Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County School Board Regular Meeting, Thursday, October 10, 2024

Date: Thursday, October 10, 2024
Place: Albemarle County Public Schools / School Board meeting, Virginia
Length: 3h 03m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFfcZTbF7x8

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 2026-10-13. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] 10th meeting back to order. Do we have a motion? We do, Chair Lee. I move that the board, certified by recorded vote 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. Is there a second? Second. Moved by Dr. Acuff, seconded by Ms.

[00:00:31] Osborne. Christine, could we have a roll call vote please? Ms. Spillman. Yes. Dr. Berlin. Yes. Mr. Chuck Pace. Yes. Ms. Osborne. Yes. Dr. Acuff. Yes. Mr. Graham Page. Yes. And Chair Lee. Yes. So moved. Okay. Next we have our roll call. We'll start with Josiah Black. Good evening everyone. I'm Josiah Black, School Division Council. Matthew Haas, Superintendent. Allison Spillman, At-Large, Representative. Ellen Osborne,

[00:01:08] Scottsville, Representative. Rebecca Berlin, Whitehall, Representative. Judy Lee, Rivanna, District. Kate Acuff, Jack Jewett, District. Graham Page, Miller, District. Chuck Pace, Ryo, District. Cam Rober, Student Representative. Rosalind Schmidt, Chief Operating Officer. Helen Dunn, Public Affairs and Strategic Communications Officer. Christine Thompson, Clerk of the Board.

[00:01:36] Claire Keiser, Assistant Superintendent of Organizational Development. Daphne Keiser, Assistant Superintendent. Officer Sprouse, outmarking it, please. All right, thank you very much. Next, we will have the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:01:55] Pledge of Allegiance to the God, to the United States, and to the Republic, to which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, and let it be justice for all.

[00:02:13] Thank you. Next, we will observe a moment of silence. Thank you. Next, that brings us to 3.0, approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve?

[00:02:46] I move. We approve the agenda. I second the motion. Moved by Dr. Acuff, seconded by Mr. Page. Is there any discussion? All right. All those in favor? Aye. None opposed? All right. Agenda is approved. Next, we have 4.0, approval of consent agenda.

[00:03:06] Do we have a motion? I move. We approve tonight's consent agenda. Second. Moved by Ms. Osborne, seconded by Ms. Spillman. Is there any discussion? okay i have one question and it's not to pull the item from the consent agenda but under item 4-5 with our science class enrollment um i'm wondering whether or not those numbers which appear to be sort of large whether or not they would have any effect on the ability of those classes to be lab

[00:03:38] classes mr page what we'll do is uh get with staff and get a response for you okay all right Thank you. Any other discussion?

[00:03:54] It should be 24. Okay. All those in favor of approving consent agenda? No. Aye. I'm sorry. All right. None opposed.

[00:04:10] Some slower, but none opposed. All right. Consent agenda is approved. Next, we have 6.0 announcements. We'll start with our student representative to the school board, Cam Roper. Hi. I'm excited to have the opportunity of being student representative to the school board this year. I'm a senior at Community Lab School. I've participated in Theater, Student Senate, and my school's Equity Club, among other things. I wanted to be a student rep because I've dealt with both bias and prejudice before, and I'm hoping to use my experience to help my peers. I'm looking to

[00:04:49] bring issues about neurodivergent and LGBT students, as well as bias in the arts, to the attention of the school board. I'm very excited to have this opportunity to represent my school this year. Welcome, Cam. Welcome, Cam. Thanks so much for being here. I like your sweater. Next we have our spotlight on education, Hispanic Heritage Month. Madam

[00:05:29] Chair, members of the board, Superintendent's Cabinet Officer. I'm Helen Dunn, Public Affairs and Strategic Communications Officer, just here to introduce these wonderful Woodbrook Elementary employees administrators who are here to talk to us a little bit about some of the fantastic programming that they have for National Hispanic Heritage Month so that's observed from September 15th through October 15th it's really as you all likely know just a time to honor and observe the rich heritage that comes to us from Latin and Hispanic communities

[00:06:04] all around us. So not only does it celebrate diversity, does it celebrate excuse me, Hispanic community in our community of course, but also the many diverse influences that have fed into that. So Spanish, Mexican, Caribbean, Central and South American cultures, all of which are obviously woven into the fabric of our society here. So I just wanted to take a minute to speak a little bit about that because Woodbrook has had a really vibrant bit of programming going on for Hispanic Heritage Month they're gonna talk to you a little bit about what

[00:06:41] they've been doing they have a really wonderful large Hispanic population there and I think it's a it's a perfect school to talk to you a little bit about that so if you two ladies want to come up introduce yourselves and then you've got this great good evening chair miss Lee vice chair miss Acuff and members of the albemore county school board my name is christy isaiah and i currently serve as the proud principal of woodbrook elementary school and i have one of my teachers accompanying me i'm caroline peterson

[00:07:18] and miss peterson is a third grade teacher at woodbrook and she's also part of our school equity team and the team is led by jamella jasper we have lots of members of the team but they're not here because tonight is our literacy night so a lot of our teachers are still at school because we have parents in our building tonight um and what the team does is we ensure practices and equitable access to educational opportunities for all students and our student body speaks more than 20 languages at woodbrook and 33 of our population is latino and hispanic this month provides a

[00:07:55] wonderful opportunity for us to recognize the diverse backgrounds that make our school community be so vibrant. At Woodbrook, we believe that celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month is not just about recognition, it's also about fostering the understanding and respect that we have for rich histories, traditions, and achievements of Hispanic and Latino communities. We begin each day with a different student reading a fact related to Hispanic heritage during morning announcements. Following the announcements, our teachers conduct a morning meeting, which includes a custom powerpoint presentation that expands on the morning announcement as you walk

[00:08:34] into our halls you are met with a variety of student work created by our students displaying work that connects the information that they're that they're learning there are flags books timelines projects biographies you will see all of that work which is a testament to the level of engagement our staff has facilitated with our students i have observed classroom lessons that highlight influential hispanic figures in history art and science helping our students learn about their these traditions our art and music teachers have incorporated hispanic culture themes allowing students to express their creativity while learning about these different

[00:09:14] cultures i'd also like to highlight a wonderful initiative led by one of our fourth grade teachers jamella jasper her students took the initiative to collect data on the diverse origin countries of our student body the project not only provided an authentic learning experience but also allowed students to engage with the honor that honor cultures of their peers by connecting this activity to our learning standards students practice valuable skills in data collection and analysis while deepening their understanding of cultural diversity within our school during the month we also will have a school-wide morning meeting which will take place tomorrow

[00:09:53] if you're available feel free to come to our morning meeting we will host a flag ceremony that will truly celebrate the diversity of woodbrook elementary community last year was our first flag ceremony and it was wonderful to be able to see the students march around and participate showing the different countries that they are from so this year we will do the same thing they will walk and dance in a parade fashion proudly waving their flags that represent the various countries from which our students and families originate the ceremony will highlight our cultural richness but also foster a sense of pride and belonging among our students as they showcase their flags

[00:10:31] they will be able to share a piece of their heritage with their peers creating connections and promoting understanding within our school community next we will wrap up our celebrations with a hispanic themed menu in our cafeteria we've worked with our cafeteria manager and we will have some traditional dishes that might highlight the flavors of hispanic culture and we will also work with a local business la flor michiacana allowing our students to enjoy delicious popsicles as a sweet treat this is a wonderful opportunity for our students to only not enjoy delicious food also to learn and appreciate the culture of these dishes as we celebrate together we aim to cultivate

[00:11:11] a sense of pride in our students and deepen appreciation for cultural richness that surrounds us did you have anything um it's also been cool to see how hmh has connected to that we've had in third grade at least some stories that have highlighted different um different characters from um hispanic and latin american culture it's been really cool do you guys have any questions for us ms isaiah first of all thank you very much for the presentation hey i want to just check so

[00:11:50] tomorrow morning for the morning meeting what time will it be uh we will start at 8 15. 8 15 and you'll be in the gym in the gym okay 8 15 in the gym at woodbrook and will that be focused on spanish heritage yes so we will have a flag ceremony but we also will have um conversation about hispanic heritage month so each month our school-wide morning meeting has a theme and so it will be hispanic heritage for our school i mean tomorrow outstanding and this is here you didn't mention well do you know what items are going to be on the menu

[00:12:30] i'm not 100 sure but we are working with our cafeteria manager and she is excited about um about creating a menu and we're going to decorate the cafeteria and have music playing to give the ambiance and our pto is also part of this um this project that we're doing for lunch our family is a huge fan of those popsicles so they're really good thank you so much thank you thank you all right next up we have school board and superintendent business any business to share uh just a few items

[00:13:06] ms lee thank you so i just want to make sure the board's aware that next week is a special week it's national school lunch week so this is a time to celebrate and recognize the incredible contributions of our child nutrition staff so in whatever way shape or form you you do that that would be great i also want to make everyone aware there's a special um i would call it a fundraiser but also a clothing uh rate you know gathering event that's going on at burleigh middle school just to make a long story short they reached out they decided they wanted to help

[00:13:46] victims from hurricane helene and so they've reached out to a middle school in western north carolina and received back reports from that school and the students were so moved by it they wanted to gather clothes for for the students there and also they have a gofundme site and that's in the weekly check-in a link to it today but they are having a special event on monday around gathering up close I did have two great visits this week because we rained out on Monday last week I had a great visit to Albemarle High School on Monday with our

[00:14:25] board vice chair dr. Acuff we had a great time touring the school with mr. Barfield the principal very calm and focused atmosphere I've got to talk to Colleen branch geometry teacher about a shape project where the students bring in everyday items and show what shape they are in geometry.

[00:14:48] Another special visit that I'll never forget was to Ms. Lanika Barnes' biology class where students are studying the animal kingdom and her essential question was what do all animals have in common? But the one thing I think you might agree we may not forget was all the Ziploc bags where they had bread, slices of bread in the bags where students had exposed them to all different surfaces to see what kind of bacteria would grow. Very many colors being represented so the students are really really into that very positive visit. On

[00:15:21] Tuesday Ms. Spillman joined me for a visit at Henley Middle School with our principal on assignment Rick Vahovak and we walked the building had had a lot of great visits with Ms. Rebecca Rosenbaum's language arts class, Karen Spencer's sixth grade math class, Ms. Zawaki's eighth grade science class, and just a lot of attention to the students around giving them feedback on their work and a lot of technology and use at the building around that work. I do want to make the board aware of just some upcoming things on the calendar.

[00:16:01] Of course, we know this is coming up on the last five days of National Hispanic Heritage Month. october is a big month for for schools we've got bullying prevention children's health learning disabilities awareness and public school principals we're celebrating public school principals this month um i know ms spillman sent us a text the other day where she was participating in walk to school day and that's a that's a big feature of this month of course we have national school lunch week october 14th is indigenous people's day 14th through the 18th

[00:16:36] digital citizenship week next week character counts week coming up and a big one to mark your calendar for october 23rd is school bus transportation employees appreciation day that's a big one and uh that week is national school bus safety week and i want to make everyone aware in our community that there's a vaccine fair that's taking place at burley middle school on saturday october 26th from 10 to 2 p.m and it's an opportunity for a day for children and adults they can catch up on their vaccines and that's being offered by uva health i hope that

[00:17:13] the pieces of information are helpful and i thank you for the time thank you just to add to what dr has said about our visit to aahs one of the things that the new principal has done is asked each teacher uh to write a paragraph or a couple lines about why they went into education because them on little laminated cards outside each of their doors. I asked him if he had written one yet, and he hadn't, but he was going to. And the other thing on the list of what days it is, this

[00:17:46] is National Mental Health Awareness Day. And I'll just add, the visit to Henley was great, and I was super impressed. I did not see one cell phone the entire time we were there. Not on the desk, not in the hallway. It was super impressive. And I had not seen that in previous years at that school when my kids were there. So I was super impressed by that. And then as Dr. Haas said, I did the bike and walk to school day at Crozet yesterday, a very chilly start to the morning. But I think I gave approximately 500 high fives in the crosswalk. And it was an amazing way to start the day. The kids

[00:18:24] were super excited and their PTO did an awesome job. So I was really happy to join. All right. Thanks very much. Next, we have public comment. I believe Mr. Page. Yes. Yes.

[00:18:44] All right. These are our public comment guidelines. We welcome public input at our school board meetings to sign up to speak during the public comment period. You can do so in several ways. Online sign up is available from 9am on the Monday of the meeting until 2pm on the meeting day by phone call the school board's clerk's office at four three four nine seven two four zero five five to sign up until 2 p.m on the meeting day and in person sign up at the meeting is available from six o'clock p.m

[00:19:19] until the public comment period for that in-person meeting only please note that public comment is not received at special board meetings unless specified on the agenda each speaker will have three minutes to speak but the chair with board consent may reduce this to two minutes should there'll be 14 or more speakers the maximum number of people or groups that may speak at a meeting is 20. in the event that there are more than 20 people or groups who wish to speak at a particular meeting each speaker will be assigned a number and numbers will be drawn to determine which people or

[00:19:54] groups will have the opportunities to speak those who do not have the opportunity to speak at a particular meeting may sign up to speak at a subsequent meeting and or may submit written comments for the school board's consideration. We ask each speaker to state their name, address, or voting district. Address comments to the school board. Limit comments to school board governance or school division operations. Provide written statements and supporting material to the clerk.

[00:20:24] We will use a timer to check each speaker's time. Speakers are asked to wrap up their comments by the end of the three minute period. We have three speakers tonight. Lala Jarreau, Karen Egan, and

[00:20:41] Sean Purnell in that order. Lila, okay, sorry about that. Yep, you can hand them over. Ready when you are kind of situation. Ready when you are. Oh, okay. Okay, cool.

[00:21:43] Hello, school board. My name is Lila Jarreau. I'm a senior at Monticello High School. I wanted to have a wonderful introduction for you but I have a lot I want to share with you tonight and only three minutes to do so. Suffice it to say that I am a 17 year old girl and I have something important to say so listen up. I want to talk to you about sex, specifically sex as your children are learning about it. Bear with me now though because before we can get to the birds and the bees I want to brief you on the history. In 2018 there was a scandal. A group of freshman girls at Western alma high school were shown a video called male pleasure at the time the

[00:22:21] school's curriculum was being taught through a partnership with Sarah the sexual assault resource agency the video was a shocker detailing the best ways to pleasure a man as the title suggests this did not sit well with the students their parents and the health teacher that approved the curriculum but claimed not to have seen the video this is when a group called the Liberty Council got involved the Liberty Council is an organization that advocates for religious freedom. On their website, you can find the many, many cases they have litigated.

[00:22:49] These range from assisting a student's fight to have the Christian flag flown in front of their public school, to multiple cases advocating for restrictions on gay marriage. When the Liberty Council heard about the horrors of the sex education curriculum at Western Albemarle, they made a statement in a press release to CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network. This statement detailed what they believe the consequences of this video being shown should be their list was executed almost exactly the health teacher was put on administrative leave the school's connection with Sarah was severed and a script was created for the teachers to read depending on the grade level of their audience I want you all to know that everything I say next is not me

[00:23:27] trying to advocate for another scandal my goal tonight is for all of you to leave the county office building with a fresh perspective on what sex education in our schools is and what it could be under the current Virginia state code abstinence should be taught as an educational and motivational component to help students realize the mental and physical benefits of abstaining from sex until marriage.

[00:23:48] Family life is required to teach the value of marriage and the benefits of adoption in case of an unwanted pregnancy. These things are not necessarily problematic until they are. When abstinence is required to be taught and contraception is not, there is a problem in our state.

[00:24:04] When the benefits of adoption, if a teenager gets pregnant, is required to be taught, but the benefits of abortion or even raising the child are not, there is a problem in our state. When myself and my peers, when your children, are only given a small snapshot of all the information in the world, there is a problem in our state.

[00:24:22] The reality of our situation is that teenagers are having sex. It is your responsibility as parents to make sure your children can make educated decisions about their bodies. It is our responsibility as a community, as Albemarle County, to arm our youth with information.

[00:24:38] This speech, I hope, is the beginning of an important and necessary conversation. Sexual health education is a right, not a privilege. thank you thank you mr roe karen egan hi my name is karen egan and i'm from the rivana district i'm here to talk a little bit more about enrollment data and building capacity following up on some of the parent concerns from the redistricting process last year i'm going to do my best to represent the multiple parents i've consulted around this issue to make sure their

[00:25:16] voices are heard even though they couldn't be in attendance tonight first enrollment data we recognize that the predictions from acps severely underestimated the enrollment in acps schools this year while we're very grateful for all the efforts to hire more teachers to keep the class sizes down last minute hiring is very disruptive many children were moved to new classrooms right after they had gotten settled in and this raises concerns about access to school-wide resources when the numbers are higher such as esau staff school counselors reading specialists math interventionists we recognize that development will continue rapidly with what has already been approved and what is already ongoing in acps's footprint and enrollment numbers are likely to

[00:25:56] continue to increase for a long time to come transitioning to building capacity grateful for the data that made it easy to compare building capacity to where current levels are we can see that we have seven elementary schools already over capacity with one that is now at capacity and going to be over shortly agner baker butler who's over by 131 breer woodbrook murray mountain view over by 162 red hill and hollymeade is now at capacity due to the redistricting process and will be over by the end of this school year or next next moving to the middle schools while they're all currently listed under capacity many parents have raised concerns about the high need

[00:26:32] here as well stressing that overcrowding is already occurring for example at lakeside the capacity numbers say that 100 more students can fit but currently homeroom classes are already located in the gym in the library due to classroom shortages additionally teachers are already providing instruction in other teachers classrooms during their planning periods due to shortages there as well next the most urgent need of all high schools albemarle monticello western albemarle all over capacity and have been for many years we're concerned that the proposed plan with center two is not going to truly alleviate the overcrowding across all three high schools we can see that

[00:27:08] center one isn't fully filled or at capacity we can see that the compromises that students might have to make especially from western albemarle high school and monticello high school to provide 100 students per day who would choose to leave their social group their peers who would deal with the travel logistics and who might face challenges trying to fit in particular electives like band or theater to go to that location if this is not enrolled at the predicted capacity there's no plan long term for alleviating overcrowding for many years to come we're concerned that the high schools aren't a more immediate priority when they've been over capacity for so long and we don't have the data to support that this plan will work exactly as intended

[00:27:48] The parents want to help. We want to know how to partner with you, with the Board of Supervisors, to address the urgent need for additional funding, the urgent need for new building, and for alleviating overcrowding in ways that don't result in moving children from parking lot to parking lot, as the redistricting process has done.

[00:28:04] Please let us know how we can help. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Egan. Sean Purnell.

[00:28:23] Sean Purnell, Rio District. I am a parent of a kindergartner. Last school year, my child attended bright stars at the end of last for the school year i'm currently serving in the navy reserves i'm currently 16 years going on to 20. last over during the spring i was deployed with the navy overseas and i was recalled i was worried you know with my son's transition my child's transition with that but i wanted to thank those members who helped with the smooth transition

[00:28:57] he began at agner miss castle miss koenig miss keys miss sims they helped him with the smooth transition into kindergarten um during the summer time and i worked great and my family has greatly appreciated that and this year um he has been moved to woodbrook um since uh he has returned uh since i've returned the school at woodbrook has been very helpful for that and again i want to to thank those members of the staff. Ms. Stowe, who is his teacher, Mr. Wheeler, and Ms. Rettland

[00:29:32] have been great help in being in contact with me and helping me as a parent transition with him as well. I couldn't have done this without the support of the school system, and I just wanted to make sure that those members were recognized for their hard work and dedication. So thank you for giving me the strong support that my family needed. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murdoch.

[00:29:55] that's it and i'll use the gavel in the public comment thanks very much mr page and thanks to our public commenters who came to speak tonight next we have 8.0 school division business we're

[00:30:13] going to start with dr dunn again with the legislative agenda again madam chair members

[00:30:50] of the board superintendent's cabinet i'm helen dunn public affairs and strategic communications officer and i'm just here to talk a little bit about this year's proposed legislative priorities for the school division so as you know every year our legislative packet is really just meant to express your priorities with regard to school division business relative to legislative code so we have General Assembly coming up on January 8th convening and we have a short session this year but we do have a great opportunity to get some bills in that might benefit our school division

[00:31:29] so just to move through this I will talk to you a bit about some of the important dates as always go through some of the more unusual or newer legislative parties that I'm proposing on your behalf for this year and and then you'll have a chance to ask any questions you'd like we are still planning our as I think you already know we're still planning our legislative meeting for the year but I think we've landed on October 29th so we're working toward just getting everyone in the same room and making some things happen so tonight we'll talk about this for information and then you will have a

[00:32:07] chance to take action at your next meeting so I think you will see that all of these items fit well into the strategic plan which I think is is always a really important piece of this puzzle for us so a few key dates January 8th always the second Wednesday of the year of January they will convene General Assembly and pre-filing will end that morning at 10 a.m. Crossover which is when is the last opportunity for each chamber to look at its own bills is February 4th February 6 is budget bills so those that we all know that can be a

[00:32:46] little bit squishy as it moves forward and session adjourns on February 22nd so the governor's action on legislation the deadline for that is March 24th that's always kind of an important thing for us as well reconvene is this my Oscar that felt like an Oscar like the music yeah and so vetoes can be considered or reconsidered on April 2nd or 9th and that's another kind of squishy thing and then finally as always enacted legislation comes into being on the

[00:33:23] the first of July of the year the items that are in the draft at this point and in no particular order right now deliberately so that nobody thinks one of them is a particular priority but we can certainly kind of change those things around mental health supports we always have something to address those cell phone use in schools which is a big item across the state as you know fentanyl overdoses I won't address that tonight we actually already have Narcan in all of our schools, but the ask in our legislative agenda is actually to make them required in all schools, which is not yet the case. Funding formula to

[00:34:01] support high-quality public education per our Constitution in the state of Virginia. IEP reform, restorative justice, we've spoken about those over the years. Recruitment of bus drivers, which has become my raison d'etre enrichment over the years. I think they think I am simply a lobbyist from all County Public Schools transportation the local composite index we will talk a little bit more about that some workforce development and alternative pathways to teaching I'll talk more about that free school meals which goes every year before general assembly without necessarily much success solar

[00:34:39] opportunities for schools that's actually something that's more specific to ACPS at the moment although it's definitely expansive some code change that would allow for technology use on school buses that currently is not allowed. Enhancements to Virginia retirement and collaborative procurement. So first off, I'll talk a little bit about funding formula for high quality public education. I think you all know about the JLARC review that came out last year. So this really addresses all of the items that came through from that. They've done a pretty extensive study of how funding works and concluded very

[00:35:16] clearly that Virginia is not properly and adequately funding per its constitutional obligation to supply our entire state with a with a high quality education so we're calling for revising the funding formula to reflect actual costs with more support for divisions and with high needs such as English learners and special education students as you know that that's applicable to us directly we have a large proportion of students who do have more of those needs that have a cost associated with them. The LCI, we've kind of tried to tackle this in the past, but it's becoming, I think the General Assembly is seeing

[00:35:54] more and more of this with that JLARC review. It's been particularly good timing to address it, so we, I'm suggesting that we ought to support replacing the LCI with a more equitable per-pupil funding model accounting for cost of living and special needs in our community. Cell phone use in schools, very hot topic.

[00:36:14] ACPS advocates for legislation enabling schools to implement clear enforceable guidelines for cell phone use to minimize distractions and balance tech in classrooms and I'll say you know we've seen the governor's executive order we know that this is something that's really rounding out across the state but it's always helpful to have it in code and not just you know in that format of an executive order because it's just got a little bit more teeth that way recruitment of bus drivers so I've gone after this in the past with you all and you know but but we actually very successfully shortened that year of

[00:36:51] break-in service so as you know we annually have bus drivers who say I'd love to come back to ACPS I'm retiring but I'd love to come back except there used to be a one-year required break-in service per VRS so that there's not an unfunded excuse me liability for the VRS we successfully actually worked with Rob Bell credit's a few years ago and and and got that down to six months which is great but we'd still love it to be one month as you can imagine people who want to come back and get an income aren't really thinking it you know even six months is a little bit too long so if we could whittle that down to one

[00:37:29] month I think we could really and we have a few drivers who have said I would have come back or would come back if it were one month we have other employees who have benefit from the same so this isn't this is this would be a really I meaningful change across the boards. Mental health supports, ACPS supports using supervised grad students, so this is something that's happening across the US and some places. Arizona is currently doing this. Supervised grad students as counselors and increasing funding for full-time school counselors to address the growing mental health crisis. Workforce development and alternative pathways to teaching, supporting expanding alternative

[00:38:08] teaching pathways such as apprenticeships and residencies to address the teeth the progressive teacher shortage we've been really lucky in the school division that that hasn't been a horrible problem for us but progressively we see more and more that it can be a difficulty in recruiting teachers free school meals so this is something actually that Rosalyn mentioned to me recently that has been a pretty popular topic at General Assembly but again without too much success we never want to introduce an unfunded mandate We, you know, we very, very proactively advocate against them.

[00:38:44] The idea here would be that, you know, the state should support free meals for everyone. There are people in middle income brackets who struggle to provide that kind of thing for their children. And so, I mean, food insecurity is real in this community all across the United States. So, you know, we don't ever want to present an issue to students where they feel isolated, singled out, because they're getting a different, you know, getting different food or feel different because they can't access what they need um collaborative procurement actually buildings building services has been really hopeful that we could get this worked on and we do we've actually already got some interest in sponsorship for this one but basically the idea would be expanding

[00:39:22] collaborative procurement opportunities allowing multiple agencies to pull their purchasing power which would reduce costs streamline procurement deadlines or timelines i'm sorry and you already know that that process can be really unwieldy so there's no reason that we should do everything in a vacuum if somebody else who's a state agency is working with somebody it makes sense that you could expedite that process make things move faster about doing these collaboratively finally solar opportunities for schools this also came to me from building services and it's basically supportive legislation to reduce costs and regulatory delays for schools adopting solar

[00:40:02] energy projects. There are a couple more of these in the packet that you've already had a chance to look at. I think that they're things you've probably already had a good sense of over the years, nothing too terribly new, but I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. So what is the course of action, I know where this is for information next week is for action you need from us, is it around prioritization is it around top three that we want to put the most energy behind what would be the most helpful information from the board to give to

[00:40:41] you that's a fantastic question so I'm happy to put these in any order that you'd like generally speaking nobody loves hearing about the funding issue because it's so obvious that but I do always put that up front and the legislative packet just I mean it's kind of a no-brainer particularly in the you know great current that we have with this J Lark review no reason not to kind of put that up front there's a lot of appetite for that across the state and some some of the real big deal lobbyists are going to be pushing for that in Virginia so I'll say for you all I would be delighted to hear if there are a few

[00:41:18] of these that are really important to you that gives me a better sense of how to advocate accordingly on the other hand really to me the most important thing is if there's some that you think we should just strike we can include all of these but of course like I said with with me knowing that there are a few of these that you actually care more about than others happy to kind of operate based on that information I'm always also happy for you to go to Richmond with me and do some lobbying it's it's great I mean it's it's it's democracy in action ones of these that are just not going to happen no matter how lovely we

[00:41:56] are when we go to richmond and lobby you know there's some that are just dead in the water i would say let's not give up but put them lower on the priority list helen can you explain eternal can you have the list on the on the slides yes of course like the full list of yes of course i i would never want to say that none of these is possible i feel like we can make these happen but i mean i mean i don't see anything up there about the uh bill that went through last year

[00:42:33] got all the way to the governor's desk and got vetoed for taxing right the grocery tax that's actually that is in the um the one the one cent sales tax is actually in the funding yeah it's in that funding item so that's it's built into there and um that is a piece definitely a piece of that puzzle so we're proposing that this year for sure okay i'm glad you i'm glad you asked that question do you know what days you're going to lobby so um the house education committee meets on mondays and wednesdays um the senate meets so basically they're subcommittees that meet on both of those

[00:43:08] days full committee on mondays first thing in the morning so 8 a.m um thursdays it's senate full and subcommittee so basically the best days to be there those days of course there are when there's overflow like they haven't been able to finish off their business on one of those days fridays tend to also capture those sort of leftover bits that they need to deal with but you don't have any specific dates yet that you're planning so oh i try to be there pretty much every wednesday and thursday all day and and starting not the eighth because it's it's not generally worth you know the

[00:43:42] the day they convene but the following week i'm pretty much there um two days a week if possible i'll definitely go with you great i i think there's a real balance here among things that benefit different people in the community the students the families the um staff teachers you know our buildings i think i think there's a good balance here and thank you and i know you and i have talked about well should we prioritize how do we keep these um and then i am less

[00:44:16] optimistic than you are about things that get all the way across the governor's desk so um to me i mean one that i think would not have any success but i'm glad to see there's free school meals you know it's been a tough one for years but i still think it's worth and going back to your question ellen the point of this is not just to get bills passed although of course that's the dream the point of this is to partly just to say we support this you know and get that in front of of our legislators and frankly other people too so when I go I'm yeah you've seen this in the past but we make this into a really lovely document we pass it

[00:44:56] out you have your meeting we discuss it then but also in in Richmond I hand it out to folks the more they see support for any of these items the the more traction that these items gain over the years the months and and then you do see change eventually I mean the VRS there was no change for years in that one year break in service and and it's down to six months now so that's that's that was ten years in the making that's not you know that they do happen anything else comments um you had said with for mental health supports was it you would have

[00:45:34] post-grads supervised as counselors mm-hmm I just want to provide some insight like that sounds really great I think having younger people to talk to mental health about while older people obviously can understand that it's usually a lot easier in my experience to talk to those people so I'd love your feedback him because it's interesting you're seeing that from from the kind of the efficacy standpoint while we see the logistical standpoint right so people worry oh you know these are people love licensures and all of that

[00:46:10] but I actually think that's a really meaningful point to make and a big and a big piece of the puzzle and it's working in other states so I like your feedback. Thank you. Thanks so much, Dr. Dunn. Thank you. Up next, we have our enrollment update with

[00:46:31] Rosalind Schmidt. Good evening. I'm Rosalind Schmidt, Chief Operating Officer, and tonight I'm here to

[00:48:38] present an enrollment update for the current school year. Attached to the agenda item, and I believe printed in front of you, the blue chart, is a chart that illustrates the number of students by school and grade the data is based on September 30th and it also includes the change enrollment as compared to last year as well as our enrollment compared to what we had projected them to be but to give you the highlights at the division level as of September 30th we have about 13,800 k-12 students enrolled in our schools this school year that is almost 300 more students than last year so we

[00:49:15] are growing we had expected some growth but not that much it is a hundred and 133 students more than we projected. In addition, we currently have 344 preschool students enrolled in our various preschool programs at school. Of note, our most significant unexpected increases occurred at Lakeside Middle and Western Albemarle High School. At Lakeside, the additional students seem to be coming from new developments. As you know, the 29th 29 North corridor is seeing lots of new construction. At Western Albemarle and Crozet, where we also know there's a lot of new

[00:49:52] instruction, which is contributing to that growth. A larger portion of that increase can be attributed to students who are already residing in our district, but had previously attending a private school. So to put this data into historical context, here's a chart of the last 10 years.

[00:50:10] The blue line is our actual enrollment by year, and the dash green line was the projection for each year. You can see prior to the pandemic, enrollment was steadily increasing. It then dropped in 2020 but since then the growth the rate of growth is returning to what it was previously miss maya kumazawa is the next agenda item about long-range planning on the other side of the break and she will go into a greater analysis of the enrollment and the projections going forward but in the meantime can i answer any more general questions about enrollment um will maya

[00:50:47] explain why we think that those numbers are up or do we have any inclination as to i mean i i have heard that it's the largest freshman class at western that's ever been there and that was not anticipated do we know why so it's the return from privates is it yep so you backward map it those were kids that were in fourth yeah about fourth grade um fourth fifth grade during that pandemic period so our theories a lot of them went private and they're now but hadn't given us their intention to return when we did projections correct our projections are all based on historical rates right it's not like we are able to go out and survey everybody who's

[00:51:27] returning so um the true crystal ball is is that going to happen the next couple years was that just an anomaly um is that a trend so that will take time to see gotcha thank you did we have to add learning cottages anywhere looking at kate because i know that's her thing or did we have room for them all we did have room for them all um speaking of the pandemic we were able to install mobile classrooms at henley and western and moncello and albemarle and so they were already

[00:52:00] there that brings our total of how many learning cottages about um 77. we were just we were just updating the list it's about 77. thank you um do we know how many students are choosing private schools over um us so we do um we don't have direct access to private school enrollments we get some self-reported numbers as a part of our total one applications but ultimately we're

[00:52:38] up to the mercy of the schools to report that data so not necessarily a rough date on that okay yeah so i guess these are these back to pre-pandemic numbers or is this even higher than pre-pandemic division-wide um pre-pandemic we were over 14 000. so we're not pretty close so we're still we're close we're close yeah okay i'd have to look school by school i'm sure some are over some prior to my time on the board yeah great awesome thank you and actually so i guess this is probably

[00:53:11] my oversight so it's 13 757 k-12 not including preschool so we never include preschool special ed or does that number 13757 include preschool special ed the 13757 does not include any preschool any sped bright stars etc we don't and that has to do with our projections we those are programs they're fixed numbers right okay that was a i hadn't thought about that the other and this might be a my kind of kind of conversation but it is interesting one of the things we might want to

[00:53:45] dig into more is this the k and one numbers right so you know kindergarten participation is down nationwide and ours is down 32 percent i'm sorry 32 students um uh some of that is people holding their children out some of that is staying in private school but then if you look at first grade numbers right you're up by 51 so like and you know the difference of a couple kids in a kindergarten or first grade classroom makes a big difference for learning so it just might be interesting to like you know as we're doing our projections for next year i don't know if there's

[00:54:19] any way to you know through anecdotal conversations with um school administrators or school office office managers who kind of have those conversations with parents or focus groups or any of our ptos or family groups to just kind of dig into that a little bit more yeah so um just to clarify the 51 number you're referencing is not a growth that's it's more than what we had projected right right exactly and i think what's interesting is half of those were at two

[00:54:54] schools yeah greer and halloween right so to your point is you can have very specific conversations yeah is that kind of international uh families or yeah but kind of digging it so you wouldn't attribute that to like red shirting um you know what i mean by that um yeah um i don't think we have the data to support that no but we haven't evaluated to that level of detail either reslyn

[00:55:24] what did you say the pre-k enrollment was uh three 344 preschool students i'll have to say i'm i'm actually glad to see the private school kids coming back to a acps i mean we wondered where they went during COVID and assumed that they were not all being homeschooled. So welcome back. And

[00:55:54] we still need more space. But yes. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next,

[00:56:08] we have a 10 minute break. My computer says 726. So I will see everyone back here at 736. I call

[01:06:11] this meeting back to order. Next, we have our long range planning 2024 recommendation with Ms. Maya Kumazawa. Good evening, Chair Lee, Vice Chair Acob, members of the school board. My name is Maya Kumazawa. I'm the director of budget and planning and this evening I'll go over our long range planning recommendations for the capital improvement programs. Capital improvement project.

[01:06:42] Sorry. This is the agenda. I'll first review enrollment projections which impact the projects in the lrpac report and then the third item will be ongoing programs formerly called maintenance and replacement programs which are also part of the cip and then at the end we'll have time for questions and discussion this item aligns with our strategic plan learning for all particularly goal three equitable and transformative resources this is an overview of the timing of

[01:07:21] the CIP process as you can see similar to the annual operating budget process it starts in the fall and doesn't end until late spring so today is the first conversation around updates to the recommendations for the next five years based on questions and discussions you can amend what the recommendations are so that you're prepared to adopt them to adopt the recommendations on at the next school board meeting on October 24th this will help prepare you for the conversation with the board of supervisors it's a joint meeting scheduled for december 4th where we can present

[01:07:57] what those recommendations are and similar to the budget it is a needs-based request and then they will deliberate taking into account available revenues what is included in the county executive's recommended budget which we presented in february after that there is a board of supervisors work session that's scheduled in march to discuss what was in the county executive's recommended budget. And then May 7th is when the county will adopt an FY26 capital budget and a five-year plan. The appropriation that day will only be for FY26 for that first year, but the plan

[01:08:35] will be approved for the next five years. So we'll start off with enrollment projections. This is the chart that Ms. Schmidt showed you a few minutes ago. This actual enrollment from September 30th forms sort of the new basis by which we project the next year as well as the next 10 years and so we'll be using that 13 757 actual enrollment numbers to then project what we might look like in the future the way that we develop the enrollment projections is we look at how many

[01:09:10] students are in each grade at every school and we look at historical trends of what is the progression rate from one grade to the next so for example if we have 963 kindergarteners this year we assume that that cohort will move forward into first grade some will will add new students some students will drop out and the way we determine that is based on historical averages to create a regression trend so the first line in the table that you see is our was our projection for the current year

[01:09:47] the second line was the actual enrollment that we saw on September 30th and the third line percent variance from projection is how much we were off so looking at first grade for example you can see we were off in that group about 5.3 percent more students came than we had projected this the reason for this is that historically we had not seen such a high progression rate from kindergarten into first grade. That progression rate is 1.11, meaning we added 11 percent of students in that cohort. And so what will happen in the projections is we'll take that 1.11 and include it in our new

[01:10:25] data of what the future might look like. It won't be our only data point because it's only one year, but it'll be included in an average that then projects moving forward. So all the cohort progression percentages you see here will be included in new data moving forward, but it will not be the sole. It will not just be a one-year look. Another area that I've kind of circled that Ms. Schmidt talked about was the ninth grade. The cohort progression from eighth to ninth grade this year was 1.12, which is also something we don't typically see. But again, it will be considered

[01:10:59] in the projections moving forward. And then if you go back to kindergarten in the column charts, you can see that that is an area that we over-projected. We did see a small kindergarten class similar to last year. So this is the second year of a smallish kindergarten class. So that will carry more weight moving forward. So speaking of kindergarten, I wanted to spend a little bit more time on that. This is how we project kindergarten. It is the hardest grade level to predict because we don't have a previous cohort to move forward. The columns, the light blue

[01:11:36] columns are the number of live births that occurred in Albemarle County since 2009. And then the line, the solid navy line is how many kindergartners we saw come to our school system five years later so from 2009 to about 2013 you can see that we're just under a hundred percent we don't see a hundred percent of live births those kids some of them are homeschooled some of them move away some of them go to private school we did see one anomaly in 2014 which is our 2019 academic year

[01:12:12] That was the year that we saw our peak enrollment at over 14,000 right before the pandemic. So that was really driven by kindergarten. And then you can see in the pandemic, kindergarten fell significantly. So that's the 2015 birth year and the 2020 school year.

[01:12:30] Since then, we've steadily climbed back to where we have been at historical levels. And then you can see the dotted lines are kind of the projection range of how many kindergartners we might see. So when you compare the dotted lines to the solid historical lines, you can see the numbers are lower than where we've been.

[01:12:52] And that's because overall birth rates are declining. And then the most recent year we have last year, it declined when compared to the previous year. So that's where you kind of see the up and down. And the reason why I put this slide on this year is because next fall 2025 is when the kids born in 2020 will be attending our school division in 2020 had the lowest birth rate out of any of the other years.

[01:13:22] So that's the 2020 birth year and the 2025 attendance year. So when you combine the live birth data, the progression data from grade to grade, we come up with a 10-year enrollment projection.

[01:13:39] The thick orange dotted line is our ACPS projection. And as you know, we know we're 100% sure it's not gonna be right. so we do have a range that we use and we look at different data sources one which is enrollment projections provided by weldon cooper so this is what's shown on this chart this year is their enrollment projection and their range and you can see that we're right there with them the reason why their lower rate projection range is significantly lower is because they hadn't they didn't have some of the the birth data from 2023 that we had and they didn't we're using

[01:14:19] different data sets but that's why there's a difference there but we feel confident that our projection matches two of three of their projections so based on this we expect expect to grow by 482 students within five years and about a thousand students within 10 years when we go start the annual operating budget process we'll go into more detail about what next year will look like because that will help determine things like staffing but for purposes of tonight's conversation we'll focus on the long-term projections and long-range planning when you

[01:14:55] apply the enrollment projections to our current building capacities these are some of the schools that are reaching are at capacity or over capacity so at the elementary school level bigger butler their 10-year maximum capacity conflict is 132 percent of of their current capacity and there is a cip project planned that's the northern feeder pattern elementary school similarly for mountain v elementary school their maximum capacity conflict is 151 percent of their capacity and there is a cip project funded that's called the southern feeder pattern

[01:15:35] elementary school on this evening i'll also go over the middle school master plan study as you can see three of our middle schools are approaching close to 100 capacity and then at our high school all three of our conference of high schools are over capacity and there's one project in the cip that's currently funded center two and then a high school capacity project that's part of the request any questions on enrollment so next i'll move into the long-range planning advisory committee

[01:16:10] projects updates these projects are based on the comprehensive lrpc report that we presented last year tonight we'll just provide updates to that but the next comprehensive report will be provided next year so if you want to read more about these projects you can refer back to the 2023 report which is what these updates are based on this was the request at this time last year for the fy25 to 29 cip the first two projects on here are the ones that were on the previous slide these two

[01:16:47] projects are currently funded in the cip and then a small portion of project number three which is the high school improvements this is the proposed cip request for the five years if you shift the years by one year from fy26 to fy30 the projects remain largely the same costs have been updated and if there are any changes other changes i'll review them as well but this evening i'll go over the first five projects as well as a new project that will come into play in year five which is the

[01:17:19] preschool center this is a 446.1 million dollar request that's based on our current needs this is another way to look at that cip request when you're only looking at capacity projects the first two on here high school center two and southern feeder pattern elementary school are are already funded and so that's not part of the next five years list but i just put them on there so the public is aware that those projects are moving forward the other projects in blue are the ones

[01:17:54] that are part of their the new request the northern feeder pattern elementary school land acquisition high school capacity project community lab school addition and our preschool Center. These projects will all increase capacity at ACPS. So I'll first start with the Northern Feeder Pattern Elementary School. This project has been updated since last year when we presented the construction of an elementary school that would seat about 500 students. We recommend that we increase the capacity to about 600 students based on the current activity happening along the

[01:18:34] 29 north corridor and to be prepared for a larger student population for the long term the other update is that since the report last year we have decided you all have decided that the school would be built on the north point development which is a 10 acre profit site where that blue star is in the map that's the current plan the design would begin in FY 27 timing remains unchanged and and construction would begin in FY28 so that the school would be open to students for the

[01:19:08] 2029 to 30 school year. The next update is the high school improvements and elevator additions. As I mentioned this project was only partially funded so what we did with the update is move the unfunded portion forward to continue the project due to inflationary reasons the total project amount has gone up and I also want to note we are still working on the budget estimates for this and we'll probably provide an update prior to October 24th this is this is a current project and based

[01:19:45] on our experience we have already overrun our budget so we're going to relook at this and get the numbers up to date the next project is the special education facility renovations as you are aware next summer we're going to be transitioning the use of the ivy creek building for solely to be used by ACPS rather than the Piedmont Regional Education Program.

[01:20:13] And in order to do that, and in order to host all of our special education programs, including post-high, we're recommending that renovations would cost about $3 million. Next is the elementary school improvements and elevator additions. These recommendations are based on a facilities conditions assessment tool that was developed by our building services team we do recommend that there needs to be more work done on this the committee the LRPAC talked about having a study done for each of these schools so we can come

[01:20:52] up with more specific recommendations and so that it's clear to the public what the needs are so every year we'll continue working on this list but as as the projects remain unfunded they'll just keep moving forward so you can see stony point was first on the list last year it's just moved up a year but the five schools remain the same the middle school master plan was included in the lrpac recommendations as a placeholder since then you've received updates about what the recommendations are in this master plan

[01:21:27] and we've translated that into what a cip might look like the first phase that was recommended was to construct an addition and to do renovations at community lab school. So that funding is requested in years one and two. The second phase was to do renovations and improvements at Walton Middle School. So that's requested in years three and four of the CIP. And then based on the conditions facility assessment that we have been working on, we think that in year five, the Burley renovation

[01:22:03] should begin and that was part of the phase four recommendations in the study the five-year total for this project is 117.2 million dollars and then finally as I mentioned there's one new project that we've added it's it's not ranked because we haven't it's not a comprehensive recommendation year but we wanted to make sure it was put on the list as a new project that would come in in year five and this is a project to construct a new facility that would combine preschool programs

[01:22:39] in our urban ring area so a learning center like this would enhance our instructional programming create efficiencies increase capacity and then to provide additional k-5 capacity at schools where we can pull the preschoolers out of the elementary school some options for the facility are listed here we can purchase a facility and renovate it we can construct a new facility one site we have in mind is brook hill that's another profit site that there's not currently a plan for we could purchase

[01:23:12] land and construct a new facility or we could repurpose an elementary school if we were to build a new a new elementary school the one scenario for this and the impact it would have on the urban ring schools we've included here agner greer and woodbrook here's a list of what they're the number of their current preschool programs if you were to use those claus those 11 classrooms and staff them for k-5 students you would create 192 seats across those three schools that's an example so

[01:23:52] the next steps on this are to form a task force and really create a better defined plan for what this might look like what the community wants does this make sense from a financial perspective conduct a feasibility study on what the building might look like and then there are other things that need to be evaluated such as ecse the early childhood special education program and then are there opportunities to provide employee child care this is also something that lrpac will continue

[01:24:26] studying and then for the next report we hope to have a more detailed program with any questions that you might ask we will look into those and try to include those in next year's report so this again is a recap of the summary of all those projects totaling four hundred forty six point one million dollars a summary of the key changes are listed here we've updated costs unfunded projects have been applied with an inflationary increase because as you continue waiting and as continue to be unfunded it will cost more in the future we have updated placeholders with estimated

[01:25:04] costs and as i mentioned we are still working on the high school master plan project and we'll provide a better budget estimate for you before october 24th as i mentioned we updated timing on unfunded projects for the northern feeder pattern elementary school we increased the scope from 500 students to 600 students for the middle school master plan we have incorporated the specific projects that were recommended in the middle school master plan and then we've added the preschool center which is a new project beginning in year five any questions about these projects

[01:25:41] this might be too much in the weeds but on the preschool center design that task force how do we determine who's on that task force is that staff or community members how is that figured open feedback okay i didn't know if we had a like a system for creating quote task force or whatever no i mean i i was one that pitched it i think it what's your outcome is to develop a recommendation for this so to inform that recommendation it's exactly who you said current staff community

[01:26:13] partners um preschool teachers i have a couple of questions um i'm really concerned about the overcrowding in the high schools and um maybe our priorities being a little bit off in that all three of our high schools are severely overcrowded um but we are um you know looking at center one we're not at full capacity so i'm having a hard time understanding why we think that with center two that's going to be a capacity and that's going to solve our seat issues at these

[01:26:52] high schools because um i personally don't think it's going to and i think this is going to be an issue that we're going to be seeing and if we're talking about not expanding our high schools and the seats in our high schools till 2032 we're going to have a pretty big issue so um you know even if we've got let's say 100 students traveling to center one or center two every day even by the time center two opens we're still going to be over capacity in our high school so it's not really soft we're putting a band-aid on a much bigger problem so i think that that's something we really need to think about is what our priorities are as much as i love the community

[01:27:29] lab school can you go back to the um slide that shows the projected enrollment for community lab i don't know if you have that or if it's i don't have the specific school projections but you have a handout the kind of longer sheet that shows you um the school by school projection lab so i mean we're looking at right now we're at um 173 and we're looking at in 34 30 in 20 34 35 at 207

[01:28:03] students we're talking about spending millions and millions of dollars to add 30 more students am i not reading that the project for community lab was to build an addition and i believe the capacity would increase about 400. and that in 400 400 with the addition yep up to 400 okay approximately double okay all right so i guess that makes that makes me feel a little bit better but i'm still really concerned about our overcrowding in our high schools and i think if we're just now in a master plan and you know even prioritizing our our middle schools who are

[01:28:37] not even at capacity according to your report we're at 97 um it seems like our priorities might need to change and if um we're going to be projected to continue to increase enrollment in our high schools i think that that's something we really need to look at um and and how do we expand seats without adding cottages um to our high schools um that to me seems really important so i just want to say that um and i would love some more information on and i don't know who to get this from but on why center one's not at full capacity what we're going to do when center two's

[01:29:16] not at full capacity and our high schools are completely overcrowded i think we have a moment here so we're we need to go back and reestablish the actual capacity of center one i think it's been miscalculated uh i don't think it was a thorough exploration of what the space could actually hold in regard to center two that um is based on a high school study that we did in 2017

[01:29:50] it was reviewed during the pandemic a second time by the board the board unanimously approved it this would be an example of a conversation among board members as to whether you still think it's the right direction we've we've done the best we can do over time to provide data around that and ultimately it was unanimously approved by the board just oh i was just going to say i i get that and i wasn't on the board at that time um but i do think that this is a really important issue um and i don't understand how we can say that center one capacity is now different um that

[01:30:29] doesn't make a lot of sense to me i'm sorry and i also like that even if it's not a capacity we still have an issue where we have too many students and not enough seats so so our capacities for our schools have changed over time based on how they're used um over the years i've seen them recalculated many times based on appropriate class sizes they were recalculated during the pandemic based on social distancing and in the case of center one they were calculated by a different administration before the facility was built and we had left it that way and just recently i did

[01:31:08] ask staff to go back and recalculate it because it's inaccurate but again with regard to center two i really think that's a conversation among board members as to whether that's still your direction just if i might just give a little historical perspective met dr haas is correct that we as a board and i think mr pace and i were on the board at that time we were looking at should we build another full uh high school or is there another way to go that's more flexible more

[01:31:43] creative and under our proposal and we had some great consultants um we would we would be now building our third center maybe located more toward western and monticello there was a sort of a rollout plan but there was a plan to build the center model renovate and expand all of the existing high schools and do so at about two-thirds of the cost of a new comprehensive high school

[01:32:18] and we got derailed in part because the covid uh the school board the board of supervisors put the the kibosh but put a hold on any projects well I have concerns about the center as well but they're different my concern is a we were supposed to have built on yet another one by now and secondly this center is being built at two-thirds of what the capacity that was recommended was building a 600 student

[01:32:54] facility and not a 400 student so I agree we're behind the eight ball broadly in in addressing the capacity issues of the high school but I think it wouldn't I think dr. Haas is is right it wouldn't hurt for the board to read you know review what that right those recommendations were what the trade-offs were but i think we can't get even these pared down um almost exclusively

[01:33:27] capacity related projects through the board of supervisors so a new comprehensive high school is 160 million maybe and that's with the land well yeah i mean that's with the land we wouldn't have to purchase the property um that would wipe out a huge chunk of the pro of the projects that we have So it is, I agree, it's not ideal.

[01:33:52] And we should look at it. And that's, you know, to piggyback on what Chuck said earlier about capital funding, that a bill that got all the way to the governor and then was vetoed, among hundreds of others, and that would have helped us be able to have, like, what, $30 million, I think, a year, possibly, in capital funds.

[01:34:17] So I, too, am frustrated with the high school capacity issues but I think given the amount of money that we're able to get from the Board of Supervisors and you can say whatever you want about that too like I don't know that there is money enough money to build a school that they're holding back from us and I know that they have been they gave us more money for the southern feeder pattern elementary school this past year so I feel like we're getting as much as we can I think we keep advocating for more

[01:34:52] I don't think that the chunk that would be a high school, a comprehensive high school is in the cards for us with this current state administration, with the funding streams that we have. So I felt the same way. You know, I was one of the people coming in like, this doesn't make any sense to me. And I think, you know, reviewing it helped me understand it. Just, you know, we have to do what we can with the money that we have. But I understand the frustrations. And yes, they're overcrowded. I think we have to figure out if our direction is going to be to go after another comprehensive high school or to go the center model which we're

[01:35:31] currently chasing right and then and then of course your 14 scholar studios will fit into those buildings in some way strategically as well to get kids to spread out into different places um so that's that's i i i don't know if building another comprehensive high schools are the best interest of students as we progress into the 21st century whereas we could turn on a dime with some of these center that's the center model and it offered

[01:36:07] students what they need because that's going to change too and what they might want mark could you go back and show the construction things the dates for construction that are being proposed now so the center should be starting construction in 29 30 right no so can i um seek clarity for staff's purpose um center two has been

[01:36:44] fully designed and is currently out on the street requesting bids we're getting bids back november 7th um so if there's a direction different we need to hear immediately um but to elaborate on dr acob's point it was never meant to be an end-all solution of capacity and i think by your decision to place it on Albemarle's campus is going to guarantee that that gets filled the barriers of access are removed for the Albemarle students the high school capacity project and that is here center two is not even on this chart because it's funded and it's in progress the

[01:37:22] capacity chart on high school capacity in this plan it's earmarked or penciled in to be in addition on to Monticello in addition on to western that is the compromise between center and comprehensive high school um more conversation on that and if i echo the concern around is that soon enough so i would encourage the board to have at conversation we move that up in this plan both in timing and prioritization but i just want clarity on center two is we need some quick direction if that's not the path the board wants to take yeah that was helpful thank you i appreciate

[01:37:58] that yeah i mean in our original proposal to the bos was the capacity expansion at all and modernization of all the schools in addition to the center and they sort of peeled funding away and this is one of the areas I think that as a school board we might want to communicate better with the community because in 16 I know in the way back time but in 2016 when we held the first referendum in 40 years

[01:38:31] for school construction we had 75% approval and this is not just our our kids parents this is the entire community and it passed by a minimum of 66% in every single precinct so I mean I think the community broadly supports our schools and would support more investment in the infrastructure but we really need to make that case I I think we I think it's incumbent upon us to do

[01:39:04] that well then it sounds like we need to meet and discuss this ASAP remind me on the elementary school improvements in elevator additions you said is that a separate request or is that part of the state because I heard you say it wasn't approved so I just want to that's what I'm just trying to under so previously elevator additions were a separate recommended project at your recommendation last year we combined it with the renovations happening yeah to try to align the projects better so for example in the elementary school

[01:39:43] renovations any elevator addition that was recommended as folded in as part of that request at the high school that's part of the high school improvements and the middle school master plan does incorporate the elevator needs so they're just being folded into the other projects correct but we did for the we did not request money from the board of supervised for something you said made me think that we requested money for the stony point update but they did not fund it is that correct that is none of

[01:40:13] the elementary school renovations have been funded um along those lines um with the high school improvements i think so for western albemarle monticello there would be four sets of communal restrooms to single-user restrooms how many are there at albemarle i thought it was just the one Good evening. Matt Wordman, director of building services. I believe the study that was, there was,

[01:40:53] and I want to clarify, there was a study that Dr. Haas referenced from 2017 for the center model provided the capacity direction. There was a separate study done, there was a master plan study for Albemarle High School and Western Albemarle High School. Monticello High School was not included in that study because it's a relatively new school by comparison. I believe that, I'm going off memory here, but I believe that study only recommended one set of communal restrooms be converted to the single user and I believe that is all that is in our budget. So there's two two communal restrooms

[01:41:32] also in the in the project for Western Elmore High School and two in the project for Monticello High School to provide parity across all three comprehensive high schools. I believe that answer your question um so the this thing says four are we using different you're talking about well so well just from this slide it looks like and what i know of albemarle it looks like albemarle will end up with one and then western and monticello will each end up with four just based on we'll double check that i think this is a summary text of a much detailed more detailed

[01:42:12] study that being said it's also just a study if this project was ever funded right we would do a more detailed um well and i think i think part of the confusion is when we did album rolls when we did that we did four sets oh that's correct there were two on the ground level and two on the second floor that's right side by side men's women's and now that's all it's about 10 bathrooms yeah yeah don't you is it about eight eight to ten um yeah it's it's slightly different on there's a a few there's fewer on the second floor because there were some mechanical spaces that we had to work around right on those spaces yeah i think there's like 12 or 14 single user on the on the

[01:42:52] second floor and 14 to 16 on the first floor something like that okay thank you i think it's 16 on the first one i feel it's important to bring up community lab does not have accessible evacuation exits because our evacuation has us go down a hill so for people using canes or wheelchairs it's not easy to evacuate one thing that i've heard brought up is uh i believe it's an evacuation wheelchair which allows a person to go downstairs in a wheelchair i just think it's important that that be addressed i think that was brought up at

[01:43:31] student senate last year right as a possible funding thing and i think that um that's that's - That's a good point, thank you. - There are a few more projects I wanna go over that are kind of form the foundation of our CIP, that's maintaining what we have.

[01:43:55] Those are part of our ongoing programs. We have five categories of ongoing programs. One is called project management. This is a project where we have our own in-house project managers to manage these CIP projects, but they're funded by the CIP.

[01:44:15] So this is a request for the CIP to reimburse the cost of our staff being the project managers. This was a change made just a couple of years ago. The second one is the facilities maintenance replacement. This is to maintain our current school buildings and to replace needed equipment on a regular cycle.

[01:44:34] That's our largest area at $74.7 million over five years. The third category is network technology. And this pays for fiber network between and within all of our buildings. This is a $6.2 million project over five years.

[01:44:50] And this is also a cyclical project where there's an established cycle for replacement. The next one is school bus replacement. The request is similar to what was presented last year. The request is to purchase 30 diesel school buses each year at a cost of about $23.8 million.

[01:45:07] And I'll go over this in a little bit more detail. And then the last one is an electric school bus purchase, which requests the purchase of two electric school buses each year. So a little bit more about the school bus replacement request. This is not a fully funded request, as currently we're funded at about just under $2 million per year.

[01:45:30] The need is for $4.3 million a year in the first year. This is an update so that we have a lot of buses that aged out of their life. They also have mileage on them that are beyond what our policy says they should be at. They're costing a lot more money in terms of our operational funding. So the request is to purchase about 30 buses per year. The current cost of a bus is about $137,000 when you include all the ancillary equipment. This would provide for the replacement of about a third of our current needs. So right now we have 89 school buses that are due for replacement

[01:46:08] that we don't have funding for and but by spreading it out by about 30 buses a year this would provide for a sustainable future replacement because if you replaced all 89 at once we'd run into problems later on as well some of the program increased drivers you might remember this slide from last year but a large portion of our fleet was purchased from 2006 to 2011 that's what the chart on the right represents and based on a 12-year replacement cycle and as I mentioned, 89 buses need to be replaced. We're also increasing the mileage each year that we put on our buses. Every year there's a chart that shows that the

[01:46:45] mileage does go up. We track that in a lot of detail. Each bus does put on about 10,000 miles per year. We have currently 17 buses with more than 215,000 miles. So after a five-year catch-up period of 30 buses per year, we would reevaluate, look at the conditions of our buses and see if that's the right level but it will take about five years to catch up on the current needs of the school bus program so you guys have provided some good feedback thus far but to move forward is there anything any other information that you would like

[01:47:24] staff to provide that's one question what do you support in the recommendations and what specifically would you want to change to prepare you for the next meeting could I could you just go back to the last the five-year VIP requests that you were making with that had the school bus and yeah that how much is like the facilities maintenance replacement and the network technology are those one-time costs or those recurring costs every five years for the facilities maintenance that's a pretty even costs it's a it's approximately a similar

[01:48:04] level of cost each of the five years okay for the network technology that one is more cyclical okay I can send you the details of the year by year actually if you look on this this handout yep they're listed at the top so you can see the amounts for facilities maintenance replacement it's the second project you can see in terms of time management and being able to manage projects they're spread out over five years network technology um you can see that is uh more variable based on what

[01:48:38] the replacement needs are for that program and if those costs increased um as opposed to like the last five years the last time you asked for it are they yes all these costs have been increased for inflationary factors thank you these are all above the line expenditures i mean except for with a bump up in the numbers of school buses?

[01:49:02] - Typically, it is assumed that these are funded first. - Yeah. - And you're right, except for the school bus that was requested last year, but continues to be funded at the historical level. - So last year, we only had, we did not get the full 30? - Correct.

[01:49:18] - Okay, so ask and ain't getting. I did have a question on one of the other slides. It was talking, I think, about $1.8 million monticello geothermal that might be a network question and i thought we were going for a grant for that we yes uh we did apply for a grant um i'm blanking on which federal entity that was i can't remember if it was deq or one of the other federal entities unfortunately we did not receive that grant two years in a row not getting it yeah we we definitely put our best foot forward um

[01:49:58] so unfortunately we didn't get it and so we're putting it before the for your consideration as a request um to move forward i will say we're at a point um with monticello to where we will be moving forward with an in-kind replacement hvc at that school that will be a three-year phase project phase one starting next summer we will install equipment that can be kind of geothermal ready so that if at some point we can receive the funding to drill the wells we'd be able to use that equipment and convert it to geothermal but but we're at a point where we do need to move

[01:50:38] forward with replacing the equipment at that facility okay so can you put together sort of the business model for this i mean if we got the 1.8 million investment i know that's down the line we need buses first um yeah well yeah how how long would it take to pay well and i want to be clear i think i think the total cost is a little bit higher than that oh i should be a lot a lot higher i could i said i couldn't quite remember it so yeah i think that the total projected cost for maybe that was a first year study or something uh yeah probably design i think

[01:51:15] the design was probably closer to 1.8 uh yeah the total cost is 27.7 um and most of that is in the cost of the wells and the piping to to go from the wells to the building um uh i'm sorry i forgot the part the first part of your question i think that was made i was the business model for why it makes sense and um on on average geothermal has about a seven-year payback um that's what we're seeing on the two new schools that are in design um and and with a life expectancy of approximately 50 years. So years 8 through 50, we realize operational savings. So there's absolutely a

[01:51:52] financial incentive to move forward with geothermal. From a sustainability perspective, I'll use Crozet as an example. It's the first county facility that has geothermal. You know, we added a 32,000 square foot addition to that school, and we're using the same amount of energy now as we did with the original building. And it certainly falls well within the county's climate action plan absolutely thank you in this study have we looked at the possibility

[01:52:22] of um adding new classrooms at Monticello and Weston for um over capacity that's what the a project called high school capacity project would do is um add provide additions for Monticello yeah when I looked at the um the description I don't think I saw anything about it it is separate from the high school improvements project so the high the second pro cip project number two high

[01:52:56] school improvements does not include any additions to those two schools project number eight would provide for additions at the two high schools okay so they're so right yes okay and what what did you say would be um the additions at each of the schools or it would be an addition to western albemarle high school and in addition to monticello high school that's project number eight all right and then one other thing about um the school bus replacement i think you said that mileage and age were the two criteria being used um back a few months ago i mentioned like the appearance of

[01:53:34] some of the buses and today i was sort of held up by the light at 20 in red hill road when the buses from walton were coming out and at least five buses in a row came out that looked extremely bad and so i'm wondering whether or not whether or not those buses are being studied for mileage and age too or how their mileage and age compares to some of the other buses that might be replaced to see that number of buses coming from one school was really pretty disappointing i would guess that

[01:54:10] they're highly correlated age and mileage and appearance so while we don't have a metric for evaluating appearance i'm would be fairly certain that there would be a direct relationship so those Those buses you saw are probably part of the '89 that need to be replaced.

[01:54:26] Just my guess. Yeah. I think the only exception is where you see the peeling on the hood, the black. That's a manufacturing issue, so that may not connect, but I think the other ones, I agree. You look at them, they look old, right? And so I think with the bullet point, we forgot to add to that slide that we talked about verbally, is it's a driver retention tool too, getting them good equipment.

[01:54:52] Along those lines, it says we're putting more miles on buses and we're basing on a 12-year replacement cycle. Do you think that that 12 years is going to hold up? I mean, or do you think that we'll continue to put more increasing numbers of miles on buses?

[01:55:10] I'm guessing with the centers. Yes. So the replacement criteria is age or mileage. Age or mileage. Okay. So mileage factors in. We do attempt to rotate the fleet in use. you don't put a lot of miles on one bus quickly they have a good model of rotation on that forgot your last question i'm sorry oh just if you oh do we can the reason why we're putting more miles on buses yeah we have we've gotten out of necessity more efficient due to lack of drivers but also just efficiency and routes and consolidation so you are putting more miles on each bus

[01:55:54] i think you might have pulled this together for me last year i can't remember if we um it might be helpful for us to have i don't know maybe pick like the last five years what the request was for from the board of supervisors for each of the categories and what was funded like the amount funded because i think just i mean i think that's what we're all trying to get our heads around right like it um and i know there's different reasons for why things were funded at different levels but I think them as we're having a conversation with with each other and

[01:56:29] with constituents about this just having that information I think is helpful as well as you know yeah we will always ask for everything however you know what are we going to actually get and it's just seeing that would go back to whatever like historical but you have like past five years I think it would be helpful for us to see that is there anything um yes i can provide that for you um is there anything that you would like to see a different scenario or change that might help facilitate

[01:57:09] your your approved cip request can you just show us the list again yes and as i mentioned we will update some of these budgets um as we continue scrubbing that um so that would be the only staff

[01:57:34] lead change for the next meeting I think we need all of these but certainly down through eight I'm curious if we were to move up the high school capacity project you know we're talking about the improvements over the next three years at 30 almost 35 million dollars but would some of those

[01:58:08] maybe be contained in an expansion project where we would have a like a savings by doing it all at once where it wouldn't be 34 million over the next three years and then another 110 and you know if that would be possible to figure that out what that might look like does that make sense and we do you can see under number two we haven't broken the budget out by school we are working on that we're planning on sharing that when that was ready so we could look at that versus the additions and

[01:58:42] Yeah, I think that might be helpful because if there's some, you know, like economies of scale when we're looking at if we could move up some sort of expansion project, maybe a chunk of that 34 million would be absorbed. So you're saying potentially move up project number eight up to number two?

[01:58:59] Right. If that becomes a higher priority for the board, it may not be so separate from number two. We may be able to combine them and not have two separate, you know. So as a practical example, you would do the renovations at Western at the same time you build the addition.

[01:59:15] I think you would get some synergies. You'll definitely get synergies moving that project up just from an inflationary cost. And then just some cost savings by doing it all together. I will say in a tight time frame, we're going to have to do a simplified budget.

[01:59:32] Yeah, I don't need it super extensive, just a general idea of what that might look like. Yeah, we could try to put some numbers together for that. there there would be some some economies of scale shared general conditions single mobilization you know so there absolutely would be some cost savings by combining the two but then would we if we can't get the 110 or maybe 106 um does that mean then i just worry that that means that we wouldn't be able to get the 34. well i'm just curious that you know what that would look like is if we maybe didn't go the full expansion project right now but it was a phase where we did

[02:00:11] some now to create extra seats with an intention of maybe doing more in five to ten years i'm just curious if there's some creation creative playing with it that would give us more seats in those schools and save money on those two separate projects but i get what you're saying though like we don't want to give up one and if we can't fund the other well i'll just remind the public is right now from a funding structure we're we got one and we have about two million a year in two and so i don't think we're giving up anything because we don't have it we don't have it we don't have it

[02:00:47] right right yeah right giving up the potential for it i think right yeah so the 16.2 million under high school improvements most of that's going to the second floor project right second floor project is uh is the corridor connection at amara that is already funded already funded so it's not on this sheet okay thank you and just to remind everybody that our obligation is to to create a needs-based budget and then if we have to cut back we do but that's our statutory

[02:01:23] obligation what do we need to operate as a school division and to bill what what do we need in terms of capital and later operating funding then i agree one through eight when you said one through eight is there anything other than options for the high school are there any other changes before we bring

[02:02:01] it back. Remind me, on the land acquisition, which feeder pattern is that? Another one in the western feeder pattern? This project, because we don't know what the opportunities are, we could use land at any level, pretty much anywhere in the county. So I think the reason why it's there is if we want to have the funds available to us, should there be an opportunity

[02:02:40] to purchase land and if it makes sense um it does support a lot of the projects on here that we need more space in terms of land so it's not for any anywhere specific at this point okay and that's why it's in year one is that we would want that and not have to go through the process of finding funding once it's the availability is there okay just the long-range planning advisory committee a couple years ago it suggested we might need another western feeder pattern yet another elementary school and I was just wondering if that was it or if you had

[02:03:13] other ideas okay with the Lambs Lane Loop Road would any state funding be available for that since it's a highway project right yeah that's a great great question mr. page the short answer is yes it may not be on the timeline you would prefer the last I heard from our local government colleagues they are are going to submit a grant a revenue sharing grant application through VDOT

[02:03:48] which I believe I can confirm this but I believe that would allow funding starting in the year 2031 for design with construction to follow in 2032 or so again it's a grant application there's no guarantee that VDOT would fund it um but that's the next cycle that vdot is on yeah um just i mean i mean one of the things

[02:04:23] i guess it's my colleagues that i always think continue to think about is you know what is some of the work we can do with our board of supervisors partners and i definitely also you know very specifically think about you know invitations to see we want them to see all of the schools and the the wonderful things our schools are doing but i do think because particularly for those renovations of stony pointe and broadest wood and those on that list i do think it's important for us to i'll take this up myself from for broadest wood to to bring our partners there and kind of talk

[02:04:58] through some of what they what has been those assessments that have been done um because i mean that's one of the things that continues to concern me um if they keep pushing those down the road because those are sorely needed at those schools so is there anything else that we can provide for you Maya um if you have feedback even after this meeting as we try to prepare something please send

[02:05:32] over or if there's any additional information you think of that you want um get in touch thank you thank you very much thank you thank you so much next we have the school health advisory board and

[02:05:47] nursing update thank you just arrows perfect um i'm kevin curse executive director of student

[02:06:30] services i am not eileen gomez uh eileen cannot be with us tonight but as a supervisor i felt relatively confident in sharing with you the data story about nursing and health services as part of the department of student services tonight so nursing and health services is a continuum of services right it spans a whole lot out there and due to the school board's support of school nurses

[02:07:06] at each of our schools i could tell a little bit of that story so in front of you are the clinic visits this is not a scientific study or even tightly operationally defined each of those categories but I we use them to gauge what's going on at the schools and that total you could see that bump from 22 to 23 to 23 24 is really attributable to the hypothesis is moving still out of that post-pandemic era where a lot of triage was done in the classrooms in an attempt to keep

[02:07:45] cross-pollinating right the potentially covid sick with those maybe suspected or not in the clinic now we have moved beyond that so in 23 24 the nurse is taking on more of the traditional role right oh you don't feel well go ahead head down to the clinic so that is at least the hypothesis eileen is working with school nurses to unpack that a little bit but i did want to at least speak to that bump part of the responsibilities of the school nurse is to facilitate vision

[02:08:22] screenings that includes some new technologies that are spot checkers and working with our school health advisory committee and professionals in our community to really balance the old school right Snell and charts with some of the new technologies but this is data to really just highlight that work continues to go on as per Virginia regulations with our kids in grades kindergarten 3 7 and 10 a

[02:08:52] focus of work this year that really involved many groups across the division this wasn't just student services it would be unfair to say was re-educating and re-implementing with diligence school health entrance requirements specifically physicals and immunizations we moved away right we we got a little loose with the whole pandemic structure

[02:09:26] to involve this starting really last winter the superintendent's cabinet school health advisory board principals school nurses and uh yeah administration and then the community to bring us back online with confidence and we discovered some real challenges like the health department no longer offering walk-in immunizations a shortage of pediatricians for immediate

[02:10:00] appointments for kids to get immunizations so a lot of these what i like to think is we look these challenges as opportunities to bring our communities together and they did it resulted in eileen gomez's tireless work with the community to push out clinics and various opportunities for families to come to us to get those requirements so this wasn't just about flat compliance and you have to adhere to the law or else it was but let us help you so i wanted to

[02:10:36] share that with the board that uh it was a very i believe a nice balanced approach that we are seeing some really significant gains with regard to re-education and getting online with these requirements over the years uh many of you have come to know eileen gomez as the reporter of coveted statistics and how things uh were faring in our community uh the report tonight is we're now treating covid like we would any respiratory virus so there's some points here but she just

[02:11:10] wanted to let you know she's still on the case but there have been some changes for example people don't report that they've tested positive anymore and there's no requirement that we do that so that data is not accurate if we were to go how many what's the rate of covid just doesn't exist one piece of data she wanted me to share is this viral load in wastewater just a test longitudinal from september 2021 to present which you could see is quite low and going in a very

[02:11:49] positive direction in terms of at least this test as a benchmark of covid's presence in our community which is rated currently as low right and that was through the virginia department of health Again, that challenge of immunizations and not a whole lot of accessibility or challenges to accessibility with families has seen a burst of community partnerships, again, with, I cannot speak highly enough with Eileen's work.

[02:12:28] And she notes a few of the groups here that have really stepped up. And it's not just for immunizations that Mill Creek Orthodontics, she has taken on dental care for children. It is such a significant need in our community and has worked, again, she worked so much, to get grants and connect providers in our community to help children that need dental care.

[02:12:54] But Centara, Pediatric Associates, Blue Ridge Health Department, UVA, and the UVA Latino Health Initiative and Department of Health Equity all have been a part of a community based effort to support our kids and our school's health as part of this work myself and eileen work with the school health advisory board which are a group of professionals appointed by the school board that recommend make recommendations related to health issues and as an ongoing basis

[02:13:31] and i just wanted to highlight some of the work that was done last year we meet quarterly and as needed they did give us a lot of support and direction with regard to those health requirements we've looked for their guidance and other things to consider with regard to chronic absenteeism and also implementing the governor's executive order last year with regard to opioid overdose that included their guidance on narcan training and availability of narcan in our schools and

[02:14:10] rounded out the year with a review of the student wellness policy and getting input and a lot of support with regard to student mental health they uh just as a note highly support the efforts the superintendent and school board have uh supported with regard to putting cell phones away and minimizing that access in the school environment but also with regard to mental health and wellness

[02:14:40] for kids questions they threw a lot at you told the data story how can i provide any support or guidance with regard i just have one suggestion um the covid uh guidelines now or that we don't have to report it and that it's just 24 hours for i think that would be super useful to relay to our families um because i i think a lot of the parents are still under the impression that it's five days or whatever it had been before okay we could do that thank you thank you for the clarification

[02:15:19] about kind of the the first slide some of the clinical the clinic visits because i definitely was concerned about kind of that up tick um i would be interested in you know because i do have a theory that maybe some of this is mental kind of mental health right and i do wonder if that could be a re we could add that as a reason now if the nurses feel like that's outside of their but referral to a school counselor or to a social like to include that as one of those reasons for a visit i think would be helpful i think that's actually a really good point because even like

[02:15:56] with my daughter who has anxiety she'll go saying she has a tummy ache and they won't even record it as a tummy ache it'll be like well let's like the nurse is fantastic and like talks through breathing techniques with her and like how can you like think through what you're anxious about before sending her back to class so i think that's a really good point too because i think they're they're acting as a first line defense just as our teachers are but i think there's even more as a first line defense in mental health and just so we you know as we consider who want to invest in that i think the more data we have the better um there was a without getting into a specific school but a little test and that was a mental health professional was in the middle of someone

[02:16:36] departing and hiring and we saw a significant uptick in the school nurse school nurse clinic visits and when asked because it caught the eye of eileen it was exactly that kids it was just accessibility and our mental health support specialists uh are that critical that it allowed then the nurse to get back to those clinic visits for health yeah yeah so beginning to collect that data for you know or even part of the school year the calendar year i think it would be helpful just

[02:17:08] as we see what percentage of those could be so kevin on a previous slide you listed that woodbrook had two clinics for immunization yeah and what does that mean does that mean that there were two times that they had that opportunity that's correct they targeted um urban ring things just aligned that they have one coming up like at Burley for example yes so the

[02:17:44] issue with Woodbrook is is that they are constantly taking in new students who don't have those things at home and I wonder if there's some way that we could make it more periodic like monthly or whatever the time frame needs to be but because that's what I was told last year when I was over there that they just they uh their their concern is just the main concern with the thing they wanted help for me from was to get the ability to get kids into school because they get these requirements out

[02:18:21] of the way yeah agree and and that does go into the process just that location accessibility and then even the schools in that area to um support parents to sign up um but then it's if you come and people are incredible at these clinics it's even after capacity they try so much to meet that need but yeah we will continue to do that thanks very much kevin oh do you have i just wanted to say i saw that in the packet here uh it says chronic diseases and then it has

[02:19:01] adhd slash add listed and i just wanted to point out i to my knowledge add is an outdated term and it is under adhd as a condition gotcha i'll pass that on and get that changed thank you i just think it's remarkable that there are 144 000 touches we have 14 000 students that's about

[02:19:29] 100 per student which underscores the need does thanks very much kevin i think next we have you're back i am back chris i'm gonna hey how did i do hey okay we're good um so uh this time i am me

[02:20:05] uh kevin kirst executive director of student services and work i like to think really like to formalize it i'd like to say discipline slash restorative justice or restorative practices because it's it's changed things are changing um and i want to tell a little bit of that data story and certainly engage you in some Q&A.

[02:20:27] But I want to give you some data. So last year, some feedback was give us context. How's the state doing first before we look locally? And this is state data on discipline reported to them using what are called S barcodes, Student Behavior Administrative Response, something to that effect.

[02:20:55] But it's codified, so this is operationalized. And you could see in all these categories, with the exception of the last, the state has observed increases. So as a state, there's a bump between 20-- that's supposed to be 22, 23, and 23, 24.

[02:21:17] And then I bring it down to, let's take a look at Albemarle County Public Schools. And it's, I'd say, a mixed bag. We're seeing decreases in some areas and some increases in others.

[02:21:37] What I found interesting was I wanted to unpack that a little more. And I broke it out into elementary, middle, and high school. And I tried to use the same scale on the next three slides.

[02:21:52] And what surprised me was I had to check some of the biases I had against high schools, to be honest. Because it's like, write all these behaviors. It's a high school issue. High schools need support. And I was a bit surprised to see the number of incidents reported at the elementary level, especially the increases with regard to behaviors of a safety concern and the number with regard to middle school and then high school.

[02:22:30] It just shocked me enough to go, hey, I'm going to spread things out just in terms of support and targeting assistance. But for me, that was my takeaway.

[02:22:47] I will talk about some of the efforts going on at the secondary level and how I am shifting to support our principals and staff at elementary as well. And one of them is with restorative practices and restorative justice versus, and that is a versus, like what does that mean?

[02:23:09] Versus a punitive response or a pure stimulus response. is this restorative way of looking at discipline and I believe that the beginnings we're starting to see some positive signs again just indicators that things are beginning to move in the right direction and may attribute to just some of that mixed bag in terms of responses but parent contact up 277% in

[02:23:44] in 23 24 versus the year before administrative conferences with students increased participation in restorative practices it's a heavy lift it is not easy work by any means and then even parent involvement in intervention planning critical and even though the numbers are low it is an indicator things are happening and last year for me was year one in taking things on so i at least wanted to share that it's not just talk that people are beginning even just year one to act differently

[02:24:25] and uh my summary is again the context is virginia is seeing stable i did not do statistics on this right i don't know if it's significantly increased or not but it looks like it's got a bump but then in albemarle county we're seeing a mixed bag and then when i unpack things there are needs there have always been needs at elementary the data suggests some bigger needs than i thought were there i was working case by case but it seems bigger than that um and then high school i think

[02:25:04] some of the data suggests they are making gains or at least holding ground and things do seem even more positive this year uh than last the way uh principals have described it to me is no there's no like out of the woods or everything's great but notches a notch above i reported last year was a notch better than 21 22 last year this year is a notch better than 23 24. you could feel the energy uh positive energy in the schools and um no real change with so kudos to high schools

[02:25:40] persistently dangerous behaviors it's so tiny the numbers are so small we usually have a case uh a year um and then um yeah intervention data indicate at least some things are changing with the efforts i'm making across the division i expect that to increase that'll be my professional goals uh and i look forward to reporting a bump in those numbers plus utilization or at least a decrease of those things that we would say are traditionally punitive in nature not an elimination

[02:26:15] but a decrease questions can you describe um the behavior school up or i can't remember the full term related to school operations give me some examples of what that would be i'm prepared so bso behaviors related to school operations include giving false information or misrepresentation to admin failure to ascend attend an assigned disciplinary setting right so you need to go to

[02:26:48] STEP or ISS and not going there. Bringing unauthorized people to school, dress code, gambling, possession of items that are inappropriate for school, could be toys, literature, stolen items, unauthorized use of electronic and other equipment, vandalism, graffiti. Those are some of those.

[02:27:19] - Okay, I have a couple of questions. I know that historically there's a disproportionate amount of discipline towards special needs students. I'm interested to see what those numbers are.

[02:27:36] I didn't see it in there, but I would like to know how that compares to the general population. And then, you know, going forward in the annual report, not just seeing for our SPED students, but also disproportionately if we are seeing anything based on ethnicity or race or income.

[02:27:57] I think Fairfax does something similar in their report. I think that would be really helpful for us. And then I'm curious, you know, we added the SRO last year. I saw, you know, we were talking about, you know, students feeling safe.

[02:28:19] What about interactions with SRO? Are we gauging that at all? just you know there has been back and forth of the goal of that SRO to be building rapport with the students and being sort of a mentor and things like that I'd be really curious to know what that looks like and are we seeing any sort of positive movement in that direction with our SRO what sort of interactions is he having with our students either in a positive or a negative way I'd be really interested in seeing that information as well yeah I i i don't at this time have a formal way to collect it but i certainly could focus on it

[02:28:58] i've interacted with the officer even if it's anecdotal and you know even like survey result or something like that where i can just get some um feedback on on how like it's actually going in the school um and then i think i had one more thing what does referral to law enforcement mean i saw like when when i think our um the help me app said there were three referrals two referrals to law enforcement what does that entail so i'm looking where there's a requirement

[02:29:35] for certain disciplinary actions for example a student brings a something that's designated as a weapon or a controlled substance that it's not a choice it's a referral so okay they have to call law enforcement okay and there's like a list or something that that falls into there is okay so i've updated that every year each code has uh required data and action aligned with it okay and then i just have one more request that actually was sent to me from

[02:30:09] um acps family council um given that we have um an sro and interactions with the students they're requesting that the school safety and security office establish a like know your rights training with the students so that they know basically what their rights are when it comes to law enforcement or things like that I think that's an interesting idea to empower the students and understand you know what their rights are actually okay if you could look at that I would like I'm

[02:30:43] just curious what that would entail so that looks like awesome thank you are Are there any procedures to report any changes in a report? Say a person gets harassed at school or on the bus.

[02:31:01] Are there any procedures to give information to the person reporting the incident on whether there was disciplinary action towards the people harassing them or anything like that? Yeah, so that is a good question.

[02:31:18] And it's one that we balance. and I look over to counsel, because it's that fine line of confidentiality, respect for minor, and not disclosing those sensitive issues as much as a general, like, we are dealing with it.

[02:31:37] But I couldn't say, like, oh, yes, Josh was suspended for 10 days. I can't go into detail. But that is typically to be safe and to give some type of support to the individual to say, we are aware. we have taken action without giving away confidential information.

[02:31:57] I do get a lot-- not a lot, but I will occasionally get questions from administrators in that respect. And I do work closely with Josh, just always trying to-- we have to respect each side in terms of rights and support.

[02:32:15] But yeah. So that is the procedure, but it's not the solid answer that on the victim side they typically want more does that kind of answer your question yeah okay i appreciate you disaggregating this by elementary middle and high school and it is i mean it is really concerning it it like it makes sense and you're seeing this nationally if you think about the fact that the kids that are in elementary school now were um miss preschool miss kindergarten miss first grade which are those times when we really learn about dealing with our emotions

[02:32:52] dealing with each other um i don't know what i want to ask around this but i feel like it's something we need to dig into and really think about like is there something that the elementary schools need to support this you know do we need more support on functional behaviors kind of assessments to support those teachers i don't know what it is but i think i'd love to dig into this more and kind of think about what those um what those schools need i mean what i could i can now would i this helps me one of the things i heard over and over when we were going through budgeting last year from the elementary schools in my jurisdiction um was that we can't you know we

[02:33:31] can't get rid of get rid of those extra supports we absolutely need those mental health supports but i think seeing this these numbers makes me think you know what you know is there anything else they need training support um because those are pretty significant numbers yeah like more social skills type training and um yeah yeah and the community building right like working with megan wood with professional development um yeah with the school counselors mental health support so i would say right now um erin english works with me in my office she supports the step

[02:34:06] programs at the secondary but with this date even before we're pushing down to elementary to assess like how are how are we utilizing the resources we have yeah and is it targeted and effective uh versus you know what could we do more it's like let's see how we're using um and supporting folks right in the school so that's increasing but it really is in the study uh before i jump yeah also could we get this uh data disaggregated over four or five years instead

[02:34:41] of just too often you know a shift can't be you know so that came up and the s bar codes are new for the last two years so i could but it would be yeah so we'll look forward to that in two years yeah well yeah i'll add to it each year yes for sure can you remind us again about what types of actions get chosen for restorative justices practices yes so i'm going to show my bias toward that work and it would be all of them right like because it's a mindset so one of the things if I

[02:35:19] could just take 30 seconds right because people say restorative practices it's what we do it's not it's it's who we are and it is a way of looking at a in particular a child and it's where are they coming from what was the need or what are they communicating but still holding accountable and those questions are who did you harm versus what rule did you break and you know what's going to happen to you versus how could we fix it so an answer would be any discipline hearing I have starts with what happened

[02:35:55] and what did you want to happen both to model with admin and family and student I talked to the kid first I comes off sometimes I think people get me now but was hey admin i heard you all already you got all the written stuff but family i need your voice kid talk to me so that's my responses as any so my understanding is that there are certain practices within that context and i wonder if we are how you think we're applying them with fidelity

[02:36:30] across the board it we're in baby step two right we're in toddler stage coming out of right pandemic and and still as a system there people have to do so much and it's so intense that we gravitate toward what's easy and what do you see punitive works and it's easier it's just short term so we're baby steps i'm looking to build the network of practitioners that could add to the energy and fidelity but it really is the beginning stages student safety coaches uh step the staff in step

[02:37:10] at secondary worked with myself and errant english and back to school week or pre-service week deep diving into here's what it looks like and sounds like i published i actually got my article published this week for principals and staff to do just that what's it look like and sound like to start to push the challenge of our old practices so i would say it's so in its infancy that it's not there isn't fidelity and integrity with me there is and i'm pushing with the staff that i work with

[02:37:43] and want to create that network of support versus a a have to for staff so are you finding buy-in on this from staff um how would you rate that i would rate it pretty hot like if i had to give it a grade i'd say right now with the folks i work with about an 80 percent but the rest of rest of the division the principals when they sit with me and see it happen and and how it works i'm getting calls the number of calls from principals now has increased significantly from

[02:38:17] last year it's what should i do is this the way that's what's happening now is the challenge to standard practices um and i think that's the first step let's assess the families as well where you're finding buy-in from i am i i would say in all the families i've been working with we typically end with a handshake or a thank you even for the students that come to the center then you know darn you you hearing officer you like that's i don't get that so principals also

[02:38:54] see that as okay you even got the accountability but it wasn't in a hurtful mean way thank you i hope to improve that answer each year as well thanks very much kevin thank you kevin thanks

[02:39:13] kevin you got it some reason i was about to say good morning good afternoon it's all pointing together now very dark oh so thank you for letting me be here tonight uh i'm going to talk about some

[02:39:50] of the mental health services that we're seeing throughout elmar county public schools but first i'd like to talk about the strategic plan and how we are supporting students and making sure that students are thriving through the supports that we have of mental health services and with that jumping right into dcgs climate so this is the high school department of criminal justice service school climate survey and so this survey is given every other year to students so for the 22 and 24

[02:40:23] school years it's given to high schools and the 23 was given to middle schools they did not have they do not have 2020 data in 2021 camera off the top of my head so today i've highlighted our high school data and then in january we are re-administering for our middle schools and from there i think that while today we're talking about hard topics of mental health and the things that students are struggling with i think it also highlights some of the supportive practices that we're putting in place and how we're supporting students and we can see declines

[02:40:58] in the first bar graph you see from 2022 to 2024 that is students who have suggested that they feel hopeless or have lost interest in activities that they enjoy for two weeks or more so in 2022 we were at about 42 percent and in 2024 for high school students it dropped to about 33 and then it's also in comparison to regional and state data so we have been under the bar for both region and state and then the second bar graph which is a little bit small you see is students

[02:41:35] that have seriously considered suicide and so in 2022 it was at about 12.6 percent and we've seen it dropped about 8.8 percent which i think is very significant and speaks volumes to the support structures that we're having in our schools now so nope i had an updated slide that was it that same slide just presented differently so then that goes into all the different services that we're offering so talking about community-based programs and referrals for schools so we're seeing an increase

[02:42:13] in referrals but even that is kind of a misnomer so both the sap counselor program and our community partnerships with mental health agencies both had staffing issues and so we couldn't quite meet the need for services for both those categories so we are fully staffed now for the sap counselor role which is a partnership with region 10 and we have now expanded our contracts for mental health services to increase those community agency partnerships so you can see where in 2022-2023

[02:42:48] we had 181 referrals to mental health agency and then in the 23-24 year we had a 65 referral rate and that was due to staffing issues and that was the same thing with the bottom chunk of what you see is the sap counselors uh albemarle did not receive a sap counselor till about mid-year and western did not receive their counselor till about october i think so those numbers are probably a little bit lower than they should be so we are seeing increased numbers and so i think that speaks also to our next slide where we talk about kind of those touch points

[02:43:26] so this is some of the data we collect through our school counselors of about 15-minute interactions and so we see across all schools for our school counselors that we saw about a 14 increase in student interactions with their school counselors whether that was in consultation with teachers or families or direct face-to-face time with students and then i also topped in with the interactions and referrals from our community-based agencies because i think that speaks volumes to the amount of services that we're offering within schools between our school counselors and our mental

[02:44:04] health support specialists and talking about the increase in services with school counselors i have tonight with me mr guy who can kind of explain a little bit about how he has been connecting with students through the help me app and reaching out to our supporting students who have reached out for support uh yeah so help me is a new app that we are now using in all of our schools at the secondary level it replaced anonymous alerts for those of

[02:44:40] you all that were familiar with that speaking for school counselors you know one of the cornerstones of our profession is the relationship we have with kids but as you all know no matter how strong a relationship it is with a child scary topics are still scary topics I think that's true regardless of the age so one of the nice things about help me is that it gives students the ability to go online whether something is happening at night in that moment and make a alert for staff to know about anecdotally I'm the seventh grade counselor over at Lakeside Middle School so at night at 11 o'clock at night one

[02:45:18] of my students was engaging with chat back and forth with one of their friends that friend mentioned self-harm he went online and immediately reported it our principal was able to reach out to the family in that moment to help the family that child get help even the topics that students may come to the school counselors with during the school day can sometimes be bigger topics that they are scared of anything and you know it's middle school life so they're scared of judgment they're scared of the adults reaction to something they're trying to feel out what the adult reaction might be before they necessarily have that

[02:45:51] conversation at home so another story about a student who came out to the app and said hey ready to have some important identity conversations at home I need help with that and the idea of that child trying to do that face-to-face and trying to make eye contact with an adult is oftentimes just really frightening for them and so the help me app gives them a chance in that moment to say hey I'm ready to do something and it alerts us so that we can then go in ahead and have those conversations with students so you know we're talking about the direct services that we have with our students each day help me has definitely been a

[02:46:27] great resource for us to use and really helps us build those relationships with our kids thank you mr. guy and I I think mr. guy undersells that when they talk about relationships and we even have that data through the climate survey also so state averages for students who identify their school counselor as their trusted adult within buildings it's about 34% on average Albemarle County Public Schools is around 46% so it really speaks to the volume that mr.

[02:46:59] guy and all of our school counselors do with building relationships with students so again another part of that thing another part of what i think really helps with check-ins and supporting students is our peer nominations this is something that we've had implemented since about 2014 and i can stand up uh one of the things i think is very positive is our negative slope which shows that students are reporting that students are not feeling as bullied and i think that's due to school counselors building relationships i know there are still pieces and we can see that this

[02:47:39] year in 2023 we had a slight uptick and one of the things that i'm hoping through what mr cabal was talking about was the help me app in our former iteration of that we saw a lot of a bystander effect it was the the things that we saw coming through that app were i saw this happen can you do something about this i saw this happen can you take care of that for me whereas we've seen a big shift in language of hey I need help I need support or my friend needs support my friend needs help how can we support them and how can we move forward and so we've seen I've seen a large shift of what the language looks like coming

[02:48:17] through that app and then so to talk about that this is some of the categories that come through and we've seen a large need through many different areas and I think we've only had this since about August and I think as we go through this year with this new resource that we're gonna see a lot a lot more in what students are doing to reach out for support and again we still have bullying and harassment up here as an avenue to report and help for saying hey this is what I'm experienced or hey I've seen my friend experience this

[02:48:53] experiencing this because we know that we only give the peer nomination one time a year and so this is the opportunity to again continue to have that avenue of funneling information to administrators or school counselors and asking for that support and then the one piece that i i absolutely love and i think has been a huge shift in this program is we talk about disciplinary actions and that's only about five percent of what you see here in this chart most of it is connections with your school counselors it's parent guardian notification mental wellness

[02:49:32] plans risk assessments conferences counseling those are the largest sections that you see through here and i think that's magnificent i can't even explain how excited i get to see that portion of it that students are asking for support and this is the support that you're being provided versus uh disciplinary action or hey do this to someone to take care of this for me because i've been wronged this is how do we build in something to support and then it's also a very

[02:50:07] on the administrative side of looking at it we see that 94 of our cases that come in are closed they're responded to so as you put something into the help me app one of the things that we haven't really highlighted as much is that it runs from seven to four for school staff after that it's an after hours response and they actually part of our contract with this company is that they monitor it and then if it's an imminent crisis then they'll contact a district contact list which includes myself and a few others to follow up and support after hours one of the things that we really want to do is also support our staff's mental health of how we didn't want to burden people with having

[02:50:46] to respond to all these reports that are very concerning sometimes sometimes students are talking about their suicidal ideation i need help from my friend who's thinking about killing themselves I need help for myself I need help for a classmate sometimes we receive the messages of the snapchats the Instagrams of there's this going to be the school shooting tomorrow and now they're providing the documentation and providing it to the parties that can support it versus just resharing it over social media and right raising that angst and anxiety that we see when any of these happen across the news but we're putting it into action and that's why

[02:51:20] sometimes you see up here where we have if i go back one reports to law enforcement so if there's actual steps from when people report something such as school shooting or concerns for a school shooting this creates a direct avenue to include acpd and questions or discussions i have a clarifying question on the peer nomination slide what are those data points so peer nominations is the

[02:51:54] process every november we have a three question survey to ask are you do you know of a peer that is being bullied and do you know someone who is bullying others and would you like to request help for yourself and it's fully um anonymous and it is a uh survey that we look for trends if we see a individual's names popped up three times we check in on them hey so your peers feel like you are someone that has been bullied we want to check in and see how you're doing we want to see there's what we can do to support you and so this is the number of students that met that base

[02:52:33] criteria of three or more nominations so are those so how does that align with the blue and the yellow and the red oh i apologize i cut that off that would make much more sense so that is our high school middle school and elementary so going i got it reversed i'm sorry so high school is red middle school is yellow elementary is blue and i think that is a large part and do for elementary seeing the high portion of it is the concept of what bullying is and so and that is only

[02:53:06] our fourth and fifth graders okay thank you absolutely how is the health help me app introduced to students absolutely so it's been multi-fold and i'm sure mr guy can answer that question also we also we did a lesson through our advisory program there was a lesson in there that included how to go through it the counselors went into the different classrooms also to actually walk students what age focusing from I know

[02:53:42] your middle yeah middle so at least at the middle school I'm not sure about how it was done at the high school the advisory program that the teachers all do through their our homeroom periods introduced the concept to it to all the students and then we went in and followed up just to make sure that students kind of knew the three different avenues of buttons that they can use on the app itself so it's on everybody's computer when they but but not at elementary school actually it's at all it's k-12 so it's in class link so it's in our single sign-on and it's also in our teachers class link so we've even had reports of teachers who have received emails at 8 o'clock at night

[02:54:19] who sent out to help me and then I ended up texting back and forth with the teacher and contacting a parent making sure that the kid was okay and then connecting them within the school counselor and helping them set up their meetings for a psychiatrist the next day so it is a wonderful opportunity to be able to go for resources or if you don't know who to connect to that's the beauty of this piece is because it can route so as it comes in one person kind of not filters but says yes this would be a great opportunity for the counselor to connect this would be a great opportunity for the safety coach to connect and so they can tag an individual to be like hey can you take point for this and it creates the ownership of who's going to check in on

[02:54:59] this student it is accessible through class link for teachers and students it's accessible on every kid's web page so on any of the class main school web pages it's the very first icon on the left-hand side it's a little person's going to help me it's great and then on the main k-12 division website is up there too and when you click on the main k-12 website it's great because then it you a drop down list of all the schools so if you're a parent of an elementary school student who goes to after school or plays with their friend in the afternoon you can look up the middle school

[02:55:37] to say hey my child reported to me that their older friend that goes to this middle school needs help so it's not just for your child at your school but you can also connect and ask for support for other children at other schools also is it an app that they like high schoolers can put on their phone as well so it's both um but with the bell to bell we've really utilized the web-based app but it is accessible through a web app i mean a native ios app android app and if it wasn't if we didn't have belt about i would encourage the app

[02:56:13] i would encourage having both the one thing that we're really working on education next as a new program is making sure of families and students know how to respond when they do an inquiry because right now there's an access code like when you put in an inquiry it gives you a code that says okay here's how you retrieve your code and if you close your web page down and you didn't write down that code sometimes you can't see what an administrator has responded you can go back in and put in another request absolutely but doing the back-to-back communication whereas if you use your app it makes it much more intuitive yeah does it sync up like is it an account so that like if

[02:56:50] you were logged into both you can like say somebody put us in a request on their computer and then high schooler gets on their phone later that night does that sync up if you remembered that access code gotcha miles i know last year maybe the year before you had the total number of mental health touches uh or contacts um maybe you had it here and i didn't yeah there was this uh chart right here where we went from about 25 000 to about 32 000 we saw about a 14 000 or 14 000 14 percent increase so these were the in-person touches it's not to help me also no I

[02:57:30] hope me we've had I want to say it's right around a hundred and five interactions so far one of the things I didn't put up here I kind of bait back forth but we can actually see how many people log into the system and that's in the thousands so we can see people actually interacting in the system and it's great because I should have put a picture up here when you first log into system there's three parts to it it says resources crisis text line and then support from school so the support from school is a seven to four you're not going to get an immediate well actually you do get an immediate response because the help me team is actually helping support that and saying

[02:58:06] getting some other information and saying okay well this this isn't an immediate need but we're going to provide all this information to your counselor or your administrator tomorrow and they're going to be able to follow up if there is a need for resources we've started linking in resources like the charlottesville street sheets which is wonderful and it's been expanding and i really highly suggest everyone to get in there and look at it because it outlines everything from food banks like looking at the blue ridge food finder so one of the greatest conversations i've had with a family it's not great it's a hard conversation but it was good in that we were finding resources and utilizing resources because everyone knows and loves loaves and fishes and

[02:58:45] it's amazing resource and they do such amazing things and they partner with so many of our schools but we had a particular family that couldn't get over there and they couldn't get over there and the driving service wasn't connecting at that time so they couldn't get food delivered to them but we i walked hand in hand with the family and we found out that there was a food bank less than a quarter mile away from them and they served food uh three days a week and they're like i never realized i was there and so utilizing some of these resources um really supports families and

[02:59:20] And I'm so excited to see how we can continue to build these resources because it should be something that everyone has access to. And now if you don't know where to go for help, you're unsure, you can start with the resource section. And then if you don't can't find what you need in the resource section, you ask the help me resource resource. And then your school counselor or mental health support specialist can help you find what you need.

[02:59:41] Could you go? Could you go again to the last graph that you showed us? No, the next one. The one that showed the lines without the legend. Yeah, that. Why do you think there's been a downward trend over the last few years for the usage of this? Do you have any ideas?

[03:00:04] I don't think it's less usage. I think it's more over in how we have been engaging in conversations around bullying. It's something that we've been talking a lot about, and so I think there is a difference between when individuals are being mean to us, an individual there's a difference between when we're having conflict and for a long time i think we were associating all conflict as bullying and so i think through education and doing our bullying awareness months and whatnot and all those different pieces that we've had more education around what exactly bullying is and what supports that you're needed because if it's a conflict we

[03:00:44] should be working through it together we should push into that whereas if it's bullying no absolutely not we're not going to put you with someone that's bullying you that's there's a power imbalance there's a struggle there's uh something vastly different about that versus having a conversation and pushing into a hard conversation about conflict and then maybe the same thing for the high school appears to be lower in reports than elementary so any ideas as to why that would be true because bullying probably would be a problem in in high school too absolutely and i

[03:01:23] think you see that difference because i think high schoolers are better at differentiating between the two so between what is conflict versus an elementary age student who reports everything is bullying so that that's the verbiage they learn first is well that person's bullying me so i think that's where you see the big difference in why you see high school is so much lower between the two i just think it's extraordinary that in the two presentations we've had 140 000 touches to the

[03:02:01] school nurses and 44 000 uh touches with mental health and even though they somewhat overlap but it's clear that our students are getting a lot of support and i'm very pleased that we are committed to continuing that yeah i'd just like to say personally i think you guys are amazing and for my kids in the school system that have had severe mental health issues i think it's been life-saving so thank you one of the things i wanted to say was i really appreciate the data

[03:02:36] that you've brought because it does demonstrate the positive impact of the hard work that you're doing the smart decisions you all are making and the board's investment in mental health services for students because oftentimes we'll have questions from constituents around how do you know that's working or how do you know that's doing anything and i really encourage everyone to review the school climate survey and the working condition survey because while it's not it's not the same data it helps to triangulate the positive impact that you all have had

[03:03:10] and um i think i speak for everyone no and i'm just knowing you uh miles that you are at this 24 7. and um you know it doesn't help one o'clock in the morning that i said thank you to you but thank you thank y'all i'm sorry do you have any more questions thank you very much miles thank you thank you mr guy thanks kevin um that is it for us do we have any school board or super incentive business nope pairing none meeting is adjourned

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