Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County School Board Regular Meeting, Thursday, February 8, 2024

Date: Thursday, February 8, 2024
Place: Albemarle County Public Schools / School Board meeting, Virginia
Length: 2h 59m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4OUkFFzAcA

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-14. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] Okay, I call this February 8th meeting of the Albemarle County School Board back to order. Do we have a motion? We do, Chair Lee. I move that the board certified by recorded vote that to the best of each board member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

[00:00:30] Second. Moved by Dr. Acuff, seconded by Ms. Osborne, and we'll need a roll call for that. Dr. Berlin? Yes. Ms. Osborne? Yes. Mr. Chuck Pace? Yes. Mr. Graham Page?

[00:00:47] Yes. Ms. Spillman? Yes. Dr. Acuff? Yes. Chair Lee? Yes. So moved. All right, and do we have any other motions coming out of closed session? Yes. I move that we move forward with the purchase of property A as discussed in closed session.

[00:01:04] Second. Moved by Dr. Berlin, seconded by Ms. Osborne. Could we have a roll call vote for that as well? Ms. Osborne? Yes. Mr. Charles Pace? Yes. Mr. Graham Page?

[00:01:20] Yes. Ms. Spillman? Yes. Dr. Acuff? No. Dr. Berlin? Yes. Chair Lee? No. With a vote 5-2, so moved.

[00:01:36] Motion carries. Okay, we will do our roll call, starting with Josh Black. Good evening, everyone. Josiah Black, School Division Counsel. Matthew Haas, Superintendent. Allison Spillman, at-large representative. Ellen Osborne, Scottsville District. Rebecca Berlin, Whitehall Representative. Judy Lee, Rivanna District. Kate Acuff, Jack Jewett District. Graham Page, Miller District. Chuck Pace, Ryo District. Daphne Kaiser, Assistant Superintendent. Claire Kaiser, Assistant Superintendent. Christine Thompson, Clerk of the Board. Rosalyn Schmidt, Chief Operating

[00:02:15] officer pat mclaughlin assistant superintendent okay great thank you very much next we'll stand

[00:02:23] for the pledge of allegiance next we'll have our moment of silence thank you very much um next we

[00:03:33] need a motion to approve the agenda i move we approve tonight's agenda second moved by ms osborne seconded by Dr. Acuff. Is there any discussion on that? Nope. Okay. So we can just do a voice vote on that. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Nope. Agenda carries. Next we'll need a motion for the consent agenda. I move we approve the consent agenda. I second. Moved by Dr. Acuff,

[00:04:13] seconded by Mr. Page. Any discussion on the consent agenda? I'd like to pull one thing from the consent agenda. Okay. I apologize. I didn't do this list. Oh, I guess it is just information. So I just want to pull from 4.5 policy review and revision. It's just the advisory committees to the board document, BCF-AP. I would just like to have a discussion maybe at the next board meeting. Really just as a point of information, I think there's a number of people kind of in the public who don't understand the committees. And I think it might be helpful to just do a

[00:04:52] quick overview of the committees and just to see if there's any additional committees that we would want to add okay so um so then for discussion for next for when it's on action yes great um then is it okay for it to stay in this agenda are you okay to vote on it i'm okay to vote on it for information just not for action okay great can i that item is for action yeah i noticed that it does say yeah it says for information but then it says that the action vote so i guess that was my

[00:05:24] question oh okay um so then we probably should have a discussion about it today or we can pull it we just could we pull it miss berlin if you want you could you could pull it from the for action agenda and we could add it to the uh for action agenda at the next meeting which the the current for information would uh move to there's nothing pressing um in that policy revision okay if there's nothing pressing then yeah that would be best to just pull the whole thing so then we

[00:05:57] So for approval of the consent agenda minus 4.5, is that the one? Correct. Okay. No, I think it's just minus one policy in 4.4, and it was, I think it was BCF.

[00:06:17] Yes, yep, apologies. Okay, so the consent agenda minus policy BCF in 4.4 for discussion next time.

[00:06:36] Yes. Okay. Could we have a voice vote on that? All those in favor? Any opposed? Nope. All right. Consent agenda minus BCF and 4.4 carries. Next, we will have our announcements, starting with our spotlight on education from student representative Fernanda Cisneros. Madison House is the volunteer center for the University of Virginia students. The

[00:07:11] organization coordinates volunteers, develops leaders, builds community partnerships, and promotes lifelong volunteer service. Over 3,000 University of Virginia students volunteer their time and energy through Madison House. Volunteers serve community partners as tutors, construction workers, daycare supporters, patient service, representatives, role models, and peer counselors.

[00:07:37] Madison House provides service programs to address the needs of community as well as education and personal growth objectives of students. The organization serves the Albemarle Charlottesville community in partnership with over 100 communities community agencies to provide programming for more than 20 programs including summer and special programs tutoring and youth mentoring along with other programs to meet the diverse needs of students families and community members. Madison House volunteers serve our partnering community agencies on a scheduled weekly basis. Last year

[00:08:16] Madison House volunteers serve more than 38,000 hours to our local community. This school year, Albemarle County Schools and ACPS Transportation have partnered with Madison House to pilot a new tutoring program throughout the community of the county. Last May, President Jim Ryan called for students of the University of Virginia to volunteer as tutors and mentors in local school classrooms to help recover and recover the learning loss caused by a COVID-19 pandemic.

[00:08:50] The initiative aims to overcome the transportation obstacle many UVA students face when volunteering over a large geographical area like Albemarle County. Two ACPS buses pick up UVA students each day from Madison House location on Rugby Road, transport them to schools at which they volunteer, and bring them back in the afternoon.

[00:09:14] One bus travels a route through the southern portion of Albemarle County while the other transports tutors around the urban ring. The partnership allows ACPS students to receive a little extra help with their classwork, and it also provides them with opportunity to connect with a leader and mentor in their community they may not have had the chance to connect with otherwise.

[00:09:40] Of the more than 250 Madison House volunteers currently collaborating with schools throughout Albemarle County and Charlottesville City, about 125 are using the volunteer bus, and the program hopes to recruit more volunteers in the coming weeks.

[00:10:00] Tutors can assist students with a variety of subjects in several elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the county. The Madison House Volunteer Program helps ACPS fill tutoring spots at high-priority schools in the division.

[00:10:17] UVA students who are available on weekdays from 9.15 a.m. to noon and are interested in tutoring, ACPS students can visit the Madison House website to learn more. This evening, we are happy to have Ms. Stephanie Carter, Executive Director of Madison House, who will provide information about Madison House programming and share progress updates about the current initiative and official bus send-off celebration.

[00:10:48] The ACPS leaders will attend starting at 9 a.m. on Friday, February 9th from the Madison House location at 170 Rugby Road in Charlottesville. Thank you, Fernanda. Good evening, Chair Lee and school board members.

[00:11:06] We are so glad to have Madison House and the University of Virginia students as partners to answer President Ryan's call and join forces supporting schools in helping to make sure our students succeed. Connecting students with tutors not only helps students academically, but it gives them an opportunity to form a relationship with someone who can become a mentor for them.

[00:11:30] The partnership provides an opportunity for UVA students to serve as mentors and teachers to younger students while also allowing students to learn something about themselves. Who knows? We may have several future ACPS educators among the group.

[00:11:49] We are so thankful for the support of UVA and Madison House, such a great resource for ACPS. The partnership between ACPS and Madison House is a wonderful example of how our community can work together to address the needs of our students and make a positive impact in our school communities.

[00:12:09] Now I would like Ms. Stephanie Carter, executive director of Madison House, who has worked closely with Dr. Irizarry, director of equity, school, family, and community relations, and I in the Office of Community Engagement, to get this initiative off the ground, to come forward and provide you with more information about Madison House, update you on the current initiative, and share details about tomorrow's special event.

[00:12:39] Thank you, Stephanie.

[00:13:43] Ms. Carter, how long has this program been going on?

[00:14:21] Well, this is the work. The partnership is brand new. Good evening. It's good to see you. It's nice to see you too. And it's good to see so many smiling faces, honestly. It's really nice to be back in front of everybody. And I'm really happy to be here this evening to kind of fill you in on what's going on with Madison House. I truly think I can speak to most of it.

[00:14:38] It's a very short slideshow, so there's no stress or worries about that. So this partnership is new, but Madison House has been around for 50 years. And, of course, as an educator, I knew about Madison House in terms of tutoring.

[00:14:54] And I had been a principal in a building where we leveraged Madison House tutors, and that was a wonderful resource. When I got to Madison House, I was even more impressed to learn about all of the other areas of service that the UVA students take on.

[00:15:11] And they really helm these programs and take responsibility for them and develop great leadership skills, some amazing executive functioning skills. Madison House has four different tracks, and we have really notable programs right now.

[00:15:27] Our cash program is going on. Yesterday when I left the house about 630, it was full of community members that qualified for free tax returns. and students from the McIntyre Commerce School are preparing free tax returns for community members who qualify for those services. We also have a helpline which takes mental health crisis intervention calls and our students run those programs as well. Last semester we had, I'm going to give you an approximate number, we had 1,600 UVA students in different volunteer opportunities

[00:16:06] across our community. And so, here we go. So this will just show you that a few things that we do, and honestly, the young lady who gave an introduction told you a lot about what we do. As I mentioned, Madison House has four different tracks, and tutoring is the one that most people are familiar with, but you also can see other places that we impact education and youth communities in Charlottesville and Albemarle. Abundant Life, SACA, Walking Bus, Seville Tulips. We have an animal environment track as well, and our students get out. They help maintain trails. They work in

[00:16:44] community gardens and give their service there. Our human service, as I mentioned, we have the cash program, as well as they help at the habitat store, AHIP, legal justice, meals on wheels, and in our health and medical services. We do a lot of volunteering in the hospitals, but also adopt a grandparent in the Charlottesville Free Clinic and CART are big ones as well. So these young folks are out in the community giving their time and energy. The impact on the Charlottesville community, I think it's substantial. As I said, we have about 1,600 students placed throughout

[00:17:19] the county and the city. Last semester, we had about 700 volunteers that were serving in Ed and Youth alone. That's a huge increase. It's about a 300% increase from what we had last year. Last year, they were still coming out of the pandemic to some extent. And so this year, we're able to see the real impact. And we've got about 700 volunteers out doing work. Altogether, they gave about 27,000 hours of service to the community. And if you, if you calculate that just by minimum wage, that is the value of about $327,000 that we're able to give to nonprofits or organizations

[00:17:57] that need support. Our partnership, I don't know why the numbers aren't there. I'm, I'm sorry. Our partnership with Admiral County is, is going great. These numbers are not correct. We, we have now, we have about 140 students that are either in process or currently working in our schools that are using the bus. We have about 253 students that are currently working in schools.

[00:18:24] And these are the schools that are highlighted. And the bus routes address these schools that in the past, for instance, Red Hill, I know, has reached out to Madison House for years in need and wanting tutors. And we just were not able to make that happen because obviously students, many of them don't have cars, and so transportation out there is not possible. I'm really lucky because I had this great privilege of working with the team from Alamara County for years, and so when Eric and I met, Dr. Yorizari and I met, he was saying, we really need tutors. Dr.

[00:18:57] Kaiser said, we really need tutors, and I said, well, we really need transportation, but I think we can make it work, and so they made it happen, and that's the result. We were able to double, you can see almost double the number of UVA students that we have had in schools to help tutor, support, mentor. Some of their work is just going in classrooms and helping teachers too.

[00:19:20] And so that is, that's a huge, there's a huge impact there. Tomorrow we're going to do a kickoff event at Madison House. The young lady read the address. We're over on Rugby Road, just right on the other side of the Beta Bridge, if you're familiar. Around nine o'clock, we're going to have bagels and some breakfast and our students we it was really fun as a former educator i really was so excited the first day we had the bus they um the students came and it was like the first day of school and they all lined up in front of the bus and it just gave me all of the good feels of being back i was like um and so they they're the students are really excited to be on the bus and

[00:19:57] even though it's kind of a long haul out to some of the further locations they're really excited to be out and we're really excited. So tomorrow we invite you to come nine o'clock to Rugby Road if you would like to and have some breakfast and sort of see our students off and just say thank you. And we'll have some folks from the provost office there as well to tell you all thank you. I would personally like to thank Dr. Irizarry who has just been, I mean every single communication has been, he's responded immediately. He really helped us get this off the ground and running with principles and making meetings happen and Dr. Kaiser supporting it and Dr. Haas who from my

[00:20:34] experience has always just been so open to innovative ideas and every time I ever said to him well why don't we do this he always was like well let's do it and that was that's how I feel like this went to even though I'm no longer an employee I feel like I was just everybody tried to make it happen so it's a wonderful partnership and I just wanted to come and say thank you and invite you all to come and join us tomorrow if you can make it work in your calendar happy to answer questions if you have them too. This is wonderful. I think it's, I was actually a volunteer at Madison House 25 years ago, so I'll be there tomorrow. I'm excited to come back, but I just think this is really an awesome program. I'm excited about it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

[00:21:13] Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And I'm so excited that we particularly, we can get students to down to Red Hill, because I think it's so important for university students to see the diversity of the community. Sometimes they see one or two schools in the urban ring, which are very important, But I think for them to really understand the county in which they go to school, seeing all the different schools is such a gift.

[00:21:35] Yeah, that's awesome. Can you flip through to the number of volunteer hours? Yes. That's great. But you are underestimating yourself. The value of a volunteer hour in Virginia is much higher than that, according to the independent sector.

[00:21:51] I'll send you some information on that. Please do. Yeah, our minimum wage here at the count at ACPS is 15. So you at least need to raise it by that. Okay. Do students make a commitment for a particular semester, or how do they hook up with our students?

[00:22:14] Well, we recruit. We do a lot of recruiting, and they do. It depends on what program they enter, but for tutoring, they make a one-semester commitment. They do go through a little bit of training, and they all have to go through, well, they all get background checks, and then they all go through the Office of Youth Protection, which kind of briefs them on how to handle if you see neglect or what you would do if you had a student concern you felt you needed to report.

[00:22:40] So I went through all that training at the beginning of when I onboarded at Madison House, and I thought it was really thorough, and I would have felt really good as a principal to have them coming into our building with that experience. And our students are, I mean, they're college students, so obviously every once in a while you have somebody that changes their mind or doesn't want to do it, but they're very, very dedicated for the most part, and if they say they're going to be there for a semester, they're there.

[00:23:04] We had some students the first day they did on the bus, they came home and, I mean, they came back to the house and they said, you know, they loved it so much they added a day. They really like being in the community and working with our students. Could you go back to the list of schools with tutoring?

[00:23:21] Yes. I have a slideshow that has the numbers that I'll be happy to send to Christine if she wants to send it out so you all can see where we are at each school. All right, I don't want to look a gift for us in the mouth, But could Scottsville School or Scottsville possibly could be added to this list?

[00:23:37] I think, and I would have to let maybe Dr. Kaiser speak to that. This is a pilot. I think this year is really a pilot year, and this route was created to address some of the higher needs schools, is my understanding. And so I think in the future, yes, I think obviously schools could be added.

[00:23:55] You know, this could become your sole mission. I'm just saying. It could become my sole mission. I don't know how Madison House Board would feel about that. But they're certainly supportive. And obviously, I have a strong passion for it as well. I hope some of these students decide to go into education because this could also be a recruiting device for us.

[00:24:17] Yes, it could be. And we are starting conversations with the ed school about even putting classes on the buses at some point to do some community-engaged learning and to get hands-on experience conversations with, you know, different like like we do with the McIntyre School for cash to see if there are ways to think forward this is just the beginning really I think it's a pilot and we're making seeing how it works so far so good are you finding that most of the volunteers are in the ed school or they've spread out they're really spread out I think that sometimes students come come to school and they maybe have siblings or they have I think I think students really like working in the schools because it feels familiar

[00:24:56] and you know they sometimes feel a little homesick so I think going and working with students gives them a sense of purpose and feeling like they're connecting with some younger, some younger students just feel good. So it's really, really spread out. Does your volunteer base skew towards the first years or fourth years or in between or all over? It's kind of all over. Usually by the fourth year, they're, they have a, they've, we have a lot of first years that go into our schools.

[00:25:21] And by the fourth year, we still have fourth years for sure. But, but at that time, sometimes they join our board or they're, they're, they're called a head program manager. So they've taken on a different kind of leadership role but that really is spread across all all years but it is mostly undergraduate we have very I don't think we have any graduate students doing this work right now anything else well I really want to thank you and Dr. Azari Dr. Kaiser all Dr. Haas for working on this because this is a really good connection for us to make and I think this is going to be a wonderful program so thank you thank you guys really thank you so much I appreciate it Thank you, Stephanie.

[00:26:01] Thank you, Dr. Haas. Thank you. Hope to see you tomorrow. Thank you, Fernanda. Next, we'll have school board or superintendent business.

[00:26:21] Dr. Haas, do you have any? I do. I want to ask Dr. Hayes. She has an announcement to make. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Lee, Dr. Haas, and board members.

[00:26:42] The week of February 5th through the 9th is recognized as National School Counseling Week. I am here this evening to read a proclamation to acknowledge our Albemarle County school counselors. Whereas school counselors are employed in public and private schools to help students reach their full potential.

[00:27:00] And whereas school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities, strengths, interests, and talents as these traits relate to career awareness and development. And whereas school counselors help parents focus on ways to further the educational, personal, and social growth of their children.

[00:27:20] And whereas school counselors work with teachers and other educators to help students explore their potential and set realistic goals for themselves. And whereas school counselors seek to identify and utilize community resources that can enhance and complement comprehensive school counseling programs and help students become productive members of society and whereas comprehensive developmental school counseling programs are considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in schools.

[00:27:54] Therefore, I do hereby recognize our school counselors for the hard work they do in our schools each day. Thank you. Dr. Hayes, that's all I have. All right, thank you, Dr. Hayes, and thank you to all of our school counselors. I think that's incredibly important and difficult work.

[00:28:11] thank you um school board business i have one thing um just want to let everybody know that the collective bargaining team met yesterday and we're making progress and especially we want to thank ms mcintyre mr klobuchar for putting in so many hours on this it feels like it's going somewhere fantastic thank you and uh rebecca and mr black also um i have just a couple of things Last night, Mr. Page and Dr. Berlin and I were at Brownsville for the multicultural night, which was wonderful.

[00:28:51] We made Guatemalan worry dolls, some more extensive than others, looking at you, Mr. Page. We saw Blue Ridge Irish School of Dance. We got to learn about a bunch of other countries and eat their food, which my kids thought was fantastic, and then ended the evening with a traditional Chinese dragon and lion dance, which was really phenomenal, and the kids absolutely loved it.

[00:29:19] And they chewed up lettuce and threw it on the kids, and they thought that was the funniest thing that had ever happened to them. So it was a really wonderful event, and I really am enjoying these community engagement nights that the schools are doing. So thank you for that. And then the other thing I wanted to bring up was at the last school board meeting, we moved to direct the superintendent's office to draft a resolution on secure guns, secure storage of firearms as it pertains to ACPS students and staff. So I would move for the adoption of the

[00:29:52] following resolution. Whereas an estimated 4.6 million children live in households with at least one loaded unlocked firearm, and whereas every year roughly 350 children under the age of 18 unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else. That's nearly one unintentional shooting per day and 70% of these incidents take place inside a home. And whereas another 1,200 children and teens die by gun suicide each year, most often using guns belonging to a family member. And whereas in incidents of gun violence on school grounds, 75% of active shooters were current students or

[00:30:31] recent graduates. And whereas evidence strongly suggests that secure firearm storage is an essential component to an effective strategy to keep schools and students safe. And whereas research shows that secure firearm storage practices are associated with up to an 85% reduction in the risk of self-inflicted and unintentional firearm injuries among children and teens. And whereas the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center emphasizes the importance of appropriate storage of firearms because 76% of school shooters use firearms acquired from the homes of parents or close relatives. And whereas across the country,

[00:31:10] lawmakers, community members, and local leaders are working together to implement public awareness campaigns such as the Be Smart program that is being introduced in Albemarle County Public Schools this month, which is endorsed by the national PTA and which encourages secure gun storage practices and highlights the public safety risks of unsecured guns and whereas school districts across the country have begun proactively to send materials home to parents and guardians informing them of applicable firearm storage laws and firearm secure storage best practices and whereas keeping students teachers and staff safe from gun accidents and gun violence should

[00:31:49] be the responsibility of all adult stakeholders at each of our school sites and whereas Virginia law requires adults to securely store their firearms to prevent a child from having unauthorized access to a firearm. And whereas, in order to continue with preventative measures to increase student and school safety, we must act now. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Albemarle County School Board directs the superintendent and members of the superintendent's cabinet to take such actions as are necessary to increase awareness among ACPS students, families, and staff

[00:32:25] about the importance of secure gun storage, the legal requirements of parents and guardians to securely store their firearms, and the best practice of keeping all guns unloaded, locked up, and stored separately from ammunition. And be it further resolved that the Albemarle County School Board directs the superintendent to create an appropriate letter in English and other languages spoken by ACPS families and staff to parents and guardians that explains the importance of secure gun storage and preventing minors from accessing guns, the legal requirements of parents and guardians to securely store their firearms, and the best practices of keeping all guns

[00:33:02] unloaded, locked up, and stored separately from ammunition, which letters shall also be included in annual registration materials at each school site. Finally, be it resolved on this eighth day of February 2024 that the Albemarle County School Board and the superintendent will continue to work with local law enforcement agencies, health agencies, and nonprofits to collaborate and increase efforts to inform ACPS families of their obligations regarding secure storage of firearms in their homes. Second. Moved by Ms. Spillman, seconded by Dr. Acuff. Is there any discussion

[00:33:39] on this resolution? I'm very glad we're doing this. Thank you very much, Ms. Spillman. We can do this by a voice vote. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Nope. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Great. Any other school board business? Nope. Okay.

[00:34:04] We did not have anyone sign up for public comment tonight, so that moves us on to school division business. We'll take the FY24 second quarter financial report from Mr. Jackson Zimmerman. Early in the meeting this time.

[00:34:24] Good evening, school board members. I'm very excited about being early in this process. Wide awake. We can move you to the end. No, thank you. I think I am very satisfied with the position that I'm in currently.

[00:34:40] We do have for the board's consideration the second quarter financial report. This is sort of the first real, real hard look at operations in the school division associated that we'll be looking for across the year.

[00:34:57] We do a revenue update, and we also do an expenditure update, particularly looking at our largest expense, compensation and benefits, as being a significant component. We do estimations on that for this financial report. In this particular financial report, we have two big items that are part of this report.

[00:35:20] The first one is there are updated state revenues. The state didn't pass a budget this year until September. school divisions weren't notified of the impact of that budget until October and then the governor does a produces a caboose bill where they he takes a look at the current fiscal year and then makes changes that he hopes will be part of this this the budget for the current year the general assembly still has to act upon those changes and accept the changes that he makes that's part of

[00:35:55] the caboose bill that's brought forward the governor's caboose bill reduced revenues to school divisions statewide, primarily because his bill, as you heard from Jim Regenbaugh's presentation last time, his projections included a recession in the current fiscal year. And so a significant component of state revenue reductions that is part of this projection, we have to take the governor's numbers as they are, includes a reduction in sales tax in particular that lowers overall state revenues rather significantly.

[00:36:35] In general, we do not believe that the General Assembly will accept the changes made by the governor as part of the caboose bill. So we do believe that revenues will improve relative to what is shown here.

[00:36:51] So while the numbers may be concerning, $1.5 million, almost $1.6 million in state revenues, We don't believe that this will be anywhere near the number where we will end up with. We believe that it will be much, much closer to budget rather than to the revised projections.

[00:37:11] So that's the first area that we really wanted to cover with you as part of this report. The second one is that we did do a deep dive into, particularly into our compensation and benefits side. overall we're going to finish out uh the year with um with some savings associated with those areas not enough to offset the governor's projections um so but again we do believe that revenues will improve in this cycle so we're carefully monitoring the situation but we don't believe

[00:37:50] that there is any significant concern for the the current fiscal year in terms of revenues and expenditures on the school division side and that's a brief overview of the gist of this particular report and if the board is interested i'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have just timing mr zimmerman when will we know more so we would expect the general assembly to

[00:38:24] have a house recommended budget and a senate recommended budget probably by the end of next week. But the impact of those typically take anywhere between five to ten business days to sort of roll out and for DOE to quantify the changes that the General Assembly is planning.

[00:38:45] So probably by the end of February we will have a better idea of what the General Assembly is thinking. And then in mid-March they will come forward with a conference budget where the House and the Senate will discuss their differences and come forward with a combined budget that will be brought forward to the governor.

[00:39:09] But we'll get a very generally a pretty good idea of where we are at the end of this month. Thank you. And so do we need to accept this as information?

[00:39:25] That would be wonderful. Okay, can we get a motion to accept this information? I move we accept this financial report as presented by Mr. Zimmerman. I second. Moved by Ms. Osborne, seconded by Dr. Berlin. can we do a voice vote on that please all those in favor aye not opposed all right motion carries thank you very much thank you very much let's note that it is 7 11 and mr zimmerman is done

[00:39:53] next we have our human resources annual report dan redding always fun to switch from google to powerpoint and figure out where the button is all right good evening school board members dr haas Mr. Black, colleagues and community members. My name is Dan Redding. I'm the executive director

[00:40:28] of HR and I'm here this evening to share just a few of the highlights from this year's HR annual report with you. The full report is available on the public facing ACPS website in the HR section and it's available to employees in the employee resources section of our SharePoint site. Creating a standalone HR department focused on the school division is embedded in the strategic plan, and HR's role is to support the achievement of the mission and vision of the school division by

[00:41:05] supporting the employees of the school division. We specifically are most focused on goal three with two strategies specific to the HR team in there and specific areas of emphasis that I listed there that were in place over the course of the 2022-2023 school year. I want to remind everyone our reports will look back at the 2022-23 school year and in the seven or eight months since then some great things, amazing things are happening and major progress has been made and I'm going

[00:41:42] to foreshadow some of that tonight. As part of our launch as the school division's HR team, we developed an HR mission, vision, and set of values that guide our work. And you can see in those statements how they explicitly tie to the strategic plan and provide support.

[00:42:04] There are three main parts to our presentation this evening. Bear in mind that the full report contains a lot more detail and that we also shared our hiring report for this year with the board back in September.

[00:42:24] A little bit of history on the HR annual report. When we were a combined function with local government, the annual report was kind of our data dump to you of what we had done over the course of the year.

[00:42:41] It really focused on a lot of the transactional work that we did related to employees, their pay, their employment status. When we separated, stakeholders in the school division told us they wanted to see HR have a transformational impact on the school division and move away from the transactional nature of our work.

[00:43:05] And as such, we refashioned the report to focus on impact and focus on transformation. So it has a different look and a different feel. But don't worry, there's an appendix full of data there for you. one of those big areas of impact has been recruiting and hiring. I've shared with the board previously that the national picture for school division employment is troubling, especially when it comes to teachers and bus drivers. HR has been working with school and

[00:43:40] department leaders to put strategies in place to overcome those national challenges that are now very present on our doorstep. One major initiative we've taken on to support recruiting is a tool called Handshake. It's an online platform that's the primary tool for college and university career planning and placement offices and for employers all over the country, both public and private sector. It provides a direct line of contact to recent and upcoming graduates across

[00:44:13] all fields. It allows us to participate in virtual job fairs and conduct custom events that target candidates in whom we're particularly interested. In the current school year, we've used it to start holding live events for any interested participant that emphasize our work, excuse me, that emphasize our work with culturally responsive teaching, presenting information about our certification program, and answering questions. These have drawn applicants whose passions align with our work in

[00:44:50] these areas and result in applications for positions with us. Likewise, given the catastrophic decline in enrollment in undergraduate and graduate teacher prep programs, we focused on growing our own teacher pipeline to ensure that we have an ongoing supply of applicants. So here's what that looks like. Last year, some of our current TAs and other classified staff indicated interest in becoming teachers either by showing up at a making connections session about becoming a teacher or

[00:45:26] just reaching out to HR. We collaborated with UVA to set up a program to take those employees who already had a bachelor's degree and put them through the introductory course in special education, which permitted them to get a provisional teaching license. UVA set up a progression of courses for these educators to move through the sequence of courses and obtain a master's degree in special ed. And now we're able to partner with the special ed office here

[00:46:03] in ACPS to build supports for these new hires as they embark on their first year teaching, ensuring they're supported and really set up for success. This work ensured that all special education teacher positions were filled on the first day of school. And it's also supported diversifying our teaching staff. Thank you. Additionally, we applied for and received a state apprenticeship program grant. And we were the first school division in the state to actually

[00:46:42] set up a teacher apprenticeship program and have it up and running. We have the first two registered teacher apprentices. Currently, Dr. Sarah Lynn, who oversees this work, is supporting other divisions in the state and helping the state really figure out to how to keep this going those two apprentices are currently working in our classrooms and they're getting their coursework paid for at jmu so they will finish their teaching degree without any out-of-pocket cost to them so you're going to

[00:47:17] hear about a number of these programs over the course of the next year which will support this ongoing pipeline. A little bit about the Handshake tool. This online tool has really helped us in terms of diversifying our outreach. It's very important to know that we as an organization are able to target HBCUs and Hispanic-serving institutions and recruit teachers of color

[00:47:52] through this in ways that we might not be able to do because of the cost of attending job fairs all over the country. So in our first year of use, we were able to actually use Handshake to bring 17 additional candidates through the application process and into hire. That number is going to increase as we increase our use. Word of mouth about these alternative pathways has been amazing. And without even advertising the opportunities for classified staff to become

[00:48:30] teachers. This is the number of people who've already reached out this year. This graph shows the intensity of interest. And don't worry, we'll work with Dr. Dunn and make sure we get a good communication plan to recruit heavily for this. As a little foreshadowing, the work we've done this year has put us in a position where through collaboration with Piedmont Virginia Community College, UVA, and JMU. We're very close to having a pathway where a classified staff member who has a high school diploma or a GED can, with zero out-of-pocket cost to them, obtain a bachelor's

[00:49:10] degree and become a licensed teacher. We're that close. And that's incredible because it removes barriers that stand in the way, and it will really help us as we solve both the teacher shortage and as we work to diversify our staff. Another major impact area for us is employee retention.

[00:49:36] This is another major transformation for us as an HR team as in the previous incarnation of HR we didn't have staff dedicated to look at retention and we now have a staff member who has that as her job. You can see from the data here that over the 22-23 school year we returned to pre-pandemic level of teacher retention back up to 88.1% from a low of 82.9. So this, excuse me, this trend is very strong, and we hope to see this continue as we work to enhance employee voice and as we go

[00:50:15] through procedures like stay interviews to better understand our employees' needs. The board has previously asked us for exit data, and we have been able to obtain some over the course of the 22-23 school year. Unfortunately, it's a very small amount. We had 26 total responses, a little less than 5% of the overall employee turnover. We're not satisfied with that as a number or as a percent, but I want to share a strategy in a little bit. However, one of our

[00:50:52] HR metrics is around employees not telling us that they're leaving employment with us due to compensation and benefits. And from the data we received, that was not listed as one of the reasons for those folks. We believe, though, that stay interview data is much more powerful than exit interview data. When people have made the decision to leave, filed a letter, they're gone. They've made that decision. They have another job. We are probably not getting

[00:51:27] them back. However, with stay interviews, when people are telling us about their work experience, about any barriers they're experiencing, or anything that might cause them to leave, we have time to act. We have time to change that trajectory and prevent that decision to resign.

[00:51:47] In 22-23, we implemented our first round of stay interviews. We spoke with 137 employees across all employee groups. That's about 5% of our employees. And they chose to spend a half hour just telling us what they love about their job, what barriers they experience, and why they might choose to leave. The data we got aligns with Gallup. It aligns very well with the Bellwether

[00:52:20] report, the employee input sessions that were done during that report, and with other data we have. This is data that we've already put to work in other areas, so topics that were raised came up in Teacher Advisory Committee and in other places to help inform leadership decisions.

[00:52:41] We have just completed round two of STAY interviews in December, and again, we talked to about 5% of our population. We're very busy coding that data, and then we'll build a presentation around that, and we can't wait to share it with you.

[00:52:56] All of this data is going to be posted on the HR website for 22 and 23. We do want to share some quotes with you from our employees. And these are just some of the things they're telling us they love about their work.

[00:53:14] Our employees are experiencing very high levels of collegiality and collaboration. They love who they work with, and they're truly dedicated to their work with children and to the mission of the school division. So looking ahead, as we look forward, as we talk about things that are happening and continuing to develop this year, these are some of the things we're focusing on and that we look forward to sharing with you in about a year.

[00:53:46] We're continuing to develop those pipelines and pathways that are going to support teacher recruiting and looking towards how we're going to hire classified staff and support them through their career progressions. We're very focused on the importance of providing competitive compensation and benefits to ensure that we attract and retain our employees and that we reach full staffing in all schools and in all departments.

[00:54:14] We're working on a strategic wellness plan, and that has a twofold purpose. We ask our employees to support the whole child, not just their academic needs, but their social and emotional needs. in order for them to be free to do that we have to support the whole employee and that means we have to have a robust wellness program that focuses on physical mental financial and social health and well-being and supports our employees as they're going about their work the other prong

[00:54:48] to that strategic strategic wellness program is that by enhancing employee wellness we will be really supporting their overall physical health, which supports our health insurance inflationary pressures, which is, as you know, a pressure on the budget. By improving employee health, reducing health care costs, that frees funds in the budget for other purposes. Likewise, we want our benefits to be responsive to employee needs and preferences. We'll be working on surveys

[00:55:23] and focus groups to hear from our employees about their wants related to benefits offerings, what's working, what needs to be looked at, and what they'd really like to see added to our plan. Finally, we're focusing on and developing enhanced training for all employees related to what every employee needs to know and be able to do. So I want to wrap this up by thanking really an amazing HR team, a couple of whom are here tonight, but for their work on this report and really for an amazing, incredible year of work. And I invite the board to share any questions you might have.

[00:56:06] I just wanted to thank you for an amazing report. And I appreciate kind of the state of where we are, but also Kim is a day to keep keeping that data and just, I know it's a big lift to do, but I think it's important because we've seen such good progress, particularly in diversity across our staff and I love seeing it both kind of in the aggregate but then actually also drilling down by school the only other piece of data it might be good I don't think it was included it's included in the main page but I want us to keep an eye on where our teachers are living one of the things we're seeing

[00:56:41] across the country is that teachers and staff not being able to afford living in the district that they're working in we are in a pretty good space with like 67 percent and 12 percent in the city but let's just keep an eye on that to see if that's something we need to kind of lift up you know think about long term for for affordable housing absolutely and then the other thing i love that you um included um and i think a lot of people didn't know i didn't know is the work that went under wellness for um aeds being put in schools and buildings um i think that's such a huge both both for teachers and parents and grandparents who are

[00:57:19] visiting school, but also for community members who might be coming to events. I mean, we could be saving a life and not really even realizing it. So a huge thank you for including that as part of your wellness initiative. Dan, it looks like you guys have gotten off to a great start with your new HR department, and I applaud you for that. I had a few questions. First of all, when you, when we send out, I assume we still send out intent to return forms, the teachers fill out in January. Is that right? That is correct. Yes. January and February are two awful months to

[00:57:58] make a decision about your career. But if that's what we're forced to do, which I think we probably are, I wonder if you have enough manpower to go, when you get a form from a teacher saying, I'm not returning, to go out and try to get the beginnings of an exit interview going with them at that time and maybe counsel them to rethink it.

[00:58:27] I did that one time. I made a decision to leave the school system in January. And boy, I wish I didn't around the time of May. I wish I hadn't done that. Yeah, a couple of thoughts on that. The intent to return forms we send out are not binding.

[00:58:45] So a teacher can indicate, you know, right now I'm planning to resign or to retire. their situation may change. The goal for that is to start the conversation between the principal or supervisor at the school level. And in some cases, it might be there's things the teacher's not satisfied with, or they want to teach a different subject, or there could be any number of things that can be resolved in that conversation that could change that mind.

[00:59:13] So it starts that discussion and that conversation. Those are conducted and kept at the school level so they don't come from HR and the data doesn't typically come to HR. But that could be something we look at.

[00:59:30] Also the principals could be counseled to do it. I just go in there with a positive attitude. My principal came in and he was mad at me, he was just mad at me, he just yelled at me. What's wrong with you? It didn't really help. He was trying to change your mind. I was only 25 years old.

[00:59:48] God, I had another question for you. We were talking about the data. A lot of, I saw that you had 156 mentions of low morale under the stay interview data.

[01:00:09] And that really, that does worry me. Also, the not enough time one is another one because I know that means overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed. I've got too much on my plate. And those are things that I hope we can work on.

[01:00:24] And as we take this forward, part of what we'd like to do is work with the cabinet and then with leaders at the executive leadership team to unpack some of this data and prioritize what can be done. How do we start looking at this?

[01:00:40] Whether it is, you know, looking at for all of our employees, teachers, I think we probably heard that from teachers the most, but for all of our employees, there's not enough time. How do we look at people's workloads and schedules? How do we find efficiencies to make things work better?

[01:00:58] I think that's a very worthy project. One more thing. Your wellness programs, are you looking at working with somebody like ACAC or something to have special programs for teachers?

[01:01:14] We actually already have a discount with them and with several other fitness centers. There's a number of different things. The strategy has been fleshed out. Right now, some of the stuff we're looking at are high incidence conditions.

[01:01:31] We get anonymized data from our health insurance provider that doesn't give us people's names, but tells us you have X number of incidences of, for an example, skin cancer. In many cases, that can be prevented or can be stopped from being so serious through education, through some specific interventions.

[01:01:52] So how can we leverage that data to know what to target with our employee groups? We're looking more at that first. All right. Thanks. I have a couple of questions. One, I think all this data is great.

[01:02:09] Going back to the retention numbers and the satisfaction, the stay interview, I mean, I think that that is really important to focus on, as Mr. Pace was saying. Because to me, that shows that our employees are staying, but they may not necessarily be happy or their morale may not be super high.

[01:02:33] And so I think that's something we really want to look at. And I think maybe also, what do the transfer numbers look like between schools? Because just because they're staying doesn't necessarily mean they're happy. And if they're asking for a transfer to another school, as you will hear from other teachers, that's maybe an indication of not being super happy with their job.

[01:02:54] And so what does that look like? I think that would be interesting to look at and then get some, dig into that a little bit more. Yeah, we actually were very interested in that. Part of this transition, we've also implemented new systems, the old systems we had.

[01:03:11] I liken the Great Plains system to a stack of index cards. So when Matthew Hawes transfers from Scottsville to Red Hill, we pull the index card out, we erase Scottsville, we write red hill and we put it back in the pile we didn't have the capacity to capture yeah that data historically yeah the system we have now has a lot more ability yeah that we can leverage to look at that so i think that's one of the areas we'll begin to look at and i think surveying as to why that transfer you know is it just because they it's closer to their kids school or closer to their house or is it really more of a satisfaction issue i think would be really

[01:03:50] important for us in making decisions going forward. I'm curious about the exit data. I think you alluded to it a little bit, but why do you think those numbers are so low? You said it was about 5%. Is that what you said? That's my guess. I know our overall turnover for all employees was in about the 500 range. So that would come in at about 5% of that group. We have a couple suspicions. We're actually tracking it even with read receipts now. So when it goes to their email and they open it we get a dan reddick open this email um so these are all i'm sorry let me interrupt

[01:04:27] you but it's all like an email survey it's an online survey it's not an in-person like exit interview it is a survey that then offers the opportunity for a follow-up in-person conversation and interview um i think in some cases we find out about employees resigning after they've already stopped working which makes it very challenging um in a number of cases when people reach that point they have emotionally separated so this is this is more to do i'm busy enough i'm not going to do this what do i have to do to get my health insurance to do whatever i need to do financially

[01:05:06] and they're focusing on that not on not on this yeah i think it would be um i mean i'm sure you're already doing this, but, you know, is it something the principal could be doing? Is it something, you know, an in-person trying to capture that data? Because that, you know, may very much help us in, you know, making decisions going forward. And if the email survey is not working, then maybe we try something else. Absolutely. And then my last question is to do with the provisional employees.

[01:05:37] Can I get a little clarification on how that's kind of handed off to supervisors and things like that. So, you know, my understanding is we are helping them get licensed and, you know, we're taking either TAs or people that don't have those licensure right now, putting them in a teaching position while they are getting licensed. What sort of training, what sort of handoff is being done to ensure that our level of teaching excellence is where it needs to be while they're getting trained? I love that you're asking that question because that's a thing that was very important to

[01:06:15] us in this process. For context, a provisionally licensed teacher, especially in special education, has taken one course of the nine or ten required to get a master's degree. So they come in with less of that theoretical background, knowledge, and training when they enter the classroom.

[01:06:37] A lot of what we've done over the course of this year, especially for our special education, provisionally licensed teachers is work with the special ed office, identify some master special ed teachers in the county, and then provide as much as we can just in time training to those teachers.

[01:06:55] So it's IEP season. Let's sit down and have a session that you can attend and talk about how to answer parent questions. What should you bring to the IEP meeting? What data should you have ready all of those kinds of things to support them right when they need it some of that got started a little later than we would have liked this year as we kind of ramp this up and get it where it needs to be but the goal is to do that I think you're going to hear about instructional coaching later this evening and I know there's some some things happening there that will really

[01:07:35] support our provisional teachers in the future too yeah i think that that's something that you know hearing from special education parents myself being a sped parent um it's really important because those are our most vulnerable kids and um while it's a great plan for having fully licensed teachers in a couple of years the immediate concern is right now and are those kids needs being met um and i know that there is some frustration surrounding that um so i would encourage maybe closer supervision of, and I don't know if that's necessarily on your court,

[01:08:15] but just as we ramp up that program, really close supervision of that program. I can share two of our schools that we worked with and we placed several provisionally licensed special ed teachers there. The principals crafted their schedules very thoughtfully so that those teachers share a planning period and they share that planning period with the department chair, which creates that opportunity of time built into their workday to get questions answered immediately.

[01:08:47] I definitely hear the concern, and I think it's the right question and the right concern. If I could just add a little bit more to that. Our Department of Special Education on DPLC days does conduct a new special ed teacher academy, so it's a time for the teachers to come together for some extra supports there.

[01:09:08] And also, as we've unpacked some of the information from the bellwether report, when you think about the work of our instructional coaches, they are spending a lot of their time right now with our new and novice teachers, whether special education teachers or not. Just because in the special ed world, yes, the requirements right now for that provisional license are very minimal, but for many of our other teachers in other subject areas, They may have experience or some trainings.

[01:09:38] It may be that they went through an education program in a different state and are coming to us, and they're within their first three years, and so they, too, are considered provisional. So one of the things I think that we want to acknowledge is just to have a provisional license. The state has indicated that they've met a minimum requirement, and part of that is that within three years, they have to complete all of the requirements to be fully licensed, either with a collegiate professional or postgraduate professional license.

[01:10:08] So that's why that support of our new and novice teachers, special ed or regular education teachers, is so critical because we want them to be successful, too. We want them to be able to help our students. We want to see positive student outcomes. But we also know that if we do not provide those supports to them, they're going to be either part of this exit data or giving us information through our surveys and stay interviews of that overwhelming frustration.

[01:10:35] And the last thing that we want to do is to have them walk out the door. So we are continuing to develop and go deeper into what it is to support them. Are we collecting data and getting feedback from those provisionally licensed teachers on if they're getting the support that they need, where they need additional support, and things like that?

[01:10:56] We're meeting with them, actually. We set up times where we come together with them both to ensure that they're on track to move from provisional to fully licensed, but also get that input. Some of what we've set up in conjunction with the special education department is as a result of what they've been telling us they need.

[01:11:17] So, yes, that's in place. Dan, do you also have, like, a formal mechanism to get feedback from the families? Like the SPED families? or just really any of the students' families. I know part of the EAP educator performance appraisal is that novice teachers are required to do a survey with their students.

[01:11:46] So I'm wondering if there's some kind of thing moving forward where we can also do something to get feedback from families. I like that. We can think that over. I'm not sure what that would look like yet. And I'm imagining it's probably something we'd want to have live with the principal, but I'd want to be careful in terms of that as an evaluation piece.

[01:12:09] I want to separate that. It could be, it just could be really helpful, that's all I'm thinking, is just for feedback. Mr. Redding, I have a question. Thanks first for your update. But over at Upmile, there was a program related to growing our own teachers involving some of the teacher assistants over there.

[01:12:27] Yes. And I know Ms. Earley was working with that group. So what's the status of her work and the program at Albemarle? Yeah, I mean, the work that Ms. Early was doing with some of the staff, the classified staff at Albemarle High School folded in really well with other classified staff that were looking to join the teaching ranks.

[01:12:49] I believe six of the individuals that were part of the group that she brought to the board last year are in the UVA program. Several are teaching at Albemarle High School. Several are teaching at Journey. I know one is at Burley.

[01:13:06] Is that right? Close. Close? I thought I had it all in my head. And then one is teaching, she said, German and geography, I believe, at Monticello. Okay, thanks.

[01:13:22] And then with the exit interviews, with the 31% that was dissatisfied with policies or practices, Are we at the point yet where we can tell when this started happening, if there was a certain point in time where it was happening, or either what policies, especially those people were dissatisfied with?

[01:13:50] I don't believe we have that level of specificity with the exit data. I think we get a lot more about that in the stay interviews where people might share, I am concerned about this policy that is in place right now. Either I think we've heard some concerns around how we're doing grading, around student discipline.

[01:14:16] So we hear those kinds of themes. And that's where we're getting better information about what specific policies and programs people might be concerned about. Thanks. Hi, Dan. Hi. Thank you for your presentation.

[01:14:32] I just have two questions. One is congratulations on the apprenticeship grant. I think that's great. Do the people that go through that apprenticeship then have an obligation to teach at Elmoral Schools? How does that work?

[01:14:48] Yeah, they are obligated to then teach with us. It is a two-year program. What's so exciting about that is some of the divisions that are coming online now, they're taking existing teacher assistant positions and they're just calling them apprentices.

[01:15:05] They still have all the duties and responsibilities of a teacher assistant, but in addition to that, they're expected to be watching the teacher's instructional moves and really growing into the teaching role. The way we've implemented it, it is a separate position.

[01:15:22] We did not take a teacher assistant allocation away. This individual spent the first couple weeks really interacting with the teacher, observing the teacher, coming to understand how the teachers set up the classroom for the year and then has gradually begun assuming some small instructional responsibilities as they gain experience.

[01:15:45] So that's super exciting for us. But at the end of the two-year apprenticeship, they are expected to teach with us for three years. Sarah's giving me hand signals to make sure I'm correct. The second... I'm sorry.

[01:16:01] Three. Yes. question with the stay interviews. I know we've had some success in our recruiting of persons of color. And A, I wonder if that success sort of builds on itself when we're recruiting, but also I would love to see some stay interviews, you know, specifically among that group and see what, I mean, we don't want to keep turning over. You know what I'm saying. Absolutely. And one of the things that I think that is emerging as a theme as the data is being coded is the desire for

[01:16:37] what we're going to call affinity groups. So a group for our African-American teachers, a group for LGBT teachers, a group for our Latino or Latina teachers, some place to build a sense of community, especially at the elementary level. Many of our teachers of color are the only teacher of color in that building. And that creates a profound sense of isolation. And that is a factor that would lead people to leave. So we want to help foster that sense of community, which will then lead to retention, which then helps build on further recruiting. I think in the stay interviews

[01:17:16] too, and you have more data than you can code right now. I do know that. It might be when people say to get a little more detail what would they suggest as solutions to their complaints their concerns and i think that's some qualitative data on that yeah absolutely thank you i just want to say i'm really glad we have our own hr department when i do hear grumbling it's often it's about

[01:17:51] payroll and i wondered if we would ever consider doing our own payroll because i feel like you guys get blamed hr gets blamed for payroll stuff and that is a county thing so have we figured out a way to resolve that just put disclaimers on all your slides it's uh like a contractor once told me it could go as far as your imagination and your wallet there we gotcha i think what we have done this year is we um we repurposed a vacant position to become a payroll quality control coordinator i

[01:18:26] think that's the title. And that's a direct liaison we have with payroll. So as we hear about employees who are having issues with their paycheck or when there is something definitively wrong, we have a liaison with payroll that just focuses on that. She sits through every payroll run and watches it and fixes things. And that's helped. We're not where we want to be, but it has helped a great deal. Thanks very much for your work, Dan. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Thank you.

[01:18:59] All right, next we have a 10-minute break, so that'll put us back here at about 8.01, we'll say.

[01:19:08] All right, I call this meeting back to order.

[01:30:00] Next we have our bellwether updates in relation to the Department of Instruction, starting with Dr. Hayes. Good evening again. Long time, no see. I am here this evening to share with members of the Department of Instruction to share some updates on the current bellwether initiatives.

[01:30:21] I am joined by the following people. Ms. Michelle Kastner, the Executive Director of Elementary Education, Mr. Jay Thomas, the Executive Director of Secondary Education, Ms. Megan Wood, the Director of Professional Learning, Ms. Karen Hethcock, the Lead Coach for Elementary ELA, and Ms. Melissa Mitchum, the Lead Coach for K-12 Math.

[01:30:40] So tonight we're going to be sharing updates on our five of the initiatives related to the Department of Instruction. We'll be talking about instructional coaching, the ELA adoption and implementation plan, math and algebra one, high quality instructional materials, and our quarterly assessments. At this time, Ms. Wood will share an update about our instructional coaching model.

[01:31:11] Good evening. Thank you for having me. As Dr. Hayes said, I will be sharing information with you about our instructional coaching model. As many of you know, the Bellwether report indicated that we should re-examine our instructional coaching model to target support in the schools and or teachers that need it most with a focus on transforming instructional practices and teacher actions and a shift from an opt-in approach to one that positions instructional coaching as part of a comprehensive system of adult learning. Additionally, Bellwether also made a recommendation that we should strengthen our system for input and feedback. Keeping these recommendations in mind, we would like to share with you our initial steps in reimagining our instructional coaching model.

[01:31:51] To inform our decision-making process, we are using three sources of information. We are synthesizing and analyzing our qualitative and quantitative feedback from staff, and additionally, we are looking at current research and evidence-based practices to inform the shifts that we will make. Our first step in the process of reimagining the coaching model was to solicit feedback both quantitatively and qualitatively from a variety of stakeholders.

[01:32:14] We engaged in gathering qualitative feedback from approximately 150 people through a protocol centered on examining characteristics of our current model by unpacking the pros, cons, considerations, and alternative structures of each of the identified characteristics. Additionally, we solicited quantitative feedback from a division-wide teacher survey. We had a total of 319 responses on this survey that represents about 25% of our teaching staff. Of those that participated, 85% of the respondents have worked with an instructional coach. Based on the feedback of the work of Killian and Harrison, as well as Jim Knight, we realized that our first step was to clarify the role of an instructional coach.

[01:32:54] As stated by Bellwether, we want our instructional coaches to positively impact our student achievement and provide targeted support with a focus on instructional practices. And in order to accomplish these goals, we must clarify the role of coaching to align to these program outcomes. The purpose of this presentation is to share with you the shifts in roles that will take place for the 24-25 school year.

[01:33:17] Killian and Harrison identify 10 roles that coaches can play. These roles vary in nature and are directly related to program outcomes. Originally, when the coaching model was designed, there were four major roles that the instructional coach served. The first being a resource provider. Instructional coaches were expected to capitalize on the networked organization of their role by sharing resources among and between teachers of the same school and the other schools that they supported.

[01:33:41] Coaches also served as mentors and supported the induction of novice and new teachers to the division. Additionally, coaches were expected to be a learner, and upon their return to the classroom, they were expected to positively impact their professional learning communities and their buildings by becoming instructional leaders.

[01:33:57] And then finally, coaches were to serve as a catalyst for change by igniting and fostering a collaborative, reflective public practice. Oops, sorry. These four roles served our division well at the inception of the coaching model. However, as conditions in the school have changed due to increased numbers of novice and provisionally licensed teachers, the pandemic, changes in curriculum, and our increased diversity in our student population, our model has not shifted to meet these demands. An evaluation of current practices, feedback from staff, and the bellwether report indicate there is a need to realign the coaches' roles to positively impact student outcomes. Therefore, moving forward, coaches

[01:34:34] will continue to serve as a catalyst for change. It's important to continue to foster and share effective practice among and between colleagues, both within a singular school, as well as throughout the division. Coaches are uniquely positioned to do so and we should capitalize on it. Also, instructional coaches will serve as instructional specialists to align teacher instructional practices with our guaranteed viable curriculum to meet the needs of all students. Additionally, coaches will focus on providing classroom support to build teacher capacity to implement high-quality instructional practices that results in equitable outcomes and increased achievement for all

[01:35:10] students. And then finally, coaches will focus on serving in the role of learning facilitator by designing, implementing, and evaluating job-embedded professional learning. As you can see on this slide, there are specific examples of coaching tasks related to each of the coaching roles.

[01:35:28] In the implementation of our new model, the instructional specialist role will support instructional design. The classroom support role focuses on the implementation of the designed instruction, and the learning facilitator role promotes the analysis of the implementation by engaging in reflective learning cycles. As I'm sure you've noticed, the role of mentor is no longer listed as a role of the instructional coach because we will be allocating some of our current instructional coaching staffing to dedicate to the specific role of novice teacher instructional coaches. The rationale for this change is based on the feedback that the increase of novice and provisionally licensed teachers is creating an imbalance of support for all teachers.

[01:36:08] Currently, instructional coaches are spending the majority of their time supporting novices and are unable to fill the requests for support from veteran teachers. This graph shows an increase in the novice and provisionally licensed teachers in the division in the last five years. The dark blue portion of the graph represents the number of provisionally licensed teachers hired during the indicated year, and the light blue indicates the number of novice teachers.

[01:36:28] As you can see, we have had a significant increase in the number of provisionally licensed teachers in the last three years. We believe that dedicating part of our instructional coach team to specifically support novice and provisionally licensed teachers will allow us to serve all of our teachers more effectively and balance teacher needs.

[01:36:44] It is important to note that by clarifying the roles of the instructional coaches and dedicating novice teacher instructional coaches to support novice and provisionally licensed teachers directly aligns with the recommendation of Bellwether to target support in the schools and or teachers that need it the most with a focus on transforming instructional practices and teacher actions.

[01:37:02] Next year, with the shift to dedicated novice coaches, we anticipate the instructional coach model to be structured as indicated by the graphic. We have yet to delineate what the teams will look like. We will have a better idea of coach and novice coach placement later this year once we have a clearer picture of our staffing and school needs.

[01:37:24] In addition to clarifying the roles of an instructional coach, we have partnered with the lead coach team to draft a working instructional coach theory of change. Again, based off of the work of Killian and Harrison, we believe that if we develop a clearly defined coaching program and provide strong, ongoing professional learning for our coaches and establish a collaborative learning community, they will be able to create meaningful coaches and partnerships with teachers and principals so that they can utilize coaching cycles as a way to support job-embedded professional learning that results in increased instructional efficacy. As a result, all students will have access to high-quality grade-level instructional tasks, leading to an increased student achievement and

[01:38:03] a reduction of achievement gaps. Our next step with our draft theory of change is to take this to the instructional coaches tomorrow to get feedback and develop a final draft in the near future. We have also drafted a new instructional coaching mission statement to directly align to the Bellwethers recommendation to shift the instructional coach model to focus on transforming instructional practices and teacher actions. The new mission statement focuses on both student outcomes and the impact of coaching on teacher practice by aligning it directly to our division's mission statement. The statement clearly articulates that instructional coaches will work

[01:38:38] to end the predictive value of race, class, gender, and special capacities by accelerating educator effectiveness through coaching cycles and high-quality job-embedded professional learning. As with the theory of change, we will be sharing this draft mission statement along with the core values listed in the graphic with the instructional coaches tomorrow to get their feedback and create a final draft as well. Before we conclude tonight's presentation, we'd like to quickly provide an overview of our short-term next steps, which are to work with the lead coaches and instructional coaches to finalize the instructional coaching theory change and the mission statement to better aligned with our programmatic goals of improving student achievement. And then we will also begin

[01:39:17] to analyze and synthesize our feedback data to identify themes and patterns to develop next steps and recommendations regarding both organizational structures as well as coaching practices. After we've analyzed and synthesized our feedback, we will then begin to work collaboratively with instructional coaches, principals, and lead coaches to redesign our instructional coaching structures and practices. And now I'm going to turn it over to the ELA Adoption and Implementation people. Good evening, Chair Lee, Dr. Haas, and members of the school board. My name is Michelle

[01:39:56] Kastner. I'm the executive director of elementary education. And as we know, one of the key recommendations from Bellwether was to adopt a K-5 core literacy program. And I'm pleased to say that we just completed that process over the last five months. And now Karen Hethcock is going to talk about our next steps. Good evening. I'm Karen Hethcock, lead coach for K-5 language arts.

[01:40:26] So we, as Ms. Kastner just said, we went through an extensive process in the fall into the winter and came up with HMH as the proposed core literacy instruction program for elementary.

[01:40:44] And after we presented that to you, we got to work on developing a comprehensive implementation plan so that teachers are prepared to teach with this. So we are planning to kick off evidence-based literacy instruction so that we have a common understanding of what that is across the division.

[01:41:03] March 5th, which is our next DPLC day, every elementary teacher will receive training with Dr. Kristen Conrady-Smith from William & Mary on evidence-based literacy instruction and the shifts that will be taking place. April 29th is then another DPLC day where actually we will have grade level teams.

[01:41:26] So kindergarten, first grade, second grade will each split off across the division, come together with an HMH trainer so that they can actually dig into the instruction that will be required at that grade level. So it'll be very specific training on what they will expect.

[01:41:42] We're going to follow that up, NTA, New Teacher Academy, with that same kind of opportunity for our new teachers next August. And then, of course, pre-service week, as everyone comes back, we will do some more ongoing professional learning around evidence-based literacy instruction, science-based reading research, and how HMH fits into all of that.

[01:42:04] Also, we are right now sending 30 people through a letters facilitator training, so we're getting volume one training in letters. 30 people will do the facilitator training this summer therefore we will have a kind of cadre of in-house letters facilitators so that we can actually train all of our elementary classroom teachers el teachers bed teachers reading interventionists on letters next year that's part of the virginia literacy act is that we provide training for teachers so that they are familiar with the why and the research behind why we're doing what we're doing with the structured

[01:42:43] literacy and HMH. And then next year, we're also going to be planning with HMH to make sure that teachers are receiving the support that they need through learning walks and doing learning walks with those reading specialists and instructional coaches and kind of HMH champions at each school so that we make sure it's being implemented with fidelity across the division. And I would like to introduce Melissa Mitchum, K-12 lead coach for math. Good evening, everyone. First of all, I'd like

[01:43:22] to say that I'm honored to work with some very dedicated professional educators and I appreciate the opportunity to highlight the work that they've done and that they have supported so far this year in response to the bellwether recommendations. So I'll start with the algebra advisory team.

[01:43:42] The board heard sort of the overview of how we were doing this work in October so I'm just updating you mid-year. We did meet at the January DPLC meeting following that meeting actually to coalesce and synthesize the recommendations for supports to increase the success of our high school Algebra I students next year. Jay Thomas and I then took those recommendations and met with each principal of the three comprehensive high schools knowing that the way that they implement these recommendations may be different based on their populations and their staffing that they

[01:44:20] have available. I want to say that we are really using our DPLC structure that was already in place to meet some of the recommendations that Bellwether had for us. Our algebra and teachers at the middle school have collaborated at each of those meetings. Also then at the high school, we have had time for them to look at instructional practices and respond to data and really analyze what is working and what needs improvement. They were also all together sort of middle and high at making connections. So we hosted a birds of a feather opportunity for them to collaborate. It's not

[01:44:59] really vertically, but it is to some extent they don't really get to talk to each other, the middle and the high school teachers. That was something else that came up in the bellwether comments when they interviewed our teachers that they wanted more opportunities for vertical work. So in March and also in April, we're going to use our DPLC time for secondary math teachers a little bit differently. We are going to meet as a vertical team and go through some protocols so that they can collaborate again on what is working, but also looking back a little bit. So our Algebra 1 teachers will have the opportunity to work with Math 8 teachers and say sort of these are the

[01:45:36] strengths that we really need our students to have to be successful when they come to us. And then also Algebra I teachers can talk to the geometry teachers at that time. Finally, and this is again just a few of the highlights of the things that we're doing for math and Algebra I, Dr. Carlock has been leading a small action research team for middle school math, and this is something that these teachers volunteered to do. We do have representation from four of our middle schools on that team.

[01:46:06] And Dr. Karlak has really mined the historical data that we have around achievement in middle school math. The reason that we're sort of wanting to accelerate the timeline a little bit from what Bellwether recommended and really start to look at the middle school math now as soon as possible is because we know if we can strengthen those pathways to get to algebra, whether the student takes it as an eighth grader or even a seventh grader, whether they take it in high school, the more that we are really embedding those algebra concepts and strengthening the entire pathway to algebra one, the sooner we're going to see the success

[01:46:44] of that. So that team also in January, as part of the DPLC meeting, have brought forth some of their early recommendations and things that they're interested in piloting. And we will be sharing their recommendations and a pilot proposal actually with cabinet tomorrow morning. So you We'll hopefully be hearing about that some more this spring.

[01:47:06] I'm actually going to introduce myself again and stay up here for high-quality instructional materials. So there's three areas that we're going to address, but I'll go ahead and kick it off with middle school math and Algebra I. We do have Connected Mathematics Project III for 6th and 7th grade, but this is something that Bellwether wanted us to take a look at, was securing high quality instructional materials up through at least Algebra I.

[01:47:36] So a team of teachers recommended that we pilot a different program for Math 8 this year. They didn't feel that Connected Math was meeting the needs of the students and preparing them for Algebra I. So we are piloting into Math, which is also an HMH product.

[01:47:53] And all Math 8 teachers have access to those materials and resources and ongoing professional support in implementing those. I will say that we've kind of had to slow down a little bit on what would be ideal for adopting high quality instructional materials for Algebra I, because as many of you may know, that the 2023 math standards will go into effect at the start of the school year.

[01:48:20] And we're very excited about the changes in those standards and the student focus on really building conceptual understanding. However, the textbook approval process from the VDOE is going to lag a bit. So they're going through two rounds of approval, and I've linked that.

[01:48:38] It's a public document that's available for anyone who's interested to see. The second round actually doesn't even start until June. Some of the programs that I'm most excited about that I've already investigated, like Intimath, are going through that second round of approval, and the final list won't be available until January of 2025.

[01:49:01] And at that point, that's still just an estimated date. In terms of MTSS, we're using UFLY for interventions for grades 4 through 8.

[01:49:16] You'll hear more about that with the K-5. SIPS is also used. SIPS stands for Systematic Instruction, Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words for interventions in grades K through 8. ALEKS is an adaptive standards math support tool used in middle school.

[01:49:33] They're using it in math class, during Core Plus, and for intervention. DIBELS is a reading screener for grades 6 through 12. We're also working to purchase all-in intervention materials.

[01:49:50] One of the pieces of feedback that we heard from our secondary reading specialist and interventionist this fall was that more support was needed in our secondary schools for our older students that are still struggling to read. And so in response to that, myself, Mr. Domer, a few members of the team, went out and did some research to see what programs are geared towards our secondary students. You know, we do a lot of focus on K-3, so we want to make sure they were age-appropriate. And Lexia was one of the companies that had a program, Lexia Power Up. They also have Lexia Core 5, which is for pre-K through five, but that Lexia Power Up would be for our secondary students.

[01:50:27] And so we reached out to them to get a quote on the costs for our students. And in that same process, the VDOE came back to let us know that Lexia was one of the programs that they would now provide for the all-in tutoring in addition to Ignite and Zern.

[01:50:45] So we were really excited about that. So we put a pause on it just a little bit because we did not want to waste fiscal funds, our county dollars, buying double seats for our students. So we should hear back from the VDOE. That's where it says waiting on VDOE to approve.

[01:51:02] We actually heard today that we should hear back on Monday of how many seats we will be able to get. So we're really excited that we will be able to have Alexia for our students. And then once we know how many seats we will have, then we will go back to the company and determine how many more we need to purchase for intervention.

[01:51:24] And I've already discussed the adoption or the pending adoption of the state approved K-5 literacy program, which leads me to UFLY, which is also state approved. and we are currently using UFLY Foundations for systematic and explicit phonics instruction, whole class K2 across the division, and third grade is kind of dependent on the needs of the class.

[01:51:48] It's either being used whole class or small flexible groups with the classroom teachers. And then I will move on to quarterly assessments. In elementary, at the elementary level, we have end of quarter assessments, quarter one, quarter two.

[01:52:05] we're in the midst of developing quarter three for grades three four and five these are aligned specifically with our pacing guides so the standards that have been taught that quarter are the standards that are tested at the end of the quarter there's a little bit of dipping into you know in quarter two we dip a bit back into quarter one because teachers wanted to just see if any of their remediation reteaching spiraling was effective so the assessments when When we build them out, we build them out ahead of time so that we have time to share them with grade-level teams across the division at multiple schools to gather feedback.

[01:52:41] And then we make tweaks and adjustments that were recommended by teachers. And then we finalize them, share them via Illuminate. Those are all given within a week or so. There's a testing window that opens and all of the kids do them then.

[01:52:57] Grade-level PLCs, I know right now, I was just in a meeting today with one. They get together to share that illuminate data and really parse where students did well, where students need any kind of remediation and reteaching, and then they plan instruction based on that.

[01:53:14] And also I want to add that these results are shared with parents. They are sent home with parents, probably with report cards. So the parents may not all have them yet, but they will have received them in the next week. And I'll let Melissa come up and address secondary.

[01:53:29] All right. I have to shout out teachers again because they have been incredibly helpful in building the quarterly assessments, primarily for me for secondary math.

[01:53:47] There were quite a few that we had to get ready, but it really was a labor of love. It's been a very deep learning experience because it's required us to really look at the pacing guide, look at the standards, look at examples of how the PDOE might assess that question and put together the final product.

[01:54:08] And then very similar to what we did with elementary, we shared that product with teachers. So, for example, for Math 7, when I had what I thought was the best version of the Math 7 test for quarter two, once my CAT team had reviewed it, I sent it out to a representative from each of the middle schools and got their feedback.

[01:54:29] Again, this has not been a perfect process. It's definitely been iterative. I've made a lot of mistakes, and folks have been very gracious with me, but I think we've learned a lot. And I've had some really good conversations with the people who have helped create the test and the people who have examined those tests.

[01:54:47] So sometimes what we found is that the way that we're assessing, and a lot of educators already know this, really informs the instruction that we do. And so we really did want to have these assessments done early enough that it would inform instruction.

[01:55:03] But even if it was just a couple weeks before, I had some teachers reach out and say, oh, I didn't teach it that way. and so then I'd say okay well let's take a look at it and here's why we're asking it in this way we know that the VDOE would ask it this way or it's on a just in time quick check and here is actually a lesson that you can do that will sort of tease out that same sort of understanding so that your students are prepared because we don't want students to feel like they're being tested on material that they haven't been taught I do want to say that in addition to the PLCs analyzing the data through the secondary math, a DPLC in October for the quarter one.

[01:55:43] We basically, I presented them and walked them through a data protocol where we did item analysis. In math, it is kind of unique. Often you can look at the item distractors and decide really what the student's misunderstanding is based on the wrong answer that they chose.

[01:56:00] So we also sort of teased out those questions that really are, do they need more practice with this type of question? And so that's something that can inform review for future assessments. And then we know that the grade-level PLCs are looking at this data. We are also meeting on Monday and Tuesday, and this goes for elementary and secondary with the Department of Strategic Planning and the core leads to look with the principals at this data and so to provide them with some targeted resources based on overall trends that we see.

[01:56:32] So it's an exciting time, and I think it's been a valuable use of our time. Thank you all, and we'll turn it over to you for questions or further discussion.

[01:56:49] Also, I just want to invite our student rep, if you have any questions at any time, just please feel free to jump on it. Any questions and comments from the board? I do. With the instructional coaching method, a few questions on that.

[01:57:09] Could I get some clarification? Because I know that looking back through the Bellwether report, some of the concerns that teachers raised were that the coaches weren't available when they needed them because they're spread out around other schools or multiple schools.

[01:57:27] And that seems to still be the will be the case in in your proposal. So I wanted some clarification on that. And then also just, you know, how do you handle a teacher who is a veteran, who doesn't feel like they need coaching in their area, or does not want to be coached by someone that's not in their expertise?

[01:57:53] Like, let's say an instructional coach that taught English that's, you know, coming in to coach a veteran science teacher. I was wondering if you could give some clarification on those two. So I'll speak to that portion, and then I'll give the second portion to Ms. Wood. But one of the things that we are excited about with this process is really being more collaborative with the principal and making sure that this is not punitive, that this is a more robust network of support that we can go through with teachers to say, here's, you know, where we may see some opportunities either for growth or just innovation, sharing new strategies.

[01:58:27] And it's really a partnership to say, we're going to come in and work with you and see where we can help support you, find some resources. But we also want to loop in our lead coaches at that time because they are, you know, considered more experienced and they're really looking, doing deep dives into the curriculum.

[01:58:44] And so they could come in as well as veterans to sit with that teacher. It definitely will take some conversation, some communication, which is why we started this process very early so that teachers, principals, instructional coaches knew that this is going to be a shift and that it's not a get you, got you.

[01:59:02] It's really to help grow our teachers and also close the gaps, achievement gaps for our students. And so that's where we want to keep the focus. And I guess piggybacking on that a little bit, in the older model, the teachers had to ask for the instructional coaches to come into their classroom to help.

[01:59:20] Is that still the way that it's going to work, where the teachers have to initiate the coaching, or is this going to be more coming from the principal and lead coaches and saying, hey, we've noticed that this teacher could use a little bit of extra support? It could be either way. The teacher can request the support or if during walkthroughs, formal observations, the principal or an administrator notices that this teacher can need some additional support, they can work with the instructional coach or lead coach to have that conversation so that when the coach pops into the classroom, it's not a surprise.

[01:59:53] So it could go either way. Okay, thank you. In terms of organizational structure, right now we're staffed for 25 instructional coaches. and we currently only have 22 so depending on how the staffing ends up for this year we can't put one in every building just based on our staffing additionally we've gotten feedback that from coaches and even from teachers that that they benefit from teachers from coaches being in different buildings because they say I saw this happen in this building let me come over and show you how this is working here so there is that network of support our goal would be to reduce

[02:00:32] the number of buildings that people are serving but to still have a little bit of that network support so that we can build collective efficacy throughout the division yeah that sounds great um I guess then that leads into a budget question which is where we all come in are these um 25 FTEs those are um what were budgeted for this current school year and are we maintaining that um for the budget for next year or are we requesting additional FTEs for this new coaching model So initially when we started the process, we were going to request additional FTEs based on the research and the size of our division.

[02:01:11] We determined that 35 would be the number. However, with the current budget, we're going to stay with 25 and work to rearrange the FTEs to serve different purposes. So we would pull FTEs out of the current 25 to serve as novice coaches, so we would not be adding any more.

[02:01:31] So we're just going to rework what we have currently. Okay, thank you. I have a question on the instructional coaches too. I think, I know we still have contact with the facilitators at Bellwether. So has there been any collaboration between them and us in planning this new program?

[02:01:53] Actually, yes. I meet with them. I think Dr. Haas does as well. but I meet with them. We started a month ago, once a month, to talk about the Bellwether initiatives so they can provide some ongoing coaching to me to take back to my team to make sure we are meeting the marks and responding to the feedback that they received when they did the audit. Okay, thanks. So also on instructional coaching, Dr. Hayes, there was a program that we did before we started the instructional coaching model that came out of Santa Clara, and I know it worked really well.

[02:02:32] It was a small program. We didn't have a lot of turnover back in those days, so we'd get away with it. Just something for you to know about, just in case it's still out there and maybe helpful. Do you think you would figure out how many novice instructional coaches you have when the time comes in terms of staffing, I mean, in terms of what we get in terms of novice teachers?

[02:02:58] Do you guys already have a split in mind? We do have an idea of where we would like to go. However, of course, we won't know exactly how many novice teachers we will have. But for the current budget season, we're going to work what we have, our 25 FTEs, to serve.

[02:03:18] So we can move anywhere from two to five instructional coaches from the model to move over to novice teacher support. Okay. And then I wonder if maybe this is just not in the plan, but at the middle school level, we have kids who are still reading at way below grade level, and you could make the same argument in math as well.

[02:03:46] that's more complicated um and i just wonder if we have any plans to have some of these instructional coaches have getting some necessary training so that they can help in that process of of getting those kids caught up at the middle school level yes so one of the things that we did um just to get an idea of uh you know who our coaches are we went and looked at their licensure to see their areas of expertise so that we can think about that as we're placing them in the fall but also as we're talking about the letters training looking at different instructional strategies

[02:04:24] we want to make sure that during those teacher work weeks or that over the summer that our instructional coaches go through some professional learning to be able to operate in this new model to be able to help more teachers but also to help close the gaps in those areas of literacy and math I know our DIBELS data shows a journey to have a lot of students who require intervention, and we have people who are doing that and doing that well.

[02:04:51] Henley has a much smaller percentage of students who require intervention, and I don't think there's a dedicated specialist there. Is that right? Each school received a reading specialist, But some schools have decided with their tiered staffing to use FTE for math or other supports.

[02:05:14] I remember that. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. So that concerns me a little bit. I want to make sure that we stay on top of that. Kids, they still need to read. When I took my daughter to college and I had to go to the bookstore and buy a stack of books that high, I thought, oh, my, uh-oh, I better start teaching my own students to read because they're still asking them to read in college.

[02:05:37] It's something we've got to do. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. I did have one more question on instructional coaching, but I didn't. No? Okay. I saw the email go out on Division Compass yesterday about the hiring of instructional coaches based on the concerns of our staff from the Bellwether report about the instructional coaching model.

[02:05:59] Have all of these changes and improvements been conveyed to the staff so that, you know, as we're asking for people to apply for these positions, they're aware that it's not the old model that we're using and it has been much improved? So we have had some discussions with staff as we were getting data from them to say what it is that you like about the program, what you don't like.

[02:06:25] We have not given a final update because this is a work in progress, especially with the budget season, but that is something that we are planning to do as we continue to come back to board sessions, as we have principal meetings and going out to the schools to share with teachers, here's the shift and here's how it's going to impact your classrooms, your students in a different way.

[02:06:47] But we're going to do it as we continue to work through the changes. Yeah, I think that might help in encouraging staff to apply for it if they see all the work that's been done and they're not just assuming that we are continuing to implement something that they weren't happy with. That might really help encourage them to want to apply.

[02:07:06] I had a question on ELA adoption, but I didn't want to jump ahead if anybody else had questions on instructional coaching. Just a quick, two quick things on instructional coaches. I'm just following up on Ms. Spilman's comment. I definitely would take a look at those job descriptions. I'm sure you are.

[02:07:22] I felt like the changes that you're thinking about don't come up, don't come, don't rise to what they need to in those job descriptions. And so there are some key words like data and curriculum and reflective practice that I think really need to be highlighted more to kind of to show that.

[02:07:40] And then the other thing is just as you're thinking about the instructional coach model, I challenge you to think about, like, what are some metrics that we could put in place for those coaches, you know, around teacher contact time or, you know, numbers of cycles that they're doing with teachers?

[02:08:03] Because I think this board really is kind of pushing on that. Like, what are the metrics and how do we know things are working and how do we know what we can be doing kind of going forward? One of the resources that we've been using as we're looking at this model is Jim Knight has written a book on evaluating instructional coaching models.

[02:08:23] And one of the things he does recommend is exactly what you're talking about, is looking at, I've partnered with, you know, this teacher. The impact cycle was, you know, our goal for the impact cycle was this. This is the strategy that we used. this was the result, so that we can really talk about how is the work that you're doing hitting the kid's desk.

[02:08:38] I mean, that's the big shift, right, is that the work that the coaches are doing is really student-focused, and not that the work that we were doing before was not good work. It just wasn't as targeted on the instructional practice and what's hitting the kid's desk. So his book is wonderful, and it's got a lot of great resources on how to align that, and we have a coaching performance appraisal that we will be evaluating a little bit further down the road to make sure that it matches those program goals.

[02:09:06] One of the things I probably should have said in the presentation was it was just really clear before we start making some of these structural decisions and these practices to really define the role and set purpose so that when we decide on these structures that they match our intended outcomes. So when we posted the job, there was a video that went out that talked about the shift in roles as well.

[02:09:27] So that's kind of phase one, and then we'll come back and talk about what the actual practices and procedures look like now that we have some guiding principles. Thank you. Just a question. I don't know if we're Megan or Dr. Hayes. It's my understanding that the instructional coaches are teachers and they become coaches and they may go back to the classroom.

[02:09:49] Are you engaging the alumni as part of this process as well? So I'll share. This literally just happened this morning. I was out in Lakeside visiting classrooms, and one of the teachers that I visited, She let me know that she was an instructional coach previously and she had just cycled back into the classroom.

[02:10:10] And I said, tell me a little bit about that. How has being an instructional coach impact your teaching? And she said, oh my goodness, the instructional coaching model was like a master's degree on steroids. I feel so much more prepared, more confident and competent as a teacher to share different instructional strategies that I was able to see as I moved through different buildings in the division and take from, at that time, it was teachers who are now my colleagues to bring back to my students.

[02:10:38] And so I thought that was amazing. That was just one story today. But I'm also asking proactively as we go forward and implement the new model. Yeah, in the advertisement that went out on the compass, it said, if you've been a former instructional coach, please feel free to reapply.

[02:10:55] Especially, I believe, even the job description for the novice instructional coach says previous instructional coaching preferred. And I know during the presentation about instructional coaching from however many months ago with Craig, you talked about shifting between only internal candidates to whether or not there would be external and internal.

[02:11:18] And I'm sorry I've missed this and it's been in an email, but is that still shifted or is that? Yeah, we're opening it up to external candidates. One of the reasons why we have only 22 this year as opposed to our fully staffed is because we find out late in May or June that an instructional coach has moved on to become potentially a lead coach.

[02:11:38] And then we don't want to pull a teacher out of the building and put pressure on a principal in June to fill that position. and so one of the things by opening it up to external candidates is if we find ourselves in that position next year we will have the opportunity to pull in some somebody to actually have full staffing great thank you I had a question about the ELA and generally around PD and adoption of that I'm just curious like we often hear that we want to do things to fidelity but I'm not sure how we measure that and I was just wondering if you have a sense of what success what that looks like and how you measure that one of the things that Karen and I have done is

[02:12:18] we've reached out to HMH to talk about what type of professional learning they offer and we're going to kind of go after a two-pronged approach one they they provide access to a program called Coach Lee that will allow one person in the building to have access 24 like 24 7 to them to to reach out and say hey this doesn't seem to be going well and kind of have a built-in coach so We're hoping that the reading specialists or one of the people that's getting trained in letters this year will take on that role.

[02:12:50] We're anticipating calling them HMH champions. The other component to that is that they do offer walkthroughs. And so that will be the way that we're hoping to measure whether we're implementing. And I think the plan is to have them come in in October and then in January and then in April.

[02:13:09] Wonderful. Thank you. But I think, just to add to that, to make sure that we, as they're doing the walkthroughs, they're actually taking reading specialists and instructional coaches with them on those walkthroughs so that those experts can go back and actually implement what they're seeing on the HMH walkthroughs and hearing the feedback and making sure that other teachers are hearing the same thing.

[02:13:30] Great. Thank you. I have a question on something that wasn't included, and I wanted to know maybe why. I heard about the assessment and the instructional materials for both math and English, but no sciences. So what's the status of the science program in all of this?

[02:13:48] I knew that. We adopted science materials last year, I believe, and that was before my time, to be implemented this year. So we are currently working with Ms. Katina Dudley is our lead coach for science.

[02:14:04] And so she is working with principals and teachers to implement those materials this year. So we did adopt those. And I think some of the stuff like AP is happening right now. Yes, and so those five pawns is our science resource.

[02:14:21] And so what I've asked her to do is work with our AP and some of our higher level high school courses to determine what is our plan for adoption, for curriculum adoption for those programs for the next three years. So we'll know, you know, where we're going and so we can be on a cycle for our budget as well as to make sure all of our programs are staying up to date.

[02:14:42] Okay, thanks. Dr. Hayes, it's always risky just asking a question that shows my ignorance, but I think I know this. But across all the content areas, the pacing guide work was done this summer. In every content area now during the course of this year, we've had first quarter common assessments.

[02:15:01] So it does cover everything. You were just emphasizing the reading and the math tonight, but I do want to assure the board that all the discussion around common assessments, the analysis of the data with Illuminate, all that is going on among all the content areas.

[02:15:19] And we're also making updates and creating curriculum for our CTE courses as well. I have a question related to the ELA adoption, and it has to do with training. When we were looking at the various ELA programs, obviously the one we picked was very highly rated, but in doing research online, one of the biggest criticisms I saw from teachers was that the number of resources available to each teacher is extremely high, upwards

[02:15:53] of 5,000 teaching resources per grade level, which can be incredibly overwhelming to a teacher if they don't feel like they are well-trained on that or they're feeling like they have to go out and find materials to align with their lessons. And so I'm wondering what the plan is for combating that so that teachers don't feel overwhelmed and don't have a tendency to go back to what they were doing before.

[02:16:18] And I'm asking that again. From a budgeting standpoint, I want to make sure that we are getting the best use of our funds and our money and that this new reading program, we're not in a situation we were in last year where we were like, this program's not working. So I would love some more insight on that.

[02:16:37] That's something that I've actually been talking to our HMH rep about specifically in terms of the length of an ELA block, standardizing that around the division, and then for each grade level being very explicit about what that block looks like and how it's broken up into different components and where the right...

[02:16:56] There's a lot of integration with the writing and the reading pieces and the structured literacy. So there are parts that are absolutely non-negotiable, And we're going to make sure that those are universal across the division before this year is over. I think that's what I'm hearing from teachers is they want a very clear picture of what their ELA blocks are going to look like before they leave for the summer.

[02:17:16] Yeah. So we want to make sure that we have that for them. And then I'm assuming there'll be follow-up and making sure that the teachers are actually using those blocks and using the materials that they're being kind of suggested to use. Right. And that's what we're hoping the walkthroughs get to and the HMH champions that we want to make sure exist in each school and the learning walks with the coaches.

[02:17:39] So we'll have teams looking for that. Wonderful. Thank you. I was going to ask the same exact question. And I did notice when I was looking at it that the K box is a lot lighter than the four or five boxes. I think five had like 7,500.

[02:17:55] I assume that that's going to be true The number of resources that are available will be heavier at the upper elementary than it will be at the lower elementary. So that's a big deal, making sure our teachers know what to tap into, at least what their go-tos are early, and then from there.

[02:18:13] He truly did come by the office today and was picking up boxes and carrying them into the Ravana conference room to go through them. So I can vouch for Chuck. But I wanted to just follow up. I'm just curious from, like, your perspective, Karen, like, that's a lot of resources, right?

[02:18:31] So how does that come about? Like, how does it come about, like, just for an understanding? So you're, like, a third-grade teacher, and you're developing your block, and you've got several, maybe several resources to work with the students, and several of them are redundant.

[02:18:58] I don't know, like, is that a good thing, or is that too much decision-making, or what do you think about that? Personally, I think for it to be successful long-term, we need to universally implement it the same way. Initially, while everyone's learning the program and understanding the strengths and what that program can offer the specific group of students that they are teaching that year or any given year.

[02:19:24] But I have been in contact with, I mean, I went over, been talking with the city a little bit because they've implemented this program. So just in terms of what's working, what's not working there. Also, the standards, English standards are changing to align more with science-based reading research.

[02:19:39] And so we'll definitely be focusing on that pieces of HMH that align with what we needed to align. So your goal will be, as this is implemented, what I'm just sort of hearing is that the goal of the department is to try to start tight so that people can build the muscles to do the work.

[02:19:57] And then through the professional learning communities, as the teachers are looking at their data and they're also having conversations about what's working with their students, then they'll start to vary a little bit. But with the variety of materials, then they have some room to stretch and try different things.

[02:20:18] Right, and that's part of what that Coachly license is for is so they can actually take that data to the coachly person. That's an HMH person who's accessible live, I think, 18 hours a day, even after school, and they can say, here's what I'm seeing, here's what my kids are doing, here's what I'm thinking is missing, and talk.

[02:20:37] I think ultimately the other part that really helps with fidelity is when teachers do see the success, they see the students being successful and enjoying participating and reading, and the students can see that. Because that's one of the things when I talk to principals and teachers, they get excited about UFLY because when they're doing, not just when they do the informal assessments in the class, going through the exercises, the students are excited because they are sounding the words and they're being successful.

[02:21:05] And then the teachers get excited about that because they can see the result of their work. And that really helps move toward fidelity. and when when you're trying something new or just trying something and you don't on the when you don't start to see some kind of shift you start to question it you start going back to the resources you knew before it's just human nature to do that so i i just have to say when um i i do hear a lot about the work that y'all are doing but every time you come to the board or you're in the leadership

[02:21:40] team meetings. I'm just so impressed with so much that you've moved in just the last six months to get this done. It boggles my mind how you've accomplished it. And you could have only done it by being collaborative with all the teachers to bring in their ideas and work with them because you can't do it alone. It's all teachers. It's all teachers. It's amazing what you all have done.

[02:22:05] Well, I agree with Dr. Haas. I have two, I think almost every question that could be asked has been ask but i do have two one reading and one the math um the march 5th dplc the training on literacy where is that going to be held and can anybody stand in the back of the room and listen for a while um we're actually going to have it at the double tree um because march 5th is a polling day and so to find a space big enough for us to have all pre-k through two teachers in one space and three five in one space and not get in the way of the election we're going to move it to the

[02:22:41] Doubletree. I wanted to share, too, that the superintendents across the state have to do five full days of literacy leadership training through the Virginia Department of Education. So our first one will be at Center One. We're hosting the first one for the region. So it'll be an all-day training. We have Dr. Hayes and several of these staff right here are going to be attending that as well. That's part of the state vision for improving literacy is that, you know, as superintendents,

[02:23:17] as central office staff, that you understand the science of reading and understand how kids learn how to read and become more proficient so that you can be a leader in that work. So I would love to have information about where we might be welcome or not. And the other question was, I'm like you, I'm disappointed that the state is sort of slow in upgrading its math materials.

[02:23:40] Do we have any plans? How do we deal with supporting our students in math over the summer? I mean, are we doing anything in anticipation of better materials or what? How are we preparing a curriculum for the fall without?

[02:23:57] No, how are we actually teaching kids in the summer school to get them up to speed for what they have? I mean, I know it's not quite what we're talking about. Probably not at all, but. Right, math is a part of the elementary summer school program every year.

[02:24:13] This is my first year in the lead coach role, so I will ask Jay if he wants to chime in on summer school for secondary. But we have, and some of this work came out of one of the team members that has gone to the UVA PLE opportunity that we went to in the fall.

[02:24:30] She and I have actually sat down and started to map out if we what it would look like to offer specifically math programs because now some schools have sort of a bridge program for students for math and others do not offer that but could we as a division create something and offer that it is on the bellwether timeline actually for summer 2025 but if we can get everything up and running in time I would I would definitely strongly recommend that we do it this summer because I think we don't want to waste the time.

[02:25:05] We have students who need it now. Thank you. I'm curious about the use of math intervention and math specialists as a means for the pathway to algebra. How are we using math specialists and math interventionists at all?

[02:25:22] I guess this is more the new school board member trying to learn all the things, but I'm curious as to that and how that might help us with kids who like may be catching them early on because once those things click, then it kind of, you know, steamrolls, especially for math.

[02:25:39] Absolutely. Success breeds success, right? So I think Dr. Hayes mentioned earlier the tiered staffing. So different schools have put together components of bits of money, and this is definitely not my area of expertise, as you can tell.

[02:25:56] So, for example, Henley has a part-time interventionist that is also a part-time counselor. But it looks different at Walton, where they have someone who does some intervention work through a core plus and then is also a regular math eight classroom teacher.

[02:26:14] When you go to Lakeside, it looks a little bit different there. So we have someone who teaches and also does intervention. So in an ideal world, if we had the budgetary funds, I am all in on having math specialists supporting our students.

[02:26:31] So but again, we will work with what we can. And one of the things that we did push for in the instructional coach job description was that we would prefer a math specialist endorsement and a reading specialist endorsement because we do know that these are high need areas.

[02:26:48] Yeah. And speaking of Henley, I mean, I know Miss Rocket is, you know, splits her time as much as she can, but I know the need for math intervention at Henley is bigger than what she can even handle in her part-time besides being an amazing school counselor. So I know that that, you know, is definitely a need that we have. And again, I don't mean to like harp on it, but going back to a needs-based budget, where are our needs and how do we fit those needs into our budget to make sure that we're you know meeting our strategic plan so yeah i do want to say i'm really excited about zern the program that the state is providing for us i mean it is taking

[02:27:27] a minute to get everyone rostered and and to find out when those students will access that platform but it is a it's a powerful platform it's very engaging for the students and it will be paid for through the next school year so we do have that it's just a matter of getting things up and running But that's going to provide support that we haven't had in the past for intervention.

[02:27:48] Great. Thank you. Do we have a formative assessment tool for math, like we have some in reading? The VDOE does provide us with very discrete algebra readiness assessments that we can utilize.

[02:28:04] So, you know, we could really break it down. Like, this is what we're going to be working on first nine weeks. Let's go ahead and do this mini assessment. We've looked at, as part of the Bellwether recommendations, they recommended at a screener, that we develop a screener at the end of Math 8 for students going into Algebra 1, so we kind of get a head start on knowing.

[02:28:23] The thing with that is, though, that we also have a lot of other data, and so I don't want to just test students because it's sort of saying that we did. We do have their growth assessment data. That is something that is a powerful descriptor of where they're at.

[02:28:41] We'll have quarter three assessments that will really kind of come right at the end of the year and tell us what they've learned for 75% of the year and how they are doing in relation to that and, of course, their SOL tests. So what I don't want to let too many cats out of the back tonight, but what I would really like to propose is then that we give something that is just a very short kind of to plan for the start of the next school year, right, so that we kind of hit the ground running and then reassess frequently those smaller assessments so that we're really kind of keeping up with the targeted skills that they need to be successful.

[02:29:16] And I suppose the end of quarter assessments could be informative as well. I just, I don't know if we have a plan to go back and reteach to those students who need it. Right. I mean, that may be something that you guys are already doing. Well, that's why I'm smiling. Yes, because, so it's not just teaching, reteaching to the students as a group.

[02:29:36] We definitely don't want to just say, well, your score fell in this range, so now come over here and I'm going to reteach you. Some of the work that we've designed and shared with some teachers already and we'll be sharing with the principals, the elementary principals on Monday, is how do we move the learning forward and really catch those students in a way that's engaging and conceptual and takes 10 minutes of a block.

[02:30:01] So we're really pulling those resources together because they already exist. A lot of those are part of the Bridging for Math Strength that was done with George Mason University and the Virginia Department of Education. So just making sure that teachers know where to find those quickly and can easily implement them.

[02:30:21] Okay. Two quick ELA questions, I think. One, do you talk briefly just about training for principals and assistants in kind of the new H&H curriculum? Sorry, assistant principals and assistants.

[02:30:42] The assistants, let's start with the principals and the assistant principals. We're currently in the process of working with letters to get the principals' letters trained before the start of school year next year. And the exciting thing about the letters training for principals is about how to develop literacy plans for your school.

[02:31:03] So it's not specifically about letters volume one through four. So that's in the works. And so we'll be able to get 25 principals and assistant principals trained before the school year starts next year. So that's happening for them. In addition to that, on the day that HMH comes to do the grade level meetings in the afternoon, because we're gonna have so many representatives, they're gonna meet specifically with EL teachers, they're gonna meet with SPED teachers, they're gonna meet with principals, and they're gonna talk about like, what does implementation look like in your building?

[02:31:32] What are the walk through, when you're doing walks, what should you be looking for? And then also, which we forgot to mention with the HMH PD is instructional coaches and reading specialists are going to get also special training on how to support implementation from those roles. And that will happen on the April date.

[02:31:52] And then also it will happen on August, the Friday before pre-service week. With the assistant, like the classroom assistants, because their work schedule is so different, that is the one piece that we're still trying to figure out i just encourage you to continue since we know so many of those do one-on-one um and i do i mean i think just kind of blending the ela and the instructional coaches i think it's so important i mean we know we have lots of needs but literacy is such a need i think making sure as we're thinking about instructional coaches that there is a huge literacy if we don't call them out as literacy coaches at least making sure there's a huge

[02:32:31] component yeah and each of the instructional coaches will also get a coachly license so each of the buildings will have one so there'll be a building representative that has a coach lee license but there'll also be an instructional every elementary instructional coach will have access to coach lee as well so they'll be able to support that and then one came from a question came from a teacher um and i think i should share with everyone but i shared with you guys like had talked to a third grade team from coset and we're just so excited like i've never i said to them i've never seen teachers literally excited about an adoption before and like already looking at facebook groups and like learning about friends who work in charlottesville so i mean i think just

[02:33:09] again uh hands hands up hands down big round of applause for you guys but one of the questions they had i couldn't answer was they asked and this might be a budget question so they asked how many in our contract how many years of consumables we purchased seven and um so what we'll do is base it on the order that happens for next year we'll have that that many if it's 1,000 student workbooks if that number stays the same for seven years so we just you know if our enrollment goes up we may have to buy the difference but that's all um up front and everything even if

[02:33:48] we have to pay the difference it's held at the prices that we're paying now that's awesome i know teachers will appreciate that because that was their it was a huge question i i get lots yes so thank you so much thank you all so much for your work one thing that i really appreciate it a shift in that i've noticed since i've been on the board for four years is just in the past year we're seeing a lot more about outputs like we talked a lot about inputs before that and now we're hearing a lot more about output so i really appreciate that especially in tonight's conversation so thank you very much thank you thank you all right next we have school board work session planning

[02:34:26] Ms. Schmidt, you've taken Jackson Zimmerman's place.

[02:34:53] I treated him well. A soothing voice as well. All right, good evening. I'm Rosalind Schmidt, Chief Operating Officer, and I am partnering with Dr. Berlin to plan the school board work sessions for the 2024 calendar year. So to help us with that work, we would like your input on the purpose of work sessions and hear your ideas for topics.

[02:35:17] Grounding our work in the strategic plan, Work sessions are an opportunity for the board to have an in-depth engagement in multiple aspects of the strategic plan. So the purpose to date of work sessions, little history, they were established in 2006.

[02:35:32] The school board implemented at the time to use them to gain greater understanding of critical issues facing the division and to provide staff with direction and support of the division strategic plan. As we all know, since then, the first meeting is typically a business meeting and then the second meeting of the month has been a work session.

[02:35:49] So when we open us up for discussion, we would like some feedback. Does that still feel like the right purpose? Looking forward, these are the remaining work sessions scheduled for 2024. The next three are slated to support the FY25 funding request development.

[02:36:07] And then the remaining five topics have not been identified yet. So we have a work session in March, April, May, September, and October. And so that's where we would like some feedback on topics for those five work sessions. Just for some history, in the last three years, here are the work sessions the board has engaged with.

[02:36:31] In 2021, well, all the years, obviously, budget's a big portion of it. But in 2021, we talked about learning recovery, science of reading, the school size work session, high school centers and compensation. In 2022, we did a deeper dive in the HR annual report that you heard tonight, mid-year data.

[02:36:50] CIP is often a common work session topic. It was the first year we did Gallup. SEL supports, did a deep dive in year-end and school improvements with Dr. McLaughlin and another CIP work session. And then last year, again, budget, tiered service, PD, English learners, and bellwether.

[02:37:09] So with that history, we will now open it up for discussion. So what does this current board feel that the purpose of your work sessions will be, and what do you hope to accomplish with them? And then the second part of that, are there any topics that are must-dos in your mind for the five remaining ones of this year?

[02:37:27] I would just like to add one thing. Except for last year, we have always also had a retreat, which has served as a working session in June or July. We did not have one last year, and that may be fine, But that was another chunk of time that we have tried to use effectively as a work session.

[02:37:55] And it's TBD whether we do it this year. So one of my questions has always been, as someone who didn't get a ton of orientation when she joined the board, what the difference between the work sessions and the business meetings is or what differences are.

[02:38:14] So I think that would help guide our discussion on what our purpose for work sessions is. I'll give my personal perspective, just watching board meetings. Business meetings tend to be more informational or requesting an action.

[02:38:32] It's a more kind of, I think, a transactional. Work sessions end up being much more in-depth. If you take a topic and go deeper, often involves, I think, the more successful ones have brought in outside expertise in it. And then I've heard, we haven't done it recently, that a work session should produce a product or something like that.

[02:38:50] But that hasn't been of recent history. So that's my personal kind of observation of it, but that's not a hard and fast. I think one of the things that has happened just in my tenure is that more and more business also gets transacted during the work sessions.

[02:39:09] And I don't think we've ever had some outside speakers. It's mostly been in-house, you know, how do we work and how do we operate, some more effective than others. So if we expect a product out of a work session is deeper knowledge and acceptable, deeper understanding and acceptable product for us.

[02:39:35] I mean, I think it is for me, especially. Or do you want something more than that, some action item? Yeah, I mean, I'm looking to dig deeper into how things are working, why we are going in one direction versus the other as it relates to policy and budget and things like that.

[02:39:54] So that we're making the best informed decisions because, you know, even a lot of times coming up here and getting these wonderful 10-minute presentations, we're making very big decisions that affect thousands of students and teachers and staff. So for me, it's much more about digging deeper into the how and why of how our school system works.

[02:40:16] and I have two suggestions that I've been thinking a lot about and both of them were actually touched on this evening but the biggest one for me is and I'm I'm pretty sure that all of my colleagues share in this is that we keep hearing from constituents and teachers about this need for reading specialists reading interventionists that the need is so high it's so high. So I really would love to see more of the data on that. You guys mentioned Dibbles tonight. I want to see the data on that, the screening data for actually fourth through ninth

[02:40:56] grade. My understanding is that every sixth through ninth grader has been screened and some fourth and fifth graders. So I would love to see both the beginning of the year data and the mid year data to see how we're doing and then for those kids that are not reading at grade level benchmarks how are we being how are we servicing them specifically what's our plan for using that data to inform decision about who gets intervention how long they get intervention how they graduate from intervention because that affects how we're changing staffing and scheduling and resources

[02:41:34] as a board. And I think that as we continue to hear about this need in our schools, I want to make sure that we're making an informed decision. So that's my first one. I don't know if anyone has anything to add on interventionists and specialists specifically. I totally agree. And I think that data is out there. I've actually, Mary showed it to me. Yeah. I mean, I think for all of us to be, you know, see that data and then how we're using that data will help us inform a lot

[02:42:07] of decisions going forward. And then the other one that I had was in regards to SPED. I think that, you know, again, we were talking about these provisionally licensed teachers, and I'm really curious as to how that's actually going. Again, that's going to inform a lot of our decisions from a budgeting standpoint and again scheduling staffing resources all of those things like how's it going how are these people being supervised what sort of training is being held and then how

[02:42:41] is that going forward and you know I heard a disturbing I don't know much what you would call it from the trainings and professional development from two weeks ago where there was a sped professional development that lasted 17 minutes. Now, our kids, our SPED kids are out of school and missing instructional time for a 17-minute professional development when we have all of these provisional teachers that have a lot of learning to happen, including how to write an

[02:43:14] IEP, how to attend an IEP meeting or a 504 meeting curriculum and instruction. So my concern is from a budgeting standpoint, we're paying these people full-time positions. I want to make sure that we're utilizing full-time, that they're getting the maximum amount out of that and that our students are being served especially well. Again, our most vulnerable students. And we're talking about 1,200 students in ACPS roughly that have a 504 or an IEP. And that's not even all the

[02:43:47] students that actually need to be serviced with special education. And then finally with SPED, how SPED and EL and intervention are all working together, because to me, they're all completely intertwined. And I think that, again, will dictate a lot of decisions on budgeting and staffing and things like that. Those are the two I had made notes about. I think that first one that you're

[02:44:21] talking about, and we definitely do want to see that, is similar to what Patrick wraps up in the mid-year data review it sounds like there's a lot of overlap there so I'm not sure why we didn't do one last year but it seems like that's we usually don't we do one usually we had a mid-year data review yes we've had mid-year data reviews the where we've seen a shift is from a work session where we were really digging into a product with them to a report on them and so we currently have a plan for the first for the business meeting in march to review our mid-year data but didn't

[02:45:00] have that planned out as a work session yeah i mean i definitely feel like one of the things kind of on those work sessions is it like the more we can be digging into like to i like how you said like a business meeting is transactional right like a work session is deep knowledge and so So if we are going to be focused on outputs instead of inputs, getting us focused on bringing data to us and talking us through how you look at that data but also giving us the opportunity to look at it, analyze it,

[02:45:36] and generate some ideas out of it. So I think that's an important piece. So Roslyn, do you want us to make suggestions for things that besides like I guess mid-year data review might be one thing we wouldn't want to do during a work session perhaps I don't know and perhaps in doing so we talked about this at the retreat but

[02:46:08] maybe maybe we simplify our meeting structure so we don't have public comment we haven't had public comment in the last two months in those particular meetings right they could come to the other medium for that and just simplify it down to the the real meat of the topic at hand i don't know yeah that's certainly a possibility i'm interested in i mean in part because of the changes that have just happened with k-tech and with our career learning communities i really

[02:46:47] would like a deeper dive and then also with our work study appreciate not apprenticeships that whole group of students and how we can perhaps move into a more transformational vision of CTE integrated into our school division. I think there's some outside speakers we could get. We have some good people here. I don't know what it might look like. I do know that the limited CTE,

[02:47:19] say the EMTs that we have at Western, suddenly that program is tapping a much broader range of students than the students who take it at KTAC. And I'm very interested in looking at how CTE can be integrated, and it's not like the academic track and the CTE track. How can we do that? I mean, I know one way we can do it, we can build more classrooms and hire more teachers and that.

[02:47:47] but we're spending money on that anyway so how can we bring what can we bring in and what might we how might we think more creatively about CTE yeah I second that I think that's definitely important and removing the stigma around alternative paths of education I think is really important and we're also you know moving away from our established centers to go down these career pathway, these models.

[02:48:19] So the more the board knows about it, I think the better for sure. And I'd be interested in finding out more about how our English as a second language program works, what type of instruction would be used, what materials are being used. There's more details on that program.

[02:48:37] So we did have a work session on that last year, but I also, I recall some of that being very helpful for me to understand but then some of it being really I don't know if esoteric is quite the word but it was the data that we got was a little bit beyond what made sense for me as a person making budgetary decisions um so um I think sometimes when we ask departments to come here who have not come here in the past then it's hard to know exactly how we're going to take

[02:49:13] information and synthesize it um so that might be something helpful to talk with people about I don't know if this rises to a work session, but I think with the exception of Graham and I, with the exception of us, none of our colleagues was here when we were talking about the center model and why we chose the center model and what opportunities there are in that.

[02:49:45] I mean, we have a wonderful report from December 2017, and, you know, we've made decisions about both educational structure and capital requests based on that, and maybe we need to dust it off and refresh it and even have Fielding Nair or somebody come and talk about it because they had some extraordinarily exciting models of that all over the world.

[02:50:15] And we have, I think, as a school division, and I count myself in there, failed to sell it to even the Board of Supervisors. They don't understand that we made a choice not to build a $140 million new high school and instead invest in the center model, which contemplates a series of centers around the county.

[02:50:41] And I think just a refresher on that could be useful. I was going to ask for the same thing. And then on top of that, you know, I see secondary education is going to change. And if we're on the front edge of that change, that's going to be better for Albemarle County and our kids if we're not.

[02:51:03] So I don't know if this rises to the level of a work session either, but assuming that collective bargaining continues to progress, that will change the way some of our operations and some things that we can't stick our nose into, it will be a new way of being in relationship.

[02:51:26] And I'm not sure that that's been fully explored or explained, but I know that Dan, I think Dan's got certified in that or something, but in labor relations or? But there are also other people that could explain more about how that is going to affect us i think certainly the timing on that would be and the timing would be uh critical about you know assuming things progressed and then you know before

[02:52:01] whatever stage that happened in and we would probably also benefit from having aeea reps involved in that planning i don't know so we have five openings right and the intent is you don't I don't think we want to finalize those five.

[02:52:19] I think we want to get your input. Rebecca and I will converse, put a draft plan together, ultimately bring it to Ms. Lee and Ms. Acuff and pre-agenda conversations. The other lens to this is some of this will be touched upon in the budget work session.

[02:52:35] So for instance, English learners, particularly with a budget lens, we're already planning on building that out. So once those get finalized, I think that'll inform future ones too. When I was thinking about this question, I thought of three things that, again, I don't know if they rise to work session.

[02:52:53] I guess that's like, I think Debbie told me it was like two hours, and then the other thing is less than two hours. We hear a lot about transpo, and, I mean, like, we know a lot of facts about it, but I think that there's a whole holistic thing about it that I just don't know.

[02:53:11] You know, I think I... I don't even know what you just said. Oh, about transportation? Okay, okay. Oh, sorry. It's late. It is very late, and I'm going to gavel in about ten minutes. so uh translation another thing we hear a lot about is absenteeism so again we're getting a lot about this um but i don't know what exactly this looks like what it's looks like for us in the past and what we're doing about it which i know we are doing things about it but i just don't know what and then the other thing when i met with students at monticello um i heard a lot about tracking and i know that that is a thing that we're really trying to work on but i don't know what it looks

[02:53:49] like for our division um and obviously this was part of bellwether too um the students i talked to felt unfairly tracked by counselors um when we talk about counselors we almost always talk about mental health and not this instructional part of it so um i'm just i would love to know more about tracking because i think that's such a big part of our issue with um opportunity gaps and i I think that it involves a lot of different parts of the division.

[02:54:25] Okay, and just one more thing about that English as a second language. I understand that maybe it wouldn't have as much budget implications as some other things, but I was just thinking about since our county is becoming more diverse, we'll probably be getting in more students that might be coming in from some countries, that this program would be pretty important.

[02:54:44] So I was thinking that it's not only budgetarily important, but it's also just knowledge-wise important to us. A couple things just on the top of my head is I don't feel like we talk a lot about middle school. And maybe you guys, we spent like a couple years ago, but like we've been focused a lot at high school, a lot at elementary school.

[02:55:08] So middle school, I definitely think special education, there was a presentation done at CEG that a lot of it was information to me, new to me, just about kind of how all these A, B, C, B, as well as all the other types of staff work, which I think would just be helpful when you think about the percentage of our budget that goes to special education.

[02:55:31] And then you all know my love of early childhood. So maybe, you know, some of this is we're thinking about this could be this year and also could be kind of the following year as we think about what decisions could be coming. But I do think beginning to think about that pipeline of kids coming into the schools and how we are serving them and who we aren't serving.

[02:55:51] I heard the phrase, I don't know if this raises to level of a work session a lot. So in your words, what would raise to level of a work session? Well, we could also have short work sessions. Or combined, too. Or a smorgasbord and wooded one topic.

[02:56:09] So is it time? I mean, I'm just looking for... Like information-dense time, I guess. It's information density as it goes in time. I mean, one in terms of process, I really don't like the small groups, and we all rotate.

[02:56:25] I really like it when we talk together as a group. We very rarely have the opportunity. No, I hate small groups, and I hate the stickies on a board. I hate those. But they may have their place somewhere, but not next to me.

[02:56:45] But I prefer, you know, having maybe experts talking to us, but I want us to talk about these issues because we're all just sort of aiming our comments out into the world and not necessarily collegially discussing them all the time.

[02:57:02] My experience with the small group is that sometimes you get more honest feedback, especially when we're talking with people involved in something like teachers. If you're at two school board members and three teachers talking about a particular topic, you're more often going to get the real deal than something else.

[02:57:24] But maybe not the switching around. It's the walking around. Maybe we do both. It's too much. The switching around is too much. But if you want to have the two people and the two people, that's great. But to me, it's like when you're here and then, oh, we got to go. It doesn't, to me, it doesn't make for a lot of learning.

[02:57:40] Well, that means we should excise some of the business meeting part of it. We need to allow more time for it. Yeah, yeah. it's almost invariably my experience has been when we've had to move around like musical chairs we don't have enough time to come together or don't move around and do a jigsaw and that means those those tables come out and report what they talked about which works pretty well anyway so do you have enough to go from rebecca and make something out of all that i think we can make it work okay great thank you thank you very much all right we're down to other business does anybody

[02:58:19] we have any other business? I would just like my colleagues to think about, maybe by the next meeting, whether we want to rethink the retreat thing. I mean, we had a short and sweet retreat in January that I thought worked pretty well. And would we rather have a few of those? Of course, I planned it. That's why. I can be debunked. Or whether, you know, historically, we've had like But all day Saturday, you know, some more useful than others, more interesting than others.

[02:58:56] And that's a big commitment. Maybe we don't have one. Maybe we have a couple more of these smaller ones on a topic. I don't know. Either way. Feedback would be useful. Maybe we can discuss that at other business in the next meeting.

[02:59:12] Next time. All right. I just have one thing to say. I just want to wish to everybody celebrating the Lunar New Year. Happy New Year. All right. No other business. We're adjourned.

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