School Board Meeting   2/6/2025

I am calling our school board meeting to order.

I would like to start with a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Yes, Madam Chair.

Ms.

Burns?

Here.

Ms.

Cooper?

Here.

Ms.

Ms.

Richardson?

Here.

Ms.

And Ms.

Hudock?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Got a first and a second.

All in favor, aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, we have an agenda.

Moving on, we are going to start with comments from members of the community, starting with our students.

Please remember that you have a three-minute limit.

Hi, everybody.

Can everybody hear me all right?

Okay, we can start now then.

Image detecting device to help blind people shop in stores.

An AI image analysis model to improve mental health.

A shoe insert to model and predict issues with gait to prevent injury.

Power drawn from gravity batteries in rivers.

These are just some of the incredible projects completed by students in capstone engineering this year.

For the past decade, the engineering program has consisted of four levels,

of classes to learn a combination of code and computer-aided design and a capstone class where students spend a year on a project to help the community.

Proposed changes to this curriculum may include two semesters of completely virtual dual enrollment classes taught by PVCC professor unrelated to the engineering lab facilities completely.

We are here to strongly urge the school board to support the engineering curriculum progression that has served our students so well for the last 10 years.

The virtual classes should be offered as an option, but not as a replacement for the engineering floor and capstone.

So we conducted a poll, which has received 75 responses, all from CHS engineering students, and there were some startling distributions.

When given a choice between the virtual PVCC classes, a year-long project class with no dual enrollment credit, 90% of students reported preferring the project that lends them no dual enrollment credit.

If only given the option to take the virtual engineering classes, only 40% of students reported planning on continuing engineering.

More than 30% of students responded that they would consider dropping the class, and that is something we've seen this year with the students enrolled.

Many students, including Bacon Leadership, have dropped the dual enrollment class in favor of becoming teacher's assistants, which offers them no credit at all.

Students are dropping the course because the content is redundant relative to the content in engineering one through three.

Eliminating or changing the level four and five classes will have numerous adverse effects.

First, because the course utilizes software like Excel and Autodesk, it is virtually inaccessible on the school issued Chromebooks, making the course more accessible for people who can go home to desktop computers, not possible for everybody.

Second, we would lose the valuable rigor associated with our program.

The capstone project is an excellent way to prepare engineering students for college admissions and classes.

We believe that increasing access

Continuing the capstone project class does not require any additional teachers with expertise as long as it's not DE.

Thank you for your time and comments.

Are there any other students in the audience that wish to speak?

All right, moving on to comments from members of the community.

We'll start with those who have signed up.

We'll start with Mr. Ian Mullins.

All right.

My name is Ian Mullins.

I live at 2739 McElroy here in Charlottesville.

I am the parent of a child who attends city schools.

I'm very proud of the city schools.

I absolutely love the city schools.

I'm also a sociologist.

I'm a professor at UVA.

Some of my students are here.

I did not bring them, but I'm happy to see it.

I'm here to speak about SROs.

Once again, I was here one year ago as part of a community effort to emphasize to the board how happy we were that we had removed SROs from our schools, only to find out that the board was reconsidering bringing them back in.

There was a big showing last year.

At the end of the meeting, the school board decided that they were going to look into it and reconvene, and now I see more items on the agenda.

I want to reiterate some points from last year and raise some new ones.

My points last year, we do not control the police.

They do not know how to de-escalate.

When you bring them into the building in this way, you do not determine what they do and you cannot tell them to back off.

And in a time, this is what I'd like to add, where police officers, local police officers, could be brought into immigration enforcement.

That is dangerous for many of our students and their families.

That is risk.

That does not need to be here.

People need services.

I know this is a really complicated issue, but when people say we need help, we need services, that does not mean we need the police.

Why don't we have social workers or more funding for the people that are doing this work with the plan that you came up with after the community put in the effort to get the police out?

Let's spend the money there.

Let's give people the actual services that they need, not introduce a new type of risk that in these political times, which is my area of expertise professionally, are dangerous.

So I love these schools.

I want to keep the students in these schools safe.

And I also want to say just very quickly that the school board was going to do a study

But a study that is conducted by a firm that has a financial interest in providing services to the police is not a legitimate study.

A company or firm that can benefit from this decision is not valid.

I say this as a professional academic.

It is just a just for someone to do what they already wanted to do.

And that's wrong.

That's not the proper kind of feedback.

That's not the proper kind of evaluation.

It's not valid.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Peter Davis.

I'm a teacher here at Charlottesville High School.

I've got a two-parter.

The first part, I just wanted to thank a few groups of people that have worked really hard behind the scenes.

And there's been a few things that I've spoken here about over the last year.

I just want to kind of acknowledge some big changes that we've seen.

And one of those was something that was important to me and a lot of us here was getting the alarms on all the exterior doors, getting that up and going.

and also fully staffing our CSA teams and all that.

So I just want to say Mr. Coover, Ms.

Powell, Mr. Byers, all the people that have been involved in all of that technology has made a huge difference here.

As someone who has a classroom on the outside and comes and goes all the time, we worked out the kinks and things like that, but having those doors alarmed has made a huge

The last thing I want to say thank you for was Dr. Hurley, the finance team, the coordinators,

working on the budget.

You know, I'm excited to see how that goes.

And actually, I'm going to pin in that because I realized I skipped the other thing that I really wanted to talk about was getting the substitutes for the high school.

So thank you to our HR team and everybody that was involved in front and behind the scenes and that that has been fantastic at CHS.

to show up and not

got that appreciation.

So I just wanted to pass that along to everybody else that's involved.

So thank you for all of that hard work.

And about the budget, attending the work session last week was a very good education time for me.

I've not really been involved in that kind of thing.

And this is not, that is not my wheelhouse.

But thank you to all the hard work that's gone for that.

I did want to see if there's a way

As a school division, I know City Council has brought this up and the UVA Student Council has brought it up.

If we can start to kind of find ways to lobby UVA for the payment in lieu of taxes, if we can start to kind of look into how we can be a part of

Being more a part of that conversation, I would love to be in on that because they're sitting on a whole lot of money over there.

My quick Googling today tells me that the UVA Medical Center brings in over $7 billion annually in revenue.

They're sitting on an endowment of $14.2 billion, easily getting $100 million donations for buildings and programs.

And it would just be awesome if they could be a great neighbor and share that with us.

You know, because we do offer a lot to them and their community and educate their kids from their faculty and employees and all that.

It would just be a fantastic partnership.

And I would love to see if there's a way that we can kind of team up with some of that lobbying to make that happen.

Thank you.

Hello, thanks for the opportunity to speak.

I am the parent of three children who graduated from CHS and am deeply involved with supporting a family who has two children here, one at CHS and one at Buford now.

And I've spoken to you many times about SROs in the school.

I feel a little bit like it's Groundhog Day because I'm back here again.

We had an incredibly good, thorough, long,

engagement process years ago where we came up with a plan and I am confused about why the schools are constantly going back and trying to take that plan apart and put SROs back in the schools as a

member of the UVA faculty who is a nurse who specializes in trauma and violence.

I can tell you that we need to create a safe environment in the school and every shred of evidence we have suggests that when police officers are present,

Students feel less safe and different students feel more or less safe and particularly black students and black boys feel less safe.

School attainment goes down.

They are less likely to graduate merely with the presence of officers in the school.

Additionally, we are in a moment where I know that there are many children who are afraid to come to school every day because they are concerned about immigration raids.

I do not think that having uniformed officers in the school is going to make those students feel safer.

I think that the opposite is true.

So I implore you to stop, talk to the community if you want, but talk to the community well with well-designed surveys, not using outside firms with a vested interest, not sending uniformed officers to knock on doors and ask people how they feel about the police, but to really do well-designed community engagement to talk to the

the communities that are most affected and least likely to talk to you about the issues.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else in the media center who would like to speak?

Hello.

OK.

I do bad with this mic, so.

All right.

Well, good evening, Dr. Gurley, esteemed members of the board.

My name is Saundra Yvette Aviles, 201 West Main Street.

I stand before you today to advocate for a comprehensive investment in social emotional learning, aka SEL, for every student in the city of Charlottesville, in Charlottesville City Schools.

Our recent community survey underscores this need to meet the very clear needs of our more than 4,300 students.

These are a few investments that we would encourage the school board to consider adding.

And so the first one would be hiring additional mental health professionals.

To achieve a student to counselor ratio of 250 per one as recommended by the American School Counselor Association, we would need approximately 18 counselors.

necessitates hiring an additional 10 counselors given our current staffing.

At an estimated $70,000 per counselor, this equates to an annual investment of $700,000.

Second would be implementing an SEL curriculum.

Programs like Second Step have been estimated to cost about $50 per student annually, excluding instructional time.

For our student body, this totals approximately 219,550 per year.

Third is professional development of educators.

Training educators in social emotional learning is crucial.

Allocating 500 per teacher for professional development for approximately 362 teachers results in an investment of around $181,000.

Fourth, peer support and mentorship programs.

Establishing these programs including training and resources is an estimated $100,000 annually.

In total, we're looking at an annual investment of approximately 1.2 million.

While this is a significant commitment, research indicates that for every dollar invested in SEL, there is a return of about $11 through improved behavior, increased academic achievement, and long-term economic benefits.

By embedding SEL into our curriculum, we equipped our students with essential life skills, foster a positive school climate, and lay the foundation for their future success.

This investment is not just in programs, but in the well-being and potential of every student.

I urge you to consider this comprehensive plan and allocate the necessary funding to make SEL an integral part of our educational framework.

Our children deserve nothing less.

Thank you.

Please approach the mic.

You have three minutes.

Good evening, members of the board.

My name is Shanika Bowles, and I'm here representing Charlottesville United for Public Education.

The results were clear.

Social emotional wellness in school safety must be prioritized.

70% of the respondents called for increased access and mental health professionals.

Students need trained counselors who can meet with them where they are, especially those facing trauma. 65%

emphasized the importance of training on healthy relationships and conflict resolution to help students navigate challenges constructively.

68% supported expanded mental health and crisis intervention resources, recognizing the true safety of starts with emotional and behavioral support.

50% called for stronger anti-bullying programs and conflict resolution efforts to create a safer, more inclusive school environment.

45% backed restorative justice programs ensure that the student behavior issues are handled in a way to focus on growth and accountability rather than punishment.

As one community member put it, mental health resources are critical.

We need counselors who can meet students where they are, especially those dealing with trauma.

Another said conflict resolution should be key, a key part of the curriculum.

Kids need tools to handle disputes and constructive

These voices are clear.

Our students need more, not less, during these critical years.

We urge you to advocate for increased funding to support mental health professionals, restorative approaches to discipline, and conflict resolution programs.

Thank you.

Ms.

Good evening, school board, Dr. Gurley.

I'm Andy Orban, resident of Charlottesville.

I have three children.

I have three children in the city schools.

and speaking tonight about the presentation about the school safety and wanted to speak against bringing back SROs in any form.

As Catherine mentioned, the SROs had been kind of reviewed before through

committee that included community members and the school board.

And we have the current CSA model.

So one point I want to make that one of the main reasons that we did end up removing the CSOs, CS, SROs is the cost because

And as we just heard about the need for funding for mental health and conflict resolution and things, our school budget should be better used on those things instead of paying for police staff.

that will be presented.

One thing is to ask the question of what kind of learning environment are the students going to be in with police officers in the schools and what kind of issues there are with having police there for student learning.

So basically, I just want to weigh against having any sort of SRO program back in school.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else in the media center wishing to provide public comment?

All right, anybody in Zoom?

All right, thank you.

We'll move on.

We do have a section here for a public hearing on our proposed 2526 budget.

Good evening.

First, I want to start by saying thank you for the opportunity to be one of CHSS school board representatives.

It is an honor to speak and to have spoken on behalf of my peers this year.

I also want to say thank you to Miss Amanda Burns for meeting with Harper and me privately to further discuss this role of super helpful.

I'm aware that budgeting will be mentioned tonight, and I ask that art funding be considered as supplies are very low in classrooms right now, and students have to bring in materials of their own.

I also understand that the social and emotional learning is required in the state, and although this is beneficial for many, many students, CHS students ask that there be a change of when SEL takes place throughout the schedule.

There have been suggestions that certain teachers take on a portion of the time required for SEL at the end of classes, allowing students to then prioritize work during BKT.

I would like to work with Dr. Malone and Ms.

Raznick to address the timing issue going forth next year.

During the last meeting, I addressed a very concerning issue for many students, the student parking lot.

This was asked to be addressed and there is no change that students observe.

I hope Dr. Malone and Ms.

Kim Powell address this matter as many students feel very unsafe arriving and leaving school.

To address this issue, the student body requests that CSAs direct traffic as students will be safer and this allows more of an efficient entering and exiting process.

I also hope to work with Dr. Malone on the issue of the late line at CHS in the mornings.

I understand coming in late poses a challenge for the staff, but students feel they would rather be a minute late to class versus 15 to 20 minutes late because the late line isn't as efficient.

A potential way to address this may be prioritizing tardy sweeps during school to actively stop tardiness

to classes rather than arrival to school, which could be caused by traffic or something of this sort.

Another issue that is coming up this month is ChatGPT.

There is a strong suspicion among the students that a few teachers are using ChatGPT to grade, and many have noticed similar or exact feedback responses on their papers and inaccuracy concerning the directions for the assignment versus feedback with respect to the grading rubric.

This has caused frustration among many students and many questions and concerns about fairness and grading accuracy.

I'd be interested in talking more with Dr. Malone and the CEA union representative, Mr. Davis, about this further.

Thank you once again for this amazing opportunity to vocalize the opinions of my peers.

Thank you, Ms.

Hudock.

We appreciate you as well.

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

As you know, over the past several years in Virginia, we have celebrated our wonderful principals during Virginia School Principals Appreciation Week, which occurred during the week of January 12th through the 18th of this year.

Now that we have received Governor Youngkin's proclamation of officially recognizing that week as Virginia School Principals Appreciation Week, I wanted to put that before you.

Well, let's look at their beautiful pictures first there.

And then we have the proclamation that I will not read, but it is available for everyone to view.

Basically, it talks about how great principals serve schools and that's what we have here in Charlottesville.

So we want to thank our wonderful principals and we have most of them in the audience tonight and I would ask that our principals please stand.

If you're already standing, just wave your hand and let's give them a round of applause.

for all of their hard work.

We are so appreciative of you, our amazing principals.

Thank you, thank you so much for your commitment and your excellent service.

At this time, I think, oh, there we go.

I'm gonna turn it over to Ms.

Raznick for a moment.

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

There's no better testament to the skill and exceptionality of our school counselors than the fact that our Teacher of the Year is the school counselor this year.

So please join me in recognizing our exceptional team.

We have school counselors at each elementary school, Walker, Buford, CHS, KTEC,

And now I'll segue to Beth Chuck coming up for a quick recognition.

I am here for my annual thank you to you all on behalf of the community.

I think the last couple of weeks of some turmoil and changes and also the big work in front of us for rezoning or for rethinking curriculum or for reconfiguring schools

All of these things that we do and we just sort of take for granted are things that you volunteer to come.

I know you're paid a little bit, but for the time you put in, I think it's pennies on the dollar that you put in to just be co-laborers with us to do this work and make difficult decisions.

and to just really help our community feel represented in the work that we do.

So we just want to say thank you so much to you all for your continued work.

And now we have two amazing ladies that sit here.

We only have one here today, but we want to take a moment to recognize our school board clerk and deputy clerk Leslie Thacker right here as our clerk.

And Julia Green, who's not here today, but our deputy clerk, she deserves a round of applause as well.

These ladies are truly very important to, of course, our school board, our superintendent, our division as a whole as they work so tirelessly to support our division.

So we thank you, we thank you, we thank you for all that you do.

And I actually was neglectful because when I say thank you to school board members, I also want to say thank you to our student school board members and Ms.

Thacker has certificates for them as well.

So I think they're all here.

So we have Anya, and I think we have Nulia.

And do we have?

Oh, Harper's birthday is today, so she's not here.

So if you all can come, and we have these certificates for you, and we thank you so much for serving as student reps for our school board.

Do we want the chair and vice chair to come up?

Okay, that's fine.

All right.

Now, we have a lot of people here in the room today because we are celebrating some Teachers of the Year.

So, Madam Chair, members of the board and Dr. Gurley, we have been, I think this is the third year that we have been participating in the Mary E. V. Bicovarius Virginia Teacher of the Year.

And during that program, we recognize some really hardworking teachers, one for each of our schools, and then we recognize one that we celebrate as the Division Teacher of the Year.

Just want to share a couple of ways for our teachers of the year to qualify for the award.

They must possess a current renewable Virginia teaching license with an endorsement in the teaching assignment.

They should be teachers who are exceptionally skilled and dedicated and who are planning to continue in active teaching status.

They should play active and meaningful roles in their communities as well as in the schools.

and it is really open to all teachers including school librarians, technology specialists, school counselors and reading specialists, all of those amazing people.

So these folks were nominated by their colleagues in their buildings to identify a school teacher of the year, Ms.

Lewis.

who is right here.

We've been working together.

We found a committee to help us do that work in identifying our Teachers of the Year and we're going to call them up here.

We have prizes for awards for them, but I want to recognize the committee first.

who has done a tremendous job

A little bit of a recognition.

We've got Dr. Tonya Coffey, Rodney Jordan, Dr. Adam Hastings, Dr. Anna Eisley, who is not here tonight, and Chantel Beverly.

Well, Chantel Beverly is not here tonight either.

But those that I've called, if you can come on up and let's give them a round of applause because it's a lot of work.

All right, we want to thank them for their time and reviewing essays and meeting with us and helping us to narrow down our Teacher of the Year because we had so many great prospects and nominations.

It was really hard to do.

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

And now I'm going to call each of our school level teachers of the year forward.

Each of them are going to receive a wonderful token of our appreciation and a monetary gift after we finish calling everyone.

Oh, never.

OK, well, we will take care of that.

Don't worry, we'll take care of that later.

So after we finish calling everyone, I'll ask that you come up and take a group picture holding up your plaque.

So some of our folks are not here, but I'm gonna call their name anyway.

Burnley Moran's Teacher of the Year, Laura Melton is not here.

I believe today is her birthday as well.

So we can give her a round of applause.

All right.

Our next one will be Jackson Vias Teacher of the Year, Elizabeth Jones.

We have Johnson's Teacher of the Year, Elena Arsenovitch Summit's Teacher of the Year, Rachel Pelletier

Trailblazers, Teacher of the Year is not here tonight, but we do want to give Leslie Hunter a round of applause.

Walkers, Teacher of the Year Casey Laguerre.

Buford's Teacher of the Year, Sienna Washburg CHS Teacher of the Year, Justin Newberry

K-Tech's Teacher of the Year Adrienne Butler

and Lugo McGinnis' Teacher of the Year, Eloise Phelps.

All right, we'd love to get a picture with all of these if we want to get our chair and board chair to come up, Superintendent.

And now, as I mentioned, our committee was charged with using a rubric and reading essays and helping us to narrow down to one of these wonderful, wonderful educators to identify as our Division Teacher of the Year.

That person is

K-Tech's Teacher of the Year, Adrienne Butler.

We just want another picture with the Division Teacher of the Year.

We got it, yes.

So our division teacher of the year then has submitted her application to the state to compete with other teachers of the year in the region, in region five.

And we are very optimistic that she will represent us well and move on to be the regional teacher of the year.

competing with the other regions in Virginia.

Congratulations to all of our Teachers of the Year and congratulations to Ms.

Butler as our CCS Division Teacher of the Year.

Wonderful.

All right.

Good evening, members of the board, Superintendent Gurley, and distinguished guests.

After celebrating six student athletes last night in their college commitments to participate in college athletics next year at our signing day ceremony, by the way, thanks for showing up last night, I'm excited to have yet another celebration today.

It is with great pride and excitement that I stand before you today to honor an exceptional student athlete who has brought great distinction to our community in Charlottesville High School.

Jr.

Elena Pierce of Charlottesville High School has been named the Virginia Gatorade Girls Cross Country Player of the Year.

This prestigious recognition is not only a testament to her outstanding talent, but also a symbol of her hard work, discipline, and dedication.

Elena is the first student from Charlottesville High School to receive this esteemed honor in cross country.

The Gatorade Player of the Year is the highest individual recognition in high school sports, and it celebrates not only athletic achievement, but also academic excellence and commitment to community involvement.

Elena has excelled in all of these areas.

She had an incredible season winning the VHSL Class 4 Cross Country State title, and she was undefeated against NCAA competitors during the season, including

at the Nike Country Nationals, where she finished in the top 50, which further solidified her place among the nation's best.

Her success isn't just about winning titles and earning recognition.

Elena embodies the values that we hold dear as a school system, perseverance, excellence, and a commitment to her community.

She's an outstanding example of what it means to balance academics, athletics, and service to others.

As part of the Gatorade Player of the Year program, Gatorade donates to an organization of that student athlete's choice.

Alaina has chosen to provide $1,000 to the H.E.R.

sports program to help encourage more girls to get involved in athletics in the Charlottesville area.

We celebrate her today, not only for her impressive athletic achievements, but for the incredible role model that she is to her peers and to her entire community.

There's a lot that I can say about Elena Pierce, but unfortunately she has to run to basketball practice right now.

She plays Albemarle, so with my, I'm gonna cut my gushing short over her.

All right.

Thank you.

We've got a motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

Wonderful.

We've got a motion and a second.

All in favor of adoption of our consent agenda, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Wonderful.

We'll move on to our action item, Ms.

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

This action item is simply to authorize use of fund balance so that we're able to proceed with the purchase order to secure the furniture that we'll need for fifth grade when it moves back to the elementary schools.

And we discussed this at your last meeting.

I'm happy to entertain any questions if you have any before the vote.

Let me defer to Renee Hoover on that.

I will say while she's coming to the podium that when you authorize use of fund balance, what happens in the end is that of any given fiscal year, there are variances throughout the budget, right?

Some budget lines are over, some budget lines are under.

So we can't say definitively because to the extent that there are favorable variances available in the year in settlement, it's not necessary to go into the fund balance.

But when something comes up like this that's unbudgeted and it's a one-time expense, so it's an authorized use of fund balance, we have to come up with a board to authorize it in case it's needed.

Thank you, Ms.

Powell.

That was a great response.

My response to Mr. Myers is that's hard to say because this purchase probably will not take place until next fiscal year.

And we will be closing this fiscal year and probably adding to the fund balance or maybe taking away from the fund balance because we had some authorized purchases this year.

So I would say it'd be hard to say.

I'd like to thank Ms.

Hoover for that clarification because we need your approval in order to issue the purchase order that secures the furniture at the current price.

We can't encumber school board funds out of fund balance without your authorization.

To her point, we don't want this furniture until 2026, so we've kind of made a special arrangement with

the vendor in accordance with the large purchases we're doing with the middle school to lock in the current pricing.

All right.

We have a person a second.

Any discussion?

All right.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Thank you.

Our next item, Ms.

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

Virginia's new accountability system, the school performance and support framework, represents a shift in how we evaluate and support student success, moving beyond traditional measures to a more comprehensive approach that considers how students are mastering grade level content, whether each student is growing, and how school is preparing students for the next phase of their education.

As we navigate these changes, our goal remains the same, to ensure that every student in Charlottesville City Schools receives the resources and supports they need to thrive.

Tonight, I will outline the key components of the new framework, what it means for our schools, and how we can leverage it to drive continuous improvement for our students, educators, and community.

Accountability aligns with several key strategic priorities.

For priority one, the state's new framework emphasizes student mastery, expected growth, and access to rigorous coursework, while also aligning with targets for graduation rates, post-secondary readiness, APDE enrollment, and college career and civic readiness.

With priority two, chronic absenteeism will continue to be measured within the new framework,

And priority three budget allocations, such as staffing and instructional resources will need to be allocated differently across our schools to address the changing needs of our students.

So, overall, the new accountability framework reinforces our commitment to fostering achievement equity and the well being for all students.

The implementation of Virginia's new accountability system has been a multi-phase process.

Starting in the summer of 22, development began with board discussions, input from national experts, and regional listening sessions.

In August, the board approved the revised ESSA state plan, and the first year of data collection began.

In November, schools received preliminary performance modeling based on the 2324 data.

On January 3rd, the U.S.

Department of Education approved amendments to Virginia's state plan.

And in the fall of 2025, the results for this school year will be reported under the new model.

Previously, Virginia operated under two separate programs for school accountability, one state and one federal.

These unaligned systems created inconsistencies and expectations for schools and students, provided parents and communities with confusing perspectives on school performance, and required school divisions to manage performance measures under two distinct sets of criteria.

Under the previous system, student growth counted as a pass and was included in a combined rate to represent overall student achievement.

While this method often inflated performance metrics, the new system introduces a more balanced approach.

With the implementation of the school performance and support framework, the State Board of Education has aligned Virginia state and federal accountability programs into a unified system.

This streamlined framework establishes clear, consistent expectations for schools, eliminates redundancy, and simplifies performance management for school leaders.

The U.S.

Department of Education's approval of this framework on January 3rd marks the completion of the transition to a single cohesive accountability system.

The new framework utilizes a weighted index that translates performance into a straightforward point-based score with all total scores standardized on a scale of 100.

The framework prioritizes three key areas for elementary, middle, and high school, with each component weighted differently to align with the school's goals.

In the upper grades, greater emphasis is placed on readiness to ensure students are well-prepared to be ready for life.

The mastery component incorporates all student SOL test results in reading, math, and science.

It awards additional credit for students who reach advanced levels and partial credit for students who do not yet meet grade level standards.

The growth component is only measured in grades four through eight.

It uses a student's past performance on SOL test to measure how they are expected to learn from the start of the school year to the end.

The metric then compares expected learning to actual learning at the end of the school year.

The readiness component considers measures such as chronic absenteeism and the percentage of students demonstrating their post-secondary readiness when they graduate from high school through the 3E framework, which is enrollment, employment, and enlistment.

So at every level, mastery is the primary focus with heavier emphasis at the elementary and middle school level.

There is also a focus on ensuring English learners are on the path to attaining English language proficiency and will be included within the mastery component at all levels, elementary, middle, and high.

It is important to note that elementary science, which is 10% within this mastery component, it will be split between reading and math since our elementary schools do not include fifth grade science, at least not yet.

So both will be weighted at 27.5% for both reading and math.

The growth component will utilize Virginia's visualization and analytics solution, or VVAS, to calculate expected growth.

For accountability purposes, this growth model provides each individual student with an expected score and the standard error of that expected score.

The expected growth score is based on a student's own prior test scores, as well as considering how all other students performed on the assessment in relation to their testing histories.

Schools will be awarded credit for students who meet or exceed their expected growth and partial credit for students who may be one standard error away from meeting their expected growth.

Readiness in elementary school is focused on regular school attendance and student development of the five C's, which is critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, communication, and citizenship.

There is a heavier focus on readiness in middle school as students prepare for the academic rigor of high school.

In middle school regular attendance continues to be important, along with the students continued development of the five C's and career exploration, in addition to gaining experience taking and succeeding in advanced coursework.

The high school portion of the framework increases the focus on readiness with preparing students for life after high school, a key outcome of high school performance.

In high school, regular attendance continues to be important in ensuring success in and outside of school.

The Ready for Life 3E Readiness Framework is included to measure success in the readiness options.

The 3E Readiness Framework focuses on students graduating high school ready for enrollment, employment, and or enlistment.

Schools will attain points for students that meet defined expectations across the 3Es.

The readiness component of the high school also includes students who graduate on an extended year timeline and students that graduate with applied studies.

So within the readiness component, year one at the elementary and middle school level will look slightly different while the 5Cs performance task is being developed for year two and beyond.

In year two, middle school readiness will also expand advanced coursework to include science and history.

The framework defines readiness differently at each level of a student's academic career.

In elementary school, readiness counts for 10% of the school's performance rating.

Within the category, the five C's will count for 5% and attendance will count for 5%.

However, while the performance task is being developed this school year, attendance will count for the full 10% of that readiness index score.

In middle school, the middle school readiness index score accounts for 20% of the school's performance rating.

The component is made up of students taking advanced coursework for 7.5%, career exploration and the five C's performance task for 7.5%, and attendance at 5%.

But this school year, attendance and advanced coursework will each count as 10% of that readiness index score.

and then the advanced coursework will only include mathematics in year one.

Now in high school, the readiness category ensures graduating students have 3E outcomes that prepare them for success post-graduation.

Schools are recognized for ensuring students have experiences in all 3E areas, including employment in the form of high demand industry credential attainment, enlistment in the form of taking a military assessment with the achievement scores correlating to the tiers of careers in military,

and enrollment in the form of college-ready transferable post-secondary credits, such as dual enrollment and AP exams, with the highest points being awarded for earning an associate's degree.

Readiness counts as 35% of the school's performance rating.

This readiness index score includes attendance at 5%, the school's six-year adjusted graduation rate at 5%, and then the 3E Readiness Framework at 25%.

So these are the weights that will be used to calculate the indicators within the mastery and growth components.

Within the mastery component, schools will receive a point for students who pass proficient and 1.25 points for students who pass advanced, as well as partial credit for students performing at the basic or below basic levels.

As for growth, I mentioned earlier that it no longer is counted as a pass.

Instead, it is now a distinct component within the framework where schools are awarded credit for students achieving their expected growth scores.

Schools will receive points for students who meet or exceed their expected growth and partial credit for students who may be one standard error away from meeting their growth.

So this is an example of one of our elementary schools and what it will look like when all of the indicators within each component are given an index value to calculate the school's overall performance.

And the calculation formula is provided below the table.

This school's overall performance is given a score of 82.99 or 83.

Rounding does count in this model.

Therefore, the school would be considered on track based on the four performance category ratings.

Under the new framework, schools will be classified as distinguished, on track, off track, or needs intensive support based on total points earned.

A school may also be identified for federal support based on overall school performance or the performance of specific student groups.

If identified, the school's performance category will be lowered by one level, and it will receive additional support from both the VDOE and the school division.

In the fall, school divisions were provided with a preview of their school performance and support framework data based on the 23-24 results so they can more accurately pinpoint areas of improvement and make evidence-based changes as quickly as possible so that teachers and students have what they need to improve.

Using last year's SOL data, five of our schools will be categorized as off-track under the new system, primarily due to the changes in how growth is calculated.

In this chart, the high school's overall score includes work-based learning within the readiness component.

However, without work-based learning, the overall framework score would drop to 79.6, which rounds to 80 and would still be considered on track, but it would cause their overall readiness score to decrease.

The VDOE has been working with multiple groups to better define work-based learning opportunities and incorporate that work into the employment section in the future.

The board will review work-based learning later this month and they will vote on it in March.

So we'll have more information after that.

The Virginia Department of Education has provided comprehensive training opportunities and regular technical assistance for division leaders and staff since the board approved the new framework in August.

We have been collaborating with schools to share this information and provide technical guidance on utilizing the framework for analyzing school level data.

This support is intended to help schools identify students as well as specific groups who may benefit from additional needs-based support to enhance academic achievement.

In the fall, results will be published for the 24-25 school year, and parent schools and communities will gain a deeper insight as to where their schools are seeing success, as well as areas of focus needed for improvement of their school and schools throughout the Commonwealth.

If you'd like to learn more about the School Performance and Support Framework, please explore the links provided, which will take you to the VDOE's Road to Readiness Resource Hub.

This resource provides a suite of tools to help schools, educators, and families find the support they need to analyze data, address student needs, and improve outcomes.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Indeed.

Thank you.

Yes.

Any board members wishing to ask questions?

So I guess my question for my starting question would be, so we're talking about them using just SOLs and the VAP?

Yes, VAP will be included.

They're not included in the preliminary results, but they will be included.

And what about VALs or MAP testing?

Are we doing away with those things?

We're not doing away.

So how does, is there a change as far as just the testing, the amount of time that students are spent testing or, or we, we have the data already.

No, we're not adding additional and access will count.

So that growth that our L's make is in counted, it's counted in the mastery component.

And then I guess my next question would be based on how the performance categories fall out

And I think we just approved some funding for some of the schools and maybe the consent agenda was up in that I believe.

Is that basically what we're expecting as far as like if a school saying needs intensive support?

Yes, yes.

And then depending on what it looks like next year, you know, any schools that let's say they are on track, however, they're federally identified based on some student group performance, they will be lowered a level so they would be then considered off track.

The previous administration.

So what happens in the future?

I know there's a lot of questions.

We're not sure.

I think I just saw an update and I don't know if anybody else had read that as far as just where we're at at the state level right now in the General Assembly.

I think there's been something put in the budget maybe as an amendment.

I know that there was a big push

from certain people in the state asking for more time as far as rolling this out.

But it does look like we're going to go forward with it.

With this framework, yes.

Correct.

This is, yes.

OK.

All right.

Hi.

So will this affect the classroom sizes?

Will we?

I was just reading it.

Oh, so that I know what you're talking about.

That's the student group size.

So under the previous model for a student group to be calculated under the accountability system, it was a group size of 30 or more that in the new Virginia's consolidated state plan that has now shifted down to 15 students or more.

So any student groups that have 15 students or more will be calculated will count within the model.

OK, yeah, yeah.

I appreciate your ability to wrap your head around this.

It just feels like they've created the most complicated process possible, and it's not even fully, it's not complete.

They're still working on it.

So I think to the extent that you can, you know, come back to us to continue to help us understand the changes that are being made both in the

When I would present in October with the level ones, level twos, level threes, the red, yellow, green, like that is no more.

So they won't be identified as accredited or accredited with conditions or accreditation, accreditation denied.

So it'll be these based on these four categories and on a point basis.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Sorry, I just have a couple quick comments.

I guess like in an ideal world, if I remember correctly, you said growth is counted between fourth grade and eighth grade.

In an ideal world, if we have students reading by grade three, then we should only be worried about mastery.

Is that fair?

Is that okay?

Man, my other comment just escaped me.

Thank you for this.

And as my colleagues noted, right?

It's complicated.

And I think, as you noted, under the current system, I think all but two of our schools are accredited and two of the conditions, et cetera.

But we've been doing a great job at seeing a lot of growth, which previously we've been

Well, if students showed significant growth based on a progress table, then it actually counted as a pass.

And I think, I mean, as colleagues, I'm just looking at where we're going to potentially be at, or our preview was at,

Now we have five schools that are not basically up to muster according to, I guess, their standards versus everything else.

You know, I think this is very timely and I appreciate this because we are thinking about rezoning, which I think colleagues at UC kind of, when I look at the elementary schools and when we're thinking about rezoning and I think if we're going to kind of be forced criteria that

I think this is very timely, and I'm glad to see, I think, that our rezoning aligns with, I think, helping some of our schools be more successful.

And the other thing is about budget, and I think Dr. Gurley, you gave us some good points, and we'll talk about them a little later, too, about how I think we're going to address some of the things and how we're being judged here also.

So I see the bigger picture here, and I want to thank the administration for, I think, teeing us up

For lack of a better term, played the game with the state.

One just technical question, and it looked like you've been able to

preview kind of some grading or whatnot.

Are we going to be able to have the capability to kind of let us know where we're at midway through the year or something like that with some of these schools and do some course correction?

Right.

I think, so part of that is our school success meetings.

So I mean, that gives us the help of our school.

So as an instructional team, Dr. Odey, Ms.

Swift, Ms.

Raznick, a lot of us on the instructional team, we do a beginning of the year and then we do like a mid-year check-in.

So we're reviewing the data.

So when we're talking about one of the criteria, chronic absenteeism,

We know where we are with most of our students.

We're seeing marked improvement.

So we know that like for at least one of those schools, if the chronic absenteeism was a little different, if I'm not misspeaking, that would have maybe shifted their points a little different.

So unfortunately, I hate to say it's a points game, but I mean, it is.

So yes.

I mean, some of those indicators we are able to monitor along the way.

The one that's the biggest is the SOL.

And so, I mean, we know how our students do.

And I mean, I know as a principal, as a teacher, I can tell you exactly, you know, what it's going to look like at the end of the school year based on how students have been performing.

So, I mean,

the state has shared the templates and so we're using right now the winter map results and that projected proficiency to kind of see kind of gauge where so I'm meeting with schools creating the templates and kind of going through those map results to kind of get an idea and then which students and student groups that they need to you know we need to focus on so yeah we are using when you said SOL is that but

We are using winter map results.

Great.

Ms.

So just we well first off so in my seventh year I think this is the third iteration of like what the state has rolled out for us to try and wrap our heads around so I just want to make that point that this is really hard to stay on top of this and you guys do a lot of work and I do want to and I know we all

Again, this is not a reflection of the work that our teachers and staff and everybody are putting in.

But this is really, really hard.

I mean, I'm thinking like, wait a minute, we just got used to the last

Accreditation and we were using that, I don't remember what we called it, but it was like a modified SOL to get some of that data, right, for the growth.

Yeah, WorkKeys for high school, WorkKeys reading for high school will not count within this model.

So we we decided to

In place of that do the fall winter and spring MAP because you could do an alternative assessment because we felt we were over assessing and that the MAP was actually giving us better information and more detailed specific information where our students are and we've been using MAP for years so our teachers

Okay.

So we've been using that to kind of gauge where, along with our quarterly assessments and those, so to Dr. Gurley's point at our school success meetings, you know, they're providing an overview of where their students are, and we're also looking at VALS and those other assessments that you mentioned.

All right.

I just had a quick question from some of the data that you've pulled from like the MAP scores and look at some of the schools that are off track.

Have we been able to set up like tutoring clinics or after school programs to support the children that may be struggling to kind of get them ready to take the SOL?

tutoring, remediation, intervention is happening.

And the schools that I've met with so far, you know, again, what Dr. Gurley was saying about being a points game.

I mean, we're talking, you know, a handful of maybe five to eight students, like if you move from below basic to basic or proficient to advance.

just within those points that's kind of would put them over 80 points into the on track so and then with your chronic absenteeism you get that down that gives you you know you're awarded more points and then at the middle school level for advanced coursework so students that are in algebra one and geometry

and then also any students that are in seventh grade math that pass advanced, that will count too because then that's showing that they're ready for advanced coursework.

Thank you.

I'll keep you up to date.

Yes, please.

Can't wait.

I think for all of us to recognize, though, like we talk about points game, but the charge and the mission doesn't change.

No, you know, we need to be

Yeah, and that's the primary goal is really looking at mastery in our students meeting benchmark.

Miss Dooley, I have my last comment came back to me.

So this is just a very quick thing.

I think it's related to this, but also like just kind of a general approach.

We heard about grading earlier today, and I'm just one of those people that just loves talking about it.

I think it's just really important for regarding, you know, us being evaluated, but how our students perform in SOL testing is that our teachers are grading students according to the rigor of what they should be evaluated.

Like a terrible example is like, man, my teacher said, I'm doing great.

Am I great for the classes?

I'm doing great, but then they don't perform well in the test.

So I think we just want to make sure that we match that rigor, not only for the SOL testing.

But specifically when we get to like in the high school and they're working on some type of a certificate, like we want them to perform in the classroom, but also perform well on the test.

No, and absolutely because as you know, the English and math SOLs, the new SOLs will be implemented and tested this school year.

and the rigor has increased with those standards as well.

And then cut scores on the SOLs will go into effect next school year.

So it will not happen at the end of this year.

But cut scores for the reading and math SOLs will change next year.

Thank you, Ms.

Swift.

Thank you.

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

There have been lots of conversations, surveys and a general focus on safety since 2020 and really throughout the last school year.

We have had great debate regarding cell phones as part of our school climate and culture and safety and resource officers were part of those conversations and surveys as well.

As part of the ongoing efforts to evaluate and improve school safety there was direction given to have an independent safety audit.

and so we did an RFP in July.

A contract was finalized in September with Navigate 360 and three safety and security professionals were on site the week of October 7th and during that time they tested our systems and structures.

They conducted physical campus and building inspections and they talked with division and school staff.

The final report is a protected document as it addresses safety and security vulnerabilities in areas for improvement, and the information that we are sharing in this presentation is at a level that's intended to inform regarding areas of commendation and areas for improvement without detailing specific vulnerabilities.

The final report assessed level of preparedness in six areas on a scale ranging from very low to very high preparedness.

So in the area of hazard and threat assessment, we were scored as moderate.

And I will say here that for threat assessment, we actually scored high, but for like environmental hazard assessments, we were on the lower side.

And so that's why it kind of worked out to be moderate overall.

Our emergency operations planning and our prevention programs are high.

And again, prevention programs, I think that speaks to the threat assessment program.

Response and training programs were moderate or average, and then technology and infrastructure and recovery planning were the two areas where we were rated as having a lower preparedness level.

So I'd like to speak to those two areas more in depth.

In the area of technology and infrastructure, this had not been an investment priority for CCS for a number of years, but that changed in June of 2022 when the board took action.

to more proactively and aggressively fund safety and security infrastructure.

I will say pandemic supply chain issues slowed our progress at times, but we have been continuously executing on projects to expand and upgrade our technology and we expect the installation of all the foundational systems for our current standards.

They will be completed for all schools by the end of this calendar year.

For recovery planning, which is the other area where we had a lower preparedness score, the standards or the best practices in this area are really evolving.

The audit encourages us to move beyond the concept of just reunification as defined in current state planning template, which we are in alignment with the current state standards, I would say that.

but they are saying that the best practice or the standard that's coming is to move beyond that and I have a slide later in this presentation that goes a little bit more into detail about what that looks like or what the goals would be there.

So the final audit report as you all are as the board members are aware is a very comprehensive document addressing all facets of safety

including occupational safety and health administration or OSHA requirements and also crime prevention through environmental design or CPTED concepts.

In working through the many audit recommendations, my team initially put them into four categories, which you see here.

Already in place are things that we are

We already complied with the recommendation and the auditor included the information either as just a standard practice when they do audits or in order for us to affirm our practice or maybe have some minor refinements.

Recommendations were also categorized as in progress.

These are recommendations we are actively working on already when they came in to do the audit.

And a great example of that is the expansion and upgrading of our security technology and systems.

and then the planned recommendations.

These are things that were on our radar or the proverbial to-do list, but they're things we're not actively working on yet due to funding or other resource constraints.

And then the last category, items for discussion and clarification.

These are items that require additional conversation to determine if, how, or when to implement the recommendation.

One example of that that people are obviously very interested in is the resource officers.

Another would be a lot of the fencing recommendations that they made.

So there's a summary of the recommendations.

This table shows how the division-wide recommendations were categorized for each of the assessment areas.

And you see that of the 97 total division-wide recommendations, 22 are things that were already in place or areas of even of commendation, 17 are in progress, 14 are planned, and 44 were items that need additional discussion or clarification.

So training was mentioned throughout the audit and training is always an area for continuous improvement.

And in interviewing staff across our schools, the auditors reported that there is a general interest in more safety training.

So last June, the division was able to leverage funds through a state mental wellness grant for schools to bring in Alice safety training.

And we presently have 19 individuals certified as Alice trainers.

Last summer,

We developed age-appropriate enhanced lockdown drill protocols, and these protocols were provided to school staff during pre-week training, along with an introduction to ALIS for schools that was an online course.

All staff, including subs and hourly, have been provided with access to the online training to introduce ALIS concepts, and on November 4th, we conducted a special training focused on our nutrition and custodial staff.

We know that for this type of training to have maximum efficacy, it cannot be one and done.

There needs to be continuous reinforcement.

And we are also very keenly aware that we have limited opportunities to bring our staff together to focus on this practice together.

So this slide really speaks to sort of how we're trying to overcome that obstacle of time.

And what this challenge has led us to is we are chunking Alice content to make it more accessible.

and this will allow the content to be delivered in like 10 to 16 minute segments, depending on the topic and the activities involved.

And this will support more flexibility in delivering individual or multiple modules to school staff as part of their afterschool meetings, department meetings and so forth.

Now, tomorrow as part of the PL day, because of the way things worked out, our high school staff and LMA staff

are not so encumbered with some of the PLs that the middle and elementary levels need.

So tomorrow afternoon, we will actually be able to cover multiple modules with our CHS and LMA staff and any staff from the lower schools who aren't involved in those other required PLs haven't been invited to join us at CHS.

So we're excited about that.

Other key elements of keeping Alice going is during onboarding, the next summer orientation session and continuous onboarding sessions

We already have safety protocol training as part of that, but we want to incorporate more ALIS concepts.

And then, of course, in our annual pre-week safety trainings and reviews that we have at all schools, that will also continue to incorporate and reinforce ALIS concepts.

For recovery planning, I touched on this topic earlier.

The audit encourages us to move beyond the concept of just reunifying and plan for ongoing notifications and support needs.

This recommendation is in alignment with the continuity of operations planning, or COOP, exercises that the city has already begun hosting this year for the region.

Mr. Coogler and I participated in a city-sponsored COOP training exercise focused on the concept of community assistance centers.

These were big after the incident in Virginia Beach some years ago.

That was a big piece of their recovery.

The Community Assistance Center, or CAC, is more comprehensive than a reunification center.

and it's more in alignment with the notification center concept that you would have seen in the audit report.

The next workshop around this is actually scheduled by the city for next Wednesday and Mr. Coogler and I will both be joining that work again.

So it's also important to understand that the COOP is more than just, I'm convinced emergency response has as many or more acronyms as we do in education, but the COOP is more than just a CAC,

and more than just reunification and all of that.

The best way to describe it is COVID.

COVID was actually one big coop exercise.

And I do think it's important for you all to know that CCS Finance and Technology have long had contingency plans to maintain essential functions in the event that we're not able to get to the office.

So regarding resource officers, the auditor spoke with staff at all schools in the course of conducting the audits.

Mr. Coogler and I also shared information regarding our current safety systems, routine issues, and the significant incidents that have occurred since 2020.

I want to highlight that if we're going to do anything with this, we have to do it right.

Reestablishing

any type of resource officer program as part of our safety model will only close gaps and address inefficiencies and be a net positive for Charlottesville youth if it is done under the right MOU that ensures the right people are in the right places to best serve the community.

If at any point we can't get all the pieces right, then it is better to not have resource officers and an MOU, any MOU that's brought forward, we need to allow for that.

Any MOU that comes forward for board consideration needs to address community concerns and be grounded in current best practices for officers working in support of more positive outcomes for youth.

So this slide outlines proposed next steps and I'm going to go to the link here.

Proposed next steps.

This slide outlines the proposed process and up on the screen there you see that what we would like to start with is a staff working group that will really focus on collecting the best practices.

This is where I get challenged between my distance vision and my close-up vision so hang on I've got to get in the right spot.

So this working group under the direction of the superintendent will involve CCS staff, CPD, but we also need to make sure that the working group gathers best practices by engaging with the community through our community partners who can help us really hear clearly and directly from neighborhoods we have not heard enough from directly in the past conversations.

Communities that are often talked about need to talk for themselves in this process, and we need to keep working to facilitate those conversations.

In conjunction with gathering best practices on the heels of that, we need to really determine what budget implications might be as we start to figure out what an MOU could look like.

And then as we approach September, the staff work group would present a draft MOU to incorporate youth-focused resource officers for Charlottesville City to determine if further discussion is desired during the subsequent budget work sessions with council.

and then the idea with this timeline would be that a vote could occur in October and that would again be in as we're getting into budget season with city council and then depending on what decision is made after the school board has reviewed a proposed MOU if the vote is that we want to continue and reincorporate some type of youth resource officer program in the city

Then the work would start for hiring, onboarding.

Well, there'd need to be community engagement.

And when I talk about community engagement, that's both within the schools, but also in the community about what such a program would be about, what the goals would be.

And then with any program, there needs to be ongoing evaluation.

So I guess to wrap this up, on behalf of those of us in school leadership who share daily in the significant responsibility of managing safety, emergencies, and crisis for the school division, we just really appreciate the audit process and the opportunity to reevaluate our model and continuously work to improve.

Thank you, Ms.

Powell.

Thank you, Ms.

Powell.

And finally, if you want to leave that slide up, I think that's... Which slide would you prefer, the steps or the slide presentation?

I don't think that... We've got, obviously,

I know we had a process last year where we discussed a lot of this.

Sure.

Great question.

So there's a list.

So threat assessments is one thing that we are required by state law to collaborate with law enforcement.

And we have

worked really hard to make that process as efficient as possible.

But even with what the work that's been done and some of the improvements were discussed back in October, I think you've seen some emails where we delved into that.

Really, the only thing we can do to make that process better or more efficient than where we are right now would be to have youth-focused officers that are routinely readily available to support that work.

Another area is mandatory reporting.

Right now, when things come,

You know, things come up in a school and administration is left to sort things out about whether or not it needs to be reported.

And we have, you know, really landed on when in doubt call because you don't want to be in a situation where you didn't report something and you needed to.

But there's just there's an inherent inefficiency every time we have to call out for support.

And there can be an added level of stress in that every time you're calling out for these things that have to be done.

You don't know who you're going to get, and I don't want to say that the officers that have been supporting us, it's been a solid partnership, but it's hard.

It's harder on them sometimes and harder on us because you're always going into situations that you're just not as familiar with.

And then, let's see, what else?

disposition along with that disposition of contraband.

So when we're collecting items from students that they shouldn't have, when you reach certain thresholds, it can fall into mandatory reporting.

And then there's also this awkwardness of what do we do with this now?

We don't want to keep it.

You know, it's just the police would always take care of that force before if they were here.

And it's just something else we didn't have to think about.

Weapon searches are another one.

I'm glad to say we have not had

and many, many actual weapons found on campus.

Whenever we have, it's been communicated with the public.

But there are social media rumors and other rumors that pop up all the time and we have to, and this is, you know, K-12.

And every time that happens, our administrators have a choice to make.

They are either going to go ahead and conduct that search with another colleague there

and if they encounter an actual weapon then they're handling it or they could call and have law enforcement in the area with them and it just makes for a more, a less stressful, it's a stressful situation no matter what but when you're orchestrating those searches with an officer who already knows you, your school, your school community, it just is a smoother, less stressful process.

Communication in general.

What happens now is a lot of times, let me just make a general comment.

What happens in the communities in the community does not stay in the community.

And what happens in the schools doesn't stay in the schools.

And what the position we're in now that we didn't have to think about when there was a resource officer program,

is that we will hear something on the news and we don't necessarily know what that means for our students or for the family that is involved.

Or we'll get a call from a parent and we had no idea this big thing was going on with their student.

and vice versa.

We had a big fight last fall here in the media center.

And we had concerns for upcoming football game that the conflict would continue.

So I'm calling CPD after the fact.

to get support.

And they come whenever they are called, and the partnership is good.

I don't want anyone to think that CPD is not working with us.

We are all doing the very best that we can.

But when they heard about what happened, and this was one of those events, it was communicated with the whole community.

It wasn't something that we kept secret.

Like, why didn't you call us?

and the reality is when you are in that mode and you are responding, you're just responding.

What we learned is that we have scripted every possible scenario that we can think of for who does what and who calls who, but the best of scripts are really difficult to execute on when the fact is you never actually get to run that play twice.

Every situation is a little different.

And that just speaks to the importance of relationships, which is the last thing I'll say.

And I do want to jump in.

We really miss the relationships that we had with people who know each other, because when you're in stressful situations and we have to work together, the police have never left our safety model.

But it's just there's inefficiency and we don't have those preexisting relationships to help navigate some very stressful situations like we did

in the old model.

And that is not to say that we should go back to the old model.

I don't think that's the case at all.

And one thing I do want to say, Mr. Meyer, the CSA model is a wonderful model.

I think that at the heart of it, you know, I was not here when that model was developed, but I think at the heart of what it's intended to do, it's a phenomenal group of people who work very hard, who make wonderful connections to students.

I think that

One thing that's happening right now is that we're asking CSAs to take on a role that they were not intended to take on.

and I think that that is something that we do have to solve.

I said in an after action meeting there was a fight at the basketball game and I sat in that meeting and I think what I realized in that moment is that we are asking CSAs to do things that

are not in that original.

And I think we do have to get back to solving that part because what I'm I mean, we're to some degree and I'm speaking generally, but I think that some or maybe all would agree that sometimes we're asking CSAs to enforce the law and they're not law enforcement.

And we've never wanted them to be law enforcement.

And so I think we do have to solve that problem.

And I think that that's the gap, that's part of the gap.

And so, yes, we can present both sides of the coin.

I think people have said, well, you've not

said, what are the downsides of having officers?

I think people have presented that.

That's not what we've been tasked to do by the school board.

They said, you all have asked to bring an MOU and if we can pallet that

what you're bringing, then we can move forward with it.

If we think that it's not the best model, then we will stop.

And I just do want to make sure that we are keeping the CSAs at the forefront of this conversation because I believe it is a fantastic model.

They build relationships, phenomenal people going above and beyond.

I believe the teachers here, the staff members here will echo that about that group.

but we are in some cases asking them to enforce the law and that's not the kid part and I don't want the two things to get blurred.

We're not talking about SROs and disciplining students because as you've heard the cultures change.

And I'm a huge fan of our CSA program and I guess some folks have said that there's maybe a perception that I would favor SROs over SSOs.

That's absolutely not the case.

What I see is that we need to continue with our CSA program, which there

They're SSOs.

That's what they're certified as, as DCJS.

But there's this part of figuring this out is looking at what supports do they need to help them feel more successful and less overwhelmed at times in their work.

So there's a lot of stakeholders in this and the concerns are legitimate and they need to be addressed.

But some of the things that are that have been shared, like that police can't de-escalate, that they receive de-escalation training as well.

I've seen police de-escalate situations.

that they have all the power.

Actually, before 2020, the standards for the MOUs, which we were already looking at, had already started to shift, to shift the balance of power that it is more of a shared decision making, shared accountability in the whole framework.

So that's really important.

Those are really important pieces to understand that change is needed and the concerns are legitimate.

but they I believe they can be addressed and it actually reminds me of the rezoning conversation in the sense that we have all these guiding principles and sometimes people may feel like they work against each other but at the end our objective has to be to come up with what is optimal to the best of our ability and if not having officers back that are dedicated or youth focused not just in the schools but also in the community if that's not where this process lands then so be it but

Okay.

In this case, again, it's more of a older child issue.

They would be the first responders to threat assessments at our own elementary school in order to be pulled.

But just having them even dedicated to schools in general would help improve that coordination situation.

We would get part of developing the MOU and part of determining where do they add value, where do they not.

Ms.

Yes, I did.

So the result of my discussion with peers concluded there were definitely mixed opinions on whether or not bringing SROs back would be beneficial.

And many students found themselves having a personal connection with the previous SROs and felt comfortable and safe with them in our school system.

And students who agree with the proposal of bringing SROs back

into the building, ask that they be personable, a personable and welcoming person of authority.

And this is because students who are primarily against the idea of SROs feel they will create a negative atmosphere and delay the growth that we are continuing to make this year.

Especially upperclassmen feeling like this is the best rhythm we've had as a community thus far, such as like the new rules and like expectations.

And they fear SROs will work against that.

However, I'm aware that I cannot fully represent the entire school and parents' opinions on this discussion.

Thank you so much for bringing that feedback with you this evening.

And I do want to say that I think one of the keys to the next round of engagement is to actually have engagement around more of a draft MOU so that people aren't just leaving things to their imagination either.

waxing poetic about how wonderful things were before, nor picturing the worst if this moves forward.

I think that it's really important that when we move into engagement, it needs to be around some kind of a draft emo use so that people have some type of an idea of what's even being considered.

Yeah, I think just being a student representative and having to communicate with peers, that's the main thing that people tell me is they just want to be communicated with even more than is already being done.

Just quicker communication and, I don't know, feeling like opinions are all valued and how to work that all together.

That's probably the biggest takeaway I've had from this.

Thank you.

Mr. Morris, Ms.

Thank you.

As we've discussed, I know social workers, guidance counselors, restorative justice partners, which I know we are doing that work collaboratively, community partners, CSAs, I think I'd like to see kind of a broader matrix of what

what we currently have.

How many?

Where are they?

What are their job duties?

And as Dr. Gurley alluded to, where are they overextended?

And then where are we missing the mark?

And I think so many times,

The school board is having to go into closed session and hear about discipline matters that the community doesn't know about.

And they are heavy on all of us.

And there are conversations happening in rooms that the community is not in.

And I think we all

carry that with us as we make these decisions and walk through what this looks like.

So I think just having a broader lens of where everyone is and what that's doing.

So I'm hoping we can see something like that in the future.

I think also what I'm interested in seeing is not just from the policing aspect, but from our Commonwealth Attorney.

If there are police in schools and children are criminally negligent in some way,

What is our Commonwealth Attorney looking to do?

And what kind of programming is there hand in hand with that?

Just being really mindful of long term implications when that happens.

And then Ms.

Dooley and I were able to go last week, I think it was, to a conversation in the community regarding Project Safe Neighborhoods and kind of the collaboration between the Equity Center, UVA, Albemarle County, multiple different agencies.

hoping that we can have some level of engagement there as well, because as you said, what's happening in the community does not know the border of our walls.

One of the things that I learned last spring when this conversation started, and we were talking with CPD, is how closely CPD already works with social services and Region 10 in the community.

And one thing that struck me as a distinct difference is when CPD is called to support social services and to support Region 10,

they are going to the where the problem is and they get to control that coordination for us in that work.

It's just, you know, we're always asking them to come in to where we're already in in the work, I guess to say.

So it's not that CPD had no idea how heavily involved or how closely they work together with social services and region 10 and serving the community already.

One last point if I could, I'm sorry.

I know everyone gets the student rights and responsibilities at the beginning of the year, and I'm sure every parent and child are diligently reading that document.

I am very certain of it.

But in the event that they are not, I'm wondering if there could be some type of conversation or campaign to draw attention to the things that law enforcement would be involved in so that the community knows

we already have things in our handbook that say, if you do this, law enforcement could be engaged or like, because it's already happening.

And maybe we just need to draw some more attention to that on a way that in bits and pieces versus a bigger overwhelming document at the beginning of the school year that everyone gets at the same time to really hit home some of these bigger long term

consequences, I think.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

As rezoning calms down, I'm hopeful that that could be a focus heading into the summer.

So it would be I would, I think we'll need it for the definitely for the summer.

And I think I'd like to see us be able to focus on engagement, maybe even during the summer things really ramp up between now and the end of the school year.

and I don't ever like to say something that I can't deliver on in the time frame that I say it would be delivered in, but because I also will have to count on colleagues and there's going to be a lot of different pieces to that work.

We would need to provide you also with what the community engagement pieces will look like in the communities where we really need to hear from people where we haven't been hearing from them directly.

And that's a piece we need to figure out.

And it's honestly something that no matter what we're engaging on, whether it's rezoning or whatever, I don't know that we still aren't getting the turnouts that we hope for.

I also have concerns in reference to like the police and as Dr. Gurley mentioned, being at the football game when the fight broke out and for the

Four of the officers stood back and did absolutely nothing when there were adults and children fighting.

And so, you know, thinking about that and bringing them to our schools, you know, I have some issues of like the relationship piece and like holding the police accountable for doing their job, whether we have an MOU with them and how they show up for us.

Okay.

And just making sure that when they're on our school grounds and we're paying them to do a job, that they're doing what we need them to do.

And so I have some concerns just being in that space and watching them stand back while the CSAs handle

you know, a situation where the police should step in.

Thank you, Ms.

Yes.

Okay, so I wanted to go back to your statement where you said, when in doubt, call.

And I feel like if that's the standard, that's a problem.

And we should have a streamline in our policy, like Ms.

Burns said, when certain situations occur that we know that

We will have to call law enforcement, right?

And I think we need to work on that a little more before just bringing SROs back into our buildings.

We need to make sure our in-house policy is straight.

And I think that's where I fall in that situation.

Of course, I want community engagement, but I'm really concerned about that.

Oh, I'm sorry, one more thing.

So I should clarify.

So what that gets into the when in doubt call type of thing is when there's a lot of contraband taken off a student.

and it's a variety of things.

You don't know if certain things meet the level of the quantity that's supposed to be mandatory reporting or not.

I don't think our CSAs nor our administrators should ever have to be trained to make those discernments.

That's where we need, but they, for a while, especially after the model change, there was this real hesitancy to call the police in for anything.

and so we had to move past that because there are certain decisions that you just need to, if you're not positive, it's not their job, as Dr. Gurley spoke to earlier, they're not trained law enforcement representatives.

It's not their job to make that decision of whether that's enough of this substance or that substance to merit something that's a mandatory report.

And then what happens, you may recall there was an allegation in the media

that we had failed to do a mandatory report related to a potential assault.

That was not the case.

We were able to prove that from our records.

But again, if you have someone already and we are we're very high and tight on those procedures.

So please don't be concerned about that.

But, you know, still, because there wasn't an officer there, we sort of were in a position to defend ourselves because there was a question about it raised.

So that's another thing that's behind that statement of when in doubt call, because there for a while there was since officers had been removed, administrators felt, oh, my gosh, well, it'll be frowned upon if I call them.

We've had to get past that.

So how are we documenting when these incidents are happening?

So there's, of course, discipline records, but the documentation for when the police are called, that's been shared with you all in some presentations.

We use two different sources.

We use the E911, well actually three now.

So we get data from the REOC, the Regional E911 Center.

And that says when they're coming to campus.

And then in addition to that, through the Police Civilian Review Board, a lot of data is collected.

And so even if something doesn't go through 911, if it's an incident or a report, we've asked the police to send us data on that, which has been shared with you all.

about how many

I'm going to

is for the things like where we have to call for a wellness check or anything like that that's maybe not going through 9-1-1 or anything.

I try to record those other incidents.

If I think that, okay, that's not going to get picked up by 9-1-1 and it's not necessarily going to be an incidental report, I try to note those things.

But again, so you see those numbers.

Okay, and then as for the budget portion.

That's easy enough to get based on what the, you know, average cost of complimenting then would be for an officer, but really can't know that until, you know, if like, is it one officer?

Is it two officers?

The most I could, what we discussed with you all in the spring was a potential three officer model that would generally allow for one at middle, one in high and one to do evening.

So that, again, this is more than just about school, but also about interactions in the evening.

Thank you.

I just want to take a moment to make a comment really quick.

Relationship has been brought up multiple times and I just want to put some emphasis on that.

I think it's just super, super important.

When I attended Charlottesville High School,

like we had SROs and it made me think of a story very recently or a moment very recently I want to say it was early November or so I was actually at my mom's house we were standing outside just talking and there was a truck that slowed down and it caught my attention because they slowed down and it was one of our former school resource officers that I have built a relationship with and he said hey I'm retiring next week

And so I think it's just very, very critical that to avoid police officers is not the right answer.

As maybe not young anymore, but as a black male, you know, there are certainly times that you might feel a little hesitant, but that's because we're being told that we should feel hesitant.

If it wasn't for having SROs in this building, I may not have actually built a relationship with a police officer that has lasted now into my early 30s.

I love my mom.

I'm sure she wouldn't have a problem with me saying this, but when I was growing up, we had domestic abuse in our household.

There were a lot of times I was calling police officers to help my mother as a young child.

That's not fear.

That's not fear of the police officers.

I need their help.

And I'm sure that happens.

And I think we heard it two Novembers ago or so last school year that teachers, students were afraid of the things that were happening.

So I think it's just very, very critical for people in the community.

to be careful not to overgeneralize.

It is key for relationships, but at the same time, at what point will we say, how do we introduce young black men to police officers?

Because that will be, it will be a cycle of having fear, if that's true.

If that's true.

Yeah, I just, you know, I am a mother of two black boys.

I do not want them to be introduced to the police in schools, like, and that's, that's my own personal feeling.

they are not afraid of the police and they know that they are here to help but we just want to be cautious of introducing black boys to the police who says they need to be introduced to the police to make them feel safe or you know comfortable around them it shouldn't be the school's decision to do that i just feel that we need to not try to emphasize on introducing black boys to the police

I guess I was curious and I'm interested in asking that when you bring more information back to us, I know that we talked a little bit in the spring or you all talked a little bit about the Cambridge model.

I know that there was another program, Strategies for Youth, that was brought up.

I know that the chief, when he was there in the spring, talked about his commitment to working with youth in the community.

And I'd like to know just if he has specifics or if the department has specifics of what type of work that they've done.

since we met last spring to do some of that work in the community.

I think, you know, I think he agreed that that a lot of that work does need to start in the community, not necessarily that those relationships need to be forged in the school buildings.

So I'd be curious to to get some of that if that's possible.

And then also, I believe, Miss Powell, a couple of times you've talked or it's been mentioned that

When police are called, you know, we don't know who's going to show up.

And sometimes that can be a barrier, whether or not and maybe I misunderstood as far as showing up to participate, whether it's threat assessments or other incidents.

But I would hope and I don't know.

So this is more of a question whether or not the chief has

reached out to his staff to ask if there are, you know, X amount of police officers who are interested in going through specific training that would make just a smoother transition into the schools to respond to things.

And having, you know, X, you know, one or two on rotation so that ideally if they're not tied up somewhere else, that they're gonna be the ones to respond.

I can't answer that question in its entirety because I certainly can't speak for CPD, but I can say that a couple of years ago when we realized that the threat assessment situation was a really big concern, the chief did move to more than double the number of officers.

They made a very concerted effort to get more officers trained so that we didn't have to call in officers off duty as often to get threat assessments done in a timely manner.

And so we've seen improvement with that for sure.

They were very cooperative with Ms.

Jodi Murphy's suggestion to set up the monthly meeting to do the review of threat assessment so that the lower level ones could be addressed in that meeting.

We could remain code compliant without calling them in for every single threat to others.

So that was really anything we've suggested that we were like, if we can identify a way to make things smoother, they've

They've done everything that we've asked the piece about asking for those.

We do have a liaison as well who works, who's very available to us.

But I guess it's just always a matter of who's on duty when and I don't know.

I don't think they're nearly as understaffed as they were, which was another stressor early on.

So things have definitely improved, but that's an interesting question, so I just jotted it down.

All right, thank you, Ms.

Just point of order, Chair, excuse me.

Do you mind going up, Ms.

to the bottom of page one.

Because I think your last slide there was proposed next steps.

And then I think the goal, this was an info session on our agenda.

So we received information and we provide you some feedback.

And I just think for clarity for the community, we're not taking action today.

and that this is what's gonna happen basically, right?

So I'm comfortable with this, that again, if I understand things correctly, this is the work you're all gonna do and you'll be coming back to us again in September with a draft.

The only thing I would ask is that someone from the school board be a member of that staff working group, okay?

I don't know if we need to vote on that or not.

And again, that was my suggestion, my individual suggestion, but I would like administration and the chair and vice chair to consider that.

Thank you.

All right, good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board and those assembled.

This evening I will be going over the fiscal year 25-26 proposed budget.

Here you see this will be our agenda that I will cover for this evening.

And I will start with our next slide, which is the statutory guidance.

that just requires me to prepare an estimate of the amount of monies that will be deemed needed for the next fiscal year to support the schools here in Charlottesville City.

I've showed you all this a couple of times.

listed down in the green area at the bottom are the areas for which we have decided for the fiscal year 25-26 that we will prioritize the budget, improving student outcomes, ensuring class sizes, sustaining our fine arts, enhancing our student achievement,

Attendance compensation for our students.

I mean compensation and benefits for our staff and modernizing our facilities and so on.

I will begin by talking about our operating budget.

At our work session, I outline for you all that to begin this process, we have a proposed collective bargaining agreement that has been shared with the staff.

The first component of that is to even out the steps, which is listed in that first box, which means that the steps will be one point,

1.5.

So to accomplish that, it's about $2.2 million to fix the scale for our teachers.

Also included in the collective bargaining agreement is a 4% raise.

So when we move everyone for their step, which is 1.5, and give them the 4% raise, you see that that comes at a cost of about $2

also included in our proposed budget is a salary increase for those on the administrative and general scale and that comes at a cost of about $677,000

We saw some savings from when I first presented the budget to you all.

We've seen a savings in our health insurance, which you see presented there.

And then we also have a savings from VRS, which was a good opportunity here to offset some of our initial costs as we rolled out collective bargaining.

So here you see that we do have under salaries and benefits that it would cost us about $3.5 million to implement.

Next slide.

Under our non-discretionary costs, since the last time we, since our initial meeting in December, we've had some significant cost savings because of some work that we've done with the city to address our maintenance contracts.

And so here you see listed that it would cost us $434,000 to implement the maintenance contract.

And then to continue our work over at KTEC, there was an increase of $207,000 totaling about $641,000 for non-discretionary cost.

Next slide.

Back in November, Dr. Fouts came and talked about our English language learner program.

And so here we want to make sure that we're addressing the staffing size plus our continued growth in this area.

So you see here that we have allocated, we are proposing the allocation of three FTEs.

We, because of the hard work, I think I saw Miss Bianca Johnson in the back corner because of the work she's doing with Restorative Justice.

We wanted to add a position so that she can continue to do that work and also do some of the work and family engagement but also do some work, but also add a position to give her another set of hands so that someone can be boots on the ground.

As you see, we at many of our board meetings, we talk about engagement.

And so it's hard to do a one singular person or to do with the Johnson and Johnson team.

So adding a third, adding another person to that department does give us an opportunity to do some greater engagement work.

We keep, you know, Ms.

Swift talked this evening about our accountability system and so here we are including a reading specialist and a math specialist to the budget.

These two positions

If we've not assigned to schools, we will begin our differentiated staffing model where we will deploy supports based on student needs.

And I know that that's come up a lot, even during our rezoning conversations about what happens with resources.

Resources follow student needs.

We are expanding opportunities for students and so we are looking at a health and medical sciences pathway and so here there is a half FTE to start with for the 25-26 school year.

We are doing much better with our recruitment, but we can always improve.

And so here we have someone who can focus on the recruitment efforts and just be an extension of the work we're doing with human resources.

also listed here.

Ms.

Duvall has been an asset.

She's come over to us officially, but we've been paying that money.

We were paying that money to the city for her work.

So now she's serving as the liaison for us between the schools and the city.

And so you see the cost of incurring her, of bringing her over.

We're in the process now of bringing over those clinical social workers.

And I just want to say that we heard a lot of talk even this evening about the mental wellness of our students.

and I just want people to be assured that all of the things that we heard, Ms.

Lavellas, you know, we appreciate the COOP partnership, all of the things she mentioned in terms of curriculum for mental wellness and staff and counselors, all of those things

We are currently doing I think we do them exceptionally well and here in our budget you also see the commitment to that because we want to bring those positions from one-time money and make sure that they're embedded into our budget and so that's our commit our continued commitment to the social-emotional learning of our students and

We had initially presented to you all.

There was a request from the Walker staff.

We do know that good people can work anywhere.

And so it is our goal to retain our Walker staff for one more year.

I know that they started getting their placements on yesterday.

many of them all except for one got their first choice and we're going to work with the one person who didn't get their first choice but they all are getting that first choice but we want them to hang in there with us one more year so we propose the bonus and so initially it was

$2,000 that will be broken into two equal parts.

That's $1,000 in the first semester, $1,000 in the second semester for our licensed staff.

And with, thank Miss Cooper,

put it on the floor initially because we increased the amount for our support staff.

And so here you'll see that we have reflected a $1,500 retention bonus for our support staff.

And so that increased that line item about $6,500.

So that will be broken into two equal parts for them as well.

So that's 750 and 750th if my third grade teacher helped me to get that correct.

And so that's reflected here if you approve that.

Next slide.

So here you see a reflection of our budget changes listed here.

So our net request, our net request is $4.9 million from the city.

And so if you remember, they did, we are appreciative that the city, we have gotten the verbal commitment.

that they will fund us above the formula.

And I just want to remind those listening that this is very important because funding us at the formula

really would not allow us to meet the collective bargaining contract and meet the instructional needs of our students.

And so I am appreciative of the work that Mr. Sanders and Ms.

Hammel and the City Council, you know, for honoring.

And I know we haven't gotten to the point where they've honored it yet, but we are hopeful

that they will honor this so that we can do the right things for our staff and for our students because we should not have to choose.

Next slide.

Here is a summary of where we are getting our funds here, our general funds and our special revenues.

And so that right now means that that's a total

a total budget for the proposed 25-26 of $124 million for the 25-26 year.

Next slide.

Since the last time we've met, we also wanted to include the capital projects in this conversation.

We do think it's very important that we keep in everyone's purview just what's happening in terms of capital projects and how we need to lean to our city partners.

Next slide please.

So for our capital projects are funded separately than our operating budget.

They are funded through our capital improvement plan, our CIP.

And so those things are for the long term.

We use our CIP for what happens for a long range.

And so just keeping in mind that we have 100-year-old buildings, which is pretty amazing.

It's pretty amazing.

Today, Ms.

Powell, Dr. Odey, and I, along with facilities, got to walk through Trailblazer today because they're getting ready to embark upon their modernization.

And I will tell you,

that the $1.25 million does not go a long way.

You would expect that in a perfect world, you walk in and it just looks like the Taj Mahal and all of these things have been touched.

And you may have to go and look for the changes at Trailblazer, but there are some very impactful changes that are being made because they are going to focus on intervention spaces.

and so while you may not see it from the outside, you may not see it as soon as you walk in the front door, they are having some impactful changes and so we are appreciative of the money that's in the CIP and I'll talk about some of those other adjustments as I move through some of the upcoming slides and I've kind of talked about a lot of it.

Next slide.

And that's what this slide is, exactly what we did with that walkthrough today.

We talked about that $1.25 million for those projects.

And most certainly, it does not keep up with inflation that's happened over the years.

What happened with $1.25 million 10 years ago is definitely not what's gonna happen this summer at Trailblazer.

It feels like we've been heard.

We've not seen it actualized yet.

But I think when Miss Torres and Mr. Meyer, and I think they did a very good job of advocating that it's not enough, I think Mr. Meyer would probably say that, can we get three?

And I would say, can we get three as well?

but we did, they know that it does not go a long way and in some regards it doesn't feel equitable in this day and age because again, when you look at what some schools did with the money and what Trailblazer will do with the money this summer, I think that they were very thoughtful.

I don't think that they had to sacrifice.

It just doesn't feel like it went a long way.

But construction is expensive.

and so yes, we

We've been heard, and I think I'm going to continue to work with my very dear friend, Sam, and see what we can do to make these things possible.

But we do know that we've made some adjustments.

Our restroom renovations, ceiling replacements, lights, security vestibules, I mean, all these things are getting addressed, but we do.

There was some commentary at the city council meeting discussing the school's CIP allocations that the schools couldn't handle more money for projects over the summer that it would impact our operations and abilities to do what we need to do.

So in your discussions with them, if that comes up, just know that that was an excuse that they were proffering as a reason to perhaps not give us more money was because

We are constricted to kind of the finite months of the summer, which there is a little bit of a reality there, but I tried to assure them that if you give us the money, we will, I mean, we are operating a middle school under pretty extreme circumstances right now.

Where I'm from, they say where there's a will, there's a way.

And so, yes, if they can give us the money, we will make it happen.

Next slide, please.

So our use of the funds over the past 12 months, we've made some strategic investments to address some key capital project needs.

One of the things that we talked about is the inefficiency of our track program because we were limited by night.

So we have addressed that, which you all work with us on to get that project moving.

and then you know we talked about even this evening our furniture project for the fifth grade transition and you know something as simple as the desk have a you know have a significant cost so we are addressing those things so these target investments enhance our facilities support our students and they do align with our long-term planning efforts to address the needs of our schools

Next slide, please.

So our high priority areas have been enhanced for school safety.

I think one of the things that we talked about is, and I want to make sure that we keep in front of our city council is that we talked about the safety audit.

And so, how can we address some of the things from the safety audit with surplus money.

because I think it's good for everyone.

I mean, we're talking about SROs, but just some of the essential needs.

I mean, some of those things need to be as dressed as well, such as lighting, fencing, exterior, stairwells, and things of that nature.

So we've currently had about $250,000 in door replacements.

And I think, and you've heard,

Mr. Davis just talked about the work that we've done and just, you know, things have just changed the culture.

And so we're appreciative of the work, but the work also continues.

And here we have some key dates, a lot of dates.

And so we will just keep meeting and just keep doing the work and keep being good stewards of the people's money.

Mr. Doc, any questions on the budget?

Thanks.

I think in the first discussion we had back in December, there was potentially a position for legal counsel for the board and in the school system.

I guess

Not speaking to you, Dr. Early, necessarily, but to my colleagues, I think we're in a little bit of a different environment, you might say, these days.

And I have concerns for our staff, our administrators, and our system in general, and our students.

And I would really like to see us put in the budget a council that can be readily available to respond to, I think, unfortunately, the macro-level environment you might say that we're facing now.

I will note that, I mean, I think the ask should be made to the city and increase our operating funds.

But, you know, based on what I think I learned today, though, too, that we have a $9 million fund balance.

I mean, I would be willing, I think it would still be fiscally prudent to spend $200,000 of that or $175,000 of that to fund a council.

And again, assume that the next year we would catch up on it, if that makes sense.

So, other than that, I think, and I think I said earlier last week, I think this budget looks good.

It is addressing, I think, the concerns we've heard from the public and, again, sets us up to, I think, to meet the new grading criteria that we're seeing coming from the state.

I think the new council can be a lot more responsive to, again, potential situations like the executive order we just learned about yesterday that could directly impact multiple millions of dollars in our budget and help us manage that directly and not have to worry about being in line.

Additionally, you know, with our new, what we just learned about, I think in our closed session, the union contract, you know, there'll be

I think the processes that we will have to do for managing disputes that council could assist us with and to resolve those a lot quicker.

processes that go on for months and while our staff and our students languish.

And I'd like to see those addressed quicker.

And finally, I think, you know, we would benefit from having even during these meetings, you know, readily accessible legal counsel that can provide us guidance on what's happening at the state level and even the federal level, specifically when we get questions from the community also.

No Ms.

Cooper Ms.

I wanted to thank you for having this slide about the critical school safety and facility improvements.

That was going to be kind of a comment that I had forgot to make regarding just our safety audit.

So I am I'm highly

I know we talked about a punch list that came out of that audit of wanting to, whether it come to the board as a report, but to be updated on what's happening, what's in process, what's being planned, and then regarding specific follow-up items that you have listed here.

What we won't have, and I think we agree, what we won't have is the estimate.

I mean, I think we can say, not even generally speaking, that these are the things that we can prioritize.

I think that, I mean,

the money probably, that number would be millions probably, right?

So I think it's about capacity and what they can handle because they are the facilities and they manage our projects.

And right now I think it's the short term, like what do we want to address in the near, what do we want to address in the near future?

Because I think that list could be this long.

and so it's like you know are you willing to give us one million dollars and then you say how many things can you get done once you get estimates but I think we can definitely we talked about just drafting a list of from the audit of these are the things that if we could have money we would prioritize these things first

So we can have some version of a list.

Sure, that makes sense.

I mean, I definitely feel like, you know, you could go through the multitude of things that came out of that report and prioritize them from a safety perspective as far as what our schools and our students and our staff and the community need.

So I would really be interested in that.

And I know we don't have a lot of turnaround time, but I know that we talked about this very generally with them, but, and I feel like even in our CIP meeting, we talked a little bit about adding a line item for door replacement.

I think Ms.

Powell kind of queued us up to bring that up.

And here we are again, I mean, that's a huge line item and it is a commitment and yes,

You know, regarding your comment, I mean, I feel like, yeah, we've got a lot of things that need to be done, but we don't get held up because we're just holding the money.

It's

the staffing, right?

It's the people.

And sure, there's some time constraints to that, but it's it's got to be a partnership.

But I do think it is worthy for them to see and hear some of that list.

And I know and I hope that that Miss Powell and you have had those conversations with your counterparts on the city.

But I would like them to see it.

And I don't want it to be something that we bring up.

And it's four years from now.

And we're sitting in a CIP meeting again saying,

Okay and then my other comment too is I want to applaud you on just the approach of the differentiated staffing for the specialists.

And I feel like that that's something that I would really be supportive of and looking just broader and moving forward as staff are hired.

I think that's important as far as equity and putting the staff where they're needed, where they can support those students in whatever school that might be.

So thank you for that.

So not to beat a dead horse, but the list of items that we would like them to use the surplus for is really long because it's largely composed of items that were neglected to be done as part of existing agreements with the city, city contracts, which goes into that line item of our non-discretionary spending, what the city charges us.

And so I just don't want that point to be lost

on Monday when we meet with them, that it wouldn't be such a long list if the work was being done as it should have been as we were paying for it over time.

OK, sorry, I'm sorry, because we're talking about safety, the weapon detectors, how and who decides when we are going to use them at a sporting event, because I've been to a few games, they were there and then

They won't.

There was a we developed a protocol and the protocol was if we anticipate that the crowd in attendance would be more than.

It's so many hundreds, Mr. Kugler, I'm sorry, I'll I'll get that 250.

Yes, thank you.

If the crowd in attendance is going to be more than 250.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Dr. Gurley.

And next, we have Miss Chuck with an overview of our rezoning plan.

Good evening.

Tonight's presentation is an abbreviated version of a more in-depth video presentation that is available on our website.

We've already discussed this, but we did keep this slide in the deck just for anyone who is just now tuning into this process and needs to catch up.

This is really all, the why is capacity and where our students reside presently around the city and where we're expecting significant development to occur over the next 10 years.

For people who really want to go deep in the process, we recommend watching the full-length video.

We've had two groups assist with the process, an advisory committee of parents and staff as well as a staff working group.

These committees helped us pull together draft options for public feedback.

As the arrow indicates, when we went back to the committee to narrow down the options after the feedback, and also a lot of work was done to maximize the options to reflect the public feedback and the committee's perspectives.

After months of engagement on this issue, about two weeks ago, the advisory committee forwarded some plans, options, and comments to the staff advisory committee.

and then last week Dr. Gurley published his recommendation to the community and we are still seeking feedback.

This slide is in the deck because it shows people what they think might be the best option and what might be the obvious choice would be for everyone to attend their closest school.

However, given the development and population density in the southern portion of our city, it's simply not a viable option.

The red there on the slide denotes that

If that were the approach taken, Summit Elementary School would be very over capacity.

And that's not a campus that we have any options to expand.

So this slide just shows our current boundaries, and it's a reminder of what we have in place now.

And technically, this is also what the community might just want, which is just to stay as is.

It was refreshing during this process to hear, really, no one wants to leave their current elementary schools.

That's a good problem to have.

But this slide, unfortunately, also has to be marked as not a viable option.

because again, Summit ends up in the red far exceeding the capacity of that school if we were to do nothing.

So this slide just shows the original draft options.

We're not going to go over all these options tonight, but we're just showing them here as a record of the process.

And again, if people want to delve more into the feedback these options received, the full video presentation and the website are great resources.

This slide addresses the questions we've been asked the most really throughout the process, which is all about exemptions.

With the current timeline we have proposed for implementation, the focus really for us throughout this process for our impacted families is to make sure they have options to create plans that work for them.

We want to do everything we can to make that possible.

So before we launch a portion of the video presentation for public viewing here, we want to show this key consideration slide again as a resource for the public and to sort of document the background of the work.

The main idea is that while our final recommendation does a pretty good job in all of these areas, the considerations that you see here, they fundamentally or naturally conflict with one another.

So there's a tug and pull between them.

In particular, we have heard a lot about walkability.

And we knew going into this process that walkability would decline.

Any decline is regrettable, but this proposal does keep this decline to a six point drop going from 42 to 36%.

So at this time, I'm going to queue up the video here.

And again, this entire video is part of a larger presentation that gives a more complete overview for anyone interested.

It's available on our website.

So Leslie, I do hope this launches.

This change would not impact any homes, but puts all of Shamrock Road into the Johnson Elementary boundary.

The next area proposed to change is along Ware Street and Robinson Place, which has no outlet other than directly into the Summit boundary, but is currently assigned to Jackson-Vaya Elementary.

Transportation efficiencies would be gained by moving this area from Jackson-Vaya into Summit Elementary.

Next are the condominiums at Walker Square.

These condominiums are currently assigned to Summit Elementary.

but the only outlet from this complex is onto Estes Street into the Johnson Elementary boundary.

Moving this area into Johnson would offer another transportation efficiency.

Tonster Park is not shown on this slide but is proposed to change from Jackson-Vaya to Johnson Elementary as it provides a cleaner boundary line between Johnson and Jackson-Vaya.

It is recommended that these areas be changed for the 2025-26 school year or as soon as possible

before the need arises to impact students in these areas.

I'll next cover the areas recommended to move from Summit Elementary into Burnley Moran Elementary.

This includes Kindlewood, as well as the streets west of Kindlewood.

These changes better balance socioeconomics among schools and allow room for growth at Summit Elementary, which is expected to be the most impacted by the developments of any CCS school.

It is recommended that the streets west of Kindlewood move to Burnley Moran Elementary in the 2027-28 school year.

This allows space at Summit Elementary for some of the housing developments, including phases two and three of Kindlewood.

It is recommended that Kindlewood be moved for the 2029-30 school year, as this is when phase four of the Kindlewood development can start having an impact on Summits enrollment.

The next area recommended to move are the homes south of 250 currently zoned to Greenbrier, including the Rose Hill and Birdwood areas.

It is recommended that this area move from Greenbrier Elementary to Trailblazer Elementary.

This moves students in this area to a school closer to home and utilizes 250 as a boundary line, which provides transportation efficiencies.

It is recommended that this area move for the 2029-30 school year.

The next area of change are the homes north of 250 currently zoned to Burnley Moran, including the Locust Grove and Park Street areas.

This area is recommended to move from Burnley Moran Elementary into Greenbrier Elementary.

Burnley Moran Elementary is unable to take on students while continuing to support its current enrollment.

Just as with the last recommended change, this change involves using 250 as a boundary line, which is efficient for transportation.

It is recommended that this change go into effect for the 2029-30 school year.

The last area of change involves the Meadows neighborhood north of 250 and west of 29.

It is recommended that this area moved from Greenbrier Elementary into Trailblazer Elementary.

It is recommended that this area move for the 2029-30 school year.

This slide depicts the overall phasing recommendation.

Just as a refresher, the streets behind Kindlewood currently assigned to Summit Elementary are recommended to move for the 2027-28 school year to allow for some enrollment growth at Summit Elementary.

All other areas of change are recommended to move for the 2029-30 school year.

This second phase of rezoning allows for all students first grade and above that have already started at a school to finish at that school.

Okay, so that's the proposal for rezoning.

What are our next steps?

Earlier this week, we had a Q&A session.

We held a summit to help families from across the city come together to learn more about how the proposal impacts their family and what their options are for applying for exemptions.

We heard a lot of questions about how families

will go about applying for exemptions either for an early start at their new school for incoming kindergartners or for future years how they would apply to stay at their current school.

And we will be certainly getting that process cleared up for everyone now that we're moving into that phase of this work.

It will actually be an expansion of our out of zone request form that we already have in place that focuses on child care exemptions.

But as part of the board review of this plan, we'll be drafting a modification to the existing out of zone policy and we'll push out information to help families understand that process.

Oh, also, I should say before we leave that slide, aside from answering questions, we are also still taking feedback.

A survey is now available.

And we are also holding a feedback event here on February 11 at five o'clock.

So again, that is here, February 11 at five.

So as far as timeline, in terms of the timeline for the board tonight, we are simply reviewing the proposal as an information item.

Next month, the proposal will be on the agenda as a discussion item.

And on March 27th, it will be on the agenda as an action item.

Our purpose here tonight was really just to make sure that the community is presented with the complete recommendation along with the many resources on our website, including again, there's a full length video presentation.

The website also includes many more charts and tools and as we've said before, we hope people will continue to provide feedback via the survey that's there now.

And again, we have that meeting coming up on February the 11th.

Thank you, Ms.

Powell.

We'll start with some questions if anybody has them.

Ms.

Torres, Ms.

Thank you for all the work that we've been doing with rezoning.

Our last

Q&A, I feel like we had a good turnout.

It was some really good questions.

And I'm just hoping that when we bring this back, we'll have more information about the afterschool care that was brought up that seemed like a real important aspect of it that we needed to talk about.

And then as far as applications,

When will those be updated?

Because I know you mentioned that they needed to be updated on the website.

So we'll be working with Ms.

Chuck to get the existing online registration form updated online.

I don't want to speak for her about how soon, but I would imagine we would need to have that available as you all move into the next steps of this process.

Again, it's kind of nice we already have an out-of-zone process and we have a form.

It was driven by child care needs.

It wasn't already online.

It was just available through the school offices, but we're going to make it more readily accessible.

The only thing I would say about that is I don't want to encourage people to apply before your vote.

So the timing of it, I think as we get through the process and as we have maybe a better sense about is it going through as presented, Amanda and I will start prepping that so that we can hopefully get it out the second it's final.

Thank you.

Ms.

Thank you.

I think my comments are more about the process afterwards.

So maybe just something to think about is who is going to be tasked with the application process intake?

Are we adding one more thing to admin level staffing in the building?

There will be a lot of questions like just making sure that we're very thoughtful in who's doing the work, who we're asking to take on more, and then being very clear for our parents who the point people are so that there isn't like a constant flux of questions and answers and

your child's in kindergarten and they want to put in an exception for five years from now that's not how this works so just being very clear about that and then also as these new developments are coming online that we are working with our community partners in those areas to make sure that people know when they go on the wait list for housing

that they already know what school that child would potentially go to, so that they're not moving in thinking their child goes to summit, but they're actually going to be going to Burleigh Moran.

So I just appreciate the work being done.

But I'm kind of a little further down the road thinking about what that looks like.

Should this be the will of the board?

So appreciate.

Thank you, Ms.

Powell.

I am very happy where we landed with this.

And I reflect back on our earlier agenda item about the new accountability overview.

And again, kind of what were we seeing with, I think, some of the schools where we're having challenges with?

And slide six in your presentation where I think we can kind of, you can see some of the stats that

I think reflect the challenges those schools have and why we need to make these changes.

And then I go to slide 11 to what we think will be the case in the future.

And yeah, I think we're going to give our schools and our students a much better chance at delivering excellent educational results.

by helping utilize the spaces better, diversify the students better at each location, et cetera.

So in addition to being good stewards of taxpayer resources in our physical infrastructure.

So I really appreciate the work that the committee has done.

I think they also took the school board's guidance that we gave them in November.

And this is the result that we asked them, I think, to get to, at least in my opinion.

I don't know if my colleagues share that or not, but

Really excited about this and looking forward to voting on it in March.

Thank you, Ms.

Powell.

And our next item is board response to written support or written reports, rather.

So you'll see our committee reports as well as the outcome of a student disciplinary matter.

And we'll move on to 13, which is another opportunity for comments from members of the community.

We'll start with anyone in the media center.

If you would like to speak, please approach the microphone, your name, address.

Hi, my name is Alex Heintzman and I'm 27.

Alex Heintzman?

Sorry, I have a cold.

I'm going to see if I can... Hello again, members of the board and Dr. Gurley and Ms.

Powell.

I know you all missed me.

I miss these little talks.

So first, I want to thank the board for your recent statement about keeping city schools safe and welcoming for all students, regardless of race, gender, sexuality or ability.

As a parent of two Jackson Bayh kids, I found that hugely comforting.

which is why I was so dismayed to sit here and hear Miss Powell and Dr. Gurley recommend once again that we should bring armed officers back into our schools.

So the last time the board voted on this issue, you heard from, I don't know, 30 to 40 students, parents, staff, and teachers on this subject and just to kind of refresh those arguments,

We asked for evidence that the current safety was failing.

We asked why the district would spend half a million dollars on cops when there were existing unmet needs.

We presented the overstatistical evidence that the presence of SROs does not significantly decrease the rates of in-school violence and instead increases arrests for trivial offenses and lowers high school graduation rates, both of which disproportionately affect students of color and students with disabilities.

And we said,

You didn't ask us.

None of what I have seen here today addresses those fundamental concerns.

It doesn't explain why problems are needed.

Things like inefficiency or communications or it's awkward to confiscate things do not strike me as problems that only have one answer.

And certainly that answer does not seem like the presence of a gun would fix it.

doesn't explain where the money comes from or why it's more important than basic staffing or the things like counselors that were mentioned before.

And it doesn't engage with the negative ramifications of policing in schools.

And instead of asking kids and families so far, you've asked the CPD and Navigate 360.

According to the procedure as described here in the steps, community engagement is step five parentheses if needed.

I want to finish by saying Governor Youngkin is already pressuring Virginia municipalities and employees to comply with recent executive orders and to cooperate fully with ICE.

This is a timely reminder that police officers are not and will never be our employees.

They do not answer to us or to you or to a principal.

They answer to the state.

and so as you move forward this process I would urge every member of the board to seriously ask yourselves in this political environment are armed officers really compatible with the statement you just made about guaranteeing safety for all of our students?

Hi, everybody.

I'm Becca Cole.

I live in Greenbrier.

I have kids in city schools and I was definitely not planning to talk tonight.

Alex just said everything that I was going to say.

I sent you an email earlier today that said almost exactly what she just said.

So we've covered that.

But two things came up during that presentation that I did want to follow up on.

One, Ms.

Torres already commented on.

this idea that we are trying to build relationships

We should be dealing with people who are trained to deal with children and trained to de-escalate.

I appreciate that, but I think that's the police department's problem, not our problem.

They should already have people who know how to deal with children and who can respond to us appropriately if we do need to call them.

that shouldn't be something we have to pull into the schools.

They're already dealing with children in the community.

Children are a part of this community.

And if CPD is not already training their officers to handle requests that involve children, then they are seriously failing our community.

And I think that's a place that the city needs to address and the Charlottesville police need to address, not the city schools.

We should know that when we call them, they already have people who know how to handle children.

That shouldn't be on our list of concerns, who we're going to get.

The second thing that came up, actually Ms.

Richardson brought up, was this concept of if in doubt, call.

My child had the police called on her last fall, and I know another parent whose child

had the police called for threat assessments in the city schools, neither of which should in any way have involved the police.

And the officer in both cases was fine.

He was not offensive.

It was an acceptable situation.

But both threat assessments should have been situations that the school staff were fully capable of handling.

They were not threats that needed to have police involved.

And I don't know what the standard is.

I don't really understand what qualifies.

Does any threat assessment require the police presence?

Is there a threshold here at all?

Because this was a note.

It's ridiculous that we can't build those relationships within the schools and without involving

the police.

And if that's the way the rule is written, I think we need to really look closely at what that means and what that means to our student body, because there's no reason.

Miss Powell said that there have been more calls to the police since we removed officers than there were when we had them in the schools.

There has to be a reason for that.

And I don't think that it is because the threat risk is higher.

So that's all I had to say.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Z. Howard, city resident, also working in community.

And I'm just here to thank everyone for all their hard work, as I know a lot of faces in here for my community work.

But I'm just kind of concerned because I don't see a lot of people that look like me that show up for these meetings.

And they don't show up just in general to the school.

So just the board and the people that know me in a room, how can I get more

people out to attend these things.

So it can be off the board, off the clock, just if anybody could just reach out so that I could start reaching out more to these communities to get these parents into the school.

I think sometimes they sometimes feel like intimidated by stepping into the schools.

But how can we work closer?

with these groups to get them into school.

So I'm just concerned, would like to help to do that.

Ms.

Powell, I would like to talk to you about some things as well with safety and community.

And I've had great relationship with Ms.

Rachel.

So again, I will continue that as I advocate for students in the city schools.

So I don't take your work lightly.

So just want to say thank you.

whatever I could do to get more families that look like me out to these meetings, to the schools, parent-teacher conferences.

Good evening.

Mimi Fitzpatrick, CCS mom and grad, CHS grad and former teacher.

We're still here.

We're still paying attention and the facts haven't changed.

Police in schools are still not the way to go.

I don't think we need to go through all of that data supporting the idea that police do not make school safer again at this moment.

We've heard it many times.

My kids have both worked with school counselors on different occasions and they do a great job when there are enough of them.

Please prove to Charlottesville City School community in this critical moment that democracy is still alive and well.

Let those who will be affected the most by these decisions have a say.

I think the student representative hit the nail on the head tonight when she said that community involvement is the key.

also Alex said it too.

We said we wanted to be involved and it needs to look like something different than CPD knocking on doors and asking if community members are interested in having police in schools.

I think we've got a lot of really important voices out here that need to be heard and I think you really had some great ideas for how that could be done in a different way than it's been done already.

Good evening.

Okay, good evening.

I thank you all for your time.

Zionna Bryant, city resident, sorry.

I have a couple of concerns or questions or comments.

So the political climate was mentioned by multiple people during the time I've been here.

And I think that that's important to keep an eye on.

I think that the comment about introduction to police of black boys is something that should be held.

It's a comment that we should pay attention to and we should give thought to.

I also think that I would add that black girls matter too.

and when we think about push out and we think about the data and the research that's been done about black girls and their interactions with school resource officers and policing institutions in general especially within the context of schools I don't want us to lose that and I also don't want us to lose the realities that we're facing right now in our current political climate with

Students who come from families that are undocumented or students who are immigrants and come from immigrant backgrounds, I think that we should be holding all of those demographics at the same time and not necessarily waiting one above the other.

I also would add that as far as the rezoning conversations and engagement has been going, I appreciated the summit elementary conversation that happened this week.

It was very insightful for me.

I want us to remember that oftentimes within conversations that have to do with equity, there is language that is coded, that is used and weaponized to kind of make us feel like

something is being discussed that's not actually.

And so I just want to remember, or I want us to remember that walkability and all of the other priorities are equally important.

And I just hope that we can see through when people are

substituting certain language for other euphemisms.

So yeah, I just wanted to remind us to like stay bold.

And I don't think the board needs to be told that, but in a time where a partnering or like a nearby school district is being attacked for their equity conversations and initiatives, I hope that this board remains consistent in what they're doing.

And I appreciate all of your work.

Thank you.

Anyone else in the media center wishing to give comment?

Mr. Cuomo, anyone on Zoom?

All right, we will transition to board member comments.

Start with our student rep.

Ms.

Hudock, any final comments?

A couple things.

One, I wanted to bring to my colleagues and the public's attention

Dom and I both sit on the Charlottesville scholarship program.

There will be, I think, applications going out for students to apply.

Again, the scholarship program predominantly benefits graduates from CHS.

It has had some budget challenges.

I would say it's a little bit at the root of the community foundation's lackluster investment results, unfortunately.

So we need to think, at least in this program, how to raise more funding and I would plant out there in the potentially in the future colleagues, I might suggest we spend $50,000 to help support that endowment from a surplus if we happen to have a surplus.

And well, I think also I might request we have the scholarship program come and present to us in the near future.

to kind of explain their results over the last couple of years and what they're doing, because I do think it's important work.

I would echo, I think, some of my colleagues about the aftercare.

I think we had YMCA report to us at the end of last year, and I think it's due to, again, I've heard also from various constituents that, unfortunately, the wait list is a thing.

And I don't think that part of the goal of our conversation last year was to brainstorm with them, I think, on how we don't have wait lists.

and while I appreciate they added service for a day-long aftercare program for a lot of people such as for tomorrow, again I still think there's potentially some improvements we can see there.

I would say it's a very rich program, my children participate in it, but I don't like to hear that there's wait lists.

Mr. Davis, I am completely in agreement with you that UVA could probably be supporting our community in a lot of different ways because as I see it, and I won't delve too much into it, but they historically and are currently might say are

at the root of some of the problems and are putting some band-aids on them, unfortunately.

So yes, a pilot, I think, would be a minimum of what they could be doing.

And finally, I'm very interested to see what we come out with at MOU with the security.

I think my question about what are the problems we're trying to solve, I hope everybody heard

those exact problems.

And I think there's a lot of angst in the community that we're solving different problems.

And so I hope we and I look forward to seeing an MOU that resolves the problems that were discussed.

And yeah, and I will make judgment on that.

And I think I hope the community looks to that.

And we'll make judgment on that, rather than potentially think we're solving different problems.

I'd just like to bring attention to two student concerns that were mentioned earlier this evening.

One concerning the Project Capstone, I think it's worthy to investigate

the results of the survey and to figure out if it's true that students are interested in doing a capstone without DE.

And I think that kind of solves at least a piece of what the board and what the administration your consideration of staffing and to make sure that we have the appropriate teachers and the right credentials for that.

The other thing that I want to bring up again is the use of AI in our schools.

I did just a quick search through our policies.

I did not see anything immediately, and I don't recall anything about an AI policy.

I know that some school districts have created one and passed one.

I think it's worthy of a discussion for us.

I'm

Tomorrow is a professional learning day.

Hopefully, parents are not like me and remembered it and have plans for their children.

But hope that I'll be looking forward to being at KTEC tomorrow for their Skills, what is it, SkillsUSA competition, which will be very exciting to see those students put their skills to work.

Also wanted to give you guys an update on prep.

the Piedmont Regional Education Program.

On Monday, we signed a lease to move the Ivy Creek School to ANU, the former ANU building on 29 North.

And so Albemarle County ended the lease with the current building.

I would just like to say thanks, everyone, for their comments and your thoughts.

We hear you.

We want you to know that your voice matters.

But as we're making decisions for our school division, we carefully consider all perspectives, share it with us.

and I just encourage everyone that shows up in this space to talk to us as a board is also talking to city council because we don't know the climate of like what the possibilities to come and so just making sure that you know when you're talking to your city councilors or showing up at the meetings that you're expressing the importance of

funding our schools and supporting our schools.

And so again, thank you for everyone that came out tonight and share their thoughts, concerns and feelings.

I would like to say thank you to everyone, of course, and as you serve on the board sometimes you miss other events, like tonight.

The Trailblazers had their Soul Fest, I miss that, the third and fourth graders.

Appreciate you.

Sorry you had to miss those things.

Appreciate my colleagues, appreciate everybody on the team and those that have spent some time tonight with us here and what they've shared.

Always appreciate that.

Wanted to just take a quick minute to put a plug in for anybody who might be interested.

Family Partners in Special Education.

So this is offered by the Parent Resource Center Saturday, March 1st.

So it's a wonderful event.

I believe this is the first time that is being held at KTEC.

So it's from 830 to 1.

So it's a conference dedicated to building partnerships between families and educators in special education.

It's free.

Registration is free.

They do hope and want you to register.

So there's a QR code.

There's a site.

or a link and I think we probably have this, I don't know if we have this on our webpage or not.

But if anybody's listening and interested, please either reach out to myself and I'm happy to share it out.

But just quickly, the conference highlights, they offer workshops on navigating IEPs, tips for positive and calm IEP meetings, strategies for effective collaboration with educators,

sharing success stories, parent experiences, resources, and tools.

So this is really geared towards parents and caregivers of children with special needs, adults who are concerned about their child's development.

So I think we probably all know somebody who might benefit from this.

I think there's a lot of great information

that we can gain, whether it's for, you know, a family or myself personally, and or to support somebody who might need that.

So again, just wanted to give a shout out to them.

And there's another, I think, life after graduation, is that what it's called?

life after high school.

So there's another opportunity and they hold that at PVCC.

And I'll try and share that out with you when we get a little bit closer to that.

I just want to thank everyone who came out.

We didn't acknowledge, but there was a UVA class in the audience this evening and they didn't get to stay for the whole board meeting, but do want to give them a little shout out.

and I want to shout out our school board.

I feel extremely blessed to work for and alongside an amazing group of seven people.

I think the commitment to our school community to just ensure that every student and every staff member has a space here and feels safe

It speaks volumes because that's not happening everywhere, America.

And so I'm glad to be in this space in this moment and feel protected.

I, too, want to shout out Black History Month.

I tend to think it's Black History 365, but I will take this month just to just to pay homage to the people who trailblazed before me because it

means so much.

And I just want to thank our families and our students.

Cyrus and Ali, I'll shoot you an email in the morning just thanking you for your words today.

And Mike, Mr. Moore said, I think there's a way.

I think there's a way.

There's always a better way.

And so we will we'll figure that out together.

We have some smart we're surrounded by some smart people.

and just have a good evening.

Wow, okay.