partnerships and collaborations.

As always, thank you so much for everything that you and the partners do.

So much appreciation and such a deep impact and reach.

And it's been fun to watch you grow and blossom.

And we really do appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Miss Dooley.

All right, thank you.

Any questions or comments?

Before we we do vote on this, if it's all right, and I think to correct me procedurally, but I was hoping to in this we do have.

Yes.

All right.

Any opposed?

Thank you.

All right.

All right.

First, we have Ms.

Good evening.

The FY 2526 budget calendar was presented last month for your review.

There hasn't been any changes to the calendar that has been presented.

If you have any questions now, I can answer them.

May I have a second, please?

Second.

Any questions, discussion?

All right, all in favor?

Real quick, associated with this and reflecting on the acronym, new acronym we learned today.

I mean, it's my understanding that I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, Ms.

Okay.

Just wanted to reflect on that.

All right.

We have a motion and a second.

Yes.

Any opposed?

All right.

And Ms.

Last month I presented to you the anticipated gain share that we will have for our fiscal year ending in 2024.

Staff made recommendations to take the school division share that gain share and put it towards capital improvement projects.

If there's any questions, I can answer them.

These funds will be in our fund balance.

And then for clarification too, and just for the public's sake, if it's okay, if the board doesn't mind that one of these items that we've had a lot of discussion about was the light, the track lighting, so that that is also part of that.

Correct.

Great, thank you.

I see the slide up there now.

I didn't see it before, so I just wanted to bring that to everybody's attention.

All right, so this is up.

We need a motion and a second, please.

I have a clarifying question.

So hold on one second.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Just we and I'm very happy to solve this.

But we have donations coming in from the athletic club up to

almost $80,000.

No, I put the whole project in for its full cost.

So, because at the time I did not know what the donations or grants towards this project is gonna be.

So it'll be less than that.

Yes.

Yes.

Any opposed?

All right, thank you.

All right, we will now have items for discussion.

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

It's my pleasure to provide our fall literacy update with you this evening.

We will start with a look at our present K to 12 literacy data so that we have an idea of where we are.

Then I will share with you what we're doing and have already implemented to support student achievement.

And finally, I'll share with you what our next steps are in literacy.

Everything we do is rooted in our strategic plan.

Priority one focuses on an increased academic achievement, specifically that our students, all of our students, are able to read and write with proficiency.

As we look at the data in just a moment, we will focus on targets one, nine, and 12, which address the early literacy and reading achievement of all students.

We're going to start by looking at our current Virginia Language and Literacy Screening System data, VALS.

VALS has replaced the PALS assessment effective this year and serves as the required universal screener for all students in K-2.

A literacy screener is designed to identify students at high risk for reading difficulties.

VALS is made up of multiple subtests that assess foundational skills necessary for reading development, including both code-based and language skills.

If a student is identified in a high-risk band as needing additional support, that student then receives a student reading plan.

This was the first time we administered and used this data.

It was a definite learning curve for our staff and our students.

With the code-based and language-based subtests to administer, it took quite some time and required many people.

However, we were able to get a full and comprehensive look at each learner.

The assessment not only identified bands of risk, but it also provided instructional indicators and gave us guidance regarding additional supports for each student.

As you can see, overall, we have 36% of our kindergarten, 27% of first grade, and 37% of second grade identified in the high-risk span.

This is slightly more students than were previously identified on PALS.

However, the depth of the screener takes a much deeper look at our students.

In total, we have 316 student reading plans in kindergarten through second grade based on the data.

The graph on the right is the demographic breakdown of those 316 students.

Reading specialists, ESL teachers, teachers of special ed, and classroom teachers have all worked together

to create and implement student reading plans that align with every student's needs.

The goal of the student reading plan is to explicitly and intentionally make decisions that will support the student and move them to a different band of risk.

Those interventions and supports are in addition to the core instruction.

I look forward to seeing and sharing with you the growth that our students will make in the future.

This year,

VALS was required in grades K-2 for all learners, but in third grade, it's required for only a very small subset of students.

In the future, VALS will expand to include four to eight.

In the meantime, we've used the DIBELS assessment as our universal screener for identifying students that would benefit from additional supports.

How has the state released data on statewide performance on VALS?

So they haven't released anything yet because the testing windows for kindergarten just recently closed.

for schools that started later than us.

It's all based on the start dates, but they have not provided us anything yet.

In talking with others and surrounding school divisions, there is a higher number identified.

I do, I'm sorry.

So if you don't mind before you jump like to different grades, is it okay if we ask questions just based on this part?

So back to K through two.

working with the reading specialists during wind time.

With other students, it might be wind time with the classroom teacher.

Some students are getting their needs met by the ESL teacher during their language skills.

It really varies, but everybody's working together and they are meeting the 2.5 hours of EIRI time that PALS prescribes for them.

So every kid is getting two and a half additional hours.

It's just in a different format, depending on what their need is.

That's a lot.

It's a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, are you surprised or are you and your team or your colleagues that maybe you've collaborated with in adjacent counties that it did pick up an increased number of students who were struggling?

We knew to anticipate it.

So last year, that's why the reading specialists all piloted the student reading plans and began laying the groundwork for it.

Because we knew when we shifted and started using DIBELS, more students were identified on DIBELS than PALS.

And we knew that many of the subtests were similar on VALs and DIBELS.

So we knew it was going to be closer to those numbers.

I'll hold the rest of the questions for later.

I can give you a perfect example.

Like the kindergarten, many students that are identified in kindergarten, one of the requirements is that they already knew 12 letters.

That's a lot to start the school year.

And so the fact that so many students were identified, it was because they didn't know 12 numbers.

But that's okay.

We've built it in our curriculum.

They're gonna get it at the right time and pace.

I need

I'm sorry, you just kind of started with DIBELS.

So on DIBELS, instead of identifying bands of risk, it identifies the level or type of support that the learner may need for reading.

Blue and green represents students that should receive the instruction that they need with minimal support through the core program.

Yellow indicates students that may need some additional strategic support in order to access the grade level text.

Red represents students identified as needing intensive support for the core curriculum.

As I shared earlier, when we first implemented DIBELS, we saw higher percentages students identified for intensive supports.

when compared to PALS.

However, we have slightly more than a quarter of our students identified in the intensive support band this year.

These students also have student reading plans because we recognize the value of intentionally planning and supporting our students on the data.

In total, we have about 344 student reading plans in third through sixth grade.

Again, the graph on the right shows the demographics of the students meeting intensive support at each grade level.

This allows us to see that starting in third grade, more of our students in the intensive support band are students of color.

I'll share with you in a few moments some of the things that we're doing to support these students and ensure that all students are able to access the core instruction and grade level text without additional supports.

It's time.

I guess just there's a significant jump in Black students being identified from the VALS, like second graders to DIBELS third graders, whereas our white students seem to be performing better.

Like, is that a function of the test or

It's very hard to compare the two different tests.

What I can say is what we're seeing is the students on the DIBELS that are identified there, it tends to be because there is an oral reading passage instead of measuring the discrete skills in isolation.

So it's the application of all those skills into text.

Of course.

So our kids are doing well on the code-based and then transitioning into the... Okay.

Also in the fall, we administer MAP, the measure of academic progress by NWEA in grades two to 12.

MAP is a dynamic and adaptive assessment that measures student achievement and reading in the moment and growth over time.

This chart shows you where we are in the moment.

It is important to keep in mind that the map growth is different than DIBELS and VALS because it's a computer adaptive test.

That means every student gets a unique set of test questions based on the response from the previous question.

On the left, you can see the five ranges, also known as goal descriptors, based on NWEA norms and correspond to the percentile ranges.

The lowest range red covers the first through the 20th percentiles.

Similar to other fall data measures, the students in red would benefit from the most intensive supports.

The chart on the right again shows the demographics of those students in the red at each grade band.

Here is where we really see the discrepancy in our student groups.

At each level, the majority of the students in red are students of color.

Yeah, you know, I'm going to ask something.

So how does what does that look like at the high school level?

Right?

I mean, are you able to really get get those students focused for that intervention?

We are, and it's been great.

We have, and it's coming up in just a few, so I'm gonna be, I feel like I'm talking around.

We have two reading specialists full-time this year at the high school.

They've implemented the screener.

They are pulling kids.

They are pushing in and supporting the classroom.

They're also working with a special ed teacher.

So the same practices we have at the elementary schools, we're being able to implement with that intentionality and intensity at the high school.

Additionally, we've added new novels because at the high school level you need to be engaged in the act of reading and completing full text.

I'm sorry if I missed it.

What's the number of students that are falling into that risk, higher risk at the high school level?

At the high school?

Actually, is that just high school or is that six through 12?

That's just high school.

Each one of those students have a plan.

I'm sorry, say that again.

So student reading plans are not required at the high school, but we have still put them into practice.

They're not required as part of the VLA.

The Virginia Literacy Act only goes K to eight.

Family involvement is tied into this.

Yeah, it requires the family engagement piece.

So we communicate, we get permission, we let them know, we include their voice, families that want to like have a discussion about what's going on and what's happening with their student.

Can you walk me through what that looks like?

Like, you know, is that a phone call or email or bringing the family and having a roundtable discussion to say, here's some of the things that your kid is struggling with.

Yeah, it looks like all of the above.

So it starts by, it's a generated letter that we send through Parents Square.

And then from there, it depends on the responses.

It could be a phone call, it would be a visit.

It's an invitation to come and meet or to do a Zoom meeting.

So I know VLA, I mean, especially the K through two, this was it's kind of in the mandate, right?

It's baked in.

It has to happen.

And so we as a division, you all have taken this and are going to or have expanded the same criterion and expectations.

We have.

I just want to applaud you all on that.

Thank you.

Real quick, we want to understand, I think your graph on the left here, if I'm looking through for the high school, you have a third to 25% of the students are in the high school basically needing intensive support.

That are served through student reading plans.

We aren't we, some of the others are

We, 117 kids, we've created student reading plans for that are supported in a pullout program with the reading specialists.

All right, but still there's a third of our kids basically are struggling with reading in high school.

Okay.

I just want to make sure I understand that correctly.

I think, so the two people aren't doing it all themselves.

The two reading specialists are doing the 117 at that building.

Right?

So just for for correction, and maybe Mr. Meyer, I'm not sure if this is your question here.

So the red bands are the percentage total percentage of all the high school students, right?

So

I'm rounding around, but a third of our students, though, of the high school are having reading deficiencies.

No, not necessarily.

Hi, I'm Caitlin Bryce.

I'm the secondary literacy specialist.

So I support Buford and CHS.

So based on their MAP score, if they tested at the 20th percentile or below based on their MAP score, they were screened absolutely no further questions asked about whether they need screening.

They were screened by the reading specialist.

that doesn't necessarily mean that once they were screened, they qualified for reading because one data point is just a snapshot in time of that day.

So a student could have tested, tested poorly.

They screened and it was like, oh, you're above benchmark.

You're fine.

So that map score on the left that you're seeing that indicated to us students who were potentially at risk.

It's just a screener.

OK, thank you for that clarification.

Sorry, thank you.

Question, sorry.

So what is the real number of students on a caseload of two people for ninth through 12th grade?

117 is the actual caseload.

OK.

OK.

She's not one of the reading specialists.

And they are doing this work as well.

Right.

It is also it also does include and I don't have a few of them are getting their services through special education.

And so I'm also interested, we hear from community partners from time to time, whether it's

UVA college mentors, whether it's Madison House, whether it's 100 Black men about how they can get involved and do some of this work.

Are they engaging in this type of work at all or like it's trained work?

Okay.

Thank you.

That's helpful to know.

Okay.

Several years ago, Charlottesville City Schools made a commitment to move away from our students earning a writing verified credit from an SOL assessment and instead implemented the writing portfolio assessment.

The WPA is a collective writing portfolio that begins when our students enter CHS in ninth grade and continues until their 12th grade year.

Students complete different writing pieces in each grade level that becomes a cumulative portfolio of their writing growth.

Last year, the class of 2024 had 220 students that earned their writing verified credit through the WPA process.

That's a huge celebration and a testament to our students and staff at CHS.

Additionally, for the current class of 2025, we already have 197 students that have earned their writing verified credit through the WPA process.

Additionally, I want to say thank you to each of you for your continued support as we made the shift from the writing SOL test to the portfolio model and the locally awarded verified credits.

Now that we've looked at the data and have an understanding of where our students are performing in each grade level, it's time to look at what we're doing to support those learners.

Last year, we submitted to the state our division literacy plan for K-8.

That plan focuses on curriculum assessment, professional development, and family engagement as the big umbrellas.

Under the same area of focus, I wanted to share with you what's happening at our schools to make a positive impact on student performance.

I will start with K-8 and then I'll go to the CHS plan.

Under curriculum, we're fortunate to have already implemented and approved core curriculum in K to five.

We felt pretty confident in our implementation of HMH.

However, we did identify that kindergarten through second grade would benefit from the structured literacy component of HMH.

So we purchased the structured literacy program and implemented that this year.

Structured literacy refers to the systemic, systematic explicit instruction of foundational skills.

Last spring was the first time that our students in fifth and eighth grade took the integrated reading and writing portion of the SOL.

The ability to read something critically, think and analyze the text, then create a thoughtful written response in one sitting is a very different skill than writing a piece across multiple days and using the full writing process.

We know that our students will benefit from both types of writing instruction and we have now implemented that starting in third grade up.

Additionally, in some of our upper grade classrooms, we've purchased and implemented novel studies.

In fact, I believe our sixth graders just recently completed their reading of the book Ghost by Jason Reynolds.

The new 2024 English standards require our students to apply their reading skills in a much more rigorous manner.

In order to do this, they needed exposure and practice with complex text.

We've also been intentional in the selection of our texts to ensure that we provide representation and diversity as well as student choice.

Under assessment, we've already talked about beginning the school year with the universal screeners across all grade levels that has allowed us to make the data-driven decisions for intervention and instruction.

We've implemented 492 student reading plans in K-4 and 261 in grades 5-8 for a total of 749 student reading plans.

That means we have 749 students that we are providing interventions and closely progress monitoring their reading achievement and working collaboratively with those families to ensure success.

Professional learning has also been aligned with the VLA this year.

We have 93 members and staff members in total enrolled in letters this year.

At the end of the school year, fingers crossed, all of our teachers that support kindergarten through fifth grade will have completed letters.

Additionally, some of our teachers are enrolled in the Virginia Literacy Partnership Canvas courses.

We have to acknowledge that this has been a big lift and a little challenging at times.

However, at the end of the school year, we will have aligned expectations about what evidence-based literacy instruction is and what it looks like in our classrooms.

This includes our content area, fine and performing arts, math teachers, everyone K-8.

We've talked about breaking the silos and recognizing that literacy instruction is a component of every classroom, and this training supports that.

Finally, families and caregivers are essential in the work that we're doing.

We're being intentional in planning literacy and math events at our elementary schools.

Jackson Via recently hosted the Booktoberfest, and I believe that every family went home with a book to read.

Each school is also working with the wonderful and amazing Bianca Johnson to plan and communicate these events to increase family engagement.

Now for the CHS plan.

Again, under the umbrella of curriculum, the nine to 12 English teachers updated their pacing guides with the new 2024 English standards

Together, they made sure that every instructional unit is clearly mapped out to meet the new, more rigorous requirements of the standards.

In addition, they implemented new novel studies that were directly aligned to the updated standards.

This approach gives students the chance to engage deeply with complex texts,

building their critical thinking and analytical skills, which are essential for high school and beyond.

By focusing on these texts and pacing revisions, we're ensuring that students not only understand core content, but are also equipped to handle the increased rigor of the standards.

For assessment, all high school English classes are using the map data.

This tool provides valuable data-driven insights into each student's progress, helping us tailor our instruction.

At the recent PL Day, Kaylin Bryce, our secondary specialist, led the six to 12 teachers in a vertical assessment analysis about how to support scaffolding and differentiated decision-making for our students.

We've also implemented a universal screener, which we've talked about, to help identify those below the 20th percentile on MAP and then following up with the DIBELS assessment to help us quickly identify students which require the additional support.

Beyond the initial screenings, we're using intervention and progress monitoring strategies to support the students.

This ensures they not only receive the help that they need, but allows us to track their progress.

Having the two full-time reading specialists join the CHS team this year has allowed us to support more students with interventions and supports.

And finally, we're dedicating time to professional learning focused on the WPA.

This work ensures that our students are consistently and accurately assessing student writing, teacher, sorry, based on clear shared standards.

Additionally, we're emphasizing data-driven scaffolding techniques in our professional development.

Teachers are learning to use the data and provide the targeted scaffolds.

Moving forward, our focus will be on a few actions to support continuous improvement in literacy instruction.

First, we will continue to closely monitor student reading plans and their progress monitoring data.

This will allow us to track the effectiveness of our current interventions and ensure that they are meeting the learning needs identified through the Virginia SOLs.

We have also begun to gather data from our staff and students on the literacy programs and interventions currently in place at the high school.

Staff insights help us identify any additional supports or adjustments needed while student feedback gives us perspective on their engagement and understanding.

We recently shared a text offering survey with the CHS students.

We just started to analyze, but we already can tell which texts they're excited and looking forward to.

And we even have a list of potential titles to explore for future use.

Another key step is exploring the high quality instructional materials for our middle school and high schoolers to ensure that they meet the Virginia standards as the VLA expands and provides us with more guidance of approved materials.

Finally, we're preparing to submit an update of the division literacy plan to the state in December.

The update will reflect our ongoing progress and adjustments.

that we have made to better support our students' literacy development.

This report will not only highlight the achievements, but it will also detail continued areas of focus, ensuring that we're transparent and data-driven in our approach.

Yeah.

I guess one thing that struck me watching my kids go through here recently, the K-8, is the lower prioritization of spelling.

Can you speak to that and how that fits into this now?

Encoding is now, when we talk about spelling, we're actually talking about their ability to encode.

Decoding is breaking the word apart to read it.

Encoding is putting it out so that others can read it, so writing and spelling it.

Encoding is a component of our assessments now, and it's an instructional indicator, and we're

We are teaching it.

The style is a little different from when I went to school.

Thank you and appreciate that clarification.

Excuse my ignorance on that.

Second, dyslexia.

Everything that all of our intervention programs that we have selected support students with dyslexia.

Additionally, the explicit instruction that we're providing in 4.1 supports students with dyslexia.

Thank you again.

Please let us know what else we can do to support.

And again, as everybody probably knows, literacy has always been the main reason why I'm sitting right here.

So appreciate just how much we as a division have continued to grow and evolve and support students.

The one thing I would be curious in is in, say,

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

That is a great point.

Is it possible to identify those students and see where they like reflect from last last year, like a cohort that shows us

who they were, what they were last year, two years now, like are they trending any better?

Like where were we?

And I'm new here, so comparative to where they were over some time so that we, maybe my newer colleagues and I can see some look back data in addition to as Ms.

Torres suggested moving forward.

That would be great.

Appreciate you.

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

I'm here to talk with you all about our ESL program and how we're serving multilingual learners in Charlottesville City Schools.

So serving our multilingual learners is woven through our strategic plan.

One thing we focus on a lot is priority one, increasing academic achievement.

And I'll talk about some of those things as we go through.

But also, a lot of the work we're doing specifically in the grant I'm going to talk about later will help with providing a culture of safety, wellness, and belonging.

And then for priority three on the next screen that focuses on building teacher capacity,

We worked a lot last year and I'll talk more this year about using our PSYOP strategies to build capacity with our teachers and then also thinking about hiring staff members that are linguistically and culturally have the backgrounds of our students are all things we're thinking about specifically.

So today I'm going to talk with you a little bit about the Welcome Center, specifically sort of a broad range of last year and the students and families we served.

We'll talk about enrollment and staffing changes, our language proficiency data based on what the VDOE report says, SOA adjustments, which is a change, a new initiative, and then adjustments, enhancements, and next steps.

So first, the Welcome Center.

So again, all of this information is sort of a retrospect thinking about school year 23 to 24.

So during the 23-24 school year, we had 224 total English learners enrolled in Charlottesville City Schools.

And so that Welcome Center was often the first division contact for many of those families.

Of those numbers, it's 155 families.

In the Welcome Center, we help the families gather documents that they need for school enrollment.

We do a language screener, which is required to enroll them in our ESL program.

And then we also communicate greatly with the school staff.

Another point that I think is important to think about is that while we had 224 English learners enrolled, we had 104 English learners transferred out of Charlottesville City Schools.

So that's why we didn't have 224 total new students.

And you can see on the chart there that the majority of our students are in the elementary.

I separated kindergarten because we have so many new kindergartners that enroll every year.

And then you can see elementary, Walker, Buford, and CHS.

When you look at this next slide, oh, and one other thing I wanted to say, I apologize.

With our school communication, an integral part is our administrative technicians who do all of the work when we have any new student.

Often with our students who are coming in from a different country, they need a little bit more support.

It takes time to gather the documents.

And so that communication between the schools and the Welcome Center is really vital.

And we couldn't do our work without the strong work that they're doing at the schools.

As you can see from this next slide, our students transfer from lots of different places.

So 44% of them are coming from different countries, straight to Charlottesville, with Afghanistan being the highest.

And then you see a large portion of our students come from Central America, from Mexico, and then from other countries.

But one thing that was shocking to me when I pulled this was 23% of our students come from Albemarle.

And so I think that's something that we need to be continuing to think about as we look at our collaboration.

I didn't have this in the slide before, but of the 104 that transferred out, 31% went to Albemarle.

And we often see students go back and come back and go back.

And so for the students, having similar instruction, having similar classes is really helpful for them.

And then the last slide about the welcome center.

I just assume that's a function of housing, right?

Absolutely.

I think that when families, some of our families come in and they don't necessarily have permanent housing and they can stay for the year without the permanent housing, but then the following year they would transfer.

So that's part of it.

And then also housing jobs.

The 23% coming in from Albemarle, what does that translate to as far as numbers?

Did you say that?

It's 23% of 224.

I can't do it.

Okay.

So a lot.

Yeah.

And again, you think that is housing?

Yeah, last year in particular, Albemarle started out with a lot of families and hotels.

And so again, even if they moved into permanent housing in the city, they were allowed to stay for the year in Albemarle.

And then they all transferred to us this summer.

Gotcha.

100, about 100.

And I pulled a little bit when I looked at that.

So 31% went to Albemarle, 28% went to other Virginia schools.

So a lot of them are staying in Virginia, 17% went out of state, and then there was some went back to different countries and things like that.

So more transient.

All right, so one aspect of our enrollment to note is that since 2021 we've seen a general increase in our numbers, but I do think that we're slowing down slightly.

Our numbers are slowing down slightly from spring even of this past year to fall of this year.

We're in regular conversations with the staff at the IRC to know what their estimate of families that come in.

One shift that they've made, which might have to do with our numbers, is they're not having families come here who don't have a family connection that they can start living with.

So we're not starting families in hotels anymore.

And so I think that that's one reason why our numbers are slightly lower, because there's fewer families coming right now because of housing.

Again, we have a rough estimate from the IRC about families who come, but we don't get any indication from families who come on their own from Central and South America.

And so that's a really hard thing to make an estimate for as families come.

So last year, based on our projected enrollments month, I requested three and a half, and you all granted three and a half additional staff members.

So I just want to thank you for that because it's greatly needed.

The additional staffing we received was really essential in both supporting our program, our students, and our schools as our numbers were growing.

Charlottesville has historically kept a 30 to one student to staff ratio.

But in the Virginia Assembly last year, they passed a pretty big budget shift that shifts the Virginia's 50 to 1 ratio to now be a ratio based on language proficiency level.

So it's under our new standards of quality.

And you can see that now for student English proficiency level 1, the new ratio is a 1

One ESL teacher to 20 English learners.

So it's a big shift because Charlottesville already was staffing higher than the state required.

We didn't have to make a huge shift this year.

And it started this year, but we don't have to be in full compliance until next school year.

When is, so is it the WIDA is what?

Yes.

We do another big report the end of March.

And I believe, I'm looking towards Ms.

Lewis, I believe that information was submitted with our student record collection.

I'm just curious from knowing how many hires we need to be in compliance,

I would imagine it's next.

So our students will take their access test between January and March of this coming year.

So I don't know if it's the budget.

Yeah.

Sorry, clarify on that.

You don't get two dollars.

It's only one.

You get additional money based on your LCI.

Right.

because this is an additional service.

It's not an additional student.

But we're doing well in that we don't have as many more we need to hire.

Any other questions about this?

I don't have a question, but I think the show up and the advocacy at some of our, even our joint school board, city council meeting.

And I assume that we will have this kind of baked into that conversation and presentation.

And I think, you know, there anyway.

This next slide just shows the breakdown of where we think that new staffing would need to go because you can see, and so those are the ones highlighted in red are the schools that we think the new staffing would need to go in some form.

I'm sorry, Dr. Fouts.

Could you,

I don't remember hearing, what is a monitor?

And I added that because that is part of the new SOQ.

So it's a, I don't know, did it say that on the last slide?

It's a one to 100.

Yeah, one to 100 is from our monitor students.

The two years after the students exit, so they get a 4.4 or higher and they exit, they are still, they still have some services that the ESL teachers give them.

They have

They can have different accommodations on their assessments and we also do some progress monitoring quarterly just to make sure everything's fine and they're doing well and they're accessing their content.

So it's much less of a commitment for the teacher, but it's still something that we're tracking.

So it's important, I think, to remember in Charlottesville City, 41% of our students are at the level one or entering level for English language proficiency.

Because we have so many new immigrants every year, our numbers continue to show our higher need at the earlier language proficiency levels.

So this is our access score data from the state.

Students in our ESL program take this annual language proficiency test every year.

The state uses language proficiency growth data to measure how well divisions are serving their multilingual learners.

And starting this year, English language proficiency growth will count as 10% in the school accreditation.

So as far as I know, that's the first time this has been counted in part of this.

The video sets an annual target that increases every year.

And you can see this target in bold in the chart.

Previously to COVID, CCS had a much higher percentage of students making progress.

However, we've not yet recovered from that.

And you can see this year we actually slipped from 49% to 45%.

I'm going to talk a little bit about that in the next slide.

So again, you can see there 2018-2019 the last time we measured before COVID and then our most recent.

Again, the state has continued to increase the progress target.

It will increase up until 58% and then that is where it will stay.

So I know how hard our teachers, I know how hard our students are working.

So when I see this data, I continually ask myself why we're not making better progress.

And one point that I think we can't ignore that was talked about a few months ago when we looked at our SOL data is that we are still in recovery from students being out of school during the pandemic.

especially for our language learners that was a time where they were continuing to build their language in their first language but not necessarily in English.

Another thing to consider is that as our numbers grow across our schools now we have nearly 20% of our Charlottesville City students are English learners and in some schools it's more like 25% or closer to 30% and that has an impact on the school as a whole

Whereas before when maybe 10% of our students were English learners, a lot of work could be done with the ESL teacher and the student.

And now we're really thinking about building capacity of classroom teachers to both think about language and content at the same time as they're working with these students.

And then another thing that I think is important because we have so many new students.

Out of the 715 who were tested, 27% of those students were not counted because you have to be in the country for a year and a half because we test in January.

So you have to be there in a year and a half to show a January test to a January test growth.

They do something called the screener when they come in, but we can't compare those.

And so because we continually get new students and that is a lot of times where schools and classes focus on helping these brand new students building their language and that part doesn't get tested.

So that's a hard part in Charlottesville City just due to our group of students.

I broke this next part down so you can see if we look at just our elementary, middle, and high, our elementary schools are actually doing a much better job with building our students' progress, so they're almost at that 54% that the state is asking for.

At the middle and high school is where we're struggling.

And the test gets harder because the test is measuring their ability to use academic language across contents, right?

And so the test gets harder.

There's a sixth through eighth grade band and then a ninth through twelfth grade band.

And so we really need to think about when we're looking at our staffing, do we need to shift a little bit more to the high school again, following the new SOQ.

And then do we also need to think about, at Buford and at CHS, how are we serving our language learners, both in the content and in language development, and what are some ways we could shift those services?

So that's what we're going to be thinking about a lot this year.

So things that we can move that doesn't require funding or huge changes, but that would better provide support for our students.

Another big change happening this year is the adjustment of when we count English language learners' SOL scores as part of our school accreditation.

So English learners are exempt from taking the reading SOL the first year in the country, and they have a one-time exemption for the social studies SOL, but there is no exemption for math or science SOL, so they take it the first year that they are here, if they are third grade and up.

Historically, English learner data was removed from school accreditation if the students were in US schools for 11 semesters or less, and that's specific to Virginia.

This was done because the current research suggests that it takes five to seven years to build your academic language in order to be able to access grade level content.

However, starting this year, this state has dropped the SOA adjustment from 11 semesters to three semesters.

So therefore the SOL scores for English learners in their second year in the country will now count as part of accreditation.

This argument towards counting English learners, SOLs, is because there is a fear that otherwise schools would ignore that population and that specific gap group.

However, this is a big adjustment for schools, especially for schools who have a high English learner population.

So it's important to remember when scores come out in the spring that schools are not necessarily doing worse.

We are just looking at the information very differently than we have in the past.

And when you look at the raw SOL scores, if you click one more time, it's the same slide.

I think this is really important for us to think about.

When we look at our raw SOL scores, so this is third through eighth grade in reading and math, you can see that our English learners are not passing at high numbers.

However, when you take growth into account, which is still part of accreditation, then our scores jump to a nearly 90% pass rate.

So using growth as a measure is a much more asset-based approach when we're thinking about our learners and how they're growing.

And that can really show you how much both language and content progress and pretty rapid progress that these students are making.

They do, but they can get a bilingual dictionary, which is helpful if you're literate in your first language, maybe not for our younger kids.

If they just have learned how to read in English, they can get an English dictionary.

They can get audio for everything but reading but that sometimes can be helpful for our higher L's who have the oral language but not necessarily for our newer arrivals.

Yes, and so it's going to look really different than it has in the past.

I mean, we know that the accreditation, and I pulled this part of the framework out, looks really different for all of it does, but again, we won't be able to really compare how our L's did last year versus this year unless we look at the raw data.

Okay, this next thing is really exciting.

So I'm excited to share with you that our school division was chosen by the state as a recipient of the School Support for Afghan Students grant.

This grant comes from the federal government and was allocated through an office called the Office of New Americans, which is within this Department of Social Services at the state level.

and we are hopeful that we'll be getting this funding by December and we'll have two years to spend this grant.

So it's a very short timeline, but this funding is supporting both academic performance and community integration of Afghan students and their families who have arrived here since July of 2021 when the Taliban took over to the present.

And so what we are hoping to do with this funding is hire four bilingual instructional assistants, one at Jackson-Biah, Johnson, Walker, and Buford.

We're hoping to hire IRC staff that would be here embedded in Charlottesville High School to be working with students.

We can also use this money for family workshops.

So I've been talking with the Adult Learning Center to bring in some family workshops for

For our family members, we can do other collaboration with area nonprofits, different tutoring opportunities, summer camps and internships, again, for this very specific group of students and families.

We did our own numbers.

We have to wait.

The VDOE will give us, but it's around 180 students total and out of about 750 English learners.

So it's a large number.

All right, so adjustments and enhancements.

One thing we did last summer that was really successful is we partnered with Albemarle County and we had a joint summer school for high school students specifically to gain and to take a six-week course and some virtual part.

to get an entire English credit.

Right now, we do a lot of recovery work and other things in the summer, but it's hard to get an entire credit.

And so we were able to partner.

We had one of our ESL teachers here from the city was the administrator of that program.

And then there were some

students from the county.

There are probably about 20 students total from the county and then six of them were from the city and students were able to walk out with either an English 10 or an English 11 credit which really helps put them on a pathway, a four-year pathway to graduation because English is the only credit you need four years of to graduate and so we are already planning on building that for this this coming year and we can use some federal funding for that as well.

And then the other thing we are continuing to build out is our PSYOP training that I talked about at the beginning.

So, so far all Charlottesville City Schools staff has had an intro to PSYOP training at the school and then a PSYOP 1 training at our September division PL day.

We'll continue with PSYOP 2 trainings this year and then we'll go through PSYOP 3 and 4 next school year.

So what I'm thinking about for the rest of the year is to have a goal of having all of our teachers sign up trained, continuing to think about the immediate need of our ESL staffing, and then moving forward during budget season.

We want to continue to think about, as we're thinking through reconfiguration and where different places are going, thinking about where it makes the most sense to hold the Welcome Center once we have different buildings that we're opening and using in different ways.

So that's something I want us to keep in mind.

Thank you.

That was a very informative presentation.

I appreciate all the data and everything.

It was very well presented.

Thank you.

The one thing I know we got a presentation on last month too was attendance.

I don't have specific numbers, but I would say similar to what the big picture is that our English learners certainly, there have been some families that have a hard time coming to school every day.

We're working on, but the good thing is all of the things you heard about with attendance across Charlottesville City Schools, our English learners fall into those supports as well.

and we have some additional supports.

There's one person who works as a family engagement specifically with our language learners so she can do home visits and things like that.

In terms of barriers, I don't see anything different or specific from our general population.

All right.

All right.

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

Tonight I will present the draft calendars for 2025-2026 and 2026-2027.

We developed these calendar drafts through a collaborative process involving parents, teachers, administrators to do this work.

And just as a note, I want to say that during this process, as you know, there was an inquiry from the board regarding four-day and year-round calendar models.

In response, we researched the implementation of those calendars nationwide.

and presented those findings to the board at the October 19th work session.

While some districts have adopted those models, research does not conclusively show significant academic benefits.

Therefore, the proposals that I will be presenting tonight will continue to focus on traditional calendar structures.

So during our calendar preparation, the Star Break and calendar had shared out with their community.

We also incorporated feedback from a community survey, which received strong support for both of our drafts.

Let's go ahead and take a look at the 2025-2026 calendar draft.

This calendar has a start date of August 13th and an end date of May 29th so teachers would have the full months of June and July off to refresh and rejuvenate if they choose to.

We moved the November family conference day to October 3 to be closer to the earlier end of the first quarter, which was requested by the committee.

We now have a PL day on November 3 so that staffs

We still have the Monday and the Tuesday for PL and a teacher work day in early November.

Those two days, based on our committee, have been highly valued over the years by our community.

and as a note Albemarle also has that day before election day as a division PL day.

We will be implementing that as well if this draft is approved.

Our new calendar draft has a three-day Thanksgiving break as our community is accustomed to.

The second quarter ends at winter break as it does this year.

And there are still two full weeks of winter break, which also is highly valued by our community.

And we do have that workday after the winter break for teachers to work on report cards.

Spring break is the first full week of April as we expect Albemarle to be.

We have the half student day, half teacher work day in April, right before spring break, which was a request of the committee to have a work day right there near spring break.

Something I want to particularly highlight, highlight I can't speak right now, because I'm so excited about this new thing.

But I do want to highlight those two bright pink marks on the calendar.

Those are two mental wellness days that have been added into the calendar.

One in September and one in March.

As we know that our teachers have asked for additional time to refresh, rejuvenate, get themselves in a great place for their students.

So those are added new for this calendar.

Each month has either a holiday, teacher work day, PL day, or mental wellness day for much needed breaks for our teachers and students.

This 25-26 calendar is 177 days, but we do meet the 990 hours that are required by the Virginia Department of Education.

We have approximately 1,020 hours based on rough calculations.

Now this calendar is similar to the 2026-2027 calendar, or it is similar to this one.

So if we want to go look at that one, the format or formula is basically the same.

The difference, there are two differences, other than the change in the dates because of the calendar, but there are two differences.

If you look at May,

Memorial Day in the 2026-2027 calendar, which is always on the last Monday of the month, Memorial Day falls after the last day of school for that calendar.

So that's a little difference.

And the other difference is because it falls after the last day of school, it has 170.

We believe these calendars effectively balance instructional time, breaks, and professional learning opportunities for our staff,

They also provide our students with well-rounded and supportive learning environments.

And this information is presented to you today as information, and we do hope that in December, we will be able to ask you to take action.

The process was to ask principals to share with us teachers and parents and then to see if the administrator was interested or willing to serve on the panel, on the committee.

And so principals provided me with teachers.

So there are teachers from some schools, not every school.

Every principal was not able to get a teacher interested.

There are parents from some schools.

That was a challenge.

And there are administrators from some schools.

So we ended up with, at one of the meetings, we had 10 to 12 participants at the second meeting where I presented to them the data from the survey.

My process started before we developed a committee, before we even considered a possible draft, I did reach out to CEA to ask if they would like to start this process with providing us with a draft calendar that they would like to see.

I know that the CEA president worked to try to gather a committee to do this work.

But as you know, it takes time.

And so I asked that in September because I needed to be ready to present this to you all now.

So I asked that in September.

It was the beginning of the year.

She was not able to get a committee.

Yeah, thank you for that.

And then I know we talked in the board advance about maybe the next cycle, making sure that Mr. Jones was part or on this committee as well, because I know that we had had some feedback about there being some conflicts with

I did collect that in my notes, so I'll make sure that he's invited.

Okay.

I will say that it's not.

Our community does not like half days.

They don't prefer them.

This was a compromise.

after the half day is the Friday before spring break.

And so the request was to have the full day, to have an additional day after spring break as a work day.

Absolutely.

It is.

I was trying to do the math quickly.

Is it 192 teacher days of the 200-day contract?

Probably.

Okay.

Just quick, the October 3rd Family Teacher Conference Days, and then thinking back to when elementary testing is, like, with that happening before testing, do they have enough information, data, conversation points?

So I will tell you, without having the testing calendar before me, we administer MAP testing and VALS testing very early in the year.

We want an early assessment.

And then we have the winter and the spring, so we can see that growth throughout the year.

So with us starting school on August 13th, this year I think we started,

We started this year on the 14th and the assessment started the second week of school, third week of school maybe, for map testing?

Early September, so two weeks in.

Dr. Odey, I appreciate this and I appreciate the presentations you gave us at the advance.

At the advance, you mentioned a JLARC study, which is, I think, Joint Legislative Research Committee for the state of Virginia.

I have my presentation from October 19th.

I came prepared, so let's see.

There was.

There was a finding.

I will say that... Can you read the finding if you have it there, or do you want me to read it?

If you have it before you, but I'm getting to it.

Actually, I don't have it handy.

I think the point was is that a year-round

For all students.

It's not necessarily beneficial in a way.

But for Black students, they did find

better result.

You were in Chesterfield County.

I think they piloted a program and we talked about that in advance also.

There was a report that got issued when they actually canceled it and they were talking about canceling the program, which they, I think they only canceled one of the schools.

but one of the results that I found interesting in that and I don't know if you saw that there too was that I think 80% of the staff appreciated the year-round calendar and that the majority of the parents appreciated the year-round calendar.

I think I sent it around to you all colleagues on that.

I guess and then the traditional calendar you might say has a long summer break.

Well, I can tell you that those students that do not need or require summer remediation have that long break.

And they have that time to rejuvenate, revive, get ready for the next year.

Those that require additional remediation and intervention are invited to Summer Academy and are able to benefit from that time.

We know that there is a summer slide.

There is.

That's not a myth.

And so we do spend time in the fall reviewing and getting kids back to where they need to be.

I will tell you that

As you mentioned, I was part of that work in Chesterfield to move those two schools, two year-round schools.

It was a year-long effort to engage the stakeholders and to get people on board.

There was, and I shared this at the work session, there was the opportunity for teachers and there were many who opted not

to remain in Bellwood or Falling Creek Elementary, the two schools that became year round.

They were able to move to other schools and families also were able to opt their kids out of the schools.

So that was in 2018 for Bellwood and 2019 for Falling Creek that when they became year round.

So I've been here now for five years.

So those, Bellwood has been a year-round school now for six years.

Falling Creek remained a year-round school for five years.

The work was done and I, just following from afar, the work was done to see that there was minimal academic benefit to continuing.

And that's why Falling Creek ended

I don't know.

and Mr. Meyer, I think I share with you because I was part of that work, I was rooting for it.

I wanted it to win so that it would be something that we and other school divisions could see that showed absolute progress, absolute success, and that we could continue.

Okay.

Well, thank you for that.

I guess colleagues, I'm, you know, I'm a little disappointed we didn't get a year round calendar option to review and discuss in more depth.

I understand it would need to be kind of work through stakeholder progress, but I'm going to move that we asked the staff to come back to us in December with an option for a one year, year round calendar.

So it would be for the 25, 26,

school year that would include a fall break after the first quarter, a week off during Thanksgiving, and consider enrichment programs for all the students we just learned today.

Again, it was 95 to 90% of our black and students of color were basically struggling with reading.

We have English language learners,

who need a lot of work and extra support and probably time in the classroom and in the schools.

I think a year-round calendar can help.

It's not the key, but can help address that.

And I'd like us to really consider it.

I don't think it's gotten adequate review during this process.

So I move that we, again, ask the staff to come to us with an option.

Doesn't mean we have to accept it for our December meeting.

So we have a motion.

My apologies.

I think I need to understand.

Can you tell me more?

What are you at?

We're asking to hold off all calendar work right now to go back and or to go back and add a third year long option or

I think I did a motion and also the discussion with the motion, so that wasn't clear.

But what I would like is staff to come to us and provide us a calendar option for one year that includes a fall break after the first quarter in October, a week off during Thanksgiving,

Thank you.

I think I would need to know more.

I think I would have to hear from the CEA.

I would need to hear from

constituents and families and students and other stakeholders in the community to know that that work is wanted by a breadth of people.

So I don't think we have that conversation and we get that feedback unless we put something concrete to them.

And it is because in my understanding, it was not actively discussed during the

and or an actual calendar option discussed during this process.

I think- I'm not opposed to this conversation continuing.

I just think this is not the time for it.

So we're not going to implement a whole scale year round schedule for the 25, 26 school year.

I think that's just not a possibility.

Even if we were presented with all the information in the world to coordinate with the surrounding county Albemarle that we try to coordinate with, our community partners, I mean, that's a huge lift that we're not going to do right now.

And so,

I completely agree with Ms.

Dooley.

I feel like the ask to bring this to us in the board advance was an opportunity.

And I think for me personally, and I shared this at that time, was that during COVID and coming out of COVID, it kind of allowed all of us to kind of look at and or consider like, is there a better

calendar or structure or way to educate because we were kind of all online and we didn't know and it allowed us to think and to dream.

Things changed quickly, but again, I appreciated the presentation, the pluses and the minuses of all options that were brought to us.

And I think to Ms.

Dooley's point, I mean, there's a lot of work that needs to be done to even

as far as stakeholders and just trying to get that.

I think there's financial implications.

I mean, we looked at that.

I mean, there's a lot of money, and we don't have any of that before us right now.

So to say, and for clarification, Mr. Meyers, I would want to know, are you

If staff were to bring that back, would that be for the 2025-26 school year or 26-27, 27-28?

I would entertain that calendar for the 25-26.

We lock in two years.

That's my concern here of doing the same thing.

And I'd like to see a little more action on this.

Yeah, sure, I mean and I feel like I need more information.

I feel like it for me personally it would be fiscally irresponsible for me to say I'm ready to move forward like this because there's just too many pieces of this that I don't have and there's too many pieces of what the school division and our students need right now and our staff need that

are on our table currently that we're having to juggle and manage.

And so I appreciate the fact that, you know, and if we have data or confined data that supports that, it's going to make an improvement, you know, for our Black and Brown students that we look into that.

But I'm not ready personally, again, to say I need staff to prioritize this right now because we've got a lot that we're

We're managing right now.

Yeah, Mr. Meyer, as you know, I'm in favor of changing the calendar just in a slightly different way.

I know that you have your cabinet of educators.

Speaking for me personally, I think the year-round would be pretty hard, which is why I am interested in four-day work weeks with year-round.

But I understand that based off our work,

session that probably not in favor or not the appetite for that risk at the moment.

I think the thing that I took away from the work session is that this is just what I took away is that we probably weren't ready to do year round or the four day work week or the four day school week.

But at least what it seemed like to me was the compromise is how can we implement some additional wellness days for the teacher, for the teachers.

So for me, I think it is a quick turnaround.

And one of the things, Dr. Oda, you may know this and you can tell me if you don't, that's totally okay.

In the survey that went out to the community, are you aware or do you know if there was a piece in there about like, hey, here are some possibilities of year round school or four day or something else?

Was that anything?

As you know, we prepared the draft.

worked with the committee and then we shared the drafts.

Yeah.

And so there were three questions.

Do you support the 25, 26 calendar?

Do you have comments or suggestions and what is your role?

And then the same three questions were for the 26, 27 calendar.

Maybe, and you can tell me, Mr. Meyer, if I'm reading you incorrectly, but I think your thing is you just want the public to be able to put input in like a survey in this instance to say, are you even considering this?

Is that.

Well, not even the proposed calendar, but at least to get the feedback from the rest of the community to say, this could be an option.

Are you in favor of the option?

That is some of it.

Yes.

I mean, we talk about things kind of in theory, right?

and what I was really frustrated about was seeing the survey go out to the community with a traditional model right after our meeting earlier this month when we knew we were going to have it in advance to talk about different calendar models.

So there was an opportunity to survey the public and get their opinions on this, but we missed it.

And we had our advance, we talked about it there, which was an open public meeting, but again, not many people.

I don't think we get public feedback on it unless it's actually on our agenda and we ask the staff to present actually something that's concrete.

That's why I asked for something very concrete that the public could react about, CEA could react about, other teachers could react about.

I think to be fair, we had a work session of which the public was invited.

The CEA was invited and neither of which came.

It was a room of us and the ELT folks.

Thank you for giving us Saturday for four and a half hours.

And no one came.

So people were given an opportunity and they're often given an opportunity, if I'm being very honest, they're given multiple opportunities and they don't come.

And I think when we continue to offer opportunity after opportunity after opportunity and people don't come,

At some point, we have to say enough is enough.

And we've offered in that work session, there were a lot of very important and impactful things talked about at that meeting.

Safety was high priority.

And when our inboxes were flooded in November of last year, not a one of those people were at that safety meeting to hear about the important work

that Ms.

Powell and her team are doing in addition to Dr. Odey and her team.

Yeah.

So we have a motion.

We have a second and we can take vote all in favor.

Let's do by raise a hand, please.

Okay.

And those opposed raise your hand, please.

All right.

Thank you.

Mr. Meyer, I think this is worthy of follow-up.

I really do.

Thank you chair for that.

And I want to thank the board members and staff for indulging me in this effort I just had.

All right.

Thank you.

This presentation was presented to you at the October 19th board meeting.

Nothing about this presentation has changed since you last met, except an addition was added based on

the numbers that you authorized or recommended.

And as shown in the pink, purple on the screen of an 89% increase for the chair, $10,000 and the board member receiving 8,500.

So we appreciate you making that adjustment to that.

And again, this is information for this evening and it'll come back to us in December for action.

All right.

Lastly, we have Ms.

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

This evening, I'm sharing a policy update with you.

The policy is GCBE Family and Medical Leave Act.

Our policy mirrors the federal mandate that we provide support to staff.

Go ahead, Leslie.

Sorry about that.

There are two changes that we're recommending.

The policy currently contains language such as family, excuse me, husband slash wife, and we would like to adopt new language that says married couple, replacing everywhere that it says husband slash wife.

The second change, which is on page number six,

focuses on the phrasing that incorporates the phrase.

Leave taken for the birth, adoption or foster placement of a child may be taken intermittently or at a reduced leave schedule if the superintendent agrees.

To minimize confusion and follow more strictly the FMLA guidance, which notes continuous leave for the birth of a child or in these scenarios, we recommend this statement is removed.

Those are the only two recommendations for updates within the policy.

She said, could you repeat the last one?

You probably need to speak up.

Use your teacher voice.

I thought I was louder.

Not your HR voice.

My apologies.

I thought I was louder today.

The clause there is on page number six.

The phrase says, leave taken for birth of a child, adoption or foster placement of a child may be taken intermittently or on a reduced leave schedule if the superintendent approves or agrees.

Any questions from anybody?

Someone looks like they're pondering over here.

So I think this was a good catch.

I mean, so I appreciate the corrections.

I do have one quick question.

Oh, I'm sorry.

The unintended consequence has already occurred here in the division of a person who had a newborn

individual and their family and requested intermittent leave.

So they just continued to

So in the event that there might be a teacher, we're talking about like the difference between day-to-day sub-coverage versus long-term.

Correct.

And indeed, this was a certified profession.

I think just to reiterate to those watching or tuning in that this follows federal guidance.

This is not the division making a change on a whim to punish a staff member for using intermittent leave.

Federal law says that for the birth of a child, family medical leave is continuous up to 12 weeks.

We have a motion and a second.

All in favor, please say yes.

Yes.

All right, this is where I was going to go off a little bit here.

So the next item is 13.0 Board Response to Written Reports.

And this is a section and it is loaded into the agenda and ESB where board members will report out on committee work that we've done or different activities.

We used to spend a lot of time in board meetings.

Each board member would

talk on and on and on about all the wonderful things we're doing behind the scenes.

And it's great, but we kind of move to this written response.

But for this meeting, if you all allow me, I was going to ask Miss Richardson and Miss Dooley.

Sure, so we are deep in the rezoning process.

I know that several of you have attended some or all of the five community listening sessions that have occurred to date and those were a product of the various draft options that were created by the Superintendent's Working Group of which Ms.

Richardson and I are members.

So I've been carrying

fun colorful map around.

The division has an amazing website.

I've been very impressed with Karen and the consultant team that's been working with us through this process.

And the idea that the process is iterative has been really important to me to keep remembering that nothing is finalized.

The draft options that are before us, not one of them is likely to be the final option that's presented to us.

but having those drafts allows for us to now, and I say us very liberally, the team to really target the specific neighborhoods that are going to be impacted by this work.

So, Kindlewood, Prospect are two that are definitely on staff's radar to reach out to and make sure that we're hearing from the communities that are going to be directly impacted by this work.

So the plea to anyone who is listening is to make sure that you're going to the website.

Ms.

Powell might remember the actual address to it, but you can find it on our homepage.

And make sure that you take the survey.

So there are some questions that have been asked, should community members reach out to board members directly?

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

And then I'll just quickly on this Mr. Meyer wants to jump in just let you know that we are well underway also with the school renaming work that's going on at the elementary schools that remain part of that process and they're all kind of at a different

I think I've attended, I believe all of those meetings and it's going really well.

I mean, the committee, the voting committee members are very engaged, very thoughtful and sincere in

Working together and coming up with recommendations and really seemed to be engaged as far as the process that was refined and is in place.

So I think it's going really well.

Okay, thank you for that, for allowing us to make comments on that.

And then the next item is 14.0, which is our next opportunity for comments from members of the community.

I think we've dwindled, but go ahead.

Thank you again.

My name is Jacob Beckham.

Based on my observation of just this meeting, I'd like to iterate my earlier suggestion regarding school zones along with the following notes.

According to some ad hoc math, a consolidated elementary school could eliminate the need for the projected three additional ESL teachers by having the remainders accommodate them.

A language or international baccalaureate school could allow for a school schedule that includes a break for Ramadan or enable non-instructional time to access midday prayer.

Right now, it's during fifth period.

A consolidated elementary school would also reduce the number of necessary teachers overall.

However, it may increase the necessary number of high school teachers.

This could be supported by specialty school grants and magnet funding.

As for the school calendar, I know that there is a lot of support for the year-round calendar at all grades from students, parents, and teachers.

Even for students that do not currently attend summer remediation, there is an extensive summer learning loss that has to be recuperated at the beginning of each school year.

A year-round calendar could better accommodate our ever-diversifying student population and family population and teacher population.

I for one would be livid to know that an actual option for a year-round calendar was not entertained.

Right now, it's an idea.

I support Mr. Meyer's approach to at least be able to compare the traditional model to what a year-round calendar would look like.

Having the opportunity to choose between two traditional school calendars is not really a choice if you want to try something different.

This illusion of choice generates apathy and doubt in the process among stakeholders who do not have your job.

I would also like to mention that October 19th, although it is a Saturday, was on a three-day weekend, forcing stakeholders to choose between the meeting and much more preferable activities, such as preparing for homecoming.

Just to name one.

Without a childcare option, one of my neighbors who attended tonight was only able to stay for 15 minutes before her child became unruly and disruptive, so she had to stay, missing her opportunity to speak.

How would she or anyone in similar circumstances be able to substantially participate in these proceedings?

I appear to be the only member of the public still in attendance.

I think it's unreasonable to expect members of the community to dedicate themselves to such a degree.

As Dr. Oddy said earlier, teachers may not have the bandwidth in September to undertake such an ordeal.

How much more so for parents and teachers during their precious time away from work and school?

All right, we have looks like three members or participants still online.

If anybody would like to make a public comment, please use the raise your hand icon and we can.

Right, I don't see any desire.

Thank you for hanging in there with us.

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

Ms.

Dooley.

Or we can start with our student rep.

Do you have any comments?

This is my last school board meeting, so I'd just like to say thank you so much for this opportunity.

Thank you.

Now I'm up.

Our counter conversation went a little bit differently there at the end.

So I did want to make sure to say thank you to Dr. Odey and your team for incorporating some of the last minute feedback that we gave about adding the mental health days.

I'm hopeful as you are that those will be well received.

Mr. Davis is maybe watching us online.

I know he likes to hear our comments at the end.

But I hope that he and so much of the public that was here earlier that's no longer here, I hear you, that it's hard to stay through these meetings, but I wish that folks that come advocating for one specific program could

watch and listen to the whole meeting because I think, you know, it just gives light to the bigger picture of what we're trying to do here.

And it's not that we don't appreciate orchestra or music, but we also have to think about our students who aren't reading.

Our new English language learners, just there's so much that is in front of us.

So many big decisions, really big.

that have been surrounding us through this work this week.

The mental and emotional fatigue is real.

The consequences and the stakes and fallout feel impossibly high.

That said, I've been comforted in recent conversations by the ability of folks to really step outside of themselves and what's maybe best for them and their kid to focus on

our community and what's best for the preservation of this community that means a lot to so many and serves so many.

Thank you for that, Ms.

Cooper.

Come back.

I want to acknowledge the events of the week with a heavy heart as I reflect on recent election results and while the outcome is not what many had hoped for, I do remain inspired

by the resilience and dedication of our community members who showed up, who spoke out, who knocked on doors, who worked at the polls, and who stood firm in the values that shape us as a community.

I want to especially acknowledge the unwavering strength of Black women who have consistently led the charge for justice and equity despite facing unique challenges.

Your leadership, advocacy, and tireless commitment to the betterment of our community are deeply valued and never overlooked.

I also want to stand in solidarity with our LGBTQIA plus community and all those who continue to fight for their basic rights, safety, and dignity.

The struggle for equality and equity is ongoing and we must remain vigilant in protecting and uplifting those most vulnerable among us.

If you find yourself weary, as most of us are, I would implore you to take the time you need to grieve, and to rest, and then reset.