School Board Work Session   12/19/2024

I want to thank the city council for this meeting, for participating in this.

If you all can recall last school year, last budget cycle, I should say, we had some conversations with regards to meeting earlier and just having some conversations about the needs of the school so that it can feel a little bit more intentional in the work, so I appreciate that.

I also want to acknowledge my counterpart, Mr. Sanders.

He's an excellent dog partner.

He has been very responsive to city's rules.

We have been having regular check-ins.

and I think that as the speeds of the storm have been very fluid, he's responded to various things and involves good accountability speed, so I just appreciate even for Bob.

All right, next slide.

Here is the agenda for the evening and I will not read it to you, but these are our highlighted areas that we will use to facilitate the conversation this evening.

And so this slide here, these are the things that we have been using.

So we did some community sessions with regards to outreach about what these people want to see included in our budget.

And so through our various let's say sessions and engagement,

The words you see that are listed here are words that became themes and really rose to the top.

We will not read all of those words, but the more frequent the word occurs, and so things such as reading a math achievement, attracting quality educators, modernized and seen facilities, chronic activism, compensation, retaining teachers and support staff,

and some of the things that really stood out in our legend presentations.

And I also want to say to our council and to our school board that if you have questions as we go through this presentation, please ask them during the presentation.

You don't have to hold them to the deck.

Next slide, please.

So from those things, what we did, we created the budget priorities.

And listed in the darker gray area are those priorities.

And what we did was we aligned those with our strategic plan.

So under our increased academic achievement, you will see that we created the priorities of increased student outcomes for the areas to target supports and resources.

ensure that class size can get involved and also a theme of this training, funding for the fine arts emerged.

Under the area of culture and safety and wellness and belonging, we see that enhanced student achievement and equity and in each piece of attendance became a priority area.

Supporting our staff

We have a competitive wage for benefits and attracting and retaining high quality teachers and staff.

And lastly, under education operations of our strategic plan, we continue to monitor our school facilities and include safety recommendations and funding and sustainability recommendations.

Well, to develop our budget, we thought it was essential to really keep the main thing the main thing.

And so to that end, our budget is essential for the bettering needs of our students.

And so to fully understand what's at the core of what we do, it's really about understanding who it is that is there.

Thank you for your time.

and as those of my side, people will see what helps to shape the number of needs for our students.

So this is not a long average of training since the 2014-2013 year.

And as you can see from this graph, we have had some injuries in enrollment since we can't do it again.

And so that began here with that 2019-2020 school year.

So then back here, we had a big increase.

But however, we still are about 100 students current and we're about 100 students lower than where we were when we were in the school year.

and if you notice from last school year, we had, there's a, well, Swanton, I really don't think that it's a, it has a particular difference there in terms of that.

We know that the cohorts, when I say cohorts, the graduating youth, we know that some cohorts are larger and smaller and so

I will highlight some of these and who our speakers are.

So this slide shows how we're going to roll their hands.

This is August 28, 2012.

I've opened a lot of my slides.

This is going to show you how our pool is standing out in front of where our goal is.

When we go from that far right-hand column, it shows you the goal here.

And one thing that makes sure it's special is that we are moving school out in front of our pool.

And right now, just like we are going through the new goal of our class,

because some schools are nearing capacity and also we know there's a lot of redevelopment happening throughout this city, particularly in the southern end of the city.

And so if you've been engaged in our process, you know that we've been having a lot of conversation as it relates to just schools, libraries,

I do want to point out one of our little gems, which is Luca McGinnis.

Luca McGinnis is our alternative program.

And we have 32 students enrolled in Luca.

And while that seems like a really small number, it puts them beyond what the max the school can hold.

But we've been very creative about how we can support students.

And so I just wanted to point that out because 32 of us

When we look back on time, we've not had 32 students enrolled that have been going to get us there twice on time.

And so this month we're doing a little shout out.

On our next slide.

our student demographics and so the look back here is 20 years and so you look back over the last 20 years you see that there is a shift in the racial demographics of our school if you look back on look back in June of 2004

You know, our black students made up a significant portion of who Charlottesville City Schools was.

And if you look now in 2024, you see that that number has significantly declined.

As we break this conversation, you think about how many students you have in a particular subgrade versus how much of the resources they've acquired.

And I think that that's what you will notice is a change from 2034, I'm sorry, from 2004 to 2023.

Next slide.

So this is an important slide here.

as we talk about the work.

So here you will see the percentage of students identified as economically disadvantaged over the last 20 years.

And economically disadvantaged is indicated in blue.

So you will see that back in 2004, economically disadvantaged represented less than half of our student population.

And so now if you look at what has happened in 2024, we've increased that number by almost 17%.

And so I know last year we used a lot of acronyms.

And so I'm going to try to not just use acronyms and just say things completely.

So in terms of economically disadvantaged, I just want to remind you all from our last conversation,

These are our students who qualify for a free or reduced lunch.

And so we don't just use that qualifier anymore because every student in our school division may qualify for a free or reduced lunch because of our CEP program, community eligibility,

Program, but these are our students who are directly certified, TANF members, temporary people that need families, so TANF, Medicaid, SNAP, so these are our families represented in that blue box, that 63.5% who are directly certified, their families receive some type of benefit.

and so that number, as you can see how that has shifted from 2004 to 2014, there was a little bit of overhead, but now we are 63.5% of our students.

Absolutely, sorry.

Does it capture a different population just because of the metric has changed?

Right.

That's the state's definition.

So, actually, 2004 is back when there was still free lunch applications for those on first street.

In 2024, we no longer had free and reduced lunch meal out of cages to include in terms of the metric.

So it looks like a medicated diet, but that was a thing.

But those students were also part of the free and reduced lunch.

So you would need to be free lunch at the back then.

Yes.

So our fear when we moved it to CP is that there was going to be this gap of the reduced meal cost that we would emit from the data.

The other thing I would say is toward the vacuum of the police.

In more recent times, just looking at last year, we've seen a pretty sharp increase in our disadvantaged youth numbers as well as homelessness and foster care, which also lead into that.

So, if a student is experienced with homelessness, or they come to classified as a migrant student at any point, they automatically are designated as a student under the economic considerations of the Danish category.

Next slide.

So, I want you to think about the 63-point bar in government known as the ladder bar.

So of the 63.5% of the students, this is the racial breakdown, this is the demographic breakdown of the 63.5% of the students.

When the street winter was in 2004, and it was arguably black students, if you look at the progression through the 20 years, now we're sitting at

is almost evenly distributed through our community.

So particularly in that box where it says white and other, that to me is more of a it's more of a gray area because we see there are a lot well many families of course that are not checking black because they don't identify as black but they are checking white they are doing they are doing others so I don't know that this

Clearly shows you who our families are based on who we serve in and Charlottesville City Schools, but this is the breakdown as it is reported from the state.

Next slide.

So that was the economically disadvantaged student group.

So now the students that we serve, students with disabilities.

So we do serve students in Charlottesville City Schools who qualify for special education services from ages two

until their through their 22nd birthday.

And so what this table displays is the number of students who receive greater than 50% of their time with special education services and students who receive less than 50% of time for special education services.

And when we talk about less than 50% of services, we're talking about

how much time they're spending with the special education teacher, if they're spending, how much time they spend in the general education setting, how much time they spend in the special education classroom.

And so as of December the 1st of 2024, our number, we're holding pretty steady.

We're serving 568 of our students, our students with disabilities.

They received some form of special education

As I did a quick little bit of math then, so 568 out of a total enrollment of 4446 is about 13%.

Does that sound about right?

And remember, some of these students, and one thing that I will continue to reiterate as we go through the presentation is that many of these students are the same student.

So you can be, of course, you can be a black student.

who's disadvantaged, who's also a special education student or you can be an English language learner and also receive special education services so you can fall into many of the categories in terms of where you need support.

Next slide.

So as we shared last year, our enrollment for our multi language learners continue to increase.

This year, we continue to trend upwards with our multi language learners making up about 17% of our entire student population.

Many of our English language learners come to us with little to no English proficiency.

And I've put over in that corner, so we're now up to 757 of our students who require English language learner services.

I did not want to make this presentation complicated, but

These are students who are receiving services with an English language learner teacher.

We have students who are also being monitored because they're no longer receiving direct services.

So that number trends up to 800.

We have about 800 plus students.

We were looking at that and I was going to make some modifications to the presentation, but I think that we live in this world and I think it makes a lot of sense to us, but it may get a little bit confusing when we start using multiple numbers.

So there are 800

plus students that are English language learners, but 757 of them, and I forgot the exact date that this was pulled, but 757 at that time are receiving direct services from an English language learner teacher.

So on that right hand corner, I want to pull this apart for you because this will start to get at the work that our teachers and our support staff and our specialists are doing in the building.

So when our English language learners come to us, and I'll just use an Afghan student who has no English, who has no English language, when they come to us,

under the current model that we had 11 semesters that they could test with us before their SOL score would count towards our accreditation.

Under the new standards of accreditation, that has now changed.

We have gone from 11 semesters to three.

So after three semesters,

their SOL scores, their SOL test results will start to go towards our accreditation.

That is huge.

And when I say huge, that's like trying to land a Boeing 747 at the Charlottesville airport.

There's just not enough runway to do that.

And so you have to have some type of urgency about, okay, the flight plan, the plan that you're developing for our students, how you're going to support them will need to change because the timeline has gotten shorter.

And when I say this,

This is a stressor.

This is a stressor that happens that will happen for their their specialist teacher, their English language learner teacher to how I support them.

This also has implications for their general education teacher, because remember, they're spending their time in the general education setting with their general education teacher who's feeling the pressure of

In three semesters, the student will be testing with us versus 11 semesters.

Dr. Miller, just a question.

The state changed this requirement on us, right?

They are not.

So no money comes with this.

This is all on, you know, you figure it out and I'll talk about that.

I'm in a little bit but this is like a you figure it out model and I think that you know you ask any teacher you ask any teacher they all are working very hard and this is something that is keeping people up at night now because I just met with a group of teachers well I meet with teachers all the time but I met with a whole staff of teachers who these are the questions that they're worried about because they feel like whatever happens for them

Whatever happens from this process is a reflection on them.

And I don't feel that way.

I think that this is something that's being put upon them.

And then as a division, we've been asked to just figure it out.

I think you had a question.

OK.

And the last thing I'll just say about that, that I have noted over there in the right hand corner, is that

10% of their achievement will now become a component of our new accreditation system.

So a lot of implications, a lot of implications all the way around.

Next slide.

So this is the spring 2024 English, the reading pass rates from the SOL test.

And I will say that I want to preface by saying that these are the percentages of students that passed

This does not show because like when you look at our accreditation you'll see that the number is actually a lot higher and that's because our accreditation rating shows like gives us credit as students continue to make growth so they may not have hit the proficiency score but they showed growth so you will see that

Some of those, many of those scores, many of these scores are higher under our accreditation rating because students are given growth from moving, given credit from moving from one band to the next.

And so what you'll see in this presentation, I'm sorry, in this slide is that our white students are outperforming all of our other student groups.

And so you'll see that in some areas they're in double digits that they are outperforming our students.

If you look at our English language learners, you know,

Their pass rate is 20%.

If you look at our Black students, it's 40%.

The question that often people will say is, does this mean our students can't read?

Does this mean only 40% of the Black students can read?

And the response is absolutely not.

This is about whether they can pass a test.

This is about 40% of Black students passed the test, not whether

They are reading on a below grade level

Same thing here.

This slide is about, this is the math SOL test.

This is about whether our students are passing the test, not about how proficient they are within each reporting category.

And the same trends exist.

Our white students are outperforming our other student groups as it relates to passing the SOL test.

Any questions about those two slides?

All right, our next slide.

So I want to talk about the implications.

Currently, I want to begin by saying this and this is not on the slide.

So currently, five out of our six schools, five out of six of our elementary schools are fully accredited.

We have one elementary school that is accredited with conditions and that's Summit Elementary.

I will tell you that our schools have done

phenomenal job of moving the needle as it relates to student achievement.

When I say that the teachers are doing the work, they're doing the hard work.

They're doing the hard work.

You know, they're just I mean, it's blood, sweat and tears.

They are meeting families where they are as a school division.

We are providing the resources

but I will tell you that there are a lot of implications as we move into our next school year beginning with the test results at the end of this school year.

Next school year we will be evaluated under a new accountability system and so the results from the spring of 25

which is this current school year.

The results of spring 25 will be used to evaluate where we stand with the new accreditation system for the 25-26 school year.

And we've had an opportunity to have a preview of what that looks like.

So remember, I told you, five out of the six of our elementary schools are accredited, fully accredited.

They've done the work.

You've seen them move the needle.

under the new system four out of the six of our elementary schools have an unfavorable rating because they have completely changed our new accreditation system and again I think it's about

They have done the work.

And as I've been meeting with teachers, I've been meeting with staff over this month.

This is the one thing that they're extremely worried about because they feel like this is an evaluation of them.

And I'm telling them that that's not what this moment is about.

So under the new accreditation system, four out of the six of our elementary schools are not accredited.

And it's called off track.

And so with that off-track rating means there's something different that we're going to have to do to support our students.

And I will say that nobody wants to be in that situation, right?

I mean, and so we will have to create plans.

We will have to support students.

These things will be headlines in the news because we know that about 60% of the schools in Virginia will have an off-track rating under this new system.

A lot of politics involved.

Don't mind saying that for the record.

And so keep that in mind as we talk about resources and budgets.

So I'm framing this because this is about resources.

This is about what we do for students.

This is about, you know, when we were little, when you would take the water and put it in the ketchup.

So, you know, you're trying to spread it.

This is like, you can't do that anymore.

There's nothing left in the bottle.

You know, it's like you're going to have to do something different.

So

You take that accreditation system to play and then you look at our enrollment.

So if you look at our enrollment, you may say, well, you're down about 40 students.

So you're working with less students now.

That's not the case because I showed you that the number of our English language learners continues to rise.

The number of students with disabilities, while it did not increase, the needs are still there.

Those needs haven't gone anywhere.

But when we talk about our English language learners, remember, we've gone from 11 semesters where we were supporting our students to three.

We have to do something different.

We're going to have to support them differently.

I had a meeting at an elementary school, Johnson Elementary School.

I'm going to name them.

I met with Johnson this week.

They're very concerned because

They feel, rightfully so, they feel like they're understaffed because their number of students with their number of students required English language learner services has increased, has increased.

And so some of that is about are we equipped to meet the needs of our students knowing that we're changing, we're going from we have less time to get them where they need to get them where they need to be.

And so, how do we work with those students?

What's the sense of urgency from the superintendent, from the school board, from the city council?

These are the questions that they're asking.

But I also will tell you that as we embark upon this process, our human capital, our instructional resources will need to be allocated differently across our schools because the needs continue to evolve.

The sheer fact that we're saying that 63.5% of our students are economically disadvantaged tells us that we have to support our students differently.

And that doesn't mean, and I want to make sure that I preface by saying this, because you are a student who is economically disadvantaged, that doesn't mean that you're not successful when you come to school.

But what we do know is that many of those students don't always have access to the appropriate resources.

So that's about what is it that we do differently at schools.

So although we strive to meet the needs internally, and I think that that's that ketchup bottle, right?

We want to make it work, so we'll just add water to the bottle.

But sometimes it just doesn't work.

It loses the flavor.

doesn't do what it's intended to do.

We've done that internally.

So then those resources just aren't simply are not enough to support the rising needs of our student groups.

And so we have to do something different.

And then we also know that the standards of quality are well below the minimum to to truly meet the needs of our students.

And there was a JLOC study and I don't know what JLOC stands for.

Yeah, Joint Legislative Audit and Review.

There was a JLOC study which we put into one of our presentations last year that just simply says what the state allocates to us doesn't even like touch, scrape the bottom of what we need, let alone get us to the top.

And so the SOQ funding level just is the bare minimum.

And so I just

employ you to just think, employ you to think about who it is that we're serving, how we serve them, why we serve them, and knowing that this is what our teachers and our administrators and our support staff, this is the love, these are the students that we love every day, but recognize that they need something different.

Before we move forward, any questions about anything I've said thus far?

I'm going to take a sip of water.

Please go ahead and have your water.

No, go ahead.

So part of what they've changed is it's not

So growth is weighted differently.

Growth is weighted differently.

It's weighted now.

It's weighted differently.

So there's a percentage for growth.

There's a chronic absenteeism, which that was factored in a while ago, which I, I'm going to speak for myself, I absolutely hate because

That's the one thing that a teacher can't control is whether a child gets to school.

Our team has done a great job of repurposing school social workers and mental health professionals to support attendance.

And we've definitely prioritized attendance.

Our attendance, the chronic absenteeism rate is dropping.

But it's the one thing that we can't control and it's factored into our accreditation system.

And it's like, I don't know why am I evaluating the principal or the teacher on whether a student can get to school.

It doesn't mean that we should not do our due diligence and we shouldn't prioritize student attendance.

It's just one of those areas that we can't control.

But it does have some bright spots.

It talks about work-based learning.

So we get points for work-based learning.

But then they also have

How many advanced courses a student takes is calculated into the equation.

And I find it really weird because, yes, we want to advance our students.

But when the model consists of how many high school courses you take in the middle school,

Like how many advanced?

Is it English?

It's science?

It's math?

Math is one right now.

And then it will, the next one will be, I think it's two for advanced courses.

Anyway, it's at the middle school level.

And I agree, but I don't agree.

I mean, sometimes kids aren't ready at the middle school to be in a high school level class.

So it's about how many high school level classes will be factored in.

And I just don't think that sometimes we push kids too fast.

And that's why they get disinterested.

They're not interested in the programming.

Yeah, science and history.

So, yeah, so.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Anything else instructional related?

I will keep on.

So, operational cost.

I think this meeting, this meeting has prepared us to talk about the budget differently than we have.

I don't think that in our previous discussions, because I think we were already, it was January already and we were having, we were having conversations about where we were and what we need.

And it just felt very responsive, like,

asking you or telling you this is where we are in our budget.

We get to have a dialogue about operational costs.

Just as we said, we had this meeting earlier.

We now get to say, is there a way that we can do things differently as we move forward to address costs?

So the next few slides will highlight areas both where staff and the board have questions about and you will see that the two biggest drivers in our operational costs are our maintenance and and our transportation contracts and so and maybe you all have some answers in that area that I don't have and so I think as we look to the future we can talk about is this does this continue to be the approach.

Next slide.

So this slide displays our energy use intensity and water use, that dotted line that you see on both of those graphs.

That's our targeted use by 2030, which is six years, five years from now.

So as shown, we are exceeding the target for both energy and water.

And our current consumption levels, I have that we are not on track to meet that target because we continue to be well above that line.

are following the operational costs, including water and energy usage.

The significant impact overall, this is a significant impact to how we run our buildings.

I mean, when you look at the operational costs of the utilities.

And so I think as we have conversations about our capital improvement plan, as we talk about how we invest in our facilities, I think you all have demonstrated, we've talked about what it would look like and how we can address and mitigate some of these costs.

But it truly is time as we look at our consumption and are we just being good stewards of the people's money.

Is this the best way?

Like what energy efficiencies, how do we continue to re-tailor and address our capital improvement projects so that we can redirect our savings towards supporting our students and improving outcomes.

And I do want to give the city team a shout out, Mike Goddard and team just

Being responsive, helping us to prioritize, making the main thing, but also sometimes the CIP is a fluid document and we have to move things around.

We have to move things around to address the pressing needs of the schools.

Dr. Gurley, I asked Dr. Gurley to include this because we did get this report from your team last spring because I'm looking at where can we find money and savings in our operations.

And I think as you all know that we don't necessarily, we don't control that.

The thing that I've learned is this is, again, your facilities department

your finance department making decisions on what projects to invest in in our facilities that can either save money from reducing energy usage and water usage, etc.

And as you've seen here, unfortunately, it just has not been going down.

And we'd rather against you prefer to spend that money on the teachers and educating our students rather than sending that to Dominion and or Seaville Gas.

But I do think this is, to my, again, colleagues, counselors, this is the political question of how much money do you want to invest in our schools to, again, reduce our operational costs so we can spend more money on our teachers?

And so when we talk about performance costs, this slide shows that in terms of when we're looking at sustainability and investment and our energy consumption, I mean, we've only gone down 2% over the last 13 years.

And then our gas consumption has increased.

by 6%.

And so it's just that trend that as we're thinking about sustainability and some of these bigger, older dated buildings, I will tell you that I've been doing what I call well checks at schools, meeting with the staff and talking about like, what's something that I can get out of your way?

And a lot of times I think that the first thing that they're going to say is something about planning or something like that.

But they point out like at Johnson, our bathrooms downstairs just continue to overflow.

I mean, it just, how are we going to bring fifth graders back in the building, when I was in Greenbrier.

their only concern heading into the winter break was the bathroom.

And so the facilities, the facilities are dated.

I mean, we are talking about, we have schools that range from 50, from 100 years old to 50 years old.

And so

the long-term plan and I know that Mr. Sanders and I have had a conversation about this in terms of building a long-term plan because we won't always be the people at the table but building a long-term sustainable plan to just address facilities and the modernization of facilities and what happens when you need bigger buildings and etc.

What is the 42%?

Electric, is that the amount by which the rate has gone up in one year?

Is that over a period of time?

Sorry, I actually don't know because I didn't know.

Mike's behind.

Yeah.

It was on our last presentation from the city.

That is the increase.

7 cents to 10 cents in one year or 7 bucks to 10 bucks in one year?

I'm pretty sure that this is from 2011 to 2023, the increase in the rate.

So you're right, Lloyd, in as much like the rate per kilowatt hour has gone from like 7 cents to 12 cents a kilowatt hour or something like that.

All right.

I think my point here, though, too, was the slide before where our energy intensity has actually gone up.

And if we continue on that, energy rates are only going to continue to go up and we're going to have to keep on paying more.

And this is where, again, our ask for

Rooftop solar to reduce the total amount of energy, electricity we're having to consume and hedge that cost for the next 20, 25 years is an asset we've been making a long time and trying to hit this home right here.

Can you appropriate the money to get and have your staff focus on getting those things done?

Because again, we'd rather spend money on teachers and staff rather than our utility bills.

So as we talk about our facilities, there are things that have happened that are in progress.

Well, things that have happened past tense, things that are currently in progress, and things that we are looking to the future for.

And so these are things that have and had financial implications.

And so as we think about our safety and security infrastructure, it's ongoing.

We will continue to include those things in our budget, but we have a daily need to ensure that we have safe and secure facilities.

And so as we go through our safety audit, just about keeping our interior and exterior doors safe, we've had some things related to fencing and gates, the modernization of our buildings.

So again, if we don't have a plan to continue to refresh things, then it feels like we always need to address these.

We have to do this big lift to address things.

So particularly at CHS.

And so you see those things that are in progress.

And again, I think always want to shout out our city counterparts for just being responsive because I know we did have a pivot when we moved up in priority, the bathrooms that are in the B Commons, the single stall bathrooms.

Once near the gymnasium.

Oh, no.

So eventually we want all the restrooms in Charlottesville High School to be the style that the type that's currently in the B Commons and the type that is going to be in all of Charlottesville Middle School because fortunately it was designed in for Charlottesville Middle School.

They're not inexpensive projects.

We actually had the B Commons second story boys restroom on the second floor

was identified as a second area that we were hoping to tackle at the same time we did the Bee Commons restrooms at the cafeteria, but it was like an ad alternate and we were really just able to, there was only enough funding available to just do the restrooms for the Bee Commons.

And that was a great, it's been a wonderful proof of concept.

It has been a huge help for Charlottesville High School.

Now it just leaves us wanting more throughout the whole building because what's happened is the behaviors and concerns that

You know that we're the impetus behind moving on this and even bumping it up in priority.

Those things just now are concentrated elsewhere in the building where we still have old style restrooms that are very difficult to supervise and these new restrooms increase privacy for students while also increasing supervision.

So they're just a really great new design.

It's unfortunate they weren't always this way.

So that would be that bullet is referring to just the holistic addressing of all the restrooms at Charlottesville High School.

All right.

Also, just as we talk about facilities, the Pre-K Center is something that is very important to us.

I know as we go through our current reconfiguration process and we eventually this building that you're in right now,

We will move 5th graders back to the elementary school and we will move 6th graders to the new building that's bigger than the current building.

So as we move them to that building, which will be Charlottesville Middle School, this building will be vacated and our teachers are

hoping to only camp out here for a little while because we will have a new pre-K center.

So I know that we will continue to have conversations about that.

And also, as I talked about earlier, just continuing to have the conversation about elementary modernization.

I know that the one and a quarter million we have appreciated as we have done upgrades to the library,

to the library at Greenbrier and we've done some vestibule work at a school in the terrace and some terrace work at another school.

All those things are greatly appreciated but I think, overwhelmingly, you know, our elementary teachers know that they're in old buildings.

and they weren't designed for the size bodies or the number of bodies that we have in those schools now.

And so we just need to keep thinking about what's the long-term plan for our elementary schools.

And then lastly, just the energy efficiency upgrades.

I think that if we

have a solid plan to address our energy efficiencies.

Dr. Gurley, as you're looking at the CHS modernization, just go back to that a second.

Yes.

Talk about restrooms.

What's with ceilings, MLK?

I'm sorry.

So the restrooms we've talked about, the restrooms are putting the single stall, the single stalls, the ceiling tiles.

I don't know if you, when you walk through, they have the drop ceilings.

They are in, I mean, so,

very deplorable conditions in some areas.

They are hanging, they're sagging, they're discolored.

One day we will be talking about a new Charlottesville high school, I believe, because this is not the school, aesthetically, that

It's not aesthetically pleasing and it doesn't lend itself to the learning spaces.

It's very open.

All of the doors that we have now put alarms on, it's very free.

So it's not built in an age where we, it wasn't built in an age where we were thinking about security, where we were trying to control access.

It was very much you walk out the school and go to the smoking pit type school.

And so that's the ceiling.

The MLK pack, which is the pride and joy of, you know, it's one of our crown jewels here.

It's dated.

It's orange.

It's very much, very much kind of Brady Bunch, Fred Sanford-ish in terms of color.

It's very dated.

Very shag, carpet-ish.

We've had some lighting issues, but we know that

It is.

It is one of the things that brings people to our communities because they come to our plays.

They, you know, we have outside people who want to use this space, but it's just not something that's aesthetically pleasing.

And I would say even having upgrades to like the sound and

I mean, I think if we had endless amount of money that it could look totally different.

But being realistic, there are things that we do need to address very quickly, such as carpeting and seats.

I mean, that's just low hanging fruit right there.

And I'm almost sure that it comes with a huge price tag, unfortunately.

But that's because these things are not

The turf field.

Turf fields have a shelf life, and so we will need to replace the turf field at some point.

I think it's past.

It's past its due date, so to speak, for when it should be replaced, but we are doing the regular service.

Our athletic department is calling for like annual service on it to kind of keep nursing it along, but there comes a point where you just can't do that anymore.

So, you know, we're at three years or less, I think of being in like the real, we've been past due and I think we're within three years of not being able to keep nursing it along.

Ms.

Yeah, how old is it?

Like 20?

No, it's not 20.

It was before my time and I came here in 2014.

So I apologize.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Any other facilities?

Thank you, Mr. Snook, for asking this question.

All right, well, we will continue on down.

There we go.

Just wanted to make a point and share, and I know it came up in our CIP meeting, the joint meeting, and it came up, I believe, at our last school board meeting, and we continue to be grateful for that.

I believe it's 1.25

that we get for the modernizations that have been used for the elementary schools and some of the projects like the bathrooms at CHS this last year.

But that number has remained fixed for several, several years, at least five years.

And so there was discussion about just consideration that we get less for that same amount of money and so that we do have at least one elementary school

That work is still continuing.

Transportation.

So as we talk about our transportation contract, again, I want to shout out our city partners because you all did allow us to have Ms.

Duvall and I know that

I now called on her regularly to help me with supporting our families because we get a lot of transportation calls and we don't have to fill them within our office.

She's done a very good job of taking care of them, so we appreciate that.

In terms of our transportation contract, we know it covers all of our services with regards to transporting our students with the exception of the charter transports, which we work with our schools and our clubs and things to work with charter and transportation when needed to take those distance trips.

and so what we know is that we will talk about later in this presentation about the transportation increases and so it's our understanding that the transportation increases are related to the increase in cost for benefits and wages which you see here on the screen and then we also know that

You all are doing work with regards to the drivers working actual hours.

I think one of the things that I probably need help with and I always am calling on Ms.

Powell is in terms of, I think with all of our contracts, if we could just figure out

If we could just figure out a different way of reconciling that at the end of the year.

We're giving you the money, but it would be nice if we just had this way of just saying, okay, this is what it all went towards because when we have vacancy savings, then this is what happens with the money.

So if positions aren't filled, then just creating a

just creating some other process in this where we can say you had a contract with us and then we can reconcile that this is where the money went to just like this is where the the increase goes the next year.

Does that make sense?

It doesn't.

So we give you so you all give you all tell us this is how much it costs for transportation or this is how much it costs for maintenance.

If we could

If we could reconcile that contract with saying that this is what the money went to, this is how we applied the money that we requested from you all this year, like the salaries, benefits, or we had three vacancies, we had three vacancies and maintenance, so this is what

I think that that's one of the questions that we get that I never have the, like my board that's shaking their head.

They have a question, they have questions about that, but I don't really know the answer to that.

And so it's not about you're doing or not doing whatever with the money.

It's we don't, I don't know the answers to if you had seven vacancies, then of course, I mean, I would assume that I think Mr. Williams even said this one time that like, well, if you had three vacancies, then I had to pay somebody overtime, right?

Then I had to pay somebody overtime.

I think it's that kind of stuff, like, right.

You're good with coming up with processes.

And what else did I miss?

Anything else I missed from this Ms.

I don't think so.

My understanding is the second area, one that we've been talking about for years, there's a number of 30 hour positions and what we hear, what I heard again this year is that despite all the progress we've made,

Overall, with the transportation system, there's still a good number of 30 hour positions that are routinely working 40 hours in order to cover all of our regular day routes, the midday routes, the special transportation services, the field trips within the metro area.

And so, of course, then you have those 30 hour positions that are like, well, I'm always working 40 hours, but I don't get the same level of contribution for the benefits.

They're asking that this next contract balance the 30 and 40 hour positions to the level that's needed overall.

It's about the overall number of drivers, but it's also about recognizing the number of drivers that routinely are required to work 40 hours in order to provide all the services.

So that's that middle piece there.

And that last piece, especially during the driver shortage over time, our dependency on contract services for the mid days, the special transportation just kept climbing.

And we really the idea, of course, is we want to rate there's understandably a desire to reign that back because it would be, I think, a better level of service and more cost effective in the long run.

Yes, please.

So do you currently have vans and van drivers?

and Garland can chime in here too.

There are two vans and it was determined that in order to really get away from contracted services, six additional vans would be needed.

And presently, the people who are driving the vans, as well as some cars, if it's just one or two students being transported to a special program, a lot of times it ends up being the bus aides who get pulled to drive those special runs.

and then that's taking an important support off of the buses and so this is hopefully that you know prayerfully the increase that's put forward this year kind of balances the equation in a the most efficient way as far as supply and demand and then the hope would be that the increases would not be as significant

You know, once we get over the post-COVID hump of rebalancing, what really is a more efficient way to deliver all the services.

That's my understanding.

Dr. Gurley, sorry, real quick.

And yes, I, I know that city has been taking a lot of questions about transportation and buses, the EV buses, is the priority on getting school buses to be electric, so that we can save money in the future?

Or what's where are we going with that?

Because again, this is something that the school board we don't control.

This is all in your guys's court, and something that we'd really like to have to reduce our operational expenses going forward, or at least hedge those.

So when you reference priority, priority is probably measured in a couple of ways.

One, we are definitely working towards the integration of electric buses.

The commitment has been made that we right now have two and we are in the last

stage of determining are we going to apply for up to two more.

That is a budget decision because there's a local match requirement.

The team has completed the work on reviewing that and I'm in the process of reviewing whether or not I can find the money to pay for an additional grant to then to pay towards an additional grant that might get us up to four.

The plan is, yes, we're talking about fleet conversion.

We're talking about total fleet conversion.

And just to my councilor colleagues, I know there's a million dollars a year in the CIP for climate-related initiatives for the city.

This is

Some things where, you know, I think we would like to see, you know, how is that benefiting our schools?

Was it, you know, again, through energy efficiency improvements or matching grants or investments, you know, and or is some of that money going to be matching grants for EV buses?

for us so we can reduce our expenses going forward.

And that's, I mean, I haven't got any clarity on again, how that million dollars is being spent.

And again, how is that being also benefiting the schools?

So those are the things that I think, you know, it could be, again, matching to get a rooftop sold on our schools.

And I would just add briefly, as was mentioned, there are electric school buses that are being acquired and pursuing additional ones.

But in the sake of forthrightness, I think at least for counsel, one of the guiding assumptions of having fleet conversion be a top priority was the available of federal money through the bipartisan infrastructure law, inflation reduction act.

and the local matches, full fleet conversion will only be feasible if that money is accessible for upfront infrastructure costs as well as acquiring the buses themselves.

So we are very much watching what if anything gets cut that is unspent from those bills because obviously if the new administration cuts those, I think the ability for us to do a full fleet conversion becomes much, much harder.

I will offer just from an operational standpoint, the question you pose, there is not a direct answer because it was not established with a directive from council to make it as clear as what you just asked.

There is no answer for me to give to you in regards to what is the percentage of benefit that might impact schools for the Climate Action Fund.

That wasn't a consideration.

What was considered was council adopted a climate action plan

and there needed to be some funds put into implementing said plan.

The effort was to identify funding and then to allow the subject matter experts on our team to determine and how do we deploy that.

So that's the work that's being done.

I do understand that that is going to impact schools because we're in that conversation with them right now about this EV bus application.

More than likely, if we are to move forward with these two buses, one of the questions was, could some of that money come out of that fund if it hasn't already been earmarked for something else for this fiscal year?

So that's part of the answer, but I'm not in a position to give you a more concrete answer that I believe you desire, because that was not the directive that I was given either.

So I have a million dollars a year in the CIP, and we plan to deploy it to the best of our ability to make an impact across the system.

I also want to go back and just make sure for a council's benefit, it is, and I'm looking backwards just to make sure I get the right knot head, the head knot.

This slide represents what has been discussed between CAT and school staff, correct?

All right, I just want to be sure that this is not, just so that you can appreciate, this was not a dictate from us to schools, this was worked out.

So when we look at this, this is about the change that is taking into consideration.

How do we serve the needs of getting kids to school?

So this is the result of that.

And now we have to wrestle with how we pay for it.

Kim did a wonderful job in explaining the information.

She did a wonderful job in explaining everything.

The 16 bill on the full-time represents the number that we will need to make sure that we have ample full-time

So that is a component that we need to continue to focus on.

And we continue to have a bunch of part-timers.

They're not necessarily required to work.

I have a question.

Mr. Sanders, do you have any sort of... Do you have any update on rooftop solar for CHS?

It's something that I've heard about quite a bit.

And my understanding was there was an issue with Dominion in terms of... There's a lot there.

The honest answer, solar is a complicated issue.

It's a lot.

I don't believe that we're in a position to go deep into that because I also would need the benefit of Ms.

Ritterbull being present for efforts that are underway.

But I know that we have, we have a full finance

I don't want to, I was going to call it a scheme and I don't want to minimize it, but we have a finance effort underway where we're trying to determine is there an opportunity for us to establish a financing mechanism that is viable, that would then support our ability to accelerate when and how many rooftop solar projects we could take on.

Correct.

And that is part of the strategy.

I mean, Crystal is aware of that, but we are.

We're actually also having to work with our outside finance team to help us even consider this because this is complicated and we have already learned that other municipalities have not been able to deploy it.

So we're, of course, a little nervous about that too.

I'll also go back to the maintenance section and say that that too is a part of further conversation that we probably should have with Mr. Goddard and Ms.

Rittervold to then just kind of talk about how CIP is impacted and what our approach has been because those are true direct asks for changes to what we've been currently doing and you would have to consider that.

Oh, okay.

I have a question about the wage.

I'll give you the wage that starts January 1st.

All right, anything else transportation related before we move forward?

All right, seeing no other questions, we will press forward.

So now we have our FY26 budget considerations.

Next slide.

and so want to show you here for the last four fiscal years we've kept our salary at the on par with the state rate so the state rate increases and so that is that gray bar that's trending that's trending up and down and so

You may be looking at the 24 to 25 fiscal year and wondering what the up and down is and so I want to make sure we explain.

So back in the FY25, we gave a 5% raise on July the 1st of 2023.

But then the General Assembly adopted a budget in the fall, which required a 2% raise effective January the 1st.

And so you may be saying, well, five and two is seven.

But because it was only half of the year, which we implemented it, then that is where it equates to basically 1% because it was only half of the year.

So that's where we get the, it was a 6% raise for that year.

and then for the FY23, I'm sorry, FY25, which is the year we're in now, we gave a 3% raise, which was approved with the full impact to include that 2% raise that we had given mid-year, which equates to 5% for the upcoming year.

One thing that I am very appreciative of our school board is just really always prioritizing, making sure that the wages are competitive for our staff, for all of our staff members.

Next slide.

The impact of collective bargaining, is that part of this later on?

It'll be baked into the conversation.

Okay, I'm sorry.

So on this slide, so using the last four years average salary, then the average is five and a quarter and the state biennium, which is the 24-26 biennium budget has a raise of 3% for the fiscal year 26.

which is for our upcoming budget.

So we are still working to codify the remainder.

We're right at the end of our

Our collective bargaining contract, we feel like we will have something to just tighten up the remaining remainder of the language so that the union can present it to the bargaining group.

So within the conversation of compensation is the there is a salary action there.

So included in the estimated compensation, we're talking about that 4.25 is inclusive of the salary action for collective bargaining and for all employees.

So it's using your word, Mr. Pinkston, it is baked into that number.

Did I say that right?

Yeah, it's 5, yeah, 4.25.

So it's baked into that number, so collect the bargain and ask is in there.

Our early health insurance projections show an increase of about $1.1 million.

Remember, I don't know if this is the same for the city, but we are self-insured.

And so ours is based on the claims.

Our rates are based on claims.

And so this is based on, our 1.1 is based on last year's claims loss of about 107%.

So we are hopeful that that we're hopeful that that number that that number will come down That will it will come down But we will have to wait and see And also there are no VRS There's no VRS changes at this time Next slide

I won't spend a lot of time on this because this is the bill that you all give to us.

So our maintenance contract has seen an average for the last three years of an increase of about $361,000.

Our student transportation is projected to increase about $786,000.

and we will have some expenses from our KTEC, from KTEC, our acquisition of KTEC and so we are projected to increase the net area of about $318,000.

Any questions about the non-discretionary?

Well, I will move on.

I think this is where to speak to your point in the accounting, the math, where we as a board are saying $361 additional thousand dollars

or what were things spent on last year?

And where did the money go and how did that get done?

Where were vacancy savings or did it come from public works?

Did it come from Parks and Rec?

Where did our line item money

go just to speak to that point and truly understanding what each space is accountable for, whether it's our maintenance staff that doing the work day to day or whether we need that support from the city, just really understanding kind of the process by which that happens and then where that money is allocated for which space.

All right.

And the van purchases.

Everything there.

OK.

All right, so in terms of our budget request for student improvement, as we look at what's here, and as we look at what's here, and I probably should have changed the title after we ended up adding a couple other things on there.

but the ESL teachers, our English language learners specialist is requesting five and a half FTEs and that's to support the change with the numbers, increase in numbers but also the programmatic changes as it relates to our status of accreditation.

We are seeing some fluctuation in our needs in terms of how we support students with regards to reading and so bringing another reading specialist online.

It will definitely be an asset and we are looking to how we can deploy that support differently.

And what we are referring to as differentiated staffing so that the support moves with the student need.

I have a question.

So how do we decide why we only have one reading specialist?

Well, compared to like our numbers.

Yeah, so this is this is what so the one additional is based on a change and a change in the number of students we serve.

So the the screener that we use to the screener that we use to identify students.

that screen are changed.

And so when we're looking at caseloads of how many, when we're looking at caseloads at how many students are being served by the reading specialists, we feel that adding one to the pot brings down that caseload.

And we want to be very intentional about where we place that one person.

So we exceed the state.

So

We exceed the state numbers when it comes to caseloads.

That's for everything.

That's for special education.

That's for ELLs.

But what we want to do is we want to temper that even more by being able to bring that number, that caseload number down.

OK, and then you said being intentional.

We do.

We've had some.

So I don't want to speak out yet because we've not informed the schools.

But yes, we do.

And along with this work, and we've not had a, you all may not have been privy to a lot of this conversation.

We had a change with the Virginia Literacy Act.

It's called the VLA.

We had the Virginia Literacy Act.

And so our teachers,

are going through what we call letters training.

It's this science-based instructional reading professional development to work with our students.

So they're going through that training, but they also are writing reading plans.

So I mean, the ask that we placed on teachers has grown exponentially.

And so

They're writing literacy plans.

They're having student success meetings with regards to individual students.

So all of these things are happening.

And so we have interventionists in schools.

So some of this work can be done by the reading specialists.

And then some of this work is done by the classroom teacher.

And so that's why

There's the one position there for right now.

We have seen and continue to see an uptick in student behavior, particularly with our littles.

This is about our littles, but they can work with all of our students.

What we see is that kids have not participated in a formalized preschool program.

They're coming to school.

They're dysregulated.

Our teachers are spending a lot of time with those students and they're not having the opportunity.

We're not meeting those students who are dysregulated.

We're not always meeting them where they are.

and so from our student services department, there is the proposal of adding three behavioral support technicians, people who can get in and do some of the most intense work, model what needs to happen, but spend the time with the students, help to do some of the functional behavioral assessments, help to do the behavior intervention plans,

Our goal should always be that we should not see behavior as the pathway to special education services because they're not the same things.

But oftentimes, it gets conflated, these misconstrued as one thing is the other and they're not.

So this is Miss Rasnick's

Just not knowing the terminology, would these be positions that end up basically working one-on-one with students?

Not full time with not full time one to one, but could do some could do some interim time, maybe one to one while they're helping to get the child regulated and modeling.

But the intent is not that this becomes the one to one for the student.

They're bringing the knowledge, they're working, they're rolling their sleeves up, they're doing the work alongside the teachers, and then they're providing the strategies and they're modeling, but no, they're not full-time one-to-one with the students.

I'm gonna come back to the HR position.

We have in our attempt to continue to meet students where they are, we are proposing in our programs of study, a health and medical sciences pathway.

So this is a gateway to whether you want to be a nurse or whether you want to do something in the medical field.

So we are adding this pathway and it requires a half-time FTE

in order to teach the class.

And then lastly, well, lastly, and then I'll go back up, we have the Restorative Justice Education Specialist.

Currently, our Family Engagement Specialist, Ms.

Bianca Johnson, is serving as the Restorative Justice person.

We find

Loads of success in the work that she's doing, but she is splitting her time.

She's splitting her position currently doing that work.

We have found success from our students with spending time with her, helping to restore relationships.

and helping students, helping communities of students to just get to a better space.

She's also doing some work that looks like an extension of human resources because she's also working with staff members.

She just did a whole

She just did a whole restorative with a school just because there were some spaces where they weren't feeling well and she just really went in and she had to bring in some people from the community to help her do the work because she couldn't facilitate the groups by herself.

So we're finding a lot of benefits to that.

We want that position to be full-time.

She would actually move into that role and we would post her current role, which is the family engagement.

So she would move over to restorative justice and we would post the family engagement.

And then I want to go back to the HR recruiting specialist.

What we are finding now, and this is probably true in every industry, right?

You come to work and you think that you're going to do something one day and then all of these other things happen and you never can get to them.

And that's very true of our HR department.

In terms of that department there's the director and then there's an HR administrator and then there's a person who does benefits and then we have another person who does a lot of the day-to-day administrative tasks but

on any different, they wear so many hats that they get pulled for investigations.

They get pulled to, I mean, that takes up a lot of doing a lot of that student center work on.

Sometimes people don't make all of the best choices.

So they spend so much time in that, that we really don't, they're not spending a lot of their time in the HR recruitment areas.

They're recruiting for teachers, but it's not, they can't always get into the work.

And so this allows us to put someone in place that that's their job.

They get to stay into the social media spaces and make sure that our

make sure that our public facing job boards are up to date, making sure that the HR recruitment plan is being implemented, that we are tapping the right people to be doing those recruitment things.

And so that's what that position is.

And so those are our position requests as they relate to FTEs.

And so here is just this here's a summary of What we've talked about what I've talked about as it relates to preliminary requests So the preliminary request our compensation and benefits and so back to mr. Pinkston question baked into this number is is the our

Just the salary portions, baked into it is the salary portions from our collective bargaining contract.

And then there are the non-discretionary ask, the student improvement, which I just showed you, which gives you a total of $7.9 million thus far.

You know, in compensation benefits, that's baking in, you said salaries for collective bargaining.

That's not baked into this.

So the compensation change, we're saying it's $5.3 million.

And that's the cost of the contract.

What about the employees that are outside of the contract?

That's it.

That's been made without dollar figures is what I'm appreciating because there's already been a request to reconsider what the lump sum allocation is.

So that will be an increase if we were to change that.

And if there was a further prioritization of solar and modernization, that too would have to be a question.

So, and you raise that you mentioned the lump sum amount and hit a note that Ms.

Hammel was going to be responsible for my being able to hit because she provided me the information saying that there is

from a prior year, a $5.8 million lump sum to schools that apparently hasn't been spent.

And a total of about $19 million of authorized but not issued capital commitments that we've made in the schools, money that has not been spent.

So clarifying that, that's just bonds that we haven't sold.

There is many, many pages of plans that have for projects that are allocated or in the works.

And then a lot of that list is monies from we're always a year behind.

So at least the 25 budget is in there that those bonds have not been sold yet.

So it's not necessarily a correlation that the dollars have not been spent.

Pardon my ignorance, but if the bonds haven't been sold yet, we don't have the money.

We actually sell bonds.

Most of our bond issues, when we sell, we sell there's a tax implication if we do not spend the money within 24 months.

So often when we sell bonds, we are reimbursing ourselves for some portion of that.

This list is nothing new to school folks.

This is a list that's been about $70 million, $80 million, even more than that for as long as I've been on council.

And some of the items have actually had years put on them going back four and five years.

It's been sort of a pet peeve of mine that I just sort of have this notion that when council makes a tough decision to spend money that things are going to get done, and clearly they're not getting done, and my question

Partly to you, Ms.

Hammel, and partly to whoever else may know something about this is, as we look at the $19 million worth of school-related expenditures on this list, which includes HVAC replacement, it includes, just as CCS priority improvements, that's $5 million.

Reconfiguration Expenses, CHS Roof Replacement, Clark Windows, and Lumps Under Schools.

I'm just wondering, I mean, if this money has actually been spent, then I don't have any issue with the school people.

If it has been spent and we just haven't gotten around to issuing the bonds, it's really not really a budget consideration.

It's an operational, how do we accomplish a consideration?

We can go back and get you that list.

For example, the Clark windows are almost done, but we haven't sold the bombs on that one.

CHS roof is a large one that we've not sold all the bonds for yet.

Because again, we are selling, we sell bonds once a year.

Just to make CHS roof replacement, is that underway?

So it's a phased project.

So they can only do so much with some of those projects during summertime or when students aren't in the building.

So that one has been on there a long time.

So Mr. Goddard had a meeting a couple of weeks ago.

I was not able to attend, but I'm on that committee.

Make sure you get that PowerPoint if you've not gotten it.

So that may be me.

Could you please, Mr. Carter, resend that, maybe send it to Sam and then Sam, if you could get it, the rest of council.

But it does a really good job explaining his portfolio of the work that he has going on and sort of how he's managing it.

My guess is that there's not like a lot of slippage in terms of what's been committed in the work that's being done.

Folks on council have heard me express this concern before that we don't get a very good, there's not a very good information flow to us about how projects that we have approved are moving forward, or if they're moving forward in some cases.

Ms.

Counselor Snook, to your point, I mean I appreciate you asking that question and just from a school's perspective and I don't feel like you're questioning this at all, I think everything that is on that list needs to be done.

There's definitely and has been on that list for a long time and I know that

Some of it, you know, is timing.

Some of it, you know, is manpower from what I've heard.

So, I mean, please don't think that we are bringing forward projects to that list without some serious thought.

I mean, I know you've been in the school buildings and I know that you're familiar with Greenbrier bathrooms and things that haven't even made the list, you know, so there is a long list and we have

have actually and I know that Miss Powell and Dr. Gurley are probably meeting with counterparts because we have had a recent safety audit of the entire school division and there's a long punch list on that that I'm sure will be shared and discussed at some length as far as what needs to be done to just get our schools

Just basic safety up to par.

One of the reasons we had why there were things on this list that hadn't been done were that we didn't want to invest more money at Buford because we thought we were about to embark on this major renovation project, which clearly in the long run made good sense.

I mean, there was an explanation for why something had been on that list for five years.

I don't know.

My purpose in asking the question was that I simply, when we've got a list of probably 30 or 40 projects citywide, not all school stuff, ranging in $76 million, and we

Just as a matter of how we oversee our government, that's a question we ought to be asking every year, if not more frequently than that.

Why are these funds previously allocated by council not yet spent?

I've always said council has sort of a fire and forget mentality.

We make the decision we're going to approve this expenditure.

And then we don't see it again.

We don't know what happens.

We don't know whether things are happening that are supposed to be happening.

That was the purpose of my question.

Councilor Snook, I'd like to address that because the conversation we had last year was thinking about how we fund schools too and we never got around to that between council and the school board and I would like to address we think about that more because we got frustrated with just all right we're gonna cut the schools operationally you know

a chunk of the additional sales, or not excuse me, real property tax increase, right?

And that was the rule of thumb.

And we need to find out a new way to think about how to fund our schools and like a needs-based budget.

All right, here's our needs-based budget, right?

Also, right, so regarding the CIP, we had two meetings this year of the school CIP, which is 100% increase off of one meeting, which had been the previous, my understanding, like protocol.

I think a quarterly meeting, to get to your point, to be reviewing all this would be appropriate and would get help, kind of, I think.

get more attention, sorry, because we don't control that, right, from the school board side of things.

We're asking things to get done and at the mercy, sorry, of you all prioritizing Mr. Sanders to get those things done, right, and or hire the project managers, et cetera, to make sure that budget gets spent and the project's executed.

So that was one more reason, one way, sorry, not one reason, one thing I can think of of how we can make sure and prioritize getting things done would be a little bit more oversight by both of our parties basically having a quarterly CIP meeting.

at least on that side of things, because it's not us not spending the money regarding the CIP.

Well, let me just say, school folks haven't heard me give the little sort of detail, but every quarter we get a fairly detailed report from the Rivanna Washington Super Authority.

And it has literally every capital project that they have on their books for the next 40 years

and it says where it is in the process and how much money is allocated and when do we expect it's going to get completed.

So every quarter, counselors can get a report that says we know where the money we're giving you is being spent.

We know that you all are on the ball.

We can report to our constituents what's happening.

My concern has been that we don't have that comparable information

from the rest of the city government, not just the schools, but the rest of city government, totally.

And I've been asking for a few years now that we get some quarterly report like that, and it would have the kind of detail I would hope.

Yeah, and I do think there is a standing meeting, a standing committee that Juan and I are on.

And if I've not shared that information more completely relative to the schools, I apologize.

We can certainly get that information.

Ms.

Torres is in those meetings.

Who else from your side of things?

Yeah.

I just want to be careful we're not mischaracterizing the status of the school CIP projects.

My own view and talking with Mr. Goddard and attending the meetings and looking at the slide shows and everything else, that is a tightly run portfolio that things are going on the list and they're being executed.

We just funded a major

Project at Buford, obviously, which needed to be done.

There's a lot more things that need to be done, but I just want us to be careful with this narrative that seems to be emerging that we're not keeping up with a list of projects for schools.

If there's concerns that people have on the school board, I would love to sit down with people.

And I would like to say from the city side that, again, as I started with, that the city has been very responsive, particularly as we most recently upgraded the bathrooms.

Those are CIP things.

There are some things that do push other things down, and that's when we do reach out to Sam and his team.

That's my last slide.

We have another joint session with you all in February.

And so we will, we will, we still have a few more budget requests that we are working through.

Is that your number?

If I had to live with that number today, we would live with it, but there are a few.

I mean, one thing we're going to have to do differently next school year is, I mean, it feels like we're going to be starting the year with budget requests because we're literally

crafting this presentation up till yesterday morning because we're going through the budget request.

And so we tried to pull out some of the big ones.

I know that there are people in the division that are watching that don't see something that they've requested on the list.

And that doesn't mean it won't make it.

But we did try to pull some of the heavier things out.

But so Brother Sam, we will try to keep this number

With all due respect and appreciating your work, I mean, this is the first kind of look we've had at these numbers as well.

So we have a couple of meetings with Dr. Gurley and his team yet coming up.

If it's okay with you all, I'd like to open us up for public comment at this point.

So we have, I do have a couple of people on the list here, I believe in the rooms.

We have Mr. Hartline, if you would like to start in your field, just please state your name, address, and we have three minutes for public comment.

Good evening, board members and city council.

Can you hear me now?

Good evening board members and city council members.

Derek Hartlein, 1517 Antoinette Avenue, Lifelong City resident.

I want to address both groups tonight.

Two weeks ago I addressed the board about the vehicle fires at Jackson Via that happened on November 25th.

After that discussion I want to know

that city council will support the schools to ensure safety on grounds.

The fire that destroyed four vehicles that morning was due to the buildup of leaves that have accumulated in Jackson via a staff lot.

The city's plan to maintain school spaces needs to be better and done more regularly.

The city isn't picking up the leaves enough causing the buildup that also caused the staff member to fall leaving work this month.

The wind today brought down many more leaves, and I watched them blow to the lot where the staff parks each work day.

We deserve to be safe at work.

I fear that if the regeneration isn't removed over the two-week winter break, we risk another chance of a fire and possible more staff injuries.

Along with the leaves, the entire fence line growth that protrudes through the fence and into the parking lot poking into our vehicles needs to be cleared.

The overgrowth used to get cut back properly and hauled away but this has not been occurring and as a result bad things are happening.

It used to be a team of city workers who came and cleared the grass of leaves and trimmings and now one sole individual does all the mowing.

These cost-saving changes have led to the decline of our school's grounds and resulted in safety concerns.

I'm asking tonight that both parties can assure safety of Jack's advised staff and families by properly removing the brush and all leaves along the fence line over this break.

Once the city decided for Jackson Vine to be a polling place, I thought the upkeep of the property would be a bigger priority, but sadly that is not the case.

I look forward to hearing and seeing changes before January 7th when school resumes.

I promise to update the board at the next meeting on January 9th and want to report good news.

Please help make this a reality.

Thank you.

Next.

Go ahead, Ms.

My name is Shannon Gilliken.

I am a teacher for the last 15 years in the city schools.

I'm a parent and I am the proud president of CEA, our educators union.

You heard a lot tonight about the needs of our students, all of which I feel deeply on a daily basis.

20% of my kindergartners are English learners.

Several are homeless.

The needs are real.

But without quality educators, we can't meet those needs.

You know there's a national teacher shortage, and last year, CCS lost almost 70 educators.

The union has been working since 2021 to earn the right to bargain, and we've spent the last four months in meetings with CCS to negotiate a strong contract that supports educators and values our time.

You'll be hearing a lot of details about this soon.

The best thing that council can do is to fully fund our contract so that we can keep our educators.

Without this contract, Albemarle already pays better than the city, and you will lose more teachers.

Good evening, school board and city council members.

My name is Solita Carr, and I am here tonight representing both Charlottesville United for Public Education and my organization, Not Me, I Believe, which is dedicated to anti-bullying efforts.

As we enter budgeting season, we must remember that every line, I'm so sorry, I'm just my throat.

Okay, so every line item in our budget

reflects not just numbers but values, our values as a community and our commitment to our children and educators and each other.

Over the past year, organizations like Charlottesville United have worked to engage our community, showing up at events, knocking on doors, and asking the people of Charlottesville what matters most to them.

And the community has spoken loud and clear.

The top three priorities were heard.

It was social, emotional wellness, school safety, educator support.

And those are clearly what we all think about anyway.

So these priorities are not separate issues.

They are deeply interconnected.

A child's social emotional wellness

impacts their safety in schools, just as the support we provide our educators directly affects their ability to foster that wellness and ensure a safe, inclusive environment for all.

But we must also take a deeper look at the systems in place, bullying,

doesn't create, ooh, excuse me, and I can't see.

I don't have my glasses.

Where are we?

Y'all bear with me.

Where has the impacts of social-emotional wellness and impacts their safety in schools?

Just as the support we provide our educators.

I done skipped over a lot, I think.

Bullying doesn't just happen between students, it's embedded.

And the structure that continues to create inequalities and push people of color, especially into cycles of survival.

We all know that.

And I'm going to stop there.

But I know that this isn't this.

We need to look at it in all angles, and I do love the fact of all the numbers.

I do not come to most of these meetings, but I will be, because it is important for us educators, as well as people within the community to start coming in and listening to what's going on in these budgets, because our kids are affected by it, and so are the community members.

If there's anybody else, I'm sorry, I was having trouble with the mic.

Anybody else who would like to offer public comment?

I don't know if we're showing anybody online.

Okay.

If you, we see Mr. Brian Ray, if you would like to make public comment, just indicate so by the raised hand icon.

Oh, never mind.

Thank you for being with us.

All right, anybody else?

I just wanted to return to the issue of projects for schools.

I believe the meeting was held

On or near Friday, November the 22nd, most of the people here were copied on it.

So if you could just look in your email, there's a really excellent PowerPoint that was put together by Mr. Goddard laying out all the work they have going on as well as prioritization for the upcoming year.

So I think

My suggestion would be if folks don't have a copy of that, that they get one, and if they've got questions, maybe that'd be something for like a smaller group to work on, since there does seem to be concern on the part of the school board that projects are being requested that aren't occurring.

Mr. Pinkston.

Yeah, I don't think that concern was from us.

So no, did I not hear that from you?

Okay.

My observation more recently is Mr. Goddard's team has been increased, he's been promoted and I'm very happy with and he's been project managing, Charlottesville Middle School, it's on time, on budget, etc.

He executed the bathrooms in the high school.

All that's been really well.

So what I'm advocating for now these days is more budget to do more things.

so that his team can do more things for our schools which is you know there's again as we've seen and I try to show you is a proxy of our energy uses just a proxy of kind of where our buildings at and additional things we need done which you know I hope my ask is that you give appropriate more money for the list of projects we have and allow his team and give him maybe another project manager to execute on all those things.

So I think, and my observation now at the moment is, yes, you have a very good team in place that's actually cleaning.

Maybe that wasn't the case 10 years ago and why there's a long list of other things to get done.

But in general, our facilities make up a very large percentage of your square footage for all the city facilities.

I just want to make sure we're getting the appropriate attention and resources invested in them.

Again, to make them reduce costs, let us spend more money on our staff.

Any final comments from school board questions?

All right, I want to thank everybody for your time, for the prep, the questions.

We'll continue to have conversation and then just quickly we do our next regular school board meeting is Thursday, January 9th and then we have a couple of budget work sessions scheduled.

Thursday, January 30th, February 6th.

And then again, as Dr. Gurley said, we'll be meeting back with counselors on Monday, February 10th, 2025.

So if there's no further comments, we will adjourn the meeting.

So thank you very much, everybody.

Stay safe.