Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County School Board Regular Meeting, Thursday, October 24, 2024

Date: Thursday, October 24, 2024
Place: Albemarle County Public Schools / School Board meeting, Virginia
Length: 3h 09m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD8_eD1-QWs

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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[00:00:02] call to order this october 24th 2024 meeting of the albemarle county school board for the first time in a long time we don't have any motions right now um so we will start with the roll call starting with josiah black good evening everyone i'm josiah black school division council margaret lee western albemarle high school uh allison spillman at large representative ellen osborne scottsville district representative rebecca berlin white hall representative judy Lee Rivanna District Kate Acuff Jack Jewitt District Chuck Pace Raya District

[00:00:40] Matthew Hawes Superintendent Daphne Kaiser Assistant Superintendent Chandra Hayes Assistant Superintendent Christine Thompson Clerk of the Board Bear Kaiser Assistant Superintendent Pat McLaughlin Assistant Superintendent Great. Thank you very much. Next we'll stand for the pleasure of regents.

[00:01:19] Next we will observe a moment of silence. Thank you. That brings us to 2.0 approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion?

[00:01:42] I move to approve the agenda. Second. Moved by Dr. Berlin, seconded by Ms. Spillman. All those in favor? Aye. All right. Agenda is approved. Next, we have 3.0, approval of the consent agenda. Do I have a motion?

[00:01:58] I move to approve the consent agenda. Second. Moved by Ms. Spilman, seconded by Mr. Page and Dr. Berlin. All those in favor? Aye. All right. Consent agenda is approved.

[00:02:13] Next, we have 5.0 announcements. We have our new student representative to the school board, Margaret Lee from Western Albemarle. Hello, everyone. My name is Margaret Lee, and I am a senior attending Western Albemarle High School.

[00:02:29] I'm thrilled to be representing my peers this year. Throughout high school, I have expressed passion towards fighting for social justice and equity, such as being the president of the Young Asian American and Pacific Islanders of Charlottesville chapter at WAAS, a YAPIC representative for the Student Senate, a member of the WAAS Task Force Against Discrimination, and aiding and co-founding the Courageous Conversations Advisory Lessons at Henley Middle School, as well as revising their anti-racism policy for over 1,600 peers.

[00:02:59] My commitment towards promoting a more equitable environment for my peers and uplifting marginalized student voices will continue to grow during my time as a student representative. In addition to social justice, I hope to advocate for better access to health education for students through vaping and anti-drug awareness and mental health advocacy, as well as considering the perspectives and voices of my peers in order to come up with a solution that benefits everyone.

[00:03:25] In a society where hate, discrimination, and inequities one rampant, I hope to bring forward an array of perspectives from students whose voices are often silenced, using my own as a catalyst for positive change. Thank you. Thanks very much, Margaret, and welcome.

[00:03:43] Next, we have school board and superintendent business. Do we have any business? Thank you, Ms. Lee. And also, I want to welcome Margaret to the board. So just three things. first i did want to share that i did a school visit on monday over at mountain view elementary school and i was joined by ellen osborne and it was a really wonderful visit it is as you know the largest elementary school that we have and when when we visited i was really super impressed with the way the school looked from the outside all the way up there's a lot of great signage that

[00:04:19] the school pioneered for the school system to welcome students and families and other languages I want to give a shout out to building services the interior of the building there was it was clutter free there was plenty of space and a very calm and businesslike atmosphere we got to enjoy some really wonderful classrooms in particular there were there's Mountain View is also pioneered bringing in teachers on visa so that they could have teachers from other countries joining their ranks especially teachers that speak languages

[00:04:59] that are the predominant languages at Mountain View and so I got to meet those teachers it's quite it's quite a journey for those teachers to be able to join us and a lot of work through the HR department so I want to congratulate them as well.

[00:05:15] We had a particularly good time in Mr. Grasso's fifth grade music class. The students were singing together the Rainbow Connection, and he was playing guitar, and they transitioned to an interactive assignment on Seesaw.

[00:05:33] They were playing Guantanamera on an application that was called Beatbox, and the students Students were assigned to go in and work in the beatbox, which shows all the notes for the song, and he asked them to reproduce the notes using different sounds that were available to them.

[00:05:52] So they were really making their own composition, and they would submit that through that program. The thing I really enjoyed was it reminded me of the quality of our technology department, because the students just opened up their laptops that they had sitting on the side. They brought them to class, just opened them right up.

[00:06:09] were able to go right to the application with single sign-on and just begin working where you know five years ten years ago it would take forever just to get that off the ground so i'm so proud of the work of our technology department i really appreciate the teachers embracing our technologies we also wrap things up in katie fife's second grade class where students were actively reviewing vowel sounds and blends through HMH into reading with their structured literacy work. And one thing that really impressed me about Ms.

[00:06:46] Fyfe was her ability to make sure all the students were on the rug working together and and they were calling out words together but she made sure she heard every student. And there was a couple students that were kind of quiet but she actually leaned very close to them to make sure and check for understanding so it wasn't just the whole group got it so now i'm moving on um just we really want to celebrate mountain view and also as an example of all of our schools i'm sure if i visited any school on monday we would have seen the same quality work going on i'm really proud of it

[00:07:21] i also want speaking of that i want to celebrate six of our schools in particular who were named by the virginia department of education as exemplar schools they received the prestigious highest achievement award for their work for 2024-25 if you recall uh last spring we had like a later notification because the video east kind of picked this up and started doing it in the spring and we had three schools and this time we had six out of the total of 92 schools and the only school

[00:07:56] system that had more than us was virginia beach which has about 80 000 students so they had one more school than we did and we had six which is about a quarter of our schools broadest wood elementary school community lab school hollymead elementary school ivy elementary school stony point elementary school and virginia murray elementary school and this time community lab was the only school with a graduating class in virginia to have that honor and it's based on

[00:08:31] all the accreditation areas student group performance you can't have more than five percent difference between enrollment groups in your school on achievement so there's you can't just have an overall pass rate and for the high schools there's the graduation and completion index and their dropout rate and chronic absenteeism is a factor and finally the highlight of the night as we have some awards to give out to our board members these are the vsba academy awards and so and josh is going to help me do the honors the um i would like to recognize some of our board

[00:09:10] members who are receiving certificates this evening the vsba honors board members for their dedication and hard work in enhancing their governance skills through vsba meetings conferences board development training and active participation in the association vsba members earn credits toward Academy Awards based on their involvement throughout the year there are five levels of awards with certificates and pins awarded for particular levels the vsba Academy Awards are presented annually to school board members who meet the established criteria so this

[00:09:49] year vsba recognizes our chair Judy Lee with an award of achievement that's the bronze pin for 24 credits thank you so uh ellen osborne our scottsville representative wins the award of excellence which is the silver pin for 48 credits in two years dr kate acuff our representative for the jack jewett district with an award of excellence which is also the

[00:10:28] silver pin for 48 credits in two years and our samuel our samuel miller district representative mr graham page won the award of honor which is the gold pin for 66 credits congratulations thank you very much chair lee i appreciate the time that you gave me thank you very much um do any of our board members have any business for this time um i would like to tag on to something

[00:11:05] dr haas just mentioned that's about the hr department working with the visa program i'm very glad that we're doing that i know it's not an easy lift and i really hope that we continue that i have just a brief thing i went yesterday for a while to the bus tailgate meeting of our to recognize our bus drivers in the county i spoke with two drivers that have just been with two new drivers as well as a veteran driver and uh i heard from william shiflett that i think we

[00:11:40] have nine drivers in training so we've been able to unstack some of the routes um and i think we're making progress right now they have 22 net drivers be from july of last summer so they've they have net hired 22 drivers their goal is 30 so they're well on their way but thank you for attending that Dr. Acosta.

[00:12:03] It was a treat. Yeah, I was out today and I sent you all pictures, so you should have it. But anyways, I went to Whitbrook, who was working very hard at letters training today, and they were going to have a great lunch from Qdoba.

[00:12:23] That's when I unfortunately had to leave, so I missed that. I went to Agner and Albemarle, Albemarle science teachers especially, I hung out with them for the afternoon. They did a lot of really cool training today. Okay, and Chair Lee, I'd like to report that on yesterday, Dr. Kassa and I attended mix-up day at Scottsville Elementary School.

[00:12:47] The teachers, well, and some of the kids, too, dressed in, like, mixed-up costumes, like socks that didn't match or something else that didn't match. But the most important thing was that pre-K through fifth grade, they all ate lunch with different age groups.

[00:13:03] And so it might have been some pre-K in with fifth graders at the same lunch period. And each of the volunteers, including Dr. Kazanai, had a chance to sort of sit at a table with about five or six students. There were some icebreaker questions to sort of get the conversation started.

[00:13:22] I found out that the pre-K, it was pretty hard to keep the pre-K in line with those icebreaker questions, right? They tended to sort of veer off quite often on those questions. But it was really an enlightening experience, and I really enjoyed being there. Did your socks match?

[00:13:39] No, no, I didn't really go do that. You know, I didn't think about it until I got there, so. Next year. Okay, thank you, everyone. Next, we have 6.0 public comment, and Ellen Osborne will be doing public comment tonight.

[00:13:58] Yes, 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 9 on the Monday of the meeting week until 2 p.m. on that day, on meeting day.

[00:14:15] By phone, call the school board clerk's office at 434-972-4055 to sign up until 2 p.m. on the meeting day. For in-person, sign up at the meeting that's available from 6 p.m. until the public comment period starts.

[00:14:32] That's for in-person meetings only. Please note the 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 the board consent, may reduce this to two minutes should there be 14 or more speakers.

[00:14:51] The maximum number of people or groups that may speak at a meeting is 20. In the event 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 groups will have the opportunity to speak.

[00:15:08] 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. Speakers should state your name, address, or voting district.

[00:15:24] 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. School board will use a timer to track each speaker's time. Speakers are asked to wrap up their comments by the end of the three-minute mark.

[00:15:43] To maintain respect, please refrain from clapping or other audible forms of support. You may raise your hand instead, and debate with the school board is not allowed in this situation. The projection system is for staff presentations only.

[00:16:01] Tonight we just have one speaker, Ms. Heidi Gilman Bennett from the Samuel Miller District. Hello, Heidi Gilman Bennett, Samuel Miller District, speaking tonight as a well-informed citizen on high school overcrowding. I urge you not to approve the capital improvement program until after you consider the Scholar Studios enrollment data that comes later on tonight's agenda. Center 2 can address the current

[00:16:38] overcrowding issue at AHS which is super important but Center 2 will not address the overcrowding issues at Western or Monticello. A preview quote "Current enrollment trends indicate that students are more likely to enroll in studios that are located close to their base schools." I'd say that's quite generous. Here's what I see on the numbers. In the past two years, only one student from Western traveled to AHS each year. Same for Monticello. Yes, Center 1 is slightly better, but there are only 14 students traveling every

[00:17:13] other day. The long-range planning data you'll see shows that Center 2 will solve the high school overcrowding issues the assumption made is that 200 western students will sign up for studios at center two that's way higher than the one that's actually traveling now but even if that high number does travel from western that high school is still going to be overcrowded when center 2 opens in fact by fall 2027 acps projects that western will have 174 students over capacity and that does not take into account the students that

[00:17:50] continue to return from private schools who are coming with credit to Jen Sublette for being amazing Monticello High School is less extreme but also not far behind to be clear my son is in the last cohort of the Environmental Studies Academy I know firsthand that academies centers studios can be highly compelling models, but please let's stop pretending that having students travel every other day away from their base school is going to answer the high school overcrowding issues. I urge each of you to push the Board of Supervisors to develop, in the

[00:18:25] words of Ms. Acuff, an ambitious strategic capital plan that meets the actual needs of our growing county. As you well know, all of the capital projects on the list are needed both the improvements and the new buildings we are falling further and further behind our kids are counting on each of you to partner with a board of supervisors to develop an ambitious strategic plan that ensures all of the projects get funded but first please take an honest look at the high school overcrowding kids at Monticello and Western can't wait until

[00:19:01] of 2031 or even later to have increased capacity and high quality spaces in which to learn thank you thank you that concludes public comment but we'll bang the gavel thanks very much next we have 7.0 our school division work session starting with 7.1 long-range planning 2024 recommendation

[00:19:30] this is Maya Kumazawa good evening members of the school board my name is Maya Kumazawa director of budget and planning. And this evening, I'm here to provide follow-up information based on our

[00:20:08] conversation about the long-range planning recommendations. They include a follow-up on information on high school projects, as well as a CIP funding review. I'd also like to thank David Storm, member of the Long-Range Planning Advisory Committee, for being here this evening.

[00:20:25] This item aligns with strategic goal number three, equitable and transformative resources. As a reminder, two weeks ago, you heard the recommendations for 2024 with regards to the next five years of the CIP.

[00:20:43] This evening, it is recommended that you approve a CIP request in order for you to be prepared for the joint work session with the Board of Supervisors on December 4th. So beginning with high school projects, I wanted to provide some clarity on how we got to where we are today.

[00:21:04] 2017 was the year that the high school facility study, the F&I study, was complete. And after that study, the school board approved the recommendations in that report. Shortly after that, we opened Center One, which has a capacity of about 120 daily students, or eight classrooms.

[00:21:23] And the projects that you see following that high school study are all mostly a result of those recommendations from 2017. That includes the Western Albemarle Science Lab addition, Center II construction, and also that was the impetus behind having an AHS and WAHS master plan study that would address the renovations that were recommended as part of that original 2017 study.

[00:21:51] We are a little bit behind on what the original timeline was in that study, most largely due to the pandemic and the funding being paused for Center II, but that funding has been reinstated and it is in the current CIP that's outside of the five-year request that we're discussing this evening. We're also in the process of building the AHS Corridor Edition that is a part of the AHS and WAHS master plan study. Center 2 is planned to open in the fall of 2026 providing a capacity of 400 daily seats.

[00:22:29] This is an update from the slide that you saw last time. It provides a little bit more clarity on the request for the high school renovations. The costs have been updated to reflect, since this is a current project, the costs have been updated to reflect the cost that we have actually seen in the construction process. And we have also broken out the three high schools by fiscal year in terms of the timing of the funding we'd like to receive. So it puts Albemarle High School in fiscal year 26, Western Albemarle in fiscal year 27, and

[00:23:04] Monticello in fiscal year 28. You can also see on the slide the projects that have been completed to date. At AHS, the conversion of four sets of communal restrooms, communal restrooms. And then at Western, there has been partial corridor improvements. What's in progress now at AHS is the level two corridor addition and the planned work that the 20 additional million dollars would would fund our is listed here for FY 26 and you can see that same logic for the

[00:23:37] other two years this is a summary slide on how the renovations Center to and the high school capacity project kind of all fit together in terms of the timing so as I mentioned the high school Center - which is a current project as well as the AHS connector wing projects those are in progress currently and both projects are scheduled to open for the 26-27 school year. The high school capacity project in the current recommendation is that the design would begin in FY29 and construction would begin

[00:24:14] in FY30. And you can see how these three projects correspond with the projected capacity conflicts at the high school level overall. A little bit more on the high school capacity project. this was initially recommended in the 2023 lrpac report it is it was a placeholder project the funding was year five which was a placeholder amount for the design as you can see there are alternatives to what this project might be it might be constructing a new conference at hens of high school it might be building additions onto our additions to our current high

[00:24:53] schools or expanding the current high school center model this was not detailed in its scope and so while since we are in in an amendment year meaning that the lrpac did not provide a comprehensive update they will do that in 2025 so the recommendation is to direct the lrpac to provide a recommendation on what this project should be it does require a lot more work put into it so do we want to expand our current facilities if so how big should those expansions be and what is the ideal high school size a conversation we've had before should the western

[00:25:32] edition be planned earlier than the monochelle edition what is the timing of that and then as we saw on the renovation slide and as the conversation we had last time can this work be combined with the renovation work that's recommended so it doesn't have to be a standalone project as you pointed out last time but we need a lot more time put into what the recommendation is before we bring it back as part of a any adjustment to the current request which really is an update from last year

[00:26:03] any questions on high school projects just clarification on that so um by approving the the recommendation you're suggesting that we look at it sooner basically but we're still going to to approve the amount of money that you're asking for is that can you clarify that maybe I'm just not understanding so the action that's requested this evening is to approve the request that you

[00:26:37] will as a board bring forward to the Board of Supervisors that is a request only and and in terms of what will be funded and when that is a conversation with the Board of Supervisors and throughout their budget process.

[00:26:52] So a request is a statement saying, these are our needs, and we agree to these needs. And then in terms of what actually gets funded and implemented is a separate discussion.

[00:27:07] I don't know if that answers it. - Thank you. - Okay. And the other follow-up that I wanted to bring up was there were some questions about CIP funding historically and how that works. So here it's just some overview slides on that.

[00:27:25] The CIP funding formula takes into account shared revenues that Albemarle County collects that are split three ways 10% of the increase in shared tax revenues go towards the CIP 36% of that of the shared revenues goes towards county government operations and 54% goes towards Albemarle County Public Schools annual operations so you'll see that 54% when we talk about the annual operating budget and this is a this is by formula and the county's budget book has a very detailed breakout of exactly

[00:28:03] historically and what's projected what these numbers are going to be and so you can follow those along and I can send that if anyone has any interest historically this is the yellow bars on here represent how much of has been funded in the CIP so these are not these are capital budgets meaning they're one year snapshots as you know the Board of Supervisors does not appropriate funding for five years and so again they might adopt a five-year plan but only the first year is appropriated meaning that only the first year is approved for us to

[00:28:40] use and so that's what the yellow bar is that includes both County and ACPS projects the orange column represents projects specific to ACPS and this has been adjusted for inflation so these are all in today's dollars and you can see over on the right in the green the percentage of funding that has gone towards acps when you look at each year's capital budget another way to look at historical funding is how much did we request and how much did we receive this is a little bit of an art in pulling the data together so this is just

[00:29:20] indicative you can you know present it in lots of different ways but what this chart is showing is the kind of the blue area is the overall request. When you look at past LRPAC reports, they have been adjusted.

[00:29:36] Sometimes there are years in which, as Ms. Spillman talked about, a project might not necessarily be in the formal request, but it got funded later when there was a placeholder. That has happened in the past. So these are approximate amounts, and you can see over the past few cycles, we've ranged from 44% to 61% of our of our requests being funded. You can see the blue area is increasing pretty significantly and that's what the table on the bottom attempts to show is that as projects aren't funded they continue to get pushed out and then when we bring in new projects in the out years the request

[00:30:14] just kind of increases every year and that's what we're seeing there. There was also a question about debt capacity and how the county determines how much funding there is for the CIP on borrowed proceeds. This is a slide from fall of 2023 during the joint work session I anticipate that we will get updated information but debt capacity is calculated based on a ratio of outstanding debt versus assessed value of taxable property. So while this is

[00:30:48] outdated information you can see that there is some capacity that the county has to take on more debt and the other consideration though is how will you fund that ongoing debt service associated with taking on that new debt and so there's a five percent pay as you go that's a one-time funding need for issuing any debt and then annual recurring debt service for each year of that and so that comes into play when the county is building their annual operating budget how much can be

[00:31:21] funded in terms of the ongoing expenses related to the debt. And so I'll make sure that an update is provided to you all at the work session. So with that, this is a summary of the five-year CIP request. The numbers have been updated slightly. As I mentioned, this is due to the high school renovations project where we've gotten updated figures. And the handout that you have has a more detailed version of this and that is the request that would go to the board of

[00:31:56] supervisors if you were to approve it so I'll take any questions at this time or if you're ready to make a motion you've heard me say this before my I mean we are obligated to submit a needs-based budget and if you look at the historical funding we've not dug ourselves out of the hole from what 2010 the Great

[00:32:29] recession era we're behind we've got under 80 classrooms in trailers and you know the high school center was only part of a package that was going to address capacity it was also going to be expansion and renovation of all of our existing high schools that was approved for not you know 2019 which meant it should have opened what in 23 it should be open by now and we should be thinking

[00:33:05] about a center 3 maybe in the in the Western feeder pattern so so a I think that the Board of Supervisors could be more aggressive in financing capital projects and I do appreciate that the state needs to step up as well but how many trailers do we think we should support as a school division the Western feeder pattern the northern feeder pattern school is what 29 30 is that when

[00:33:42] that supposed to open what do we have eight trailers ten trailers outside of Baker Butler trailers have their place and I know many people live in trailers but I don't think it's really the best educational environment for eight-year olds to be in a trailer all day long during the school day and I think we should ask I mean I know that people in the community are both confused and concerned about why they don't haven't built another traditional high school and I think that's a fair question and we did look at that but one of the reasons

[00:34:20] is if you're looking at these numbers a new high school is going to cost 160 million dollars and when we put together the package of a series of centers plus expansions and modifications to existing high schools it was presented to safe the county money I mean it was a ninety thousand dollar package for the first you know center and modernization and now it's been five years since that was initially approved so I think part of our ask and our discussion with the supervisors needs to be we need to have a more aggressive strategic capital plan

[00:34:58] to catch up because 54% sounds like a lot but if the pie is too small to begin with then it's 50 I mean we need to expand the pie so we can have 54% or whatever it was 54% of a bigger pie because we will never catch up and you know we I mean we're talking about land acquisition for another school perhaps another elementary school in the Western feeder pattern that won't be until 2050 at this rate anyway grandstand over um i really appreciate those comments dr acuff um i agree i

[00:35:37] think that if it is our job to present a needs-based budget then we need to be putting what our actual needs are um in that request and you know western had a hundred more students than were anticipated just this year what does that look like five years from now and if you know our request is not going to even begin to deal with that um i think that maybe we do come out big with the board of supervisors and um start getting more aggressive and and start you know yes we want to save the

[00:36:13] county money but it's our job to make sure that our students and our teachers have the environment they need to learn and not just trailers but you know the center model is great but i appreciate miss gilman bennett's comments as well that you know that is not for every student and they're not coming from western it's far and so i think that in my mind we need to ask for more and and shoot bigger and start pushing back on them so thank you for that i definitely agree about the

[00:36:49] needs-based request i think in this particular one i am compelled by the need for us to be thoughtful with LRPAC to have time to really understand what that looks like. We had a similar sort of situation a couple of years ago when we were trying to figure out how much to pay our bus drivers to get more bus drivers in.

[00:37:12] And there was sort of an impromptu request for, well, we'll pay one cent more than Charlottesville does. Or it was just something that we couldn't do here on the dais, like just out of nowhere that we had to look at. turned out that we ended up paying a little bit more than Charlottesville. So I think in that way, for just what we're talking about with the high school capacity plan, I think it's important to be thoughtful about that. And as you mentioned, Maya, you know, we're in an amendment year, I guess, do we have four of those? We do one and then we do four amendments? How do we, how does that work?

[00:37:48] It's just, it's a biannual process. So every other year, the LRPAC will submit a formal comprehensive report and then the second year is usually bringing in year five and making updates to costs is traditionally what we've done so would that be something that would be in the next year so in the 2025 so a year from now you'll have a comprehensive recommendation from the committee so that would be in the next um but the way that this is structured is that knowing that the timing is an issue and we need to bring in year five the high school

[00:38:25] capacity is in the five-year request it's more of a placeholder and you all did this when we had the the construction of mountain the new elementary school in Mountain View we had it as a placeholder project there was more study done to determine what that project would look like and then we slid in what the project was but it was usually part of the recommendation just for long-term awareness and planning that hey you know telling the public we know it's needed we don't have the details fleshed out yet we are working on it but we know it's a need and that's why it's listed on the slide my just real

[00:39:00] quick the amount that you have in there is a placeholder correct correct so it could be a lot more than that I I guess this is just a procedural question Miss Kumisawa how is this presented is this does this come from the board in a letter to the supervisors? And could we, if that's the case, or even if it isn't, can we in letter form stress a concern that we need to be more urgent about a strategic capital plan? I mean,

[00:39:39] I don't know. Something along those lines. Did we do that last year? Yes. But we can continue doing it. I'm for continuation of that. So I guess this is for the newbie in me. What happens if we vote no and do we go back and ask for do we redo this to ask for more money or is it we approve this and then we go to them and say we actually want more than this well I think this is a proposed request and we could write a strong letter saying that this captures some of our needs but certainly not all and we

[00:40:17] would like a more aggressive funding approach I mean I mean I don't know what more looks like today right if we don't have this to even start to have a conversation with because we know historically we're not going to get to number 10 right we probably will only get to like three or four right but our joint meeting is until December 5th so we do have a wee bit of time yeah that was my question is do we try to take a little more time to put in a more robust request before just approving today when we have a little bit more time to do

[00:40:57] that well i guess i would flip it and suggest approving it with reservations with commitments to come perhaps um i think just um logistically if we did not approve it today if and again i don't know what another one would look like um and then we wouldn't have time to approve it by then by the december right okay okay i have a question on the high school capacity project and um i need some clarification how many additional classrooms at Western and at Monticello

[00:41:35] would be in that or has it been completely decided by a long-range planning that's that is so staff recommends that you direct the long range planning advisory committee to determine that and that's that's why it stands as a placeholder is because the scope is not detailed enough to really put a specific project on it and so it's a little bit the committee would need more time staff would need more time to develop a fully thoughtful recommendation so that is the question that I would say you should ask the committee to come

[00:42:15] back with so I guess this question is out of a hypothetical - so theoretically would $110 million be enough to address the overcrowding that we anticipate at both Western and at Monticello or at Alamo? Yes. The placeholder amount is an estimate of the cost of building an addition at Monticello and Western. That is how we came up with the placeholder amount. Remind me of the timing. If we request low-range planning to do the next study, the next report would be in the

[00:42:52] So as I understand it, you know, we're in the five year here, and we could potentially move that capacity project up within that five-year plan if the long-range planning committee gives us the information we need.

[00:43:23] Okay. I think I see what you guys are. So what approving this plan would mean that you would not have funding for the high school capacity project in year one, FY26, because by the time we get the next year's recommendation, we'll be beyond that. Technically, if you thought this was the highest priority at this point next year, and you say, we want funding in FY27, you could ask for that during this process next year. It doesn't have to stay in this version of timing.

[00:43:53] Okay, because essentially this is this is the board's own list So this is the list that you're recommending in the order that you're recommending if You know by some miracle the board of supervisors fully funded it. It would be five hundred sixty million dollars So the the idea of like adding more to it There's another way of approaching it too, which is if they funded it at the same rate It was funded last year. It would be they would fund about three hundred and some change of it

[00:44:25] So it's possible that through the aggression that you were talking about earlier that you could potentially get the whole thing. Ambition, not aggression. So that's also, they've never fully funded a request.

[00:44:46] So, you know, also pushing for full funding. And then you, you still, even after it's approved, you can toggle your own projects up and down on the list. it's your list. You created it. What you're doing is just providing your best estimate of all these total projects that you are mission critical in the five-year plan, hoping and making a great case that they would fully fund it. They just have not ever done that. But you get to move things around.

[00:45:24] You get to reprioritize. You can decide until they're on the street with getting bids and or perhaps prioritizing something before LRPAC has a chance to come up with a solid recommendation on what to do. Those are kind of the two constraints that you have. I think just one more observation is that I think because we never get funded, we sort of self-censor what we even put on the list. So instead of doing a robust, you know, needs-based ask, we sort of self-censor

[00:46:02] it down and then we get half or third of that that's a great point anyway I would nonetheless with great reluctance move that we accept this proposed CIP request accompanied by a letter urging more ambitious strategic planning for capital for the schools I second second moved by Dr. Acuff seconded by Dr. Berlin and Mr. Pace is there any further discussion I mean I think

[00:46:38] we we've all said this this is a very hard thing to do right we I think I said this last year when we were in the same place is you know we're paying off you know as Dr. Acoff said 20 years of underfunding and I think this is a place where it's really going to be important you know this year next year and into the future you know for us to work with this entire Elbermark County community you know people with kids in school and not in school just to under to help them understand how important this is for both the livelihood of kids currently in school but

[00:47:14] for the community as a whole and having strong schools having beautiful schools both make this a place that people want to move to but also by having teachers and students in schools that are beautiful and engaging and just amazing places to learn that they deserve to have that's a right that the students have as well and so thinking about how we kind of as a school board and as a community can really educate so when these these votes come before the Board of Supervisors we have other people who can help us in that

[00:47:52] advocacy yeah it's pretty frustrating to for us to be submitted a needs-based budget which we've carefully curated the needs and then for them not to be fully funding it i mean if we could just at least push for the fully funding that'd be a start and i think the communication is going to be key not just internally but to the community really um i think the onus is on us because we see the need and we're the ones going and asking for this funding um that we really engage in the community and really communicate the need um and and what

[00:48:30] it's going to take to get this money. I think we also need to recognize and communicate to our constituents that, A, Virginia grossly underfunds public education, and the JLARC study last year indicated that if you even raised us up to the national median, it would be $1,900 more student, more funding per student and for for our 14,000 students that's over 26 million dollars and secondly both the county and the school board advocated for the one

[00:49:09] cent sales tax dedicated for capital that passed both houses of the General Assembly and was a late veto by Governor Yunkin that would also generate about twenty six million dollars so I know our constituents are concerned about schools and school environments as as we all are but they need to be all we don't hold the purse all we can do is do a forceful as dr. Haas said aggressive but ambitious ask but we don't control the purse strings I mean and the county has

[00:49:48] generally been supportive I think they could do more but the state can also do lot more we are meeting with our legislators next week to advocate for the one cent sales tax again in the presentation today supervisors at any point in time are they made aware of the capacity problems that we are facing i mean point blank we will submit this information the capacity chart this recommendation um with your approval we would submit that to the board of supervisors and enrollment yep and this the story really doesn't change too much year to year

[00:50:26] they all received copies of the um lrpac report last fall as well so so so maybe we should take them on a school visit for yeah and some of the trailer yeah i love that idea i think that's what we should all commit to um to inviting uh for tours at the schools um to make sure they kind of see what those needs are all right we have a motion and a second uh all of those in favor say say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, the motion carries. Thank you very much, Maya.

[00:51:04] Thank you, Ms. Gonzalo. All right, next we have presentation of the proposed 25-26 school calendar. Dr. Kaiser and Dr. Irizarry. Thank you, Chair Lee and school board members. This fall the calendar committee has convened to engage in the calendar development and Dr.

[00:51:29] Eric Irizarry, Director of Equity, School, Family, and Community Engagement, will present the 2025-26 school year calendar development. Christine, how do I get it up there? From the PowerPoint.

[00:51:44] Sorry. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. Is this yours?

[00:52:01] Oops. I'm going to minimize... Oops. Working together as a team, we will end...

[00:52:37] All right, we're going to go ahead and present the calendar for this year, and it was a great experience for us, and we're going to go through our process. So this aligns with Goal 2 and Goal 3, affirming and empowering our communities and equitable and transformation resources.

[00:52:57] So the guiding principles, our guidelines were developed to take into consideration teacher contracts, Virginia codes, and the ACPS mission and vision. We also wanted to ensure that professional learning days were included as they're important to provide staff time to deepen their understanding of instructional practices that support student learning and address the mission and vision of ACPS.

[00:53:20] Thank you. Specifically for this calendar, the committee was tasked with looking into the benefits and drawbacks of the earlier start and end dates and the possibility of ending the semester before winter break. At the same time, we wanted to make sure we kept the minimum 176 instructional days, the two-week winter break, and as much consistency with Charlottesville City as possible.

[00:53:44] The calendar committee operated on an abbreviated timeline in order to allow the board time to give notice to families and staff if changes were made. We first met on September 5th, administered an initial staff survey to collect information from the broader staff on September 13th.

[00:54:02] 13th. And using the committee input and information from that survey, we developed and administered a comprehensive school community survey that was sent out on October 3rd. We then used October 17th to discuss the data in order to inform the board recommendations. This is the original draft sent in the survey. You can see the highlights of this calendar to the left of this picture. But you will see that the final recommendation does look a little different. So looking at the comprehensive of survey. What does the data tell us? The survey consisted of four questions

[00:54:42] specific to the draft and an open-ended response opportunities in addition to demographic questions. We had a total of 2,580 responses which is significantly higher than surveys in the past. For the first three questions ratings were done on a star or Likert scale with one being unfavorable and five being favorable to the presented draft. The first question was to what degree do you support the draft. You can see here 36% of the responses indicated a 1 or 2, which is unfavorable. 16% were neutral and 48% were favorable to the draft. Question 2

[00:55:19] dealt specifically with examining feedback on support for the early start and end dates, asking to what degree do you support starting and ending the school year earlier. While a majority of the respondents supported the draft calendar in question 1, they were a little more evenly divided when it comes to starting and ending early, with 44% saying they did not support moving the dates earlier, 12% being neutral, and 43% being in favor of moving the start and end dates earlier. And this is fairly consistent with the previous survey from 23-24. The next question pertained to moving spring break back to the first

[00:55:58] full week in April. 45% of responses were in favor to moving spring break back to the first week in April. 30% wanted to keep spring break where it is currently and that split between the last week of March and the first week of April. 24% were neutral on this question.

[00:56:14] And this is important because in looking at the survey that Charlottesville City Schools sent out recently, they're showing a two year calendar cycle with spring break being split March and April in year one and then in year two reverting back to the first full week in April.

[00:56:35] We examined the qualitative data and tried to isolate comments on either side the calendar or the early start and end dates. 420 responses were in support of either the draft calendar or the early start and end dates. 98 were against and 69 comments were neutral or supportive of either way of either choice. Among the concerns were the initial short summer vacation that would happen if we switched over and interruptions to family schedules which could explain the discrepancy between question one or two in the comprehensive survey. Here's the

[00:57:13] participant breakdown. You can see here ACPS families are about 56 percent and I do want to highlight that we had 10 percent from students which 10 percent of you know about 250 students and that was help from our student senate and our school board reps. So thank you. Here's the participant breakdown and the demographic breakdown and the word cloud to the right shows the neighborhoods in which the respondents live or identified where they live. And we did just want to show the initial staff feedback on the draft calendar. Just this is a heat map

[00:57:50] over to the right. Calendar E was that original draft I just showed. And the staff indicated that they were in favor of the early start and end ending semester before winter break. They did like how the calendar paired the work days and professional learning days and alignment with other school districts.

[00:58:10] And they did like the balance of work days, professional learning days, and student instructional days. So this is the revised calendar, and there are a few changes that we highlighted in red. So we did shift, starting on November 4th, the family conference day to a work day for staff.

[00:58:31] And we wanted to make sure that the buildings were free for voting purposes. And for the most part, a lot of our schools used that as flex time for teachers when they had their conference days. all of our schools were not having conferences during that November 4th day. We also added two windows when we surveyed, when we heard from our families and when we surveyed staff, they were in favor of having a spring and a fall conferences for their students. So instead of just isolating it to one day, we have three-week window that schools can coordinate to meet the needs of their families, but also ensure that they're not having family conference nights or

[00:59:10] or family conference days on top of each other. So the schools in that same feeder pattern would have those conference nights on different evenings. We also moved the work day from January 5th, the end of winter break, back to the beginning of winter break on the 19th.

[00:59:31] We shifted the professional learning day and work day on March 16th and 17th to the 19th and 20th. And that was based on feedback from families and from our administrators at small schools. Small schools indicated that instructional time for enrichments is impacted when these same days are missed for professional learning days, work days, and holidays, and usually those are Mondays.

[00:59:52] So we were able to find a window where we could shift at least one of those sessions over to a Thursday and a Friday. And then this calendar does show that we moved spring break back to the first week in April. So potential benefits of an early start and early end.

[01:00:10] It would be a closer alignment with our surrounding counties and Charlottesville City Schools. For folks that need child care, after-school care, and summer programming, especially staff that live outside the county, this would alleviate some of the stress that, especially Albemarle and Charlottesville City being on different calendars, that would alleviate some of that stress.

[01:00:29] We would end the semester at winter break. Advanced placement students would have more days before testing. And we would have consistency, again, with Charlottesville City Schools, especially with K-Tech. obviously 75 percent of KTEC are Albemarle County Public School students. Specific points to the proposed 25-26 calendar. This does move spring break back to the first week in April. This calendar does cluster professional learning at work days and what that does is that creates less four-day weeks and that's something that our staff and our families wanted to see less of.

[01:01:01] It maintains the two-week winter break. It provides flexibility for fall and spring conferences for families and again the voting day is shifted back to a teacher work day we did do a little research and just showed this is our these are our surrounding counties in our region and you see there's three waves the first week in august the second week of august and then some of the schools go back that third week rockingham and harrisonburg with charlottesville starting on august 13th so there will be some challenges if the board does decide to move to an early start

[01:01:33] and end, especially HR. HR would see a one-time salary true-up for 10 and 11 month exempt employees, including required and elected benefits. Reoccurring adjustments to the deduction schedule for 10 month non-exempts would reflect 18 pay periods of deductions rather than the already established 20 pay periods of deductions. And if you click on that link there is more information there from our HR department. Building services, operations, and transportations would need to make adjustments to meet the timelines for the beginning of the year.

[01:02:08] Timelines for the semester-based classes would need to be moved up, and we would need to make adjustments to pacing, instructional pacing. Staff, students, and families would have a shorter break for that first summer, and the summer school timeline would need to be adjusted for the first year. So the calendar committee made two recommendations either adopt the revised calendar draft for for the next year as is or delay the implementation of the revised calendar draft by one year and there was voice from the committee in any case to adopt a two-year calendar cycle instead of a yearly calendar cycle just to provide

[01:02:48] families and staff more opportunity to plan ahead I was gonna make a comment that I you know I think we're at a place that we have to go ahead and do this it is aligned to other districts where a lot of our teachers have kids or families you know you know have conflicts that have come up for different reasons and so I do know and I know that the calendar committee has talked talked

[01:03:25] a lot about this just how difficult that first summer is going to be on families you know regarding you know understanding new changes and plans that have already been made as we think about chips which is that in child care and summer programs and you know particularly I think about our summer school and that being a you know a smaller window of time both for kids to have the summer school services but also we've made great strides and getting more teachers to teach in summer school and that's gonna be hard when they have a fewer times and then last i think our amazing building services people gives will definitely

[01:04:02] give them a smaller amount of time that said we have to do this at some point and so we okay can we continue to push it and i think we can't push it any longer we just need to make that that move and do this and lastly i'm so excited that the students thank you for making sure the students um were included in this um because i think it's still important both didn't have community members voice families voice teachers voice but students as well i also really wanted to thank dr kaiser and dr irisari because the last time we were taking this vote was what like

[01:04:38] eight months ago or something and at that time you know we were getting a lot of feedback that we really couldn't be making any changes um with such short notice and you all moved it up by like three or four months amazing work and i know that you've done very inclusive work very thoughtful work and i really appreciate it so thank you very much all right all right so this will be on consent for yes next uh next month thank you very much thank you so much all right next we are scheduled

[01:05:15] to have a break whoa we're right on time so um at 7 45 we'll be back um and do we start here in

[01:05:26] do we start here okay so we'll be back at 7 45. all right we are back in session next we have the

[01:16:03] student pathway exploration part two with mr craig domer executive director of curriculum assessment and instruction good evening board members i'm craig domer executive director of curriculum assessment instruction we're happy to be back this month for the work session part two on pathway exploration i know we had a very deep conversation last month and we're looking forward to another one tonight so i'm going to just move my comments right along here and introduce Ms. Megan Maynard, our Coordinator for CTE and College and Career Readiness, and Ms. Katina Dudley, our Coordinator for K-12 Science, who have been leading the work on the Scholars

[01:16:39] Studio's work-based learning and industry credentials. Thank you, Mr. Domer, and good evening Chair Lee, Vice Chair Acuff, and members of the School Board. As Mr. Domer mentioned, my name is Megan Maynard, and I'm the CTE Coordinator in the Department of Instruction.

[01:16:59] i'm looking forward to sharing with you tonight in today's work session part two of pathway exploration high school redesign really seeks to bring alive the acps mission that our learners are engaged in authentic challenging and relevant learning experiences becoming lifelong contributors and leaders in our dynamic and diverse society in alignment with strategic plan goal two objective two with a focus on ensuring students have adequate time to pursue their personal interests including enrichment activities lifelong learning and career goals additionally objective three

[01:17:38] strategy three which states acps will develop learning pathways that align with virginia's career clusters let's start by revisiting the themes that have been woven through both pathway exploration work sessions questions around engagement in high school and preparing students for multiple launching points after high school you can see a few of the goals we have for the two work sessions regarding pathways programming and the vision and next steps for high school redesign we'll start the work session with an overview of high school redesign updates including

[01:18:16] the scholar studios and then break into two rotations around industry credentials and work based learning rather than thinking about high school as the finish line of a student's journey we're reframing the concept of high school to be redesigned with opportunities for robust experiences that prepare our young adults for multiple launching points that they might take with their next steps. We want to prepare students for the future with in-demand skills and knowledge. Looking at the jobs with the most growth in Virginia, I see fields that didn't even exist when I was a student in our high schools. Maybe like

[01:18:55] you, I remember the first time I logged on to the internet. I was at Albemarle High School in the library back in the 90s. It was a web crawler, I think. And just this week in a school library, I was exploring possibilities with new AI tools that really get me thinking about the future. We need high school programming aligned with these fields and a continuum of experiences that tap into students interests and talents so they are engaged throughout high school as well. The State Board of Education is also redesigning its accreditation standards with its ready-for-life 3E framework which focuses on supporting high school students to earn college credits and in-demand industry

[01:19:33] credentials so they can be ready to launch into high-skill high-wage pathways. When we look at the data we shared with you last time from recent cohorts of graduates we see that more than half of our graduates are not enrolling I'm sorry are either enrolling and not completing a with an Institute of higher education or not completing a degree while these trends are not unique to Albemarle County our high school redesign efforts can take them into account with more than half of our students entering into adult life without a post-secondary degree or certification it's all the more important that we focus on supporting students to prepare for college and

[01:20:12] attain certifications while they're still with us in high school to ensure they have the tools they need to succeed in their future as you know we're also keeping an eye on student engagement when we compare our school division with the national average we see that across the country students value school less as they get older however you can also see that our middle schools and high schools are below the national average and this is an opportunity to add value to our secondary students experiences of school this leads us to the three compelling tenets of high school redesign we seek to leverage student interests talents and goals to engage all

[01:20:51] students in innovative rigorous learning experiences in order to prepare our young adults for success in high demand post-secondary pathways those core principles propel us as we develop the various components of high school redesign tonight we'll focus on scholar studios formerly known as the career learning communities next rusty karlak will share a little bit about the current state of the scholar studios thank you megan and thank you school board good evening

[01:21:30] i'm rusty carlock i work with the equity center at the university of virginia and normal county public schools in the office of community engagement we're going to just look a little bit at where we are in terms of enrollment within our studios who's enrolling and then also a little bit projecting forward to what enrollment would need to look like in the next couple of years in order to fill center two to capacity at its first cohort of ninth graders when it opens. So these first charts show enrollment over the last two years by studio using each studio's gateway course as the metric for cohort enrollment. That's the first course that students would take within

[01:22:05] the sequence. Overall enrollment grew by around 8% from last year and this year's cohort and that growth was driven mostly by two programs at Albemarle High School. The Solve Studio, formerly the math, engineering, and science, CLC, and impact or leadership in global studies when we look at enrollment trends across schools we see that there are a few students enrolling in a studio that is located at a base school different from their own for example in thrive and impact studios at Albemarle high school seen here to the right of this chart 100 percent of the students enrolled in those gateway courses were Albemarle

[01:22:41] high school students similarly even among more popular studios like Tara at Western Albemarle high school and pulse at Monticello high school and solve at Albemarle High School, we see that overall fewer than 10% of students enroll in a studio that's located at another base school. Students at Center One represent a wider diversity of base school students than studios located within a base school. These charts show the racial diversity and ethnic diversity within each studio and how those compare to the diversity across our high schools. One of our goals with our studios is for enrollment to represent the diversity we have

[01:23:18] within our schools overall across financial need, race, ethnicity, gender, special needs, and language. Our current studio enrollment shows improvement towards this goal compared with the academy model that existed prior to studios. However, there continues to be work to do to support greater representation within these programs. We have more historical data on enrollment at Center One and can look more deeply at demographic trends there. We can see that racial and ethnic diversity at center one has increased even as total enrollment has also grown the proportion of students with disabilities at center one also increased and is not close to representative

[01:23:56] of overall trends within the school division two places where enrollment at center one is less representative where outreach could potentially improve is in representation of female students and english learners gender representation across our other studios mostly mirrors that within the division with the exception of pulse and thrive studios which which have an under-representation of male students.

[01:24:19] This chart shows the gap between current enrollment trends in studios and capacity at centers one and two. The light blue bars show the capacity for one cohort or grade level at centers one and two. Center one has capacity, for example, of around 60 students in each grade level.

[01:24:37] And this is calculated by taking the total capacity and multiplying it by two, because we have students coming every other day, and then dividing it by four. So in a few years, starting next year, we'll have four grade levels at center one. And then when center two opens, we would also have four grade levels there.

[01:24:55] So the orange bars on the right show enrollment in studio gateway courses. It's not to say that all other studios would be enrolled at center two. This is just to show where we are in terms of our current enrollment and how that compares to capacity at each of our current centers and the future center two.

[01:25:12] Link Studio housed at Center 1 was only slightly below what would be needed to fill Center 1 if it had all four grade levels in the building. Center 1 can take around 60 students in each cohort, and they enrolled around 55 students in their gateway course this year. This chart shows the growth and enrollment in all of the studios currently located at Albemarle High School.

[01:25:33] Impact, Solve, Thrive, and Venture. Compared to the capacity at Center 2, as well as possible benchmarks within each of those studios that would allow Center 2 meet capacity in its initial ninth grade cohort when it opens in 2026. Benchmarks are based on historical patterns of enrollment and interest in the respective studios, as well as a goal of creating sections of around 20 students for each studio course. In order to meet these benchmarks, enrollment in those studios would need to increase between around 80 to 100 percent

[01:26:05] over the next two years. It's important to note that even with significant growth in enrollment in studios, Center 2 would not begin at full capacity at its opening. This chart shows an enrollment projection for Center 2 by grade level or year in the program. It's likely that the sophomore scholars number would be higher here. This is a very conservative estimate given the outreach efforts we will have this year, but we still need to wait until the spring to see what those types of fruit that those outreach efforts bear. But this gives us a general view of how enrollment will be lower at the higher grade levels when center two opens for studio scholar

[01:26:45] students now i'm going to turn it over to katina dudley science coordinator and she's going to let us know more about the scholars steering team and the upcoming changes in the program to better meet student needs thank you thank you mr carlock and good evening school board my name is katina dudley and i am the coordinator for science in elmar county um so earlier this year we developed an interdepartmental scholars steering committee in anticipation of center 2 opening in 2026

[01:27:21] we developed this steering team the steering team was established to collaborate across the departments for the holistic implementation of high school redesign addressing daily challenges that affect students and teachers the goal of this committee is to create a sustainable support structure that removes barriers ultimately increasing enrollment access and success for the high school redesign initiative and for Center to this fall we've taken on four focus areas that began late summer and then have

[01:27:58] continued through this fall those four areas include course plans of studies to prepare for registration in the next month studio leadership transportation and communication we have consistently shared the course sequence that you see on the bottom based on student feedback last fall and this spring we revised the course sequences to include additional core courses physics English 10 and government students who participate in the scholar studios will likely choose

[01:28:34] this experience based on their interest so we're setting up school link so that students can look at what the opportunities are and then select these studios based on the interest that they have and through surveys that they are engaging in. The inclusion of these core courses at the studio will allow teachers to leverage interest and their course pathways in order to increase the rigor and the engagement of the core academic courses. Counselors asked us to kind of develop a course sequence and what this would look like as students enroll in courses at their base schools and at their studio sites and so we just

[01:29:13] kind of developed this out so that counselors could see how to schedule students at their base school and then what courses to schedule students in at their studio site and then for each studio we developed what that pathway sequence would look like and then with within each studio there are pathways so that's why this kind of expands out so what you see here is one sample of thrive studio but this sample would be for students that are engaging in the education pathway there's also a human development pathway that students could engage in through the thrive studio as well these course plans will be available

[01:29:52] our school counselors but we're also making them available to our students and to our families the steering committee is examining the issue of time demand on our studio leaders and we're looking at how other school divisions staff their studio leaders our initial investigation has shown us that many school divisions provide leadership and planning time that is a model that we also previously used here for our student academies moving forward we are looking at the feasibility of being able to provide time for leaders to start and sustain these high quality programs the role

[01:30:31] of a studio leader involves providing leadership and serving as the primary contact for the studio while building relationships with community partners higher education community leaders and families key responsibilities for these leaders include promoting studio opportunities for our students implementing authentic field experiences and work-based learning and also supporting students and earning industry credentials additionally the role includes mentoring student ambassadors attending monthly professional learning sessions monitoring data for access and success and staying informed about current trends in the studio pathways and we know as high school

[01:31:11] educators the best way for us to stay informed about these pathways and about all these changes that are happening with career opportunities for our students is to stay engaged with our community partners. We also wanted to just take a minute to bring up transportation. We've been working with our transportation department since this summer to ensure that students would have transportation to and from studios. We currently provide satellite stops for students who participate in programming at our comprehensive high schools. So those currently include some of our career learning communities, our early college scholars program, and JROTC. And then

[01:31:50] we provide shuttle runs for students that participate in programs at Center One, Lab, and KTEC. This is essentially what the satellite stops look like currently for our students who are transported from a satellite stop to their high school and then returning to that satellite stop in the afternoons.

[01:32:10] And you can see that some of our students are not returning to a base school until around 5:00 p.m. and this continues to present a challenge for our students that want to participate in extracurricular activities. So they get back to their school at five then they also have to change if they're participating in an athletic event or an athletic activity and so this still presents a challenge for us and for our students that want to participate in both and a lot of times our students will choose their athletic over their other opportunities I just want to highlight the shuttle runs because a center to open center to will become another shuttle run and essentially shuttle runs

[01:32:49] will allow students to arrive at school on time and then take a shuttle they will start their school day later at the center and in their Duke school day earlier so that they can be returned to school to either ride the bus home or to participate in extracurricular activities with their classmates at their base schools so we just wanted to highlight what those were looking like we're trying to put out some clear communication around what the difference is between a satellite stop and a shuttle run because a lot of times these two different types of transportation opportunities get confused, and then people think that we're kind of not communicating that well.

[01:33:26] So we've also added this to our school division website so that families can also follow and read up on this as well. I'm going to return this back to Megan Maynard so that she can continue to talk about the communication initiatives that we've also done this fall. The fourth focus area for the scholar steering team this fall has been around communication. We started by partnering with our communications team and our community engagement team to identify where key student and family engagement touch points would be and have begun to share information with secondary staff and counselors we've also launched our

[01:34:05] student ambassador program and we are developing a robust set of communication resources for our staff and stakeholders I think on your desks there should be a copy of two sample resources there those are not final drafts but you can start to see the first one is for the scholar studio and what could be helpful is if you flip to the back there's the list of the 12 different studios and a lot of people appreciate that as a cheat sheet so as we're sharing throughout the night that might be a good spot for you guys to look our students gave us a lot of feedback our student ambassadors during feedback sessions and one of the things

[01:34:43] we heard was that they would like a more elevated registration experience more than just signing up for courses in a course selection process in power school and so as we partnered with our students and our studio teacher leaders they helped us to draft a more elevated experience. The items highlighted were added based on our students suggestions. So one of the things that we're excited about in December, all of our students in eighth grade, so about a thousand students, will get to visit both Center One and K-Tech. We'll do about a hundred students per day for ten days. Additionally, our communications team will be partnering to do Scholar Studio Spotlight, so doing one studio a week

[01:35:23] this spring to give more information about the studio we traditionally have done career learning community and Academy information nights and our students let us know that no one wants to go to an information night but that they would be interested in an ignite night and they imagine that as potentially around a campfire with casual conversations and hands-on demos I know Lakeside Middle School has also done a similar night with some of their events and so we're going to learn from them and see if we can meet the ideas that our students shared additionally students would submit their preferences in a student preference form that would be due kind of at the same time that all

[01:36:02] course registrations usually finish which is around the end of February and to create some excitement once that registration process is over we're going to do match days where students would be matched with the studio that they had selected and preferred and to kind of open up a welcome box welcoming them to that studio and that timeline also was based on the feedback we received from student ambassadors you can see here a little bit about our some pictures and some focus from our student ambassador launch and this was a few weeks ago we were able to bring all the studio teacher leaders and student ambassadors

[01:36:40] together for the first time as you know last year was the pilot of career learning communities and so this year as we've kind of grown in capacity we're able to launch the student ambassadors collectively during this time they reflected on what makes their studio unique and what experiences are most compelling about their studio they collaboratively provided input and direction on how best to share studios to middle and high school students and it was really a joy to be a part of the excitement and engagement with these students and teacher leaders we wanted to share some of their perspectives and voices with you tonight and with this being a non-student day many of them are

[01:37:20] traveling some of them are doing college visits so they weren't all here we've captured a few of their voices a few of their videos and so I'm not going to play all of them but the resources are available for those who'd like to click in them you can read some of their reflections and if you click on the sound button could also play their voices what you'll see is students appreciation for the way that the studios allow them to dive deep into a specialized area of interest and to connect with other students teachers and

[01:37:53] experts who share their interest you can see the students experience shared that it was nice to be surrounded by people who are passionate about what they're passionate about and to connect with students across the county who have

[01:38:24] similar goals for their future if I try one more time worked earlier when we tried it but it's okay we've got them saved so you're welcome to view them at a later time what's exciting about this particular image this is students in our Thrive learning studio from Albemarle High School and they are actually at Greer in the preschool classroom and so you can see the excitement of both the community expert the students and the preschool and the high school students

[01:39:03] students are also really excited about their hands-on learning opportunities they shared how in link studio and cybersecurity the capture of the flag event is one that's really special and I know students from link studio we're just there today in a cybersecurity competition even on their off day hands on learning is really what makes these studios unique I do want to play a video hopefully this one will work from Sienna Robinson one of our solve studio

[01:39:37] student ambassadors. We did test this earlier. I'm in 11th grade at Albemarle High School and I'm an ambassador for Solve Studios. So what excites me about Solve Studios is how engaging it is. We do many different projects such as we built a straw launcher, we built a car powered by string, we built paper rockets, we did paper airplanes like analyze different designs

[01:40:17] and use the decision matrix to determine which one would be best and we're also currently doing research on different planes in order to learn about aviation so we're kind of doing like a lot of different things in different fields just like get us more exposure in high school which is really important to figure out what you want to do in college or like in the workforce wherever you choose to go and i'd say that what i want students to know is that soft studio is kind of like its own community we have people who are interested in STEM going from around different ages different grades and they all just want to learn about stem and just want to have fun together and collaborate

[01:40:55] on different projects so i would definitely recommend joining if you're interested in science technology engineering math any of those sorts of things because it will help set you up for the future thank you it was really exciting to be around all the student ambassadors they were so excited about hello my name is sienna robinson there we go about all the experiences that they're they're having. In addition to student voices we also have some teachers here tonight. Jeremy Dove from the Pulse Studio and Trey Barlow from Solve Studio who also brought another one of his students with them so I wanted to make

[01:41:28] sure to give an opportunity for them to share their voices as well. Good evening I'm Jeremy Dove and so I've been an educator at Monticello High School for 26 years and been a part of the Health and Medical Sciences since its inception.

[01:41:56] I can certainly attest to the relevancy of a career exploration experience. When I was a high schooler at Albemarle High School, I took the Teach Cadet program and that was one of the things that helped me kind of like make a choice between a career in medicine and a career in education.

[01:42:16] And so education has been the path, but now I've been able to integrate that passion with health and medicine as well. And so with Pulse Studio, we hope to basically help students to identify the thing that they're interested in, help clarify those interests, and then magnify their excitement and interest in the world of health and medical science so that we can hopefully foster some key individuals that will start to fill those important niches of careers in health and medicine that are so sorely needed.

[01:42:49] you know with our capstone experiences students have been able to interface with real world mentors and see kind of put try on different hats to see what that career looks like and kind of foster that interest so that they're ready for that post-secondary experience hello school board i'm trey barlow nice to be here so i'm the lead on the soft studio and it is a great experience for students to get hands-on experience with not only engineering but computer science and data science

[01:43:29] three courses that I teach myself and it is a great opportunity for our students and also teachers to interact with students and lead them into a career and experience where they might find their passions and find who they really are as in their purpose of finding their career and occupation. So I love my job and I think soft studio is not a

[01:44:04] replacement for Mesa but it is a transformation for to get more students of diverse populations into more STEM fields and also just a more rigorous experiences for those students as well and also our EL populations and our disability students with disabilities so thank you. In addition to being here tonight our Scholar Studio teachers will be working with all of the sixth

[01:44:42] through twelfth grade counselors on making connections on November 4th and they'll be attending many curriculum showcase nights for our high school students and rising high school students coming up in December so we thank you for being here for all that you guys are doing and all the time and leadership that you put in the experiences that our students are having in schoolings are excite in scholar studios are exciting but we know that we have work to do to increase awareness of these opportunities so that more students and families throughout our division are aware of these experiences this spring in collaboration with our internal communications team we partnered with the cure team to also help

[01:45:22] us build an improved communication plan and resources tonight blaine lay and casey hayes from the cure team will share a little about the work that they have done and the recommendation recommendations that they have shared with us um thank you for having us it's an honor to be here my name is blaine lay from cure my mother was a teacher and a principal for many many years when I was young she saw the writing on the wall and realized that her marriage was not going to work out so she needed an exit strategy and she went back to school

[01:45:59] with four young kids and one of the four she became a teacher and she was a staff developer and she became an assistant principal and then she was a principal for 20-25 years my oldest sister Amanda was the first special needs student she's in a wheelchair to go mainstream in our local high school in dc area montgomery county so i share that because education in many ways is the currency of my family um on the family text message my mom to this day will correct grammar um but we i say that because we believe in the work that you're doing and you know we heard tonight around how do we get the

[01:46:36] funds that we need and the calendar and all the operational things i just want to say thank you all before i jump in for all of your work as the board and administration teachers um thank you so much we believe in what you do a couple things i wanted to share i think as we think about this the scholars studio this is from adam grant who says that evidence shows that the wellspring of intrinsic motivation is having the freedom and the opportunity to explore our interests so this is all as we think about this body of work this idea that if students have the opportunity to

[01:47:11] explore something that's interesting where can they go and that that's sort of an engine that we want to light so as we think about a lot of the communications work that we've been doing it's this idea that has been driving us a quick snapshot about our firm we do a lot of work in workforce development and education and our approach isn't just to repackage what it is but to come in together tag team and partner and say what great work is already being done how can we amplify the experience how can we bring it to life how can we even understand operationally how are materials curated and how can we give templates and resources and all those

[01:47:46] sorts of things to continue to fuel the good work that's happening um the goal of this project really is to put students at the center and so as we think about this work of communications engagement if i were to choose one word it would be engagement so we know what cova did um you know studies show that you all know this but as students get older they start to become less engaged and so we want to say okay and this was before we showed up but how can we actually create an experience it's more engaging that's more intrinsically interesting we want to drive awareness for the scholar studios we want to drive enrollment numbers and we heard a lot

[01:48:22] about that but those are the those are the goals for this body of work the way that we do that is put the student at the center so if you think about the journey of a student from they know nothing about this and I'll share in a moment about some of the focus groups that we did that we heard from students some of them don't know very much others are pretty engaged but we want to think through how do we create awareness how do we help students consider things and spark interest and get them interested and then how do we then and drive enrollment and say hey we actually think you'd be a great fit you should consider signing up and selecting in to one of these studios a snapshot of our process

[01:49:01] and we'll actually walk you through a little bit of the work that we did this was really about gaining community input and making sure that we're getting a lot of voices into the conversation. The team at ACVS gave us a lot of data that we sorted through, a lot of survey work. We visited, I'm just going through some of the key activities, we visited classrooms with students varying their involvement in a CLC or studio activity. We went to Trey's class and Mr. Dove's class and we had a lot of conversations with stakeholders here with teachers, administrators superintendent internal and external project contacts like Karen

[01:49:40] waters wick around naming and what's she doing and try really trying to make sure that we're collaborating and getting as many points of view as we could you visit all the comprehensive high schools we walk the hallways we really got a sense of the room we had conversations with students and then just the background review of a lot of the documents with data and cluster data and really trying to say okay how can we make sure that we have all this baked into the work as we go and I think that you all know this but we want to make sure that we're representing students from all backgrounds all walks of life and thinking through how can a communication strategy complement the good work that's already being done in the classroom to make sure that we're

[01:50:19] casting a broad net that can be attractional for all kinds of students I wanted to talk through just these are the things that we heard so I'm going to talk through some motivators and some barriers and then Casey will come up and walk through just to give you a kind of a sneak peek of the studios themselves so on the motivator side a lot of these conversations we just heard an interest and a passion for the subject matter students really find that thing that sparks them and that's the thing that draws them into these studios secondly is just the practical the hands-on experience that's almost the how of the learning whether it's in a lab environment or you're doing an

[01:50:57] interesting activity or you're actually going out on a field trip it's that experiential hands-on and even that a lot of the things that they're learning learning aren't abstract. It's like this is the authentic experience of if I were to be doing this in the real world in a medical environment, this is actually what it would be like. So I think that practical hands-on experience. Thirdly, just the community and the cohort based learning that there really is, to use a technical term, a vibe in some of these places that when you go to these classrooms, there's a sense of these are my people. These people are interested in the same thing that I'm interested in and the instructor is interested as well. That there's just this real sense of community

[01:51:37] community in each of these studios. Fourthly, just the influence of peers and family is a big motivator for students to opt in. Whether it's an older sibling went through something similar and it's sort of a CLC or a Mesa-like model, or knowing that one of your peers is considering it or is in it, that there's this influence of peers and family that motivates students.

[01:51:59] And then lastly, just unique opportunities and resources that in some cases, if you're in one of these studios, you might get access to or get to experience something you might not otherwise and then lastly and then i'll bring casey up just some of the barriers a lot of these things that we heard were a bit more operational um so i think one was just the social and academic separation particularly if you're going to a new building or a new community just the sense of is the benefit of the community that might be there is there a trade-off for my friends that are at my base school or the community that i know so i think that's a real thing um secondly just the logistical and the scheduling challenges around things like

[01:52:38] transportation and sports that was something that we heard thirdly just the academic rigor in the workload and this one cuts both ways because it depends on the student you're talking to some some students wonder if there's too much rigor and others because some things have shifted wonder if there's enough rigor so I think we kind of heard both sides of that depending on which student you're talking to fourthly just an uncertainty and lack of information so this is back in the spring I think a lot of students decide I've kind of heard about that if a if I know about it do I really know what all what that really is

[01:53:14] so really wanted to think through how can we create more clarity provide more information about what this offering actually is and then lastly just flexibility concerns around commitment is it of course they're going to be too much to have what it takes so that's just a snapshot of some of the motivators and the Bears Casey is going to walk through give you a snapshot of the latest related to the studios hi good evening so as Blaine said we spent a lot of time on campus touring talking to people I'm really understanding what

[01:53:51] students teachers really what the community was saying and so part of that process came this junks position of even calling this scholar studios so scholars people wanted something that represented the academic rigor of what is happening but also studios so that term was chosen specifically because studios represents a place where you can actually and then experiment you can get to know a little bit more about something but also studios because it's a physical place as you've seen from the data Center one it looks different than all of the other studios or prior CLC's because there is a sense of place and

[01:54:30] community so we want to set the success up of that as you even think about Center two and kind of rolling all of that strategy together is why we landed on studios and you'll see in this deck but even the idea of physically branding each place in the school where that studio takes place so you walk across across the threshold and you see a sign or a banner the classroom is organized or laid out a little bit differently it feels different it feels like you're physically in a place with your people in a sense and that's something that this

[01:55:03] program can now embody moving forward great so information you all know but clearly this is moved to a four-year program starting in ninth grade now and each focus area is flexible as I just said this is really a reflection of what students had to say and just the general programs and thinking about the logistics obviously getting back and forth and all those things are really important but one of the biggest things that we wanted to accomplish with this project is talking about the motivators and i'll get into that a little bit around the background of things that

[01:55:42] we heard so focus what do people really get from this when they're in these physical places and spaces they can actually deep dive into an interest and we heard a lot of feedback actually that using the word career was could be intimidating for people and could feel like am I locking in as an eighth grader of choosing my career and that was a little bit of a hurtful people to get over and it was even deterring them somewhat so how can we say yes you're gonna be focused yes you can learn something more that you're passionate about but it does not mean you're a lockstep now in a career path so that's just a distinction in the

[01:56:21] vernacular that we definitely want to make through this making it more welcoming and more experimental and then community I think we've touched on this and then experiences that you get out from behind your desk you can touch and feel you can see things in the community you spend time in the various workplaces really seeing what it might be like those are the three things that really rose to the surface from what we saw and what students and teachers were telling us so all right where does that land you all have already seen these names, but I just want to run through them. We went through this, do we name it something literal? Do we name it an idea of what it is? And we landed here,

[01:57:00] Blueprint, Encore, Impact Link, Nexus, Pulse, Saver, Solve, Terra, Thrive, Venture, Vivid. I'm sure you all will become more acquainted with these names over time, but it's really encouraging to see they're already laced through this whole presentation. They're being adopted, they're being incorporated, and that's intentional so we want to make sure these names even if the qualifiers and modifiers in the area of study slightly changes or tweaks those names can stay in the test of time and they can really embody the energy of what someone gets by experiencing these studios so just to give you a little

[01:57:40] more background there and then clearly the qualifier people will want to be able to say what are the nuts and bolts in these programs and we want to make sure and all the branding there is that lock up so people can see the primary name and secondary name in all instances and then outcomes obviously what are people really looking for when we talk about results why they are gonna do this program and what does it really get them their personal growth obviously being able to explore skills that they don't have another environment to explore at the moment college prep clearly still on the table and very important to a lot of people and then career readiness how do we fill in demand jobs and how is

[01:58:19] Albemarle County really at the nexus of doing that in solving that problem and becoming honestly a prototype for how to do this statewide how do we look at these studios not as an add-on but as a core to the curriculum to really change students lives and that's really what we've felt through even working on this project you all are at the precipice of something that has been happening for quite some time but you're really coming into a new phase of it and this and this is a catalyst for really making that happen great so these are all the logos and the beautiful kind of

[01:58:57] emblems that we came up with in collaboration with all the feedback we heard so when i talk about extending how these look and feel they're meant to be not extremely exact you can tell they're supposed to show excitement kind of nod to something that might be related to that name but you'll see examples of how these play out i'll jump to that in a second but what have we been doing what are we doing right now and kind of what is the greater team working on from a communications perspective so the communications team we want to build their capacity that's what

[01:59:32] we've been charged to do not only with the work we're doing right now but setting them up for success in the future so we're doing things like creating a lot of templates in what our work is equipping teachers to be able to use those tools and templates so we're not just making something we're the keeper of the keys we're really here to make sure this work goes on after us and everyone can use these resources and they become their own both students and teachers and staff and so also one of the things that we are working on as part of that project is an ai assist tool where we're taking all the research that we did we're combining it into a closed model so you can ask hey based

[02:00:10] on the findings of this project how would you write this in the messaging of thrive studio and what are the things that students who gave us feedback in that specific studio might be interested in if we added this component or took this component away so those are models that can be continued to be updated by students staff us other other partners in the future but definitely something we wanted to bring to this program so when we leave it's kind of a built-in think of it that is a companion consultant that lives on after this work, but we'll have all of the data and information going forward.

[02:00:44] And then engaging students, you saw ambassadors have already been excited to launch and help with this initiative. This is really on the students. Students are going to motivate other students. Students are going to tell other students, this is a cool program. This is an interesting program. You should sign up.

[02:01:00] And parents are huge advocates too, but obviously people are really influenced by their peers. So we wanted to make this fun, interactive, and look inviting. And then we're working right now on a digital experience. So it's really clear what the options are. We're devising a kind of a lighter quiz with fun interactive parts that might show you, hey, you have this interest, think of teasing out in this way.

[02:01:24] Think of things you could potentially do. You might want to try at this studio. So it's not formulaic in the way that a lot of other personality or career path tests may be. It's just kind of something to get their interest up and encourage them to explore that. So that is what they'll be able to take and kind of refer them to one of the studios to learn more.

[02:01:43] And I'm sure you all will be seeing that coming in the near future. And then this is what you have in front of you. So what I just mentioned, all of these studios, the gateway that will really be the quiz if students are interested but kind of unsure of what some of these mean or how that aligns with things they're already interested in or just maybe didn't even realize before that were available here.

[02:02:07] So that QR code you'll see there, that will go to the quiz, which will allow them to explore more as I mentioned about these studios. And I don't believe we touched on this earlier, but we also worked with the team on design your future.

[02:02:23] And we really like that as a banner slogan that can be used across the board for studios. Not necessarily for the fact that its future just relates to education, but design your future, your full future. So that's really the intention behind that.

[02:02:39] And we would love to see that played out across how this is marketed, talked about internally. It's not just equipping you anymore for career. It's equipping you for your full future as a whole person. And then you all have this one as well. We've set these up as templates, as I mentioned.

[02:02:55] So this is one example, but these can continue to be edited internally, added to as courses change or updated. And then here's some merch, swag. We love to see things come to life. So here are some stickers. When I was talking about putting things up in the hallways, you've entered the future studio.

[02:03:14] You can actually wear things with pride that have to do with your specific area that you're interested in. So this is something working on the team with right now, but we're excited to kind of see these things come to life in the hallways. And some of our teachers have already embraced this over here.

[02:03:29] So that's really great to see. Thank you so much for your time and your partnership on this great work. - Thank you, Plain and Kesey.

[02:03:46] So that is the end of the first section, which was around high school redesign and update on the studios. And I think we have time for a little bit of questions from that particular section before we move into rotations around industry credentials and work-based learning.

[02:04:02] We do have a full team here to answer questions. If you have questions for the students or the teachers, myself or Katina, we're all available. I have a couple of questions. I'm interested in how many students who take the Gateway course continue on into the studios.

[02:04:24] I'm sorry. And that's a good question. I don't know that off the top of my head, but I would say that it's the majority. Do you know, Katina?

[02:04:41] Will you use the mic, please, so we can-- Thank you. I can only speak to the past because we haven't followed what the numbers look like. Although we have pulled some numbers based on-- We had our current teachers for last year's gateway speak to who's still in there.

[02:04:57] I would just have to figure out which spreadsheet I have that data on, but I could pull that for you. But in the past, we've had about two to three students that would annually remove themselves from the class or from the programming after their first year. Yeah, I'd be interested in seeing how many continue on the success rate of that.

[02:05:16] so something i've been sorry um something i've been hearing is um what are you what sort of communication are you doing with the school counselors in the middle school level um to encourage or um educate students about this um i have heard some feedback from counselors that um they don't have a lot of information on it and so they're frustrated because they feel like they have to i don't want to say sell but like you know encourage students to do that but they don't really know as much about it as they probably should yes as we expanded the

[02:05:53] program this year to be available to eighth grade families that was something we knew would be really important in our middle school counselors when we met i meet with them monthly and so when i met with them in september we shared a little bit of the updates and then asked them for any questions they had they gave us a whole list of questions and we've been working on answering those in addition to that we met with them again today we're meeting with all six through 12 counselors monthly so i think that's going to help we also have two middle school counselors on our steering team who are really giving us some good advice on what to do for both communications and registration in addition to that we're planning our first annual career development day on november 4th which will be

[02:06:33] all 6th through 12th grade counselors we're inviting our teachers and our students from each studio to come share with the counselors and one of the things we're hoping to do during that time is help the counselors put kind of like a face to the name of the studios so they can start to sit kind of trust if i have a question about solve studio i know i can reach out to trey barlow and his students they'll answer my question they'll help me understand more about it so we're really trying to help make those connections so that they feel like they have the information they need and of course we're going to be building out resources you saw samples there for one of the tara pathway studios but there'll be a whole plethora of all of the

[02:07:11] different studios with all the pathways so they can both have the resources for themselves and they're kind of turnkey to be able to share with families but that will be important that's great yeah um and then my final question has to do with the transportation um i was a little confused on the slide about transportation um so around what time are the students going to be getting back let's say to western um if they're in a studio um can you remind me again what time around when they would be returning so currently with the satellites some of them are getting back to their schools at

[02:07:46] five so here's how that works too though they've actually when they pick our students up at a comprehensive high school because they were there as a remote student that day they get on a bus that's going that's headed to western when they cross into the western feeder pattern they actually start doing routes and so that's why it takes that a little bit longer it's not just a straight drive from albamarta western or western to monticello they actually start a route as they move into that new school area so that's what extends that a little bit but that's the way they were able to make it work to get students back and forth to sites so as center 2 opens that'll kind

[02:08:24] of do some sort of resolve for that because we'll we'll do the altered schedule like we're doing at community lab and center one but that's really kind of how that looks right now that's why you saw on that particular slide um the late return to some of our school sites yeah i definitely think that that's um a big factor especially for the western kids it's a long way to get back and you know returning at five when your teammates have been practicing for an hour really puts you at a disadvantage and i would imagine like you said that a lot of kids are picking um sports because they can still get their high school education at their base school and participate

[02:09:03] in sports and so um yeah i i would imagine that that's a pretty big deterrent unfortunately so okay that was what i was curious about all right thank you yes thank you you shared some information on a slide about um the leadership of those of each of the academies is are those your typical 10-month teacher positions are they because you you shared a long list of those additional requirements and i'm just curious yes and our teacher leaders feel that long list it is a 10-month responsibility like a typical classroom teacher and they're teaching a full

[02:09:38] class load so it is a lot and they are superheroes and all the things that they're doing but as we look at other models and we look at some of the prior models that we've used we've often given teacher leaders in similar roles more time for planning and leadership and so that's something that we're looking into the feasibility of as well okay so there's nothing right now are they stipended anyway they are stipended yes but but they would say that the time absolutely no that that is a long list of responsibilities and after our times for those teachers

[02:10:16] i just wanted to just as a parent of a ninth grader second one miss billman said because when we had our eighth grade to ninth grade transition we didn't i didn't hear any of these words at all um so and i'm also wondering about like for my ninth grade kiddo are people able to get into things in 10th grade you know plan for that in the future and then also again yes please talk to the counselors yes so um the middle school counselors this year will be the first year that it's open to ninth graders so that's probably why what hasn't shared in the past couple years but they know that it's important for them to have that information we will be at the middle

[02:10:55] school transition nights and the high school curriculum showcases to be available for those and we're hoping by providing all the resources to the counselors that they'll be sharing it regularly with the families and in their in-class sessions with the students um i think you had a second question though no just talk to the counselors okay yes is there a graphic or something somewhere that shows which studios are going to be at where they're going to be or do you know that yet or are you deciding we're in that conversation currently what we would also like to do is plan that out for the next two years we also want to communicate with families

[02:11:32] which studios will be moving to center to because we want them to know that before they start that gateway and then do another transition right so we're really having that conversation now but there will be um information about that on the website and also in the communications that we put out to students and the counselors have we identified um each uh each studio's leader yet i know we have some we have identified leaders for um eight of our eleven and one of the things that you can see is those are represented in our data if we have a studio leader we have enrollment in

[02:12:09] those studios and so for some of the studios that have not had a leader step up yet or we haven't been able to put someone in that position we don't have the same enrollment so i do think that also shows the impact of having a leader for each studio is there any way we could get that list yes we do have that and then um going back to what miss spillman was talking about um and i know you guys will all know this but uh at least i mean i don't know if this is something we won't even put

[02:12:42] out there that much but one of my constituents albemarle student ended up in pulse and ultimately decided to go to monticello like it was hmsa still is that is that an option so let me speak to that because I think to the data that we shared tonight shows students that are going in an a/b schedule and we also met with dr. Jesse Turner and he's actually going to pull data to show us any student that did make that request at the county so all of our students have the ability to make a request to move from one school to another as a full-time student there's a lot of

[02:13:20] factors that go into making that decision but he does get those requests and he can approve them if there is capacity at that building to do that so Monticello is a school that could allow for that for capacity and he did say that that's where he has his highest request that is one example of a student that moved from Albemarle to Monticello as a full-time student but he also highlighted that we have a lot of those requests coming from students in our JROTC program that are moving from Western or Albemarle as a full-time student to Monticello and unless there's a reason not to approve that he typically approves those so he did say he was going to pull that data for us so that we'd know exactly how many students were moving from one school to another as a

[02:13:58] full-time student okay for clarification are the ambassadors of students that's going to represent each studio right that's correct okay so how many of them have been chosen or have any yet been chosen so our teacher leaders shared that opportunity with their students and there's usually three to five for each of the studios i think some of our like pole studio had a lot of excitement so they might have more okay thanks is there a cte advisory board yes and so we are

[02:14:33] going to be pulling in advisory we planned it for the day that we had flooding so now we have rescheduled it for november november 12th would be our first one does that board report to the school board or is there a school board representative on that board there hasn't traditionally been but i know we do have new um guidelines and so i'll be working with craig tomer and dr hayes to make sure that i follow those i think that might be important to have a school board representative on that committee thank you so will all these studios um will this

[02:15:11] work for english language learners are there any that are going to be uh not successful because of the language barriers no so these there's no um barriers to enrollment for any of our students so if they need some language help they can access it while in the studio yes and we're working with lauren mclean and also with ruth ruth tapscott for our students with disabilities to make sure that these are inclusive that was actually something one of our middle school counselors just said to me last week listen if i'm talking to every student and i'm telling every parent that their student is welcome let's make sure that they are welcomed and supported

[02:15:48] yes okay um at this time we will break into two rotations um here in this room we will stay for work-based learning and across the hall we will get started with industry credentials

[02:16:26] What time are we doing the switch?

[02:17:03] it's interesting about this venture venture yeah well i just want to give a shout out to your board

[02:19:05] reps your student board reps because i sent that to them what like two days after you had been sworn in or whatever and i was like can you guys like get these names out to students and they actually gave a lot of good feedback so just so you know um so i'm going to talk with you guys about work-based learning and and I went ahead and put the slides that were shared into just kind of a note sheet for you and I originally was gonna be joined by Katie Bledsoe who is the work based learning specialist at Monticello but she is ill and I'm remissed if I don't say how all of this work it

[02:19:43] depends on their work each of the comprehensive high schools has a work based learning specialist and Katie Bledsoe is the most senior one so we have a brand new team she is also joined by Tim Hamlet at Albemarle High School who started his job as a work based learning specialist last year and Aaron Rittenhouse who is the newest member of our team at Western Albemarle and we can come up with as many visions as possible but they really are the ones that are on the ground making work based learning happen in your schools so I'm very

[02:20:17] lab school I help them personally because they don't have one yeah so and as you maybe maybe know my my office is actually at Center one and so I go over to Center one if they need my help as well so I wanted to kind of start with what work-based learning is I think we all intuitively know that our career experiences really do have an impact on us long term right we all kind of maybe Maybe Margaret doesn't remember our first job and what it taught us about not just being in the workforce, but just about being an adult and how to like compose yourself and

[02:20:55] what maybe not to do sometimes. But in fact, there's a lot of research and there's a lot of really good information about that work-based learning is more than just like intrinsically important. It actually does create long-term outcomes, positive outcomes for people who participate in it.

[02:21:14] A recent study in 2020, and I think they've updated it and I've included the executive summary from the Brookings Institute, shows that Work-Based Learning actually closes long-term equity gaps. So reduces poverty levels in populations because it gets them started early, the mentorship early, connecting to networks early, and those things create long-term success.

[02:21:41] Dr. Carlock also presented with you last time about some of the data around how participation in work-based learning is really for all people, not just those who are going to go straight into the workforce. And in fact, those who participate in work-based learning in high school actually have greater levels of enrollment in secondary education, post-secondary education.

[02:22:04] So I say all of this to say the why I think is really important as to why we're investing in this and it's not just us who's investing in it um our college networks and our businesses are also investing in it too yesterday i went to the virginia chamber of commerce work education and workforce conference and that was a lot of what they talked about right work-based learning getting kids early hutt at the collegiate level they are investing hardcore in making sure that there's paid internship opportunities for virginia students so this is something that we have believed in

[02:22:43] in albemarle county for a long time and we have included work-based learning in our career development touch points for a long time and it's just getting more and more important and in in my mind and when we talk about work-based learning what we're talking about isn't just internships and i think that a lot of times there's a lot of kind of misconceptions that that is the only way to work-based learning but in fact in the state of Virginia there is a continuum of 12 different types of work-based learning that range all the way from job shadowing which can be an hour a couple of hours a day all the way

[02:23:19] up to very intensive apprenticeship and so when we're thinking about work-based learning for our students in Amaral County we want to provide them with a variety of those touch points so when we look at it from the state definition of high quality work-based learning it is aligned to learning that they're doing in their coursework it is with the partnership of a workplace mentor so somebody was in the field and it is organized around and supported on both sides right so we always think of it as a triangle right so it's not just not

[02:23:57] just a student with their outside mentor it's their student with their outside mentor and their teacher mentor helping to make those connections for them so So when Y first started in 2022 in this role, we had kind of experienced a decimation of work-based learning brought on by COVID, right?

[02:24:20] We had pretty strong work-based learning going in before COVID and kids were coming to school. They also weren't going into the workforce. And even when we came back in 2021, a lot of businesses were reluctant to restart in person or they had moved their workforce to not being in person and so there had to be a place of rebuilding and so it gave us not only a challenge but an opportunity to really build back a stronger system for work-based learning and so we thought about it in this way if we build a robust catalog

[02:24:55] of experiences ones that hit all the different levels and are available to all sorts of students depending on their interests and we can accurately and efficiently collect the information as to who is participating then we're going to be able to ensure that we are providing high quality work based learning for all students and i think both of those things matter and if you look at the data pieces so if you're looking at this first chart this is the work-based learning requirements met

[02:25:28] by graduating cohorts and dr berlin i made a big copy too i too didn't bring my reading glasses so uh it's on the back side somewhere yeah so what this what this says is this is how we report it to the state a student can complete their cccri college career and civic readiness indicator through work-based learning and so hand putting in make sure make sure that every student who has completed work-based learning gets their credit that's required for graduation

[02:26:08] everyone has yeah yeah exactly and so work-based learning is one way in which they can do it yeah and so when we were looking at this this is the number of students per graduating cohort who is completing work-based learning i took out this doesn't include those that don't count for that graduation requirement things like job shadowing or short-term mentorship do not count towards that graduation requirement. Very valuable experiences for kids to have but if only we're doing is connecting for graduation requirements we're not capturing those experiences. 200 out of how many? 200 out of the

[02:26:44] graduating class of about of a thousand. This also doesn't include our service learning numbers. These are kids who have experienced a externship, an internship, they've completed a clinical study. These are pure work-based learning because a lot of the thought is what about service learning because we you'll see in a minute the numbers of service learning went through the roof as well it is measured based on it depends on the type does that make sense so if it's a school-based enterprise the duration is the course so a school-based enterprise

[02:27:23] is we don't have to think a school store right and that is for the duration of the course they're participating in that if it's an externship it is a minimum of 40 hours over a year over a year if it is considered an internship it can range up to 280 hours over the course of the year and a lot of it is about the what they accomplish and the type of work-based learning they're doing a mentorship is the same way mentorship doesn't necessarily have to be in person whereas a work-based learning most likely like an internship does

[02:28:01] they do they do get credit right those are good questions all right so in looking at what we were able to so going from there we set some kind of baseline goals to start building stronger we said we need to get organized we need to figure out what's happening right we need to figure out what what paperwork is being done what where where is workplace learning already happening what systems do we already have in place and so we did a lot of work around that and streamlining our systems making sure that all of our forms were accessible for people who and teachers who needed to use them we decided first

[02:28:40] to pour into places that we already knew we were being successful for example our clinical experiences that were happening with the cna program pulse studio was engaged with with discover medicine these were things we're already doing and we were also learning from those like what was working how are they convincing our partners to engage and then we wanted to make sure that we were standing in some good foundations and one of the foundations we wanted to set was how are we growing our own internal internship and work-based learning so that kids were not only experiencing what it would

[02:29:17] be like to work in an education system you don't just have to be a teacher there's a lot of people who work in education and also how we can build those systems as models to then when we go to the community say yeah we can you can do this here are some of the things that we do to make our systems successful so we experienced some success so in the 2022-23 cohort we saw work-based learning increase um we saw our largest increase in service learning and that was due to making sure we were

[02:29:54] capturing the high quality service learning that our seniors at monticello were doing as part of their community action projects um that was a from two percent to 42 percent in terms of service learning and then from 2022 to 2023 we did a better job of really identifying what type of work-based learning kids were doing and we were increasing work-based learning as well and so we saw a lot less job shadowing because what kids were actually doing in those experiences wasn't

[02:30:29] job shadowing it was externship they had duties they had roles they had responsibilities so they weren't just following around a professional they were engaging and so we were making sure that we We were capturing that as an externship and not just a job shadow. We also spread and implemented Capstone, the CAP projects at Albemarle.

[02:30:53] And so it increased the number of students who were completing service learning as well. So we were able to do that. We still have a ways to go. But overall, we were pretty proud of those numbers.

[02:31:09] And I think the thing that we are most excited about is not just that we were increasing the number of people participating, but we were increasing the number of people who were completing it earlier. So a lot of times, if it's a graduation requirement, we don't want to get to the end of their graduation requirement and then all of a sudden they haven't completed a work-based learning experience and they're scrambling for graduation.

[02:31:35] We want them to participate in work-based learning early, often, in a lot of meaningful ways. And so if we're looking at the cohorts that have come, we have increased service learning, yes. But in the 2025 cohort, before their service learning projects, we've already seen an increase of students who have already completed their work-based learning experience.

[02:32:00] And that is continuing to trend. When do they start? my my dim recollection when we're looking at seniors and seniors yeah that's not what we're looking at um interestingly enough you we do have kids in the studios who are in those gateway courses who are already participating in work-based learning so in their ninth grade or tenth grade year yeah so um early often and in a cyclical process but yeah so um part of the part of the

[02:32:37] studio process is figuring out how do we increase those number of opportunities and touch points so i in the slide deck and we're going to run out of time but there are a couple of really good examples of how this has happened number one wrapping around those those cat projects and connecting them to local government we've instituted the ninth grade pathway day which is the first guaranteed field experience of the high school implementation and that just happened last week for this year but in that experience students go and do

[02:33:12] industry tours of all sorts of local businesses 30 different groups going to 30 different places learning about the career options that are available within our own community it's a really exciting event event and the thing that I was reading through feedback from students and the thing that I wrote down that was most meaningful for me was a student said I learned about careers I didn't know existed and I think that that is one of the most amazing things to hear about pathway day is that a lot of times students even if they're going to like the firehouse they've maybe realized that oh fire department has a PR firm

[02:33:50] right like they have they don't have to fight fires to work for the fire department right we built a interpreters and training program which is for our students who are fluent in multiple languages to support their communities and earn work based learning and get training around how to be a professional interpreter and we still have a lot of ways to go and so i want to just kind of end in our last few minutes looking at and it's the last it should be the very last sheet in your packet which is

[02:34:28] kind of this one where we're looking at how what are we thinking about moving forward and our goal still remains that by the time a student graduates that they have completed work-based learning and in all and that there is some type of guaranteed awareness exploration or preparation experience for all students k through 12. and so we've embedded those into our field experiences we are continuously trying to think about how we can host and expand guest speaker

[02:35:04] series to promote career awareness i'm very excited i'm hoping i will come back in the spring to tell you about a really successful pilot with um for uva's facility management and our sixth grade class but then also it really takes a lot of a lot of pieces right so developing partnerships that really support the work-based learning and that takes time and i feel like we've got some really good partners right now and we're expanding them always and then also supporting the cte and studio teachers as they embed work-based learning. We want it to be embedded into their coursework

[02:35:40] and so that it's not just by chance, it's by design that students are participating in work-based learning. And then I add this last one. In addition to all of that, our work-based learning specialists are supporting students finding careers and getting gainful and meaningful employment, which is outside the scope of work-based learning. It is literally helping them get to their future goal so um that's in a nutshell what i wanted to share and i wanted to give a little bit of time a minute greg for questions oh there we go yeah i'm more than happy to have a

[02:36:22] yay great um what kind of questions do partners ask or what kind of concerns do they have you know what here's the thing i have never talked with a partner or a business person who didn't want to participate in some way it's matching um it's matching them with the right participation that fits both their needs and what they can contribute and what we need right so not every firm can host an intern or an externship or things like that but some can host a tour

[02:36:57] or field experience um a lot of our tech firms who moved online and moved to virtual virtual offices they used to do tours of their buildings and they can't they don't have people working there anymore right and so a lot of times what we we've found is that they'll be willing to do virtual internships or virtual mentorships or come in as guest speakers they can come to our campuses so a lot of times it's not it's how can i participate you know and and it's a lot of having those conversations that's what they're normally asking how can i um and not necessarily

[02:37:34] should i what are the businesses or industries that you are still trying to fill in the area we have representation on all of our cluster areas part of the studio ambassadors day in their their meeting is that they meet with their industry advisors as well and there's representations across the board i think what i would love to see moving forward is representations across the continuum within those those you know making sure that there's representation both

[02:38:08] within higher education training and you know the trades to the the ceo within those spaces so that that there's a lot more distribution along those lines do you have more time in the day you know I think it's I think it's a diligent effort right so it's the continuous support of like starting small building strong in each of these things right the guarantee for your experiences are wonderful like tomorrow

[02:38:44] morning I'm going with a bunch of health and PE teachers to tour and prep for a field experience for second graders around health careers so those types of things they take time they take effort and it's the continuously making sure that we are keeping it in the forefront so keep doing what you're doing support it right you guys do support it I then think about like you in a way I mean by doing this this is a huge outreach it like this is a community I mean sure

[02:39:21] right I mean that's a piece of what this is and I continue to keep thinking about how do we help everyone in the community understand like what role our schools have in everyone's life and that they is like and you know because we are educated employees from there it is in their best interest to have a strong school like there's definitely something there because there's no like I said there's no person that I've ever talked to in the business community that doesn't know that we're preparing their future workforce.

[02:39:56] And so I do think that there is something there. And they want to know. They want to know how can they help do that. I mean, this dovetails, I'm sure, not by accident. I love beautifully with the studios.

[02:40:13] I mean, if you're taking your second graders out to look at these various sites, this works very well. Yeah. We're excited about that one. Is a student rep on the school board work this experience it is it is yes it is um i don't know you might have more than more than eight so are there any ways where it's like the newcomers yes um so lauren mclean is the one who started the interpreters and training program and so what uh the interpreters uh we started that that was

[02:40:53] the first and one we really we really stood up because she really believed in making sure that students who were multilingual saw that as an asset because certainly employers do right and so they stood it up and so as students are a lot of those interpreters and training we do the training at the newcomer learning center and so they interact with those students but also As students gain English proficiency, then they are recommended.

[02:41:26] Yes? About, I guess, the advertisement of work-based students. So the specialists that are at each school. Yeah. I do have a lot of peers who tell me that they want to get more involved in, I guess, more career readiness, studying this for the future after high school.

[02:41:45] And I feel like it's an opportunity, but they don't know that it exists. Yeah. So I didn't even know that Ms. Rittenhouse was a new Work-Based Learning Specialist after our past Work-Based Learning Specialist retired. So I feel like, I mean, are there any, like, actions that you guys are taking to, like, advertise it more to students and students who want to reach out?

[02:42:07] Yes, that's a very good question. Number one, Work-Based Learning Specialist, Ms. Rittenhouse, will visit every 10th grade class at some point. They usually go with counselors as they're kind of thinking about those six-year plans and having those counselor meetings.

[02:42:25] She gets embedded in that. She also does, it's kind of, anytime they're talking about college, anytime they're talking about course planning, those work-based learning specialists try to be in those meetings. The other thing, particularly for your school, Margaret, is that they moved the career center to right off of the cafeteria so that it was like right there so that you could see her um and um and i know that she's working on trying to make more more opportunities for kids to know but i think you're right i think we could do a better job a lot of times and one of the things i found moving into this role is it's happening right kids are doing work-based learning how are

[02:43:03] we making sure that we're capturing it how are we making sure that we are supporting it on the school side so that it's not just that they're working part-time but they also are meeting with a miswritten house and getting lessons on how to to kind of make that into a career or thinking a little bit better one of my favorite things that tim hamlet has ever said was i've helped my student get a better job they were working you know part-time at a fast food restaurant i helped him get a job in a um in an auto body shop you know like so it's those types

[02:43:41] of things good question are we good yeah we're ready all right thank you you get to stay here margaret oh yeah yep it's your turn

[02:44:29] job security sorry oh you're good um good evening again megan maynard and we're going to chat a a little bit about industry credential initiatives.

[02:44:46] So I have a few resources here to refer to, but feel free to stop and ask us any questions that you might have. We do have a student and teacher with us as well, so. - We have dates? - Yes. Adam Kester, Alvarez High School senior.

[02:45:03] - Heather Schminz, library spirit teacher. - Allison Spillman. - Rebecca Berlin. - So, industry credentials can be exams, they can be licenses, they can be occupational competency assessments and and they are used for stepping stones so students can take multiple credentials over time to kind of demonstrate their progress they also demonstrate competency they help students to earn their cte diploma seal and they can be an alternative to the lab science verified credit for so else okay um some trends

[02:45:42] for you to be aware of is that vdoe has kind of signaled to expect some adjustments into the way that we have traditionally done industry standard credentials to be favoring more towards those industry standard credentials versus occupational competency assessments and we'll kind of talk about those differences tonight you should also know that currently k-tick is where students are getting most of those credentials but that our redesigned high school experience with the scholar studios has has these industry standard credentials embedded into them and that all cte teachers who are pursuing initial licensure are required to have an industry credential

[02:46:17] themselves you've seen the 3d accreditation framework and you can kind of see in that center where industry credentials fall for our high schools with regards to accreditation and when you talk to students they tell us both that industry credentials are valuable to them to show their competency while they're in high school but also valuable to them if they further on in a career or in college one of the things we've heard from students is that it actually gives them kind of a leg ahead when they go into college programs so if you took cad in high school as part of your architecture program and then you get to college and you've

[02:46:55] already kind of earned that capacity and have and are able to show your instructor and your peers kind of how far ahead you are with that cad information if you earn a licensure like cna you can also get paid higher wage jobs and so whether you are going straight into the workforce or you're going into college it can actually help you to be more financially viable while you're also having to pay tuition so you can kind of see how that affects students I talked about the different types of credentials and so a lot of our students right now are taking workplace

[02:47:35] readiness and the wise financial literacy credential those are really more occupational competency assessments they measure a competency in the similar to maybe like an sol test would measure competency but they're not nationally recognized credentials in the field and so as i mentioned video e is signaling a favorite of more those credentials in the field as well as licensure you can see kind of the percentage of our students and what they are currently taking and if you flip to the next page you can see outside of k-tech

[02:48:13] which credentials our students are currently earning so in the personal finance classes that all of our students are required to take they take the wise financial literacy exam and then in all of our first year CTE classes they take the workplace readiness credential so you can see why those numbers are so high in a few of our level two courses we have implemented industry credentials so in sports medicine they're taking the national academy of sports medicine personal trainer exam you can see rtc takes the asvab our emt program offers licensure in either emr or emt game design

[02:48:48] just started last year with the unity certified user program and tonight we have our cyber security teacher from center one who can talk to you a little bit about the certification she offers as well as adam kester one of our gis students who can talk a little bit about their experience with some GIS certifications.

[02:49:07] So I'm Smith, if you'd like to share any of your GIS. Good, well you'll get to learn all about it. We have a video to showcase it. Yeah, so I'm Heather Schmitz. I teach cybersecurity over at Center for Switcher.

[02:49:23] So I started off and did that for going to date myself, but over a decade. And then I switched to teaching technology.

[02:49:38] So it's relevant because I have worked in the industry, I've worked in the field, I've been on the other side interview table so I know what kind of certifications you get excited about when he's got a resume and other ones that have little little bit lesser of an excite point and it's important for the students to have industry credentials it helps them get involved in professional career or community a launching point it

[02:50:16] It also gives them some boost in confidence. They have something to put on a resume, whether it's to apply for jobs or whether it's to go into college for additional training.

[02:50:38] We've had good success. I have some certifications that are attainable doing the coursework and it's an entry level entry credential that I've been most proud of the work we've done to get the CompTIA Security Plus certification because that's a big deal that is the entry level requirement for working with the federal government and so that is a launching point into a six-figure salary and lots of opportunities and so whether they use that

[02:51:11] to boost their college career and earning potential while they are in school, or whether they just go right into industry, they have options.

[02:51:27] So we were really excited about, we had seven passed last year, and we had pulled the numbers from what it would be a BDOE had at the time, and so that was 22 numbers, and so in that year 70 students in the commonwealth had passed and so that makes that seven look even more outstanding um like about 10 percent was something um we we do a lot of work um in order to get

[02:51:59] this uh this level of success so it's not just what's in the classroom there's some self-study obviously um but we're also meeting outside of school um we're doing training sessions and since the A day and B day we're having a training session on A day and we're having a training session on B day.

[02:52:17] And over pizza and chicken nuggets, the students are working together to all go through the same practice test at the same time. And they're seeing other viewpoints. They're arguing why this couldn't possibly be the right answer. And so it's not just going through and clicking. It's an experience.

[02:52:37] And maybe they didn't catch it the first time when they saw it in class or read it in the book or watched a video or looked at it at home, but they might get it when somebody says, well, I always remember it this way. And so it really builds on that cohort experience of we're going to work together and we're going to get this.

[02:53:02] That's great. Do we, is there a cost for the exams and who then bears that? that's a good question there is a big cost for the exams most of the exams average about $200 per student the state does provide reimbursement I don't have an exact number in front of me but I want to say it's like a dollar fifty per student and we do max out all of those state reimbursement funds additionally we have Perkins grant money from the federal government which I submit to you guys each year and a significant portion of that also goes towards our industry

[02:53:39] credentials we max that amount out and use some of our local funding as well I've been talking to dr. Hayes because it's really important that more students get opportunities to earn industry credentials and so we're working on a budget initiative to designate more funds towards this yes so no students are are paying for their certification costs and we don't limit it to certain students so if you're

[02:54:16] in a class that offers it the students who are in that class have an opportunity to take that assessment but obviously as it gets more popular we want to make sure that's right that's right and i think it's really neat to see um how hard our students are working towards something that isn't an sol graduation requirement right because they're motivated they're engaged and they know this could help them in their future so i think it's a great example i think sometimes we get down on our students and um you guys are engaged when it's something you're passionate and interested and and so i think that's a perfect this is a perfect example yes you can see that they are

[02:54:52] you in a certificate beyond beyond the sol that's right we do we do

[02:55:06] And it can really help you in the future. You just heard from Amber with workplace learning experiences, but if you have a student who wants to go into health care and they have their CNA credential, you can get some work experience, which is usually required to be able to do the next level. I thought that quote was incredible in here about the young lady who couldn't afford her tuition and used her CNA to get a job on the weekends to pay her tuition at UVA.

[02:55:30] That's incredible. And that's one of our Monticello students who got their CNA at KTAC, right? Yeah, amazing. - So we'll share a little bit about our GIS program so you can learn more about geospatial information technology.

[02:55:57] - Think of CTE classes, think of three different things. I think of workforce readiness. I think of relevant and authentic skills that students learn. And finally, I think to myself, is it accessible? And in my GIS classes, it checks all three boxes.

[02:56:13] Students in the class are given the opportunity to learn GIS as a software tool. They learn how to collect data, analyze data, and visualize that data. They learn how to create really dynamic maps and online apps. Finally, probably the coolest thing is they get to learn how to process drone imagery, which, let's be real, drones are cool with these data.

[02:56:36] - Yeah, I've learned a lot about my area, the place that I live in, and just ways to take the information about the world around me and put it onto a map so that other people can learn about it too. I think it's just really helpful with something we can do it that way.

[02:56:56] - I know there are a lot of careers that use GIS specifically. Like, I've met some people who work in the GIS industry, like for the government, for example. And then also, like, private companies sometimes use it. So I think it's just a useful skill to have for a lot of things.

[02:57:20] And you never know everything. In GIS, I've learned to, I'd say for the most part, just solve problems.

[02:57:37] Like, fix, like, a traffic jam because there was an accident or finding a new location for a hospital. So I think it's, like, a good experience to learn how to, like, you know, work with computers. and you kind of see how a lot of times they're really fidgety, and you don't know what they're doing. And in my third year, we took the time to study to take the FAA Remote Pilot License Test, and at the end of my junior year, I passed, and so I'm now certified to be a remote commercial pilot.

[02:58:07] I feel like I can use these skills already and apply it to the real world. I would hope that it would be able to give some insight and people could actually visualize the problem, like sometimes you can hear a problem but you don't really understand it until you actually see like firsthand the issue i'll give you a little bit of an intro into what the students are doing in our gis classes with mr bunin who's a fantastic teacher well renowned both locally and nationally and internationally and the esri exam that the students take was traditionally a

[02:58:45] workplace exam that workers took in the field and they started offering it at the college level and And we, along with just a few other places, are offering it at the high school level. Experience for yourself. I'm a senior at Elmore High School.

[02:59:01] I just finished my third year studying GIS, and I love it. I love working with the computer and just analyzing the space that I live in and solving problems. Flying drones is really fun too. We spend a lot of time capturing drone photography, drone video.

[02:59:17] We did a series of field trips around the county just to, we went to every corner of Elmore County got different drone videos and compiled them into one video. Really interesting experience to really find out about the place that I live in. Last year in my class we piloted taking the FAA unmanned robot pilot certification and the GIS fundamentals foundation of 24 exam.

[02:59:41] For the FAA exam we spent about a month and a half to two months just in class working through a series of videos and quizzes to study what we need to know for the exam and then we won. we all went to this testing center we took it um 75 of the gis2 students passed we were really happy about that um for the gis exam we um i did not need to study for that one at all because all of the material that was on the exam we had previously gone over in the class in the years that i've taken it either in guided tutorials or projects that i've worked on i feel like when i got to the exam and took the test i was incredibly prepared for everything i

[03:00:20] 65% of us passed that which is greater than the national average pass rate for the test and yeah we are also really happy with those results. The national average for the test is by adults in the field. I'm really pleased that I can come out of high school with these industry credentials because it's one thing to have an A in the class and it's another thing to have something that says to the literature that hey I know these skills, I have this knowledge.

[03:00:51] and that I would be good in the workforce. - Yeah, that's awesome, yeah. It's a great industry to have two good friends that are government contractors. They've lived all over the world and very cool. Do you follow Above Virginia on Instagram?

[03:01:06] - I do. - They're a very cool drone photography group that you probably are really interested in. They do really cool shots from around here. How did you find out about the classes? - So, long story, I had signed up for a study hall freshman year got to school realized I did not need one and so I went to my counselor I was looking for different classes and just give me a list of stuff I could do and mr.

[03:01:32] Buehnen he was a good friend with my dad he ran out of a room in his house at college that's why I was like you should take mr. Buehnen's class so I signed up for it knowing nothing about the course but it was fantastic and it would have taken two more years of it so I was So awareness is a big area for us in both the studios, but in CTE classes in general, and that's definitely an area of focus.

[03:01:59] For either one of you, how are English language learners doing in these classes, and what kind of barriers are there, or what kind of assistance to make it? Do you want to start, and then I'll follow up?

[03:02:15] Sure. I don't have a lot that have come in. it is a bit of a challenge because there is a good bit of reading to learn to adjust how much reading and kind of pair it with as much hands-on as possible because that really helps it to make sense.

[03:02:54] So across the board in CTE classes we have more English learners than the rest of our classes and we kind of shared that a little bit in our last work session and so our we're working with our teachers to support students who are English learners but they don't have necessarily another collab teacher but we do have strategies that we can use to support our English learners I've really been talking to Lauren McLean to make sure that we don't have any barriers to accessing any of our programs and working with the newcomer learning community to see how we can partner with students even when they're first coming to our schools to make sure that they have the skills to be

[03:03:31] successful when they then enter into our comprehensive schools as well so it's definitely an area where we can continue to grow yeah I mean my information is old but someone taking CNA they could do the coursework they couldn't get the certification that's right there are there are some there are now the state requires that every industry credential that's approved that we have information from that company or that licensing board on what accommodations are allowed so on some of the credentials students are allowed to have a bilingual dictionary

[03:04:07] they're allowed to take use audio similar to our SOL test so probably in the past like five to seven years they start requiring that of all of the credentialing agencies so that we know exactly which ones we can and which ones we can't which is interesting because you know our SOLs we have a clear information from VDOE on how to provide those accommodations but for each credential each organization is different and so you know Ms. Smith is an expert in cyber security but each of our teachers has to learn the credentials that they offer. Thank you so much for your time thank you

[03:04:42] Thank you for sitting so late. What are you doing this for? I'm going to study architecture. Awesome. That's fantastic. So I just do my GIS and definitely will be two schools. Yeah, for sure. Well good luck.

[03:04:57] actually i think the gis students helped do something well they're working on a project right

[03:05:06] now that's with center too all right thank you um for your time this evening i just want to thank

[03:06:13] all the teachers and students again who came and had a greatness this conversation um we've had about three or four hours of your time for the last um month or so and i hope um and just thinking about um kind of key takeaways right the depth and the breadth and the richness of the opportunities that we're offering um some of our secondary students and exploring pathways how it kind of all links together between the arts cte the scholars studios and work based and industry

[03:06:48] credentials and we're going to continue to build out these programs especially as we open center two and thinking about how to redesign high school and bring the experiences to the base schools and grow them there equitably as well and we just wanted to are there any final thoughts questions comments over the last uh two work sessions just a just a comment i think the organization of this and the level of description and the handouts were all

[03:07:21] quite lovely pretty informative I was very impressed by our teachers and students and our work based learning coordinator I find it I found it very exciting for our students I want to echo that and I just I know I work every day with almost everybody that presented but just seeing it all come together and we for three four decades we've talked about the in 1892 you know the committee of ten that the National Education Association put together to develop the

[03:08:00] curriculum that we still use in our schools English science math social studies if there's room maybe some art and I think that we've talked and talked and there's been the energy that and commitment that everyone has shown to really changing things for kids is really going to make a difference in their lives and it's as we heard earlier it's so much more than just about academics or career it's who do they want to be that's that's what our current generation of kids thinks about is who do i want to be what kind of

[03:08:38] life am i going to have and by changing the subject you know changing changing it from english to Studio English changing the content the skills that the students are developing and the excitement that they have when they see the real-world Application and who they're going to be is really what's going to change their lives And so this is life-changing work its trajectory changing work, and we we have to keep doing it We must keep doing it and we can't give up on it. Thank you very much

[03:09:18] Next we have school board business or superintendent business. My phone already says sleep. All right Hope you didn't want a singing.

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