School Board Meeting   11/6/2025

All right, good evening, everyone.

It is Thursday, November 6th, 2025, and I'm calling this regular meeting of the school board to order.

If we could start with a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, if you could call the roll.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Miss Burns?

Here.

Miss Cooper?

Here.

Miss Dooley?

Here.

Ms.

Richardson?

Here.

Ms.

Torres?

Yes.

And Mr. Schwartzman, our student rep?

Here.

Thank you.

Moving on to approval of our proposed agenda.

Can I get a motion?

So moved.

credit first, is there a second?

Second.

First and a second.

Any discussion?

All right.

Any opposed?

Ms.

Cooper was our second.

All right, now we get to move on to some recognition, starting off with all of our students in the back.

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

I am delighted to recognize the extraordinary achievement of our Theater CHS program, which recently completed an amazing weekend at the Virginia Theatre Association's statewide high school competition.

Starting with a fantastic send-off show, this incredible group of 45 student performers led by their talented director,

David Beckert captivated audiences and judges with their one-act scene selected from Mary Zimmerman's play, The Secret in the Wings.

I'm thrilled to announce that Theater CHS was named one of the top two schools in all of Virginia.

The conference does not announce a winner and a runner-up since both of the top schools go on to represent

Virginia at the Southeastern Theater Conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee later this March.

The list of honors from the competition is long, but it also includes best ensemble, best musicians, best use of music, and a first place individual costume design award for Esme Ogden Ant.

Additional kudos, yes, yes, additional kudos go to Senior Sil Liva for creating the beautiful performance poster.

We could not be more proud of these students for their dedication, artistry, and teamwork.

Their competitive season continues this weekend as they go on November 8th to the VHSL theater competition.

As exciting as it is for them to move on to Chattanooga, Theater CHS now faces the challenge of fundraising to support their trip.

The total cost for this endeavor is $30,000.

So the program will be holding several performance-based fundraisers, including our annual musical, West Side Story, along with hosting other special performances like talent shows and improvisational comedy nights.

Community members may also donate directly online by visiting the Theater CHS website, theaterchs.weebly.com.

We encourage our generous community to support them as they represent Charlottesville as they compete against nine other states.

Yes, thank you.

Where are you going, my love, my love?

Don't ever go there without me Where are you going, my love, my love?

There was a place that bored the sea And there was a princess there Who seems to hold All of joy in her mouth, her hands, her hair There was promise in every glance of her eye

All right, thank you for that wonderful performance and best of luck in all of your future competitions.

We get to continue on with some recognitions.

Ms.

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

I ask that you acknowledge National School Psychology Week in Charlottesville City Schools.

I'm asking you to thank our school psychologists for helping students find their path to success through academic, emotional, and social support.

They demonstrate compassion and dedication to creating a positive environment and helping students navigate challenges and build resilience.

This year, our school psychologists are partnering with our BCBA and leading work with special education teachers in supporting executive functioning interventions.

Alongside our BCBA, they've developed resources for staff to provide more effective interventions in the essential skills of self-regulation, organization, flexible thinking, task initiation and planning.

Absolutely.

So this is an info and an action item.

Is there a second?

Ms.

Cooper with the second.

Thank you.

Any discussion or questions?

All right, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, wonderful, thank you.

And next, Miss Johnson, Bianca Johnson.

Did we get both of the Johnsons?

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

November is recognized as National Family Engagement Month, a time to celebrate and strengthen the vital partnerships between our schools and the families we serve, which is a relationship we know is essential for student success.

This commitment aligns directly with our divisional goal to provide a culture of safety and belonging by maintaining strong community partnerships.

We use this moment to extend a formal invitation to families to continue to actively engage with schools.

As your child's first and most important learning community, your support is essential to their success and you are a vital component of the school community.

To strengthen our partnerships with families, community organizations, and students through the community schools initiative,

So excited to introduce Dr. Jones-Lewis as our Director of Community Schools.

Dr. Jones-Lewis brings extensive experience in education, strategic planning, and community engagement, and we are excited to welcome her to this important role.

We also want to thank our community organizations who roll up their sleeves and work right alongside us every day.

Honestly, our ability to boost school programs and services for our students and staff is totally dependent on these key relationships.

We're especially grateful for their solid partnerships, which has been crucial for keeping things steady and supportive for our families,

even in current times of uncertainty.

We would also like to extend a sincere thank you to our building leaders, teachers and staff.

Your continuous hard work, innovative efforts and dedication to fostering, welcoming and supportive environments are the cornerstone to successful family engagement.

The strength of these relationships is a testament to your dedication and commitment.

Together, we look forward to sustaining our partnerships throughout November and for the rest of the school year.

Thank you.

Ms.

And one of the Johnsons is joining me for this moment.

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

Mr. Eugene Williams was half of what The Daily Progress called a civil rights power couple.

In light of his passing on October 18th at the age of 97, it is appropriate for our schools to pause and honor him tonight.

I will read a portion of the text from the historic marker that is installed at Tall Oaks Elementary, which was, of course, then Johnson Elementary, in 2019.

This marker tells the next chapter of Charlottesville's desegregation story after Venable and Lane High School were desegregated on September 8, 1959.

The historic marker at Toluse continues.

However, further integration was minimized and the other city schools remained segregated.

To address this, Charlottesville's NAACP President Eugene Williams and his wife Lorraine, herself a teacher in Charlottesville City Schools, sued to allow their daughters transfer from all-black Jefferson Elementary into all-white Johnson Elementary.

15 other students and their parents were part of the suit seeking transfers to Venable and Lane.

Appealed to the U.S.

Supreme Court, Dillard v. School Board of the City of Charlottesville ultimately forced Charlottesville City Schools to stop the discriminatory handling of school transfer requests.

Consequently, on October 24, 1962, Johnson Elementary was integrated by Carolyn Cheryl Williams and by Michael Lewis and Rosalind Whitlock, whose parents whose request to transfer into Johnson were also approved following the court ruling.

We honor Mr. Williams for his work to transform our schools, but we recognize that his service to our community runs much broader, from creating and sustaining a portfolio of well-maintained but affordable housing in our community, to raising awareness of our local Black history by successfully advocating for historic signage.

In their lifetimes, he and his wife were recognized by the Charlottesville School Board, the Charlottesville City Council, and the Virginia General Assembly.

As we reflect on the life and legacy of Mr. Eugene Williams, we honor him for his unwavering commitment to justice, education, and community uplift that transforms Charlottesville and hides inspired generations.

His advocacy for equity, equality, and opportunity reminds us that true progress is built on courage and compassion.

His selfless activism paved the way and will continue to guide us towards a more just and inclusive future.

Thank you for sharing those words.

And I would like to take another moment of silence specifically in reflection of the contributions of the Williams family.

Thank you.

We will move now to comments from members of the community and we get to start with comments from students.

I think we've got a few lined up here to go.

The first on my list is Ms.

Hi, I am Mia Gold and I will start by saying

Before I joined theater, I didn't really talk to anybody.

I would just keep to myself and I wasn't really out there and I couldn't really speak in front of people because I had really bad social anxiety.

but when I joined like CHS theater it just like got better for me like last year I started my first play and even though I didn't really have any speaking roles it just felt like I can like speak out more and like say things and this year we got the opportunity to win at VTA and now we are going to SETC which I think it's a really huge deal because this group of people that I'm like working with working with

It's like really awesome.

They like put in so much hard work and dedication and I feel like this is an excellent opportunity for us to bring, I mean not bring, represent Charlotte and Virginia by possibly winning at SETC.

So I, um, oh, we also did get to go this.

I won't say this was our first time.

We can't, we didn't really get to go because it was during COVID, but we were able to kind of go, but this will be our first time going.

So I think it would be nice for all of us to get the opportunity to fully get to go.

Thank you so much.

Um, next up,

If you can help me with your name, I'm sorry.

Hi, my name is Ixchel and I'm a sophomore at CHS.

I love this program and I'm very proud of everyone who is in it.

They are amazing people who have fun and make theater enjoyable.

One of the reasons why I love theater is because you can really do anything and everything here, and it is a place where creativity is wanted and needed.

It's a place where we get to have the opportunity to be as creative as possible.

It's a place where we all have a voice.

and this year we placed in the top four schools and get to represent Virginia this March at SETC.

This took a lot of time and effort from everyone, from the people who made the costumes to the people who made the props and sets, lighting, sound, and of course the actors.

Being a part of this wonderful program is such an honor.

Even in the stressful moments, I still wouldn't want to be in any other program.

Our next production is West Side Story, a show that challenges us artistically and brings our community together through music, dance, and powerful storytelling.

That being said,

These things do come with a significant cost for travel and production materials.

We would deeply appreciate any support we could get from the board can provide to help us continue representing our school with pride.

Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Esme Ogden-Ampt.

I'm a junior this year at CHS.

I'm the costume designer for this show and I'm hoping to pursue this as a career path.

So for me, going to VTA was a huge opportunity for my future.

I got to meet professionals in my field.

I got to talk to

I got to go to colleges, I got to go to workshops to learn the skills that I'm going to use in my future.

And it was also really cool to meet all the different high schoolers who are doing the same things that we're doing and seeing how they're doing it differently, you know, how their experiences are the same and are different.

And I think a lot of the people here can attest that it was a really cool experience for that reason.

And SETC would basically be twice that.

It's the regional version of that.

It's even more professionals, even more students, even more opportunities.

So it would be really amazing if we could be able to go.

And I know that everyone here has put in just so much work to be able to get to this point.

And we're so incredibly proud to have been given the opportunity to go to ICTC.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Aiden Claire.

I'm a senior here at Churchill High School.

I've been doing theater for four years and the first play I ever did was Book of Will when we took that one to VTA.

And that was my first experience with theater and it couldn't have gone better.

Every year I've gone to VTA and it's been just as excellent as the one before, if not better.

And it's an amazing place for,

schools all over the state to come together and we can celebrate our shared passion, learn plenty of useful things in theater and outside of theater and see some fun shows.

SETC has been a dream as part of that for four years for me and finally winning this year was truly amazing.

VTA is already a highlight of the year for me in SETC.

The next level above it is

only destined to be the highlight of maybe my whole high school career.

And I feel I can speak for the rest of us when I say it's going to be an amazing experience.

We all know it.

The fact of the matter is that it is costly.

And while it's a once in a lifetime unique experience, it is that everyone here has put their all into this and deserves to be able to go.

Thank you, thank you all so much.

Are there any other students present who wish to give comment?

Hello, my name is Joshua.

I'm just very excited for SETC.

I'm very happy for my group of peers that we made this far.

Thank you.

All right, we will move on to adult members of the community.

First up is Mr. Hartline.

Good evening school board members and Superintendent Dr. Gurley, Derek Hartlein, 1517 Twinett Avenue, lifelong city resident.

I'm here this evening to follow up on a couple of items I discussed at the October board meeting.

I brought before the board a concern that the fallen leaves of Jackson Viya would need to be picked up earlier this

here to avoid another potential safety issue.

I suggested that the first leaf pickup could be occurring on Monday, November 3rd, when staff would be at CHS and PDs leaving the lot clear.

At Monday's PD, I spoke with Dr. Gurley, and when he asked what would I be bringing before the board this evening, I let him know that it depended on a lot on whether or not the leaves got picked up.

He assured me that the request was submitted for it to be done.

I am honored and privileged to announce that all the fallen leaves so far were picked up on Monday morning.

And on my way home that day, I saw that all the leaves that also at Tall Oaks were picked up as well.

On behalf of the staff in Jacksonville, I want to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to Dr. Gurley, the board, and Mrs. Powell for your support in this matter.

It truly means a lot.

Over the next several weeks, more leaves will continue to fall.

And unfortunately, there aren't any days where the lot will be empty until Thanksgiving break.

I plan to support this effort in the interim to help remove the lease from the lot until the city can get back for another pickup.

I was wondering if the board would be willing to make another request for the second pickup the day before or the day after Thanksgiving.

In about 10 days or so, I will be removing what lease have built up since Monday's pickup.

Please let me know your thoughts as I want to partner with the city in this effort as I feel our combined efforts will prevent another fire from occurring due to built up leaves.

Second and last of the season, I wanted to update you on the speeding along Harris Road.

Just last week, the 15 mile an hour flashing light as you head west on Harris now has a real time speed indicator.

attached under the sign showing drivers how fast they are going.

And when that speed reaches 25 miles per hour or more at any time of the day, it starts to flash red.

This change is already making a difference.

And if the board had anything to do with this recent installation of this real speed indicator, I want to also thank you for your support in keeping this corridor safe for students, families and staff.

Thank you so much, Mr. Hartline.

Ms.

Horn, go ahead.

Excuse me.

You both will have an opportunity to speak.

Ms.

Hello.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak.

This is not what I plan to say.

I'm sorry, I'm Jen Horn.

I had a whole laboriously crafted piece about screen-free classrooms that will have to wait.

Be excited.

Due to the fact that many of you replied to my email about standards-based grading, many right before this meeting, that's what I'd like to talk about in brief.

I do not think that standards-based grading is the correct tool for assessment in the humanities.

I have sent a letter to division leadership and to the school board.

I outlined my research and my concerns.

What is clear is that there was not input from teachers of the humanities when the decision to move to SBG in every discipline was made.

It also seems clear via the emails I've received that discussions as to whether SBG in all disciplines is optimal are happening.

I would very much like to participate in those conversations.

I would very much like for my colleagues teaching in the humanities to be part of those conversations.

The strategic plan calls for equitable grading, but SBG is not the only means to achieve that goal.

I ask that before we truly begin down the arduous and time-consuming path of implementation, we stop and talk, perhaps considering making SBG optional for the humanities, as is standard in many SBG schools.

Talk to your teachers, please.

Thank you, Ms.

Horn.

Ms.

Good evening, Ziona Bryant Charlottesville resident.

So I wasn't going to speak this evening, but I was really impressed by the students from the theater department.

And I think it would be great to have the support for them to be able to do the competition that they are asking for support for.

I do think it's important for students to have access to spaces to have the ear of those who are making decisions.

And I don't know what

the support would look like from the board or what you can offer to them in this way.

But if you're not able to like make a monetary decision for them, it would be nice to open it up to the community and direct people in the direct like point them in the direction so that they can support.

We have a lot of

nonprofit organizations that support the arts.

We have a lot of philanthropists locally.

And so one thing that I heard recently from a lot of community members is that there are people in the community who want to support, they want to volunteer more, they want to give donations, they want to just support students and support our staff.

and so I think a way that we could do that is by starting with this kind of low hanging fruit.

I think it's a nice first project to see a good request for community support and it's similar to the snack drive and things of that nature.

So I just want to elevate and amplify their request for support and also just remind you that like student voice is so important and it's really scary to stand in front of this mic as a student in high school.

I did it a lot when I was in high school and it never got easier so

Kudos and applause to those students who came out this evening to speak to you.

I hope you heard them and I hope that you're able to follow up with them in some way.

Thank you, Ms.

Bryant.

Any other members of the media center who wish to give public comment?

All right, anybody on Zoom?

If you are interested in giving public comment, you can raise your hand and we will elevate you to a speaker.

All right, thank you.

That will close our community comment period, and we will move on to our student representative report out.

Hey, is that all right?

Perfect.

Okay.

I'm Solly.

And if you haven't seen me at any of the other board meetings or in the halls of the school, I'm the student representative for this board.

Quite a lot has happened since our last meeting, including elections just two days ago.

So I'd like to take a moment to congratulate on behalf of the students, all those who will be serving in the next term and worked hard on campaigning for their positions.

The student body looks forward to see what will happen in the future.

And I'd like to offer a special congratulations to Mr. Moore for all that he's done for this board.

Thank you.

I'd also like to congratulate CHS Theatre.

It's amazing to see so many people at a meeting advocate for what they want, and it's even more amazing to see CHS winning at state-level competitions.

It's amazing in a lot of different ways.

As us at CHS get back from our long Halloween weekend and start looking ahead to the holidays, I feel like it's a good time to reflect on some of the issues that have been brought up to me by the student body.

First, SROs.

In the first meeting of many meetings that I spoke about SROs, I said that students are cautiously optimistic about the possibility of SROs and in all of my speaking to people, I have found that that is even more true than I thought it was originally.

and not only that, I found that the opinion of students is likely going to remain similar or the same for the foreseeable future.

Students and administrators have long recognized the current problems at CHS and it's been reflected in people's opinions of SROs.

They want change and they think that SROs could be extremely good at making that happen.

The group of people who are excited about the possibilities is a significant group of people.

And it's an extremely commonly held belief among students at CHS that SROs could bring a lot of good change.

That's not to say that there isn't opposition within the student body, but a crucial thing to note is that generally, the more that people learn about SROs and how they're actually going to be implemented, the training procedures, the weapon locks, the feedback systems, and the many changes that this board and administration have made to ensure security, the more people think positively of SROs as

And that's why people are optimistic.

They see that SROs could be good for change.

But people are also very, very cautious about this plan for one major reason, in my interpretation, which is guns.

What I've learned talking to people is that as long as guns are part of the SRO plan, there will always be caution.

It's a terrifying thought for any student that they could be killed because of a single bad judgment call and that there's nothing that the board can do to make these students feel entirely safe.

There's no policy that we can pass, no rule or regulation that can make people feel perfectly safe when guns are being displayed in a school setting.

And that's just a fact of the SRO policy that we need to accept.

That being said, there's one thing that I think that this board should really continue to do, which is educate people about the SROs.

So far, the board and the administration have had many, many different ways of reaching out to people.

And they've worked for the people who have interacted with them.

The problem is not everybody wants to do that, and we can't make them do that.

So my advice is, from the perspective of the students to this board, to not stop educating, to make sure that all students can access resources to tell them what's happening with SROs whenever they want, whether it's this school year, in one school year, or in five.

If this is going to be a long-term plan, we need a constant stream of education

So that people can understand what is happening in their schools.

And I think that so far this board has been doing a spectacular job of that.

I would just like to ensure that that continues.

Moving on to a different topic, since our last meeting, we've gone through the first quarter of the year, which has

which has had a lot of students approach me and ask about the grading system.

So I'd like to relay two of those main comments.

First and most importantly, many students really agree with the use of zeros for various assignments and many people are happy that the data surrounding the passing and failing rates is actually based on correct information rather than 50s on assignments when no work was done.

Preventing this kind of grade inflation is crucial for getting accurate data and it's fantastic that the board has done this.

Truly, it's a huge step towards addressing the problems that have existed in our schools for a very long time at their core.

Also, some students and teachers are concerned about the way that PowerSchool makes grades unavailable in between at Quarters End and the release of report cards.

The purpose of that policy is to prevent students from annoying teachers about grades during that time.

But because Canvas doesn't display final grades, students just end up asking teachers even more questions and reversing the impact of that policy.

That's been something that a lot of students have reached out to me about.

So if the board could look into that, that'd be amazing.

The student body looks forward to the rest of the year and whatever this board has to bring, we're going to be ready and it's going to be amazing.

So thank you guys for having me at this meeting.

Thank you so much, Mr. Schwartzman.

Next step is moving to adoption of the consent agenda.

Okay, so I'm going to give Mr. Meyer the motion.

Ms.

Torres, do you second?

Okay, we've got a first and a second.

Any comments or discussion?

Any opposed?

Thank you.

Next up is our action item for this evening.

Which Ms.

Torres, are you talking us through this?

Would you please?

Sure.

So I represent I'm one of a couple of represent, represent.

Thank you.

I can't find my words tonight.

Representatives from the Virginia School Board Association for the nominating committee, where we based on the region that we are in, we then solicit whether or not there are any interest to fill a chair and vice chair position for our central region.

So another.

co representative from one of our neighboring divisions and I have reached out and we did receive interest from our current vice chair, Miss Amanda Burns.

And so we she has submitted and her application and we are bringing that to the board tonight.

for approval and then we will turn that in and that will be something that will occur in a couple of weeks in Williamsburg.

Thank you so much.

And thank you, Ms.

Burns, for being willing to put yourself out there for this nomination.

Part of the nomination packet is approval by the majority of the board to submit.

And so at this time, if we can have a motion to approve Ms.

Thank you, Ms.

Cooper.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Mr. Meyer.

We have a first and a second.

I'm curious.

I'm just curious.

Well, Miss Torres asked, so that's helpful.

I've also been involved in the central region pretty heavily, not just in the capacity of learning and education space, but also taking on a role with the VSBA task force for students in schools and challenging environments.

And so really leaning into that piece and leaning into the legislative arm

of the SBA and just learning a bit more.

And so I think in this role, I can bring some of that experience to this role and then help, I think, further our collective voice in this region to advocate for our students who need it the most.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I think, Ms.

Burns, you've been a very

Impressive, passionate leader for us over the last two years.

And I know you've also spent a lot of time engaged in state level school board association matters.

I know you've done a lot of seeing on different committees again and also trainings.

And so I can't think of a better person to nominate.

All right, so we've got a motion and a second.

At this time, I'm going to call the vote.

So all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Ms.

Burns, you can't vote against yourself to get out of this.

So thank you.

Thank you for your service and it passes unanimously.

Thank you.

All right, so we're going to move up or move on to some discussion items, starting with a literacy update from Ms.

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

I am here tonight to provide the fall 2025 literacy update with you.

This update ties directly into our strategic plan, specifically priority one, increase academic achievement, and the goal that all CCS learners will demonstrate mastery in reading and math.

The data we will look at tonight shows that we are on our path towards target one, which aims for 80 percent of our students to demonstrate proficiency in tier one instruction and target nine to increase reading achievement to at least 75 percent across our student groups.

Tonight we will begin by looking at our fall data for the present level of performance and I will share what we are doing in response to the data and to support our achievement of these goals.

In Charlottesville City Schools, we use three assessments for early and ongoing literacy monitoring.

First is the Virginia Language and Literacy Screener.

We call it VALS.

It is administered in pre-K through eight.

However, it is used differently in different bands.

In pre-K through second, it is a universal screener.

meaning everybody takes it and it provides a band of risk.

Students that are identified in the high risk band must receive a student reading plan.

For third grade, there's a set of criteria.

It's students who are new to the state previously identified or attended summer school.

It's only used for a small group of kids.

and if they are in the red, they continue with a student reading plan.

Fourth grade through eighth grade was new this year and it's only administered to the students that failed the reading SOL or if they passed the reading SOL but received an audio or read aloud accommodation.

All students must also receive a student reading plan.

It does not identify a band of risk, but because we administered it, because they failed the SOL, they automatically get a student reading plan.

Second, we use DIBELS.

It's also pre-K through eight, but again, it's different bands.

Pre-K to second grade is optional.

It is mandatory or a requirement for our third through eighth graders.

It's a universal screener.

We use it to help identify what students need support to progress monitor and in the creation of some reading plans.

We also use it some at the high school for students that are getting intervention as a progress monitoring tool.

Finally, we have the MAP assessment.

It's a nationally normed assessment and measures student growth in reading.

We use it in grades three through 12.

It's computer adaptive and provides a projected goal.

Now we'll look at kindergarten through second grade data.

The chart on the left is the fall values data for kindergarten to second grade.

As you look at the chart, it's important to know what each of the bands of risk represent.

The green band is those students who are identified as low risk on the screener.

This means they're at low risk of having reading difficulty.

They should continue to receive systematic and explicit instruction within the classroom in order to continue growing as a reader.

The yellow band on the chart represents the students that are in the moderate risk band, meaning they have a moderate risk for developing reading difficulties.

These students need to receive some targeted explicit instruction within their classroom and may also need a little extra support or reinforcement based on their instructional indicators.

An example of this would be a first grade student with strong alphabet knowledge.

They know their sounds and they decode real words.

However, their encoding or spelling may have some gaps.

This student would do fine in the classroom.

However, during the writing portion of the structured literacy lesson, the teacher may need to provide extra support or attention to help the students spell as they write their dictated sentences.

The reddish band on the chart represents the students that are in the high risk band, meaning they are at a high risk of reading difficulties because they are significantly behind in some basic literacy development and need targeted explicit instruction.

Teachers and specialists will create student reading plans for these students in order to ensure that they get the additional literacy instruction to help close some gaps in their literacy skills.

Our early literacy data shows positive improvement compared to last year.

Last year, 36% of our kindergarten students began the school year in the high-risk band.

That is, this year only 31% of them are in the high-risk band.

That is 16 students that moved into the moderate risk band in first grade.

It's also important to notice that last year we had 36% of our kindergartners in the high risk band, and this year we only have 19% of our kindergarten students in the high risk band.

Another important note is that 72% of our black kindergarten students are now in the moderate or low risk band.

For second grade, we've seen a 3% decrease in students identified in the high risk band compared to last year's 37%.

And 44% of our black and brown students are in the moderate or low risk band.

These trends show our focused efforts on early literacy are starting to yield results.

The letters and the VLA training that our teachers participated in last year was focused on what the systemic, systematic and explicit instruction looks like in the classroom and how to teach reading.

Implementation of those strategies will support our strong tier one classroom instruction and continue to positively impact student performance.

So what are we going to what are we doing to continue to grow our readers in kindergarten through second grade?

First, we're going to continue to implement the strong, systematic, and explicit literacy instruction.

Additionally, we've implemented the new HMH structured literacy modules in kindergarten through second grade.

The scope and sequence aligns with the science-based reading research and is rigorously paced so that our students are prepared for the next school year.

We also purchased new decodable libraries that provide our students with extra time and practice implementing the skills they're learning through authentic and meaningful reading.

We've also increased our tier one supports with some of our reading specialists pushing into the classroom to support our students.

There are also many collaborative meetings happening in schools that include specialists, ESL teachers, gifted special education teachers, all together, working together to plan for the explicit instruction and provide the scaffolds so that our students can all achieve.

They are working together to implement some of the PSYOP training into their instruction, and it's making a difference.

We are raising our expectations for students and providing the scaffold so they can succeed.

Another important item has been working with Dr. Korab and her team as we begin to prepare for the Early Learning Center and making sure that our students are kindergarten strong.

The preschool team, along with a few reading specialists and instructional coaches, are completing the Early Childhood Butters course.

This will mean that all of our pre-k through fifth grade teachers will have completed some form of letters training.

We're also working to align some of the instructional routines and components which will help to make sure that they are pre-kindergarten strong as they transition.

As we move to look at the grades three through five fall assessments, remember that the fall assessments are different.

We now have DIBELS and MAP that are administered to all of our students.

On the left is the DIBELS data and on the right is the MAP data.

While the charts look similar, it's important to remember these assessments provide us different information about the students.

DIBELS is a series of short timed subtests used to assess reading progress.

It includes phonics, fluency, and comprehension connected to grade level expectations.

We then use that data to identify students that may be at risk for reading difficulties, monitor their progress, and guide their intervention strategies.

Students in the green and blue bands would be similar to the low risk band we talked about on the VALS assessment.

These students should be successful with little or no additional support in the core instruction.

The students in the yellow band represent those who may need strategic support during the core.

This may look like partnering to read the grade level reading passage or pre-teaching some vocabulary words to support their comprehension.

Strategic support occurs within the classroom by the classroom teacher.

That means that all the students' needs for yellow, green, and blue bands should be met within their classroom or Tier 1 setting.

This means that about 75% of our students' reading needs should be met within the classroom.

You may remember our strategic goal plan states that 80% will demonstrate proficiency in Tier 1, and we're on our way to meeting and exceeding that goal.

On the right is the MAP assessment.

MAP is the Computer Adaptive Assessment that measures growth.

It measures reading vocabulary and comprehension and predicts the future.

In addition to being a different assessment, it reports five performance bands.

Students in blue, green, and yellow, above average, average, and high, should be successful in the tier one setting.

The next performance band, orange, is the below average band.

Some of these students may need the strategic support within the classroom and someone benefit from explicit instruction in addition to the classroom instruction.

The students in the red band would be those most at risk of reading difficulties and would benefit from the intervention and supports.

This next look is a historical look at our fifth grade cohort using the DIBELS data.

You can see that we're increasing our students in the core band while decreasing the intensive band.

Since the strategic band remains the same, we know that some students are making gains and improvements in all performance bands.

All right, third through fifth grade, based on our historical and present data, we have intentionally added or increased several instructional practices.

First, the introduction of the integrated reading and writing assessment two years ago allowed us to look at building our writing in response to reading instruction more explicitly intentionally in our earlier grades.

We realized that writing in response to reading supports comprehension.

Our students are building skills to locate and use evidence when responding to questions and thinking critically while they are reading.

We've also increased our use of paired complex texts and novel studies.

On Monday, teachers in third grade, fourth grade, and seventh grade met for professional development to implement their new novel studies.

We are aligning these complex texts to our core curriculum.

This allows us to increase the rigor while providing scaffolds so that all learners can participate and grow.

Teachers are also participating in purposeful planning.

On Monday, they worked with their colleagues across the division to ensure that our plans and expectations are aligned to the 2024 standards.

And together they completed some long-term planning.

Then within their PLCs, they're working together to meet the needs of all students.

Again, I've seen ESL teachers in adding visuals to the vocabulary cards, and GRTs are finding extension passages that would extend the learning.

Everyone is united, collaborative, and purposeful in their planning.

Sixth to eighth grade.

Looking ahead to reconfiguration, I'm sharing the middle school data for grades six through eight.

The assessments are the same that we looked at for grades three through five.

Keeping in mind that on DIBELS, the blue, green and yellow bands are the students whose needs to be met within the classroom or tier one setting.

For the MAP assessment, the benchmark would include the blue, green and yellow.

We can see that on both assessments, the percentages of students showing proficiency is not as close to our strategic goal of 80% proficient.

We continue to provide systematic and explicit instruction while also working together to address these gaps and learning needs as you will see on the next slide.

Again, this year we have purchased Lexia power-up licenses for all of our students.

We've also had professional development and training sessions for the teachers about how to intentionally implement Lexia.

Students are setting goals for weekly units earned and teachers are monitoring progress and providing small group intervention and extension when needed.

At Charlottesville Middle, they have also worked to implement an incentive program to support their usage, including an Oktaki Fest.

We've also increased our fluency routines and expectations, and we have two full-time reading specialists at each of the school sites that are supporting literacy instruction and intervention.

We continue to use paired text and compared and complex text.

We want our students to read text across multiple days and classes in order to increase their reading stamina and engagement.

We're also asking higher level questions that require our students to think critically and analytically and to talk about what they're reading.

Before we move to looking at the high school data, it's important to take a moment to talk about the student reading plans.

As the Virginia Literacy Act expanded into grades four through eight, so did the VALS assessment and the student reading plans.

This slide shows the number of students required to have a student reading plan in grades four through eight.

Please remember that it's required for anyone who fails the reading SOL with a fail basic or a fail below basic score.

Additionally, students who pass the SOL but require an audio or read aloud accommodation may also receive a student reading plan.

As you can see from the table, we have a total of 507 students in grades four through eight requiring a plan.

This is a significant number.

The data shows a relatively consistent number across our grades, ranging from 97 students in grade four to 105 in grade five.

Our response efforts across all grades are critical to dramatically reducing these numbers next year.

Now for the high school.

We really only use the MAP assessment to universally monitor student proficiency at the high school.

Again, the blue, green, and yellow bands represent students in the average proficiency or higher.

This means that about 74% of our students should be successful in the classroom or tier one setting.

The chart on the right includes historical data showing the percentage of students performing below average.

That means we want the bars to be as short as possible.

You can see that in the last three years, we have decreased the percentage of students performing below average.

As students are receiving explicit and systematic instruction, this should continue to grow and improve.

Here we can see the trends and patterns on the map assessment through cohort data.

On the left, you see the group or cohort of students and then follow across that row and you'll see the percentage of students in the average to high band of proficiency.

So in this one, we want the percentage to be high.

If you look at the cohort of 2028, our current 10th graders, and follow them across, we can see the performance decrease in the middle school grades and then bounce back at the high school.

We hope that by reducing the transitions through reconfiguration, we will decrease that drop in achievement.

But the good news is our students are growing and performing.

At the high school, we revised our pacing guides to reinforce the text first planning and increase the qualitative complexity of text.

The units connect to a variety of texts and are centered on an essential question that requires the students to think critically and deeply.

We're also exposing students to a variety of texts that will increase academic and working vocabulary.

Again, I would like to celebrate that we have two full-time reading specialists and a secondary literacy specialist that support our high school students.

They are helping to provide intervention for those students with struggling reading skills.

We saw a lot of progress in our interventions last year, and the team worked hard to start their interventions in sports even earlier this year.

We recognize the urgency to support these young people.

They are also working to push into classes and providing the scaffolding supports for students as well as wraparound support for some students by pushing in.

CHS has also made a commitment to increasing explicit vocabulary and comprehension routines in their literacy classrooms.

To do so, we've connected with Dr. Jade Wexler at the University of Maryland.

At the start of the school year, she provided a school-wide literacy training and then extended her work more explicitly with the English team, ESL teachers, and special ed teachers throughout the school year.

The goal of the work is to consistently implement vocabulary and comprehension routines so that the students can use the strategies in any context.

During high school or after.

Thank you, Ms.

Riedl.

Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Gurley, in addition to all of the professional learning and the instructional routines and practices that Ms.

Riedl described to you, we wanted to take just a moment to also share with you another way that we're responding to our data and addressing our achievement gap, and that is in advancing the data analysis

work with our instructional leaders.

So we've always looked at data.

Leaders in our division have always looked at data, but this year we're setting a new standard for how we use it and the intentionality with which we examine it.

So we've been very intentional about developing our leaders' capacity to analyze data deeply, make meaning from it, and maximize the tools and the reports that we have.

So two key areas that have been emphasized here which you'll kind of see over on the right there are leveraging multiple data points and drilling down to the individual student level.

This has really anchored our work with our division instructional team which includes our instructional coordinators.

We began with taking a deep dive into

All the reports that MAP has to offer.

We engaged in a data analysis workshop and self-reflection where we analyze the individual practices that coordinators have and how they look at data vertically by courses and grade levels and membership groups.

We thought about how we respond to the data and communicate that.

We decided to do a cohort analysis.

We actually selected sixth grade because they had recent SOLs in all the subject areas and we focused in on our black students as that is

a focus area in terms of our achievement gap.

We looked at students' fall MAP scores and reading from the time they were, we looked at the students who have been with us from third grade through sixth grade and looked at the trend across time longitudinally at their performance in literacy across time.

We also made connections between their growth and achievement

and other indicators like chronic absenteeism as part of the state accountability measures.

Content coordinators shared their own data from their content areas and student membership groups in that cohort as well.

We have done this work with our principals and are continuing to do so.

We'll be doing some more next week with them.

But we did the same taking a deep dive into map reports and all that we're able to accomplish with the tools that

We analyzed Black students' fall data in reading in MAP grades 3 through 12.

We shared those with principals and we overlaid their previous year's SOL score with them.

Again, emphasizing the multiple data points.

So, you know, when the more data points we have that are manageable to sort of analyze at once, we can really start to, when we drill down to the individual student, we can really start to see sort of, you know, what is happening here, what's going well, what's working, what's not, and in cases where it's not make informed decisions about next steps versus just using, you know, single points of data.

And we've also guided our principals and leaders through accountability analysis, looking specifically at membership groups, their proficiency level and expected growth absentee patterns with the new state accountability framework.

So we're really trying to capitalize on those reports and features that we have.

and really focusing in on drilling down to individual students and we're trying to model that as leaders for our school and division leaders and also not just looking at that individual student but at multiple data points with the goal of strengthening our collective capacity for all instructional leaders to be able to

Amazing.

Thank you.

Questions?

Yes.

Mr. Schwartzman, I'm going to start down with you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Very interesting.

And I want to go back to, I think, slide 13, which shows the trends over the cohort years.

Ms.

Riedel, you correctly, and I think you noted the drop off between grade four and five, and then the bump up between eight and nine.

And I have my own interpretation of what's going on, but I'd like to hear yours again.

But your numbers don't, hold on, I might, my vision.

Your numbers don't decrease that significantly with the enrollment in the middle school.

Like it's some, but it's not much.

When we're following that 10th grade cohort across, in the middle school, there's 264 and there's 283 in 10th grade.

So it's about 20 students, but there's still that jump from 69 to 76%.

So I think that's, like I do think there's something more happening there than just enrollment back from them.

All right, yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, I think overall is, you know, what I'm not seeing, you know, we get to the last years there looks like and we're up to our high 70s.

But my concern is don't we need those high 70s earlier?

And I do think part of what with the novel studies and like the longer text that we're reading, we've built in more expectations this year for them and much more rigorous at the middle school.

And they're performing.

The kids are spending more time in text.

They are doing more reading.

OK.

Well good, and Dr. Unsley, you know, like I heard you speak a lot about we're analyzing data a lot of different ways, we're engaging with it, we're taking down the individual.

Right, I mean, each child's individual has its own unique asterisk.

I mean, I'd be interested in the future, you know, what is the percent of kids who are needing tier two and tier three supports, you know, however, them are chronic I absent, you know, if we look at black students, all right, is it

What other factors are associated with those students too?

And to your point there, is there something more beyond just the reading supports that we need to be providing them or the other things too, when we look beyond just the reading supports, but other things that we can also look at that I'd be interested in learning about in the future.

Excuse me.

My question is in regards to the data analysis.

I appreciate the effort coming from the instructional team and principals.

I guess my question is more so like how does that filter down to the classroom and specifically the teachers?

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

Well, we know that the principals are the instructional leaders in the building and we want to make sure that they're fully equipped with, you know, a full understanding of the scope of the reports that we're able to access and that we're able to utilize.

We're also doing this work, like I said, with the coordinators.

So, you know, a lot of times the coordinators are the instructional supports that are also in PLCs and working with teachers.

Even today at one of our school success meetings, we heard all about the level of support from our secondary literacy specialist who has been working on data spreadsheets and analysis work for the teams, just sort of facilitating some of that work that the teachers are then utilizing.

I'll be working with instructional coaches in the morning actually also on this work and they're working really closely with teachers so one of these efforts is to really just get everybody on the same page with like

feeling equipped and fully confident in the ability to support teachers in that work and to make sure that we're setting that tone and that, you know, regardless of who's in the PLC, that data analysis work and the sort of most importantly, the next steps decisions are at the forefront of that.

My question is around more the high school level that when we look at how many students that's affecting, we don't have as much time to recover them.

And I just wonder,

are there enough reading specialist coordinators, people to address a group of students that we don't have much time left with them and we don't want them to drop out.

We don't want them, you know, we want them to leave here as Dr. Gurley always says, the day after graduation is the most important day.

What does that really look like for those students and how are we getting them

I can say one of the greatest things about our reading specialists here is not just it's not the quantity, it's the quality.

Like we have two amazing specialists who make really deep connections with our students.

They come, they work, they

They learn like and they were exiting and adding new kids and constantly throughout the year.

Those kids are going back into the classroom and using their strategies.

And now we've built it up where we want to do like that wraparound and they're pushing in to see how the kids are using it within the classroom also.

So I mean, we feel the urgency here at the high school also, but we are doing a lot of really intentional work to make

Thank you.

Fair enough.

Ms.

I appreciate the presentation.

I think for me, and I understand that we are focusing when it comes to data on our Black students, the SWD and ESO.

And I guess for me, I kind of want to see data on other backgrounds as well, just so I can, just so we can compare.

Sure.

We can get that for you.

Ms.

Richardson, did you mean other membership groups or what, what data were you?

Thank you.

Ladies, just a couple quick questions.

I do want to say I also have an interest.

I mean, one of our strategic goals is looking at all membership groups, right?

And so you've listed

kind of a whole and then on the slides are black students as well.

But I'd be curious to see the student with students with disabilities and other just to see where we are as far as trending towards the goals that we're making.

Yeah, so it's not an automatic.

If they have an audio accommodation and passed the assessment, then we need to look at abundance of resources and data points to make the decisions about what's going to meet their needs best.

In order to have that accommodation, they probably most likely already have

An individualized plan and we need to make sure is it being met there?

Does it need to be something additional?

Totally not related, but Doctor Isley may be able to reflect back.

To to a student that.

scored a perfect on her math SOL when she was in third grade.

And I believe Dr. Isley, you were her teacher then.

And at the time, I just was curious nowadays.

And she I don't know that she had a read aloud at that level.

I don't remember.

But I know that it was a point of contention, or there was a question about whether or not students with disabilities and she definitely needed

the read aloud support for her reading disability and challenges, but I think they weren't going to allow her to use the read aloud for math and which I found was just confounding for somebody who struggles to read but was a really strong math student.

How do we deal with that now?

Yeah.

There are guidelines for the accommodations and what's allowable for students depending on what their disability is or what their need is.

So that all goes through.

Ms.

Swift works with STC's testing coordinators on those and

Yeah, thank you.

And then just curious, too, with the data and the intentionality and just the work that we're doing as a division and with Dr. Gurley's kickoff at the beginning of the year, which was great.

So again, and maybe this was answered a little bit, but once you are looking at that data, and then again, drilling it down to individual students, what do you need or what can we do?

Yeah, I think

A lot of it is just figuring out, you know, what's going on.

So we may be looking at a student and we see consistent, really strong, um, you know, maintaining really strong scores sort of all the way across.

We may see a student who's had a steady, steady climb all the way, all the way.

So the main idea is that, you know, we don't look at all the students who fell in the average band on map and say, okay, this is what these students need because

What we see is when we look into that, there might be one student for whom that's the highest MAP score they've had yet to date and they're on this trajectory upward and maybe they haven't passed their SOLs but this year they're predicted to or they're right at the cusp of being predicted to pass.

Whereas there may be another student for whom they've

They've had really steady, strong scores.

And then this, this one they're in the average band, but that's actually the weakest, the weakest score they've had so far.

And so we need to like the way we would address that or look at that is going to be different for the student who's on kind of the upward, the upward trend.

And so, um, it really, and then, you know, then we are able to overlay other pieces with it.

Like how did they do on their SOL last year?

Have they been missing school?

Like have,

You know what did they did they make their appropriate growth that's a new with as part of the accountability system we can see you know not just our students who didn't pass but also students who did pass like are they making growth so there's a lot of pieces that we're looking at and then I think you know I think we do I think we have we have

We have the resources in place, I think, to be able to do that work.

Great.

Thank you.

And then I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pivot to it.

So slide number four, when we're looking at grades, it was the kindergarten, first and second grade scores.

And if you look at the fall of twenty twenty four,

for the kindergarten group where it says high risk ban.

I just want to make sure I'm looking at this correctly and thinking about it.

So 36% were in the high-risk band, correct?

But then when you look at fall 2025 first graders, that was a drop, right?

No, I tried to bold those.

So in fall of 2024, our kindergarten students, the 36% who were in the high-risk band, the next year in first grade, it was only 31% in the high-risk band.

So yes, we decreased the number of students.

Sorry, I when you said dropped, I was like, no, it was a good thing.

And so, yeah, we did decrease the percentage of students in the high risk band, and we increased from 37 in the low risk to 46%.

Okay, great.

I just had a quick question in reference to like the student success plans when you are able to identify a student

that may need the additional support.

How are we reaching out and engaging the families to bring them in to be a part of that?

I know they send like, if your kid receives like tier two or tier three services, they'll send a paper home asking, but how are we intentionally getting families to be a part of that process?

Yeah, so at the elementary schools, they did send it home, but they also handed it out at parent teacher conferences.

And they used the conference time to have the conversation to go through the VALS report.

Here's what it says about your learner.

Here's what you can do at home.

Here's what we're doing at school.

What do you think?

And really worked on that.

And then we try to continue in our literacy events to make sure to target the information from the reports, from the VALS reports.

We are doing some intentional practices on what routines and procedures the families can use at home to support what's happening in school.

So trying to build that partnership.

It's a little like the parent conferences attendance at the middle school is a little bit different because they have the team meetings so they don't necessarily have all students but they do invite in all of the students who are on the reading plans and this is the first year we've been real intentional and we need to grow and expand that.

Agreed.

I have one quick question and then I have a comment.

I guess my first question is kind of a follow up on what I was talking about earlier in terms of data utilization for teachers.

And I'm going to say this as nicely as I can.

And it is not crafted the way that Ms.

Chucklett would do it.

But I've worked in a few schools within this area and I've been around a number of teachers.

I know that there's different experience levels.

And so I think one of the things that I'm kind of worried about and maybe hoping that you could address or find some way to speak to is I've personally witnessed where teachers say, oh, okay, we saw the data, but then the day catches up to them and they don't have time to plan to actually utilize the PD, the PLC, does that make sense?

How do we address that so that we have consistency in our classrooms, but also have the autonomy that a teacher will need?

I think you're getting to the sort of the now what part.

We look at data, a lot of times we say the here's what, so what, now what, and the now what is really the most important part of all, right?

Because we could look at it all day, but the now what is what are we going to do about it?

And so that's what we're really trying to

to push our PLCs and our teams to do is what is the now what part.

So any of the lift that we can do with pulling the data, we've got a lot of things in EDUCLIMBER,

I know even Miss Swift just did a session on Monday on all the different tools within EDUCLIMA and how you can build a data wall.

And there were teachers in there eager to access that.

And we've had, as I mentioned earlier, our specialists making data walls so that the data is there, right?

The lift is not as much on

gathering or having it together.

So, um, that is the goal.

I know, um, even, even in our little, in our workshop with coordinators, we, we shared the here's what now it's so what, and we did that ourselves and we were like, we really need to focus on the now, the now what part.

So, um, that is definitely, um, a focus area, right?

It's very easy to kind of get caught up in and you look at it and then you go on and you don't have, um, as much time.

Another thing

Our PL sessions, we're really trying to, I've been looking at some of the feedback already and what our teachers, we know our teachers love is, and this is not just limited to PL on literacy, but is the things that they can take right away and use right away.

And I love reading that in the feedback of, oh, this was so great.

I got two things I can do tomorrow that I can respond to.

So that's what we're,

Always encouraging, obviously our instructional leaders, coaches, coordinators to get to the now what part and even part of our conversations with coordinators was, you know, how are you helping to communicate and then what resources are you providing if you're looking at, you know,

a grade levels data or a school's data or, you know, a specific your specific content area.

And you notice a trend like what are we doing to provide resources or to give remediation materials to alleviate some of that off the teachers, too?

So thank you.

I appreciate that so much.

I have a quick question.

Excuse me, a quick comment.

And this is more so towards the to my board colleagues.

I think between like the cohort data and even the, I think it was slide four that we were looking at.

And so you're still kind of looking at a cohort.

I think like this is one of those data points that as an outgoing school board member, I'm asking you to reconsider or at least start the discussion around the retention and promotion policy.

I think ultimately when we, when we look at the third through 12th grade cohort model, like we want students to be at a hundred percent, right.

I think it's wonderful that we're getting growth, but particularly in those earlier years, if there's something that we can do, then let's do that.

So I think it's worth having that discussion.

I understand that I'm not gonna be on the board much longer, but as one of your colleagues that has been asking for this in a variety of ways, I think what it's been, I guess it would make,

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Morse.

I am also interested in that conversation.

I've brought it up more in an attendance space, but I would argue probably, as Mr. Meyer pointed out, that they are probably hand-in-hand attendance and literacy and what does that really look like.

I think also when we talk about discipline at the high school and

What we've seen our greatest needs are again in the high school space.

I just recall conversations and emails from high school teachers that say I can be as welcoming and friendly and engaging as I can, but if these children cannot read, I cannot teach them.

and we have to break that cycle coming from the lower grades into the high school and recognize what that does in the high school space to our teachers and just I hope that's a conversation we can continue to have and I don't know personally like retention and upper upper grades you know make sense to me but I think in that K through

two, three space, that sweet spot, we have to do something differently.

And I hope I have some other colleagues on the board that are interested as well.

I think that could fit into a work session conversation just because it's going to be

a longer conversation most likely than what we can accomplish in this setting.

My only parting thoughts are that in the spring as we think about our school member visits to schools that maybe in addition or as an alternative to visiting classrooms that it would be helpful to be a fly on the wall in a school success meeting or PLCs just somewhere so that folks who maybe

aren't like domini sitting in PLCs in our past, like can get a sense of what that data analysis looks like.

And so in the work that you guys are speaking of, of, you know, not just having it be this rear view mirror retrospective, but what the next steps are.

So whoever is scheduling those in the spring, those are my my thoughts, but thank you guys very much.

And as we transition, I keep getting distracted by the moon out there, if everybody wants to just look at it while it's there.

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

I'm here today to provide an overview of our English language program and how we serve multilingual learners in Charlottesville City Schools.

When we think about our strategic plan, building our capacity of our teachers so that they can support our English learners is sort of woven through the strategic plan.

One thing I think coming after the literacy update that I just want to make sure that we're all aware of is when we think about that first target, increasing academic achievement, our English learners are in all of those numbers.

So the literacy data that you just looked at, our students

Maybe not their very first year, but their second year in the country are taking the MAP assessments.

The VALS assessment, their first year in the country, they're taking it.

So our students who are still building their language skills are also part of those numbers.

And as we get new language learners who are very new to English,

That's going to affect those numbers as well.

Our students who are learning English are learning the content at the same time, but they're still held to the same expectations by the state.

So I think that's important for us to think about.

As we strengthen our schools and we provide a culture of safety and wellness and belonging, we also think about how we can do that in a culturally responsive way, working with our different staff members to help work with our families as well.

And then if you go to the next slide for priority three, we have done a lot of work around supporting our staff with PSYOP training to help our staff think through ways that every staff member in Charlottesville City can support language development beyond just the L teachers.

And I'm excited to say that we don't really see, we haven't seen the wait list for bus transportation or any of that anymore for our L family.

Students have bus spots when they come to our schools pretty immediately now.

So that's really good news.

Today I'm going to give you an update on our enrollment through the Welcome Center for last year, as well as our L enrollment and staffing changes, the language proficiency data based on the access tests, our SAS program updates, and then some challenges and next steps.

All right, so this first slide offers information about the Welcome Center last year.

This is our fourth year that we've had the Welcome Center where it is a division level place that families can register and do their language screening and gather information for registration.

We work closely with our administrative technicians at all of our schools to kind of gather the different pieces families need for their students to start.

So you can see that last year we had 214 English learners enroll.

Of our kindergartners, about half of them, 48%, enrolled from our Charlottesville City Schools pre-K.

So about half of our English learners were in our programs as three and four year olds and moved into our kindergarten program.

We had about 30% of our students transferred from other countries and 25% of our students transferred from Albemarle.

And I think that's something that we always have to remember that we see families move back and forth

multiple times in their K-12 schooling career.

And so the more the city and the county are aligned in terms of our instruction and our expectations, that's really helpful for our families who are a little bit more transient.

We also had 145 English learners transfer out of Charlottesville City Schools last year.

All right.

This is the first time since I took this role in 2021 that we've seen our numbers drop.

So each year we have some English learners who graduate.

So you can see we had 25 English learners who were still in our program who graduated last year.

We had 55 English learners who exited the program, and that means that they scored a 4.4 or higher on that annual language proficiency test that they take in the spring.

We had 62 new kindergartners join us as well.

But that does put our number a little bit lower than when I saw you all last year at 721.

And the main reason for this is the change in federal policy around immigration.

And so currently, the International Rescue Committee and other refugee resettlement agencies, resettlement is on pause, essentially.

And then we also aren't seeing additional immigrants from other places who come in without agencies.

We're not seeing that growth as well.

Thanks for joining us.

This year is the first year we have to meet our standard of quality related to our students' language proficiency level.

And so you can see at the division level where our language proficiency level falls from a one, which is very beginning, to a two, sort of building those language skills.

Three would be considered intermediate and four more advanced language learners.

and then that's broken down.

This state says there needs to be a 1 to 20 ratio and then that moves up as the language proficiency moves up.

As of now, we have 28 English language learners, English language teachers, which does give us a little bit of room for growth as the year continues.

And we have that number thanks to you all because I think for the last four years, every year I have come saying that we will need more English learner teachers to match our growth.

I don't expect to have that request this year.

So students in our program take their annual language proficiency test in between January and March each year.

This test is called the access test, and it's the only way a student could exit our program is through this once a year annual test.

The state uses this language proficiency data to measure how well divisions are doing, supporting their language learners, and starting last year, the English language proficiency growth counted as 10% of the mastery part of school accreditation.

The VDOE sets an annual target that increases each year.

And you can see that target in bold at the bottom.

So this past year, it was 56%.

Though we did not increase, though we did increase our percentage, we are still not meeting.

We haven't met the expectation from the state since before COVID.

If you break that down a little bit more and you look at our elementary versus our middle and high school, if you click one more time, it'll make a circle for you to focus on.

You'll see that our elementary school progress, and so this is our K through four,

has made steady progress in the past several years.

So the elementary alone actually did exceed the state's expectation with 57%.

And where we're struggling is both our middle and our high school.

and you'll see that we've made growth, we've dropped, we've made growth again.

Last year when we looked at the scores, we used some of this to provide more additional staffing at Walker and CMS at CHS.

So we're hoping that this year that additional staffing and more support for the students at the secondary level can help.

But at the middle school, we had 38% and then at the high school, we had 43% who are meeting the expectation.

I do want to say that the expectation for a newer student, the expectation is higher, right?

For a student who is at a level three, there's less of an expectation of growth because they already have some language.

The state's expectation, this doesn't mean that only 57% of our elementary students made growth, it's just that they met the state expectation for growth.

We had many more who went higher with their numbers, but they didn't meet the state expectation.

For example, at K2, for a level one student, the state expectation is one whole point of growth.

So if they made a half a point of growth, they're not shown in these numbers.

To shift a little bit, you all probably remember last year I spoke about the SAS grant, which we had just found out that we received from the federal government, which is a specific grant to support Afghan students who came to the United States after 2021.

What I don't think I knew last November is we wouldn't get that grant money until March of 2025.

And so, but since we have gotten that money a lot of really exciting things have happened in our schools so we have hired for bilingual instructional assistance.

We have an Afghan family liaison.

We also have a contracted IRC staff who's working with some of our elementary schools that have a lower Afghan population.

And the main focus that those new staff members have been working on is supporting academic achievement for the students within the classes and also helping with engagement and helping connect the families with our schools.

And so our bilingual staff speak Pashto and Dari and they've really been able to

We do a lot of great work within our schools.

We also had a couple different summer camps that students were part of and so we had a handful of our elementary students in the SAS program got to go to Wild Rock over the summer.

And we also the Rivanna Conservation Alliance put together a summer camp for middle school girls and boys, where they looked at different science career paths that they could take.

We'll have that grant.

It'll run through the end of this year for the SAS staff, and we'll also be able to do additional programming over the summer, but we won't have the SAS staff after this school year because the grant funding will end.

All right, so with all of that,

While we're thinking about challenges and next steps, one thing we'll continue to do is work on helping our staff build their capacity and figuring out how to best meet our students' language and literacy needs within the classroom with PSYOP 3 and 4 this year.

We're also going to continue to monitor the changing landscape around federal programming.

So our Title III grant that we received from the federal government this past year was delayed.

So we should have gotten it in July.

We officially got it last week.

There might be federal changes.

The Title III grant is about, with two different parts, it's about $90,000 that we may or may not get in the future, depending on if school funding changes at the federal level.

The other thing that we're acknowledging is that we have changing demographics with our English learners.

So we typically welcome 70 to 100 new refugee students in our city schools every year.

And with refugee resettlement pause, that's not an expectation that we think we'll have.

in the future.

And so we're thinking about pivoting the work that we do and focusing on the language learners that we have in the classroom.

And what do we as L teachers need to shift to be able to make sure that we're meeting their needs.

And then we are also with reconfiguration, there's lots of moving pieces, lots of lots of buildings.

And so we're also thinking about the Welcome Center for in the future if it would move from the annex, which is currently located to a different to a different home.

Open it up to the board for questions.

Thank you.

Let's see, looking at, I think it's slide nine.

It is really hard.

Okay, so the growth means we have to have our students here for about a year and a half before they're actually part of these numbers.

Because if they're a newcomer, they don't have two years of the test.

And so our newcomers actually aren't reflected in this growth at all.

But I do think that

A couple of things happened.

One, the access test has different grade bands.

So six through eight is a great brand, nine through 12.

And the access test is a really difficult test.

It's four parts.

They have to take it in four different days, reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

and it's assessing their ability to understand like academic language in English and so not you know you might have students that we could have a full conversation with and you think they're you know they understand English they're doing just fine but then when they take this assessment they might score like a two or a three because they haven't built those academic language skills and so that's where I think the struggle is because as the

As the content gets harder, it's a little bit harder to match a student who is their second year in the country who's in sixth grade.

And then I don't, I don't think it was reflected, but I think I sent you a question just in general about the absentee rates for our students and then what

You all have, I think I saw you all have absentee rates for at each school level, at the division level in each school.

And so when I pulled and looked at just the English learners, you do see a jump.

So I think at the division level, it was 21.4% was the chronic absentee.

And it jumps to 30% when you look at our English learners.

And then there's a couple of schools that

It's a bigger jump and it is our middle and our high school.

Our middle and our high school have more significant absenteeism for our English learners than for the general ed population, which is obviously going to be part of why maybe they're not meeting with as much success in language and possibly in their classes as well.

I think one thing with our Afghan population, which about 220 students are supported with the SAS grant out of about 720 English learners.

And so with our students in the SAS program, having the bilingual IAs has been really helpful.

To be able to hear from the families what the barriers are, all of our schools have access to a language line so they can call home with a live interpreter and they can ask those questions.

But the bilingual IAs have really built like a relationship with the families and so those conversations I think are more natural and they're hearing more because it's more sustained.

You don't call and get a different interpreter every time.

and so I think we are learning more about some of those barriers.

At the high school level, one thing that is a little bit tricky is some of our students who are over the age of 18 who are still attending school and so school is not legally a requirement for them to be there.

They are allowed to continue until they graduate and then some of our students have a lot of barriers with needing to

work while they're also going to school.

Hi, how you doing?

That specific one, unless the IRC funded it, but the IRC does have a youth programs team that I think has about

at least two other full-time staff that have been working with our schools and they wouldn't go away.

So this was an additional staff member for them to specifically work with our Afghan.

Okay, because that was my next question.

Yeah, and it's interesting because the IRC is, you know, they are allowed to serve families for five years.

They do more intensive case management, maybe the first year where they're working with families, but they can continue to serve families for five years.

So they're also shifting a little bit to think about

What are some different ways they can be involved with students who've been here a little bit longer because they aren't receiving new families every week like they have typically and so we're hoping we'll continue to work on that partnership but involve them more in some of the family meetings that we do.

The SAS IA's are our Charlottesville City School employees, so they're there all day.

So the five IA's and then the IRC person that we support, she's in our elementary, so our elementary's that don't have SAS programming, our Greenbrier, Summit,

Sunrise and Trailblazer.

I think she's at Greenbrier and Summit a little bit more because that's where Afghan population falls in.

And she works with both the L team there and the administrative team.

But she's not there all day.

Those are my questions.

Um, I just had a couple questions in reference to I know you talked about like attendance and I know you highlighted a couple of reasons of like, you know, some of our students not being able to come to school at the age of 18.

So they really don't, you know, there's no big push there and then work.

I think one thing like when I was sort of reviewing some of the students who have been here who have like a higher absenteeism, and this was just at the secondary level, some of it has to do with like feeling like a level of comfort.

Like are there other people who speak their language in their classes?

Are there, do they have like a group of friends that they connect with?

One thing that we've seen that's extremely positive is if we can help get students connected

with additional activities, being on a sports team, joining the band in a theater, we really see that engagement shift a little bit.

So that's one thing that we try to do at the school level is help with that engagement piece beyond school, beyond the classroom part.

And I think otherwise, I think for some of our students at the secondary level, it is like our school counselors work a lot with them about like, helping them feel comfortable and giving them different, like opportunities.

Thank you.

I wonder, I don't know, but wonder, what is the city of Charlottesville, our partners at the city, doing to also support this work?

Because it feels very heavy on the school district doing a lot of this work that I just

As I'm hearing some of these things, and the IRC is great, and all these other organizations that are doing really great work, but I wonder, is the city

I know the IRC does a quarterly meeting and the last one was last week.

And it was actually last week's was all around food resources, right, for families.

So Loaves and Fishes was there and DSS was there and the Blue Ridge Food Pantry.

And so they were kind of talking about

different avenues and different ways you can help get families connected.

And in those meetings, like the mayor joins them, there's definitely like Rotary Club is there.

That's good to know.

And maybe something for my board colleagues and I to ponder as we continue to take on

a lot of what happens in the community in our schools.

How can we best partner with the city and when we talk about forming relationships and engagement and encouraging them to get here.

I know Miss Mohammed over at CMS when I was there talked about the cricket team that they have formed and that's encouraging to hear.

I also

sit on the Parks and Rec Advisory Board as part of my duties on this board.

And it was a great opportunity for her and I to connect and talk about the master plan with the city that there is a plan to put a cricket pitch over at Tonsler Park, but it's not not quite there yet.

And so I understand there is one over at Darden Tow Park and maybe some opportunity for us to at least help with transportation to get the kids there, but then maybe they would be able to get their own

way home.

So I'm hoping that that comes to fruition because I think that's been, from my understanding, a good point of connection for our middle school students.

And even some of the high school students I understand participate in that as well as I think, speaking to that connection, and then how the city does their part

I know like SACA does a really good job.

We have a lot of strong teams of different immigrant youth.

Dr. Foss, appreciate the presentation and I want to congratulate you because what I am seeing is you're graduating people out of your program, which is, I think, the ultimate outcome we would like to see.

And so thank you for that.

And it feels like we're able to catch our breath here a little bit with at least, you know, fewer people registering for our program each year, which is good.

I mean, I think that does, you know, we caught up and again, I hope you're successful this year and graduating more folks out.

And I guess I think Dr. Gurley, you know, there's a lot of FTEs there, you know, do we continue to support that to make sure we're getting that program graduation or are we actually gonna start to maybe redeploy those other FTEs out to a different, to further assist those students and other things, I don't know, but I think something to think about.

I would like to, yeah, I would say,

Ms.

Burns, and you mentioned soccer.

It seems to be that after school activities are really helpful in helping integrate these kids.

And I just wonder, is there more that we can be doing at the middle school level, especially?

And we've talked about this, whether it be a soccer, I know we don't have a soccer team, for example, a cricket club, other things that are not that much money that can, again, facilitate, I think, a lot of

Thanks for all your work.

Keep up the good work.

But yeah, I think we can like to see some modifications to as we advance and evolve this.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I see on the list of the progress in slide nine how the progress rates kind of taper off after elementary school.

Are those rates about new students joining in middle school?

And are the rates within elementary school continuing into middle school?

I don't know if that makes sense, but it's like, are the students who are succeeding in elementary school continuing to succeed in middle school?

Yeah, it's tricky because, you know, what we would hope does happen with a lot of students is they continue to make progress and then they exit.

So every year we're looking at a little bit of a different group of kids because we're looking at students their second year taking the test and then we no longer have the students who exited.

And so

It's the majority is the same group of kids, but things are always shifting as the new students, but as the new students arrive, but the state takes that into account.

So like students who are newer to the language, the expectation is their language will increase a little bit faster.

If they're younger, their language will increase a little bit faster.

We see a lot of students exit in fourth grade, sort of that the end of elementary school, we see a huge group of students exit

And then if you don't exit in fourth grade, you might be there until the next grade band, which would be eighth grade.

We see that often because the test gets a little bit harder.

And so even if you don't exit, but you're advanced in your English skills, you might still hang out for a little bit before you can get that 4.4.

But I do think that

We've continued to shift our model a little bit the middle and high school to try to better support English learners.

And we've done that a lot by doing co-teaching where, especially at our middle school, you know, in their English seven class, we have a group of students who are at that level one proficiency.

And there's an English teacher and an L teacher in the same room to try to really help support language development in multiple contents.

So we're adding more support that way versus in past years maybe that was happening in English but then they go into a science class and they're in a typical science class with their peers who speak English and so it's really hard to get language development when a teacher is teaching you 20 kids on her own.

So we've kind of shifted things continuously.

I'm hoping that that will help.

There might also be a tiny bit around

The access test, you don't have to pass to graduate.

There might be a little bit of our kids get tested a lot and you have to come in ready four times.

So it's essentially a four hour test broken up.

And so there might be a little bit of a kid not really feeling like it matters as much as an SOL test as well.

All right, thank you so much.

Appreciate your presentation.

Our next presentation is from Dr. Johnson.

Good evening, Madam Chair, school board members, and Dr. Gurley.

I just handed you all a draft of the SOP, which are the standing operating procedures for the SRO program.

And there are extra copies in the back for anyone in the audience who wanted to follow along with tonight's presentation.

It's good to be with you all again this evening.

For tonight's presentation, I'll be providing an update on how we've been developing and refining the foundational documents for the implementation of the school resource officer program based on stakeholder input.

I'll focus tonight's remarks on updates since my last presentation on October 9th.

We will review key themes from students, staff, and the general community, and then introduce the standing operating procedure to illustrate how both the SOP and the revised memorandum of understanding incorporate these concerns.

Finally, I conclude with our upcoming next steps.

First, I want to remind everyone that as we look ahead to adding two police officers to our current safety model in August 2026, that SORA program structure will rely on two central documents.

The first is the Memorandum of Understanding.

Thanks to the community feedback, we refined our initial draft and published draft two, which I presented at our October meeting.

The MOU establishes the high level scope, goals and principles of collaboration between Charlottesville City Schools and the Charlottesville Police Department.

This document is still in refinement as this SRO workgroup is finalizing the draft based on feedback from the city attorney's office and stakeholders.

The second foundational document is the Standard Operating Procedures, which was published on October 23rd.

The SLP is the Practical Detailed Guidance for Daily SRO Operations, Implementation, Training, and Selection.

The SLP is considered a living document, meaning that it's subject to continuous evaluation and refinement based on ongoing feedback.

Before we take a look at the ideas of the draft SLP, let's review some of the key themes and feedback we've heard from students, staff, and the community this fall.

Throughout this fall, we have been seeking feedback to help us make sure that the guiding documents are as strong as they can be.

We've held in-person and Zoom events and have had forums and surveys available for the community staff and students.

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has participated in this process.

I'll begin with student feedback first.

We received feedback from students in part through the extensive canvassing through our student school board rep.

Thank you for your service.

We conducted a student survey and through a number of lunchtime events and dedicated information sessions at Charlottesville Middle School, Charlottesville High School, and LMA.

As with the general public, we received a wide range of student opinions as you communicated tonight with both support and opposition.

Per the survey and face-to-face engagement, when we asked specifically how important is the topic of returning SROs or the fact that SROs are returning to you, more than 60% of the students reported that this was not a pressing issue for them.

Around 14% did say the issue was very important to them.

And as you've heard, our school board report, even this evening, we've also heard a sense of cautious optimism.

Students' concerns were focused on the officers' firearms and fear that having an officer on campus would have a negative impact on groups such as our students of color and students with disabilities.

There was a widespread agreement that students prioritize training officers in areas like youth mental health, de-escalation, and working with students from different backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences.

When we asked about the most important element of safety, students reported that their own knowledge of how to act in a crisis as their top priority.

We also found a shared sense of how students would know the SRO program is successful.

They know that they would find the program to be successful if the school culture was still warm and welcoming, but even calmer with fewer safety issues.

And they want this to occur without increasing student arrests.

This is also a shared goal of staff, the community, CCS, and the police.

Finally, when we asked the best way for students to meet their SRO, they selected spring lunchtime visits and August events such as open house.

This idea that they want to meet the SRO as a person first and not an officer has been present in student feedback since our initial focus groups this spring and summer.

Since I last gave you an update, the community feedback has continued to focus on program accountability and oversight.

The community sees their input as reflected in the second draft of the MOU.

We continue to receive helpful feedback.

For instance, they want to ensure that when SROs are not in school, the SROs will not be assigned to other police tasks that would undermine the trust and positive relationships they are building within the school community.

Others have pointed out additional accountability resources within CPD.

Community members continue to affirm that our schools should be places of learning and support.

All feedback continues to be shared with the working group so they can be explored and added to the MOU or SOP as appropriate.

Staff feedback from both the info hours and through more informal conversations affirm that the protective language from the second draft of the MOU was well received.

One element of our conversations with staff is that while it's important to train the SROs and to continue training our care and safety assistance, the success of this model will require all staff being trained to understand the role of SROs and CSAs.

Staff should understand that except in a true emergency or dangerous situation, an SRO will only engage in a situation at the direction of a school administrator.

Staff also confirmed the need to stress to teachers that SROs should not be contacted for behavioral issues.

One thing we've heard throughout the process from staff and others is that we need to create additional opportunities for our care and safety assistance to offer input, especially for the standard operating procedures that will guide the day-to-day of how our CSAs and the school SRO will work together.

Therefore, we have added CSAs from Walker, CMS, and CHS to the working group as we continue to refine these foundational documents.

As you know, the last time I presented, I reviewed the ways that we incorporated community feedback into draft two of the MOU.

In the same way, the SLP mirrors this feedback and addresses topics that are important to all stakeholder groups, such as the selection and training of officers, mechanisms for program accountability, defining the role of CSA and school employees, and continuing to delineate student protections.

Now let's take a moment to do a high-level review of the SLP.

First, let's turn to page two.

And at the top, you will see the operational overview section.

This section includes the number of SROs for the program, noting one SRO at CHS and one at CMS.

Another request was how to clarify how CCS will co-select the SROs.

You will find the section on the selection process on pages five and six.

This section gives additional information about the process, including that students, staff and parents or guardians will be included.

Pages six and seven.

detailed required training, not only for SROs, but for our care and safety assistance and administrators who will be working with SROs.

This includes mental health and crisis intervention, implicit bias, racial bias, restorative justice, and cultural competency.

A chart on page seven of the SLP outlines training areas and the timing of that training.

As you heard last month, the processes for accountability and data transparency are clearly outlined in the MOU.

If you would like to go back and review the MOU, you can find that information on pages six through 10 of the second version of the draft MOU.

The SLP does not expand further upon this practice, but it does refer to the commitment in the MOU.

This is an example of an area where we are still considering whether this information belongs in the SLP.

So if you have thoughts, feel free to provide feedback.

Now let's go back to page three.

I want to take a moment to highlight the consideration for special victims section.

We had an important request to give guidance for a group known as special victims, and this is where that information is addressed.

We also heard questions about the use of body-worn cameras, and this is covered in the MOU.

The specifics of what school spaces should be protected, such as a nurse's office, are still being developed for the SOP.

Finally, there is a universal agreement that we do now want our SROs to enforce school discipline or address minor misconduct.

To give clarity to when SROs would engage, the SOP contains a matrix found on pages two and three outlining scenarios

when SROs would and would not be involved.

Our next slide covers the timeline that was also presented in last month's presentation.

And we will continue to show this timeline as a reminder that we are in the phase of this process where we are finalizing the MOU and SOP.

As a reminder, as the city heads into winter budget season, this program will not have a budgetary impact.

And now I'll conclude with next steps.

The Google form on our website is still open to capture feedback and how to refine these documents, and our working group continues to meet.

Next steps include continuing to work closely with CPD and the city to make sure we are in full alignment.

In addition, as we continue to refine the documents, we may find that some ideas or operational details in the MOU are better suited in the SLP.

This will not change the commitments or content, it will just place the content in the correct place in these guiding documents.

The goal of the working group is for the final MOU to be presented at the December 4th school board meeting.

After any final edits, Dr. Gurley and Chief Kochis will sign the agreement.

Again, thanks to everyone who has shared their perspective and ideas to help us strengthen these key documents.

Thank you, Dr. Johnson.

Yeah.

First off, amazing job.

Awesome.

But I did have a couple of questions about some student concerns surrounding the SROs getting involved in like

parts of student life that they might not be supposed to, but maybe still would.

For example, with the possession of contraband items, how can we ensure that if a police officer sees contraband items, they wouldn't just immediately intervene?

Or how can we make sure that that isn't happening?

So I think the key there is that when it comes to involvement of police with contraband items and if we're speaking about things that are like vapes, drugs, that type of thing.

First of all, a vape is not necessarily illegal.

It's not allowed in school.

So an SRO should not be asked to intervene with that.

A case where an SRO maybe would intervene if they thought they saw like a sale of something going on in school.

But really, unless it's a quantity that would constitute distribution, which is something we're already required by the Code of Virginia,

to engage the law enforcement with, there would be no reason for them to get involved.

And actually within the SOP, I believe, and if it's not already there, we'll go back because it's a great question.

But I believe there's a table that we started putting in there where we tried to further clarify where SROs are in or out as far as involvement in different situations.

And that's definitely something we need to make sure is clear.

So does that get at what you were looking for?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

There was also one other student concern that I had heard about with physical altercations.

Obviously, harming a police officer is like a federal offense and

would not be good.

But in a fight, it's relatively common for people who try to intervene in those fights to get hurt just because that's the nature, although it is very unfortunate, of some fights at CHS.

We've talked about that quite a bit in our work group, and it's a great, another great question.

So, understanding exactly what you said that sometimes our staff, when they intervene in trying to stop students from harming each other, deescalate a situation, break up a fight, our staff sometimes has become injured.

And just like with the staff, the officer will have discretion whether or not it becomes a charged situation or not.

If it's an inadvertent

you know elbow or something like that it is very unlikely from what we have been told working with our CPD liaison that they would choose to charge just like our staff don't necessarily to choose to charge but they can our staff can charge if they're injured when they're breaking up a fight they can think that's not something we could take away from our staff that

that option to do that.

Same is true for the officers and we believe, you know, it is our belief and it has been CPD's expressed thought that the types of people who will sign up to be SROs will understand that.

Those are very good questions.

One of the things we're also considering in our conversations around training is the conversations we need to have with students.

And so continue to get those questions together, and that can help influence our training as we put it together.

OK, perfect.

Thank you very much for the update.

All right.

Next, we have some board responses to written reports, including our committee reports, chronic absenteeism, and our pupil teacher ratio written report.

You see Mr. Meyer over there chomping at the bit, ready to go.

Yeah, no, I always enjoy the written reports.

Thank you for including them.

I will note that

While some schools have been making some progress on their chronic absenteeism, I'm seeing upticks at CMS and CHS.

I have a child in an elementary school and I received recent communications about positive things they will receive, tags if they don't, if they get, so like to see that.

I have not gotten anything from CMS.

Not saying that nothings aren't being done, but just making that observation.

I will say, and thank you for also doing the people, seeing our ratios, teacher ratios.

I hope the community sees, and for one thing, I don't think VDOE's averages are anywhere near what they should be, and they need to be adjusted.

I think we've talked about that also.

I hope that the community notices that our averages are significantly lower, or 50% more than in a lot of cases.

So we are doing it, you know, we are staffing, I think, as we should be.

I understand also it is difficult to project how many students we're going to have and matches teachers with a lot of enrollment coming right at the end.

I do see Jackson-Baya having a pretty high rate or sorry, classroom vis-a-vis some of the other schools and then again, then compare that to the ELL learners.

You know, so I just want to make sure we're again, allocating staff to where the needs are also.

Any other questions or comments about the written reports?

Thank you.

We will move on to our second opportunity for comments from members of the community.

If there's anyone in the Media Center who would like to speak?

All right, seeing none.

Anybody in Zoom, in the Zoom room who wishes to speak, feel free to raise your hand and you'll be promoted.

No takers.

So we'll move on to comments from the board.

Try to keep mixing it up.

Yeah, not a lot.

But if you will, colleagues, so coming up, and when we go to Williamsburg, so I'm a delegate representing Charlottesville City Schools.

We often get well every year we get in any edits or new legislative proposals, and then the delegate assembly gets together and we vote.

yay or nay, up or down on those.

This year, there's not a lot in here, but there is one new legislative proposal.

And since there's only one, if you don't mind, I would love to kind of get just a thumbs up or thumbs down or think about it.

But it's pretty simple.

Basically, it's a proposal to remove chronic absenteeism as an indicator and accountability and accreditation models used to rate public schools.

and that's it, very simple.

So this passed, it will be proposed to the delegate assembly and every school division there who has a delegate in the room gets to vote up or down on it.

Is that something that you could email to us?

Sure, absolutely.

I mean it's just I read exactly what's on here that's all and there's no supporting information or anything like that.

It's just it's a brand new motion to approve that legislative position so this is something that then VSBA will will carry forward as their position when they

Head to the General Assembly.

So just wanted to throw that out there.

Other than that, really no other comments.

But thank you to Charlottesville community and the state of Virginia for showing up and voting.

I don't really have too much to say.

We are approaching holiday season, so I'm gearing up for that.

And I hope everyone is gearing up to spend some time with their families and friends as Thanksgiving and Christmas and all these things approach.

I had something else to say, guys.

Oh, yeah, report cards.

So report cards came out, and I just hope everybody had.

Did you have a good report card?

Good, because my son has straight A's, so I just wanted to throw that out there.

Go Zaire, go Raiden.

It's always great to see the hard work that our children are putting out every day, and the grades are showing for it.

So if you didn't get a good report card, do better.

and

Yes, I wanted to bring to the board and community attention that the Community Attention Youth Internship Program is open for applications for students 14 to 21 years of age.

This is a program within the city that provides opportunities to learn workplace readiness skills, have growth mindset, earn some money, and some really great organizations that take

to take our students in to teach those job skills, some such as JMRL Library, which I know Dr. Gurley spent some time there this weekend, the Music Resource Center, a few different barbershops, BABA, Virginia Discovery Museum, the West Haven Clinic, Wild Rock, just to name a few, but really a wonderful opportunity for students in our community to

earn some money and job readiness skills.

So I wanted to bring that to the attention of everyone and wanted to thank Mr. Becker and the theater program for bringing the students over here to take some time out of their theater rehearsal this evening to share with the board.

And that is all I have for tonight.

A couple things.

One, I want to congratulate Ms.

Torres, Chair Dooley on your re-election.

I look forward to serving with you again.

It's been a pleasure so far and multiple years.

I want to congratulate Ms.

Bryant.

Thank you for attending also.

I think that's an example of the service you're going to bring in the future and dedication and look forward to serving with you also.

Colleagues, I wanted to just flag for you that the City Council did have a budget

presentation the other day on kind of a long term.

I don't know if some of you saw that or not, but I was heartened to see they were using a 5% annual growth in our budget, which was, I think, generous and good.

At the same time, they're also projecting more revenues in the future.

So those are just things I think we'll have to start to think about.

And for the community in general, I hope you continue to show up for us and communicate to your city councilor's importance of funding our public school system.

I am also heartened by the Virginia the turnout and election and I do hope that with the new state leadership we will see a sales tax referendum legislation passed that again to my city residents here that would allow us to make substantial upgrades to our school infrastructure that are needed so starting to start thinking about that.

Finally I just want to we

Utilized Mr. Williams a little bit this earlier and then and I had the privilege of working in office a couple houses down from Mr. Williams.

And so I can say I was educated on his porch a lot about it's just desegregation, segregation, the racial history here in Charlottesville, schools, etc.

And not having been from this region that was

very impactful.

I can't say enough, I think a lot of our community's leaders sat with him and learned a lot.

And, you know, unfortunately, he served our community during a time where he could not be elected necessarily, which I think he would have been a great elected leader.

I think Dr. Burley, I first met you in his living room also.

So

Yes, I think it was appropriate and how we've recognized him so far and want everybody to stop by the historical marker at Tall Oaks and keep him and his family in your thoughts.

Oh, wait.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I just had a question.

I was just curious to know how much

for the theaters trip.

We never got a price on that, how much each student?

Okay, okay.

Not much, just like, thank you guys.

Thank you.

Emily, I also too, Chris, I think I would like to say also Emily and Zaya, congratulations, but I also want to say a congratulations to Lisa

Congratulations.

Sorry, didn't hear it, but just wanted to make sure that we capture everybody.

Thank you.

So, as has been noted, there was an election this week.

I know Ms.

Torres and Ms.

Brana are happy to be on the other side of it.

Throughout kind of the lead up to it, I had the opportunity to speak a lot about our schools and a lot of the positives that are happening.

and would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that I get to talk about those things because of all the incredible work that our teachers and staff and administrators do, so thank you.

And I said today in an interview, and we'll see if it actually gets printed tomorrow or in what capacity it's printed,

But there's been a lot of excitement and enthusiasm and interest in this school board race, perhaps because it was the only competitive race locally on our ballot.

And just kind of my plea and shout out to the community is to stay engaged in our education, our public education, even when it's not an election cycle.

All right.

I do want to recognize just Mr. Eugene Williams.

He was one of my very first meetings when I arrived here in Charlottesville City.

Mr. Juan Diego Wade said, there's someone that you must meet.

And it was not optional.

And what was very memorable for me in that moment is that Mr. Williams gave me a bow tie from his closet.

And so I have a piece of history.

that many people don't have and it does mean so much to me.

We have a lot of exciting things going on in the school, going on in the schools and so we will, our communications team will push those things out but coming up soon we will do our first royal recognition and so I'm very excited that we will be recognizing our

teachers and support staff for really embodying the core values of Charlottesville City Schools.

So be on the lookout for that.

I did have a great time last Saturday at the library and we had toddlers all the way to school aged children.

and so our city really showed up for me and I appreciate it.

And we have another event that you will be hearing about pretty soon in December.

It's quite a teaser.

Thank you.

Work session wrap up.

All right.

And for our upcoming meetings, taking us on the road to Williamsburg in a few weeks, November 18th through 21st at the Virginia School Boards Association Annual Convention.

and then our last school board meeting of the year.

We will say a farewell to Mr. Morris on Thursday, December 4th, back here at 5 p.m.

And with that, we are adjourned.