School Board Meeting   9/4/2025

Yes, Madam Chair.

Ms.

Burns, Ms.

Cooper, Ms.

Dooley, Mr. Morse, Mr. Meyer, Ms.

Richardson, Ms.

Hello.

We're in business.

Here we go.

Thank you, Mr. Cuomo.

Okay, so moving along, if we can move to approve our proposed agenda.

So moved.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Any opposed?

All right, we have an agenda.

Moving on to item six, student staff recognitions.

I want to take a moment for another recognition.

So as many of you know, starting last spring, our city and Charlottesville school leaders began dreaming big about how we can expand educational

Excuse me.

We'll save that for a moment.

Ms.

Shacker, can you bring the slide forward, please?

I am delighted.

I want to apologize to Ms.

Dooley.

I realized I was not clear.

So I'm going to apologize for that.

But I also want to recognize some of our winners of the Shannon Grant Award.

These Shannon Grants support excellence in innovative teaching.

And I'm really proud to say that our teachers really were the focus of these grants this year.

I'm going to recognize the teachers and just invite them to come up with me.

I know in least one case, it's sort of a team effort.

And so all who are affiliated with the grant are invited to step forward.

The first is Samantha Pagney.

And then I don't know if Ms.

Washburg is here tonight.

I'm not sure.

I didn't see her when I came in.

But she is recognized at Charlottesville Middle School for the Battle of the Books, Building Voices Through Literature.

And if you follow Ms.

Washburg's classes, you know she's always doing something interesting and exciting.

And I'm really glad that the Shannon Foundation recognized that.

Lastly, I believe Mr. Manning is here, physics teacher at CHS, seeing the invisible, bringing particle physics to life through cloud chambers.

The Shannon grants are in memory of former UVA President Edgar Shannon and his wife Eleanor.

And we just express appreciation to that family and that community of donors for supporting.

That's a real legacy to leave for public education in our area.

All right, congratulations, and thank you for everything that you do for our students.

All right, seeing none, we'll move on to those who are present here in the Media Center.

First up, we have Mr. Moran.

We'll do that.

Hello, my name is Chuck Moran.

I live at 932 Bing Lane here in the city.

Dr. Gurley, Madam Chair, and members of the board, I decided to drop by for old time's sake.

Thank you for welcoming me to the recent Sunrise Elementary ribbon cutting.

I appreciate the alert from Beth Chuck.

I believe the Burnley Moran Sunrise Committee picked a really great name, and it was nice to see the kids in their little yellow-rimmed sunglasses along with the staff out there having a good time.

I have a simple request for you all tonight to close out the school renaming chapter properly in my estimation.

I would like simple flat limestone plaques that commemorate the original namesakes to be attached to the fronts of the renamed schools in order to preserve our history.

Charlottesville, if known for anything, it's our history.

I have a mock-up that will be distributed so you can see exactly what I'm talking about.

There was a lot of big talk about how innovative and unique the MOU would be, how it would address all of our concerns, how it would somehow transform an armed police officer with legal immunity into some kind of social worker slash saint.

Now, I knew that wasn't possible because an MOU is a non-actionable agreement.

It's not a law.

But the document we got, the MOU we got, is a joke.

It does nothing to protect our kids' civil liberties.

It does not grant schools or principals hiring or firing power.

It doesn't specify how the policy will be evaluated.

It doesn't provide any avenues for registering complaints.

It doesn't stop police from physically restraining, arresting, prosecuting or questioning our kids.

And you are ready to rubber stamp it today.

Except that you finally had one single public-facing event open to the whole community where you asked for our feedback.

And even though the event was, as Ms.

Gilligan described, intentionally structured to avoid hearing us, we were too loud, apparently, to ignore.

So now you do have a choice.

You can keep doing damage control for a bad policy created through a bad process, or you can hit the reset button.

You can do a real safety review with real public engagement and develop actual innovative models with and without SROs and talk to us about them.

In this political and financial environment, when our most vulnerable students are already under attack,

You owe it to your community and to our kids to get this right.

Good evening, Zionna Bryant, Charlottesville resident.

So I was reviewing the packet last night in the agenda, and I was really disappointed to see in your timeline of whatever the graphic was called, SROs to SROs, I was disappointed to see that it starts in 2020, when in fact in 2019, there was a student-led protest that actually called for reform around SROs, and that was on March 25th.

March 25, 2019.

And ironically, you guys voted to restore SROs March 27, 2025.

And if that doesn't represent this larger

issue we're seeing on the federal level where progress is being rescinded.

I think it goes to show that you guys are really out of touch.

So I was at West Haven Community Day, and I think the whole we're waiting to hear the voices of the community thing is completely.

I didn't set up any sort of table to actually ask about SROs, and that would have been a great opportunity.

Most of the board, those who were there early, they were in and out.

They weren't there for a substantial amount of time.

And I just find it really hard to grapple with this idea that you guys haven't heard enough voices.

I mean, yes, you haven't, but it's not to the community's fault.

It's your own fault.

What is your community engagement department doing?

What is your DEI or whatever you're calling them now, Community Engagement Specialists, doing to get out into the community?

I'm not seeing them.

I'm not seeing them table about SROs.

I'm not seeing them set up individualized meetings with smaller groups in the community.

And so it's just really sad to see that you guys are throwing things at the wall to see what sticks and clearly nothing is sticking.

The outrage that you saw at the event that happened, was it last week or the week before, goes to show just how much people feel like you're not listening.

And the process was rushed.

There actually wasn't a board member here when you guys rushed to vote to bring SROs back.

And I just feel like it's thing after thing after thing, and you continue to show that you can't be bothered with listening.

There are parents who are here tonight who have been here in the past who have clearly said to you that they don't want SROs.

And I just cannot continue to believe that there's this silent majority who wants SROs so bad.

Why can't they show their faces?

I mean, why do we continue to subscribe to and regurgitate these talking points that are highly conservative and that just feed an agenda that actually harms our students?

And sometimes we can continue to hear certain people on the dias continue to shut down research, but how can you be a school division and shut down things that are thoroughly researched?

It's just there are way too many contradictions here and it's really disappointing.

And as a person who led the walkout in 2019, I would like to see you actually listen to student voice.

Good evening.

My name is Natalie Aviles, I'm a Charlottesville resident and a parent of a child in Charlottesville schools.

I checked the agenda, I'm very pleased to see that you have slowed down the process and that you're offering more opportunities for engagement.

For Ms.

Bryan, it sounds like they could be a little bit more open and democratic and I'm essentially here to say you've gotten a lot of feedback from the community, including a petition that several parents put together with discrete suggestions for how to proceed with this MOU.

We would like to see as the outcome of these engagement process some genuine attempt to hear from people and integrate that feedback into the MOU.

I think this is a test of your willingness to take a process that was not democratic and not transparent and try to make it better, try to make it more accountable to the public who have shown up and continually tried to show you the data, tried to express their outrage, tried to express their skepticism of local policing and their frustration.

with the lack of sincere attempts to make the current safety model work.

So this is a test of your willingness to actually listen to people.

And I want to emphasize this.

This is your legacy as public servants and school board members.

This is what you voted yes for.

And now you've got to make this work for parents and students in the community and not just for administrators.

And so I'm insisting you listen to people, you incorporate this into the revisions to the MOU, listen to the data.

There's a lot of good data and it shows that there's a lot of harm that can come from this policy as well.

And we want to see this reflected in the MOU.

We want to see the engagement, the genuine opportunities for feedback, and the data.

We want to see that in the MOU.

And as many people who came before me have pointed out,

If you can't do that, it's time to scrap it and start again.

Thank you.

Anyone else in the media center wish to give public comment?

All right, anybody in the zoom room, Mr. Cuomo?

You are on zoom, you can raise your hand.

You will be promoted

All right, there is another opportunity for public comment towards the end of our agenda.

So moving on to item 8.0, our student representative report out.

Can everybody hear me?

What about now?

All right, perfect.

Hello, everybody, and thank you for having me at this meeting.

If you don't already know me, hi, I'm Sali, the student representative for the student body and a junior here at CHS.

I'm a little sick right now, so I apologize in advance if my speech isn't clear, and I'll be wearing a mask for this meeting when I'm not talking.

Within the past few weeks since our last meeting, I've noticed a couple things change within the school.

First and foremost, the students are back now.

Although everybody's still adjusting to the work and the environment, I believe that the school and the administration has been doing a great job with everything.

Schedules seem to have been implemented relatively smoothly, at least from the students' perspective, thanks to the hard work of the counselors.

And now that everybody's back in class, almost everything seems to be going really, really well.

All of the students I talk to feel like although they miss the summer, this year is shaping up to be a really great one.

So we are extremely grateful for everybody in the school system, the administration, the teachers, the CSAs, the janitors, the nutrition staff, and everybody else, and everything that they've done to make this year the best year it could possibly be.

The second thing that I've noticed, which is closely related to today's agenda and other people's comments and concerns,

is the student's opinion about school resource officers.

I've heard many, many people's opinions about SROs and in doing so, I've realized that first and foremost, no matter what the school board does, there will always be people against their decisions due to the extreme diversity of opinions regarding SROs.

But for the sake of appeasing the most people, I compile a list of the most commonly held beliefs about SROs and how they fit into CHS.

First, the

Very, very common belief that most students believe is that and want to be conveyed to the school board is regarding the current imperfection of the system here at CHS.

The perception of many students is that there are very, very large problems here and that even if they don't, even if those problems don't directly prevent learning or social interaction, having literal illegal activities happening at the school and seemingly biweekly safety concerns at our school simply isn't working and isn't something that the kids here at CHS

or at any school want to happen.

The students think that for any change to be made, it is extremely important for the administration to recognize this because if we're trapped into perceiving CHS as a perfect place or attempting to make CHS a completely flawless school, we won't be able to think strategically about the steps that we can take to just make it better.

The second belief that students at CHS have regarding SROs is a form of cautious curiosity that comes in two parts.

Students hear all of the possible things that SROs could contribute to the school, all of the things that we heard of in the last meeting.

And they think that solving so many of the problems of our school system could actually be extremely beneficial.

I haven't met anybody who thinks that SROs are an unconditionally good idea that should be implemented immediately.

But at the same time, most students are optimistic about the impact that they could have on our school.

People are frustrated about how many problems have gone unsolved and how we just seem to keep kicking solutions down and say, oh, we'll do it later.

Oh, we can just delay.

And they think that SROs could be a possible way to solve this problem, a belief that's reflected within how this board has acted around it.

But this optimism is still an extremely fragile thing, as many people still recognize the flaws of SROs, which brings me to the third and final belief held by CHS students, a very, very large amount of concern having to do with the possible negative consequences of school resource officers.

Despite the current problems at CHS, students are still extremely worried about the possibility that SROs could just make things flat out worse.

This is especially true when regarding SROs bringing weapons into the school, which everybody who I talked to believed would make them feel significantly more unsafe within CHS.

People still have extremely large concerns about SROs.

Even if they think that they could be in total beneficial, nobody is without some form of unease.

So on behalf of the student body, I'd like to convey the necessity of very, very large implementations of any possible SRO plan and its specific methods of adapting the SRO to different political, economic, and whatever other climates could arise.

Students feel like SROs could be a way to change things for the better, but we also must recognize the importance of limiting the potential negative impacts of SROs.

And as a quick final thing that I've noticed, this board has done a pretty good job with communication.

Although there's always room to improve, the different meetings and attempts to reach out with both students and parents are still very important.

And the student body really appreciates that the board has been pretty clear within the past month or so about its very tough decisions.

Thank you, Mr. Schwartzman.

Moving on to item 9.0, adoption of the consent agenda.

Thank you, Mr. Meyer.

Thank you, Mr. Morris.

We've got a first and a second.

Any discussion on the consent agenda?

Yes, Ms.

Yeah, just quickly on the and specific to the business financial routine reports.

So when we're looking at that report and the percentage of the budget that's been spent to date, let me give you a specifics, Ms.

Hoover.

Sorry, you're looking at me like.

So the cost center sheet that you guys put out,

Okay.

So it's always like year to date amount expended year to date, it's always intriguing to me to look at the percentage to date of what's been spent.

And I was just curious, and this is specific to our maintenance department, that we're at 96.36%.

There is an explanation for that.

Gotcha.

Okay.

I knew there was an easy answer, but just then looking at that.

Thank you.

All right.

Any further discussion around the consent agenda?

All right.

We have a first and a second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Thank you.

Moving on to our sole action item, Ms.

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

At the August school board meeting, we presented the May and July VSBA update policies for your review.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion or questions on this set of policies?

All right, all in favor of passing these VSBA policies, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so moving on to our items for discussion.

First up is Ms.

Good evening, Madam Chair, Members of the Board, Dr. Gurley.

We have our annual enrollment update that we give at this time and the first slide here simply shows all of our

our total enrollment.

And to be clear, this is what we call responsible and responsible and serving.

So it also reflects students who we are responsible for but they may not be attending in our school buildings.

They may be served at another program such as some that are in the area and others that are farther away.

But this reflects all of the enrollment from pre-K three all the way up to our post-grad students.

And this shows you where we are with our class sizes, K4.

So this is more of our actual serving numbers.

This is just a look at what you would actually see if you go and visit our classes.

These are the average class sizes per grade.

The one item that was highlighted reflects where we did make an adjustment.

Principal Johnson at Summit is

Move some staff around because there was very small class sizes in second grade and then the large they have a because of their the state sets criteria the target class sizes and the right for class size reduction that's based on student socioeconomic status indicators and things like that and so summit has the smallest one in the school division it's 19 it's a pretty tough one to manage

and so at 20.3 they were getting a little over that.

The technical way that that's calculated brings into effect you know your fractions of PE teachers and art teachers and things like that but we still you know you want to manage these class sizes as close to those numbers as possible so that what you see highlighted there has already been addressed.

Taking a look at the secondary level, you can see where the average class sizes are for Walker, both fifth and sixth grade.

and then also for the middle school and the high school.

And the thing to note here is these are overall averages.

For the middle and high school, I did it by the major core subject areas.

But if you're visiting like advanced class sections or looking at those or some of the really popular electives, for example, art at Walker, is it like 24 per class?

Because those are very popular electives even with two teachers.

and your advanced classes often have fewer sections and so sometimes if there's a lot of interest in those, those two will be on the higher side, but those are all your averages.

And then this is a snapshot comparing what our... Okay.

what our numbers look like basically almost a year to the day and you can see overall we're down by 58 students.

You know this to me, we're not immune, we've been largely immune from the pretty drastic birth rate declines and I'll get into that here on the next slide.

We were relatively immune and this chart up in the left, honestly, if you Google declining birth rates in the US, there's a gazillion charts out there.

I just grabbed one for illustrative purposes, but it's a pretty sustained and profound trend that in the US we have this declining birth rate situation.

We were fairly immune to that initially.

We were actually showing growth when the declining birth rate trend started

We were tracking with growth really almost right up until the pandemic and it started to level off a little bit and we attributed that to actually we engaged Weldon Cooper to help us figure out what was going on and it was attributed to all the large high-rise UVA student housing that went up on West Main Street which freed up single-family housing stock in the city and that just goes to show the impact that housing has on these numbers and trends because that one

dynamic of all those college students moving into those high rise apartments.

We were well against the trend for years.

And so, but now, you know, there's a lot of affordable housing projects that's either in progress or planned on the books.

And what we see is that Wolpert's work, when you look under the hood, it really does account for both pieces.

It accounts for all the housing developments that are in progress and planned that we're aware of, but it also has those declining birth rates factored into the overall recommendations that drove the rezoning recommendations in that work.

And so that's 10-day enrollment.

Thank you, Ms.

Powell.

Mr. Schwartzman, any questions about 10-day enrollment?

Thanks, Ms.

Powell.

I always find this data really interesting.

It looks like, right, we dropped about 100 students for the elementary schools, if I'm doing my math, relatively.

I just see fascinating swings, though.

We go from

A loss of 50 at Tall Oaks on Sunrise and Greenbrier to a gain of 70.

Yeah, so I was looking at that as well.

And I think what's interesting and what was keeping me up at night when we started the rezoning process, because I was anxious to get that going, was because I could see all these developments going into the Jackson-Baya and Summit neighborhoods.

And ironically, even before all those developments land, some of them are starting to land, like the latest phase of South First Street.

But you see the dynamic that's going on in those zones.

I actually put this in the narrative in the budget book that gets published.

At this point, we have, especially with the volume of significant housing shifts that are on the books and in progress, we have to do like what I call more of a geo-located type work.

It's not just if you're in a pretty static environment, you can do that.

As far as commentary on why, I mean, I guess all of this is to say it doesn't surprise me the two schools that show an uptick

We knew Friendship Court was opening up additional housing.

Friendship Court had a dip there for a little bit because of the transitions there.

I'm sorry, it's now Kindlewood, but back when it was Friendship Court at the waning, when that was

being, you know, phasing out, you could see it impacting our summit numbers going down for a bit.

So holistically, it doesn't really surprise me.

But yeah, I mean, those are like, swinging, like two classrooms at a time, you know, but what I will say, I thought we were going to have to move on Jackson via earlier in the process.

And I kept asking, and I kept going back to forgive me, I can't remember CRHA or Piedmont that's doing South First Street, but tracking like individual

students expected to be, you know, coming into the phases as they open up and we get net additional units at South First Street.

But what you see in the work, and I think you see it playing out in the actual numbers that, yeah, Jackson Viya had a big uptick, but they're not at capacity.

And you see that negative birth rate trend working against some of the housing pieces that are coming online.

And so it's a net effect.

Some of our elementary schools right now are really being hit hard by the declining birth rate trends.

But we sort of have a plan to work through that in conjunction with the housing as it's coming online.

And that's all what that work was about really.

The other thing I always try to look at is our loss in enrollment.

from the fourth to fifth grade, because that's the traditional one where you've lost a lot of kids to the private schools.

And again, this could be 10% of this case, if you were averaging out all that grades about the same.

I confess, because I like to watch that number as well, I need to go and look at how the actual cohort survival worked between the elementary cohorts going into Walker.

And it's also interesting to watch from Walker to Buford.

Right.

What I'd like to see is that difference between eighth and ninth grade.

And I'm also very excited to see the CMS enrollment numbers go up by about

looks like about 5% or something like that.

OK, yeah, I mean, my assumption is, especially next year when we have six, seven, eight, we'll see.

And again, fifth grade, we're going to see our number go back up substantially.

So I'm sorry if I missed.