School Board Meeting   3/6/2025

All right, good evening, everyone.

It is 5 p.m.

on March 6th, 2025, and I am calling this meeting of the Charlottesville City School Board to order.

To start, please join me in a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Ms.

Burns?

Here.

Ms.

Ms.

Dooley?

Here.

Ms.

Richardson.

Present.

Ms.

Torres.

Yes.

And Ms.

Orrick.

Thank you.

Got a first.

Is there a second?

Second.

First and a second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

All right, we've got an agenda.

This moves us to our first opportunity for comments from members of the community.

I do have one user.

The last name is A-Y-A-L-A.

So I'm moving that person with their hand raised to be able to unmute and have their three minute public comment at this time.

Just checking in.

I see first name is A-N-D-R-I-K.

Looks like the next name is Mendez and Ayala.

All right, we'll return to the Zoom comments in a moment.

If there are any non-students, so members of the community in the auditorium, where are we?

In the library, who would like to speak?

Ms.

Thank you so much for being here and for hearing me.

I would like to thank Dr. Malone and the Division for the new phone policy.

It is a game changer.

Kids are talking and joking and laughing, and it's wonderful.

I also want to thank the CSAs.

They do not get nearly enough credit.

They are amazing humans who love our kids, who bond with our kids, and I think they deserve so much praise and credit.

In addition to no phones, I have gone screen-free in my classroom, and it has been amazing.

I spoke about this a couple of months ago, and I'd still love to talk about it with folks who are making policy.

So far, no one has hit me up.

The other thing I spoke of after that was TTYTP, talk to your teachers, please.

I have a question.

My question is, why are educational apps, strangers who write books, and the data from standardized tests that anyone and everyone in education will tell you is subpar more valued than the insights of the hundreds of teachers working every day in Charlottesville City classrooms?

I am so tired of this question.

I have brought it forward many times in my 17 years with this division.

Maybe I've been wording it wrong.

And it's probably pointless and performative of me to bring it up now.

But it weighs on me mightily, kind of like I don't understand war.

I don't understand it.

It honestly feels like people who are not teachers imagine us as just waiting for instructions.

Or maybe you see us as standing around copiers bemoaning the what's of our current situation.

Oh no, kids aren't in classes, literacy is low, phones, chat, TPT, I hope someone does something about it.

We are not.

around many a copier in hallways, parking lots, lunch tables, in bars, and at parties much to the chagrin of our spouses.

We are talking about the hows and the whys.

Why is this happening?