School Board Work Session   3/11/2026

Good afternoon, everybody.

Welcome to the school board work session.

It is five o'clock.

It is March 11th.

So I just want to welcome everybody that is here to join us in person and online.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Miss Bryant.

Present.

Miss Burns.

Present.

Miss Cooper.

Here.

Ms. Dooley.

Here.

Ms. Richardson.

Here.

Yes, thank you.

And if we may get a motion for approval of our proposed agenda, please.

So moved.

Second.

Second by Ms. Bryant.

Any discussion, questions?

Ms. Burns.

Yes.

Ms. Cooper.

Yes.

Ms. Dooley.

Yes.

Ms. Richardson.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

And now I will hand it over to Dr. Gurley.

Good.

Ooh.

Good evening school board members and anyone watching and those assembled in my audience this evening.

This evening's work session will focus on the achievement of our black students.

We've developed this presentation to provide our board and the public with a clear understanding of the specific areas that we have been supporting our student learning.

Because this session is intended to be both informational and foundational, we ask that you just ask your questions as we go along.

I think it's too much to try to hold questions to the end.

You see a lot of slides here because we really,

There's just a lot of educational pieces as it relates to assessments and things of that nature that we really want to make sure that you along with our public has a better understanding of.

Our agenda is outlined here.

We is heavily focused on our achievement data and you see that in bold in the center.

And we bolded that because there are a lot of subheadings which we will outline a little later in the presentation.

And so once we get to that section, Dr. Eister will unpack that a little bit more for you.

So to begin our discussion this evening, I want to direct your attention to our black student enrollment data, starting with the historical look back to the 22

At the time we pulled this enrollment data, you'll see that back in 22-23, we had as many as 1,256 Black students.

and as of January the 30th, 2026, that number has shifted to 1,114 students, which is a loss of about 142 black students in just four years.

That's 11.3%, which is significantly different than the 3% decline we've seen with our total student population.

Packer Gurley, quick question just before we go further.

Yes, Black African American only.

And I started with this data point because the landscape of Charlottesville City is changing.

And I think that the shift that we're seeing in the school directly correlates to some of the challenges that you all have mentioned, that you have seen in our community.

with having access to housing, transportation, and high wage in demand jobs.

So these are the types of things that we believe are impacting our black student enrollment.

We have our targets here, our strategic plan targets.

In 2023, Charlottesville City Schools established a five-year strategic plan, which we explicitly prioritize improvement outcomes for all student groups.

and as we continue this evening, you will see how we have systematically used these targets to address membership groups, specifically our black students to help meet our collective goals.

I want to begin by setting the stage

In June, we began some very bold work in June of 2025.

We conducted an achievement gap work session with our division leaders and instructional leaders.

This forced us to identify systems or the lack of systems that were not benefiting our black students.

And so that work was a really heavy lift because we had to call out things that were not working well and or things that should be in place that were not in place.

And you would think that

So many years later that those things would be there and they were not.

So this was a call to action for us.

Our instructional lens were create our instructional lens were focused on creating alignment and continuity.

And July of 2025, we had a goal of establishing the instructional framework, structures and supports that led to targeted outcomes.

And that was at our leadership advance with our division leaders.

And then when all of our staff returned in August of 2026 at our PL Palooza,

I'm sorry, 2025 when our staff returned for the P.O.

Palooza.

We, I did an opening session and it was an adaptation of James Baldwin.

Not everything that is, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be faced, nothing can be changed until it's faced.

And so I did an adaptation and that was our call, that was our charge to all of our division staff, from the custodian up to the superintendent.

And so that really was, you know, telling everyone that we are going to face, we're going to have some very hard conversations and we're going to face it.

And we know that this work is uncomfortable for some people.

And, you know, you have to be

You have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable so that we can shift, we can move the needle and we're calling out things and you'll see that we call those things out very explicitly in the presentation because that's the work that we have been doing this school year and we know that

finally that if we can do this work together then it'll create lasting change.

I have a question, sorry.

So regarding the enrollment data, how many of those students would you say are going to local private schools?

I know the landscape of the city is changing, but I can name quite a few students who have gone to like Tandem Peabody.

What is that?

Do we track that?

Yeah, I mean, most certainly I think we can pull, like Ms. Skipper can pull data.

I mean, it's not data that we look at regularly.

I think just holistically, not

Not all of our students, like when we look at like exit numbers, the exit codes, not all of our students are leaving to go to private schools.

I mean, some of them are some a lot of those exit codes are there.

They're leaving Charlottesville City and enrolling in other schools.

And so we're getting those records requests.

So, yes, some of them some students are, yes, going to private schools.

But I mean, they are equally going.

to the county, to Albemarle County, that is, to Nelson, to Fluvanna, different places.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Just with an 11% decrease, you would think that there would be more to the story about that.

And I would wonder if those students who are leaving, if they're high achieving students, if they're doing well in the classroom, then are we tracking that?

Because that's then going to affect our numbers and our pass scores.

So I would hope that we are.

Somebody down here said something.

Yeah.

So my question was in reference to the decrease in Black student enrollment.

So we added that slide.

So we do have dropout numbers, but that is definitely not dropout.

Those are not dropouts.

When I met with Ms. Skipper, we were looking at the enrollment numbers.

She said a large percentage of those students are moving like to Fluvanna, Waynesboro, and just out of Charlottesville City Schools.

Thank you, Dr. Gurley.

Now that we've kind of set the stage here for this work, let's dive into the achievement data and the instructional supports we have in place in CCS.

So this bullet on the overall agenda was bolded because there's a whole lot here.

So this is kind of the agenda within the agenda for this section.

And Ms.

Swift will be joining me in sharing this work as well.

First, we're going to sort of walk through the structures for instructional leadership and support and the sort of things we've put in place this year along with our school improvement plans and how they serve as a blueprint for our progress.

Central to our work is our data analysis and we're going to dive deep into not just the SOLs from last year, but really focusing on our current data that we have.

All of those measures are

are listed there with their full names and acronyms for you.

And then moving from that data to action, we'll discuss our instructional response and advanced learning opportunities for students.

I'm honored that Ms. Mickens, Dr. Thompson, Dr. Hilton, Dr. Malone will later on join sharing how they're responding to school specific data within their buildings.

And we'll finish

This section by talking about graduation.

All right, this year we've embarked on a multi-year process and I want to stress this is a multi-year process.

It's a systems focused work of systematizing our instructional supports and leadership.

In the summer, we established and aligned instructional teams

from the grade level and content level PLC all the way up to establishing, creating and establishing a division instructional leadership team.

So we have a division instructional team and then a leadership team that's made up of Ms.

Swift and Ms. Raznick and myself and we're meeting regularly to provide support and guidance and monitoring around instructional work.

This work has included common expectations for teams, for structures, sports, a common instructional framework.

We established, again, the division instructional leadership team.

We've extended our principals meetings.

The one today I think was...

all day to include an instructional workshop component.

During that time, we're analyzing data, we're modeling different ways to look and to dive into the data and to monitor a student's progress.

We are

providing professional learning around instructional leadership and aligning our systems and supports.

In addition to the work with principals, the instructional leadership team members have provided data analysis modeling, specifically highlighting the ways we look at multiple data points, disaggregating data by membership groups, including our black students, and how to support others in this work and our roles as principals, building leaders, coordinators who are content experts,

We have implemented a professional learning series for assistant principals that's instructional focused on how we respond to what we see in the classroom.

So Ms.

Swift has provided guidance and support around the school support plans as well, which she's going to talk about next.

Just wanted to sort of share this sort of structural, necessary, systematized work so that we can not only provide guidance and support but sort of monitor this work as well.

So I'll let Ms.

Hey guys, I have a question.

Well, the division leadership team, like the three of us, the instructional leadership team is weekly.

That's in addition to our executive leadership team.

Thank you, Dr. Eisele.

So before we review the data, I just want to take a moment to briefly explain the school support plan process and how schools use it to guide improvement and how we monitor progress at the division level.

So the school support plan, sometimes referred to as a school improvement plan, outlines how each school will improve student outcomes and overall performance.

Schools begin by conducting a comprehensive needs assessment over the summer where they analyze multiple sources of data, including student achievement, attendance, behavior, and other instructional data to identify their highest areas of need.

And so based on that analysis, schools then develop SMART goals and identify evidence-based strategies to address those needs.

And this year, we strengthened that process by requiring schools to specifically identify evidence-based strategies that support closing achievement gaps and improving outcomes for our Black students.

This ensures that improving outcomes for black students remains a focus and intentional part of each school's improvement efforts.

And so I have a screenshot of one of our school plans, which I know it's kind of hard to see, but just to show, and this is just a snippet of it's, most of them are about a 10 to 15 page document, which shows the goal statement, identified evidence-based strategies for our black students, and then the action steps.

following those goals.

And so we submitted our school support plans for our TSI schools to the state.

And so once those are approved, we are gonna put those onto the website and we're gonna include all schools.

So each school will have their support plan linked to their school website.

So at the division level, we monitor progress through our school success meetings during the first semester.

And during these meetings, we review multiple data sources, examine progress towards school goals and ensure that the strategies identified in the support plans are being implemented effectively.

We also conduct classroom walkthroughs.

We provide feedback to the school leaders and we'll hold follow-up meetings when additional support or adjustments are needed.

Schools continue monitoring their progress throughout the year and provide a mid-year update on their student outcomes and the action steps outlined in their plans.

And so for the federally identified schools for targeted support and improvement, we provide more frequent monitoring and support.

I work closely with these schools through weekly or biweekly meetings to review the data, monitor implementation of their plans, and provide ongoing feedback and guidance.

So overall, this process allows us to be intentional about how we support our schools, ensuring that student data drives our decisions and that we're continuously monitoring progress to improve outcomes for our students.

All right, so back in October, we presented the 2025 SOL pass rates and shared sample test items aligned to the new, more rigorous math and English standards on the updated SOL assessments.

These assessments now include more complex questions that require students to apply their learning across multiple standards and demonstrate deeper understanding.

Since that presentation, the state has also approved the new cut scores, which will be implemented next school year beginning in 26-27.

So in reading in grades three through eight, most student groups demonstrated growth, even with the increased rigor of the updated SOLs.

Overall, our black student group increased from 32% to 40%, which is an eight percentage point increase, which represents a 25% increase since 2022.

We saw that most improvement in grade four and grade six, with grade four increasing by seven points and grade six increasing by 13 points.

And so on the chart to the right, I have color coded the cohort so you can follow their progress over time and see which groups are making the most gains.

In particular, our current grade five, grade seven and grade eight cohorts are showing meaningful progress.

But we know these results are not where we want them to be.

And we recognize that.

And therefore we have put many structures in place that were mentioned earlier, and we will continue to talk about throughout this presentation.

Can I ask a question just for clarity?

I want to make sure I'm following along also using our strategic plan guide.

And I just want to ensure that I'm, our goal, our stated goal is 75% proficiency across all student groups.

So I have another question just for further contextualization.

So we see the reading SOL pass rates for the past few years, starting in the 2021-22 school year.

Yes.

So at the Palooza, I put up a slide during my speech.

So I guess let me go back.

Back in June of 2025, we went back 15 years.

Our black students have historically lagged behind.

Now, there were some times in the, I think it was 2011, our black students were almost at the target.

and when the Black students were almost at the target, the test changed in its entirety.

And when you look at the trend across the state, Black students were almost at the target and then the test changed.

And I would say

You weren't on the board when we made the statement, but the test changed this school year.

And while we are saying we made meaningful gains this school year, I mean, using our predictive measures, our students would have had absolutely double digit increases.

But again, when Black students start making progress,

The tests change.

And so I think that you see a lot of that, that our Black students are, you know, the gap has been there.

I think even when you look at across all groups, I think it goes without saying that all groups

Lag behind white students here in Charlottesville, but are absolutely our black students are the furthest behind.

Yeah, so if possible, if you could pull up that slide, I think that data would be interesting to be able to for the group to be able to know.

And then I appreciate that.

I think I definitely recognize that when there's progress, you know, the goalposts will change.

However, we're looking at like, white students pass rate is at 90%.

That's over double what black students have.

And I think like,

This is not to, I guess, place blame on anyone in particular or the division.

But I think it's it is a bit of a scapegoat type of thing to say, like, oh, the you know, the test is getting harder because white students are consistently passing at a high rate.

No, they're they're passing.

But the the rate at which they pass changed.

I mean, it changed this time also.

Yes, but the rate at which they increase changes.

I mean, the rigor of the test changed.

So yes, you're absolutely correct.

And it's definitely not a scapegoat to say that the rigor of the test, but absolutely, these are tests that, and I thought you were going, your next statement was, a lot of what you're going to hear is about

what students come to school with in kindergarten.

And we're going to have, I think we're going to have robust discussions about what students are required to have when they come to kindergarten.

And so now the curriculum, which is set forth by the Department of Education,

is one that if you don't have all of these skills when you come, then you're already behind.

And so yes, it's the importance of preschool.

But I mean, it's also what happens before preschool.

And I think that

I mean, it works for some groups and it works against other groups.

And I think that the data continues to show that for our younger, for our younger students.

I think we're mostly in agreement with that.

And I appreciate that.

I think you're, I just want to add context.

Like I've been in Charlottesville City Schools and this is a conversation that was happening when I was in elementary school.

So I just,

For the purpose of context, for the purpose of time and understanding how long this conversation has persisted in this division in particular, it's lasted way too long.

And so I requested this work session in particular and sent those questions because I want us to dig deeper.

I want us to stop, you know, saying like, oh, the test is getting harder.

And like, cause we've heard those like with the previous superintendent and with the people who worked here before.

At this point, like I'm just wondering how do we really dig deep and figure out what's going to stop those responses?

Because I at the rate we're going five years from now, the test will get harder.

That's just I mean, based on patterns that we've seen, the test will continue to get harder as black students make incremental change.

Yeah.

I mean, I've reviewed them.

I think I have questions about that, but I definitely think that, you know, we are seeing small changes, but I do.

I mean, I have questions about math SOL scores when we move on to that.

And I spent a lot of time looking at these numbers and I have for previous years too.

And I think if we look back at previous public comments, a lot of people have, but it just

I'm just not understanding what it what do we need to do to crack the code for black achievement because it's just we've seen daily progress article after article you know story after story and it just it's just not improving so I

And it's not your fault in particular.

I mean, no, I'm I am responsible for setting the instructional expectations.

So, yes, I take that part.

But I mean, I also work with colleagues who everyone's having the same conversation that like, how do we crack the code for black students?

That is not specific to Charlottesville.

That's Everywhere America.

Yeah.

My question in reference to the tracking over the period of time for reading SLLs.

I said my question is in reference to like tracking the cohorts over time for the reading SOL.

I noticed that it's a huge decrease once the cohort gets into fifth grade and trying to understand the difference between fourth grade, fifth grade, and then it jumps back almost double in sixth grade.

So like what's happening in fifth grade

and I know that we're moving to like reconfiguration and like the movement from fourth grade to fifth grade.

We may see an increase or we may see a decrease, but I kind of want to know what some of the changes that we've currently made and looking at these numbers.

You're exactly correct, Ms. Cooper.

So I mean, one of the things that we have attributed that the transition like there are a lot of transitions in the current model.

So you go from elementary to Walker, then you go from Walker to the middle school, then the middle school to the high school, of course.

So, I mean, we should see more continuity because students are spending longer.

So once the fifth graders go back to the elementary school, they will spend longer with

in the elementary school, so you won't have that disconnect.

And then we are restructuring the curriculum in a way that it should be a seamless transition to elementary.

And I think that's a lot of that instructional planning and that work that we're doing currently.

We see that over time.

So while our reading SOL results show some progress, we recognize that there's still a lot more work to do and the same is true in math.

So most of our student groups made moderate gains in grades three through eight, even though we talked about the updates to the math standards and the reading standards.

And over the past four years, our black student group has improved by 13 percentage points.

and if we look at current cohorts, grade five, six and seven show the most gains.

While these results are still far, far from where we want them to be on Virginia standardized tests, we are seeing meaningful progress when we review grade level and cohort data on other measures, mostly our nationally normed reference assessments versus a standardized assessment.

So later in the presentation, you'll hear from a few schools about how they're responding to multiple data measures in real time.

At the high school, last year's reading and Algebra I EOC pass rates showed improvement.

In reading, Black students improved by 6 percentage points, increasing from 48% to 54%.

The Algebra I pass rate continues to show strong gains.

Black students increased from 66% to 80%, which surpassed the state average of 79%.

And so while we do see progress from the previous year, there's much more to do.

I have a question.

Sorry, I should have asked this with the last slide.

So about math, SOL.

So it looks like grade seven math for black students, there was a drop in 42% in 2023 to 24 school year.

And between that and the 2024 to 25, what happened that year?

I mean, maybe the test got harder, but a 20% difference is

I was looking on the state website at the pass rates for math seven in particular for the grade seven math SOL.

It's a different, those are two different cohorts.

So, so they go from, they go from 25 to 22.

The test, yeah, the test was the change, but that cohort, that cohort was already performing in that area.

Right.

So, but do we have any way of tracking how, not just like a snapshot of each year, but how that cohort is performing over the years?

That is the cohort.

This is the same cohort for all these years.

Yep.

So if you, when you look at the colors,

Uh huh.

Yes.

So you see that the green starts over at fourth grade.

So that's the the these are the current the current seventh.

I'm sorry, current eighth graders, current eighth graders.

So you see they start up there at 16 percent for 21.

Then they go 18 percent, 25 percent.

OK, so that makes sense.

And is this reflecting like the Math 6 SOL not inclusive of Black students taking Algebra 1 in middle school?

All right, so.

We want to transition now to really looking at our data from this year because the SOLs, you know, those represent last year.

And so we're going to start with looking at our youngest learners.

And as we sort of go through these assessments, we're going to explain what the assessment is and what it measures and what makes up

the components of it.

So the VKRP is the Virginia Kindergarten Readiness Program.

And it's a comprehensive assessment that pre-K and kindergarten students take.

It's four parts.

It measures four key areas.

They use the VALS assessment as the literacy component of it.

And then there's the early math assessment system or EMASS.

That's a part of it.

And then there's a measure relating to self-regulation and social skills that uses a child behavior rating scale that teachers complete.

So each of these four pieces all sort of go together to be the VCARA-P.

and they help us understand a student's readiness for success in school.

Students receive a collective comprehensive score of these four measures, but you have to meet the benchmark in all of them.

And so if you meet the benchmark in math, self-regulation, social skills, and then you are either

Low risk on vowels or moderate risk.

So you're not in the high risk for vowels.

Then you are sort of noted as the student has met the benchmarks and sort of that you're demonstrating the minimum skills needed to be successful at the beginning of kindergarten.

So it is a screener.

So these are sort of the minimum skills that are needed.

That's we're going to get right into that.

Yeah, I'll walk you through the whole the whole process.

Yes.

But yes, very good question.

So this screener is given to students in September.

So they've been in school for several weeks when this happens.

prior to the assessment.

But it is important to note that, you know, a lot of these readiness pieces are things we're addressing in preschool or that are being addressed prior to students coming to school or outside of the school.

So rather than sort of, you know, look overall, we're really this our our data analysis work is really about digging in and looking at each individual piece so that we best know where we need to support our students.

So we're going to take a look at each of these pieces.

that make up the VKRP.

And the first one is the VALS.

So the VALS is the literacy component.

It does include alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, decoding, encoding, comprehension, vocabulary, and more.

So it's a lot of sort of sub tests.

And those scores translate to a band of risk.

So students are either low risk

moderate risk or high risk.

Students in the high risk demonstrate a need for targeted intervention and specific skills.

And so if we take a look here, you're going to see on the top is the fall of 2024 group, kindergartners.

The bottom chart is the fall of 2025, so this year's kindergartners.

So we recognize that this is a different cohort, right?

This is not the same students.

But when we look at the VALS component and compare last year's K class to this year's, we see gains for every membership group.

But the greatest gains are for Black students.

And so, again, it's a different cohort.

But what we're seeing is greater readiness in the area of literacy

and greater acquisition of these foundational skills, you know, prior to entering kindergarten or sort of like, you know, in that beginning piece of part of kindergarten.

So that's over 20 percentage point gain from last year.

Fifty two percent of our black students met that were either in the low or moderate risk for valves.

And this year, 73 percent are.

And I believe that's the third one of the higher groups.

It's in September.

So it's it starts.

They have a window of time.

I think it's like, it's after Labor Day, I think through the first week of October somewhere around there.

So it's it's mainly

I think the window starts around I think I looked at it like around the fourth week of school but you know it depends on when they complete it within that window so it's probably on average maybe six weeks for five six weeks in something like that so again it really is we're looking at like readiness for kindergarten.

The same is true when we look at the EMAS, which is the measure that addresses early math skills.

So this includes like numeracy, counting, geometry, shape recognition, patterns, basic computation.

77% of our black students met the benchmark for EMAS as opposed to 57% last year.

And that is I think the third highest group among our membership groups.

What we're seeing is that, again, our students, in terms of the academic readiness skills, our black students this year are demonstrating solid readiness for kindergarten.

Next up is teachers complete the child behavior rating scale on self-regulation as part of the VAK RP.

So the things that that looks at are, you know, the skills needed to like direct attention, work through emotions, manage behaviors in the school environment, those types of things.

So listening to others, following directions, staying on task, those kinds of things.

Again, this is 73% of our black students met this measure.

I think it was the greatest gains for black students here among each of the membership groups.

And the last one is the social skills piece, and this is measured on the same child behavior rating scale.

And social skills sort of incorporate working in a group, expressing thoughts and emotions, resolving conflicts in a positive way.

We certainly see significant gains here for our black students, but do note that this is one of the lower measures compared to the academic ones, particularly the math.

each of these things makes make up the VKRP.

So you just showed us four slides where there was significant improvements in year over year.

Is it COVID or what are we talking about here?

Yeah, well, you know, keep in mind, this does happen early in the school year.

So this is about readiness.

What you're going to see on the next several slides is how students did based on their preschool experience.

And what we do see is significant gains for students who attended our VPI funded preschool like here in Charlottesville.

There are a lot of efforts being made in preschool.

What I can say to even this year, I'm hoping to see even greater gains next year, Dr. Korab and her team of preschool teachers, they're working through the early childhood letters program this year, which is really working on those literacy skills and the best ways to teach those early literacy skills.

I do attribute some of that when you see the preschool gains here.

Again, we know this is given several weeks after school starts, but an essential piece here is what happens before students come to kindergarten.

And so this chart shows all the different sort of preschool or home or private preschool, VPI, like all the different sort of programs that students might have been in previously.

and what we see is VPI or local funding for VPI.

So like the type of preschool we offer here, we see huge gains, more than 20 percentage points for students who have attended those programs in terms of their VALS, early literacy.

And remember that last year, teachers went through, there was a big literacy push this past school year.

So we're really excited again to see that continue with the,

Is there maybe a list that we can see who the VPI schools are?

Like, I know they're ours, but then community wide.

And I just asked that because there are a lot of different organizations and groups doing the work.

It has changed a little bit in the past few years.

So it used to be that we had mixed delivery sites where we actually wrote a check for our VPI portion.

And then the other portion was covered in some other way.

It could have been daycare subsidy.

It could have been

parent payment, things like that.

That has changed.

So mixed delivery has changed the way they do funding.

But we can find out like between the different years what is playing into like VPI or local funding for VPI and VPI pilot.

I don't believe it's any of the mixed delivery sites.

And though there's like open enrollment for our preschool or for, so like there are not, I guess when they come to kindergarten, is there any way of knowing what schools they're coming from?

Oh yes.

So you guys do keep that data.

It goes on though.

It's parent reported.

So that's that, you know,

They could have gone to Barrett for three months and then come to us.

And so that isn't, it isn't as accurate as like, if there was like a state report.

But we do know preschool experience.

So like we know for sure when they've been in Head Start and like we work, we're in a consortium through Go To Grow.

So we have a lot of information, but it's not as clean as if it was like a city report.

And then with our Early Learning Center coming, consolidating that allows us more capacity, right?

Like to serve more students.

And then is there continued work on the slots, the number of slots and having some ability to like the number allotted for threes and the number allotted for fours versus giving us at the local level the ability to mix and move three and four?

Is that work still happening?

That's part of our annual application for like VPI grant funding.

And it's generally driven by state formulas, but we can ask for more threes or less fours.

And so that is like continual ongoing work.

And I know the preschool team every year has advocated to have the right slots for our students.

VPI for three-year-olds is considered a pilot

Please let us know, I think, as a board, if there are, you know,

colleagues in the city or senate, state level, delegate level that we can have conversations with to advocate for that as well.

Just having some flexibility in those spaces and the ability to respond to our local need and having the ability to do that is I think the role of the board and the work that I think we're all committed to doing, but just need to know and have that readily available information would be helpful.

I will say early childhood is a very big focus of the Virginia Department of Education.

They've done a lot of work.

Our state superintendent, Jenna Conway, was really involved in that work.

So just these next slides are, you know, again, very similar to what you've seen.

We see gains in the math, also self regulation, and the social skills for our students who have attended VPI funded preschools.

So, which, which would include our own preschool.

So we just wanted to start there, moving into beyond the VKRP.

So we, you know, VALS is an assessment that we give outside of just the VKRP.

It's given to students in pre-K through second grade and then third through eighth.

But, you know, it looks different.

The students who are taking it in third through eighth have have risk factors.

So they haven't taken an SOA or they haven't passed, excuse me, an SOL or they have passed

with certain accommodations or they've been high risk before.

So it's not sort of all students.

So we're going to show you, take a look at the K one and two since all students do that.

So this is going to look like what you just saw with VKRP, which is over 70% of our students either fall on that low or moderate risk.

So the VKRP puts those two together.

What we see is from fall to winter, and this is kind of going to be a trend probably that you're going to see throughout the presentation is that we are moving students in that moderate risk.

So you can see that these are our black students in the fall.

Also, I want to clarify that if students were only here for one administration, like they were just here at the fall or they've come into us for the winter, we didn't include them in this.

We just looked at students that we had for both measures so that we were comparing the same group of students.

So you can see we made significant gains in moving black students who were in the moderate risk into that low risk, even though that bar is moving up.

So it's not like what the benchmark is at the beginning of the year is still the same benchmark at the midpoint of the year.

You can go up in your score and you have to go up a certain amount to even stay in the same band.

So they're making up ground essentially.

So you'll see that with kindergarten.

You're also going to see that with first grade.

You can see that decrease in the number of students in the high risk.

And again, getting more of those students who are in the moderate, getting them into that low risk range.

I have a question.

Yes.

So you said that the students who were not here for two administrations were excluded from the data set.

Um, it was just a couple, maybe.

Yeah, a couple.

Yeah.

Yeah, we went back there and we're like, take one out of this group and one out of here or two out of here.

Yeah, it was just a handful of students.

But, you know, our numbers aren't huge.

And so it is important to, you know, if we get students in and they all, you know, it's only a couple of students, but they're all in one group, you know, that can skew.

We really want to see like the impact we've had.

So that's why we focused on

those who were here twice for both measures.

The Dibbles is another assessment in addition to vowels.

It's the dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills.

And we give this to students in grades three and above.

And again, kind of like the vowels, there's subtests.

And so for instance, our students are taking oral reading fluency and MASE, which is a comprehension assessment.

um,

Maize measures comprehension through context dependent word selection.

So as you're reading, you have to understand what's happening to select kind of the next bit, like the appropriate word that fits.

The ORF or oral reading fluency is sort of two parts.

So when we talk about fluency, we're talking about accuracy, and that's decoding the words correctly, and then the rate, like how fast you're reading.

So each of those is its own measure.

So we're gonna take a look at the DIBELS in third and fourth grade.

All students in third and fourth grade took this assessment at the beginning and middle of the year, so we're able to look at this.

Unlike the VALS, this one's a little trickier to pull all of the students out who didn't have each measure.

So there may be slight variance in the numbers from the beginning to the middle of the year.

So here you're going to see on the left the composite scores.

So that takes into account that accuracy score, that flute, like the rate score, the maze, the comprehension score.

It's taking into account all of those subtests.

Kind of like how the Vowels has a composite score.

and what's really important is that if you just look at on the left you'll see that it doesn't look like a lot of progress is being made it doesn't look really where we would we would like it to be we see that so the first column is third grade beginning of the year the second one is third grade middle of the year and then fourth beginning and middle

and so you know core support negligible risk that blue is kind of like students are kind of above what is expected.

The green is you should be able to with strong tier one instruction be you know be good to go without additional supports.

The yellow is more that moderate or tier two some strategic support and then the red is the intensive.

So

That picture is not very positive on what we'd like to see, but that's just, this is going to illustrate the importance of digging deeper into the subtests.

So when we look on the right, that chart is just the accuracy assessment.

So just the accuracy subtests.

So that's grade level texts.

and third and fourth grade and how accurately students are reading them, our black students.

So accuracy, that's related to decoding and word recognition.

So this is what early readers grapple with.

So even if their rate is low, they're recognizing words and they're accurately reading them.

And again, it's grade level text.

So once this recognition becomes effortless, you know, in a typical pattern, then the rate would increase.

And then, you know, you have to be reading fluently to then be able to best comprehend it, right?

So what's happening here is that this measure is taking all of these things into account.

And the expectation is rising as the year progresses in terms of what that composite score is.

and we, when we drill down and we look at accuracy, we see our black students in third grade are making great gains in their accuracy.

We've gone from 35% being in that core support, which is like not needing additional help to accurately decode grade level text to 63% and the reduction of that intensive support from 49 to 21% from the beginning to the middle

So what we should see is growth in that speed and comprehension now that students are decoding accurately beyond that.

So it's sort of that composite kind of masks like the progress that is being made, which is that, you know, many of our students are black students are accurately decoding grade level texts.

And we're seeing great gains in that.

We see readers, these are students who are reading, and we look forward to that accuracy, that accuracy leading to greater rate and greater speed at reading, and then in turn, greater comprehension and understanding of what's being read.

So the composite score is just like all of the individual scores are going up what's expected throughout the school year.

So it involves making up ground, right?

And so sometimes we don't see that in the composite write-off because if it's taking all of these things into account, like

We wouldn't expect a student who's reading at a slower rate even though they're reading accurately if they're reading at a much slower rate that's going to impact their comprehension so then the comprehension assessment is not yes over time that is the goal that we are catching students up but it kind of is like what comes first accuracy like being able to decode the words is going to come first so if they're getting a reading intervention

I just had a quick question in reference to the number of students.

Is the, I know it says like the number of students on this side and it says like 75.

Yeah, it's, I mean, I don't have the exact number on each one.

I could get that for you, but it is,

Yeah, it's in the 60s and 70s, like low 70s for each.

I have a question.

So are the fluency tests like the pullout tests still taking place?

Where it's like, how many words are you reading per minute and accurately reading them?

Yeah, that monitoring of that.

Yeah, so this is kind of the, we're going to give this to everybody and keep a check, right?

Because just like we are trying to move students out of the high risk and the strategic support, each test has a different name for them, but these different levels, right?

We also need to make sure we're maintaining for students who, you know, and that they're continuing to meet the benchmarks who are already in that green or blue,

So, yes, when students are in intervention, they are monitored regularly.

It's very regular.

I want to say like every two weeks they are receiving in a normal pattern that monitoring work where exactly what you're talking about that.

oral.

So if there were, it depends on what they're working on though and what their goal is.

So if, if the, um, sometimes that might be what we call like nonsense word fluency where they're reading, it doesn't, it's not like a real word, but if you can decode it, then you're understanding like the decoding, um, practices and skills, um, or oral reading fluency.

So those checks are happening for students and intervention.

And I think one thing that, so one thing we've talked about that I think is, you know, I mean, all of this is like learning moments for everyone.

And I think one of the biggest takeaways that we've had throughout the year, but specifically in looking at this data is that so often people make the generalization of saying that black students can't read in Charlottesville.

And so I think the power in what Dr. Isley is showing is that when you look at the composite score, or if you look at an SOL test, then you make a generalization about what Black students can do.

But when you look at, these are third grade Black students, and when you look at the students who are in core support or strategic support, these are students, these students are reading on, are reading fluently on grade level.

And so that's 80% of the, that's 80% of third graders.

And so, but we hear a narrative that Black students cannot read when we have data points that show differently.

And so that's why we have worked very intentionally this school year and pulling, extracting the data and really showing that that's not what these data points are showing.

I mean, people usually use the easiest thing that you can find.

but the work that's happening in the school is the triangulation of data digging deep in the data and then so this data is showing you at the at the third grade which we spend a lot of our conversations talking about what happens by third grade this is 80% of our students using our using these assessments you know our reading on grade level fluently

And so I think that that's part of what we put in our toolkit, which is counter to some of the narrative about what black students can do.

And I think the number is not as high in fourth grade.

I mean, with the fourth grade, I'm sorry, it is as high on fourth grade, because when you look at fourth grade at the middle of the year,

You're talking about 78%.

So you're talking about 80% of third graders, and we're talking about 70% of fourth graders.

Yeah, so it's a couple different parts.

So the oral reading fluency, it's actually two parts.

So you're looking here at the accuracy.

That's whether they've decoded the words correctly or missed and said the wrong word.

So you've got to get a certain percent in order to meet the accuracy benchmark.

You've got to get a certain percent right.

and then the rate part of it, which is another measure that kind of comes next is like how quickly you're doing that.

So as you become more and more accurate and you've got stronger decoding skills, you're going to read it faster, right?

And comprehension comes when you are reading at a rate fast enough that you are able to think about what you're reading.

If it's one word and then you're waiting and taking

A long time to be able to decode the next word.

You're going to lose the meaning, right?

And so the Mays assessment, it's a subtest of this.

And so what that is, it'll be like a passage and students are reading and there's a blank

and it'll have a couple, they're selecting the right word that makes sense.

So if you're not thinking about what it's saying, you're not gonna pick the right word, right?

But if you're reading really slowly and not even, you're so focused on decoding the words correctly, you're gonna lose some of that meaning.

So all of those things together make up that composite score.

And what we're saying is we're seeing a lot of progress on sort of what feels like the first step of that work.

and the actual decoding and reading the words correctly.

So where are those numbers now, though, as they currently stand?

Like, do you have that data?

Yeah, so we can pull that data.

I mean, you kind of can see it in the composite because what you're looking at in the composite is not nearly as strong as the accuracy.

So we're certainly not where we want to be yet in those pieces.

But this is more just to illustrate how we're diving into the foundational pieces of that and where we are seeing the progress.

I mean you can.

The reason that I asked though was because I'm wondering if, I know we just went through the budget and we talked about positions, do we have the current amount of like our ideal number of specialists, interventionists in their current role or do we have a dream of being able to have more to meet those goals, those specific goals that would be

stated in the data that we don't have in front of us.

Like, just based on what you know, do you think that we need more reading specialists?

Or do we think that it's gonna just improve over time?

Most certainly, I think Ms. Bryan, most certainly that, yes, I think when you say in the dream, like, yes, I mean, the more bodies to continue to make those groups smaller, you know, to reduce case sizes, absolutely.

But I think part of it is like the work that we do already with like strengthening tier one.

So like, I mean,

great tier one specifically when we're talking about like when we looked at the data for our kindergartners where they're showing the readiness skills so if

If you use kindergarten as an example, if the students are demonstrating their readiness skills coming to you, and then you have really strong tier one, and when we say good, really strong tier one, I mean, a lot of things are happening within that explicit instruction within that reading block, right?

So, I mean, there are stations, there are teachers who are providing support, you know, they're providing support maybe, which looks like tier two at a table.

If all of those things are working really well, then the staffing that we have should be appropriate.

But I think it's about, you know, what's happening at the younger grades will have some implications on what's happening at some of the other grades.

But absolutely, I mean, yes.

I mean, if we could

Yeah, so if accuracy is like the first building block, then the others would build on top of it.

But I guess if we're saying that based on looking at the composite scores, there is a drop off somewhere, then could we be dedicating more time towards those other building blocks?

I guess, what is the staff time or what is the need there around that?

Now we'll talk about the MAP growth assessment.

So we started giving the MAP assessment pretty consistently three times a year, starting in 22-23, where school divisions in Virginia were required to give a growth assessment.

And so we decided to continue giving the MAP assessment in lieu of the Virginia growth assessment, because we thought it gave us better information.

And it's a nationally normed reference assessment.

and over like 13, 16 million students take this assessment worldwide, 7 million in the US.

And it's a computer adaptive test that measures student achievement and academic growth in reading and math.

And unlike a one-time test, the SOL, a standardized test, MAP adapts to each student's level, providing a RIT score that shows both where the student is academically and how much they grow over time.

And so because the assessment is given multiple times a year, so fall, winter and spring, it gives real time actionable data that teachers use to monitor progress.

And we adjust our instruction and identify students who may need additional support.

And so according to the NWEA map research, they indicate that students at or above the 31st percentile are likely to access grade level content successfully with core tier one instruction.

And so students below that may require additional targeted support while those at or above are generally responding fairly well to our tier one instruction.

And so when we examine the fall to fall map growth data for our black students, we do see encouraging trends.

Most cohorts are showing steady progress from year to year.

And we look at fall to fall because it tells us that students are retaining what they learned from the previous year rather than just showing like short term gains.

So that's why we wanted to present fall to fall over time.

For example, so if we look at our sixth grade cohort, our current sixth grade cohort,

Back in 2022-23, when they were third graders, so that orange square, if you follow them starting in the upper left corner down and over, you can see that they have had consistent growth over time.

And so going from 44% of the students meeting the benchmark to 47%,

then 49, and then this year beginning in sixth grade.

And we do, we give the fall MAP assessment four weeks into the school, four to five weeks into the school year.

And so they started this sixth grade with 56% of our black students meeting the benchmark.

And so we also see a similar pattern with our current eighth grade cohort.

So that's that blue square going from 37% to 39, 42, and then starting the eighth grade year at 56% of our eighth grade students meeting the bench or eighth grade black students meeting the benchmark.

And so when we look at the map overall, so all the numbers kind of in the middle there, the percentage of black students meeting the benchmark has increased from 44% to 51%.

And so that's about a 16% increase overall.

And so while we know that, you know, we still have a lot more to do looking at these nationally norm reference assessments, it kind of, we're seeing more measurable progress and using the data to guide our decisions and, and student learning.

for our black students.

And so in math, we do see similar trends.

So again, following the same cohort, our sixth grade cohort and our eighth grade cohort, we did well with the current sixth grade cohort.

We started with 44% meeting the benchmark.

We did see a dip in fourth grade and then a slight gains in the beginning of fifth grade.

And then when they started the year in sixth grade, so all the work happening in during that fifth grade year,

providing good tier one instruction, tier two supports, tier three interventions, we saw that that current sixth grade cohort started the year with 57% of our black students meeting the benchmark.

And so then when we look at that eighth grade cohort, 25% when they were fifth graders meeting, started the year in fifth grade, meeting the benchmark.

And then when they started sixth grade, they maintained 25%.

And then we did see an increase in seventh grade and then at the beginning of eighth grade at 50%.

So doubling since their fifth grade year, starting that school year.

And so we know that progress is happening and this data allows us to respond quickly and strategically to meet student needs.

And again, looking at this data fall to fall, it helps confirm that the growth that students are making is sticking over time, like they're retaining the learning.

and so we are making instructional adjustments based on this data and it's kind of real-time actionable data that our teachers use and we just the most recent winter map administration we did see additional progress and we use those projections to adjust instruction as we move towards the end of the third quarter.

and so based on these trends that we are seeing, we are very optimistic that the spring, so we'll give the spring administration at the end of March, right before spring break and so we're hoping to see even more gains and then use that information as we enter into the SOL months, preparing for SOLs, that we can use that to really kind of figure out like our win groups, intervention groups, what do we need to do with our tier one instruction,

Question please.

So with this overlying, if it does, DIBELS and anything else that you're using, I mean, can you explain a little bit if it's appropriate, like how teachers or leadership looks at this, looks at a student, looks at their scores,

and then overlays that or what is the intersection for where they may be falling out or struggling with some of the other assessments and then how that is targeted for instruction.

Sure.

Thank you for that question.

Yeah, actually, after this, I'm going to walk you through like what happens when we do that screening and sort of what are all the steps but you know, it kind of depends on the grade level for for what the measures are, right?

Because we don't have early

primary students taking a map test.

But the important thing that we've really stressed this year in addition to digging in and teasing out the data, it's also been looking at an individual student and their experience over time.

And then also looking at multiple measures because

If we based everything on a MAP score, if a student had an off day and blew it off and we didn't look at all the MAP administrations they've had over time, we could be making decisions that wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for where the student is.

each these things look at different things right like this the map assessment is more of a of a comprehension it's reading you know passages those types of things and and the comprehension it's not reading out you know decoding something we have to decode to be able to do it but

I think when we look at those things together we're able to target what the intervention and what the support needs to be.

Is it that the student can decode and read just fine but they're not doing well on these more comprehension based things because you know for whatever reason they're not they need they need a different type of support or intervention.

and then I think you know when we're talking about like some of our highest needs students when we consistently see across measures like they're not meeting you know the expectations or they're in the highest risk band or the lowest percentiles on that then we can really see like okay this is not just in one area this is kind of like across the board or we have to do these preliminary things like work on decoding and accuracy before we're going to have the like we're not

Yes, we're still going to be reading grade level texts.

We're still going to be exposing students to that.

We're still going to be holding high expectations, but there are some skills that may need to be targeted before others.

So actually I can, if I can just go on to the next one, I think I can talk through, for instance, I don't know who, can you click on that first link?

This is the division screening.

This is a plan that is provided for teachers that sort of outlines for each grade like what are the assessments, who gets what, what sub tests need to be given across each grade, how frequently is it given so that we can kind of make sure that we're all consistent across the division in what tools that we are utilizing.

And so let's say that the screening has been done.

If you want to go back to click on the next link.

So I want to show you an example from an actual school of like what they did with their VALS data.

So this is a sample, redacted sample, and what you'll see is, so this school took, rather than say like, oh, you know, we had X percent of our students in the low risk, this is their kindergarten,

kindergarten high risk.

So each of those students is a student that they have.

And you can see the fall score.

The students in yellow are black students.

You can see the fall score there.

So all of these students were in the high risk band.

But what's really what feels different this year and what's more like digging a little deeper is that column C that says distance from moderate.

So we are looking at how many points are they away from the moderate risk level.

That's the next risk like level up.

Now, remember that target changes from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year.

You can see that off to the side.

But rather than just saying, oh, well, the student went from a 432 to a 542, great, that was an increase, or 432 to a 495, great, that was an increase.

We're now looking at the mid-year benchmark and how are they getting closer?

So like if you look at student two, who's one of our black students, that student was 87 points off from the moderate risk band in the fall.

They're now still in the red, so you're still going to see them as a high risk student, but they're only 25 points away from an increased target.

you will also see students you know seven and eight right there are black students who bypassed the moderate band and went straight to the low risk band from from high risk to low risk and saw you know I mean solidly in in there so this is this is the work that is happening at the schools and I think

some of the leadership and support structures that have been put in place for modeling this type of analysis.

This is how we see it playing out.

If you wanna click on the second tab for me, this you'll see, this is the kindergarten moderate risk.

So you'll see a trend again that you saw when I showed the VALS data.

We have a lot of successes when we have students in the moderate risk getting them to the low risk.

but the important thing about I want to highlight here you know sometimes we see we see concerns right look at student number four 526 in the moderate risk range in the fall if I just looked at the score 545 I'd say oh good that student went up you know they made gains but actually they didn't grow enough to even stay with the moderate risk and so that student is now a high risk that's

That's not often happening right like that's that's rare if you're looking at all the rest of these but that's something that's super important that our team has to know and has to address and like that level of moderate support was not adequate obviously for that for that student so I really applaud our school-based teams for this type of work and how they're carrying on you know what we're

what we're advocating for and what we're putting in place to really go student by student even in the low risk making sure that those students are maintaining so you can you can go back to the to the core presentation

So the school is doing those types of reviews and determining, you know, oops, specialists are working up reading plans.

We have Ms. Raznick is gonna bring around a sample redacted reading plan for you so you can see like what a reading plan actually looks like for a student who was high, who fell into one of the risk bands.

So these are tracked in our EduClimber,

data program that teachers use.

And you'll be able to see the specificity of the plan for the student.

When you look the student up, the student is on track.

Edgy Climber tells us based on the targets and the, Ms. Bryant, you referenced the monitoring.

So those targets are put into the program and it tells us whether they're on track or not for whatever intervention they're receiving.

You'll also note that there are, you'll see the ones from the first, I think, two quarters, but they're quarterly parent.

progress reports that are required as part of this and make sure parents are well informed of the support that their students are receiving and their progress on that.

Dr. Eisele, if I can interrupt you here a little bit just while we're on the parent portion.

And just wanting us to think about how we can better support parents in supporting their children who are in these different risk bands.

a lot like short vowel, long vowel, CVC, like there's just a lot of language that is not native to our parents and so like this is a technical update that maybe means something to someone but not necessarily to parents and if you receive this like okay we know that we need parents and parents want to support their kids

So, you know, what can we do?

What are we doing?

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

I think, you know, our schools hold literacy, literacy nights and literacy events.

Certainly our communication with parents isn't limited to the quarterly progress report.

I know that, you know, teachers are are reaching out, holding conferences, other forms of communication.

But something that Dr. Johnson is going to talk about later, one of our

initiatives through the community schools grant is literacy kits that will be distributed to families in a high risk band, highest need.

And what's so great about these, they're decodables, which like a decodable book has specific features.

So if you're working on a specific sound,

For instance, this one is Long Eye.

So if a student is working on a specific sound like this book is not, you know, it's not written to be like, the greatest story of all time, it has a lot of words with this feature in it, right?

That's the decodable piece of it, like the majority of the words can be decoded, and they emphasize those specific features.

What's great about these resources that will be available to students and families for the summer is like they have a QR code on the book and the book has a video for parents.

It comes in a lot of different languages.

And it walks them through how to use the book, like what the feature is.

And so it's very supportive.

That's just another tool that we're going to have available for families.

But the nice thing about that is that it does include that sort of teaching element.

as well.

But I think, you know, our schools work very hard to communicate, but I appreciate the sort of question on, you know, not everybody is versed in that type of literacy-focused instructional speak sort of around like the vowels or those types of things.

And not just literacy.

I mean, I think it's the math.

We do multiplication very differently than I did when I was in elementary school.

And you'll hear even more beyond the literacy kits from some of the events that we're doing through the community schools, which are the very thing of explaining reports.

And I'm sorry, I'm not going to say anything more about it.

I don't want to take her.

I had a question because that was something that I had on my mind as well.

My question is in reference to children that are in the high risk chart and they have

low cognitive skills.

They're receiving all of the tiered services but yet and still they are struggling.

Like how are we supporting those kids when we're continuing to push them along and they are still struggling and in that high risk band because I think that a lot of children that are in that high risk

Van, and are receiving all of the tiered services but are still following their peers and getting pushed along but don't have what it needs.

As the rigor gets tougher, struggle with confidence.

The first thing I would say is that the reading plan is customized to students, to the individual students.

So these reading plans are not, so, you know, I have X number of students in my class and I'm not writing, I'm not using a template and writing the same thing in their plan.

So if this student, let's just say student A, that you have this concern about, then as a team, like I'm,

working through with my team like exactly what are the resources are available like what are the steps very linearly that you know I want like what is this do what's the what's the goal for this student you know what what are the measurable benchmarks and so I mean

Our expectation would be that the plan is tailored specifically for the student.

So it should not feel like the student is being pushed along as the, yes, the grade level rigor is increasing.

Can you, who is, who makes up that group, that planning group?

Who does that consist of?

Like the teacher, a reading specialist, a principal, like how many people are part of that team?

that's developing the plans.

So our coordinator or literacy coordinator is giving guidance to and working with reading specialists on that and tailoring that support.

Certainly there is collaboration with the classroom teachers and ultimately, as instructional leader, those principals are responsible for that.

I ask because I wonder to Ms. Cooper's point, there's so many, and we talk about this, I think every time we meet, outside factors contributing to their success.

And I just like, are the school social workers involved to say that there's food insecurity?

So the plan you have in front of us is like in front of you is like a state is a reading plan which is tied to VLA and includes all of the components that are required for VLA.

But if you look through like these plans could be generated for other areas and multiple areas as well.

So while this is a reading plan,

Students have plans that are reading plans and engagement plans.

Students have plans that are behavior and math.

And the idea of the team is that we have multiple teams that make decisions around data, so like a screening team.

which would say, okay, what students do we need to meet on?

They're looking at aggregate data.

That's gonna be composed of like your main leaders in the building.

So your reading specialist, your math specialist, you'll have the social worker or school counselor and administrator.

They're kind of asking that question, okay, who do we need to have an individual student meeting for?

And then the team for the student is based on the student's needs.

So sometimes those teams are primarily

People who connect families and students with community resources.

Other times they're primarily academics or academic professionals and it's based on what the data has shown us and we are really fortunate we gather data across so many domains.

We're not perfect, obviously.

And there are times where we get into a meeting and we hear a concern from a parent that didn't come out on our data.

And that also happens with teachers.

We might hear a concern from a teacher that didn't show up on their beginning of the year CBRS or their mid-year DESA.

So it's that we screen and then we verify so that team can change.

And I think

Can I ask a question really quickly?

Well, first, this is good.

Thank you, whoever printed this out for us.

It's good to see this.

I guess the question that I have is like, how often do these sort of reports prompt like student or sorry, parent teacher conferences?

And what is the response rate?

Like, I know it's not necessarily like a, we're not seeing like a

Redacted response from a parent but like how often are we actually thinking that parents are following through because I mean it is clear that reading help has to happen outside of school like that's not fully the school's responsibility so I guess I'm wondering like how often are parents actively doing the things because I've read here like in the comments like the teacher is sending home stories and like

I think anecdotally I think the way we find that out is by having those

solid, like repetitive and ongoing conversations with families.

I think it's a data, from my perspective, thinking about all of the domains, it's a really hard, hard data point to gather.

But what's exciting about community schools is that we may not be the only people who have to gather those data points.

And so that's an opportunity that's,

Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask.

I know we have like an MOU with City of Promise, for example, are we looking at their data that they're gathering about how I'm sorry, okay, that students are like, what their progress is?

Yes, ma'am.

So in the presentation, when we get down in the presentation, some of the work that we, some of the required work will be that in order for us to maintain partnerships with and collaboration with community partners, having producing the outcomes data.

And we'll talk about it a little bit more.

I would say some community partners produce the data more readily than others.

And not, yes, Dr. Johnson said, and not in a formalized way.

And so that's the part that, that's the system.

So like when we say like, hey, some of the things we've not been getting right, I mean, so now we're formalizing across through our community schools model.

I think just if I could comment on the letters themselves that we're seeing here.

I mean, these, I just want to be mindful of the families that we're sending letters home to that it's, you know, we don't know if the parents can read or what the parents' ability is to comprehend the letters that are going home.

And I just wonder if that could be another piece of

Ms. Dooley's PR campaign of decoding some of these things in a digestible form that that parents caregivers have a meaningful interaction because I just, I would love to think that every parent reads every single letter and I am sure they are.

And it's one it's I'm sorry, it's one form of it's one form of communication.

But yes, I mean, you know, if we haven't said this already, I just want to make sure that I say that our teachers and specialists are doing a dynamic job in terms of like, it's not just sending the letter, our principals are requiring

the follow up.

I also wanted to make sure you do that.

Like this isn't what a parent receives.

So this is actually three, this is multiple communications.

You're getting it in a packet because yeah.

So next we want to invite some of our principals up and they're going to give you more of a sort of detailed or some specific just examples of what this work is looking like within their buildings.

Good evening, everyone.

I want to talk to you a little bit about what we're doing at Tall Oaks Elementary School.

Our focus this year is who's doing the work.

And so we are focusing on student mastery, trying to get more into hearing more student talk versus all teacher talk.

So I'll go over a little bit of what that looks like in our school building and when you visit our classrooms, what you would see.

So one thing that you would see is active engagement.

So we're currently using the PSYOP model that the division has provided PL for all of our educators and then

Recently this past, was it Friday?

Administrators had their own special admin PSYOP training.

So that is a model that is getting students engaged, like introducing them to sentence stems to help them gather their thoughts so that they're sharing more in the classroom and feeling more confident about speaking during classroom lessons.

Also, we're doing interactive learning structures.

And these are specific repeatable activities in the classroom that gets students up out of their chair or so that they're not just sitting and listening to the teacher talk.

And so this is another way to engage them in the content with each other.

We're also focusing on shrinking the I do.

So that's the teacher talking and trying to focus more on the we do.

and the UDO.

And so that allows for the teacher to also walk around and listen, actively listen to students engagement with their peers and check for comprehension of the content that they're learning.

And they also can provide guidance during that time if they hear a need from a student.

Intentional belonging.

So I had the opportunity of going to a responsive classroom training this summer.

provided the division gave us the opportunity educators could go and I really having the formal background in counseling I really wanted to do it and I also wanted to find something that would help increase our student engagement in the classrooms and also help increase their performance on assessments and so

I decided to pick the book The Joyful Classroom, which is from Responsive Classroom.

And so we're doing a school-wide book study on that.

And so I mentioned interactive learning structures before, but it has tons of different activities for teachers.

Some things you might see is you may be familiar with the term turn and talks.

So that's where students are turning and talking to each other, but not just sharing back what they said.

They have to actively listen to their partner and then share that back.

with the teacher.

So just getting them working on understanding what they're learning and being able to say it back.

if when they're asked questions.

Also, what else are we doing?

We're doing a lot.

And specifically, this helps our black students because we know that if we want to create a sense of belonging, that's what a responsive classroom is.

And if you don't feel a sense of belonging in your school community, community, then you're not going to perform academically high.

So we want to make sure that we're making

For targeted support,

Funny enough, I was at the Boys and Girls Club today and there was a student from CHS who's in a public speaking class who apparently took it upon himself to run a weekly class there with students.

And it's a public speaking engagement class where they, like today they made little characters with food and then they had to go up in front of their classmates and most of them were from your school.

and they got up in front of the room and they shared what animal they made, they named it, where it was from, what its favorite hobbies were, who its friends were.

And I'm trying to think if there was like names, there were several different pieces.

So perhaps that's working because it was really- They got it from us.

Just coincidentally, no one paid me to say this,

but just it's working.

Apparently they did a great job and the animals were lovely.

Thank you for sharing that.

Good.

Okay.

So our targeted support, we have moved beyond our general goals.

And so, for example, in our principal meetings with our division leaders, we've looked at intentional ways to analyze data.

So not just looking at, you know, what the current assessments are, but going back, diving deeper to when the student first came to our school.

and just looking for trends.

And sometimes we're seeing like students perform well during the winter assessment or they performed poorly during the spring assessment.

So just kind of looking at those trends and seeing how we can support.

Also at our building level, our PLCs and leadership meetings and domain team meetings, we're diving deeper into the data there.

We have data dashboards that we frequently look at.

And so what

Our leadership team decided this year is that we were going to try to do like a mentoring plan.

And we started very small.

We started with our third graders and we identified some black students that they are not receiving tier three instruction.

So they might just be in tier one or they might be in tier two, but they're not meeting the benchmarks.

And so we wanted to see like

what else we could do for them.

So we looked at their data and then we created individualized academic and behavioral plans if behavior was needed and then tailored it to their specific needs.

So that could look anything like it could be a check-in with their chosen person in the building.

Students love our nurse.

So some of them go to her in the morning and they just want to check in to start their day.

Just getting them motivated.

Attendance is also a concern to like sometimes

just having that person that's, first of all, we all greet them and we all love on them, but sometimes you just need that one person that's giving you that one-to-one attention.

And so some of those are in their plans.

When it comes to academics, just talking about MPLCs, what does the teacher need?

What supports do the teachers need to work with the student?

What have they seen that's working?

And so that's a work in progress.

We're tweaking some things.

Also, this is done during the school day because we feel that's the main time of the day that students need support.

And so and it is within our building and teachers are volunteering.

So if a student remembers his kindergarten teacher and that's who he needs to check in and they're in third grade, then they can go.

see their kindergarten teacher.

So it is a work in progress.

The other thing that we did is in our staff connections.

I don't call them faculty meetings.

Our staff connections are more for PL and working on things that we can do to help improve our school.

We had a list of black students, but also

There were a few students that when we looked at their data, they're not black students, but we felt like they could benefit from it.

So we had their names on a note card and had a staff connections to teachers and admin.

We just sat around and wrote notes to the students.

And then we gave that to the teacher.

And so throughout like over the course of a month, they could just put random notes from us on their desk.

And so I know one teacher's feedback was a student asked her,

Did Ms. Viggins really write that?

And she's like, we're like, yes, we really wrote this for you.

Your teacher did not write all these.

So we know that that's working with helping to motivate them.

And then for our PL instructional practices, recently we were identified as a TSI school and the gap groups economically disadvantaged and English language learners.

So we're working with consultants, Dr. Kateri Thunder,

and Steph Tatel.

And they were focused on teaching vocabulary, being explicitly teaching vocabulary.

Because what we found is that students are struggling with understanding the meaning of words, which then affects their comprehension.

So we're moving more towards a model of productive struggle.

And even though these students, even though we were identified in TSI for those gap groups,

These strategies that we're learning still work for our black students and all of our students.

So one thing that we noted is that a lot of times we may over scaffold for students.

So then when they go to do work independently, they're waiting for the teacher to to tell them the next step.

And we're like, we have to pull back on that.

So they're working with us on how to gradually pull back on doing too many scaffolds for students.

So that they are able to master these skills and use their critical thinking skills and persevere through any challenging content.

Okay, all right.

Thank you so much for having us tonight and I feel like I should note there are wonderful things happening at all of our schools, not just the ones that are here, but we are super excited to share with you guys what we're doing.

So at Walker, one of the things that we are engaging is very purposeful tracking of data by membership group.

So we're regularly disaggregating data in our PLCs, looking at specifically the membership groups.

It would be easy to look and say, oh, the average score on this assessment was a 75.

We're doing great.

but then when you break it down by membership group and we're like oh actually our black children's average is a 45.

That is not acceptable and that is something that you can't gloss over when you are looking at the membership groups.

So we're regularly looking not only at the overall test results but then looking at each question by membership groups so that we can engage in deeper discussions about what do we need to do next, what do we need to go back to, what are the adjustments that we have to make.

Individual goal setting based on data.

So one of our big pushes at Walker for all children this year is a focus on executive functioning, which is sort of like the brains management system for daily life helps us plan.

It helps us goal set.

And honestly, all those skills will help

all of our kids be successful as they move through the school, through their school career.

But part of that involves explicitly teaching students how to use a daily planner, both for short-term goals and for long-term goals.

So like I'm writing in my planner, I have a social studies test on Tuesday, but I also have in my planner that I've got soccer practice on Monday night.

So how and when am I backing up my study time to make sure that I'm ready for Thursday?

And in addition to that Daily Planner piece in the Daily Planner, there's also an organizer to help support quarterly goal setting and reflection.

If our kids don't know what their destination is, they're not going to know how to get there.

And so our teachers, our instructional coaches, our specialists have worked individually with every single kid to look at their current performance and then to help students make a goal for themselves for the end of the quarter based on their current performance.

and then there of course there's that reflection process at the end of the quarter and then one of the really cool things they did mid-year if you as a parent have ever seen the map testing trend and you can kind of see how it goes we actually had our kids look at those to just be like hey look at your progress over time how do you feel about that do you feel like you're making the progress that you could make if you're not what are some changes that you want to make for yourself and then also just you know what are some great things that you're proud of for your work in the in the first semester

So monitoring black student achievement, we have data dashboards in all subject areas, I think probably all of our schools do, that are regularly updated with the most recent data.

So, for example, Dr. Isley talked about progress monitoring of students fluency.

That's something that we're looking at for our students who are receiving tier two and tier three intervention.

They're getting progress monitor every two weeks.

and so that lets us catch things quickly if there's a backslide and then it also lets us look and see oh wow we are ready to like push this kids made forward motion for the last like three progress monitoring times it's time to get this get out of intervention and so again we look we look at those during PLC meetings and at our school level instructional leadership team just so we can make timely changes to instruction and groupings and things like that.

So the Student Success and Mentorship Program, this is something that we implemented newly in January.

So we're still getting it off the ground and kind of working out some of the kinks.

But basically we looked at students' performance data in MAP and on their SOL tests over time.

And we were specifically targeting children of color who have either been like on the bubble, like really close to passing or really close to pass events, or if they had inconsistent results over time.

So maybe

They passed their third and fourth grade math SOL test, but then they didn't pass their fifth.

And so, like, why?

And so our course of action was to connect, sort of like Ms. Mickens was talking about, connect our students with another trusted adult in the building, other than their primary teachers, so that that person could regularly be supporting them in their work towards their goals.

Many of our non-classroom teaching staff signed up to be a mentor to several students and then our instructional coach sends out this like weekly thing of like hey this is what you're gonna want to talk with your student about this week and it basically involves again weekly check-ins they're supporting them and helping them monitor their goals and then also communicating any concerns back to the primary teaching team.

So we also have a book club, ours is optional.

We are looking at Cultivating Genius by Goldie Muhammad.

This was in direct response to Dr. Gurley's call to action back in August.

And one of our gifted resource teachers, Ms. Espo, decided, she had already read this book because she's constantly reading, but she thought this would be a great book in response to the call to action for us all to look at together.

So basically the book proposes an equity framework for culturally responsive literacy that helps us as educators either teach

or lead our students towards these learning goals, identity development, skill development, intellectual development, and criticality, which is developing the ability to read text, to understand power, equity, and anti-oppression.

So it was optional.

We've had 21 staff sign up and have a book and participate.

We've had four out of five book club meetings so far.

And it's great to have book clubs, but what do you do?

What's the follow through?

And so part of our book study meetings include making a commitment to a specific change that I as an individual am going to be making based on what I've read and based on the discussions that we've had, and then coming back and reflecting on those changes at the next meeting.

We're hoping to spread that around a little bit more, but right now we've got a good core group of people doing it.

And last but not least, snapshots.

So many of our children did pass their, our black children did pass their reading SOL test, but very few

And so when we looked at that data, we were like, obviously we need to change something.

We have to do something differently.

So enter our snapshots program.

This is another brainchild of Ms. Espo, one of our gifted resource teachers, and she used the framework actually in this book.

to design a curriculum that would focus on executive functioning because again that's like our big push this year, building background knowledge for students and then also connecting reading, writing, and art.

So the curriculum focuses specifically on the works of Black Americans like Gordon Parks, Langston Hughes, other various Black artists,

who use their art as a platform for social justice and to uplift black voices.

So as you can probably imagine, our students are really engaged when they're having discussions with their peers or writing responses to questions about how hip hop can empower individuals or how hip hop can convey social or political messages.

So we're trying to tap into

What they're interested in.

So right now the program involves 51 of our sixth grade students, mainly students of color again, who are identified based on one or more of the following criteria.

Either a discrepancy between their reading map and their reading SOL score, so maybe so one of them was really high and maybe the other one wasn't on grade level.

A close to passing SOL score or a close to pass advanced SOL score.

So again, the goal is to get kids over that hump.

It's a small group that takes place during each student's dedicated win time.

So that time is already dedicated.

And it actually includes almost every single student in sixth grade who has a student reading plan for comprehension.

So we have students on reading plans for different readings or different aspects of literacy.

Some of them might be fluency.

but this is specifically with regards to comprehension.

And so of the 51 students participating, 48 of them either met or exceeded their mid-year goal in either their oral reading fluency or the measure of comprehension, which is the base.

And so again, that's a function obviously not only of snapshots, but also of the great instruction that's happening in the classrooms, but also the coordination between Ms. Espo and those classroom teachers.

I have a question.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you for your presentation.

So looking at, oh, I wish Miss Espa was here to talk about it because she can speak to it so much better than I can.

But I know one of the things they were looking at Langston Hughes and how some of his poetry exposed things that

Not everyone might see and same with Gordon Parks and some of his pictures and so she's trying to tap into a lot of like and I remember observing her one time actually one of the questions she said is like what what do you see as a student that nobody else sees and it was really getting it and so reading some of the responses was like some of them were like

Y'all don't see the bullying that's happening sometimes or you don't see that, you know, this teacher treats this kid differently than that kid.

It was very telling and really trying to like tap into

Yeah, I imagine that like they might be interested in like classical music or performing arts like theater.

But you know, typically you're exposed to those things in Walker.

And since we have reconfiguration, it might be a challenge to reach those black students.

So I hope that we continue to expose them to things beyond, you know, hip hop.

Good evening.

So my slides are slightly different than what's already been discussed, but looking at CTE or career technical education programs as a whole.

Overall, our Black students account for about 26% of our total CTE enrollment across grades seven through 12.

with marketing having the highest enrollment followed by STEM.

Historically CTE at CHS and CMS have focused on engineering with also marketing and photography being popular at CHS.

However, CTE course offerings have been limited to those areas until recently and beyond STEM are the focus of CTE courses have typically been

focused on helping students earn a sequential elective to meet graduation requirements rather than on post-secondary education and employment opportunities.

So over the past three years, we've been working about being more intentional about adding CTE courses that align with student interests and the labor market needs.

And labor market needs, we use trend data from the local workforce development board

And so it's outside of just our educational data.

It's state data.

And so, you can move to the next slide.

Thank you.

So the state required CTE course at the middle school career investigations.

It was initially only offered online.

However, this year,

At CMS, they've started offering this course to some students in person with some students still taking the course in an online format.

The goal of the course is geared towards having students explore their interests and strengths, learn about workplace readiness skills, explore career pathways, to name a few, all of which should be directly related to students' plan of study, which is what should help guide their

course planning from middle school through high school and connecting to their post secondary plans.

And so this year CMS started working more with Miss Morton at Virginia CareerWorks to host guest speakers from industry and talk about a variety of careers, not just those in engineering.

Our goal is really to expose students to a wide variety of

of careers and post-secondary options.

And so also we're continuing to expand that course and we'll be working with Dr. Thompson to really plan out that more for next year.

But we're also talking about having guest speakers from industry and various careers come and speak and CMS will again provide more career exploration opportunities.

Including CATEC tours, our students don't know what they've never seen.

And so just getting our students into different spaces, whether that's at CATEC or in the industries and connecting them to those experiences.

and that actually goes for our adults too.

One thing we've talked about this year is the career counseling piece and how that's been a deficit.

We've focused a lot on four-year college and that's wonderful, but we also have to recognize that that's not everybody's plan, but we're really good at talking to kids about that, but we're not necessarily

Well versed in talking to them about the other options that exist.

And so we talked about getting some of our counselors into industry spaces so that they can see the actual work that's being done.

So the kid says, oh, I have an interest in this, then they can speak to like

what that actually is to help better guide and inform students.

So that's kind of what we're the gist of it.

And finally at the middle school, we did get a Go Virginia grant and students will have access to nine hands-on modules that will be embedded into the curricula that preview real world careers, giving students the opportunity to try different career paths while learning some of the required technical skills.

And again,

beyond just engineering.

We're looking at different areas in technology and IT and the list goes on.

But there are really high demand fields that we need to just be exposing our students to because it's always been like engineering or bust in a lot of ways.

And we know that there's more to that in our local workforce.

Data shows that there are many careers in technology that are not just engineering.

So then at the high school, again, we're expanding our CTE opportunities and students at CATEC have career strategies where they work on their personal brand, marketing, resume building and interview skills.

Ms. Morton, once again, ran an internship academy at CHS where students worked on resumes, workplace readiness skills and interviewing, which are great skills that our students need and more of our students need.

opportunities for that.

So we hope to expand that in the future.

Also, some of you might have attended Real Money Real World, where we did the financial planning simulation at CMS earlier in the year, where we also had LMA students, and then we recently had the simulation at CATEC as well.

And it's really about financial planning, and it puts students through a scenario where

They have a set salary and then they have different scenarios in their life like what their rent is or they make choices about their life and they can see like how far their money goes or doesn't go.

And the students' feedback has been really positive about that.

But what we do see is that even in those scenarios, we do have deficits in terms of like how our students, you know, like how they're using math to figure that out or,

or follow through with workplace and workplace readiness skills.

Like, are we preparing our students to enter that next phase of life, whether that's enlistment, employment or enrollment?

So ultimately, like we're looking to expand our partnerships that are meaningful and sustainable and creating more relevant pathways aligned to our students' interests and industry needs.

and preparing young people for their futures.

So like Dr. Thompson said, if students don't know their destination, they won't know how to get there.

And we're trying to help them create a path which involves all of us at all the different levels.

So that is something we talked about last night at our advisory meeting in that sometimes our students, actually I wouldn't say sometimes, a lot of times if our students are falling behind academically, they don't have that opportunity because it takes three or four periods out of their day.

So if you're to attend CATEC because they're half day programs.

And so, you know, I think

I think this is where they at least have to have, they have to be on pretty much on track.

And if I think as we move forward and look at getting our career and our plans of study for each individual kid solidified, it will help because it'll help them, you know, with their goals.

And so like they can be revisited.

I don't, I'm actually pretty sure a lot of our students that aren't sure what they want to do have no path.

They have no plan to get from here to there.

And so like if CATEC is in their plan, then they will know.

I just think sometimes they don't know, right?

They don't know.

And by the time they do know, they're in 11th grade and they're like,

Oh, what do I do now?

So I think like what we are seeing as a progression from third grade is great, but I do and I am concerned about the right now.

The kids who are like stuck in the middle that don't qualify for that, don't qualify for this and are leaving our buildings and I

do not think they are ready in some scenarios.

I think to address your concerns, so it's twofold.

So the academic advising and our new platform will get to the, like,

ensuring kids know how to, and then the pocket of students that you're concerned about, the ones who are right here now, this is, I think this is the group where we're being very intentional about, like, what is it that this group needs?

Because, I mean, some of this predates many of us sitting here, right?

I mean, this is about when they were much younger.

And so in the right now,

I think we're building out, I know, not I think, I know we're building out the, like, how do we create these opportunities?

Like, if this, if the comprehensive space is not the correct space, if, you know, if you access learning through the alternative space, then how do we do that plus

address like what happens after after high school in terms of the career readiness like you know like what industry are you looking for like how can we connect you with internships, job shadowing, so I mean I believe we are getting that

Yeah.

And I think we also have to all be on board with talking about these things and careers and being real about it.

And it's not just a thing because what we're seeing is that regardless of whether our students go to college or they don't, like they all come back to this community, not all, but many of them come back to this community and

we want them to be productive members of our community and contribute positively to our workforce.

And so, you know, that requires skill building and just- It requires them having jobs that they can afford to live here.

Which is why we're looking at the high demand and higher wage.

You know, people talk about CATEC and I say every kid at CATEC, if they do the things, right, like they all,

would get a credential, theoretically, that would allow them to enter the workforce immediately.

And, you know, at our board meeting last night, we have a student on our advisory board and she is in cosmetology and she is going to four year school and

and she plans on having her license and earning money while she's doing that.

And I think people think it's an or, but it's an and.

And so I think as we start shifting mindsets around that, then things can also change.

I have a question before you pass the mic.

Thank you for your presentation, Dr. Hiltz.

So when I was in high school, you were my principal.

And we, I know like when I was there, there was like a kind of like, I don't want to say like a stigma, but I feel like there was kind of like the students who go to CATEC are like the students who aren't doing good in the classroom, right?

So I would love to see if at all available.

Some data or some correlation between like for chronic absenteeism purposes, like how are the students who enroll in CATEC, how are they more motivated to come to school?

So, yeah, anecdotally, what I will say is that

Adults having this idea that a kid should go to CATEC because they're chronically truant.

CATEC doesn't fix that if that's not what they're interested in.

So that is not like, and that's what we're actually, we're trying to break that a little bit with not just with all of our, you know, our school counselors and other divisions too, because we work with other divisions.

If a student is motivated and does see themselves as that career, then those kids definitely

do better at CATEC than they do at their base school.

So we see both.

But yes, that is the stigma that we're trying to break.

But it's also about informing our students about what the wage potentials are and what the opportunities for furthering their education and what companies will pay for them to do so that they can move up within their industry as well.

Because not many people want to just

Stay at that entry level position permanently, right?

And like not to, yeah, I don't want it to like seem like I'm not talking about the students who are like chronically trained, right?

And like I don't believe that is the answer.

Like I agree with you.

I met a student, Ms. Burns and I, well Ms. Burns already knew the student, but I met a student at high school.

two days ago.

And she was like, I've been doing the, I think she said the technician, like the auto tech, yes, auto tech.

And then she was like, she wants to do nursing next because she's really interested in having multiple like skills and opportunities.

So, I mean, not that that is her story, but for other students, I have heard that like, oh, I come to school more because of CATEC.

And I just, you know, I was a part of the AVID program, like starting in Walker and then through Beaufort.

So I'm wondering if

We could have something similar that's getting students who are like career bound.

Yes.

No, I appreciate that.

And that student actually is one of our SCA members.

And, you know, when we have tours and student groups come, our students lead them because our kids want to hear from other kids about what they do in the programs.

And that student in particular, yes, like they've communicated that

Yes, I'm in auto, but I want to do nursing next year.

And it's like, OK. And so I think we do need to use our students more as ambassadors and be the ones to spread what we do and the good things.

So I do think we have students that

are very different at CATEC.

It's much smaller.

And Dr. Helts has, Dr. Helts has heard me say this too, and I think this kind of goes in the spirit of what you're saying too, Ms. Bryant, in the sense that like, I would like to see more

Black students in our CATEC programming and I think that some of it is twofold because I think that there are stigmas and this is just me speaking generally but I think that that sometimes we place stigmas on certain careers and I just think like you know sometimes I hear people say like oh I don't want to work in electricity because I don't want to get shot well I mean you know I mean like

Just you can cut the breaker off and you won't, you know, you won't get shocked.

But I mean, the thing about the thing about it is you leave the electricity program and like you're making a lot of money.

I mean, you if you have to get an electrician to come out to your house, I mean, they're charging you before they even get there.

And so I do think that as we think about like

And I think this is a generational support because I think about some of our adult ed programs that we're not represented in either.

I think that some things we just have to like remove the stigmas behind because I mean, I think that was the first thing I said when I walked to CATEC when I first got here, I was like, well, where are we in this building?

And I just think that we have to remove some of those stigmas, which will then like,

get kids there.

Yeah.

And I think what I would say, though, is that CATEC is actually more diverse than each of the schools that we serve.

Yeah.

So we are hoping for next year, we have an application submitted to the Board of Nursing.

And so I think they have 60 days to respond to us to do a site visit.

So we've already submitted and paid for the application with the Board of Nursing.

So between that and

a pending program request with the Virginia Department of Education that was submitted in December, but I have in our deck for that.

We're just, it's wait and see right now.

So yeah.

Yes, we do.

Teacher pending.

Okay.

Thank you.

And so as they're in high school, like as they're choosing their program, is that

So given that with our current MOU with Albemarle and how we would have to divvy up slots, we would have the, CHS would have about three to five slots in LPN, but we would only have 15.

students in that program at a time.

However, the good news is regardless with our CNA program moving only to one semester next year, our students will also get another credential as a patient care technician, which in and of itself has a higher wage potential than a CNA.

And we've really talked about our students

wanting to be more than CNAs, if that's what they want to do.

Like that's a great entry point, but like that's also not going to earn you a living wage here.

And so, you know, getting the PCT, the PN, and then they have that bridge to the RN program, even if it's just, you know, even if that's at PVCC.

So.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Helts.

Thank you for this opportunity to talk about our Black Student Achievement, but all of our student experiences.

I can, before we get too deep, just to dovetail in what Dr. Helts was saying, my own son is a student here at CATEC.

And what he is, he is gonna be credentialed, he's in the automotive course, and he's gonna be credentialed in many services related to auto tech.

And the best part of his day for the past two years is

being in the automotive class.

Facilitating that course is highly dynamic, very engaging, great relationships.

And I do agree, and I think it'll be a theme of some of the things that I'll speak to is the power of the student voice and being able to articulate what ultimately I'm gonna, the theme of what I'll speak to is not just an achievement gap, but the experience gap or the representation gap that exists around the things we're currently offering at CHS, but how we can integrate better experiences

More representative experiences for our students across CHS in the levels we offer.

And certainly that includes CATEC and even through our PVCC courses.

So I wanted to talk and acknowledge at the outset that one of our actions has been we're interrogating our data in the same way I think you all are asking, but ultimately that interrogation is leading to looking at the systems that inform the outcomes that we have.

And so a primary objective for us is to look at our enrollment and our advanced placement and dual enrollment courses, not just to see the total number of students that are represented in there in any one demographic, but to see that they're

Are they representative of Charlottesville High School?

And are our students able to, are they being able to access those experiences in a way that they're prepared to have?

So we're looking at that data.

We'll look in a few minutes about the historical enrollment data in our AP and dual enrollment courses.

And then our action steps are then to align looking at our student enrollment, making sure that those courses are representative of CHS.

Dr. Helts talked about the CATEC pathways and the career readiness options.

That remains a priority for us.

Again, thinking about the augmenting the experiences that we're going to be able to provide for our students.

And so we've, in addition to the courses that were offered through CTE, we're offering our AP African American Studies courses.

We're increasing our dual enrollment options, including what some of you we've presented on before, which is the Uniform Certificate of General Studies.

This is a, goodness.

Good catch.

The UCGS is an option for our students to take PVCC courses.

We have 13 of them.

They can take some of them in person directly at the school.

The other ones are going to be offered from the school virtually.

They're free to the students.

Ultimately a student can get the certificate and up to 36 credits towards college.

Financially it's a significant opportunity.

The rigor of the courses is exceptional.

Our task is to continue to figure out how we can increase where these courses are offered, being able to offer them directly in person.

That depends on staffing credentialing.

Just this past week, for one of the courses that we could offer for art, we were able to identify a person who is currently a teacher,

who also teaches at PVCC, who is in a position to teach directly this art course.

So we're slowly growing from our English and engineering courses and some of our history courses into the other humanities based courses and other science options that we are offering virtually, but that we want to offer in person.

In the meantime, this is a tremendous opportunity that we're glad to have.

But again, as if with the theme of all of these opportunities is making sure

that are all of our students and our black students in particular are aware of these options and understand what experience may await for them with these courses.

We have had several student engagement conversations along with myself and Miss Webb Jordan, our assistant principal and Maddie Brown, our school counselor.

We've met with groups of students, primarily our black students that are juniors and seniors that have had success in dual enrollment and AP courses.

and that are that had been really accessible and open to speak with us about what their experience was like and to be able to articulate barriers that they have seen in areas of success.

They had very candid and direct feedback around where we are in their minds successful and then where we have opportunities to refine our practices, not only to

make the course meaningful for all students but to make them more accessible and welcoming for our black students in particular.

Our student group has been partners with us and not only talking with us in these sort of direct more intimate settings but they've been willing to talk to other groups of students and a panel opportunity to talk about what their experience has been and how they navigated successfully, how they've navigated being in

not just in our AP and dual enrollment courses but how they navigated being successful at Charlottesville High School and we were able to align our students to work with our counselors as a part of the academic advising process to Dr. Helts' point earlier, ultimately to be not only an ambassador for the courses and these experiences but

In some instances be ambassadors for our teachers.

They are very candid about where places are successful and I think for the most part our students had a favorable commentary about our teachers and our staff and our courses.

I'm going to call out Mr. Will Gores over here to my left and his name consistently came up in both the government courses he teach but at the advanced placement level where he is consistently promoting student voice.

Dr. Malone, quick question.

Yes, 3.3 is the minimum GPA you need to have in order to access the UCGS right now.

Okay.

No, there's an opportunity.

We've had, we do have some students that have approached about reengaging the Black Student Union.

And so it's an opportunity.

So what did happen to the Black Student Union?

I can't speak directly to it because I'm not in the building, but I believe the last time and I wish Miss Brown was here.

Well, that's unfortunate.

I watched the Albemarle County Public School Board meeting recently and they had a whole presentation.

The BSU got a proclamation for Black History Month.

So I mean if we want to talk about Black Achievement, we've got to put those sort of supports back into the building and I would love to see that happen.

And my sisters, they graduated a couple years ago.

So I'm just wondering what happened since then.

No, I think, say what?

Yeah, no, I think we are still in support of the work.

I mean, it's sponsorship in the building.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think we've continued to, despite of not having the union, like we still are promoting the work that was happening with the Black Student Union.

I mean, if you remember, I was, Dr. Johnson and I, we were meeting regularly with the Black Student Union.

so I mean we still are carrying on the work even though I mean and I don't know I mean I don't know I mean we can investigate that but we just continue the work on but I mean most certainly if there's a group of students I mean and even if no one in the building wants to sponsor it I mean we'll figure out a way to still try to make it happen because we've talked about I mean what our work can look like at the division level

with various clubs, like what it would look like for us to sponsor something.

So, I mean, we're still open to it and we're going to still continue the work.

Well, yeah, as we continue to have these very important conversations about things like SROs and correlation to student achievement and things of that nature.

The BSU was very active in advocating against that.

And I mean, for what it's worth, it would be interesting to have that student perspective, that student advocacy perspective outside of, you know, your typical student council and things of that nature, because it was a container for the students who typically wouldn't participate in those sort of clubs.

And now that I think about it, I mean, and I apologize that I'm circling back to it, but now that I think about it, Miss Mason is on, I keep feeling like Miss Mason has been gone.

Miss Mason was the sponsor.

So it's been since your sister, because Miss Mason just left the building this year.

So I imagine that the reason why we don't see the Black Student Union this school year is because of Miss Mason, because I'm just, now it's all hitting me that we've been doing this work, so why is it not happening?

Currently it's probably because Ms. Mason is at CATEC, but we're still doing that work.

I think Ms. Brown will probably be the closest to the conversation, but I don't think it was a lack of adult sponsorship.

I think it was a student-led conversation.

I recall having a conversation with Ms. Mason, I don't want to speak on her behalf, about it rolling on in the leadership around the BSU.

And so I think it has been a couple of years removed, but I think Ms. Mason and Ms. Brown probably have the best insight onto what happened.

Yeah, I mean, we had BSA from UVA that helped us to establish it.

So we had that, we had professors from UVA, but I do know that there are a lot more barriers now to get community folks in the building than there were when I was in ninth grade.

So I think we should also think about that, too, how we're reaching out to the community.

You did a lot of groundwork in establishing that, a lot of good work around it.

And I believe that people saw your leadership and the work that you did to establish it.

I don't know that after you and your sisters transitioned that it had that same traction around leadership from students.

I have a really quick question.

In reference to night school and LMA, are those numbers tied into the numbers for Charlottesville City Schools?

He's about the dual enrollment.

dual enrollment.

That's happening.

That's happening at CHS.

That does not happen at LMA.

And that's because of licensure.

I mean, if students are selecting to do like that pathway, then they're primarily electing to stay at CHS because that requires.

So like, for instance, the dual enrollment requires the teacher to have at least

18 graduate hours and a master's degree in that specific content area.

Since students can self-select to go to LMA,

We have had students, I know like just thinking off the top of my head, I think the student was taking Mandarin or taking Latin.

I can't remember which subject she was taking last year, but we have transported students back when it's appropriate for that student.

So if there's nothing that's of conflict over at the high school, we've been very flexible about, you know, working back and forth with the high school.

But I mean, to be able to, like if a student said,

I want to go to LMA, but then I want to do the UCGS.

I mean, that would be, I mean, they would probably just need to stay at the high school because you would be driving them.

In terms of the teacher recommendation part of this, the experience gap and the representation gap, the teacher recommendation is a feature of our academic process and Dr. Gurley referenced earlier an adoption that the city, that Charlottesville City Schools is looking at, an adoption of a new platform

that helps us to work through our academic advising which is that process by which courses are recommended, students are expressing what their interests are, they're not only expressing their interests but they're understanding the financial implications of certain pathways, the opportunities that may exist from certain courses of study.

And the teacher recommendation part of it is a significant one because it's a meaningful opportunity where students are, teachers are talking directly with students about what courses they're going to be taking and having a direct conversation about

where they're at currently in the course and tying it to what courses could be coming next.

And so we don't want to remove that feature from our academic advising work, but we do want to know is it after those teacher recommendations are in and after we have our course requests selected,

What did that show us in terms of our data?

Does it show that our teacher recommendations, do they align with student interest and do they align with our courses being represented by the students in Charlottesville High School and our black students represented in spaces where they may historically not have been?

So that work is,

Real quickly, Dr. Millon, I'm sorry.

Yes, sure.

The teachers are making recommendations for any course that could come next in whatever sequence could come next.

So it's across all courses, all levels.

I just wanted to make sure, I know previous boards had asked that it was not like a student being placed in an AP or dual enrollment was not, it didn't necessitate a teacher recommendation.

Right.

No, no, it is only, and I think that speaks to this interrogation of our system, this academic advising work.

And the consideration of it is that it is a feature of course request, but it is not a requirement.

Does that answer?

OK.

We continue our staff engagement work.

We prioritize our smart goals, our school improvement goals, the goals that are set at PLC.

They all start and are prioritized around what black student achievement is.

Every staff meeting is a conversation around how the routines and actions that we set are how they are impacting our black students and our black student experience.

So we continue to prioritize that conversation both at our in our staff meetings, but also through

the culture work that includes myself and several staff members who are helping to do the work of analyzing what equitable practices are in place where implicit and explicit bias are existing at Charlottesville High School and to help support both the PL and immediate action that we can take around adjusting those practices.

Our most recent data that we looked at at the staff

at our staff meeting was looking at current year one grades across all courses and then also looking at what the grade distribution was across any one course for our black students and white students.

With that information, with that data, we'd be able to look to see where there's

Larger achievement gaps across certain courses or across PLCs.

Also looked to see though where we had opportunities where we had narrow achievement gaps where we actually had black students outperforming white student groups in certain courses.

Regardless, it gave us an opportunity for each PLC to do a fidelity check to be able to understand if the things we are expecting to do and that we have

committed to doing, are we actually doing them?

So our PLCs are actually endeavoring next into doing that fidelity work to make sure that we're on track with what we said we were going to do.

The last bit about graduation rates, there'll be, I think, other conversation about our graduation rates, but we want to, we assume that all students are going to be able to graduate on time in four years and can work towards an advanced studies diploma.

And so we lead with that expectation and we lead with that aspiration.

I'm just, I'm just trying to.

Yeah.

So let's keep going.

All right.

Okay.

All right.

So just to talk about the APDE enrollment.

So as Dr. Gurley mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, you know, we've seen an 11% decrease in our overall black student enrollment.

And so at the high school since 22, 23, we have seen a 17% decrease in the black student enrollment at the high school.

And so during that same period, Black student enrollment in AP DE courses has decreased by 22%.

So going from 77 students to 60 students enrolled this current year.

And so, you know, this just kind of provides important context as we continue to review participation trends.

But it is important to note that on average, of those 60 students that are enrolled in AP and or a DE course,

They're taking three or more courses.

So of the 60, they're averaging about three or more courses that they're enrolled in.

AP and or DE courses, yeah.

So on average, there were very few that were actually just enrolled in like one.

But as Dr. Malone mentioned earlier, the high school is taking targeted steps to increase this enrollment and ensure that all students have access to these advanced courses.

and when we look at just, cause I met with Ann Skipper the other day and like when we were looking at the current AP DE registrations for next school year, we are seeing that more of our black students have registered for AP and or DE courses next year.

And I know we have some more offerings next year.

Not only are we seeing an uptick right now, at least in terms of the course requests, but that we're also in a position of campaigning and promoting what, for example, what the UCGS options might be and talking about new courses.

And so I anticipate between now and the beginning of the year, we'll continue, not only will we continue to see an increased enrollment, but even before, once we have the course requests loaded in and we have the students that are

Considering AP and dual enrollment courses, we can look to see who's not recommended for AP and dual enrollment or who has selected to not be in AP and dual enrollment.

And we can re-engage those students to understand what opportunity may exist.

So this graph represents the percentage of AP students who demonstrated college level proficiency by scoring a three or higher on the AP exam.

So this data was pulled from College Board, which they consider course completion for college credit being a three or higher.

And so you can see for all our student groups, but our black student group, about 50% that were enrolled last year scored a three or higher on the AP exam.

And I think that's important because I think we see this trend across all groups that some, you know, students take DE, I mean, I'm sorry, students take AP courses for various reasons.

I mean, boost GPA.

So students are not always entering into the AP course to take, to sit for the test for credit.

And I think for that,

I have a question.

If this is out of order, chair, please let me know.

But is there a possibility that we can continue this conversation at another time?

Like I, I think it's valuable.

I don't think we should be rushing through it.

And it seems like people are ready to go.

And I understand that everyone has things to do.

But I mean, again, the achievement gap is a very serious issue, and I don't want us to rush through it.

So and not that you all are, but I just know that like,

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

The board chair, I would move that we table the remainder of the presentation on slide 41 to be revisited at another time at a date that's mutually agreeable to everyone and Dr. Gurley's team.

Second.

So we have a motion and a second discussion.

And I think I would need some clarification as we move forward because I mean, I don't I don't know.

I don't know if that's a placeholder for what we need to plan for.

I don't think so either.

And I would like to keep going.

But I just want

I mean, if there isn't going to be full engagement, like I said, then I think we need to table it because there seems to be a little bit of like people are ready to go.

All right.

So any other discussion or comments, board members?

I definitely want to have the conversation.

I want to have a policy discussion.

We haven't talked about any policy changes here.

I want us to have time for us to discuss things.

We've talked about retention policy.

We've talked about EdTech.

How does this all fit into all this?

And I think that's what a work session would be.

There's just a lot of information to get through right now.

So my question to you and to the rest of the board is, do we want to,

Pause this right now and find another date to continue or to continue at this point.

So I've got that.

We've got the motion and the second.

So, and I opened it up for discussion.

My only addition would be that I originally, when I, I don't remember if I said this to the whole board as a whole, but I said, I think a Saturday would be more fitting for this because we have like our board development sessions that last like four hours plus.

And this is a topic that probably is more better suited in that type of format.

Because I mean, I know everyone's getting off of work, like I'm aware of all of that.

But again, we're talking about an achievement gap and black achievement issues that have existed for decades.

So with that in mind,

Totally agree.

So we'll figure out, we can poll, but I just wanted to make sure.

No comments.

All right.

So again, the motion was to pause here and then we will pick this up once we figure out a date and time.

Thank you.

So all in favor?

Aye.

Chris, were you and I?

So we're going to pause that, but I would like to offer the opportunity for public comment.

I believe we have a couple of people online.

Nothing I don't think at this point.

OK, all right, Ms. Hudson.

You got three minutes, please.

and more than including them.

And so, as far as I'm concerned, the first thing I put in the notes we drew over the information in the packet is, reading rights have always been a problem for color since the inception of Charlottesville city schools.

So, when you collect data like this, if you're not going to go past and very much read the data, and I'm big on data, I work in tech, big tech at best,

If you're not going to go back and I can look at the numbers and it's in parity, you're not given a full picture of the school.

Not only did you not go back and look at it from my brain, how she made, or her arm sharp, or how she made, or her parents, or grandparents, and her great-grandparents, but you also did include a post-technology study to see how technology has affected kids and affected tensioners.

It should span, or the ability to sit still, to even engage the three.

Nor did you do a study on what materials were being read, because I've heard everything I've heard, and even on the clinical books behind me, except what are these children reading.

If you back there reading to kill a market bird, to kill a market bird didn't fit me when I was in school here from 1965.

And so the information that you're pouring into kids, to me, isn't even relevant or prevalent for what they're using in everyday life.

Now, one of the critics pulled up a book that said, I'm going to make sure my notes are right.

Reena had enough time.

When I said wrong, two hours, she said the book is motivating gender, power, equity, and anti-oppression.

And so I had to go back again, material.

Allowed the materials that were written were very oppressive to kill and mock and murder, to be exact.

So just to go back down the list, have the SOLs been compared to your Iowa tests from back in the day?

Because the testing hasn't changed.

The name has, but the information inside those tests has not changed.

I've seen the SOLs.

I put these through this school system, Albemarle County school systems.

It is the same information being asked.

Why have we not provided that information in community data?

What is the number of students inside his data that are on IEPs?

That's something else that wasn't mentioned.

When you talk about kids struggling with reading, what is the percentage of those children on IEPs?

Because I can assure you, as someone that is a parent advocate for students and the family members of their kids being represented on IEPs, you are not really a benchmark.

These kids' IEPs are not increasing.

This is why I'm not big on data, because you can manipulate the data.

Data to be manipulated by any human being, any human being.

And I have four, but you only get three minutes, so thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else in here like to make comment?

Anybody online?

So Dr. Gurley and I will get together after he looks at calendars and we'll figure out going forward what this will look like and we will send out probably a poll to board members for availability and days once we get to that.

Our next meeting is March 31.

I don't actually think that's because of the holiday.

Yeah, it is.

All right.