Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County School Board Regular Meeting, Thursday, February 13, 2025

Date: Thursday, February 13, 2025
Place: Albemarle County Public Schools / School Board meeting, Virginia
Length: 1h 56m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6boEKRb4bxM

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

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[00:00:02] Good evening, everyone. This meeting of the Illinois County School Board, February 13, 2025, is now back in session. Do we have a motion? I do, Dr. Aker. I move that the board certify I've recorded both, that to the best of each board member's knowledge, only public business matter is lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered

[00:00:34] in the closed meeting. Do we have a second? Second. Moved by Mr. Page, seconded by Ms. Lee. Ms. Thompson, would you please move? Call the board. Mr. Page? Yes. Ms. Lee? Yes. Dr. Furman? Yes.

[00:00:54] Ms. Osborne? Yes. Ms. Spillman? Yes. Ms. Pryor? Yes. Terry Cuff? Yes. So moved. Now let us Stand no, let us do the roll call. Everyone is in different seats tonight. I'm sorry. I'm looking around Differently, Dr. McLaughlin you go first. Thank you. Good evening everybody Pat McLaughlin assistant superintendent for strategic planning Judy Lee Ryman district Allison Spillman at-large representative Graham Paige Miller district Kate Acuff Jack Jewett district Rebecca Berlin Whitehall district Ellen Osborne Scottsville district

[00:01:32] Leslie Friar Ryo district Matthew Hawes superintendent Josiah Black school division council Erin Stone assistant school division council Christine Thompson clerk of the board Daphne Kaiser assistant superintendent Claire Kaiser assistant superintendent

[00:01:49] thank you now let us stand with Pledge of Allegiance we'll now have a brief moment of

[00:02:13] silence thank you do we have a motion to approve tonight's agenda I move we approve tonight's

[00:02:48] agenda second moved by ms osborn seconded by dr berlin and ms lee um announcements um first is thank you let us vote all those in uh an agreement of passing tonight's agenda say aye aye opposed motion passes now it's spotlight on education uh item 4.1 good evening chair acuff vice

[00:03:25] chair of Berlin, members of the school board, superintendent Haas, and members of the Albemarle County Public Schools community. Tonight we have the pleasure of recognizing an outstanding student whose words have inspired many and captured the essence of civic engagement. Ms. Anya Sonosori, an ACPS eighth grade student from Henley Middle School, was named the grand prize winner of the UVA Equity Center's Voices of Democracy contest with her powerful and thought-provoking poem

[00:04:02] "Democracy and Me." Last fall, the UVA Equity Center and the Krush Institute of Democracy invited 6th through 12th grade students from Charlottesville and Albemarle County to reflect on what democracy means in their lives. Anya's poem stood out among all submissions, offering a hopeful vision for the future, captured in these closing lines: So the future of democracy will be kindness and understanding, being considerate with ample planning,

[00:04:38] because the future doesn't always have to be scary and mean. In the future of democracy, everyone will be seen. The Equity Center presented Henley Middle School with a copy of Anya's poem, underscoring the contest mission to ensure that all students voices are heard and that their perspectives on democracy are valued.

[00:05:02] Teachers across our community use the contest prompts as a learning opportunity, encouraging students to explore the role of democracy in their daily lives. Even those who did not enter the competition found the exercise to be a meaningful and engaging classroom experience.

[00:05:22] In addition to Anya's remarkable achievement, we are proud to recognize three other ACPS students who received honorable mention: Emerson Joy, or A.J. Wright, Jackson P. Burley Middle School, Grade 8; Halil Steny, Journey Middle School, Grade 8; and Max Harris, Western Albemarle High School, Grade 9.

[00:05:50] This contest, along with the soon-to-open Karsh Institute of Democracy, serves as a reminder that civic engagement begins with young voices. Their reflections and aspirations for democracy challenge us all to envision a future that is inclusive, compassionate, and just. Please join me in congratulating Anya and our honorable mention recipients for their dedication to both writing and democracy.

[00:06:17] And feel free to address us. Okay, so do you mind if I read my poem? - I would love that. - Okay.

[00:06:33] So it's called Democracy and Me. I come home at four from a seven-hour day, drained, tired, just trying to stay awake. I open my front door, and the first thing I perceive are the voices of the people from the news in my TV.

[00:06:55] They're talking about the election, as they have been for months. However, this time, I decide to listen in for once. I hear about the voting. I'm reminded of the process, where the people choose the president that will help make the most progress.

[00:07:12] And that late night, as I lay in bed, I thought about what Lincoln had said. As he described our government in ten words that were simple: government of the people, by the people, for the people. It is only one powerful word that he defined.

[00:07:31] It was democracy, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. It's democracy that's given me some of my basic liberties of expression, of opinion, of religion and speech. I think about the past and the present of democracy, but when it comes to the future to determine, it's not easy.

[00:07:52] The future resembles dough, messy and unpredictable. Sometimes when working with it, you'd have to be philosophical, but I see the future of democracy as something that is in our hands. It is us, and only us, that have to protect our land.

[00:08:12] Because if within democracy, deimos means people and kratos means power, then it is us, the people, who have the power. In the face of the future, we mustn't cower. So the future of democracy will be kindness and understanding, being considerate with ample planning, because the future doesn't always have to be scary and mean.

[00:08:37] In the future of democracy, everyone will be seen. Bravo. Anya, have you written other poetry?

[00:08:56] Or was this a special endeavor? Well, I enjoy reading poetry a lot. But I haven't written too much poetry. So this was pretty special. Yeah.

[00:09:11] I feel like we're going to see you at an inauguration someday. You made me cry. That was amazing. Well done. Thank you. Well done. Thank you. Beautiful. you well i think we had a couple were you going to say something okay oh i thought you were going to say something yeah okay we would love to oh oh yeah you guys you made so i'm rick for hovack right and this is crystal beasley one of our assistant principals i think we both would like to share a word about anya she is an incredible young lady and when you think about what she wrote

[00:09:48] when you think about what she i'm sorry i have that outside voice i just thought it was scary but when you think about what she put down on paper and she calls it a poem but it's really just her heart talking i mean you think about she used abraham lincoln's of the people by the people for the people but she talked about a democracy that is about kindness and about understanding she's going to be a leader one day she will be in an inauguration one day but she's going to be a leader of our country somewhere she's great leader at henley we're super proud of her

[00:10:21] Good evening. Good to see everyone. Anya is our model student, right? She's that student that is confident. She's kind and compassionate. She is not afraid to step outside of her comfort zone and try whatever is asked of her. She's always smiling. She's always willing to help. She is our model student at Henley. So this, I thank you all for giving her the opportunity to share her poem. But she is definitely going to be famous one day.

[00:10:52] have a signed copy of this. So I told her I need for you to sign this because when you're like famous, you're rich and famous, I'm gonna say, look she was our student. So we have also asked if she would like to share her poem with us, with everyone for our eighth grade step-up ceremony. So we're looking forward to that. Amazing. Outstanding. Thank you all so much. Anya, could you come up? We'd

[00:11:15] love to shake your hand again thank all of you next on our agenda is school board and

[00:12:03] superintendent business we have a few things to read who has school counseling okay I have a proclamation recognizing National School Counseling Week where a school counselors are employed in public and private schools to help students reach their full potential and where school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities, strengths, interests, and talents as their traits relate to career awareness and development. And whereas school counselors help families focus on

[00:12:39] ways to further the academic careers and social and emotional development of their children. And whereas school counselors work with teachers and other educators to help students explore their potential and set realistic goals for themselves. And whereas school counselors seek to identify and utilize community resources that can enhance and complement comprehensive school counseling programs and help students become productive members of society. And whereas comprehensive school counseling programs are considered an integral part of the education educational process that

[00:13:17] enables all students to achieve success in school and now therefore be it proclaimed that the Albemarle County School Board do hereby proclaim February 3rd through the 7th, it's National School Counseling Week. And it's signed by our Chair, Kate Acuff.

[00:13:34] Thank you. And we have one on transportation. I wish I had my little tight school bus right now. Proclamation recognizing February as Love the Bus Month. Whereas the yellow school bus is among the most recognized icons of American schools and society. And whereas school buses make up the largest mass transit system in the U.S., and whereas research demonstrates that the yellow school bus is the safest mode of transportation for some 26 million American school children each

[00:14:09] day, and whereas yellow school buses are built to federal and state safety specifications and drivers are provided with rigorous training, preparation, and testing to ensure the safety of students, and whereas the yellow school bus provides access to education and learning for children who live in rural, suburban, and urban areas including children with delays and disabilities. Whereas the yellow school bus enhances the educational experience by providing access to extracurricular activities such as field trips and sporting events and whereas the staff who manage and

[00:14:45] operate local school transportation systems are dedicated to the safety of all children and to ensuring efficiency and accountability in student transportation. Whereas the Albemarle County Public Schools recognizes the vital role that the yellow school bus and its operators play in our education enterprise and in the life of our district and now therefore be a complaint proclaimed that the Albemarle County School Board declares the month of February as love the bus month in Albemarle County and calls upon our students families staff and community to recognize the hard work of our transportation department for all they contribute to the safety and well-being

[00:15:24] being of our students. Signed the 13th day of February, 2025. Dr. Kate Acok. Thank you, Dr. Berlin. Dr. Acok, I've been asked to ask the board that on February 20th, it is wear yellow for love the bus month. And that just so happens to be a school board meeting day. So they're asking the board if perhaps they would wear something yellow that day. Can you send us a reminder? I was just going to say

[00:15:55] the same thing yep thank you miss lee i have a resolution of appreciation for christine thompson clerk of the albemarle county school board whereas the virginia school board association board of directors has designated the third week of february as school board clerk appreciation week to recognize the invaluable contributions of school board clerks across the commonwealth and whereas school board clerks play an essential role in ensuring the smooth and effective governance of of our public schools by maintaining accurate records, preparing board materials, managing communications, and providing critical support to the school board members and superintendents.

[00:16:32] And whereas the Albemarle County School Board relies on the professionalism, dedication, and organizational expertise of its clerk, Christine Thompson, whose commitment to excellence upholds transparency, efficiency, and integrity in school board operations. And whereas Christine Thompson exemplifies outstanding service through her meticulous record keeping, responsiveness to board members, steadfast support of albemarle county public schools ensuring that all business of the board is conducted conducted effectively and in accordance with state and local policies and whereas her efforts behind the scenes help advance the mission of public education in albemarle county by facilitating informed decision making fostering public trust and supporting the

[00:17:12] collaboration of school division leadership now therefore be it resolved that the albemarle county school board hereby expresses its deep appreciation to christine thompson for her dedication professionalism and unwavering commitment to the students educators and community of albemarle county and be it further resolved that the school board encourages all members of our community to join in recognizing the vital role that school board clerks play in ensuring

[00:17:36] success of public education in virginia sign on this day february 13 2025. thank you christine for making making our lives so much easier in doing this important work and i think next on the agenda is Ms. Fillman. Thank you. Last week I made a public statement on my social media in support

[00:18:12] of our transgender and anti-racism policies, and since then the board has supported that statement and asked me to read it on behalf of all of us. We, the Albemarle County School Board, stand firm in our commitment to building a school system that reflects the values of equity, inclusivity, and respect for all students. Our district's anti-racism and transgender policies are grounded in the belief that every student deserves a safe, supportive, and nurturing environment to learn and grow. We will not be deterred by attempts to mischaracterize our efforts

[00:18:47] as indoctrination. Our goal is not to impose any particular set of beliefs, but rather to ensure that all students are treated with dignity regardless of their race, gender identity, or background. We embrace diversity because it enriches our community, fosters empathy and prepares our students for a world that is increasingly interconnected. Albemarle County Public Schools will continue to work towards a future where every student, whether they are black, indigenous, people of color, LGBTQ+, or from any other background, feel seen, heard and valued. We will protect and uphold their right to learn in an environment

[00:19:23] free from discrimination, bias or fear. We will continue to be a district that stands against hate, violence, and exclusion in any form. Our commitment to anti-racism and transgender policies will remain unwavering, and we will always advocate for the well-being of our students, ensuring that our schools are spaces of safety, respect, and opportunity for all.

[00:19:45] Thank you for your continued support as we work toward a more inclusive and just educational experience for every member of our community. Thank you, Ms. Spillman. The next-- Oh, do we need to vote on that to move it forward into a resolution I think you have to make a motion can I make a motion to I would like to make a motion to formally adopt Ms. Spillman's statement today on February 13th as a statement

[00:20:19] made by the board a second all those in favor aye opposed motion passes thank you the next item on On the agenda is, I'm sorry.

[00:20:39] - Sorry, can I make a statement real quick? - I'm sorry, sure, sure. - At Monticello High School, students have taken initiative to address ongoing issues with our bathrooms. Right now, many of our stalls have broken locks and we're lacking necessities like soap and paper towel dispensers. This isn't just a matter of convenience, it's about privacy and sanitation.

[00:20:56] In response, students have been working to fix these issues by installing new locks and adding more soap and paper towel dispensers. This is a great example of students stepping up to make real improvements in their environment. Across the county, student clubs are also making a difference. At Albemarle High School, the Black Student Union started off the Black History Month with an event during lunch on February 3rd, and they hosted Jihamba dancers during Patriot period.

[00:21:21] Yapica celebrating cultural diversity with a Lunar New Year potluck. The Student Senate has been working on a proposal to expand the use of pocket talk translation devices in other schools, including Monticello, Western Albemarle and Community Lab School, to help bridge barriers, to help bridge language barriers, and support multilingual students.

[00:21:40] In the world of STEM, Albemarle's robotics team is sending two teams to the state competition at Science Olympiad, and will be competing at regionals this weekend. These examples showcase the dedication and leadership of students across our schools, whether it's improving facilities, celebrating diversity, or advancing academic and extracurricular opportunities.

[00:22:05] committed to making a positive impact thank you for your time and support helping us create the best possible environment for all students thank you you weren't here for the roll call so will you just introduce yourself to anyone who's listening at home musa med senior monochella high school thank you sherry cuff we just have a couple items of business before perfect first we're going to reignite josh's role as handing out certificates to the board this is a certificate of recognition from the governor's office in recognition of school board

[00:22:43] appreciation month so whereas school board members are elected or appointed to represent the interests of students teachers parents and other stakeholders and whereas school board members play a vital role in ensuring that students across the commonwealth have access to high quality rigorous education and are best positioned to uphold educational excellence in Virginia's schools and whereas school boards are the governing bodies responsible for the oversight success transparency effectiveness and outcome of school systems across the commonwealth

[00:23:17] and whereas local school board members work for their communities parents businesses education professionals and other community members to execute a shared vision of success for students And whereas these decisions affect the present and future lives of children and chart a path to prepare all students to be productive workers in the Virginia economy, informed and engaged citizens in our pluralistic democracy, and responsible and good neighbors in our communities, and whereas School Board Appreciation Month acknowledges the contributions, dedication, and service of Virginia's local school board members.

[00:23:56] Now, therefore, I, Glenn Youngkin, do hereby recognize February 25th as School Board Appreciation Month in our Commonwealth of Virginia, and I call this observance to the attention of our citizens. So, Josh, we'd like to hand you your certificates.

[00:24:13] Please proceed. Thanks a lot. Whereas is really working hard tonight. I know.

[00:24:29] Therefore, also, doing some work. Back to my MUN days. Excellent work, Mr. Black. Thank you.

[00:24:45] we just have a quick, a very quick business update that has no whereases. We just want to give a brief update on our use of inclement weather days and what our plans are moving forward. Dr. Kaiser's going to do that real quick. Good evening, Chair Acuff, Vice Chair

[00:25:18] Berlin, and members of the school board. As we continue to track the weather, there remains possibility of additional school closures due to incoming conditions. Tonight I want to provide an update on where we stand with our instructional hours, how recent closures have impacted our bank time, and what steps we may need to take if more closures occur. Virginia state law requires school divisions to provide

[00:25:49] 990 instructional hours, or the equivalent of 180 school days each academic year. And if you're just looking at hours, each school day equates to six teaching hours.

[00:26:07] If a district falls below this threshold, we have a few options to make up time, including adding instructional days to the calendar or extending the school day. At the start of the school year, we had 66 surplus instructional hours available.

[00:26:27] However, after accounting for the flooding events in late September and early October, along with the two recent snow-related events, closures, we have used 55 of those hours, including six hours we regained by having a workday on January the 17th.

[00:26:49] As of today, February the 13th, we have 11 banked hours remaining above the state mandated 990 hour requirement. Right now we have enough time to absorb one more full day closure without going below the required instructional hours.

[00:27:09] However, if we have two or more additional closures, we will need to implement make up days to remain in compliance. If additional closures occur, we are prepared to adjust our calendar by converting the following non-instructional days into regular school days: Monday, April the 28th, we would convert from a professional development day to an instructional day.

[00:27:37] Monday, March the 17th, convert from a professional development day to an instructional day. On Friday, March 28th, convert from a teacher work day to an instructional day.

[00:27:52] If closures extend beyond the available makeup days, we may need to explore other options, including temporarily extending the length of the school day, extending the school year, applying for a waiver from the Virginia Board of Education in the event of a prolonged closure due to extreme weather.

[00:28:16] At this point, we have some flexibility, but another two or more closures would require us to use designated make-up days. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and provide timely updates to our students, families, and staff.

[00:28:33] And thank you, and I'm happy to take any questions you may have. Just a super logistical question. So if it's a two-hour delay, does that count as two hours of that time, or does that not count in that counting time?

[00:28:48] so far this year we've we have nine full days we have two two-hour delays that we've had and one one-hour delay so I believe if I'm not mistaken Patrick the the two-hour delays are that's right so so we count hour for hour because we're using 990 hours for the school year so today took two of those hours away from us the previous day took six as a full day I mean one of the things will just happening have to think about is i know those pd days that would switch to instructional and again

[00:29:26] i know we have to follow the rules but those are days i believe are designated for teachers to work on their letters training for part of those days maybe you'd have to go back and look at those that so just something to think about because i know that's a um important for the teachers but also that we need time so we'll have to figure out a plan if we have to move those instructional days how to support those teachers with that training and we hope we won't have to do that um dr heiser thanks very much for the update um the they're not in chronological order so i was just wondering if

[00:30:02] those dates have like an order of preference or something for yes so the order would be monday april the 28th that would be the first day then the march 17th date and lastly would be the march 28th and that's the day uh the day before spring break yeah we have flights on those days yes thank you any more questions thank you dr kaiser thank you thank you next on the agenda

[00:30:33] is public comment and i believe that's ms osborne 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 9:00 a.m.

[00:30:52] On the Monday of the meeting week until 2:00 p.m. On the meeting day by phone call the school board clerk's office to sign up until 2:00 p.m. On the meeting day where you can sign up in person at the meeting that's available from 6:00 p.m.

[00:31:10] Until the public comment period starts which is right now Please note that public comment is not received at special board meetings unless specified on the agenda Each speaker will have three minutes to speak, but the chair with board consent may reduce this to two minutes should there be 14 or more speakers.

[00:31:32] The maximum number of people or groups that may speak at a meeting is 20. In the event that there are more than 20 people or groups who wish to speak at a particular meeting, each speaker will be assigned a number, and numbers will be drawn to determine which people or groups will have the opportunity to speak.

[00:31:50] 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 to the school boards for the school boards consideration speakers should do the following say your name and either your address or your voting district address your comments to this host to the whole school board limit your comments to school board governance or school division operations provide written statements and supporting material to the clerk.

[00:32:23] the school board will use a timer to track each person's time speakers are asked to wrap up their comments by the end of the three-minute mark to maintain respect please refrain from clapping or other audible forms of support may raise your hand instead and debate with the school board is not allowed and the projection system is for staff presentations only tonight we have two

[00:32:52] speakers, Jim Dillenbeck and Chris Dilbeck. Mr. Dillenbeck, you are first. Good evening, Chair Acuff, other members of the board, Dr. Haas. My name is Jim Dillenbeck, and I'm in the Rio District. And first want to say compliments to Dr. Haas and your staff for the good call on the weather this morning. That may be one of the most difficult parts of your job.

[00:33:31] I want to tell you this evening about a conversation that I had yesterday with a neighbor while we were out shoveling snow. He said that he and his wife, who have three kids, have decided to pull their fourth grade son out of Woodbrook Elementary School and sent him to a private school.

[00:33:50] They made this difficult decision because he was falling further behind and the staff is completely overwhelmed by and focused on the large number of ELL students, most of whom are failing the SOLs. Sadly, I heard the same thing from numerous parents as I campaigned in the Rio District last year.

[00:34:11] In addition, there are a number of teachers who have left county schools because of the difficult conditions and lack of support from their perspective. These are disturbing trends. I'd like to also, since you all are in the middle of the budget season, implore you to consider a few items as you take a look at the budget for the coming year.

[00:34:34] First and foremost, I would like to encourage you to spend more money on teachers and less money on central office staff at the risk of stepping on toes based on the payroll information that I received.

[00:34:51] I want to point out that in the HR department, for example, there are 29 staff members with a budget of $2.4 million. In the technology department, there are 28 staff members and $2.8 million.

[00:35:09] In the Building Services Department, there are 62 staff and $3.7 million. And there's a teacher at Woodbrook Elementary School who has in her class 14 ELL students and one deaf student.

[00:35:28] So she spent some time this week speaking Spanish and signing at the same time. And she's paid approximately $60,000. That to me seems to be a disparity. number two i would like to encourage you all to fully fund school resource officers for all of the high schools in the county and hire and train more safety coaches for all middle schools in the county i'd like to encourage you to check in on the events at burley middle school from last week

[00:36:04] and number three i'd like you to plan for a fourth high school in the near future albemarle high school has been overcrowded for 30 years thank you for your time thank you mr dillamick now we have Chris Dilbeck. I'm Chris Dilbeck. I graduated Albemarle High School in 2005. I went on to form

[00:36:38] a career in identity and access management computer architecture. I had a great experience at Albemarle High School and got an excellent education there and I wanted to thank Dr. Haas for his services there as principal when I was there in 2005. I wanted to address the topic of snow days.

[00:36:57] One of the, an experience that I would describe as mythical and grand is the one where you run down the stairs in the morning and you look out the window as a young kid and you see it snowing and you run right to the couch and you look for the little ticker on the end of the, of the news to see if school is closed for the day.

[00:37:16] I remember snow days as days of fun, freedom, family, and running around the neighborhood with a roving band of kids from my neighborhood. So I would like to say that I've urged the school board to when it's icy like it was on Thursday of the last closing or it's close go ahead and close the schools because Many of the kids out there are having an enlightening experience at home with their families and friends And many of them are making memories that they will cherish their entire lives like I have so thank you

[00:37:52] I yield back. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Thank you next we have approval of the consent agenda I move we approve the consent agenda do we have a second second we have a motion by Miss Lee a second by mr. hey page almost all those in favor aye opposed consent agenda is accepted

[00:38:26] school division business the first item is dr. McLaughlin and an overview of the VA school performance and support framework. And there he is right in front of me. Good evening, Dr. Acuff and the rest of the board. Thank you. My name is Pat McLaughlin, excuse me, assistant superintendent for strategic planning. And it is my pleasure tonight to bring you an update on the Virginia school performance and support framework. The reason we're doing this tonight is really as a prelude to a report you're going to get next month around some of our mid-year updates we have staff who are going to come to the meeting next month to give you an idea of how we

[00:39:05] judge our progress throughout the year and understand whether or not we are on track to meet our goals this aligns most closely with our thriving students goal and i'll start by looking at our current state of accreditation i've stood before you all many times and talked through how the former system worked and if you recall it was one that was relatively straightforward we had schools were judged on academic achievement for all students in the areas of english mathematics and science they had a certain threshold to meet and they received a level of level one level two

[00:39:43] or level three they also were judged on their achievement in math and science for their achievement gap groups each group was looked at individually and then they were collectively given a score for that of level one two or three and then finally schools were given a score for chronic absenteeism if any of those categories landed at a level three for the year then the school was considered accredited with conditions and they had to work with the state to write a school improvement plan and participate in some state monitoring high schools had three additional

[00:40:18] elements in here that focused on graduation and readiness for life after high school. So all those things that we've talked about for years, take them and throw them out the window because we've got a totally new system that is going to be in place starting for next year's accreditation year which is based on performance from this school year, the 24-25 school year. And that's what I'd like to go through with you tonight we've known for about a year maybe even more than a year that the system was going to change but we've been given just

[00:40:54] kind of bits and pieces of information until recently about what those changes meant the first piece of information that came out were these percentages where the state came out and said this new system is going to look at elementary schools and they're going to be judged 65% of their accreditation score their accountability score is going to be from mastery 25% is going to be from growth and 10% is going to be from readiness middle schools had 60% mastery 20% growth 20% readiness and high schools had 50% mastery 15% graduation rates and

[00:41:30] 35% readiness and while that was nice and gave us a start to understand what what that was we didn't really understand how those broke down or what any of those really meant because they as you'll see tonight they mean something quite different from what we were used to the next piece of information that came out was a breakdown of those categories where they said okay when we look at mastery here's what we really mean and if you look on here you can see the breakdowns for each of our classifications of schools in elementary school mastery is going to use four components their reading math science

[00:42:09] reading math and science SOL tests and also progress that students make on their WIDA tests for students who are English language learners and you can see that each of those has a specific percentage that it makes up of that 65 percent so reading counts 22 and a half percent math counts 22 and a half percent science 10% and WIDA progress or progress in English language proficiency counts 10% to give us that 65 think of this as the teacher grade book right where a test used to count a certain percentage and quizzes counted a certain percentage and homework counted a certain percentage and you took all of those

[00:42:46] things at the end of the year and you plugged them into a formula and it spit out a final score for you that's what this system is going to do for us so they showed us that breakdown that growth at the elementary school was going to be 12 and a half percent each for reading growth and math growth and then they've got a category called readiness which incorporates chronic absenteeism and something called a five C's performance task at the middle school you can see that that mastery category is made up it looks very similar but with slightly different percentages there same thing for growth and the readiness category

[00:43:24] adds in a category for advanced coursework and then finally when we look at our high schools we have similar mastery categories graduation replaces the growth category and readiness has different components at the high school level than it does at the elementary school level and I'll go into a little bit of detail about what all of those are tonight but if you look across that continuum you can see that it switches from a higher emphasis on mastery for elementary school students to a higher emphasis on readiness for our high school students the thinking there is that we you know the that at the

[00:44:03] elementary school it's more important to start to get those basics and by the time you finish high school it's more important to be ready for for life for employment for enlistment for enrollment in a in a new institution even when we had those percentages we weren't quite sure how those percentages were going to be calculated and that is the kind of the final piece of information that has come out to us from the state and that's what we'll spend much of our time on tonight so the first part I'd like to walk you through is whoops are the

[00:44:42] mastery calculations for our elementary middle and high schools in elementary schools the tests that are used to for mastery and reading are three SOL tests our third fourth and fifth grade reading tests in math that is the third fourth and fifth grade math test and in science it is the grade five science test in middle school the six through eight reading are used for mastery six through eight math plus algebra one and geometry which we have many students take at the middle school level and their eighth grade science class one quick note that where it gets even a little bit more complex before we go into the high schools

[00:45:21] these scores are for students who take the test in the current year so a third grader who takes the test this year that third grade test is going to come into uh the elementary reading score a sixth grader who takes a sixth grade math test that score is going to come into that middle school math score and i point that out because at the high school it's different when we look at the high school kids in high school take all kinds of different tests depending on what grade they're in what they've taken already when they were in middle school so it's not as consistent as it is in elementary and middle schools so the one piece that's most consistent at the high school is the end-of-course reading test every student takes that it's a requirement to to get a verified

[00:46:01] credit to graduate and so that test that generally is taken in 11th grade is counts 15 percent of mastery kids take all kinds of different math tests at different times and in fact kids are only required to take one math test and get one verified credit and once they've earned that verified credit and taken a math test at the high school they don't have to take another sol test And so for some kids, that's Algebra 2.

[00:46:27] For some kids, that's Algebra 1. For some kids, that's Geometry. So what counts in these calculations is whatever test generally they take first. There's a federal requirement that all students take one, at least one standardized math test when they are in high school.

[00:46:44] And that first one goes into the mix for calculations. And then finally, with science, the only test that counts is when they take biology. All students are required to take biology as an SOL when they're in high school, and that counts 10% of their score.

[00:47:00] What is really different about high schools compared to our elementary and middle schools is that we use cohort graduation results for this calculation, which means that when we're calculating these results this year, it's based on the graduating class of 2025.

[00:47:20] So for their math test, we're looking back to their ninth grade year generally and to see what math test they took. We're looking back to whatever year they took biology, ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade to take that. And generally we're looking back to their 11th grade year to find their reading test.

[00:47:38] So a lot of the mastery component in our high schools is already in the books. These kids have already taken those tests and it's not going to, Nothing's gonna shift with those, you know, with our new students who are coming in taking this year's test, we generally won't see those reflected for about three or four years in these components.

[00:48:03] - So when students take those tests, they get one of four levels of performance on the SOL. They can get a pass advanced, they can get a pass proficient, they can get a fail basic or does not meet, and they can get fail below basic.

[00:48:20] For each one of those levels, they get a different point value assigned to them. So if you pass advanced, you get 1.25 points. If you pass at the proficient level, you get one point. If you fail at the basic level, you get 0.75 points.

[00:48:36] And if you fail at the below basic level, you get 0.25 points. And it's important to point out that at the high school level, none of the what we call the end of course tests have a below basic category nor do our algebra one our geometry or science tests in elementary and middle school so the the lowest performance cat that's why they have one called does not meet instead of below basic and basic that are there the final component of mastery is we detesting that's a test that we give to all of our english language learners

[00:49:09] and they take that in the spring of every year and it that is kind of a pass or fail test for purposes of of accreditation calculations that if students meet their WIDA growth target which is established after they've taken the test once then they get one point for that if they fail to meet that say going from fourth grade to fifth grade then they get zero points for that this is a category that spans all grade levels from K through 12 for all of our students who take the WIDA test and have taken it at least once before in the state of

[00:49:44] Virginia and so what really made this make sense to me was seeing the numbers at work and so I'm going to take you through a quick representation of some of our of one of our schools one of the things that the state of Virginia did for us this year is they said we're going to pretend as if this system were in place at the start of this year and we're going to give you model data so that you can see how your schools would be doing on the new system so tonight i picked burley middle school uh to show you the model data

[00:50:18] that we have there so the first indicator that we have is reading performance and at burley they had 93 students who passed at the advanced level they had 270 students who passed reading at the proficient level 124 students who passed at the basic level and 47 who were below basic and so when those come in and we give a 1.25 points to the advanced passes one point to the proficient

[00:50:51] passes on down the line till we get to below basic uh the rate for those kids is about 91.9 think of that on a hundred point scale right kind of perfect is 100. technically you could get 125 on this because if every kid passed advanced uh your score here would be 125. that's the number that will be multiplied by 20 percent to get the final score when you take that uh that 91.9 um when you look at Burley's math performance they had 82 students who passed advanced they had 251

[00:51:27] at the proficient level they had 145 at the basic level and they had 63 below basic that gave them about an 88 score of about 88 there and then finally when we look at their science performance they had 11 students who were past advanced 92 who passed proficient and 73 who in this category is called did not meet because there's no delineation between basic and below basic so that gave them a score there of about 91. a couple of things to point out here that i

[00:52:03] think are interesting the impact of below basic is is pretty significant when you look at our reading performance. If you just did the math, pass-fail, the reading performance at Burley last year was 68% pass rate. When you look at science, it was significantly lower, 59% pass rate there. But when you look at their scores that are used for the calculation, they're almost the same, even though the pass rate was lower. And so one of the things that you'll see here is the impact of science is much less significant than it has been in the past.

[00:52:41] It used to be that if you had a, you know, below 70% of your students passing science, you are automatically kicked to accreditation with conditions. Here even if every single student in the school failed a science test, the most impact it could have on that hundred point scale is two and a half points because even a fail gets .75 of that one point that's in there.

[00:53:06] Basic really has a big impact and in many ways that's good right we used to just look above the bar below the bar um with our tests and now uh below basic really by even just moving kids up to a basic uh fail that gives them three times the credit that they would have gotten i think that's positive in some ways because those are our neediest students the students who are performing at significantly lower levels than the state would like them to be and then the final piece that goes into our mastery component is EL student progress on the WIDA test last year 23 out of 60

[00:53:44] students at Burley made progress on the WIDA that was there so that gave them about a close to a 40 percent pass rate on there all of those things when calculated together give you a mastery value of 49 and that counts 20 40 50 60 percent of of the mastery component so we'll come back to this and again keep in mind that that hundred point scale and please I know I go fast sometime stop me whenever you want I'm happy to take questions if something doesn't make sense yep are they also making a change

[00:54:20] to when our English learning language students will be taking the test isn't there also a change the SOLs so yes and no so they've they've always taken the test but it hasn't counted for accreditation purposes and that is very different and so it used to be that you had an 11 semester exemption as an English learner that has come down to a three semester exemption so in other words I had to be here over five years for my scores to to be included in the accreditation calculations now basically by the end of your second year those scores come in

[00:54:59] and and they come in for in a number of ways they come into reading they come into math they come into science they come into uh the weta progress and they also are calculated at the elementary and the middle school level into the growth side of things so that is a pretty significant change so the next piece is growth and we've talked about growth in the division for a long time and what we used to mean when we talked about growth was we had these ranges for sol scores right and we would say you know there were four ranges that were kind of below the bar and four ranges that were kind of above the bar and if you were below the bar and you were in range number one

[00:55:37] if you the next year moved to range number two or range number three you would count as a pass as what we call a growth pass for um for purposes of accreditation growth now means something totally different there is a new system that the state has adopted that we call vivas it's the virginia visualization and analytics solution and basically what vivas does is at the end of the year when all of the tests are done they take all of that data and they dump it into uh who knows some big spreadsheet somewhere and they spit out for every grade level test a big normal curve right and they

[00:56:14] they say okay this student scored a 420 and so that's going to put them at the 65th percentile on that curve and this student scored a 380 that's going to put them at the 48th percentile on that curve but it but it is a normal curve there's always going to be someone at the low end there's always going to be someone at the high end for that and based on that in combination with all of the other SOL tests that that student has taken. They determine a level of growth that that student should meet for the next year. So it doesn't really tie into a specific score. We don't think

[00:56:53] we're going to get something that says student A should get a 430 and student B should get a 450 because it all comes back to percentiles. And you can't calculate the percentiles until everybody's done with the test. And so growth, we're not going to, that's the, this is the hardest part of the new system for us to be able to model because it's going to come to us so late in the game.

[00:57:15] But basically, the state has said when you, using that system, they've set up a model, whoops, I didn't mean to hit that. They've set up a model that's very similar to mastery. They've said if you exceed your growth target, we're going to give you 1.25 points for that when we're calculating growth if you hit your growth target we're going to give you one point if you are if you grew but you didn't quite hit the target we're going to give you 0.5 points and if you don't grow at all we're going to give you zero points and so they take that and sometime in September we get a report that says here's the number of kids who exceeded their growth who met their growth who

[00:57:55] grew and then who didn't grow and that equates to twelve and a half percent of of the score for reading and math at the elementary level and 10% of the score for students at the middle school level. And we'll pop those numbers in for Burley as well just to see what this looks like.

[00:58:15] So at Burley last year, in reading growth, the score earned 400.5 points out of a possible 499. right that 499 is roughly the number of students who took a test and to um uh to get full credit you would want to get one point for every one of those students miss lee it looked like you had a question yeah i just i mean i understand the normal curve but like how is growth determined from where people are in that so so they've they look at all the kids in the state who landed in the same place they quite frankly i'm not quite sure how they get the um the second piece but

[00:58:54] But they use that in conjunction with, if this student scored a 460 this year, and last year he scored this, and last year he scored that, and last year he scored that, and there's other students who look like that, they make a determination as to where they think that student should be. Like comparative percentiles, kind of? That's right.

[00:59:10] Okay. Yeah. But sometimes you could be in a lower percentile. You might be in the 60th percentile one year and be in the 58th percentile, but they've determined that still shows growth because of the different difficulties on tests and things like that. Probably the hardest part of this to understand, and quite frankly, I'm still not quite clear how they determine that number.

[00:59:33] They've got an algorithm somewhere that pumps it out for them. And so in math at Burling last year, they had 386 growth points out of 498 students. And so when you look at that, they got about 15 out of the possible 20 points for growth.

[00:59:56] And again, you could, in theory, have above 20 there. You could score over 100 if everybody exceeded their growth total. And then the last piece that we'll get to is readiness.

[01:00:13] And so readiness at all schools involves chronic absenteeism as one component. and chronic absenteeism is defined as missing more 10% or more of the school year during the course of the year. Chronic absenteeism counts 10% for elementary schools and middle schools and 5% for high schools. And chronic absenteeism is just either you're chronically absent or you're not. You get it's kind of we take they take an inverse right so they take the number of kids who were chronically absent divided by the number of kids in the school and they give you the kind of If you have 7% chronic absenteeism, you get like 93 points for that.

[01:00:53] The second piece of readiness applies only to middle schools, and that's something called advanced coursework. This was something we had lots of questions about as it was coming in there, and it went through several iterations before they finally landed on this definition of advanced coursework. Advanced coursework for purposes of the performance framework is defined as any student at the middle school who's enrolled in a high school end of course test for us that's primarily algebra one and geometry uh and and they all go into the numerator i'm sorry any student who passes the end of course tests goes into the numerator the denominator is any student who's enrolled

[01:01:31] in one of those courses that's there plus one exception if there's a student who took a math seven tests and passed at the advanced level but did not go on to algebra one then they're going to include them in the denominator two because the state says that's an indicator that you should be in algebra one if you pass at the advanced level uh and we're gonna and if you and if school system didn't put the student in there we're going to count them in that number anyway we have i think single digits if any students who fit that um description uh and then that counts as your total score. So basically it's what percentage of your kids past algebra and geometry

[01:02:08] counts as your advanced course for the readiness portion. In future years at Millen Elementary School there's going to be something called the five C's performance tasks. We don't know what exactly when they're going to come. They may be as soon as next year but they may be longer than that. When those do come they're going to pull some of that chronic absenteeism and readiness number back and add it into this category with the five C's. So those will be about between five and ten percent once they start going on. Because those don't exist yet, that percentage has shifted to

[01:02:47] the other categories. And then we've got high schools where it gets much more complex. There's a couple of indicators for high school. One is one we had never really seen before. They call it a six-year federal graduation indicator and to to look at this six-year graduation indicator for this year we would have to go back to the class of 2023 because that's the class that have been your cohort year starts when you begin ninth grade and so they look six years out from when that cohort started

[01:03:25] ninth grade and see what the graduation percentage is there generally does not shift too much from the four-year graduation percentage but this does give students particularly some of our students with IEPs a chance to to have some extra time to get a to get their diploma and get some credit for that but what we'll see is that they they're not too different from each other the the biggest piece of the high school that is the most different for us is what we call the the three E's and the high school say you know they're kind of primary readiness indicator says we want students to be ready for one of these three things

[01:04:04] enrollment employment or enlistment not necessarily all three if they are ready for all three all the better but the goal is to get like full credit for this is getting every student to have one point in one of these areas so i don't have to get an enrollment point an employment point and an an enlistment point to in order for my school to to get a high score for this so what are all those things mean well enrollment looks at courses that kids take and earning an associate's degree like we have some students do over at Monticello in particular in our early college scholars program earns that

[01:04:42] student 1.25 points taking three or more credit-bearing college right I'm sorry taking three or more credit-bearing college-ready classes and getting college-ready scores on their exam, which is a three or more on an AP test, gets a student one point, or if they get an early college scholar certificate. If they take one or two of those courses, AP, IB, those kinds of things, or they pass one or two dual credit courses with a minimum grade of a B, they get 0.75 points. And if they just complete an AP class, an IB class, or a dual credit course

[01:05:21] with a grade of C, they get 0.5 points for that category. In employment, this looks at primarily things like work-based learning and industry credentials. If students are a CTE completer who earns a state-approved industry credential in a high-demand, high-wage field, and has participated in work-based learning, they get 1.5 points. One of the questions is, what are the credentials that get you that are high demand high wage our answer is we don't know yet we thought we were gonna get those by the end of October and we still

[01:05:57] don't have a list of what those are just yet going down the line you can be a CTE completer who who earns a recognized industry credential in a high demand field that is not high wage you get 1.25 points if you've also done work based learning and you can see down there the if you take work based learning out of equation you get fewer points all the way down to 0.5 points if you just do a credential or you do work-based learning so anywhere from 0.5 to 1.5 points for this and then probably the most straightforward of these is the

[01:06:37] enlistment portion where you get if you take the ASVAB test which is a test of really aptitude that's primarily used by the military and you get a score of 65 or higher you get one point if you get a score of 50 to 64 you get point 75 points and if you get a score of 31 or higher you get 0.5 points you only need one of those points if i'm a student to get one but a student potentially could get three and a half points and if i get three points well then

[01:07:11] i can counteract two students who got no points uh in this system so it's so it's it's you know they don't differentiate between now that you've got one you can't count for more points that are there so that's another little quirk of this of this system that makes it a little bit more challenging to really know where schools are and then the final component for high schools is their four-year graduation rate that's there and that counts for 15 of that so our last look at modeling um this as we go back to burley uh is that burley when we look at their readiness score

[01:07:50] burley had 103 students uh out of 558 who were chronically absent uh last year and they had for advanced coursework 122 students out of 123 who were enrolled in one of those end of course classes and passed uh the end of course test and so all of those get pumped into this system and burley ends up with a score of 82.8 so what's that mean it means they're on track according to

[01:08:29] this the state has created four categories of performance one is distinguished for 90 points and above one is on track 80 to 89 points 65 to 79 is off track and below 65 is needs intensive support and the final piece that i will let you know about is that one of the things that you may have have caught on to as we went through all of those criteria to get to this score is that none of this takes into account at all whether a student is a student of color whether a student is economically disadvantaged whether a

[01:09:06] student is a student who is received special education services it just lumps everybody together all in one in one group and says here's your score and and that to me can be very problematic because we know we've got some schools that have a relatively small number of students who fit those categories who can get hidden by the by the other students who are high performing and so because of that and because the state not only has to meet their state guidelines but also has to meet federal accountability standards the state added one more

[01:09:41] wrinkle into this and that is these federal performance indicators and there is one in particular that I'll give you a very brief overview of called targeted support and improvement and basically if you remember gosh way back to the days of no child left behind the federal government started setting targets that get increasingly more challenging to hit for reading and math chronic absenteeism and those were based on membership groups so if you were if your goal was to hit 65% this year then the next year it was might have been 67 then 70 all the way up until you get to a hundred and no child's left behind those

[01:10:19] iterations of those still exist and those are used to determine if schools get designated for targeted support and improvement and it's this cascade that the federal government looks at first they say they look at achievement gap group performances and if you're not meeting the target for your achievement gap groups then you move on to the next criteria which is the size of your your achievement gap and if you're in the top half where the gap is relatively small they kick you out no targeted support and improvement if you're in the bottom half where you've got a bigger gap you keep going and the next criteria they look at is students passing their WIDA test who are English learners I

[01:10:55] think the target this year is 56 percent or 54 percent for that if you meet that target kicked out no targeted support and improvement if you don't you keep going state accreditation used to be one of the things I don't know if it's still will because state accreditation means something totally different now but basically if you didn't have any red boxes on that first thing you couldn't be a targeted support and improvement school and then the final criteria is chronic absenteeism they set targets at the federal level for that every year and if you are below that chronic absenteeism target I think this year it's 11% I guess above that chronic absenteeism target and you've hit all

[01:11:33] those other things then you're a school that is deemed in need of targeted support and improvement if you hit any of those on the on the correct side you are not in there so that's the only real criteria that looks at at what we used to call our achievement gap groups in the division and here's why that's important because when we go back to this slide if you are a school that is designated for targeted support and improvement you get a one category penalty on this so if you are on track so let's take Burley as an example Burley had a score of 82 if they were designated as a targeted support and

[01:12:11] improvement school they would be off track doesn't matter if they were 89 and really close to distinguished or 80.1 and really close to off track they move back that one category for that and so to to finish up I'll tell you where we stand with our schools right now we've got most of our schools in the distinguished or the on-track category and we've got three that were in the off-track category Greer and Journey and Woodbrook and you can see those scores that they modeled for us in each of those now we had six schools that received the targeted support and improvement designation so if you look at this the

[01:12:51] schools that are coded in red Journey and Woodbrook if this were the system that were in place this year would move to the needs intensive support category Burley Agner Scottsville and Mountain View would move to the off-track category So in a nutshell, that's the new performance framework that we've got from the division.

[01:13:13] I know it was a lot. I know I go kind of fast, happy to answer questions or just give you time to digest that and send questions afterwards would be fine too, but we wanted to get this in front of you tonight so that you can have that in the back of your mind when you're hearing kind of our academic performance update this time next month.

[01:13:36] many questions and so appreciate the fact that you pushed to do this session because it was it's so helpful i'm just curious like how many hours days weeks have you spent trying to understand this because it while it's so complicated it was you were i did not understand it until we got the modeling data and i could do that spreadsheet uh that was there and then it started to make sense to us we've also but then we've uh we've gone around and had individual meetings with each one one of our principals and in multiple groups within the division to kind of go through that presentation that you just saw so that everyone's got a clear understanding where we are and the state is not providing any additional funding

[01:14:15] or data system or are they to support not to support that in need yet but just to do the work they so no but the what they do provide us data sources that we can pull that data relatively easily and start plugging it in with the exception of the growth data we won't get that so just about all of this we'll be able to model at the end of the year and say with the exception of growth here's where we think our schools are based on preliminary results we're worried because we don't think we're going to get the growth results until mid to late

[01:14:50] September right and then but the tracking for the things like the the three E's that's an additional complication piece that's that's right but we we already track most of that that's there ASVAB was one of the was one of the ones that we were a little we don't have many students who take the ASVAB through our schools but when a student goes to a recruiting office and they take the ASVAB through a recruiter we don't necessarily know about that and so that's a little bit of a flaw with the system that we may have some kids who aren't getting credit for because they've done it outside of the school but most of the work-based

[01:15:26] learning the certainly the the enrollment and the performance in AP and IB classes things like that is relatively easy for the team and then one more question then I'll let the three C's what do they stand for where would we be even teaching them or is it too early to even know so there's all kinds of iterations of different C's they generally talk about creativity and communication and things like that and I think it's actually five C's that that they're that they've got in in the performance task but it's basically the I think the the general idea of it is let's give a test of some kind of

[01:16:02] assessment that doesn't look like an SOL right that it looks like a little bit more like real-world work that kids would be asked to do so I don't think it's a it's a bad thing that's there other than you know an additional assessment that students that students have to take it's just a big unknown for us right now because we haven't seen what it might look like and then with that will still count that first year and we know maybe sometimes it does sometimes sometimes they use a year and they equate it and they see let's let's just see how this works with kids and they don't count that in the in the

[01:16:36] calculations but we won't know that until they give us an update what motivated all this change i mean honestly i'm just i'm five years in and i'm just now understanding pat's math and now you're doing different math my understanding was that this was designed that there was some some feeling that the current uh system of accreditation and accountability hid the the truth about what was happening in schools in terms of student performance uh that was there and this system was uh was in theory designed to give a more clear picture of where our schools are

[01:17:16] and i think in some ways it does that but i think in other ways it's quite frankly easier you know like we took a look at that science example every single kid in your school could fail science and you could still be a distinguished school in theory the chances of that happening are pretty slim but it's but it's possible right okay patrick you mentioned i think either five or six ease did you have they been identified or defined so so yes things like creativity collaboration uh i'm sure that now that you asked me off the top of my head uh communication oh the ease yes

[01:17:50] that's enrollment enlistment and employment so our kids going getting prepared to go to college our kids getting prepared to go to work our kids getting prepared to go to the military and uh and the state says what those are generally the three tracks that um that a student would take after high school we want them to be ready for at least one of those when they leave us um i have what i will probably be an unpopular opinion but i worry about our higher achieving students as we have d-leveled classes and now you have ela classrooms with you know especially in schools

[01:18:29] like journey or burley where you have a very wide range of reading abilities in one class i worry about those higher achieving students we're not going to see as much growth in them because you could have the best teacher in the world but it's nearly impossible to teach a second grade reading level and a kid that's reading the odyssey in the same classroom and so i'm wondering if we're not going to see as much growth in those students because of our de-leveling and how we can um i don't know meet the need you know if it's on the if it's in the name of equity i guess is what

[01:19:07] i'm saying is that that doesn't seem super equitable to me and if we're looking at growth we're kind of really focused on the bottom half and it seems like we've left the top um kind of floundering a little bit so so yes and i and i think that here's a one other way to look at it right so if we had students who a 600 is the highest score you can get in an sol test and if i got a 600 on my fourth grade reading test chances are i probably could have passed that test when i started fourth grade right uh and so and so now though those students who get that score of 600 or 590 or 580 or whatever that is uh we can count on them still to get to the

[01:19:47] mastery point that we needed but now those still students still have to hit a growth target so even if i've got a perfect score i've got a target set the next year for growth because that was a worry that i think we've had throughout the state are how do we show like value added for our students and while i don't have the breakdown in front of me my guess would be when you look at those growth numbers and the students who are not making growth it may be some of those students that you talked about uh that are there right the kids who are already highly achieving yeah um and can can kind you know it might leave at the same level in which they started with us but

[01:20:26] that level was so high to begin with it right you know they pass up and you know I've heard anecdotes from teachers that you know several years ago you would have several students that get perfect scores and now we're not seeing that same number so I would love to get some more information I'm not trying to put you on the spot but I think it's something to consider when we're looking at growth it's not just growth from our underachieving students but making sure that that upper portion are also having their needs met.

[01:20:55] Thanks. So Patrick, many of us here on the board are obviously very concerned about equity and our achievement gap groups. When you, so we'll be collecting this data, I know the federal performance indicators do talk about that, so when we're getting data from you in the future, how is that going to look and are we still gonna be able to see that? Yeah, I think it's imperative for the board to require us to show that data to you because I think that's when you look at our mission our mission is really built around making sure kids don't get left behind and making sure that all of our students achieve so that data is still

[01:21:33] going to be out there it's still going to be reported my assumption is that like the Virginia school quality profile is going to look very similar to the way it looks right now in terms of being able to break down by demographics I don't know that is a guess um but i think we need to uh make an incumbent upon ourselves in albemarle county to keep that at the forefront of uh of the work and rely a little bit less on this number and more on on the i think we've got had a very good way of looking at uh at performance um for

[01:22:06] uh for our students in the past i thank you for this um but perhaps like ms osborne um i am yet in the dark about the material benefit of data collected in this way and how that whether this is an actionable set of data that we can use to improve the education of our kids or if it's I mean it looks well you said it was in a nutshell it's a very big nut but but I mean is this something that we can use

[01:22:42] in the in the schools I think one of one of the benefits that's here is that we used to just look at above the bar below the bar for our students right and it didn't matter how far below the bar you were and the fact that the state is incorporating that below basic and in a in a very impactful way I think is actionable data for us and if you look at our schools that are performing at the lower end of our scores you're gonna see a higher proportion of students in those schools who are performing at the below basic level and so in that way I

[01:23:17] think that it is but but parts of it right are not going to be as actionable as we would want them to be but again that's our responsibility as a school system and when dr. hit and mr. domer come next month and talk to you about how we use data I think those will be good questions to have for them how do we what does it look like to say our kids are making the progress that we want them to make. So I missed it. When will this data be available year to year? I mean,

[01:23:50] is it like in the summer? Probably not until early fall. The one piece that's really out of our control is the growth data that gets sent off to, I think there's a company that has nine or 10 states that use this system around it, and we've got to wait on them. This year it came, this year was the earliest we've got it, the earliest it was produced, and I think it was the third week of September. So it we won't be able to I do not anticipate starting the year being able to say here's where we are. So what if there's a situation where the school really needed something else but

[01:24:26] we've already assigned teachers and everything. That's right. Well let me let me caveat that a little bit. I don't think we'll be able to say we've got this many schools distinguished and this many schools on track this many schools who need support. We will be able to say here's the the results um that students had on these tests and be able to use that to identify schools that that need additional supports um it'll just be we won't be able to say yep we've got 90 of our schools on on the right side of the bar and 10 um on the on the side that needs improvement so regardless of what the state does we know internally that's right we get those results we start uh crunching them uh as soon as chris gilman becomes the most popular man on the third

[01:25:06] floor once those uh results start coming in uh to see where we are it also underscores how important it is to deal with chronic absenteeism absolutely it affects all of these scores yes are there any more questions thank you dr thank you all thank you and now we have jackson zimmerman

[01:25:32] good evening board i'm presenting to you for the second quarter financial report i don't have where

[01:25:48] do i it's moving without my touching it ah there it is presenting for the board's consideration the second quarter financial report not an enormous change in from the first quarter financial report

[01:26:27] we do have some additional revenues coming in from the state given the governor's new proposed caboose budget we are anticipating slightly more state revenues than we had proposed in the first and then we had estimated in the first quarter financial report revenues in the other areas remain similar we do anticipate additional local revenues and asking for those to be appropriated into our budget in this upcoming upcoming few months in terms of expenses we do have greater

[01:27:02] expenses as we outlined previously in our first quarter report greater expenses in health insurance for this upcoming year we've been making plans regarding those expenses but a combination of expense reductions in other areas and additional local revenues are likely to help us offset those additional expenses incurred as part of our budget for this current fiscal year and information is provided for available fund balance at on the final page of this report

[01:27:39] we do have a very short period for this this item if the board has any questions i'll be happy to answer them but there isn't an enormous amount of additional information that would change the financial picture for the board for this year between the first and second quarter financial reports any questions I move we accept

[01:28:08] mr. Zimmerman's report I second all those in favor aye opposed the motion passes. Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman. Dr. Acuff. Was that a second by Dr. Berlin? Pardon? Dr. Berlin, yes. Sorry to make sure. Thank you. With that, we have a scheduled

[01:28:36] break for 10 minutes. People want it? Yes. Let us break. We'll be here. Come back at 10 after.

[01:39:51] Good evening, folks. We're back in session, and the first item is the proposed school calendar year for 2627 presented by Dr. Eric Arizari. Board Chair, Dr. Haas. Good afternoon. When we last left with the calendar, one of the recommendations that the board asked for was a second year to the 2526 calendar. So we're going to review that this afternoon or this evening.

[01:40:21] Again, we followed our strategic plan as our beacon throughout the process. We followed the same guiding principles as before this is a review this is the 2025-2026 calendar that was approved at the last time at the board meeting and the 2026-27 calendar looks almost identical some things to consider the start date is due to the shift in the annual calendar it starts school will start on august 12th it will end on the last day of school will be the 27th so that'll be

[01:40:56] before uh i always get these wrong memorial day right okay i always get those mixed up um it still has 177 instructional days it has all of our pre-service uh the beginning of year pl days and it keeps the same numbers as the 25 26 calendar as well so it's fairly identical it just ends uh it shifted earlier so it ends before memorial day and this is just for review for this uh for this go around um can i ask sure why we wouldn't or maybe you're going to address this uh

[01:41:33] why we wouldn't have spring break from march 29th to the to april 2nd which would follow easter directly for families that travel uh we were at the last the last discussions we had with our calendar committee and our community stakeholders and to align with charlottesville city too we all agreed to keep it on the first full week of april this year it's like three weeks before Easter, I think. And again, just specific points here. Keep spring break on the first full week of April. Clusters, it still clusters those professional learning and work days. It maintains

[01:42:09] the two-week winter break, provides flexibility for schools for fall and spring family conferences, and then there is still consistency between our 25-26 calendar and Charlottesville City Schools too, is what the families were asking for. So going forward, are we basically going to say that spring break will be the first full week of April just in general yeah I think that makes sense any other comments questions thank you for staying and presenting this thank you thank you thank you thank you and now a report on

[01:42:48] the Albemarle employee care clinic by Dan Redding is it in this one here sorry

[01:43:11] Thank you, Ms. Thompson, for the technical support.

[01:44:03] So we're here this evening, school board members and colleagues, to talk about a brand new benefit for our employees, the Albemarle Employee Care Clinic. We have some great photos for you. We have opened the first of two locations, and this location is on Pantops.

[01:44:22] We actually were able to secure a location that has been a medical provider in the past, required very light construction and updating, and you can see it's a beautiful, gorgeous space. I always comment to people it's nicer than my own primary care doctor's office.

[01:44:40] In the bottom right corner, you can see the work that's being done at our second location, which is on 29 North. That location is right across from the Lowe's, really close to Woodbrook Elementary School. Both locations for our clinics were carefully chosen, looking at where our employees work and where they live so that they would be most convenient to the largest cluster of employees.

[01:45:11] We have four main topics we're going to talk about tonight. why we've opened these employee clinics, services they offer, eligibility and fees for use, and time for you to ask some questions.

[01:45:28] All of this work, of course, is grounded in our strategic plan, aligned tightly with our values of wellness, specifically for our educators and support staff. If we expect them to achieve our mission and our goals, they need access to this kind of a resource for their own health and well-being.

[01:45:51] And that brings us to the why. Why did we collaborate with county government and with the other entities that are part of our health insurance program to open these clinics? The overarching goal is, of course, to provide resources that enhance the health and well-being of our employees and their families.

[01:46:11] Aligned with that, we want to remove barriers and ensure equitable access to health and wellness services. If you're new to the area and looking to establish a primary care doctor, a relationship with a primary care doctor, there's doctor's offices that have wait lists of more than a year to get in for that initial appointment.

[01:46:32] It's very challenging to establish care right now. The availability of this clinic for our employees breaks that barrier down, provides that immediate access. And the third bullet is to manage the rising cost of providing health care for our employees.

[01:46:52] This is one of our key strategies to address the inflation and health care costs that is so much faster than the rate of inflation for other goods and services. Our Pantops location opened last Monday.

[01:47:11] I am thrilled to tell you that in that week, last week, they had 50 appointments, 30 of which were for school staff or their eligible dependents. And these are the different services that our employees and their families can access at the Pantops location. Primary care services through a nurse practitioner, physical therapy through a doctor of physical therapy, health coaching with a registered dietitian, mental health services from a licensed clinical social worker, and occupational health services such as pre-employment health screenings,

[01:47:47] physicals things like that by April we expect our second location to open so right now all the services our clinic will offer are centered at pantops but when the second location opens they will split and both locations will offer slightly different services so you can see the breakdown of staffing we do hope to have a doctor on board for the 29 north clinic additionally we will add at

[01:48:20] the 29 North site two really exciting services. One is an infusion center. A lot of newer groundbreaking medications are to be delivered through infusion, which sometimes requires the patient to go to the hospital or to a doctor's office, which is extremely expensive for a health plan or to the individual patient. We will have the ability to deliver infusion medications to eligible participants through our clinic on 29 north huge service to them for convenience and

[01:48:57] huge cost savings to them and to our health plan additionally the 29 north location will be able to provide prescription medications so let's say i'm at work i feel a little feverish i have a sore throat i drop by the 29 north clinic and the doctor administers a strep test and i turn up positive the doctor can prescribe antibiotics and i can pick them up and leave with those antibiotics right there no delay no waiting at the pharmacy i have all my needs met right there this is a

[01:49:35] really exciting opportunity so who gets to use the clinic all benefits eligible employees of the school division have access to the clinic we've also listed up there this is a joint venture with our colleagues in the county government as well as the Albemarle County Service Authority the juvenile detention center the convention and visitors bureau and the emergency communication center all these entities participate in our health plan and this is all a venture out of

[01:50:11] our health insurance plan benefits eligible employees legal spouses and dependents who are over the age of two as infants require specialized equipment they must be enrolled in our medical insurance in order to access the clinic and there's very specific reasons for that if we allow non-participants that triggers tax liabilities for them that could cost them thousands of dollars it's technically another health plan finally retirees who are enrolled

[01:50:46] in the Albemarle County Medical Plan and their covered dependents can access our clinic. For the occupational health services, those are available to our applicants for employment who are being moved forward for hire.

[01:51:02] They require either a TB screening or a pre-employment physical exam. And some non-benefits eligible staff would be eligible under specific conditions to access occupational health at our clinic. Health care costs a lot of money.

[01:51:24] So our clinic does have a cost model. Participants who are in our select medical plan, that's our higher coverage level plan, will pay zero for clinic services. They will make their appointment, go in.

[01:51:40] If they have that positive strep test and they get medication, that will be dispensed free of charge to them at the clinic. Participants in our choice high deductible health plan, that's our plan that comes with a health savings account they will pay nothing for preventive care that's a compliance requirement with the affordable care act and they will pay 35 dollars for all other clinic services that's a requirement from the irs for these high deductible plans people must pay something for service at these clinics employees

[01:52:17] who are benefits eligible but do not participate in our plans will pay a 70 copay for clinic services. And the reason for that is they're not paying into the health insurance plan which is the source of funding for our clinic. Occupational health is of course free to employees. This is a requirement of employment. They will not be billed for that. And then any medication that is dispensed during that clinic visit is covered by the cost of the visit. So whichever tier that individual falls on when they pay their clinic visit fee, that medication is covered under that fee.

[01:53:00] Great photo of the ribbon cutting with some of our school board members as well as some of our board of supervisors and some of our employees launching our clinic. I believe this was January 31st when we celebrated the opening of the clinic.

[01:53:18] We're keeping employees and everyone up to date through our SharePoint site with information about services as those come online. You can read bios of our providers and their experience and as clinicians. And we're also keeping folks informed through the compass.

[01:53:38] Another great photo from the clinic ribbon cutting. This truly is a collaboration with our county government colleagues. And it was really a wonderful day where employees were invited to be part of the ribbon cutting and part of the experience.

[01:53:56] And with that, I asked for any questions you might have. I don't have any questions, Dan, but it is the case that it's accessible to our employees. There's great parking.

[01:54:12] It's open from 8:00 until 6:00 every day, and a huge benefit is Saturday mornings, usually by appointment, but they have walk-ins as well, and as you said, they were almost fully booked the first week.

[01:54:27] It's really impressive, and if you're unable to obtain an appointment and you do need to be seen same day through their app you can get virtual care so they are they are ready to support us great thank you do you think that physical therapy treatments will be available on pentops at some point in the future so physical therapy is available at pentops right now but in the future state when they designed the pentops space there was not a large enough room there to really

[01:55:06] house adequate pt equipment so they've got some equipment there right now but it will locate permanently at 29 north when they designed that space they designed a very large really great space to house all that pt equipment and allow the provider to work with whatever needs the patient is presenting and as you said the pharmacy benefit is is certainly good for the employees but that's

[01:55:40] one of the fastest growing elements of our health care plan and so it it should help damp damp down those costs as well but that's possibly one of the most exciting parts is as we look at projections of health care costs and claims moving forward this should truly help slow that curves growth if there are no more questions thank you for staying late dan and um thank you people should take yeah people

[01:56:16] should take advantage of the clinic. Is there any other school board or school division business to be raised? Dr. Haas, oh you're done? Well then I wish everybody a happy Valentine's Day tomorrow and this meeting is adjourned.

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